Something in the wind, part 1 of 3. The rise of the radical populist right. A second look at the Italian election. . . and a bunch of other stuff.

 

Meloni says she's not a fascist, and compares her party to the British Tories, the Israeli Likud, and the GOP.   The American GOP aside, which is in turmoil and which we'll discuss a little in round two of this fascinating series, the FdI, whatever it is, definitely isn't the British Conservative Party or the Israeli Likud.

Truths turn into dogmas the instant that they are disputed. Thus every man who utters a doubt defines a religion. And the scepticism of our time does not really destroy the beliefs, rather it creates them; gives them their limits and their plain and defiant shape. We who are Liberals once held Liberalism lightly as a truism. Now it has been disputed, and we hold it fiercely as a faith. We who believe in patriotism once thought patriotism to be reasonable, and thought little more about it. Now we know it to be unreasonable, and know it to be right. We who are Christians never knew the great philosophic common sense which inheres in that mystery until the anti-Christian writers pointed it out to us. The great march of mental destruction will go on. Everything will be denied. Everything will become a creed. It is a reasonable position to deny the stones in the street; it will be a religious dogma to assert them. It is a rational thesis that we are all in a dream; it will be a mystical sanity to say that we are all awake. Fires will be kindled to testify that two and two make four. Swords will be drawn to prove that leaves are green in summer. We shall be left defending, not only the incredible virtues and sanities of human life, but something more incredible still, this huge impossible universe which stares us in the face. We shall fight for visible prodigies as if they were invisible. We shall look on the impossible grass and the skies with a strange courage. We shall be of those who have seen and yet have believed.

G.K. Chesterton, in Heretics

This quote, but not in its full length, is getting a lot of traction right now as it shows up, in Italian, being quoted by Giorgina Meloni, in a truncated form, which takes from the following:

Fires will be kindled to testify that two and two make four. Swords will be drawn to prove that leaves are green in summer.

I was surprised to find Meloni quote Chesterton, as I don't think of Chesterton as being a fan of, or useful to, fascists. But perhaps this puts us on the uncomfortable slope where Falangist slide into a certain type of conservatism and trying to define the difficult differences between the Mediterranean post World War Two far right, and Hungarian one, and the American one.

Italian and Spanish fascists were corporatists or syndicalists, which is a hard concept to explain to Americans.  They didn't eliminate free enterprise but rather controlled it, with a concept that everything was subordinated to the good of the state which was supposed to work for the good of the people.  By the people, it usually meant only the nation in the ethnic sense.  In other words, Italian fascists might make common cause with, let's say, Spanish fascists, but that didn't mean that they thought of themselves as the same by any means. The Italian fascists worried principally about ethnic Italians only, which of course ultimately lead to an attempt to expand the Italian empire at the expense of non Italians.  Spain's Franco era (Franco was not a fascist, or a Carlist) pretty much started off that way right from the onset, i.e,. Spain's empire was for the Spanish, not for Moroccans.

Falangist are a subset of fascist, with some distinct beliefs. Their basic core tenants were set out in the Twenty Six Points they issued, which stated the following:

NATION - UNITY - EMPIRE 

1. We believe in the supreme reality of Spain. The strengthening, elevating, and magnifying of  this reality is the urgent collective goal of all Spaniards. Individual, group, and class interests must inexorably give way in order to achieve this goal. 

2. Spain has a single destiny in the world. Every conspiracy against this common unity is repulsive. Any kind of separatism is a crime which we shall not pardon. The existing Constitution, to the degree that it encourages disintegration, weakens this common destiny of Spain. Therefore we demand its annulment in a thundering voice. 

3. We have the determination to build an Empire. We affirm that Spain's historic fulfilment lies in Empire. We claim for Spain a pre-eminent position in Europe. We can tolerate neither international isolation nor foreign interference. As regards the countries of Hispanic America, we favour unification of their culture, economic interests and power. Spain will continue to act as the spiritual axis of the Hispanic world as a sign of her pre-eminence in worldwide enterprises. 

4. Our armed forces- on land, sea, and in the air- must be kept trained and sufficiently large to assure to Spain at all times its complete independence and a status in the world that befits it. We shall bestow upon our Armed Forces of land, sea, and air all the dignity they merit, and we shall cause their military conception of life to infuse every aspect of Spanish life. 

5. Spain shall once more seek her glory and her wealth on the sea lanes. Spain must aspire to become a great maritime power, for reasons of both defence and commerce. We demand for the fatherland equal status with others in maritime power and aerial routes. 

STATE - INDIVIDUAL - LIBERTY 

6. Our State will be a totalitarian instrument to defend the integrity of the fatherland. All Spaniards will participate in this through their various family, municipal, and syndical roles. There shall be no participation in it by political parties. We shall implacably abolish the system of political parties and all of their consequences- inorganic suffrage, representation of clashing groups, and a Parliament of the type that is all too well known. 

7. Human dignity, integrity, and freedom are eternal, intangible values. But one is not really free unless he is a part of a strong and free nation. No one will be permitted to use his freedom against the nation, which is the bulwark of the fatherland's freedom. Rigorous discipline will prevent any attempt to envenom and disunite the Spanish people or to incite them against the destiny of the fatherland. 

8. The National-Syndicalist State will permit all kinds of private initiative that are compatible with the collective interest, and it will also protect and encourage the profitable ones. 

ECONOMY - LABOUR - CLASS STRUGGLE 

9. Our conception of Spain in the economic realm is that of a gigantic syndicate of producers. We shall organise Spanish society corporatively through a system of vertical syndicates for the various field of production, all working toward national economic unity. 

