Calls for a more inclusive, Big Tent, society have been timeless.
Women wanted in, Immigrants, Aboriginals and Visible Minorities wanted in, the Physically Challenged and LGBT wanted in, Youth wanted in.
The West wanted in.
They all got in.
And now it is the turn of the 2/3 of voters who find no voice in Parliament for their vote.
"The 2/3 wants in !"
Showing posts with label big tent. Show all posts
Showing posts with label big tent. Show all posts
Saturday, October 24, 2015
The inspiration for HFAx2
As a kid, I was convinced WWII only ended because the small penicillin molds began saving kids faster than the Big People could bomb or burn them.
And why not?
As an adult, I discovered that Dr Henry Dawson and Dr Josef Mengele, from vastly opposing moral positions, had totally upended pre-war notions of "Progress" and put the fatal post into Modernity.
And why not?
As an adult, I discovered that Dr Henry Dawson and Dr Josef Mengele, from vastly opposing moral positions, had totally upended pre-war notions of "Progress" and put the fatal post into Modernity.
Tuesday, October 13, 2015
Physically small but Morally big
Despite its nickname, the other ("Big Tent") Manhattan Project was actually physically quite small, but morally as big as could be.
Thursday, September 17, 2015
Allied Big tent needed, to defeat Axis quickly
In mid 1940, the Axis's Big Tent still included fellow traveller Joseph Stalin*, along with a whole host of quasi fascist governments in the nominally Neutral nations. (Franco and Petain's governments were among the most prominent).
The British Empire alone, still had a huge demographic advantage over the Axis nations it was formally at war with, if Whitehall choose to include the colored populations of the Far East, Africa and the West indies, along with the French-speaking Canadians.
By and large it did not.
If the army forces placed in Britain as a potential invasion force against Germany's home territory had to be too small to do the job as a price for remaining basically all-white and all Protestant, so be it.
Because if Britain's infantry was boosted by six million Indian "colored" volunteers that then led the successful invasion into Germany (at the cost of the de facto recognition of the postwar independence of India) then Churchill and ninety percent of the English elite wanted no part in it.
Over and over, all the Allied nations (along with the Axis, by the by) chose to be at a military disadvantage, in a total war situation, rather than risk the unleashing of the social consequences of a Big Tent coalition, because it would result in a too wide a sharing of the moral success of victory.
One almost feels that if the elites had believed that the war could have been successfully conducted a small elite force of middle class volunteers in metal machines of submarines, airplanes and tanks, waging war from far above the fray, they would have done so.
Foregoing the conscripting of mass infantry armies of working class men, all demanding postwar pensions and political and moral rights that come from having personally defeated the enemy in old fashioned face to face combat.
It was the united effort to avoid sharing the wartime responsibilities, if it also meant sharing postwar power, that Dr Henry Dawson set out to combat with his personal Manhattan Project ....
* Who can forget Stalin's northern naval base that he provided for Nazi u-boats - who besides the apologist historians for the Allied cause ?
The British Empire alone, still had a huge demographic advantage over the Axis nations it was formally at war with, if Whitehall choose to include the colored populations of the Far East, Africa and the West indies, along with the French-speaking Canadians.
By and large it did not.
If the army forces placed in Britain as a potential invasion force against Germany's home territory had to be too small to do the job as a price for remaining basically all-white and all Protestant, so be it.
Because if Britain's infantry was boosted by six million Indian "colored" volunteers that then led the successful invasion into Germany (at the cost of the de facto recognition of the postwar independence of India) then Churchill and ninety percent of the English elite wanted no part in it.
The lessons of The Great War for the world's elites : modern all-out war unleashed social changes almost worse than abject military defeat...
Over and over, all the Allied nations (along with the Axis, by the by) chose to be at a military disadvantage, in a total war situation, rather than risk the unleashing of the social consequences of a Big Tent coalition, because it would result in a too wide a sharing of the moral success of victory.
One almost feels that if the elites had believed that the war could have been successfully conducted a small elite force of middle class volunteers in metal machines of submarines, airplanes and tanks, waging war from far above the fray, they would have done so.
Foregoing the conscripting of mass infantry armies of working class men, all demanding postwar pensions and political and moral rights that come from having personally defeated the enemy in old fashioned face to face combat.
It was the united effort to avoid sharing the wartime responsibilities, if it also meant sharing postwar power, that Dr Henry Dawson set out to combat with his personal Manhattan Project ....
* Who can forget Stalin's northern naval base that he provided for Nazi u-boats - who besides the apologist historians for the Allied cause ?
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