Communists and Nazis and bears! Oh my!

According to Spiked Online, those CCTVs that have become so ubiqitous in the UK have now been rigged up with loudspeakers, allowing remote faceless government agents to tell you not to loiter, or litter, or whetever.

But who will be doing the voices? Children, that’s who. The government has issued a press release stating the following:

‘Children from across the country will be very publicly calling upon the small minority of people who think it is acceptable to act anti-socially on our streets and in our towns to change their ways and take responsibility for their actions….’

Is the British Government trying to emulate 1984? Let’s take a look:

• Loads of cameras following your every move? Check.
• Cameras that can talk and give orders? Check.
• The transformation of children into government spies? Check.
• Government surveillance inside private homes? Not yet, in the UK anyway.
• Use of torture to break “thought criminals”? No, thank God.
• Anti-Sex League? Erm, no.

In short, the British Government is emulating 1984 as much as it is possible for a democratic government to do - so let’s hope it goes no further. If we ever hear Tony Blair say “We’re at war on terror. We’ve always been at war on terror.” than you will know they have crossed the line.

(If you haven’t read 1984, read it online - and shudder.)

Professional troll Jack Marx of The Daily Truth asks whether Hitler deserves his status as the standard bearer of all evil:

Adolf is rightly credited with starting World War II, a colossal six-year sprint of advancements in technology, transportation, medicine, construction and logistics that made the world much more agreeable for the “boomers” and beyond. A lot of people died in unimaginably horrible circumstances, it is true, but omelettes don’t grow on trees.

One of the oddities of history is that while Hitler killed 11 million people, he is more infamous than Stalin (who killed 20 million) and Mao Tse Tung (70 million). Does that mean he was less evil than them? No, it just means he was less competent. Hitler would have killed as many people as Stalin or more, but his regime didn’t last long enough.

Godwin’s Law states that once an online discussion reaches a certain length, Hitler comparisons become inevitable. Why? To demonize one’s opponent in a debate, that’s why. And there are so many ways of doing so. Hence the following section, about using Hitler in Internet debates:

If you like classical music, you’re “just like Hitler”. If you believe that children are the future, “that’s what Hitler thought”. Partial to dogs? “Mein Fuhrer”. Dress smartly? “Heil Hitler”. And if you happen to be a vegetarian who doesn’t drink or smoke, you’re obviously going to invade Poland.

Hitler planned to create a huge slave empire in the East. Stalin actually did.

BUT THERE’S MORE: Al Gore “uses the same tactic” as Hitler in Gore’s fight against global warming.

Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini or Hussein? Those are the options in a rather hilarious poll at the Melbourne Victory Forum at the moment. From the comments:

Hitler would organise an invasion of the neighbours and have them exterminated or incarcerated in labour camps. Taking over the nighbours place would result in more “lebensraum” for Adolf and his roomies.

Stalin would liquidate anyone arriving at the house who had previously been at the neighbour’s on suspicion of spying, sending them to the gulag.

Mussolini would send his cronies to the neightbour’s house to invade it, only to see them humiliate him by surrendering after 5 minutes.

Hussein would, upon invasion, declare that the enemy was killing themselves at the front gate, when in fact they were making themselves at home in the lounge.

While we’re on the subject, those of you who are Stalin experts can shed some light on the following question: did Stalin create a personality cult surrounding himself, or was he modest and self-effacing, as claimed by soilride in a recent comment on this blog?

I’ve long held interest in humour originating from the long-suffering residents of Communist countries. The examples following are from Laughing Under The Covers, but I’ve seen variants of them in other places.

First of all, a joke about shortages in consumer goods and food:

In some country, communists managed to get elected to govern. In a few months the economy had become as it could be expected from anyone following the Soviet model. As the USSR promised help, the country’s President sent a telegram to Brezhnev, “Please send food.”
Brezhnev answered with a telegram, “Tighten the belts.”
The next telegram from the new communist-ruled country said, “Urgently send belts.”

And another about food shortages:

A woman walks into a food store. “Do you have any meat?”
“No, we don’t.”
“What about milk?”
“This is a butcher. We only deal with meat. The store with no milk is across the street.”

I particularly like this one:

Brezhnev gives a speech at a Party congress, and says, “Comrade, the Planning Committee reports that next year we’ll have no meat. Your suggestions?”
The audience is silent. Then a lone voice from the audience sounds, “We’ll work ten hours a day!”
Brezhnev continues, “The planning Committee reports that in two years we’ll have no milk products. Your suggestions?”
The audience is silent, then the same voice sounds, “We’ll work twelve hours a day.”
Brezhnev continues, “The Planning Committee reports that in three years we’ll have shortage of bread. Your suggestions?”
The same voice says, “We’ll work day and night without rest.”
Tears appear in Brezhnev’s eyes. “Thank you, dear comrade for your patriotic initiative. Let me ask you, where do you work?”
“In a crematorium.”