10. We repudiate the capitalistic system which shows no understanding of the needs of the people, dehumanises private property, and causes workers to be lumped together in a shapeless, miserable mass of people who are filled with desperation. Our spiritual and national conception of life also repudiates Marxism. We shall redirect the impetuousness of those working classes who today are led astray by Marxism, and we shall seek to bring them into direct participation in fulfilling the great task of the national state. 

11. The National-Syndicalist State will not cruelly stand apart from man's economic struggles, nor watch impassively while the strongest class dominates the weakest. Our regime will eliminate the very roots of class struggle, because all who work together in production shall comprise one single organic entity. We reject and we shall prevent at all costs selfish interests from abusing others, and we shall halt anarchy in the field of labour relations. 

12. The first duty of wealth- and our State shall so affirm- is to better the conditions of the people. It is intolerable that enormous masses of people should live wretchedly while a small number enjoy all kinds of luxuries. 

13. The State will recognise private property as a legitimate means for achieving individual, family, and social goals, and will protect it against the abuses of large-scale finance capital, speculators, and money lenders. 

14. We shall support the trend toward nationalisation of banking services and, through a system of Corporations, the great public utilities. 

15. All Spaniards have the right to work. Public agencies must of necessity provide support for those who find themselves in desperate straits. As we proceed toward a totally new structure, we shall maintain and strengthen all the advantages that existing social legislation gives to workers. 

16. Unless they are disabled, all Spaniards have the duty to work. The National-Syndicalist State will not give the slightest consideration to those who fail to perform some useful function and who try to live as drones at the expense of the labour of the majority of people. 

LAND 

17. We must, at all costs, raise the standard of living in the countryside, which is Spain's permanent source of food. To this end, we demand agreement that will bring to culmination without further delay the economic and social reforms of the agricultural sector. 

18. Our program of economic reforms will enrich agricultural production by means of the following: 

By assuring a minimum remuneration to all agricultural producers.

By demanding that there be restored to the countryside, in order to provide it with an adequate endowment, a portion of that which the rural population is paying to the cities for intellectual and commercial services.

By organising a truly national system of agricultural credit which will lend money to farmers at low interest against the guarantee of their property and crops, and redeem them from usury and local tyrants. 

By spreading education with respect to better methods of farming and sheep raising. 

By ordering the rational utilisation of lands in accordance with their suitability and with marketing possibilities. 

By adjusting tariff policy in such a way as to protect agriculture and the livestock industry. 

By accelerating reclamation projects. By rationalising the units of cultivation, so as to eliminate wasted latifundia and uneconomic, miniscule plots. 

19. Our program of social reforms in the field of agriculture will be achieved: 

By redistributing arable land in such a way as to revive family farms and give energetic encouragement to the syndicalisation of farm labourers. 

By redeeming from misery those masses of people who presently are barely eking out a living on sterile land, and by transferring such people to new and arable lands. 

20. We shall undertake a relentless campaign of reforestation and livestock breeding, and we shall punish severely those who resist it. We shall support the compulsory, temporary mobilisation of all Spanish youth for this historic goal of rebuilding the national commonwealth. 

21. The State may expropriate without indemnity lands of those owners who either acquired them or exploited them illegally.

22. It will be the primary goal of the National-Syndicalist State to rebuild the communal patrimonies of the towns. 

NATIONAL EDUCATION - RELIGION 

23. It shall be the essential mission of the State to attain by means of rigorous disciplining of education a strong, united national spirit, and to instil in the souls of future generations a sense of rejoicing and pride in the fatherland. 

All men shall receive pre-military training to prepare them for the honour of being enlisted in the National and Popular Army of Spain. 

24. Cultural life shall be organised so that no talent will be undeveloped because of insufficient economic means. All who merit it shall be assured ready access to a higher education. 

25. Our Movement incorporates the Catholic meaning- of glorious tradition, and especially in Spain- of national reconstruction. The Church and the State will co-ordinate their respective powers so as to permit no interference or activity that may impair the dignity of the State or national integrity. 

NATIONAL REVOLUTION 

26. The Falange Espanola Tradicionalista y de las JONS demands a new order, as set forth in the foregoing principles. In the face of the resistance from the present order, it calls for a revolution to implant this new order. Its method of procedure will be direct, bold, and combative. Life signifies the art and science of warfare (milicia) and must be lived with a spirit that is purified by service and sacrifice. 

As can be seen, in the Spanish example, religion was mentioned, but suppressed as subordinate to the overall goals of the state.

Italian fascism did not even go that far, but regarded, oddly enough, the Church as a sometimes intellectual ally in that Italian fascism, while radical in many ways, argued for a return to cultural traditionalism, even though it did not regard that as supporting a religious state.  Essentially, to a relatively small degree, Italian fascism regarded some of the Church's emphasis as traveling on a somewhat intersecting road.

That's not the point of this article here, however, but it serves to point out that while something is going on in the entire Western World right now, it's not really the same every place it pops up.  Consider again the clip we had of Meloni from the other day.

That's one of the most Un-American speeches you can imagine, although a lot of Americans wouldn't realize it.  Not that Meloni would deliver an American speech, she's Italian, but she's not only complaining of the post 1968 liberal changes to the accepted culture, which she is, she's blaming it principally on consumerism.  

This view isn't completely unheard of in the United States.  People will take shots at consumerism, but it's usually people on the left that do it, and they don't link it to feminism and the LBGQT movement like Meloni is.  Not usually.  About the closest I've ever heard of that is the essay that somebody wrote some time ago, I've forgotten who, that homosexuals were regarded as the prefect citizens by liberal elites, as they consumed, but didn't reproduce, and lacked the messy personal nature that the 98% of those with normal inclination have.  That approaches this statement, but it doesn't go anywhere near as far as Meloni did.

