Sunday, February 23, 2003
[posted by jaed at 9:51 AM]Echoes:
Alistair Cookie is old enough to remember the long leadup to WWII. On the BBC this week, he recalled some of his experience:
[..] for two years before the outbreak of the Second War you could read the debates in the House of Commons and now shiver at the famous Labour men - Major Attlee was one of them - who voted against rearmament and still went on pointing to the League of Nations as the saviour.
Now, this memory of mine may be totally irrelevant to the present crisis. It haunts me.
I have to say I have written elsewhere with much conviction that most historical analogies are false because, however strikingly similar a new situation may be to an old one, there's usually one element that is different and it turns out to be the crucial one.
It may well be so here. All I know is that all the voices of the 30s are echoing through 2003.
shudder
