Tea at Trianon: Zelensky Comes to America

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

Tuesday, September 24, 2024

Zelensky Comes to America

From Leo's Newsletter:

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky began his visit to the United States in Pennsylvania with a stop Sunday at the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant, where he thanked American workers producing the 155mm artillery shells Ukraine uses to kill Russians in a nasty border war with its fellow slavic neighbor to the east.

I wonder how those American workers feel making weapons for the leader of perhaps the most corrupt country in the world, Ukraine, which is being used by a corrupt Washington Unitparty to poke the Russian bear in the eyeball. Maybe they’re not aware of the geopolitical ramifications of their work. I doubt many are or they would be looking for other, less provocative jobs.

But Zelensky is a master at spinning lies and clever propaganda, playing Westerners who fall easy prey because of their lack of knowledge about the history of the Ukraine-Russia dispute. Even the BBC, in a March 2022 article, acknowledged Zelensky’s speeches appear crafted to “shame” Western parliaments into giving him more money and weapons.

“It is in places like this where you can truly feel that the democratic world can prevail,” Zelensky posted on X, praising the Pennsylvania factory, which has boosted production to try to meet Ukraine’s endless needs for more shells. “Thanks to people like these — in Ukraine, in America, and in all partner countries — who work tirelessly to ensure that life is protected.” (Read more.)