Meloni is definitely tapping into something here, however, in that what she's espousing is the concept that post 68 liberalism is at war with human nature, and she's not wholly incorrect in that either.  That's also what partially, but only partially, given rise to populism in the United States.  The part of her speech here that doesn't deal with economics would find a sympathetic ear in some parts of the far right.

Indeed, it finds a sympathetic, if surprised, ear from some who are in the Chestertonian camp, or more appropriately at his stammtisch.  One twitter commentator, for example, noted upon hearing this that in his view he wasn't saying anything that was fascistic, but rather a string of things in line with Catholic social teaching, with which he approved.  This definitely isn't the case for the American Trumpist wing of the GOP.

Is she therefore not a fascist, but rather somebody who would be more comfortable with Chesteron and Belloc?

Frankly, we really don't know.  She hasn't been in power, yet, and her party hasn't been, either.  What may distinguish it is its willingness to act democratically.  That, in the end, has tended to be the defining matter distinguishing very far right political parties from fascist ones, even if the former does not really meet the overall fascist definition.  The Falangist and Italian fascist were hostile to democracy, there's no two ways about it.  Is the modern FdI?  We don't know yet.

For the same reason, we can't say if the FdI is in favor of Illiberal democracy.  Progressives could look at this and immediately say that of course it is, but it's really not that simple at all The FdI may be very far right, without being favoring Illiberal democracy.  Favoring political progressivism and having a liberal democracy are not the same thing, even though progressives seem to feel it is.

At the end of the day, Meloni may end up being a flash in the pan.  As Italy is a parliamentary democracy, her party, while gathering the most votes, only has about 25% of them. The center left party has nearly as many.  The remaining 25%, more or less, of votes she needs from other Italian right wing parties do not all come, by any means, from ones that have the same outlook.

But this will prove interesting.

All over Europe, this trend has been occurring.  Just last week, the Sweden Democrats, which have neo-Nazi roots, became the second-largest governing partner in the Swedish government.  It's a very hard right nationalistic party.  We've already discussed Viktor Orban's Hungarian government and it's espousing of Illiberal Democracy.  Poland's largest party is the Law and Justice Party, which is a right wing populist party.  Slovakia's largest party is the right wing populist Ordinary People and Independents Party.  And France, of course, has the National Rally Party which threatened to take office during the last French election and which is the second-largest party in the government, only slightly behind that of the largest party.

Then we have the current GOP.

Perhaps the real distinguishing thing about the current Trump wing of the GOP, which is the dominant branch right now, is that these other parties, which are not all the same, are at least pretty open about their views, which they can be as they're in a parliamentary system.  In the case of the Trumpist, the views remain partially camouflaged.  And the other major factor right now is that these European parties save for one, Orban's, all seem to be comfortable with full democracy, although I'd certainly hold the question open for the Sweden Democrats on that query as its history would suggest that it wouldn't be, if it were in power.

So, once again, what's that tell us?

It's hard to say, but as noted earlier on this blog, it seems to be an upset with the results of the post 1968 liberalization of the Western World.  People feel it's taken from them and forced them into things they don't agree with and don't want to be. And to at least some extent, they feel that it's brought about a culture that's at war with natural culture.

In short, people feel what Meloni expressed:

Fires will be kindled to testify that two and two make four. Swords will be drawn to prove that leaves are green in summer.

All of that were things that conservative parties already held, however. They weren't, however, very successful at doing anything about their views in a massive way. All of these groups promise to.

And maybe they actually would. . . but in the American case, what does that actually mean and do people really know what they're suggesting? We'll look at that next.

Sunday, September 27, 1942. The heroism of Douglas Munro.

Today in World War II History—September 27, 1942: During the withdrawal from Matanikau on Guadalcanal, Signalman 1C Douglas Munro uses his Higgins Boat to shield Marines at the cost of his life;.

So notes Sarah Sundin on her blog. 

Douglas Munro.

Munro had dropped out of college to enter the Coast Guard in 1939 as he saw the threat of war looming, doing so as its primary mission was saving lives.  He's been born to a Canadian mother and American father, in Canada, but his father had relocated the family to the United States as a child.  Munro was very slight of build, as the photograph above shows, and had to eat heavily to meet the Coast Guard enlistment weight.

Sundin also notes that today saw the last performance by Glenn Miller before he entered the service.  At the time he was making $15,000 to $20,000 per week, which seems like a lot now, but which was the equivalent of $250,000 to $333,000 per week in today's' dollars, a vast sum indeed.

It's not just here. The Italian Election and the further rise of the hard right.

Fratelli d'Italia, the "Brothers of Italy", have won the Italian election.

Not outright, but with 26% of the vote.  Enough of a command that, together with another right wing party and a center right party, Giorgia Meloni's neo-fascist party will govern.^1 2  The party, in second position, is the Italian center left Democratic Party, but it can't put together a ruling coalition.

This gives Italy, when in the 1945 to early 1970s period teetered on the edge of falling into Communism, its most right wing government since Mussolini was strung up.

The Fratelli d'Italia is nativist, anti-immigrant, anti-European Union, and traditionalist.  It's leader, Giorgia Meloni has said of herself; "I am Giorgia. I'm a woman, I'm a mother, I'm Italian, I’m Christian".  The slogan is sufficiently popular that it's been set to techno pop with her saying those things, in Italian, and it's pretty effective.  You can also find clips of her saying, but to members of the Spanish Vox party, in Italian;

Yes to the natural family, no to the LGBT lobby, yes to sexual identity, no to gender ideology... no to Islamist violence, yes to secure borders, no to mass migration... no to big international finance... no to the bureaucrats of Brussels!"

