To think about today .. from the London Review of Books
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Fernald had gone up to Trinity College, Oxford in October 1915, where he immediately joined the Officers’ Training Corps. Not much interested in his studies, he applied for a commission, stating in order his preferred branch of service – artillery, infantry, cavalry (but explicitly not the unglamorous Army Service Corps) – and confirming that he was ‘of pure European descent’. In February 1916 he completed a short service attestation form, swore allegiance before a magistrate and was posted to ‘A’ Company, No. 2 Officer Cadet Battalion in Cambridge for 16 weeks’ training. From his billet at Queens’ College, he wrote enthusiastically to his parents that he was having a ‘good healthy time’. A typical day consisted of Reveille at 6.45, followed by breakfast parade, PT, platoon drill, dinner, route march or arms drill, tea, lecture, supper, Last Post and lights out at 10.15. They played football against local boys, losing 18-0 to The Leys School, and canoed on the Cam. ‘I am very warm at nights,’ he reassured his mother, ‘and sleep like a log, eat like an elephant, work like a dog, and love my Dad and Mum as only their Van Dyke can.’ He took up smoking and sent his younger brother cigarette cards showing uniforms and battles. He revered his captain, ‘an awful sport’ who had won the Military Cross at the First Battle of Ypres. In July he was commissioned into the 3rd Battalion of the Royal West Surrey Regiment, and applied for an attachment to the RFC. The following month a medical board at Chatham confirmed his vision, hearing and blood pressure were normal, and he was in.
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it's not tribalism
It's racism (via The Atlantic)
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I am not arguing that the Democratic Party or its members are particularly virtuous. A little more than a century ago, it was the Republican Party that was reliant on a diverse coalition of voters, and the Democratic Party that rode white rage to power. Rather, I am saying that when a party’s viability is dependent on a diverse coalition of voters, that party will necessarily stand for pluralism and equal rights, because its survival depends on it. And when a party is not diverse, it will rely on demonizing those who are different, because no constituency exists within that party to prevent it from doing so, or to show its members that they have nothing to fear..
In the Trump era, America finds itself with two political parties: one that’s growing more reliant on the nation’s diversity, and one that sees its path to power in stoking fear and rage toward those who are different. America doesn’t have a “tribalism” problem. It has a racism problem. And the parties are not equally responsible.
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12:50 in Current Affairs, General Commentary, history | Permalink | Comments (0)