Author Topic: Maybe not quite de-funding, but unfunding is a nice start  (Read 4886 times)

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BT

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Re: Maybe not quite de-funding, but unfunding is a nice start
« Reply #15 on: January 07, 2007, 02:31:31 AM »
There is the underlying theme of isolationism during the european phase of wwii and vietnam. What business was it of ours what went on there. And to many,  subjugation to communist rule was just as bad as subjugation to nazi rule. It would seem a war against communist subjugation would be as just as the war against the nazi's.




Amianthus

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Re: Maybe not quite de-funding, but unfunding is a nice start
« Reply #16 on: January 07, 2007, 02:56:50 AM »
Some of them remembered the lies of British propaganda from WWI, which got America into that war.

Funny, and all this time I thought it was German U-boat attacks on US shipping that got us into that war.
Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight. (Benjamin Franklin)

Michael Tee

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Re: Maybe not quite de-funding, but unfunding is a nice start
« Reply #17 on: January 07, 2007, 02:59:13 AM »
<<There is the underlying theme of isolationism during the european phase of wwii and vietnam. What business was it of ours what went on there. And to many,  subjugation to communist rule was just as bad as subjugation to nazi rule. It would seem a war against communist subjugation would be as just as the war against the nazi's. >>

Well, in the case of Viet Nam, there wasn't really an issue of "subjugation" to communism.  The South was committed to holding free elections and its government had cancelled them.  Even Eisenhower had to admit that the elections were cancelled because Ho Chi Minh would have won at least 80% of the vote.  Going to war to prevent this struck a lot of Americans as contrary to the principles of self-determination and national liberation that were what they had supposedly been fighting for in WWII.

Europe was a slightly more complex matter.  As I've pointed out before, the U.S.A. did NOT declare war on Germany even after they had declared war on Japan after Pearl Harbor.  FDR had campaigned on a promise to keep America out of the war in Europe and most Americans wanted him to keep that promise.  The real issue I see here is why did America get behind the war effort in Europe after Hitler declared war on them?  

I would say a big part of the answer is leadership.  FDR was a powerful and eloquent leader of enormous talents and abilities, greatly admired (I think it's fair to say, adored) by large segments of the general population, not maybe so much the editorialists and the national leaders, but by the working man and woman, the tenement dwellers, the dirt farmers, etc.  They didn't trust the rich and famous (Lindbergh, Ford, Rockefeller) but they did trust FDR.  Bush, I hate to say it, is a twerp --  a bungling, arrogant, smirking, inarticulate moron - - who immediately inspires dislike and distrust in half the population at first glance and by his lying ways and his bluster and boasts, slowly alienates everyone else over time.  He couldn't lead America into an acceptance of a war even if the cause had been a good one.  In the case of Iraq, there was no good cause.  it was all lies and bullshit.

FDR had to convince the American people that the war against Japan and the war against Germany were one and the same thing.  And I have to say that it must have been a very hard sell.  And he also had to convince America to agree with Churchill that the war in Europe would have to come first. THAT was leadership.  Pure leadership.  It helped immensely, of course, that it was Hitler who declared war on America.  Coming on the heels of Pearl Harbor, it was easy to argue that Germany and Japan were acting in concert.  I would say that FDR as a statesman saw the menace of Germany and the need to crush it, and because of his genius as a leader, he was able to communicate that urgency to the American people, who liked, trusted and followed him.  He did not lie to them, he did not boast prematurely of victories in front of "Mission Accomplished" banners, he didn't lie to them as to the amount of sacrifice that would be required.  Unlike Bush, he was both a great man and a good man.  The people did not refuse any sacrifice.  He made them see the justice of the cause.  No lies or bullshit required.

Michael Tee

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Re: Maybe not quite de-funding, but unfunding is a nice start
« Reply #18 on: January 07, 2007, 03:05:52 AM »
<<Funny, and all this time I thought it was German U-boat attacks on US shipping that got us into that war.>>



There were a lot of things.  U-boat attacks and British propaganda were both factors. 

But the subject of this thread was America First and why IT opposed U.S. entry into WWII.  If you review their material, they didn't want to be suckered into war by British propaganda, which would take in both the fake atrocity stories and the Zimmerman-Carranza telegraph.  They were looking for reasons not to get into WWII, not analyzing all the causes that got the U.S. into WWI.

