Thursday, November 26, 1942. Casablanca premiers, Battle of Brisbane

When I first posted this (written yesterday, went up early this morning) I failed to appreciate that this was Thanksgiving Day for 1942.

Now, of course, most of the day is gone.

Usually when something like this comes up, I ponder on what that must have meant for my family at the time, so I've added that below.

The legendary film Casablanca, truly one of the best movies ever filmed, premiered at the Hollywood Theater in New York in advance of its general release.

The movie is a fantastic film that holds up today.  Amazingly, the film as we know it barely came together, with casting changes and the like.  Paul Henreid proved aloof during the film, regarding the other actors as lessors, and the film was overall one that shouldn't have worked out as well as it truly did.

It's one of my favorite films.

Today In Wyoming's History: November 26: 1942  Lusk announces they will forgo outdoor Christmas lights in accordance with a request from the War Production Board.  Attribution.  Wyoming History Calendar.

Riots broke out in Brisbane, Australia, between US servicemen and Australian servicemen.

This was not a minor incident, and one Australian serviceman was killed.  While generally Americans and Australians got along well, the disproportionately high pay of American serviceman was a source of problems all over the world, as merchants would cater to them, and it gave them an advantage with local women.  American soldiers were also freer with physical affection towards Australian women which offended Australians even though, ironically, the culture was much more libertine in the same arena behind closed doors.  

Additionally, Americans were dismissive of Australian soldiers in general, even though at the time they were all volunteer and had served in the war since 1939.  Australians were disdainful in turn of Americans who had, right up until about this time, a record of defeat.

The whole thing came to a head, resulting in two days of riots, the news of which was later suppressed.

President Franklin Roosevelt ordered gasoline rationing expanded to include the entire United States, effective December 1.

Speaking of a situation that involved the use of fuel, German 6th Army Commander Paulus, trapped at Stalingrad with his troops, wrote to his superior, Von Manstein, as follows:

For the past thirty-six hours I had received no orders or information from a higher level. In a few hours I was liable to be confronted with the following situation:

(a) Either I must remain in position on my western and northern fronts and very soon see the army front rolled up from behind (in which case I should formally be complying with the orders issued to me), or else

(b) I must make the only possible decision and turn with all my might on the enemy who was about to stab the army from behind. In the latter event, clearly, the eastern and northem fronts can no longer be held and it an only be a matter of breaking through to the south-west.

In case of (b) I should admittedly be doing justice to the situation but should also - for the second time - be guilty of disobeying an order.

(3) In this difficult situation I sent the Fuhrer a signal asking for freedom to take such a final decision if it should become necessary. I wanted to have this authority in order to guard against issuing the only possible order in that situation too late.

...

The airlift of the last three days has brought only a fraction of the calculated minimum requirement (600 tons = 300 Ju daily). In the very next few days supplies can lead to a crisis of the utmost gravity.

I still believe, however, that the army can hold out for a time. On the other hand - even if anything like a corridor is cut through to me - it is still not possible to tell whether the daily increasing weakness of the army, combined with the lack of accommodation and wood for constructional and heating purposes, will allow the area around Stalingrad to be held for any length of time.

While Paulus was asking for freedom of action, in Von Manstein's view the 6th Army lacked sufficient fuel to accomplish even minor movements, making a breakout by the 6th Army impossible.

As noted, this was Thanksgiving Day for 1942.

That is, US Thanksgiving Day.

Unlike Americans seem to think, most countries have a Thanksgiving of some sort.  It's very common for Christian countries. The U.S. can't really claim to have had "the first Thanksgiving", although we do.

However, not all countries have Thanksgiving on the same day by any means, so this was the holiday date for the U.S. in 1942.

On this day I know my father's family would have gathered for a Thanksgiving Dinner and it would have been the traditional type, turkey, etc.  It likely would have been, however, just my father's immediate family, but which I mean his parents and siblings.  No aunts or uncles lived nearby, they were living in Scotsbluff, and the grandparents were in Denver and Iowa respectively.

My father and his siblings would have been on a holiday break from school of course.  It was the first Thanksgiving of the war, but none of them were old enough to really be directly impacted by it yet.

Prisoners of Myth I. The Russians in the war with Ukraine

How the Soviets,  and by extension the Russians, came to see themselves.  In reality the wool in the uniform may have come from the US, the steel nad munitions that supported his artillery did as well, when those jack boots wore out he may have worn service shoes, and he definately dug into SPAM for rations from time to time.

The danger of believing myths is that some become ahistorical.  

Not all, but some.

Which points out while studying history is so important.

Myth itself is something that's not existentially bad.  Cultures create myths for a reason, with that reason stretching back into antiquity.  The earliest human beings created myths, as their entire historical memory was oral.  Current events were reduced to stories, and the stories remembered through telling, with them evolving into myths over time.  For that reason, myths are often surprisingly accurate. There really was a Troy that the Greeks waged war upon. . . the Apaches and the Navajo had really once lived in a region where there were great white bears, you get the point.

The problem becomes that myth making can become a coping mechanism for a culture as well.  And that can become enormously dangerous to that culture in some instances.  The Germans adopting the theory that they hadn't been defeated on the battlefield in World War One, which they had been, lead them to adopt a "stabbed in the back" theory that lead directly to World War Two.  The myth of the "Lost Cause" resulted in rank and file Southerners forgetting that they'd gone to war over slavery and had been outright defeated on the battlefield with a huge percentage of Southern soldiers deserting before the war's end, resulting partially in the preservation of formal institutional racism well into the second half of the 20th Century.  The myth of the Stolen Election is corrupting American Conservatism and the Republican Party right now.

Russia, likewise, went into Ukraine believing in a set of myths, with one overarching myth, and its paying the price for it.

Modern Russia and the Myth of World War Two.

• The basic myth.

At some point during World War Two itself the Soviet Union started telling the myth that the USSR, alone in its fight against Nazi Germany, and supported only weakly by two untrustworthy and cowardly allies, the US and the UK defeated the Germans.

Not hardly.

But this myth, or versions of it, became all pervasive in the USSR and are still believed in Russia today.  Indeed, amazingly enough, versions of this myth became relatively common, in a different form, in the West.

