On Demand
What Would Winston Do?
Barry Singer, owner of Chartwell Booksellers, and Jon Meacham editor-in-chief of Newsweek, who recently edited the June 23rd cover story "What Would Winston Do?", discuss Winston Churchill's legacy and its relevance today.
Chartwell Booksellers presents "What Would Churchill Do? A Symposium"
“A War Worth Fighting” by Christopher Hitchens (Newsweek, June 23, 2008)
“The Mythology of Munich” by Evan Thomas (Newsweek, June 23, 2008)
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Er, call Washington?
Does is matter what Winston Churchill would do! For chrissake were sinking fast a low here and we're concerned about what and dead man would do? Hul-lo!
While at it you may want to ask what Jefferson Davis might do?
WWWD? He'd Go to his drinking Buddies,
and say: HEY... I gave you some LAND to start your country.
You can give me CA$H (and buy me out of this problem...)
history: The man gave half of the original OTTOMAN empire it was CARETAKING and gave it AWAY
to start TWO different ARAB countries.
THAT's where PALESTINE should be today...
he should be stripped of his knighthood for terrible service to the english empire and entire world
Winston would never give up and he would stay positive. He would look at everything objectively and make an informed decision with the working people in mind.
Remember he said, never give up, never give up, never give up!
One thing about Churchill --
He radically _overmobilized_ Britain during the war, which left Britain in vastly poorer position than it might have been after the war.
For example, Churchill called for people to donate their aluminum pots and pans for aircraft production (among other things). People did so and were left with little if any aluminum. MOST of those pots and pans went unused.
and THIS ISSUE beats WHY the ENTIRE COUNTRY is
falling APART and why we NEEd to REBUILD the ENTIRE country from the GROUND up?
ehh.
Churchill was primarily a opportunist.
"Three or four years ago I was myself a loud alarmist. . . . In spite of the
risks which wait on prophecy, I declare my belief that a major war is not
imminent, and I still believe that there is a good chance of no major war
taking place in our lifetime. . . . I will not pretend that, if I had to choose
between Communism and Nazism, I would choose Communism" -Churchill, 1937
These comparisons and analogies usually don't work out, okay. It may sell a book and I say good, I hope you make the million dollars you want and I don't intend to malign or belittle your scholarship but I don't think what is happening today is necessarily similar to anything that happened in Churchill's day. The personalities are quite different in this particular instance.
No dark side to Churchill?!
The man supported eugenics in the first two decades of the 20th Century!
He was closely involved with some of the military disasters of the British wars before WW1. (Can't remember the specifics of this.)
Question:
Why are Americans so much more enamored of Churchill than the British?
Nothing "dark" in Churchill's legacy?!!!
You can keep ignoring the depraved and evil behavoir of your historical idols in Africa but that doesn't mean that didn't happen and wasn't depraved and evil.
Mr. Winston Churchill was a colonialist, imperialist, reactionary who said of Gandhi:
"It is alarming and also nauseating to see Mr. Gandhi, a seditious middle temple lawyer, now posing as a fakir of a type well known in the east, striding half-naked up the steps of the viceregal palace, while he is still organizing and conducting a defiant campaign of civil disobedience, to parley on equal terms with the representative of the king-emperor."
Good Grief, Brian! George Bush acting the way FDR would? NO, no, no, no, no. NO.
Bush is acting the way corporatists aligned with government act. Were the word not so loaded, I would call it by its more well-known name: facism.
Or, the coordination of government and corporations to aid and assist one another.
This is not an FDR-style action--FDR would make assisting the bottom rungs of the economy a starting point, not a trickle down effect. This is another wealth transfer from the taxpayers to the uberwealthy and corporations.
Your statement (unfortunately the exact words fled my mind in the trek through the house to the PC) was said as a witticism and drew appreciative chuckles from your guests, but they represent the MCM--Mainstream CORPORATE Media--and its ideas of how to sell ideas beneficial to corporations and the wealthy to the majority of the public. I know it's very easy to fall into a simpatico feeling with your guests, but, c'mon, this was false and also demeaning to FDR. Please rethink your joke.
Words matter.
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