So where is she basically coming from: Well, here:

It's impossible at this point not to see that something is going on in the Western World.  It's not just Orban, or Trump.

Its the entire Western World.

Indeed, if anything, Trump's version of this is the most decayed and perverted.  Meloni's may be the most open and honest.

So how did we get here?

This might be the reaction, long delayed, to 1968, and all it brought about.

Indeed, it almost certainly is.  The question is what form that takes, and where that form takes shape.  In Italy, Meloni, running from the hard populist right, will form a coalition government in a parliament in which, perhaps ironically, nobody is claiming a minority government reflects corruption in the vote, whereas in our country, with a Federal democracy that's designed to work slow and defeat "coalitions", or parties, one side is.  Therefore, ironically, Italy, which has a history of fascism but never endured de-fascism, democracy may actually be less imperiled.

At any rate, we noted here earlier that in post Boomer generations, liberalism was waning and conservatism building.  What we missed is that it's waning quicker than we anticipated, and the reaction to 1968 seems to be very widespread, and increasingly strong.

Footnotes

1.  "Meloni" means just what it sounds like.  

Indeed, Meloni in a short video clip, can be seen holding two cantaloupes chest high making a joke about it. Something that's somewhat unique to Italian politics, which remains occasionally ribald.

2.  The FdI denies that it's neo-fascist, and while we've referred to them here that way, this wants again raises the topic of "what is a fascist".  It's not as easy to answer as it might at first seem.

The FdI may have a point here, although I frankly don't know.  At the end of the day, fascism implies an element of totalitarianism.  The Italian fascists of the 1920s through 1940s made no bones about not approving of democracy.  The Spanish fascist were of the same mind set. By and large, neo-fascist have also been anti-democratic.

This contrasts with the Illiberal Democrats, who tolerate a degree of democracy, but within a preset framework.  They're okay with the vote, up to a point, and that point is the point at which a society is supposed to have a cultural set of concepts upon which it operates. That's not up for a vote. That concept has a lot of sympathy, it seems, all over the Western World right now.

Tuesday, September 26, 1922. Young and old, north and south, war and peace.

Penn State, September 26, 1922.

 Confederate Veterans of North Carolina, Grove Park, Asheville

Virginia Ave. playgrounds, September 26, 1922.

Best Posts of the Week of September 19, 2022

The best posts of September 19, 2022

Is this Blog Slow To Load?

Comparison, and Contrast, and presentations.

If

If you can keep your head when all about you
    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
    But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
    Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
    And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
    And treat those two impostors just the same:
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
    And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
    ⁠And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
    To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
    ⁠Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
    If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
    With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
    ⁠And—which is more—you'll be a Man, my son!

The Post World War Two increase in divorces. . . maybe.*

Tuesday, September 22, 1942. Top elevated

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist XXXVIII. The Punditry Repeatedly Blowing It.

Sunday, September 24, 2012. The end of the World War II Day-By-Day Blog.

Friday, September 25, 1942. The Mosquito Raid

The Royal Air Force raids Oslo, Norway with four de Havilland Mosquitos. The target was the Gestapo headquarters, but the target was missed, and civilian houses were hit instead.  One of the Mosquitos, one of the more amazing aircraft of World War Two, was shot down.

Mosquito B, Mark IV, 1942.

The RAF nonetheless claimed the raid as a victory, which in some ways, it was.

The plywood bodied Mosquito was on of the great aircraft of the war, serving both as a light bomber and a twin engined fighter.

Monday, September 25, 1922. Harington bluffs.

British General Sir Charles Harington, who had to deal the prior year with 50,000 Greek troops being deployed to Thrace, now had to deal with Turkish troops who were threatening the neutral zone.  In the first crisis, the Turks offered 20,000 troops to help, which were declined, and in the second, the Greeks offered 20,000 troops, but declined. 

Today, a century ago, Harington issued an ultimatum to the Turks to withdraw from the neutral zone.

General Harington, with Selahattin Adil Paşa, before his final departure from Istanbul, Dolmabahçe wharf

The British were in a bad way, in reality, as their government was not ready to fight without the Dominions, and Canada had refused.

The New York Giants won the National League pennant with a 5 to 4 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals

Scenes from around Boulder Canyon taken on this day, as geologist from the USGS made an epic trip.

Caldville Ruins below the Boulder damsite.  Note the geologist wearing a "wife beater" t-shirt, and hatless.  Very unusual photo for the era.

Sunday, September 24, 2012. The end of the World War II Day-By-Day Blog.

The last entry on the World War II Day-By-Day Blog occurred on this day, ten years ago.

Day 1120 September 24, 1942

The blog was excellent, and we've drawn from it as a source here frequently.

Comments on the blog trailed on for some time after that, but have stopped updating.

Something happened. There was no indication at all the blog would be shut down, and none of the comments that were put up were replied to.  The fact that comments were put up for almost two years suggests that somebody continued to monitor it, as spam comments did not appear.

These blogs are put up by people, most of whom do this as labors of love. This blog demonstrated a colossal amount of labor going into it.  The sudden end of the blog likely means the death or severe health crisis of the author.

Some blogs disappear that way.

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.

Thursday, September 24, 1942. Hitler sacks Halder

Adolph Hitler, demonstrating increasing concern of the increasingly slow rate of advance on the Eastern Front, and thereby demonstrating a better understanding of the tactical situation than he is sometimes given credit for, sacked Franz Halder of the Chief of Staff of the OKH.

Long term, this proved to be a lucky break for Halder who had a role complicit with German atrocities in the East.  Losing his position in 1942, he became a favorite of Western militaries post-war and was involved in the creation of the "Clean Wehrmacht" myth.  He lived until 1972.