It's simply not true.

Now eighty years after the fact, the history of the Second World War is starting to be more accurately told, stripped away of many of its myths, including this one.  Let's flatly state the truth of the matter here.

The Soviet Union, following its own self interests, was an occasional defacto Axis ally from 1939 until the spring of 1941.  In that capacity, it helped the Germans subjugate continental Western Europe, but the Germans were unable to defeat the British.  Unable to do just that, Germany turned its eye on Soviet resources, which the USSR was well aware it was going, and the two nations bargained on greater German access to them.  Stalin overplayed his hand and sought a post-war position from Germany, at the expense of the British Empire, which was too much for the German's to agree to, and the Germans, contemptuous of the Slavs in any event, were ready to break off the effort and go to war with the USSR, the heir to Imperial Russia, which the Germans had defeated in 1917.

The German invasion came in June 1941.  The Red Army made some heroic stands in the summer and fall of 1941, but by and large it was thrown back in defeat.  The real Soviet achievement in 41 was not being outright defeated, but it was thrown back again, on a massive scale, in 1942.  Only in the winter of 1942 did the Soviet fortunes turn, but it would take titanic efforts and massive loss of life in order for the Germans to be pushed back and ultimately defeated.

Added to that, much of the Red Army was simply never very good.  Materially, the Soviets were unable to supply their own army adequately, and that fell to the UK and the US in large part.  Only 55 to 60 percent of the Red Army was Russian, with the balance being made up of other ethnicities, including large numbers of Ukrainians, 7,000,000 of whom served in the Red Army. At no point whatsoever did the Soviets ever fight, moreover, alone.  There was always a "second" or even third and fourth front which was manned by other Western Allies alone.

• The actual truth

It's odd to think of the myth of the invincibility of the Red Army when it's also so commonly known that the Soviet state spent so much time destroying it after the Civil War.

Contrary to the way we came to imagine it, the USSR did not spend a lot of time trying to become a military titan before World War Two.  The Reds, not without good reason, somewhat feared what an effective standing army would mean to its political leadership.  People have often been mystified by the purges of the Red Army, but in context they made sense.  After the fighting of the civil war had ended, the only powers powerful enough to challenge the Communists core running the country were in the Red Army, or in other established Communists.  Both took a pounding during the purges.  Indeed, while it hardly justifies murder, it's far to ask if Stalin would have been able to remain in control of the country if political opponents like Trotsky had run around unaddressed, or if powerful military leaders had not been done away with.

Added to that, the Russian armies, and it's fair to use the plural, that we have as examples in the 1900 to 1941 time period were bad.  The Japanese had defeated the Imperial Russian Army in 1905, the same army in World War One did not turn in a stellar performance.  The Whites and the Reds did fight each other tooth and nail during the Civil War, but all civil wars tend to work that way.  The Soviets did well in some of the Russo Polish War but were ultimately defeated, and thereafter they lived in mortal fear of hte Poles, and the Romanians, even though logic would dictate that neither country was capable of being a serious military threat to the Soviet Union.

And, of note, it's clear that the Russians still fear the Poles today.

The USSR was fought to a standstill in the Winter War with Finland just before World War Two. And only in the final months leading up to June, 1941, did the Soviets undertake a real effort to build a capable modern army.  It had some raw elements of that, including some good armor and aircraft designs, but it also had a weakened military institution with no NCO corps and a murdered officer corps.  It realy wasn't able to fix this, and nobody would be, prior to the German invasion.

What the Soviets did have was a  massive amount of territory and a leader in singular control.  

What it also had on 1941 was a British Empire that was already fighting the Germans, with ground combat having been going on in North Africa since June 1940.  The German invasion of the USSR was the second front, or the third if the Battle of the Atlantic is considered.

The UK was already receiving substantial US material, and frankly military, support well before Barbarossa, but the British were a major military materials producer itself.  Both the US and the UK immediately started to offer the Soviets material support.  It would take months before it really began to arrive, but of note, it took months as well for the Red Army to become really effective.

During the war, that aid would become enormous.  The US supplied 400,000 vehicles to the Soviets, changing what had been a horse-drawn army into a mostly vehicle transport one.  Studebaker's 6x6 trucks were for all practical purposes a dedicated Soviet truck, not even entering the US military in substantial numbers.  14,000 aircraft were supplied to the Soviets, including some, like Studebaker trucks, that were essentially models dedicated to Soviet use.  13,000 US tanks were supplied, with additional numbers of British tanks also being supplied.

15,000,000 pairs of Army service shoes, the legendary U.S. Munson Last boot, were supplied to the Red Army. If you see a photo of a Soviet soldier wearing lace up boots, those are almost certainly US made ones.

107,000 tons of cotton went to the USSR for their use.  2,700,000 tons of petroleum products.  4,500,000 tons of food were supplied.

An entire Ford tire factor was supplied.

80% of the copper used by the USSR during the war came from the US and UK.  55% of the aluminum.  

Immediately after the war, before the myth really set in, Soviet sources outright admitted that the USSR could not have fought without lend lease supplies. As late as 1963 a Soviet marshal was known to have stated the same.

The Western Allies, of course, provided this for their own purposes.  It was not charity.  The Soviets were always reticent to some degree to really acknowledge it at that.  But its important to note that the option not to provide it existed.

That would have been risky, which is in part why the leaders of the Western Allies were so ready to engage in it.  The Soviets were a known potential enemy, but the Germans were a present actual enemy.  Prior to June 1941, the British had gone it alone, but they had been fighting a defensive war the entire time.  It was possible to imagine a Germany, particularly one that made some sort of accommodation to the Soviet Union, consolidating gains in Europe to the point where it would have been impossible for the British to ever dislodge them.  Even after December 7, 1941, that remained a possibility.  The Western Allies needed the Soviets in the fight, just as the Soviets needed the Western Allies in order to fight.  The Patrick Buchanan view that the Western Allies should have allowed the USSR and Nazi Germany to destroy each other is wrongheaded, as chances are good that the Germans would have forced the Soviets into a peace of some sort that secured southern Russian materials and left Germany in a position basically impossible to deal with.  Having said that, at the same time, it's not impossible either to imagine the Soviets getting to that point.

