15 quotes from Winston ChurchHill

He also was a racist and white supremacist. For example:

"It is alarming and nauseating to see Mr Gandhi, a seditious Middle Temple lawyer, now posing as a fakir… striding half-naked up the steps of the Vice-regal Palace," Churchill said of his anti-colonialist adversary in 1931. "Gandhi should not be released on the account of a mere threat of fasting," Churchill told the cabinet on another occasion. "We should be rid of a bad man and an enemy of the Empire if he died."

"In 1937, he told the Palestine Royal Commission: "I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place."

"I cannot understand this squeamishness about the use of gas," he wrote in a memo during his role as minister for war and air in 1919. "I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes," he continued."

source: The 10 greatest controversies of Winston Churchill's career - BBC News

 

I haven't had a chance to check the ones in the pdf, but sometimes it's worth verifying the quotes in collections like that.

I've got a family member who proudly displays a "Thomas Jefferson" quote on the fridge that Tom never said.

 

Yes, one random quote out of context can be problematic like that. That's why it's important to fact check, as well as understand context to judge the accuracy of quotes and if you know your history you know what it took to evict the British Empire from India because they were unwilling to leave. Also it's important to know Churchill's role in the 40 million total deaths in World War I:

"At the outbreak of war in 1914, Churchill was serving as First Lord of the Admiralty. In 1915 he helped orchestrate the disastrous Dardanelles naval campaign and was also involved in the planning of the military landings on Gallipoli, both of which saw large losses. Following the failure of these campaigns, Churchill was demoted and resigned from government. He became an officer in the Army and served on the Western Front until early 1916. In 1917, under Prime Minister David Lloyd George’s coalition government, Churchill was appointed Minister of Munitions, a position he held until January 1919. In 1919, shortly after the end of the war, he was appointed Secretary of State for Air and War. In this role he attended peace talks in Paris in 1919. He was not involved in the peace process itself but took part in discussions about the shape of the post-war world. He held this position until 1921." http://www.iwm.org.uk/history/churchills-first-world-war


Photo Source: http://www.freepressjournal.in/world/fpj-fast-facts-why-winston-churchill-was-a-racist-that-indians-should-never-celebrate

 

This is why one of the great American tragedies is the fact that in many US States there is no requirement that history be taught in primary schools, and those that do have such courses usually cram them into the acedemic corners as something to be taught by a football or basketball coach.

Two things can be true at once:
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill KG, OM, CH, TD, DL, FRS, RA was a mysoginist, a functioning alky, something of a racist or at the very least racially insensitive, and?????
Through the sheer force of his personality he probably, nearly singlehandedly, saved Western Civilization.
As we plunge headlong into what will probably be the first "Asian Century" one might presume that "Western Civilization" might not have been worth saving.
Remember...the sun still shone on the British Empire 24x7 and Britannia ruled the waves until approximately 10 December, 1941 - 1318 hours, local (South China Sea time) so the UK's Prime Minister was sorta important and had real power.
I personally always thought that Arthur Neville Chamberlain, FRS kinda got shafted by history because people almost universally take history out of context.
People forget that the UK (and others) were utterly emasculated by "the war to end all wars" and the UK was even LESS prepared for a large scale war in 1937 and 1938 than they were in 1940, counting Sitskrieg.
As it is, the UK was BARELY able to "stand alone" and it was only through their brilliant preparation and a seemingly divine series of miscalculations from their enemies that they came out the other side without a bunch of trenches scarring their nation.
AND....
There was Winston.

Big people have big, complex personalities.
I often and loudly credit Franklin Delano Roosevelt with TWICE saving America ALSO nearly single handed and ALSO mostly through the sheer force of his personality.
America was openly flirting with REAL, gimme that old time religion COMMUNISM in the early 1930s.
FDR wiped his backside with the Constitution and economically saved the US - probably planting the seeds for its ultimate destruction, but hey...you gotta be alive to be destroyed.
Then....
He got together with some for-real Southern Segregationists and planted some more seeds IN THE 1930s that would result in the US being (barely) able to meet the military challenges of the 1940's......which is one of the reasons that 20-percent of all Nimitz class carriers are named for southern crackers instead of Presidents and an Admiral.
FDR flagrantly broke the law on a number of occasions with the AVG in China, Eagle SquadronS in the UK, waging a for-real sea war in the Atlantic before Pearl Harbor, invading Iceland, etc...etc...