He was replaced by Kurt Zeitzler.  Zeitzler was a professional staff officer who grew increasingly frustrated in his role and came to be estranged from Hitler.  He sought to resign in 1944 and ultimately was allowed to do so, to be followed by Hitler cashiering him from the German Army in January 1945.  Zeitzler was somewhat unusual in that he did not serve any time at all after the war unlike most very senior German generals.  He was called as a witness for the defense in the Nuremberg Trails.  He died in 1963.

The German Army broke through at Stalingrad, advancing to the Volga, and cutting the Red Army 62nd Army in two.

The Japanese landed on Maliana in the Gilberts.

The last entry on the excellent World War Two Day-By-Day Blog, linked in down in our disconnected blog's thread, was on this day, which provided:

Day 1120 September 24, 1942

In the North Atlantic 300-500 miles East of the tip of Greenland, U-432 sinks American SS Pennmar at 1.44 AM (1 man is crushed between a raft and the ship and another drowns, 59 survivors picked up later in the day by US Coast Guard cutter USCGC Bibb), U-617 sinks Belgian SS Roumanie at 1.58 PM (36 crew and six British gunners killed, chief engineer Suykerbuyk is found on a raft and taken prisoner by U-617) and U-619 sinks American SS John Winthrop with 5 torpedoes and the deck gun (all 39 crew and 13 gunners lost).

At Stalingrad, German 94th Infantry and 24th Panzer Divisions wipe out the Soviet defenders in the pocket in South of the city. Furious at the delay in taking Stalingrad and lack of success reaching oilfields in the Caucasus, Hitler dismisses General Halder as OKH Chief of Staff, replacing him with General Kurt Zeitzler.

In the Mediterranean, Greek submarine RHS Nereus sinks small Italian freighter Fiume 7 miles Southwest of Rhodes. At 11.35 PM 36 miles Southwest of Tiros, Lebanon, U-561 sinks Egyptian Sailing ship Sphinx with 22 rounds from the deck gun.

Off the coast of British Guyana, South America. American SS Antinous (torpedoed yesterday by U-515) is taken in tow by British rescue tug HMS Zwatre Zee (most powerful tug in the world at 4200 Horse Power) but is sunk at 6.25 PM by U-512. At 9.24 AM, U-175 sinks American SS West Chetac (22 crew and 9 gunners drown trying to abandon ship, 17 crew and 2 gunners on 3 rafts picked up on October 1 20 miles off Trinidad by US destroyer USS Roe and landed at Port of Spain).

At 1.30 PM, a Japanese fighter spots Australian destroyer HMAS Voyager beached at Betano Bay, East Timor. At 4 PM, Japanese bombers return and damage HMAS Voyager beyond recovery (no casualties) but the 400 Australian commandos (2/4th Independent Company) have already landed safely.

On Guadalcanal, Japanese General Kawaguchi has regrouped 4000 troops (following the failed assault on Edson’s Ridge 10 days ago) in the Matanikau Valley, 5 miles West of the US positions at Henderson Field. US Marine General Vandegrift sends out 2 battalions to ‘mop up’ what he believes are only 400 Japanese in Matanikau Valley (Colonel ‘Chesty’ Puller 1st Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment will go inland over 1200-foot high Mont Austen while 1st Raider Battalion under Colonel Samuel Griffith takes the coastal route into the Valley).

US bombers Douglas Dauntless dive bombers from Henderson Field (Marine squadron VMSB 231 and Naval squadron VS 3) attack Japanese destroyers Umikaze and Kawakaze on a “Tokyo Express” run, bringing troops and supplies to Guadalcanal from Shortland Island at the Western end of the Solomon Islands. Umikaze is damaged by a near miss (8 killed) forcing the convoy to abort landings and causing Umikaze to be repaired Truk. USAAF B-17 bombers raid the Japanese naval base on Shortland damaging Japanese seaplane carrier Sanuki Maru.

British destroyer HMS Nizam sinks a Vichy French merchant ship Southwest of Madagascar.

220 miles West of the tip of India, Japanese submarine I-165 sinks US freighter Losmar (3 killed, 14 survivors rescued by British ship Louise Moller on October 5 and another 7 survivors reach the West coast of Ceylon on October 17).

That entry came a decade ago, and then the entries suddenly ceased.

Sunday, September 24, 1922: The September 11, 1922 Revolution (Επανάσταση της 11ης Σεπτεμβρίου 1922)

The Greek Army rebelled in the 11 September 1922 Revolution (Επανάσταση της 11ης Σεπτεμβρίου 1922) so named as Greece remained on the Julian calendar at the time.

This confusing event followed in the wake of public upset at the loss of the Greek effort in Anatolia, proving if nothing else that defeated armies are dangerous to their own governments, if to nobody else.

The rebellion led to the abdication of the king, who was on his second reign, having suffered from military discontent during World War One as well.  He'd opposed entering the war.  The Greek monarchy would be restored a few days later and King George II would take over, who would also have two reigns, one ending in 1924, and a second running from 1935 to 1947.

Berryman cartoon for this day in 1922.

Blog Mirror: THE BLACK BEAUTY: A SHORT HISTORY OF CAST IRON COOKWARE

 

THE BLACK BEAUTY: A SHORT HISTORY OF CAST IRON COOKWARE

Wednesday, September 23, 1942. Departures, bad health, appointments and tragedies.

Rommel left North Africa o this day in 1942 for six weeks of recuperation in Germany.  He was suffering from exhaustion, sinusitis, high blood pressure, and stomach ailments.  On the way home he stopped in Rome to talk to Mussolini.

Perhaps ironically, George Stumme, who suffered from high blood pressure as well, was put in command in Rommel's absence where he'd die a month later in combat, probably from a heart attack or stroke.