It was, after all, the Russians who had given up in the Russo Japanese War and who had collapsed in World War One. And the Soviets, who had been defeated by the Poles after the Great War. And the Soviets, who had accommodated in the Winter War, after invading Finland.  Throughout World War Two, Stalin worried about the Western Allies reaching a separate peace, but that may have really  revealed more about Soviet thinking than anything else.  The Western Allies had fought the Germans to the bitter end in 1914-1918, which the Russians had not.

Moreover, for all its self-congratulatory propaganda.

Additionally, or all its self-congratulatory propaganda, the Soviet casualty list does not suggest what it might.  Massive Red Army losses in World War Two were in no small part self-inflicted, reflecting a poorly formed army that was badly trained and lacking a NCO corps.  It also reflected a leadership that was completely immune to concern over human losses, truly viewing Soviet soldiers as cannon fodder.  The German view as quite similar.  The fighting on the Eastern Front was in part savage, as the two armies engaged had leadership which didn't really care about high losses as long as goals seemed obtainable.  The Western Allies did not fight this way as, being from democratic societies, they could not contemplate using their citizenry in such a callous fashion.

Additionally, and seemingly completely missed by Soviet propaganda, the Western Allies went int alone on the seas, with the Soviet Navy being largely irrelevant the entire war.  While the Soviet Union had a navy, it didn't really matter, which effectively means that in a war fought on the land, air, and sea, the Soviets only fought on two out of the three.

And, as earlier noted, the Soviets were latecomers to the war and, in fact, had been on the other side early on.  If the US and UK did not take such massive losses, it was because, as noted, that they didn't fight that way.  They were, however, fighting, and fighting in more areas than the USSR was.  They were not, of course, fighting on their own ground, however, which does make a real difference.

And it goes beyond that.

Over 7,000,000 Red Army troops were Ukrainians, as noted, with indigenous Poles, Turkic peoples, and others filling the Red Army ranks.  But around 1,000,000 Soviet citizens provided aid to the Germans during the war as well.

This is a complicated story, as that aid varied in nature substantially.  The most pronounced anti-Soviet variants of it might be found in Cossack elements that went over wholesale to the Germans and who served on the Eastern Front, the Western Front, and in the Balkans.  But they were not alone.  Other Soviet citizens willingly took up arms with the Germans and fought against the Moscow.  Others, particularly in Ukraine, fought against the Soviets and the Germans, reprising the odd role of the Ukrainian Greens of the Russian Civil War who fought against the Reds and the Whites. Large numbers of Red Army POWs joined Vlasov's White Russian Army, but probably did so out of a desire simply to survive the ordeal of being a German POW.  

Soviet civilians aided the Germans in varying ways as well.  The examples are too numerous not to take note of, with Soviet civilians providing all sorts of minor aid and comfort to the Germans in spite of the fact that the Germans were barbaric towards Soviet citizens, visiting death and rape upon them at a scale that was too large not to be regarded as institutionally sanctioned.  Indeed, early on Russians and Belorussians greeted the Germans as liberators, with their view largely changing due to German barbarism.  Ukrainians greeted the Germans with bread and salt, a traditional Ukrainian greeting.  They, too, came to change their views under German repression.

• Bringing the myth forward.

After the war, and even by its late stages, the Soviets were developing a myth that they had won World War Two basically on their own.  Their leadership knew better, which showed itself even as late as the 1980s, when the Soviets lived in real fear of a NATO attack upon the Soviet Union.  But the myth has solidified, and it's showing itself now.

The logical question would be why such a myth would have been developed and fostered.  There are, however, a series of reasons for that.

All nations have foundational myths that are central to their identify in a way.  The American one dates back essentially to the Revolution, and was redefined by the Civil War, giving the country the foundational story of rising up against tyranny, which isn't really true, to form a self-governing democratic republic with a unique mission in the world. The Australian one involves a history of mistreatment by the British culminating in the disaster of Gallipoli, which in truth the Australians were only one nation involved in a much larger Allied effort. Other examples could be given.

The Soviet Union going into World War Two already had the Russian Revolution, but the imposition of Communism on the Russian Empire had not been universally accepted by any means, and various peoples struggled against it into the 1930s.  The USSR had only been saved from defeat by the support of Western, capitalist, nations during World War Two, after it had first conspired with the fascist Nazi Germany, for its own reasons.  During the war, large percentages of its population, in spite of massive Nazi barbarism, had sided with the Germans, and resistance movements went on in the country until the late 1940s.  A myth of a Great Patriotic War, as the Soviets came to call it, served to counter all of that.

The modern Russian Army is not the Red Army.  For one thing, it lacks the huge number of Ukrainians that the Red Army had.  But the Red Army, without the West, was never all that good.  It was bad going into World War Two, and it survived World War Two thanks to the West.  After the war, it continued to rely on Western technology for a time, in the form of purchased Western material, and in the form of acquired German knowledge, but over the decades it had to go over to simply acquiring it however they could, and often they simply did not.

The current Russian Army retains all the vices of the old, plus one more.  Its equipment is antiquated and poor.  Its leadership is bad.  

And it believes that it was invincible during World War Two, forgetting that it wasn't defeated due to Western support, the very thing Ukraine is getting now.

Sunday, November 26, 1922. Peanuts, Colorado's, and Gallipoli.

Today is the 100th anniversary of the birth of Charles Schultz, the great cartoonist.

Schultz was born in Minneapolis and grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota.  He was an only child that loved drawing from the beginning.  He was conscripted in 1943 and served as an infantryman, narrowly avoiding killing a German soldier towards the end of t he war as he fogot to load the  M2HB machine gun he was assigned to.

After the war, he first worked for the Catholic comic magazine Timeless Topix.  Peanuts had its first appearance, of sorts, in 1947.

I don't have a clue what this photograph is supposed to depict, and only know that it was taken on this day in 1922.

Opera singer Beniamino Gigli and Paul Longone, general manager of the Chicago City Opera Company.

The first popular election for the position of President of Uruguay was held.  José Serrato of the Colorado (Red) Party won.