Xavier_Onassis

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Re: Maybe not quite de-funding, but unfunding is a nice start
« Reply #19 on: January 07, 2007, 07:17:52 AM »
The US got into WWI because of the Brits. JP Morgan loaded them  a lot of money for weapons. When it became clear that if they did not win, he could kiss his sweet fortune goodbye, weapons were secreted on civilian passenger liners, such as the Lusitania.

The US was suckered into WWI by Morgan, the yellow press and propaganda. The US had no real reason to get involved.

The Germans then sank the Lusitania, giving rise to pro-Brit propaganda.

Most of the Germans in the US were pacifists, and many were rural. They had left Germany precisely NOT to fight in previous wars. Most English Americans were not pacifists and were more urban, so they won out.

Had WWI not ended in such a disaster for Germany, Hitler would not have come to power.

Hitler was seen in the 1920's and early 1930's as a REFORMER. He built autobahns, emphasized athletics, technical advancement and German self-sufficiency. The heroes of the 1920's were engineers and scientists, who would share their ideas and creations with the common man. Herbert Hoover was seen as a highly competent, highly compassionate engineering genius. Lindbergh was seen in the same light: poor farmboy becomes genius, causes civilization to advance. 

Anti-Semitism was hardly new in Germany.

Could it have been true that the Kaiser lost WWI because Jewish bankers refused to lend him more money?  There are several factors here: first, did they actually control sufficient funds to have made a difference; and second, did they deny the money to the Kaiser at all? There is not a lot of evidence that either was the case.

WWI was a war of attrition: the Allies and the Germans fought to a bloody draw in the trenches, and only when the Americans arrived .did anyone have an advantage.

Of course, most German Jews were not bankers and a majority were every bit as patriotic as Gentile Germans, so blaming all of them for the loss of the war, as Hitler did, was irrational. But it seems that a majority of the German people believed that Germany had been betrayed by the Jews.

A better argument is that the German aristocracy started a war that could have been avoided easily with diplomacy. Some Serbs could have been rounded up and executed for assassinating Franz Josef, and the entire mess could have been resolved within months, mostly bloodlessly.The best defense against terrorism was then, as it is now, good police work.

The Kaiser, the Czar, and the Austro-Hungarian Emperor were mostly to blame, and all were duly deposed, and every one of their empires lost territory.

"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."

Michael Tee

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Re: Maybe not quite de-funding, but unfunding is a nice start
« Reply #20 on: January 07, 2007, 08:45:07 AM »
<<Could it have been true that the Kaiser lost WWI because Jewish bankers refused to lend him more money?  There are several factors here: first, did they actually control sufficient funds to have made a difference; and second, did they deny the money to the Kaiser at all? There is not a lot of evidence that either was the case.>>

That was a new one for me, XO.  The usual bullshit was that the Jews administered the stab-in-the-back so that their more financially powerful British banking relatives would be able to suck the blood of the German workers through reparations payments following the war.  There was a powerful and growing socialist and communist movement which was international in nature, the extremes of which were recognizing class loyalties as more binding than national loyalties.  So the war, which like all wars, was fought for the benefit of the ruling classes of all the combatants, was fueled by the blood of the proletariat of all combatants.  Instead of the proletariat  killing each other off for the benefit of the ruling class (usually the bourgeoisie) they should refuse to fight each other at all and concentrate on assisting each other to seize the power in each of the combatant nations.  The right-wing argument was that the leadership of the international socialist movements was mostly the Jews and their dupes, who by "blood" belonged to none of the combatant nations but to their own supra-national nation which had no land of its own, but was distributed, parasitically, in the bodies of its hosts, which it was consuming from within.  This was basically the myth of "The International Jew," the title of Henry Ford's book, which was said to have had a major influence on Hitler, and popularized in the U.S. by Father Coughlin, a Roman Catholic priest whose weekly radio show reached millions and, like Hitler, was one of the early adapters of radio as a means of spreading political ideas.

The big argument the Germans had going for them was that the war ended with German troops on French territory, not vice versa, so that the "victorious" German army won the war but was "betrayed" by stab-in-the-back German civilians and their "communist" revolutionary activities, which were actually just a front for the international Jewish banking network.

