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Anonymous asked: There's an image going around of Maggie Thatcher hanging out with Jimmy Saville. From what I remember there's all this shit coming out about how Saville was hanging around, not just Thatcher, but a ton of other notable British figures. I'm American so I don't really know as much about these situations as you do (which makes this blog immensely interesting.), but for your sake I really hope Thatcher doesn't go the way of Reagan for you guys, that'd suck for everyone.
Anonymous asked historical-hatred:
Oh shit I brought up the Saville thing so I could say: “makes sense, one fucked minors the other fucked miners.”________________________________________
Yeah she’d invite him to the official country residence of the PM. Not only that, but Jimmy Savile - string-vested, track-suit wearing Jimmy Savile… was a close friend of Prince Charles and a very close adviser. When Diana first asked for a divorce, Charles sent Savile around to convince her.
Can you even fathom that, because I can’t.On the Reagan note, I don’t think she will [though who knew they’d airbrush Reagan so heavily?]. Reagan has the ‘won the Cold War’ edge [even though the CIA was saying from the mid-70s that the Soviet Union was in a state of structural collapse - ignored by neo-cons as a ‘ruse’.] and as the Cold War and the Red Scare dominated American political life for near half a century, he will always be praised for it.
I think by the time Reagan died, he’d already become the myth - Thatcher was utter poison to the right and a total unmentionable until she died, then it’s a mix of ‘she was great’ with jubilation drowning it out, but most of all, a majority saying ‘who cares?’
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drinkupitsgoodforyou asked: Your Churchill post says that the Black and Tans were a feature of the Irish Free State, which isn't true. They were set up as an attempt to fight against the guerilla warfare employed by the Irish during the Irish War of Independence and were disbanded at the end of the war, which saw the formation of the Free State. They were still set up by Churchill, though.
Sorry for not being clear, I’ve been doing reading on the formation of the Republic recently and the Irish name for both the pre- and post- treaty Irish state was Saorstát [Which for those unfamiliar with Irish, means Free-State.]
There’s actually an interesting story, where de Valera delivers the proclaimation to the British PM, David Lloyd George:
‘So what’s the Gaelic name for your state?’ he enquired. ‘Saorstát’ [‘Free State’] came the reply. ‘I see,’ said Lloyd George. ‘I didn’t hear the Gaelic word for “Republic” in your speech.’ He then launched into a lengthy discussion in Welsh with his personal secretary, T. J. Jones. De Valera, flustered, couldn’t follow.
Eventually, reverting to English, Lloyd George delivered the knock-out blow. ‘We Celts don’t have a word for a Republic,’ he announced, ‘because we’ve never had one’.
I can only presume that that’s where I got muddled! Saorstát Saorstát Saorstát Saorstát Saorstát
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kingdomrisekingdomfall asked: I teach History to high school students in California and I love your posts. I would call it history truth. Keep up the good work!
Thanks! I’d of-course say that I have my own bias, and I rarely try to make a balanced assessment, so more devil’s advocate than truthful. But still, glad you like it!
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mavamal asked: Hope you don't get too much hate for destroying 'our beloved leaders from a time gone by'
Nah I think previous spats I’ve had on here have put me thoroughly beneath contempt! That and I only post every few months when I’m feeling appropriately catty so I doubt most people notice when I do actually ‘deserve’ anon-hate.
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frollcedaillan00 replied to your post: Winston Churchill. Don’t forget about starving 750,000 German civilians in WW1, killing 1500 French sailors off the coast of Algerian, and oking the deliberate bombing of civilians.
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Winston Churchill.
An idol to many in the UK and USA - and yet idolatry is a sin! So lets smash this idol.
- Churchill and Eugenics. Churchill and the concentration camps.
Churchill did not believe in democracy as we see it - he was an aristocrat, and like many in his class, thought he was born to rule, and that others weren’t up to the task. When we think democracy, we think ‘one person, one vote’, and yet, Churchill was a big fan of Eugenics, he outright believed a lot of theories that today, we place solely on the shoulders of Nazis. He believed that only the ‘right people’ deserved a vote - more than that, the right to have children and the right to freedom full-stop.
Churchill believed in sterilising the ‘feeble-minded’ and criminal. He believed the best thing for the nation was to send untold thousands into forced-labour camps in order to ‘save the white race’ from ‘degeneration’. He didn’t believe the working-class to be white, more a degenerated race.
Whilst Home Secretary, he suggested:
‘I propose that 100,000 degenerate Britons should be forcibly sterilized and others put in labour camps to halt the decline of the British race.’
Does this not sound somewhat like the foe he would fight against decades later…?
- Churchill the warmonger. Churchill the butcher.
Churchill loved war. For him, like many men of his class, it was the greatest game there was. Churchill did not of course fight in the First World War, yet it cannot be said he didn’t enjoy sending other men off to die from the comfort of his opulent London office:
‘I love this war. I know it’s smashing and shattering the lives of thousands every moment — and yet — I can’t help it — I enjoy every second of it.’
It should be kept in mind that those thousands of ‘smashed and shattered lives’ were often the same people Churchill thought should be sterilised and put into forced-labour camps.