Red would indicate, of course, it's left wing ideology, which it holds.  That's because red is the color of the left everywhere in the world, except the US.

Well, it wasn't always that way.  When John Birchers used to state "better dead than red" they didn't mean "better dead than a member of the Republican Party".  But later, some pinhead reversed the colors in the US as an example of moronic American Exceptionalism.  That individual should be sentenced to read Mao's Little Red Book every day for the rest of his life.

Anyhow. . . 

The United Kingdom turned control of the Gallipoli peninsula over to the Turks.

Dr. Jack premiered.

It was one of the most popular films of 1922.

Going Feral:

Going Feral:   :  

Blog Mirror: Small Business Saturday: Remembering Quadragesimo Anno.

Small Business Saturday: Remembering Quadragesimo Anno.

It is a fundamental principle of social philosophy, fixed and unchangeable, that one should not withdraw from individuals and commit to the community what they can accomplish by their own enterprise and industry. 

Just as it is gravely wrong to take from individuals what they can accomplish by their own initiative and industry and give it to the community, so also it is an injustice and at the same time a grave evil and disturbance of right order to assign to a greater and higher association what lesser and subordinate organizations can do. For every social activity ought of its very nature to furnish help to the members of the body social, and never destroy and absorb them.

Pope Pius XI, Quadragesimo Anno, 1931

I suppose this entry here is mistitled in that not only do most people not remember Quadragesimo Anno, most have no clue what it is.

It was a Papal Encyclical issued in 1931 on economic matters and the social order.  

Because I write, of course, from the United States, the land of "rugged individualism" which has, curiously, turned the economy completely over to government sponsored and therefore, quasi state created economic entities, I can't expect that anyone will actually think of the Pope and economics, let alone as sort of a radical economic theorist.  But perhaps they should.  After all, the focus of the Faith isn't on economic profit, but on the wellbeing of body and soul.

This too, of course, will be a bit radical in the US. The US is a Protestant country still, and to an enormous degree, the "Protestant work ethic" defines how economic matters are viewed, even among Catholics and the fully secular.  That early heritage, which relied to a degree on a Calvinistic world view in which wealth was regarded as a sign of God's favor, remains even in an era in which liberalism has made major societal inroads.  And those inroads interestingly have not taken the view that the Catholic teaching of Subsidiarity would have taken us, which would seemingly be more natural for our society in which individualism is nearly worshiped, but rather into a morphed version of the American System, in which the government simply takes over certain areas of the economy, but in a hidden background fashion.

This may be why economic debates in the US are so fundamentally weird.  It's much like arriving late at an extended family dinner, in which two cousins are in a raging debate over whether the 1968 or 1969 Mets are the better team, and then turn to you to demand your opinion just as you find the little crackers with salami and cheese on them, you aren't going to come out well in this debate, no matter what.

So let's turn to the encyclical, in much reduced part:

QUADRAGESIMO ANNO

ENCYCLICAL OF POPE PIUS XI ON RECONSTRUCTION OF THE SOCIAL ORDER TO OUR VENERABLE BRETHREN, THE PATRIARCHS, PRIMATES, ARCHBISHOPS, BISHOPS, AND OTHER ORDINARIES IN PEACE AND COMMUNION WITH THE APOSTOLIC SEE, AND LIKEWISE TO ALL THE FAITHFUL OF THE CATHOLIC WORLD.

Venerable Brethren and Beloved Children, Health and Apostolic Benediction.

Forty years have passed since Leo XIII's peerless Encyclical, On the Condition of Workers, first saw the light, and the whole Catholic world, filled with grateful recollection, is undertaking to commemorate it with befitting solemnity.

2. Other Encyclicals of Our Predecessor had in a way prepared the path for that outstanding document and proof of pastoral care: namely, those on the family and the Holy Sacrament of Matrimony as the source of human society,[1] on the origin of civil authority[2] and its proper relations with the Church,[3] on the chief duties of Christian citizens,[4] against the tenets of Socialism[5] against false teachings on human liberty,[6] and others of the same nature fully expressing the mind of Leo XIII. Yet the Encyclical, On the Condition of Workers, compared with the rest had this special distinction that at a time when it was most opportune and actually necessary to do so, it laid down for all mankind the surest rules to solve aright that difficult problem of human relations called "the social question."

* * *

49. It follows from what We have termed the individual and at the same time social character of ownership, that men must consider in this matter not only their own advantage but also the common good. To define these duties in detail when necessity requires and the natural law has not done so, is the function of those in charge of the State. Therefore, public authority, under the guiding light always of the natural and divine law, can determine more accurately upon consideration of the true requirements of the common good, what is permitted and what is not permitted to owners in the use of their property. Moreover, Leo XIII wisely taught "that God has left the limits of private possessions to be fixed by the industry of men and institutions of peoples."[32] That history proves ownership, like other elements of social life, to be not absolutely unchanging, We once declared as follows: "What divers forms has property had, from that primitive form among rude and savage peoples, which may be observed in some places even in our time, to the form of possession in the patriarchal age; and so further to the various forms under tyranny (We are using the word tyranny in its classical sense); and then through the feudal and monarchial forms down to the various types which are to be found in more recent times."[33] That the State is not permitted to discharge its duty arbitrarily is, however, clear. The natural right itself both of owning goods privately and of passing them on by inheritance ought always to remain intact and inviolate, since this indeed is a right that the State cannot take away: "For man is older than the State,"[34] and also "domestic living together is prior both in thought and in fact to uniting into a polity."[35] Wherefore the wise Pontiff declared that it is grossly unjust for a State to exhaust private wealth through the weight of imposts and taxes. "For since the right of possessing goods privately has been conferred not by man's law, but by nature, public authority cannot abolish it, but can only control its exercise and bring it into conformity with the common weal."[36] Yet when the State brings private ownership into harmony with the needs of the common good, it does not commit a hostile act against private owners but rather does them a friendly service; for it thereby effectively prevents the private possession of goods, which the Author of nature in His most wise providence ordained for the support of human life, from causing intolerable evils and thus rushing to its own destruction; it does not destroy private possessions, but safeguards them; and it does not weaken private property rights, but strengthens them.

