Hahahaha! That was ... obscure. Hilariously obscure, to be sure, but definitely obscure.
The Battle of the Somme was an infantry assault on entrenched German positions by British and French forces in 1916, during WW I. It was also the single greatest military disaster in British history. Something like 60,000 British soldiers were killed or wounded in a single day. They went over the top right into barbed wire and machine guns.
The British newspapers, heavily censored by the army, dutifully told of the great success of the battle, but it wasn't long before citizens discovered the truth as the casualty lists came in and they heard that their boys were dead.
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| The stories of victory were all lies. |
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| 30,000 were killed or wounded in the first hour. |
Fast forward to today. We've just finished about 8 weeks of Black Lives Matter mania and it's still running, getting stronger as it goes. From riots and looting to giant words painted on streets to monuments destroyed to corporations kneeling to the BLM movement to every major sports league pledging their loyalty to BLM, this thing has raced through society.
What's the result?
We've sent poor blacks right into the machine guns.
The cops have left, local businesses are boarded up and crime is out of control. This has been a disaster on the order of the Somme. For the poor blacks living in the inner cities, their lives are demonstrably worse. Day-to-day functioning is more dangerous and difficult now than it was before.
The comparison hit me when I saw this tweet from Hollywood celebrity Rob Reiner.
Watching the Dodger/Giant game. The tribute to BLM with everyone kneeling gives me the chills and makes me proud to be an American.
— Rob Reiner (@robreiner) July 24, 2020
Like the people living back in peaceful England, his life is utterly unaffected by the violence, chaos and deprivations in the inner cities. He can shop where he likes and has no fear of crime where he lives. In fact, his position is much better than that of the civilians on the Home Front in 1916. Their brothers, sons, husbands and lovers were being killed. No one Rob knows is endangered at all. Using Twitter, he can cheer on the slaughter from his mansion.
Rob lives in the world of the Evening Dispatch, above. It's all going splendidly! The German lines have been overrun and many prisoners have been taken. Since no one he knows has been hurt, he can cling to his fantasy for the rest of his life. He supported the Great Cause of Racial Justice, you know. Hurrah! Good show, old boy.
CNN, NPR, the AP and all the rest will keep feeding him the Social Justice narrative. Victory over police brutality and white supremacists is right around the corner, Rob! We just need to smash a few more statues, cancel a few more people, root out a little more unconsciously-biased racists and we'll win. Don't give up now, lean forward! This is no time for weakness. Find those racists and expose them. Fire them, harass them, humiliate them.
Victory depends on you!
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| Well done, Rob. Well done. |
3 comments:
Let me assure you that ‘Somme lives matter’ was not too obscure for anyone who knows even a modicum of history. Now that rules out essentially all of the younger protestors/rioters/lefty-looneys (who think the sun started shining they day they born), but it doesn’t rule out your readers.
:-)
My history is...well, rather good for having been in the last 40 years, which means it's horrifically spotty and self-taught but I can find the truth for SOME of the more outlandish stuff.
I "got" it because I read too many old English mysteries. Isn't that a Mandatory Veteran's Background for inter-war characters? Vaguely remember either Peter Whimsey or one of his buddies mentioning that meatgrinder, too.
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