Of course, the reality was that the Jews in each of the combatant nations shared the benefits or the burdens of that nation's fortunes, however it would be less evident in the defeated nations that the Jews there were suffering like the rest of the population, since the Jews, probably due mostly to their cultural traditions, were always better at looking out for themselves than the general population and were better prepared to deal with the adversities of the defeat.  But that's a pretty boring story.  The idea of a world-wide conspiracy of hook-nosed aliens is much more entertaining and gives the average guy leading a dull miserable existence an exciting fantasy role to play, like a science fiction hero, he can combat these alien infiltrators and save his "race" (without any physical danger to himself) by joining the Nazi Party, getting a uniform, marching like a soldier and having a beer or two with the guys.  His racial identity alone gave him instant drinking buddies, a role to play, a mission in life and a clearly delineated hierarchy of quasi-military ranks through which he could progress if so inclined.  The marketing was absolutely brilliant.

Xavier_Onassis

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Re: Maybe not quite de-funding, but unfunding is a nice start
« Reply #21 on: January 07, 2007, 09:59:28 AM »
I find several relationships between the US and Germany rather fascinating. The VW (formerly the Strength-through Joy) car was a modern version of the Model T (the people's car), the Autobahns, which was patterned on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, was admired by Eisenhower so much that it was recreated in the US as the Interstate Highway system.  Bismarck's old age pension system was reborn in the New Deal as Social Security. In many ways, Nazism attempted to provide the Germans with opportunities that had been enjoyed by German immigrants to the US.

Hitler's extensive public employment program to resurrect the German economy preceded FDR's various New Deal programs, like the CCC, the NRA and the WPA. Of course, FDR did not dispossess the Jews to pay for his programs.

"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."

Amianthus

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Re: Maybe not quite de-funding, but unfunding is a nice start
« Reply #22 on: January 07, 2007, 11:20:43 AM »
The Germans then sank the Lusitania, giving rise to pro-Brit propaganda.

The sinking of the Lusitania in 1915 led to a promise by Germany to no longer target civilian ships.

In 1917, Germany sunk 3 US merchant vessels, and the US declared war. However, even at that point, most of the US population was still against the war, and would continue to be against the war until 1918, when Germany sunk a US troop ship, killing 2,179 American soldiers. At that point, the US population became angered at Germany, and began supporting the Great War.
Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight. (Benjamin Franklin)

Xavier_Onassis

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Re: Maybe not quite de-funding, but unfunding is a nice start
« Reply #23 on: January 07, 2007, 12:05:56 PM »
However, even at that point, most of the US population was still against the war, and would continue to be against the war until 1918, when Germany sunk a US troop ship, killing 2,179 American soldiers. At that point, the US population became angered at Germany, and began supporting the Great War.
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It would make perfect sense for the Germans to sink a troop ship, being as the troops were clearly headed to fight German troops.

The drive to provoke the people of the US against the  "Huns" was a triumph for propaganda. Mitchell Palmer, Wilson's Attorney General, was a master of this propaganda. There was a drive to ceasae instruction of the German language i9n all public schools, not only as a language of instruction in such places as Wisconsin, but as a foreign language.

Thousands of German families changed their names. Sauerkraut became "Liberty cabbage", frankfurters became "liberty sausage", and hamburgers became "salisbury steak'.

It was every bit as stupid as Juniorbush's crap about how "they hate our freedoms" as a motive for 9/11, and renamoing french fries as 'liberty fries'.

"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."

Michael Tee

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Re: Maybe not quite de-funding, but unfunding is a nice start
« Reply #24 on: January 07, 2007, 09:12:52 PM »
I find several relationships between the US and Germany rather fascinating. The VW (formerly the Strength-through Joy) car was a modern version of the Model T (the people's car) . . .


The most interesting thing I found in German-American relations was the effect of the failed 1848 revolutions in several German states.  I read somewhere that the failed revolutions sparked a huge exodus of democrats and revolutionaries from Germany to the U.S.A., where they participated effectively in various democratic, populist and revolutionary movements.  However, at the same time, they left a correspondingly huge "democrat deficit" in Germany.  They and the descendants they would otherwise have produced in Germany were missing while the Nazis rose to power and basically by their absence eased their path.   In theory, had they been able to contribute to the domestic anti-Nazi forces, Hitler might have been stopped in his tracks.