50. Furthermore, a person's superfluous income, that is, income which he does not need to sustain life fittingly and with dignity, is not left wholly to his own free determination. Rather the Sacred Scriptures and the Fathers of the Church constantly declare in the most explicit language that the rich are bound by a very grave precept to practice almsgiving, beneficence, and munificence.

51. Expending larger incomes so that opportunity for gainful work may be abundant, provided, however, that this work is applied to producing really useful goods, ought to be considered, as We deduce from the principles of the Angelic Doctor,[37] an outstanding exemplification of the virtue of munificence and one particularly suited to the needs of the times.

52. That ownership is originally acquired both by occupancy of a thing not owned by any one and by labor, or, as is said, by specification, the tradition of all ages as well as the teaching of Our Predecessor Leo clearly testifies. For, whatever some idly say to the contrary, no injury is done to any person when a thing is occupied that is available to all but belongs to no one; however, only that labor which a man performs in his own name and by virtue of which a new form or increase has been given to a thing grants him title to these fruits.

53. Far different is the nature of work that is hired out to others and expended on the property of others. To this indeed especially applies what Leo XIII says is "incontestible," namely, that "the wealth of nations originates from no other source than from the labor of workers."[38] For is it not plain that the enormous volume of goods that makes up human wealth is produced by and issues from the hands of the workers that either toil unaided or have their efficiency marvelously increased by being equipped with tools or machines? Every one knows, too, that no nation has ever risen out of want and poverty to a better and nobler condition save by the enormous and combined toil of all the people, both those who manage work and those who carry out directions. But it is no less evident that, had not God the Creator of all things, in keeping with His goodness, first generously bestowed natural riches and resources - the wealth and forces of nature - such supreme efforts would have been idle and vain, indeed could never even have begun. For what else is work but to use or exercise the energies of mind and body on or through these very things? And in the application of natural resources to human use the law of nature, or rather God's will promulgated by it, demands that right order be observed. This order consists in this: that each thing have its proper owner. Hence it follows that unless a man is expending labor on his own property, the labor of one person and the property of another must be associated, for neither can produce anything without the other. Leo XIII certainly had this in mind when he wrote: "Neither capital can do without labor, nor labor without capital."[39] Wherefore it is wholly false to ascribe to property alone or to labor alone whatever has been obtained through the combined effort of both, and it is wholly unjust for either, denying the efficacy of the other, to arrogate to itself whatever has been produced.

54. Property, that is, "capital," has undoubtedly long been able to appropriate too much to itself. Whatever was produced, whatever returns accrued, capital claimed for itself, hardly leaving to the worker enough to restore and renew his strength. For the doctrine was preached that all accumulation of capital falls by an absolutely insuperable economic law to the rich, and that by the same law the workers are given over and bound to perpetual want, to the scantiest of livelihoods. It is true, indeed, that things have not always and everywhere corresponded with this sort of teaching of the so-called Manchesterian Liberals; yet it cannot be denied that economic social institutions have moved steadily in that direction. That these false ideas, these erroneous suppositions, have been vigorously assailed, and not by those alone who through them were being deprived of their innate right to obtain better conditions, will surprise no one.

* * *

57. But not every distribution among human beings of property and wealth is of a character to attain either completely or to a satisfactory degree of perfection the end which God intends. Therefore, the riches that economic-social developments constantly increase ought to be so distributed among individual persons and classes that the common advantage of all, which Leo XIII had praised, will be safeguarded; in other words, that the common good of all society will be kept inviolate. By this law of social justice, one class is forbidden to exclude the other from sharing in the benefits. Hence the class of the wealthy violates this law no less, when, as if free from care on account of its wealth, it thinks it the right order of things for it to get everything and the worker nothing, than does the non-owning working class when, angered deeply at outraged justice and too ready to assert wrongly the one right it is conscious of, it demands for itself everything as if produced by its own hands, and attacks and seeks to abolish, therefore, all property and returns or incomes, of whatever kind they are or whatever the function they perform in human society, that have not been obtained by labor, and for no other reason save that they are of such a nature. And in this connection We must not pass over the unwarranted and unmerited appeal made by some to the Apostle when he said: "If any man will not work neither let him eat."[41] For the Apostle is passing judgment on those who are unwilling to work, although they can and ought to, and he admonishes us that we ought diligently to use our time and energies of body, and mind and not be a burden to others when we can provide for ourselves. But the Apostle in no wise teaches that labor is the sole title to a living or an income.[42]

58. To each, therefore, must be given his own share of goods, and the distribution of created goods, which, as every discerning person knows, is laboring today under the gravest evils due to the huge disparity between the few exceedingly rich and the unnumbered propertyless, must be effectively called back to and brought into conformity with the norms of the common good, that is, social justice.

59. The redemption of the non-owning workers - this is the goal that Our Predecessor declared must necessarily be sought. And the point is the more emphatically to be asserted and more insistently repeated because the commands of the Pontiff, salutary as they are, have not infrequently been consigned to oblivion either because they were deliberately suppressed by silence or thought impracticable although they both can and ought to be put into effect. And these commands have not lost their force and wisdom for our time because that "pauperism" which Leo XIII beheld in all its horror is less widespread. Certainly the condition of the workers has been improved and made more equitable especially in the more civilized and wealthy countries where the workers can no longer be considered universally overwhelmed with misery and lacking the necessities of life. But since manufacturing and industry have so rapidly pervaded and occupied countless regions, not only in the countries called new, but also in the realms of the Far East that have been civilized from antiquity, the number of the non-owning working poor has increased enormously and their groans cry to God from the earth. Added to them is the huge army of rural wage workers, pushed to the lowest level of existence and deprived of all hope of ever acquiring "some property in land,"[43] and, therefore, permanently bound to the status of non-owning worker unless suitable and effective remedies are applied.

60. Yet while it is true that the status of non owning worker is to be carefully distinguished from pauperism, nevertheless the immense multitude of the non-owning workers on the one hand and the enormous riches of certain very wealthy men on the other establish an unanswerable argument that the riches which are so abundantly produced in our age of "industrialism," as it is called, are not rightly distributed and equitably made available to the various classes of the people.

