Tea at Trianon: Kulaks

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, August 25, 2022

Kulaks

From The Stream:

For a scholarly explanation of how this approach has invaded every level of governance and the behavior of our Oligarchs in media, see Matthew Crawford’s essay “The New Public Health Despotism” at the excellent centrist (!) online magazine Unherd.

Everything from the wording of public health announcements to the political manipulation of Google results emerges from the same dark, arrogant place. That is, from the relentless intent to “nudge” the general public so that it obeys the elites.

Wear a mask, take the vaccine, eat the bugs, replace your car with an electric, don’t have so many kids, don’t go to that church or vote for that candidate … and don’t ask any questions. And of course don’t dare to dissent, or you won’t get the cheese — in fact, you might get a little electric shock instead, like those warnings Twitter sends you before it finally shuts down your account.

The scientists in the lab coats, or the bureaucrats in Washington, will decide what is acceptable to think, say, and do. And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll just “get with the program.” If you don’t, you know the consequences.

[...]

When Democrats denied that George W. Bush or Donald Trump were legitimately elected, were they “Election Deniers”? Of course not. They were “skeptics” or “election integrity activists” or some other happy word which brings with a nice dose of cheese. But those of us who noticed and complained about the massive irregularities, and provable fraud, in 2020? We are “Election Deniers,” a phrase that was coined to evoke “Holocaust Deniers.” And to make people wince at the prospect of getting a nasty electrical shock. Or going to jail for a year while the government railroads you into prison.

The Soviets made up “Kulak” as a synonym for “blood-sucking parasite” to justify hanging farmers who wished to keep the grain they’d grown, instead of handing all of it over to murderous atheist bandits. It’s wretched to realize that the Republican Establishment is willing to use such Bolshevik hate speech against its own political base. (Read more.)