The East African 22nd Infantry Brigade captured the capital of Madagascar.

Sarah Sundin reports:

Today in World War II History—September 23, 1942: René Blum, founder of Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and brother of former French prime minister Léon Blum, is deported to Auschwitz, where he will be killed.

She also noted that Gen. James Doolittle was appointed to command the 12th Air Force. 

Saturday, September 23, 1922. Unintended paths.

The Saturday Evening Post went to the stands with a Coles Phillips illustration entitled "The broken heel hop".  The woman in the illustration still looked more cheerful than Muriel MacSwiney, who was photographed in New York City on the same day.

Mrs. Muriel MacSwiney appeared in the photograph with the then Miss Linda Kearns.  Both of them had been involved in a jailbreak that freed Irish prisoners, something that the British tended to suffer with such frequency that it raises real questions about the extent to which they were actually trying to retain them

MacSwinney was the widow of the Lord Mayor of Cork, who had died in a hunger strike.  She was the first woman to be given the Keys (Freedom) of New York.  She never recovered from her husband's death, even becoming estranged from her young daughter, Máire. She remained an activist for the rest of her long life, becoming increasingly left wing as time went on.  In the early 1920s, after this period of time, she left her daughter Máire, in Germany while she traveled Europe, losing custody of her in 1932 to the girl's aunt, who saw the completion of her education in Ireland and Germany.  In the meantime she took up with left-wing French intellectual Pierre Kaan, which produced a second daughter, Alix in 1926.  Kaan died in a German concentration camp during World War Two.

She remained an activist until the end of her life in 1982 at age 90, and ironically died in England, where she had taken up residence near her second daughter Alix.  Máire MacSwiney, went on to marry a significant Irish politician and died in 2012 at age 93.

MacSwiney's life isn't atypical of revolutionaries of the period, who often started off basically in the middle of a movement and then evolved into leftwing movements in general, losing themselves to the movement.  She started off as a Catholic Irish nationalist, which she likely would have remained, had her husband not died of the dubious revolutionary act of self starvation.  From there, she ended up becoming so involved in increasingly left wing causes that she more or less removed herself from the life of her daughter with her husband, and had a second by a left-wing intellectual whom she ultimately did not make a life with.  It's hard to admire her.

Kearns was an Irish nurse and Fianna Fáil politician.  She died at age 62 in 1951.

The C-2 airship completed the first transcontinental airship flight across the United States, landing at Ross Field in Arcadia, California.  The trip had started on September 14.

Allied representatives sent Turkey a proposal to hold a conference to resolve the Chanak Crisis.

Tom Lovelace of the Pittsburgh Pirates made his first, and only, appearance in Major League Baseball, breaking his leg sliding into first base in the ninth inning.  He went back into the minors, where he played until 1932.

Blog Mirror The Prairie: Where Veggies Don't Grow But The Cows Are Happy.

The Prairie:  Where Veggies Don't Grow But The Cows Are Happy.

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist XXXVIII. The Punditry Repeatedly Blowing It.

Why do pundits, from Robert Reich, to the great cast of NPR's Politics, to the round table folks on the weekend shows keep getting politics, their bread and butter, wrong?

Maybe they don't go out and actually live the lives of real folks.

 A recent week from the formerly august journal, The New Republic:

If Merrick Garland had been confirmed in 2016, we would still have the Roberts Court instead of the Trump-McConnell Court. As backlash to “Dobbs” mounts, McConnell may come to regret that fact.

What an amazing load of complete drivel.  No wonder the left remains threatened by the presence of a bizarrely speaking septuagenarian millionaire serial polygamist.

They're clueless.

Here's how the logic noted above is supposed to work.

Suburban women (which in the minds of progressives defines somebody who is a cross between "soccer mom", Betty Crocker and the proverbial "Karen") suddenly becomes a Democratic voter due to the Dobbs decision because, no matter what else she thinks, the issue of abortion, the way progressives define it, is the most important issue in the world to her.  And because of that, she's now boosting gay education in schools, the rights of the LBGQT, and subscribes to the Bernie Sanders newsletter.

And Kansas is evidence of this.

Not hardly.

In the real world, the suburban female voter is more likely to be a mid 30s professional who is watching her paycheck evaporate due to inflation, who can't hire competent help at work as there isn't any, anymore, whose existing help is "laying flat" and "quiet quitting", and who is wondering how she's going to help put food on the table.

She's a lot more likely to vote her pocketbook than 

Most people aren't single issue voters.  A few people, on the right and the left, are, but those who are single issue voters are much more likely to be on the right. And this is why:

Robert Reich

@RBReich

·

11h

Why are Republicans trying to prevent students from discussing sexuality, gender, and systemic racism in the classroom? Because the biggest threat facing the Republican Party is a multi-racial generation of Young people unafraid to speak truth to power — and make them irrelevant.

No, that's not it either.

It's because, starting in the 1970s, the left forced social change into society through the courts, not the ballot box, and average people got tired of being told that something's that they didn't accept, they had to accept, because nine old dudes in dresses told them they had to, Oracle at Delphi fashion.

How the left views the Supreme Court, how the Supreme Court has sometimes seemingly viewed itself, and how the right views how the left views the Supreme Court.  The Oracle at Delphi.  The Constitution has a penumbra? Well okay then. . . 

So what that means is that when Soccer Mom goes to the ballot, she's not seeing it the way Robert Reich is at all.

And you can be 20 years old Ms. Soccer, whose is looking at a world that's pretty messed up due to the "tear everything down" mentality of the 1970s isn't.  She's probably looking for the guard rails, only to find that they've taken off the parapet.

Well, what about Kansas?