61. Therefore, with all our strength and effort we must strive that at least in the future the abundant fruits of production will accrue equitably to those who are rich and will be distributed in ample sufficiency among the workers - not that these may become remiss in work, for man is born to labor as the bird to fly - but that they may increase their property by thrift, that they may bear, by wise management of this increase in property, the burdens of family life with greater ease and security, and that, emerging from the insecure lot in life in whose uncertainties non-owning workers are cast, they may be able not only to endure the vicissitudes of earthly existence but have also assurance that when their lives are ended they will provide in some measure for those they leave after them.

62. All these things which Our Predecessor has not only suggested but clearly and openly proclaimed, We emphasize with renewed insistence in our present Encyclical; and unless utmost efforts are made without delay to put them into effect, let no one persuade himself that public order, peace, and the tranquillity of human society can be effectively defended against agitators of revolution.

* * *

64. First of all, those who declare that a contract of hiring and being hired is unjust of its own nature, and hence a partnership-contract must take its place, are certainly in error and gravely misrepresent Our Predecessor whose Encyclical not only accepts working for wages or salaries but deals at some length with it regulation in accordance with the rules of justice.

65. We consider it more advisable, however, in the present condition of human society that, so far as is possible, the work-contract be somewhat modified by a partnership-contract, as is already being done in various ways and with no small advantage to workers and owners. Workers and other employees thus become sharers in ownership or management or participate in some fashion in the profits received.

66. The just amount of pay, however, must be calculated not on a single basis but on several, as Leo XIII already wisely declared in these words: "To establish a rule of pay in accord with justice, many factors must be taken into account."[45]

67. By this statement he plainly condemned the shallowness of those who think that this most difficult matter is easily solved by the application of a single rule or measure - and one quite false.

68. For they are greatly in error who do not hesitate to spread the principle that labor is worth and must be paid as much as its products are worth, and that consequently the one who hires out his labor has the right to demand all that is produced through his labor. How far this is from the truth is evident from that We have already explained in treating of property and labor.

69. It is obvious that, as in the case of ownership, so in the case of work, especially work hired out to others, there is a social aspect also to be considered in addition to the personal or individual aspect. For man's productive effort cannot yield its fruits unless a truly social and organic body exists, unless a social and juridical order watches over the exercise of work, unless the various occupations, being interdependent, cooperate with and mutually complete one another, and, what is still more important, unless mind, material things, and work combine and form as it were a single whole. Therefore, where the social and individual nature of work is neglected, it will be impossible to evaluate work justly and pay it according to justice.

70. Conclusions of the greatest importance follow from this twofold character which nature has impressed on human work, and it is in accordance with these that wages ought to be regulated and established.

71. In the first place, the worker must be paid a wage sufficient to support him and his family.[46] That the rest of the family should also contribute to the common support, according to the capacity of each, is certainly right, as can be observed especially in the families of farmers, but also in the families of many craftsmen and small shopkeepers. But to abuse the years of childhood and the limited strength of women is grossly wrong. Mothers, concentrating on household duties, should work primarily in the home or in its immediate vicinity. It is an intolerable abuse, and to be abolished at all cost, for mothers on account of the father's low wage to be forced to engage in gainful occupations outside the home to the neglect of their proper cares and duties, especially the training of children. Every effort must therefore be made that fathers of families receive a wage large enough to meet ordinary family needs adequately. But if this cannot always be done under existing circumstances, social justice demands that changes be introduced as soon as possible whereby such a wage will be assured to every adult workingman. It will not be out of place here to render merited praise to all, who with a wise and useful purpose, have tried and tested various ways of adjusting the pay for work to family burdens in such a way that, as these increase, the former may be raised and indeed, if the contingency arises, there may be enough to meet extraordinary needs.

72. In determining the amount of the wage, the condition of a business and of the one carrying it on must also be taken into account; for it would be unjust to demand excessive wages which a business cannot stand without its ruin and consequent calamity to the workers. If, however, a business makes too little money, because of lack of energy or lack of initiative or because of indifference to technical and economic progress, that must not be regarded a just reason for reducing the compensation of the workers. But if the business in question is not making enough money to pay the workers an equitable wage because it is being crushed by unjust burdens or forced to sell its product at less than a just price, those who are thus the cause of the injury are guilty of grave wrong, for they deprive workers of their just wage and force them under the pinch of necessity to accept a wage less than fair.

73. Let, then, both workers and employers strive with united strength and counsel to overcome the difficulties and obstacles and let a wise provision on the part of public authority aid them in so salutary a work. If, however, matters come to an extreme crisis, it must be finally considered whether the business can continue or the workers are to be cared for in some other way. In such a situation, certainly most serious, a feeling of close relationship and a Christian concord of minds ought to prevail and function effectively among employers and workers.

74. Lastly, the amount of the pay must be adjusted to the public economic good. We have shown above how much it helps the common good for workers and other employees, by setting aside some part of their income which remains after necessary expenditures, to attain gradually to the possession of a moderate amount of wealth. But another point, scarcely less important, and especially vital in our times, must not be overlooked: namely, that the opportunity to work be provided to those who are able and willing to work. This opportunity depends largely on the wage and salary rate, which can help as long as it is kept within proper limits, but which on the other hand can be an obstacle if it exceeds these limits. For everyone knows that an excessive lowering of wages, or their increase beyond due measure, causes unemployment. This evil, indeed, especially as we see it prolonged and injuring so many during the years of Our Pontificate, has plunged workers into misery and temptations, ruined the prosperity of nations, and put in jeopardy the public order, peace, and tranquillity of the whole world. Hence it is contrary to social justice when, for the sake of personal gain and without regard for the common good, wages and salaries are excessively lowered or raised; and this same social justice demands that wages and salaries be so managed, through agreement of plans and wills, in so far as can be done, as to offer to the greatest possible number the opportunity of getting work and obtaining suitable means of livelihood.