Churchill was also the creator the Black and Tan paramilitaries, which spread terror in the Irish Free State. They executed without trial, they raped, they murdered, they assassinated. They were terrorists.
- Churchill and the ‘White Man’s Burden’. Churchill and India.
Churchill outright did not believe that non-white nations or people were capable of governing themselves.
He believed Islam and Muslims were backwards and lethargic:
‘How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity.’
He believed that the best way to deal with ‘non-civilised’ peoples was to drop poison-gas on them:
‘I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes. The moral effect should be so good that the loss of life should be reduced to a minimum.’
And also talked of spreading a ‘lively terror’ amongst uncivilised peoples…
On India, Churchill viewed Gandhi as a phony and a fake, a ‘seditious… lawyer, now posing as a fakir of a type well-known in the East’ and was fully in favour of letting him die when on hunger-strike. He was against Indian independence, but was not for looking after Indians when they were part of the Empire. During the Bengal Famine of 1943, up to three million Indians died due to food diversions, and a lack of action when the famine became apparent.
This was an artificial famine on par with the Holodomor.
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Because Churchill stood against a man who was a mass-murderer, an ethnic-cleanser, a believer in state-terrorism, a eugenicist, a racist, it is believed he stood against these things.
He did not. He stood against power that threatened the British Empire. He believed in inferior races, he believed in concentration camps, he believed in sterilisation, he believed in state-terrorism, he allowed artificial famines.
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I've started a blog that is basically scans of old books and comics. →
This is a taste of what sort of thing you’ll find:
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William of Orange
I’d like to submit William of Orange, I already posted this in reply to him being submitted to FYHistorycrushes, but I believe he deserves far more widespread hatred.
He did fight against Spanish rule and, to some degree, for freedom of religion. However, it seems he sometimes “forgot” complete freedom of religion also entailed complete freedom of religion for the Roman-Catholic population, who had previously been just about the only group experiencing freedom of religion under Spanish rule.
During the Dutch Revolt, many towns, especially in the pre-dominantly Catholic south of the Netherlands, remained under Spanish rule and were attacked and besieged by William of Orange’s troops. Wars will always have victims, and laying siege to towns was far from a novel tactic at the time.
However, two Dutch towns in particular were hit hard by William’s troops. First, there’s the Taking of Roermond on 23 July 1572. William attempted to once again gain entry to the Netherlands and tried to force his way in through the town of Roermond. The town’s officials refused to let William’s troops in, after which the town was taken by force.
After the troops had entered the town, they started pillaging and looting the town. They aimed their attacks specifically on Roermond’s Catholic churches and monasteries. In one monastery, 13 monks were brutally murdered in their cells and would become known as the “Martyrs of Roermond”. William never condemned this attack.
The province of Brabant, and the city of Den Bosch in particular, was another target for William’s troops. Again, this province was predominantly Catholic and therefore not as opposed to Spanish rule as the non-Catholic parts of the Netherlands. In the summer of 1583, William wanted Den Bosch to submit to his rule. The town refused and was besieged, and William decided to decimate and burn down neighbouring villages and towns, to make sure Den Bosch’s food supplies were diminished.
Many towns and villages were burned to the ground, obviously resulting in many civilian casualties. Again, William did not condemn his troops’ actions, even if they were committing atrocities against a part of the Dutch people he was supposedly fighting for.
Atrocities are part of any war and conflict, but I feel William of Orange’s involvement in these, and many other, atrocities is not as widely-known as it should be. It is often said history is written by the victors, and that is definitely the case for the Dutch Revolt. A significant part of the Dutch population, mainly in the Catholic south, did not benefit from this Revolt, but rather suffered from it.
And the claim that William supposedly fought for complete religious freedom does not at all comply with his complete indifference to the atrocities committed against the Catholic population of the Netherlands. I’m annoyed by this is because this is not common knowledge at all, and we keep being taught, and in turn teaching others, that William of Orange is the nation’s father and a true hero, even though he clearly wasn’t to a large part of the Dutch people.
tl;dr: William of Orange was a dick because he let his troops burn down my hometown (and many other towns too)
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yourfutureleader replied to your post: WOW To report a blog for any reason, first read Tumblr’s Content Policy. If you think the blog in question violates Tumblr’s terms, then email the url to abuse@tumblr.com with a sentence or two about which policies are being violated.
Ah - I presumed it would be something akin to on other websites - like block/ignore/report.
Thanks for the heads-up, though I’m quite surprised tumblr doesn’t have something a bit more concrete in place than sending an email - it’s a blogging platform used mostly by teenagers… I mean, you’d think they’d have something a bit more robust when so much could go wrong…
Thanks again! [and your submissions are sorely missed…]
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WOW
I just got a submission from a blog, and all it said was:
Title: This Blog
Body: Grow up
Fair enough, I hear you cry…
However, their avatar was of a naked woman [classy], and their blog consists of some grim underage pictures - kids at the beach photoshopped to make their outfits see-through [totally, disgustingly unacceptable].
So… under the cut is a link to their blog, I don’t know how to report, but I’m sure one of you will, so please reply to this saying how-to for the rest of us.
Sorry for the break in general inactivity you’ve come to know and love from historical-hatred.
