[lbo-talk] Human Smoke

B. docile_body at yahoo.com
Thu Feb 26 06:48:54 PST 2009


FWIW, the FDR bio I read last Xmas, HW Brands's _Traitor to His Class_, gets into Churchill a bit, as his relationship dovetailed with FDR during WWII.

Brands repeatedly makes the point that Churchill was very anxious to persuade the US to join WWII with an eye to helping England preserve its colonial holdings, which America did not have an appetite for. He chafed esp at losing India & parts of the Near East; he constantly lobbied for the US to intervene in those areas specifically.

To hear Brands say it, Churchill also chafed at some of the language FDR & Eleanor wanted included in the UN's founding principles, about peoples' rights to self-determination, as he felt that was a not-so-subtle dig at the British Empire, again especially re: India, which was starting to implode by the 40s. He was a committed imperialist, with a stubborn sense of entitlement but also resentment towards those under the British flag, like pretty much all imperialists, British, American, or no.

-B.

Max Sawicky wrote:

"And in the end what was Trotsky? Who was he? 'He was a Jew,' wrote Churchill with finality. 'He was still a Jew. Nothing could get over that.' He called his article 'Leon Trotsky, Alias Bronstein.'"



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