75. A right proportion among wages and salaries also contributes directly to the same result; and with this is closely connected a right proportion in the prices at which the goods are sold that are produced by the various occupations, such as agriculture, manufacturing, and others. If all these relations are properly maintained, the various occupations will combine and coalesce into, as it were, a single body and like members of the body mutually aid and complete one another. For then only will the social economy be rightly established and attain its purposes when all and each are supplied with all the goods that the wealth and resources of nature, technical achievement, and the social organization of economic life can furnish. And these goods ought indeed to be enough both to meet the demands of necessity and decent comfort and to advance people to that happier and fuller condition of life which, when it is wisely cared for, is not only no hindrance to virtue but helps it greatly.[47]

76. What We have thus far stated regarding an equitable distribution of property and regarding just wages concerns individual persons and only indirectly touches social order, to the restoration of which according to the principles of sound philosophy and to its perfection according to the sublime precepts of the law of the Gospel, Our Predecessor, Leo XIII, devoted all his thought and care.

* * *

79. As history abundantly proves, it is true that on account of changed conditions many things which were done by small associations in former times cannot be done now save by large associations. Still, that most weighty principle, which cannot be set aside or changed, remains fixed and unshaken in social philosophy: Just as it is gravely wrong to take from individuals what they can accomplish by their own initiative and industry and give it to the community, so also it is an injustice and at the same time a grave evil and disturbance of right order to assign to a greater and higher association what lesser and subordinate organizations can do. For every social activity ought of its very nature to furnish help to the members of the body social, and never destroy and absorb them.

80. The supreme authority of the State ought, therefore, to let subordinate groups handle matters and concerns of lesser importance, which would otherwise dissipate its efforts greatly. Thereby the State will more freely, powerfully, and effectively do all those things that belong to it alone because it alone can do them: directing, watching, urging, restraining, as occasion requires and necessity demands. Therefore, those in power should be sure that the more perfectly a graduated order is kept among the various associations, in observance of the principle of "subsidiary function," the stronger social authority and effectiveness will be the happier and more prosperous the condition of the State.

* * *

Given at Rome, at Saint Peter's, the fifteenth day of May, in the year 1931, the tenth year of Our Pontificate.

PIUS XI

And hence the irony. Pope Pius XI was pointing towards a more democratic, more distributist and more free market economy than any economist or politician in the American mainstream today.  Robert Reich may rail against corporate profits, but he's not going to go there.  Harriet Hageman may note that "she grew up on a ranch", but she's not going to work towards an economy that would remove corporate interests from the agricultural picture.  President Biden isn't going there either, and neither will candidate Trump.

So today we have Small Business Saturday.

At least there's this day in the year.  But it's worth pondering that, in spite of what Americans like to claim, we do not have a truly free market economy, but a capitalistic corpratized one.  This is so much the case, that most Americans aren't capable of realizing that this is a government created and supported structure, or the reasons therefore.  Indeed, ironically the same people who run around erroneously claiming that "we're a republic, not a democracy", apparently not knowing that we're a democratic republic, will note the glories of the free market system in contrast with what they deem "socialism", apparently not realizing at all that our economy is a capitalistic economic system with heavy doses of the old American System.

Small business provide a huge amount of the national employment. They suffer the most in the economy even when it's good, and suffer more yet when the economy is bad.

Give them a chance.  If you are shopping today, visit a small business.

Related Threads:

Distributist of the world unite! National Small Business Saturday.

Lex Anteinternet: Distributist of the world unite! National Small Business Saturday

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Joe, please don't run again

Friday Farming: New UW Extension Publications Estimate Economic Impact of Removing Federal Grazing

In a word, it would be far-reaching:

New UW Extension Publications Estimate Economic Impact of Removing Federal Grazing

None of which kept a Cheyenne newspaper I'd never heard of from claiming basically that ranching is irrelevant in regard to the state's agriculture, the sort of headline that causes even people not otherwise inclined to distrust the press and suspect it has an agenda to do just that.

The Tribune, I'd note, did much better with its headline.

The Studies, as posted on the UW Ag Extension site, can be found here:

	Economic Impacts of Removing Federal Grazing Used by Cattle Ranches in a Three-State Area (Idaho, Oregon, and Wyoming) Publication #: B-1385.4 Publication Type: Bulletin Date Published: 08/18/2022 Publication Author(s): David T. Taylor, John Tanaka, Kristie Maczko

	Economic Impacts of Removing Federal Grazing Used by Cattle Ranches in Oregon Publication #: B-1385.3 Publication Type: Bulletin Date Published: 08/18/2022 Publication Author(s): David T. Taylor, John Tanaka, Kristie Maczko

	Economic Impacts of Removing Federal Grazing Used by Cattle Ranches in Idaho Publication #: B-1385.2 Publication Type: Bulletin Date Published: 08/18/2022 Publication Author(s): David T. Taylor, John Tanaka, Kristie Maczko

Economic Impacts of Removing Federal Grazing Used by Cattle Ranches in Wyoming Publication #: B-1385.1 Publication Type: Bulletin Date Published: 08/18/2022 Publication Author(s): David T. Taylor, John Tanaka, Kristie Maczko

Note, that's a direct copy from the UW Ag extension website.

I'd note that part of the ongoing angst of our age is the real boneheaded effort to remove agriculture from the public lands.  It would end up developing those lands, as if areas like Ft. Collins or Denver are somehow a better thing for nature.  The people who advocate such things haven't really thought them through

Wednesday, November 25, 1942. Operation Mars commences

Having just concluded Operation Uranus around Stalingrad, the Red Army launched Operation Mars near the Rzhev salient outside of Moscow.

Operation Mars remains a controversial offensive, as the Soviets later claimed it was a diversion designed to tie down German forces in the north so that they could not be redeployed to the south.  This view has been taken by famed student of the Red Army, Anthony Beever.  Noted historian David Glanz, however, disagrees, and I frankly feel that Glanz has the better side of the argument.

It should be noted that the offensive was supposedly the subject of a radio false information campaign by the Soviets, something they were very good at, designed to draw attention to it prior to its commencement.  The overall problem is that, as a diversion, if it was one, it was a big one which wasn't skillfully executed, which would be odd as its success, diversion or not, should have been something sought by the Soviets.