AND YET.....he went against the advice of his FBI director and AG and imprisoned a bunch of Asian Americans and not-yet Americans, BECAUSE THEY WERE Asian Americans and not-yet Americans.


Just remember two things:
"Progressive c-1930" isn't the same as "progressive c-2020"
And...."some" non-western countries TODAY can teach graduate level courses on slavery, racism, misogynism, and LGBTQ+SOMEOTHERLETTERS insensitivity.

In the west, even today, we cherish the ability to slag on our leaders......past and present.
Cherish that right.....by being RIGHT when you do.....


FUN FACT:
USS Winston S. Churchill (DDG-81) is the only U.S. Naval vessel authorized to fly a foreign ensign, in this case the Royal Navy's White Ensign.
No...not a non-diverse junior officer - THE FLAG.
Winston usually flies this flag, on special occasions on her port side, with our own ensign slightly higher on the starboard side, although during normal underway ops the UK flag is generally omitted.
She also has a Royal Navy exchange officer permanently assigned to the ship's company (usually a Navigation Officer.)

 

In my Oklahoma City high school, it was in the auditorium with 2-3 empty seats between students and TVs for every 20-30 students on platforms in the seats. The 'teachers' were actually there to make sure we appeared to be paying attention with paddling being a favorite punishment.

So one day, I was caught reading "The Red Menace" by J. Edgar Hoover. You could see the obvious conflict in his face that I would actually be reading a book by someone he knew and admired. No paddling but I didn't get my paperback book back.

Bob Wilson

 

That's a very superficial understanding of cancel culture... Life is never just simply right vs. wrong and who wins. People who think so are usually entrenched in their ways, don't like learning new things, like a foreign language and have a general reliance on xenophobia to reassure themselves that their judgement is absolute and not to be questioned.

But better than that is one of the most important things I've learned in life and in grad school is the value of suspending judgement to better learn and understand other perspectives, as well as value them. For example, studies have found that people who speak more than one language are good at this and more interested in better understanding something that others are saying than people who only speak one language and reject anyone as wrong if they don't act like them or talk like them.

Point being in this thread... Speaking the truth about who Churchill was can go beyond his positive aspects and that doesn't become an effort to cancel him, but an effort to better understand the context that his life existed in and the fact that on one hand he can be the guy who successfully defended the motherland from the Nazis, but on the other hand he was a hateful oppressor of the people of India and a massive loser causing the deaths of millions in WWI and was demoted to the frontlines. And perhaps had the US not joined WWII England would of become part of the German empire and Churchill would been remembered as the one who failed England.

That's what is fascinating about studying history and how differing perspectives provide valuable insight rather than canceling each other out.

These two extremes of who he was don't "cancel" each other out, they simply are. And those who think otherwise are more of a problem than cancel culture is.

 

Not millions.
Not even a tenth of that.
The UK lost something like 750,000 troops in combat in the first World War., and I don't think you get to blame Sir Winston for ALL of them.
Churchill was involved in the Dardanelles naval campaign to include the planning of the military landings on Gallipoli.
That's something like 35 thousand IF you blame Churchill for ALL of THEM, something that is somewhat counter factual, if you ever read up on that part of the 'great war.'
He DID screw the pooch, and he could have MAYBE kept the pooch from being screwed, but there were maybe a few other people who could have also made those little missadventures somewhat less costly.

Perhaps you should read up on him a little more.
The_Last_Lion:_Winston_Spencer_Churchill

One of my favorite authors on the subject is William_Manchester who like friend @bwilson4web was a Marine and is off to my left a little bit, politically speaking, so his works are a little more 'woke friendly' than some other books out there.....just a little.
Manchester also wrote one of the better US History books covering the period between FDR and Tricky Dick, and he also had a lot to say about General Douglas MacArthur - from the perspective of a combat wounded Marine in the Pacific Theater, albeit not under Doug's command.

 

People can grow and change like the late Justice Black and Senator Robert Byrd. It Wi why Jesus teaches us forgiveness for when someone reforms. ... often into a much better person.

Bob Wilson