Yeah, what about Kansas? That proves the point.

Kansas was a vote on repealing a constitutional amendment.  It was a straight up or down vote.  A person doesn't have to have that strong of convictions on anything to vote on something like that, which is why really badly conceived of constitutional amendments sail past Wyoming voters and become law, and then are completely forgotten.  I'm not saying that vote was insignificant, but if it was combined with pocket book issues and the like, and for that matter other social issues, there's no telling where it would go.

Indeed, real voters have opinions on gun control, abortion, health care, the environment, Donald Trump, inflation and on and on.  In the mind of the punditry Soccer Mom is charging off to the polls on abortion, but that actual voter stands a pretty good chance of having highly traditional values on marriage, a middle position on gun control, is worried on environmental issues, is really worried on inflation, and has no strong opinion on the Orange Haired Menace. 

This doesn't describe the punditry.  The punditry has strong opinions on everything, and they line up right and left.

Real people don't.

Which gets us to this.

Some people vote single issue tickets on social issues, but they're mostly on the right. And they do go to the polls.

Most people don't vote single issue anything, save for rare occasions, and often on very local issues.

Demographic groups align with their deeply held traditions after they establish themselves in the nation, and those traditions tend to be conservative, not liberal.

Those on the left who support their social issues sooner or later take them to the extreme and alienate everyone, and then they don't go to the polls.

Young people generally don't go to the polls, and they aren't going to in 2022 or 2024.

Abortion isn't going to make much of a difference in the 2022 or 2024 elections, and to the extent it does, it'll help the right, not the left.

To the extent any progressive politician is foolish enough to make gun control an issue, that'll hurt the left.

Nobody is going to the polls one way or another on LBGQT platforms, and that's going to play no role in upcoming elections.

Inflation is a big deal and that will impact voters, but in favor of Republicans.

You can't lie to voters for decades regarding their big worries and then have them support you anymore. They'll support somebody who listens to them, even if it's a dangerous bloviator.

You can't force your issues on people through courts for decades and then come out crying about the demise of democracy.  People aren't going to believe that either.

Not matter what pundits believe, and rational people may wish for, Donald Trump just isn't going away, and it's not suddenly going to be the case that lots of Republicans abandon him.

And you can't really have any idea what real people are thinking if you don't have much of a connection with their lives.

Last Prior Edition:

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist XXXVII. Quo usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra? Quam diu etiam furor iste tuus nos eludet? Quem ad fīnem sese effrenata iactabit audacia?*

Tuesday, September 22, 1942. Top elevated

The basic insignia for the rank of First Sergeant at the E-8 grade, shown with the unofficial summer colors of khaki on OD. This color scheme was common for the summertime khaki uniform, but never approved.  The proper colors were OD stripes on a black background.

Today in World War II History—September 22, 1942: Germans split Soviet 62nd Army in Stalingrad and occupy the southern half of the city. US Army raises grade of first sergeant to that of master sergeant.

From Sarah Sundin's blog

Clearly, the item about the Battle of Stalingrad is the important item, but I've linked this in here due to the item on U.S. Army ranks.  On this day in 1942 the grade of the rank of First Sergeant was made equal to that of Master Sergeant.

We've discussed enlisted Army ranks here before, indeed more than once, I think.

First Sergeant are the senior enlisted NCO's in a company, battery or troop.  It's an important rank, and it's been around for an extremely long time.  He is, literally, the "first" sergeant and for enlisted soldiers often the most senior soldier they typically engage with, commonly nicknamed "top".

When the Army was reorganized in 1920, 1st Sergeants were given the grade of E-6.  That would surprise modern soldiers, as that's the grade now held by Staff Sergeants, who at that time held the grade E-5.  E-5 today is held by the rank of Sergeant, but at that time, Sergeants were E-4s, as they still are in the Air Force.

Master Sergeants, that title indicating a senior status to that sometimes indicated for master tradesmen, were E-7s. Today, that grade is held by the rank of Sergeant First Class.  That rank didn't exist in 1920.

On this day in 1942 the Army adopted a new enlisted structure, changing some of the enlisted ranks.  Technician grades, which we've earlier discussed, were adopted, foreshadowing the later introduction of Specialists.  Enlisted ranks remained the same up through Staff Sergeant.  First Sergeants were moved from E-6 to E-7, making them the equivalent of Master Sergeants, and an additional rocker was added to their insignia to indicate their equivalency.  In the E-6 position the rank of Technical Sergeant, which had already coexisted with First Sergeant, remained.

This basic structure remained until 1948 when technicians were eliminated, but new rank insignia were introduced for non combatant NCO's, only barely distinguishable from those of combatants.  Technical Sergeant, at that time, was renamed to Sergeant First Class.  Moreover, the rank of "Recruit" was introduced for what had been "buck privates", and introduced at the E-1 level, making there three grades of privates.  The rank of Staff Sergeant was eliminated, and buck Sergeants took their insignia.

Specialists were added in 1955.

n 1959 a jump in grades happened in enlisted ranks overall. Staff Sergeants were reintroduced as E-6s, acquiring their prior insignia, and Sergeants became E-5s and reacquired their three chevron and no rocker insignia., Sergeants First Class took the E-7 grade and First Sergeants (and Master Sergeants) E-8s.  The rank of "Recruit" was renamed Private E-1.  Privates at the E-3 level worse the single chevron, as they had since 1948.  This is basically the structure we've had since then, except that PFC's obtain a rocker in 1968, and Private E-2 reclaimed the single stripe insignia that they hadn't had since 1948.  
The upper Specialists insignia over E-4 have also largely disappeared.

As this recitation also notes, the Technician grades were introduced during the same year as Top got a promotion and pay raise. They'd existed since January.