The Soviet offensive would ultimately fail, which may provide the reason for its having been claimed as a diversion.  If it was a diversion, it was a massive one, involving over 700,000 troops.  Notably, in Mars the Red Army was encountering German troops, who fought stubbornly from its onset, rather than the forces of Germany's Eastern Front allies.  Additionally, the offensive started after Uranus had concluded, whereas if it were a diversion it would seem more likely that it would have commenced simultaneously.

As with Stalingrad, the German forces were subject to a Hitler no retreat order.  Hitler had issued a similar order the prior winter, which had proven instrumental in stabilizing the front.  The strategic situation had changed since then, however, and while it worked in this instance, it was costly.  The Germans took 40,000 casualties, small compared to the outsized 335,000 casualties the Red Army took, but the losses would not be made up by the German 9th Army by the following spring and therefore made it less effective in resumed offensive operations that year.

The Washington Post ran an article with the headline:

Two Million Jews Slain

This was the written report on the live announcement by Rabbi Stephen Wise announcement of the prior day.  It did not make the front page.

The Luftwaffe began to fly supply missions into Stalingrad.

At Meijez el Bab British forces made a disastrous attack on the town, which was defended by German paratroopers of the Luftwaffe's 5th Fallschirmjager Regiment.   The unit had been in North Africa since the summer, at which point it became part of the Afrika Korps.  It's deployment to Tunisia had been by plane, but they had not made a combat drop.

Medjez al Bab is an ancient city and was the site of a prior battle, the Battle of Bagradas River in 536 at which Eastern Roman Empire forces under Belisarius fought rebel forces under Stotzas.

British SOE operatives and Greek resistance fighters raided the Gorgopotamos viaduct in Operation Harling.

Friday, November 25, 1922. Trotting Turkey

Country Gentleman came out with a Thanksgiving themed cover by illustrator Frederick Lowenheim.

In France, for St. Catherine's saint's day, the Catherinettes were out on the streets:

From John Blackwell's Twitter feed on the topic.

We noted this custom in 2020:

The day is also St. Catherine's Day,, the feast day for that saint, which at the time was still celebrated in France as a day for unmarried women who had obtained twenty-five years of age.  Such women were known as Catherinettes. Women in general were committed since the Middle Ages to the protection of St. Catherine and on this day large crowds of unmarried 25 year old women wearing hats to mark their 25th year would gather for a celebration of sorts, where well wishers would wish them a speedy end to their single status. The custom remained strong at least until the 1930s but has since died out.

We should also note that the plight of unmarried French women, and British ones as well (and probably German ones) had grown worse since 1914.  Due to the combat losses of young men in the Great War, their marriage prospects in an era when being an unmarried woman was somewhat grim, had greatly declined.  The youngest of these women had been 21 when the war ended, meaning that they were of marriageable age when most young men were fighting in the war.  As the war killed men in that demographic, it meant that some would never marry.  The war also meant that the surviving men had disproportionate options.

I'm sure there's a study of this somewhere, but it can't help be noted that it must have had long-lasting social impacts, and it probably also explains the significant number of "war brides" brought home from France by US servicemen after the war and occupation, as well as the same population brining home some German brides, and Russian brides.

The Italian Chamber of Deputies granted Mussolini full power over economic matters for a year.

On the Rebel Streets of Cork. . . 

When Dyslexia Strikes.

You never know when that's going to occur.

I saw this in an online newspaper:

Libertarian group sues to block student debt cancellation

I thought it said, "Librarian group sues. . . ", which left me wondering why this was an issue near and dear to the hearts of librarians. 

Apparently, it isn't.

While I think it's a bad idea, I’m also not too sure why it's important to libertarians.  If I read the article, I'd know, but I’m not going to bother.

Coal in Alberta - It Ain't Over Until It's Over!

This is a video by Canadian singer/rancher Corb Lund.

I'm posting it here for an odd reason. This reminds me so much of the view that Wyomingites and Montanans held back in the 70s its not funny.  You'd never guess that now.

A Thanksgiving Still Life

 

A Thankgiving Day pondering.

(Note, this is one of many post that was lingering in the draft section for years, and was only now posted).

Something has happened . . . some ground moving departure from reality in the West.  But was it a slow evolution, or a rapid one.  Has it always been occurring, and does that mean perhaps we're just on the crest of a big wave, and some future generations will look back and see this era as simply insane?

When you are in the midst of something, it's not really obvious that it's occurring until it's far advanced, whether that change is for good or ill.  I'm sure, for example, Neanderthals didn't appreciate that the arrival of Cro Magnons in the neighborhood signaled the end of their human line, as for the very first of them, it didn't. The first Shoshone to meet a European American probably didn't think; "well. .  better ask for a reservation bordering the Wind Rivers right now". . . that's not how human experience work.

But at some point, at least for the observant, that day does arrive when you can look out and say "this is really amiss", but that doesn't mean that you grasp how it went amiss.

Well, things are amiss.

That's been obvious to me for a long time, but not to the degree to which it currently is, and not with what seems to be the clarity which I think I have on it now.  But, suffice it to say, at some point we boarded the train to unnatural existence, and it's plaguing us now.  Getting back will not be easy, and while I think nature and providence always self correct, I won't live long enough to see that correction.

It's important to note, when you state such things, that a perfect past never existed.  Other people, who sense something is wrong and turn their gaze back, far too often imagine a perfect past in some distant era.  That was never the case.  There was never a Camelot.

And even if there might have been a real Arthur of some sort, and even if he was a chieftain of some type, it was still the case that for most people the world hasn't been prefect.

Being a Medieval lord, in other words, may have been grand, but eking out your existence on a handful of oats and barley every day as a bound serf. . . not so much.

And so with every era.  Being a Roman magistrate would have been nifty, probably. A Roman slave? Not.  Being an American in 1830 would seem cool to me. . . as long as I wasn't black or an Indian on the border of lands about to be consumed by the American nation.

You get my point.

But one thing that has occurred since those times, or at least since the late period of the Roman Empire, is that we, and by that I mean Western Society, and which by that I mean the force that seems to drag the entire world along with it, has slipped into some sort of perverse anti-natural state.

How did that happen?

And when did it start to occur?