rigorousintuition.ca

This is a fascinating video. Long (3 hours) but fascinating.

I hope it hasn't been referenced elsewhere on the RI fora. If it has, my apologies.

A film by Francis Richard Conolly, whom I haven't ever heard of.

thanks Neon... ..I'm going to watch it beginning to end right now

Me too! Thanks NeonLX!

I think I need to check my blood pressure.

whafo? - not rigorous enough?, dodgy sourcedom?

I learned a few new things....and if there's one thing that will explain this world we live in.....

seemslikeadream » 09 Jan 2015 15:59 wrote:I learned a few new things....and if there's one thing that will explain this world we live in.....

Yes indeed. The American railroad robber baron family, by the name of Harriman, sponsored by a famous banking house, who's name currently escapes me, did actually build the railroad to Auschwitz.

Id love some documental confirmation of the apparent fact that the Dulles brothers were the legal architects of the Treaty of Versailles, though nothing would surprise me any more.

Brown Brothers? - Brown Brothers Harriman

slimmouse » Fri Jan 09, 2015 12:50 pm wrote:Id love some documental confirmation of the apparent fact that the Dulles brothers were the legal architects of the Treaty of Versailles, though nothing would surprise me any more.

They were not.

Allen was hanging out with John at the Paris Conference, but in his capacity with the CFR -- he was not on the negotiation team like John was (under Robert Lansing, but Lansing was kind of a non-entity, the kind of team player who effectively writes himself out of history).

It is surely difficult to overstate how influential those two were, for decades, but that doesn't mean they were Gods -- and besides, the historical record is sufficiently gnarled to make the very concept of "Authorship" very problematic, as it pertains to a treaty that was negotiated amongst 25+ nations and nearly 100 delegates.

John Foster was already a heavy with Sullivan & Cromwell and the historical record is very clear he -- repeatedly, strongly -- argued against making it impossible for Germany to recover, something that many delegates were keen to impose.

Still, the Treaty of Versailles was too important and too multi-polar to credibly assert it was the work of "the Dulles brothers," any more than the creation of the OSS was.

Edit: I am assuming everyone reading this knows about Col. House. If not: remedy that.

Wombaticus Rex » 09 Jan 2015 20:06 wrote:

slimmouse » Fri Jan 09, 2015 12:50 pm wrote:Id love some documental confirmation of the apparent fact that the Dulles brothers were the legal architects of the Treaty of Versailles, though nothing would surprise me any more.

They were not.

Allen was hanging out with John at the Paris Conference, but in his capacity with the CFR -- he was not on the negotiation team like John was (under Robert Lansing, but Lansing was kind of a non-entity, the kind of team player who effectively writes himself out of history).

It is surely difficult to overstate how influential those two were, for decades, but that doesn't mean they were Gods -- and besides, the historical record is sufficiently gnarled to make the very concept of "Authorship" very problematic, as it pertains to a treaty that was negotiated amongst 25+ nations and nearly 100 delegates.

John Foster was already a heavy with Sullivan & Cromwell and the historical record is very clear he -- repeatedly, strongly -- argued against making it impossible for Germany to recover, something that many delegates were keen to impose.

Still, the Treaty of Versailles was too important and too multi-polar to credibly assert it was the work of "the Dulles brothers," any more than the creation of the OSS was.

Edit: I am assuming everyone reading this knows about Col. House. If not: remedy that.

Fair comment WR. I'm also prepared to forgive the percieved overstatement by Conolly, since it puts the incredible war reparations which were demanded by the allies, also mentioned by yourself, into some real context, when looking at events leading up to WW2.

It looks a bit more like that three dimensional chess-game thingy.

Right, and who wants to watch Youtube videos exposing ... three dimensional chess?

People want linear narratives and obvious bad guys. The notion of systemic problems is uncomfortable, since that means we need to change, rather than just basking in the luxury of complaining about...well, obvious bad guys.

The horrifying truth is that anyone with a few billion dollars can enter the game and the exact same problems start all over again. It is much more comforting to believe that if we could merely get rid of Those Bad Men, everything would improve. In fact, we live in the best possible world, given the circumstances.

Wombaticus Rex wrote:The horrifying truth is that anyone with a few billion dollars can enter the game and the exact same problems start all over again.

Well, sure, as long as theyre of the same informed frame of mind as their disturbed predecessors.

Wombaticus Rex wrote:In fact, we live in the best possible world, given the circumstances.

I have to say that personally, thus far, its all been a gig in just about every sense of the word.

Its just the totally uneccesary, shitty state of affairs around the world that really pisses me off.

slimmouse » Sun Jan 11, 2015 11:52 am wrote:Its just the totally uneccesary, shitty state of affairs around the world that really pisses me off.

I used to see things the same way. I certainly couldn't point to what changed my mind, but the past few hundred history hardcovers probably had someone to do with it.

Now, "shitty" I will agree with, no hesitation. Shitty indeed.

But "un-necessary," that I'm far less certain about. My misgivings are a multi-layered inter-disciplinary clusterfuck, but that recent piece I posted here, Meditations on Moloch, did a startlingly good job outlining my precise train of thought.

As always, I recommend Howard Bloom's best book, "The Lucifer Principle." I don't think that Earth problems are the result of an evil cabal because the facts as I understand them will not allow me to entertain that notion.

We are the problem - you, me, everybody.

We are the problem - you, me, everybody.

He says, cutting to the metaphysical quiick.

the funny thing is, the closer you try to get towards ceasing to being any problem at all, the harder the challenge.

Words on a screen

Agreed, Wombat. Because here I sit. However I want to echo the fact (since I relented and watched the whole thing last night) that this video is quite good. It gave me the chills a few times. The chills, because it covered ideas I had already independently thought of myself by just the mental act of extrapolation. It begins with when I realized some twenty years ago that hitler was a drama queen and not "real". I think it all came about when I read the Rise and Fall.

I believe I have admitted here that I was one of the first people to espouse the theory that (back then, all I had to go on) that American tycoons funded both sides of the "war" in collusion with other international firms. To this day it's why I basically always put "war" in quotes. I was roundly ridiculed at metafilter for bringing up such an idea god, jesus 15 years ago -- it's been that long(?). Now there is no doubt and nobody will give you an argument. Back then it was hella controversial. I was brought to tears in arguments about this bullshit because I had no other way to express myself about how much all "wars" are in fact bullshit. I would literally cry to people I disagreed with. I fucking don't know where I got it from, but I got it good. This isn't about me and I am not trying to "steal the spotlight", I am just saying that it was easy to read the tea leaves, as it were. All I can write is from being an armchair historian and leftist/anarchist that wishes no harm on any entity in any capacity under any terms.