In a manner that only made sense to the Army, two stripe technicians were introduced at the grade of E-3, but with the title of Technician 5th grade.  If that doesn't quite made sense, its because the "E" structure that I've been using here wasn't introduced until 1949.  Prior to that, while the E grades noted here offer equivalency, so that it's easy to tell the actual changes over time, pay grades went by a simple number.  Pay grade 7 was the lowest, and it was the one that applied to buck privates, or what we'd later refer to, most of the time, to Private E-1s. Pay grade 1 was the highest, which was equivalent to the post 1949 E-7.

That right there helps explain some of this evolution, by the way.  There was nothing higher than pay grade 1, in enlisted ranks, and that was equivalent to E-7.  Now, the highest enlisted grade normally encountered is E-8, which Master Sergeants and First Sergeants occupy, as of 1959.  In that same year, 1959, the rank of Sergeant Major was introduced at E-9, as was Specialist E-9.  E-9 remains the highest enlisted grade today, although there are several different types of Sergeant Majors that occupy it, some being exceedingly rare.

Anyhow, back to technicians.  Introduced in January, right after the war started, their existence reflected the much more technical Army of 1940 as compared to earlier.  The creation of the rank was an attempt to create a rank and pay scheme for men who were not combatants.  Something had to be done, but the experiment wasn't really successful, leading to the change to combatant and non-combatant ratings in 1948, and ultimately to the not hugely successful creation of specialists ranks in 1959.  On that latter creation, the number of specialist ranks was already being reduced by 1967 and was further cut back in 1978. When I joined the National Guard in 1981, there were still Specialist E-6s, but in 1985 that was changed so that only Specialist E-4 remained.  At the same time, however, the increasingly professional nature of the Army after the elimination of the draft meant that the number of men occupying lower enlisted ranks increased, and therefore the Army reduced the number of Corporal E-4s in favor of Specialist E-4s, the distinction being that Corporals are NCOs and Specialists are not.

Prior Related Threads:

Timeline of U.S. Army Enlisted Ranks, 1920 to Present

The Infantry Company over a Century. Part 1. The Old Army becomes the Great War Army.

Pinks and Greens

Thursday, September 21, 1922. Baby Ruth.

 Louis Mbarick Fall, aka Siki, became the world light heavyweight champion in boxing after champion Georges Carpentier knocked down Siki in the firth round, thereby violating a deal not to injury Siki in exchange for Siki throwing the fight.

Fall was a Senegalese veteran of the French Army from World War One.  His boxing career was impressive, and it was suggested at one time that he fight heavyweight champion, Jack Dempsey.

He ultimately lost the title to Irish fighter Mike McTigue in 1925, only to be murdered in New York City the following month.  McTigue, oddly enough, would die in poverty and ill health in Queens, New York, in 1966.

Boxing, it might be noted, has few happy endings.

Turkish nationalist seized Ezine, which was in the Allied neutral zone.

The existence of Dorothy Ruth came to light.  The one-year-old daughter of Babe Ruth had been sighted with the Babe and his wife Helen. The couple claimed she had been kept from public light, as she had been ill.

In truth, Dorothy's mother was Juanita Jennings, a paramour of Ruth's.  The couple adopted Dorothy in an age in which such infidelities were often kept secret and, most likely, that in spite of George Herman Ruth's behavior, their teenage wedding at St. Paul's Catholic Church in Ellicott City had some traction with the couple in spite of Ruth's infidelities.  That caught up, however, with Helen in 1925 when the couple separated..  She died in 1929 in a house fire in Waterford Massachusetts, by which time she was living with a Dr. Kinder, DDS, as "Mrs. Kinder".

Ruth would remarry actress and model Clair Hodgson in 1929. She was a widow and the union would last the rest of their lives, with Clair putting lacking structure into Ruth's' personal life.

Dorothy did not know that Juanita, whom she knew as Aunt Nita, was her mother until she was 59. She died in 1989.

The Cable Act was signed into law, allowing American women who married foreign nationals to keep 

A thought.

If Russia is intent on annexing portions of Ukraine, so it can be claimed to be acting in defense of its own territory. . . 

maybe Ukraine should annex Russian territory to the limits of its 1919 borders first.

Monday, September 21, 1942. First flight of the B-29

 YB-29s.

Today in World War II History—September 21, 1942: British and Indian troops launch assault into the Arakan Peninsula in Burma. First test flight of Boeing XB-29 Superfortress heavy bomber, Seattle, WA.

From Sarah Sundin's blog.

The B-29 was one of the great aircraft of the Second World War and was also, during the war, one that was downright dangerous to fly due to its frequent engine failures and fires.  It's loss rate early on in China, from which many were flown, was appalling.  Nonetheless, they were an advance that could be regarded as generational.

Forever associated with Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the plane became the world's first nuclear bomber, a status it retained for a while post-war.  By the Korean War, however, they were beginning to show their vulnerabilities in the new jet and rocket age. The B-36 resulted in them being reclassified as a medium bomber, an odd thought, and the B-29 was retired in 1960, and overall long run for a bomber of that period.  A late variant, the B-29D, which was reclassified as the B-50, continued on in limited use until 1963.  Ironically, a version copied by the Soviet Union from an example that landed on their territory during the war, the TU-4, remained in active service slightly longer and also saw service with the Red Chinese, meaning that for a time the airplane equipped both sides in the Cold War.

B-50.

The aircraft was not introduced into service until 1944 and its use was limited to the CBI and Pacific Theaters. Post-war, the British were briefly equipped with a limited number, a small number of which went on to serve with Australia.  An airliner version went on to become an early post-war transoceanic airliner, one of the ones that effectively put an end to flying boats.