"How Do We Get Rid of You?"

"'A historical perspective is the key to democratic politics, which if denied can bury the real issues and confine news coverage to high-level gossip about the rich and the powerful, reducing us to the role of spectators of our fate, rather than active participants,' he argued. 'The obliteration of the past strengthens the short-term calculations that pass for political thought, and for me the real heroes are those few who try to explain the world in order to help us to understand what we can best do to improve our lot.'"

John Nichols at The Nation marks the one-hundredth anniversary of Tony Benn's birth.

"For the Nation"

"Amery's point on September 2, 1939, in the wake of Hitler's invasion of Poland, was that there are times when the Loyal Opposition needs to speak not just for the opposition, but for the country. There are times when country comes first, when a government of one's own party has utterly failed and needs to be called to account on behalf of the nation as a whole.
"This is such a time in America, in 2020."

At The Bullwark, William Kristol calls on Joe Biden to "speak for America."

"Was Brexit Inevitable?"

"A misguided narrative is taking hold about Brexit, both here and abroad. According to this argument, David Cameron called the 2016 referendum on whether Britain should remain a member of the European Union solely for party-management purposes. When he did, he unleashed a wave of atavistic xenophobia whipped up by the tabloid media, and uneducated, working-class Britons were consequently fooled by lies and false promises.
"If only politicians hadn't picked the scab, the country could have ticked along quite happily, so the conceit goes."

Henry Newman at The Atlantic writes that the above "interpretation might provide comfort to some, but it's fundamentally specious."

"Being American or British Is Not about Belonging to a Certain Group; It's about Believing in a Certain Set of Ideals"

"Over time, the people of this nation waged a long and sometimes bloody struggle to expand and secure their freedom from the crown. Propelled by the ideals of the Enlightenment, they would ultimately forge an English Bill of Rights, and invest the power to govern in the elected parliament that's gathered here today.
"What began on this island would inspire millions throughout the continent of Europe and across the world. But perhaps no one drew greater inspiration from these notions of freedom than your rabble-rousing colonists on the other side of the Atlantic. As Winston Churchill said, the '...Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, the Habeas Corpus, trial by jury, and English common law find their most famous expression in the American Declaration of Independence.'"

CNN International publishes the text of President Obama's speech to Parliament in Westminster Hall.

More Bounce to the Ounce

"Among the book’s many revelations is that the vocoder’s two cultures—the military and the funky—completely failed to speak to each other. 'Of all the World War II cryptology experts I interviewed,' Tompkins writes, 'none was aware of the vocoder’s activities in the clubs, rinks, and parks of New York City… Of all the hip-hop civilians I interviewed, none was aware of the vocoder’s service in any war.' It’s a nice irony, given the vocoder’s original function to connect people."

Sam Anderson in New York reviews Dave Tompkins's How To Wreck A Nice Beach: The Vocoder From World War II to Hip-Hop, the Machine Speaks.

City College Churchills

"The radical inclination, the intellectual banality and the overweening certainty all derive from what Heilbrunn accurately describes as 'a highly selective and moralistic view of history as a drama of salvation and idolatry.' The point is a crucial one. For neoconservatives, the past begins and ends with the period 1938 to 1945. This is history as tendentious parable in which appeasement always invites aggression; 'isolationism' paves the way for holocaust; and vigorous leadership (neoconservatives strongly favoring Winston Churchill over Franklin Delano Roosevelt) ensures the ultimate triumph of freedom, albeit too late to save the millions carted off to the Nazi death camps."

Andrew J. Bacevich reviews Jacob Heilbrunn's They Knew They Were Right: The Rise of the Neocons in the Los Angeles Times.

As does David Greenberg in The American Prospect.

Practice What We Preach

"Nonetheless, he was convinced that he alone could bring Hitler and Benito Mussolini to heel. He surrounded himself with like-minded advisers and refused to heed anyone who told him otherwise.
"In the months leading up to World War II, Chamberlain and his men saw little need to build up a strong coalition of European allies with which to confront Nazi Germany -- ignoring appeals from Churchill and others to fashion a 'Grand Alliance' of nations to thwart the threat that Hitler posed to the continent."

Lynne Olson in The Washington Post argues that George W. Bush is more Neville Chamberlain than Winston Churchill.

Bush Fails History

"Bush's cavalier invocations of history for political purposes are not surprising. But for an American president to dredge up ugly old canards about Yalta stretches the boundaries of decency and should draw reprimands..."

In Slate, David Greenberg of Rutgers University rebuts George W. Bush's recent comments about the Yalta Conference of 1945.