More to come!

Not so long ago, I had a succession of dates with a girl, and on one of these dates, the topic of Stalin came up, as generally happens on these occasions. I was flabbergasted to find out that she had never heard of Stalin.

“She’s never heard of Stalin!”, said I to my sister shortly afterwards. This became a running joke. Whenever I would talk about a girl I was possibly interested in, Sarah would say, “But does she know who Stalin is?”

Fast forward to more recent times, and there I am enjoying lunch with a different girl (didn’t work out with the first one for some reason) only to run into the same conundrum: she hasn’t heard of Stalin, either.

This raises so many issues I scarcely know where to begin. First of all, can I get together with someone who hasn’t heard of Stalin? If not, where do I find a girl who has?

Secondly, I want to be remembered for something once I pass on, as do we all. I would have thought that murdering 30 million people, as Stalin did, would ensure that this would happen. Apparently not.

How many people do I have to kill to ensure I am remembered by history?

EDUCATE THYSELF: For those who have not heard of Stalin, I have blogged about him before.

Featuring loads of stuff I’ve been meaning to link to, but never have.

ADVICE YOU OUGHT TO FOLLOW: Drinking seawater or moronic acid is a bad idea.

DUDE: Types of sharks that sound like heavy metal band names.

300 < 666: The movie 300 is actually about creation vs. evolution, says atheist blogger PZ Myers.

IT’S 1984 ALL OVER AGAIN: There are 28 CCTV cameras within 200 yards of George Orwell’s house.

I’LL PASS: The world’s ugliest clothes are also the most expensive.

HO HO HO: Khrushchev sends a Christmas letter.

THE DESTROYINATOR: Don’t throw pearls before swine, or mobile phones before parrots.

WHY DID THE CAT CATCH THE BUS?: To get some fish and chips.

Everyone’s favourite military dictatorship, the military regime of Burma (formerly known as SLORC), have built themselves a new capital city. Why? Because they can. All government employees have been forced to move, leaving their families behind.

To celebrate the opening of the new city, the junta has vowed to “crush, hand-in-hand with the entire people, every danger of internal and external destructive elements obstructing the stability and development of the state”.

Charming.

I’m about to start reading Khrushchev’s memoirs, so I thought I’d share with you my favourite Khrushchev anecdote. I can’t remember where I first heard this, and it’s from memory, but here goes:

Khrushchev, while he was president of the USSR, was on a visit to the US. He made a speech detailing some of Stalin’s crimes (this was after the “Secret Speech”). After he was done, one of the journalists there asked him this question: “You were one of Stalin’s henchmen during the purges. You now speak against what happened; why didn’t you speak up while all of this was taking place?”

“WHO SAID THAT?” Khrushchev roared. The crowd was stunned into silence. No-one dared own up to having asked the question.

After this, Khrushchev simply said “That is why I did not speak up.”

(Another extract here from Koba The Dread, a polemic about Stalin by Martin Amis. Marvel at the cynicism on display: )

In 1948, Stalin made the following addition to his official biography, the Short Course: “At the various stages of the war, Stalin’s genius found the correct solution that took account of all the circumstances … His military mastership was displayed both in defence and offence. His genius enabled him to divine the enemy’s plans and defeat them.”

Stalin then made this addition to that addition: “Although he performed his task of leader of the Party with consummate skill and enjoyed the unreserved support of the entire Soviet people, Stalin never allowed his work to be marred by the slightest hint of vanity, conceit or self-adulation.”

(The following is an extract from “Koba The Dread” by Martin Amis, which discusses, among other things, the bizarre tendency of Western intellectuals to become apologists for Communist dictatorships:)

“Hugh MacDiarmid: what a bastard” said my father in about 1972, referring to the man widely believed to be the greatest Scottish poet of the twentieth century. “He became a communist in 1956 – after Hungary.”

“And what’s his stuff like?” I asked.

“Oh, you know. Nothing but Marxist clichés interspersed with archaic ‘Scotch’ expletives.”

“For instance?”

He thought for a moment. My memory exactly vouches for lines two and four, though it can’t do the same for lines one and three, where, for that matter, any old rubbish would have done.

He said something like:

Every political system is a superstructure over a determining socioeconomic base.
Whah-hey!
The principle of distribution according to need precludes the conversion of products into goods and their conversion into value.
Och aye!