I have a bad habit of wandering around Wikipedia reading random facts about random things. I also have a bad habit of masturbating with a handful of crushed Doritos, but that’s neither here nor there. I will often go on to Wikipedia to look something up, see a link that interests me, and then five hours later I am doing painstaking research into the Kajagoogoo back catalogue. If only I could devote myself to more useful things, like exercise, getting rid of my monobrow, or kicking the masturbating-with-chips thing. Anyway, the other day I ended up on the Wikipedia article for Gandhi. To be honest, all I really know about Gandhi is that portraying him has pretty well ruined Ben Kingsley as an actor for me. Every time I watch “Sexy Beast“, I keep thinking, “Gandhi’s acting like a bit of an asshole.” Given my ignorance, the Wikipedia page was incredibly informative. Informative about some of the half-assed, crackpot views Gandhi had, that is. Let’s see how Gandhi suggested the English deal with the issue of standing up to the fascist and totalitarian Nazi regime:

“I would like you to lay down the arms you have as being useless for saving you or humanity. You will invite Herr Hitler and Signor Mussolini to take what they want of the countries you call your possessions…If these gentlemen choose to occupy your homes, you will vacate them. If they do not give you free passage out, you will allow yourselves, man, woman, and child, to be slaughtered, but you will refuse to owe allegiance to them.”

Curiously, the original plan for the D-Day invasion was actually to drop soldiers at Normandy and have them acted very passive-aggressively with the Germans. This plan was scrapped, however, when it was determined that this was the stupidest fucking thing ever thought of ever.  

Gandhi didn’t stop there, though. You would think that he would have something interesting and insightful to say about the global human tragedy that was the Holocaust.  You would be wrong:

“Hitler,” Gandhi said, “killed five million Jews. It is the greatest crime of our time. But the Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher’s knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs… It would have aroused the world and the people of Germany… As it is they succumbed anyway in their millions.”

Sorry…they should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs? Why? To make it easier for the Germans?

Himmler (1944) - [picks up telephone receiver and dials] “Hello, Mein Fuhrer? You will never guess what’s happening….Oh, you heard already?….I know! I don’t even know what to say! This is like Christmas for us!…Yeah, they are really teaching us a lesson….HAHAHAHAHA!!! I know, like lemmings. Seriously, I have to buy this Gandhi guy a gift basket or something….I guess I need a new job….Can I join the Luftwaffe?”

What can we take from all of this? I can’t be sure. There appears to be some controversy as to the extent to which Gandhi resiled from these statements. Also, it’s fucking Wikipedia. Half this shit could be made up and I am too lazy to check the sources. However, one thing is clear: Ben Kingsley is an anti-Semite. I guess. Probably not. Definitely not. Guh, I don’t know. This is confusing. Why can’t his political philosophy be summarized in a t-shirt like some people we know? Stupid Gandhi.