Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts with the label “my country”

Quote of the Week: ‘My Country’

Next time you hear a British person, for example, especially a supporter of Winston Churchill, says ‘my country’, turn their argument/belief on its head by quoting their ‘hero’: I  do not admit that the dog in the manger has the final right to the manger, even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right.   I do not admit, for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America, or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher grade race, or, at any rate, a more worldly-wise race, to put it that way, has come in and taken their place. I do not admit it. I do not think the Red Indians had any right to say, 'The American Continent belongs to us and we are not going to have any of these European settlers coming in here.' They had not the right, nor had they the power. —Winston Churchill  To the   Palestine Royal Commission   (1...

‘Why I Would Never Fight for My Country’

“As a podcaster and freelance journalist, Ole Nymoen admits he enjoys freedom of expression and other democratic rights in his home country of Germany. But he would not want to die for them. In a book published this week, Why I Would Never Fight for My Country, the 27-year-old argues ordinary people should not be sent into battle on behalf of nation states and their rulers — even to fend off an invasion. Occupation by a foreign power might lead to a “shitty” life, he told the Financial Times . “But I’d rather be occupied than dead.” Refereshing in times of national chauvinism, rampant capitalism, neo-fascism… “A quarter of the 18,810 men and women who signed up in 2023 left the armed forces within six months. So far top officials “from the Christian Democrats and the Social Democrats, the two parties likely to form the next government, have ruled out a revival of traditional conscription. “Since Russia’s full-scale Ukraine invasion, Germany has had a steep rise in the number of conscie...

Quote of the Week: Being on the Left

Being on the left means thinking of the world first, then of one’s country, then of ones’ relatives, then of oneself; being on the right means the opposite. Être de gauche c’est d’abord penser le monde, puis son pays, puis ses proches, puis soi ; être de droite c’est l’inverse. —Gilles Deleuze