Enoch Powell Could Not Be Reached for Comment

In the 1970s, China’s Zhou Enlai was quoted that when asked how the French Revolution was going, he famously responded, “it’s too soon to say.” Similarly, here’s a pair of interesting revisions on the history of Europe in the 1960s and ’70s.

First up in London Telegraph, “Germany Abolishes Itself:” — “In hindsight the guest-worker immigration of the 1960s and ’70s was a colossal mistake:”

Caldwell himself pushed the terms of debate with his 2009 book, which argued from a rational, moderate and humane viewpoint, and looking from a historical perspective in particular, that mass (rather than elite) immigration in Europe came with far larger costs than benefits. But why are we afraid of discussing it? It is not just decency or fear of offending people, nor of blood in the streets or a return to Fascism, but, as Sazzarin points out, vested interests. Caldwell writes: “He notes that ‘a host of integration specialists, Islam scholars, sociologists, political scientists, and activists, and a raft of naive politicians work hand in hand, and tirelessly, on belittlement, self-deception and denial’.

“That is why Sarrazin has struck a nerve in areas that go far beyond immigration and poverty policy. The regime of euphemism has not just led to mistakes. It has also empowered a class of so-called Gutmenschen in government and the academy. If Sarrazin is right, then much of what they have lately done is not just misguided but, however good their intentions, corrupt. They are fighting with considerable skill for their political lives. Sarrazin’s few political defenders, meanwhile, tend to have one thing in common — they are retired.”

Gutmenschen. What a wonderfully apt term for the self-righteous public servants for whom diversity really is enriching. How many people in Britain make a living from multiculturalism and “community cohesion”? The number of taxpayer and partly-taxpayer funded government bodies, community groups, political organisations and “charities” devoted towards diversity and equality or race relations is certainly in the four figures, and the total cost to the taxpayer must be several hundred millions of pounds – all totally wasted.

Meanwhile, as Kathy Shaidle quips, “Old [British] hippie admits Pope was right:”

Aging boomer reveals that the 60s sound amazingly similar to… today! Progress!!

I mainly remember the 60s as an endless round of miserable promiscuity, a time when often it seemed easier and, believe it or not, more polite, to sleep with a man than to chuck him out of your flat. (…)

lots of us girls spent the entire 60s in tears, because however one tried to separate sex from love, we’d been brought up to associate the two; so every time we went to bed with someone, we’d hope it would lead to something more permanent…and each time it never did.

Although I must admit — this is original:

The other reason that sex was so grim was that now it was so easy, the art of seduction had flown out of the window.

I’m sure this was partly why working-class men became so much more attractive to everyone in the 60s. They’d always found, with less birth control available among the working classes and expensive abortion not an option, that in order to get a girl into bed they had to work really hard at the chat-up lines.

On the other hand, that “old hippie” is also the same person whom we wrote about in October of 2010:

Oh to be in England: Late last week, we had the 10/10 radical environmental group espousing what J.E. Dyer at Hot Air dubs “The Final Solution to the Global Warming Skeptic Question.” Hot on their heels comes another chilling moment from Airstrip One, as spotted by Scott Baker of Glenn Beck’s The Blaze blog, who writes:

Advice columnists in Britain are known as “agony aunts” (or uncles). Virginia Ironside is one. Her latest bit of advice has drawn outraged reaction from television viewers who caught her comments on the BBC yesterday. She appeared during a segment called, “Can abortion be a kindness?” Here’s the Daily Mail account of her comments:

Miss Ironside said: ‘If a baby’s going to be born severely disabled or totally unwanted, surely an abortion is the act of a loving mother.’
She added: ‘If I were the mother of a suffering child – I mean a deeply suffering child – I would be the first to want to put a pillow over its face… If it was a child I really loved, who was in agony, I think any good mother would.’

[youtube 5RAAhTL4Arg]

Actually, if they recorded a version for the German market, it would likely sound much more authentic, especially if they could work in the phrase, Lebensunwertes Leben.