The 1930s were humanity's darkest, bloodiest hour. Are you paying attention?

[babylonsister]

The 1930s were humanity's darkest, bloodiest hour. Are you paying attention?

A decade haunted by mass poverty, violent extremism and world war gives us one crucial advantage: the chance to learn the era’s lessons and avoid its mistakes

by Jonathan Freedland

Saturday 11 March 2017 03.00 EST


Even to mention the 1930s is to evoke the period when human civilisation entered its darkest, bloodiest chapter. No case needs to be argued; just to name the decade is enough. It is a byword for mass poverty, violent extremism and the gathering storm of world war. “The 1930s” is not so much a label for a period of time than it is rhetorical shorthand – a two-word warning from history.

snip//

Because that decade was scarred by multiple evils, the phrase can be used to conjure up serial spectres. It has an international meaning, with a vocabulary that centres on Hitler and Nazism and the failure to resist them: from brownshirts and Goebbels to appeasement, Munich and Chamberlain. And it has a domestic meaning, with a lexicon and imagery that refers to the Great Depression: the dust bowl, soup kitchens, the dole queue and Jarrow. It was this second association that gave such power to a statement from the usually dry Office for Budget Responsibility, following then-chancellor George Osborne’s autumn statement in 2014. The OBR warned that public spending would be at its lowest level since the 1930s; the political damage was enormous and instant.

In recent months, the 1930s have been invoked more than ever, not to describe some faraway menace but to warn of shifts under way in both Europe and the United States. The surge of populist, nationalist movements in Europe, and their apparent counterpart in the US, has stirred unhappy memories and has, perhaps inevitably, had commentators and others reaching for the historical yardstick to see if today measures up to 80 years ago.

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https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/mar/11/1930s-humanity-darkest-bloodiest-hour-paying-attention-second-world-war?CMP=share_btn_fb

[RKP5637]

1. Excellent Read!!! n/t

[Control-Z]

2. I'm recommending your OP

but honestly, I just can't bear to read any more of the article. Not right now. Not tonight. I can't.

[BlueMTexpat]

3. Thanks for posting, babylonsister!

What is also interesting is that I am currently reading Ken Follett's Century trilogy, courtesy of a Welsh friend who lent me her copies of the books. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Follett#Century_trilogy

I have almost finished the second novel, Winter of the World, which deals with much of the 1930s and 1940s through the eyes of the five families depicted. While fiction, it has a real feel of what is happening to us all right now.

I had never read any of the novels before and they are impressively lengthy tomes, although very easy to read. Now that I am fully retired, I am able to do such things.

I highly recommend them.

[babylonsister]

5. Thanks for that recommendation.

The last Follett novel I read was 'The Pillars of the Earth'. A daunting read but I got happily sucked in and enjoyed it.

I will check this trilogy out!

[Dan]

4. Sadly,

our failure to learn will lead to a lesson that none (or very few) of us will have a chance to learn. The lesson is quite simply this - few if any of us will survive WWIII. Oh, Mr. Bannon - world population numbers would seem to indicate that if any do survive - the majority might be darker in color, screwing up your plans for the next world order.

[PufPuf23]

6. Thank you for the article.

The immediate future has the potential to be the 1930s magnified.

Why?

technology especially of communications and war
global warming
destruction of soil, water, fish, wildlife, and forests plus a great extinction even in progress.
much higher population and over population
diminished natural resources
concentrated wealth and power
evil that lurks