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[OT] Nothing Learned From History



 
 
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  #21  
Old September 14th 04, 10:37 AM
Jussi Jalonen
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"Kevin Brooks" wrote in message ...

He was not arguing feasibility--he was pointing out that yahoos like you
would indeed have been labeling FDR a "warmonger" and condemning him for
prosecuting a preemptive war had he been able and willing to act in the
manner he described.


Considering FDR's party affiliations, I would suspect that most of the
people who would have condemned him for prosecuting a pre-emptive war
would have been Congressional Republicans. That is, yahoos like...
well, you, I suspect.

Needless to say, seventy years afterwards, both you and the
intellectual heirs of these people would still continue to criticize
the decision to intervene in a "European conflict where the United
States had no direct interest" and cry at the decision to attack
"instead of pursuing a diplomatic resolution".

No doubt there would also be suggestions that Roosevelt's decision to
attack was counterproductive and only led to the escalation of Jewish
persecutions in Germany - which was, mutatis mutandis, an argument
which the opposing party in your country also advanced during the
Kosovo crisis.

So, in this alternate timeline, the ones who would have been most
likely to label FDR a "warmonger" would have actually been people like
you.

(And deep down you know you would, even if you would not admit it.)

By the way, remove the cross-posting from SHWI, please? Some of these
posts may have had little allohistorical content, but not enough to
justify the others on this thread which do not have any.



Cheers,
Jalonen
  #23  
Old September 14th 04, 12:28 PM
robert j. kolker
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Pooh Bear wrote:

Errrr...... No. It would have stopped WW2.

Most Germans would have been glad to have seen Nazi tryanny overurned.

Many Germans simply feared the Nazis and went along meekly - too afraid to
say even Booh !


That is why these afraid German people cheered the Fuehrer, while he was
winning. The German people (adults) were overwhelming complicit in the
evil of the Nazis.

Bob Kolker

  #24  
Old September 14th 04, 12:30 PM
robert j. kolker
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Peter Stickney wrote:


Well, there was also the Berlin Crisis of 1961, which saw a long-term
nuclear showdown with the Soviets, including having the the National
Guard activated to, among other things, stand Victor Alert (That's


He allowed the Berlin wall to built. When American tanks faced Soviet
tanks in August of 1961, it was the U.S. that blinked. I witnessed that
and I was ashamed.

We spent most of the Kennedy era with the Guard and Reserve activated,
with everybody primed for Nuclear Conflict, toe-to-toe with the
Russkies. One crisis after another. Now, mind you, a lot of that was
due to Kruschev's hopeless misreading of Kennedy's intellect and
willpower, but I can recall some rather scary times.


Yes it was scary. If Kennedy had followd through on the Bay of Pigs
Invasion the Cuban Missile Crisis would never have occurred.

Kennedy was mostly sizzle and very little meat.

Bob Kolker


  #26  
Old September 14th 04, 02:50 PM
Theodore Jay Miller
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stop spam wrote in message ...
If, in 1937, Franklin D. Roosevelt would have invaded Germany, captured
Hitler, neutralized the Nazi party, and dismantled the standing
military, thus saving europe from the ravages of war, genocide, and
crimes against humanity, then the United States would have been
condemned in shame by the world as an imperialist nation of pre-emptive
aggressors, and FDR would have been cast out of office in the subsequent
election.


And rightfully so, just as someone who killed Hitler
during the 1920's would rightfully be condemned as a
murderer, even though he was preventing the same things.

In 1937 Hitler hadn't done anything worse than many
other local tinpot dictators throughout history, ones
who who didn't become threats to the world. You don't
go around invading countries and causing the deaths
of huge numbers of people just because one of those
dictators MIGHT one day become such a threat, any more
than you go around murdering every disgruntled anti-Semitic
housepainter because one of them might become another
Hitler.

If FDR had specific information from the future as
to what Hitler would eventually do, he'd need to show
that info to defend his actions; I don't recall George
W. Bush showing any history books from the year 2050.
If FDR didn't have such specific info and he attacked
and conquered Germany in 1937, he WOULD be an imperialist
aggressor, just one who happened to guess right.
  #27  
Old September 14th 04, 03:39 PM
Peter Stickney
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In article ,
(Jussi Jalonen) writes:
"Kevin Brooks" wrote in message ...

He was not arguing feasibility--he was pointing out that yahoos like you
would indeed have been labeling FDR a "warmonger" and condemning him for
prosecuting a preemptive war had he been able and willing to act in the
manner he described.


Considering FDR's party affiliations, I would suspect that most of the
people who would have condemned him for prosecuting a pre-emptive war
would have been Congressional Republicans. That is, yahoos like...
well, you, I suspect.


Actually, that wasn't the case. In the 1940 election, the most
virulent opposition to FDR's candidacy came from the Midwest
Progressives - the Socialist/Ultra-Liberal wing of the Democratic
Party. They were overtly aided an abetted by the German Abwehr.
Principal among these people were John L. Lewis, President of the
United Mine Workers and the CIO (Pre-AFL-CIO merger) William Rhodes
Davis, President of the Crusader Oil Company, and the main supplier of
Bunker Oil to the Kreigsmarine (Including shipping oil out of Mexico
under false pretenses.) (Davis, btw, was carried on the Abwehr's books
as Agent C-80. Lewis was carried as Sub-agent C-80/L. It was
certainly an overt relationship - Lewis on several occasions with
Dr. Hertslet, the Abwehr's head of the American Desk. Lewis and Davis
were the main conduit of roughly $3,000,000 of German government funds
funelled to various members of the Democratic Party for the defeat of
Rossevelt. (Note that that's at a time when $1,000/year was a
comfortable living. It's the equivalant of about $150,000,000 in
today's money.) Also complicit in this campaign were Senator Burton
K. Wheeler (D-Montana). It should be noted that the Abwehr didn't
confine its attempts at influencing the Election to the Democrats -
They also threw money at the Republican Party in a two pronged effort
- they wanted Roosevelts defeat, and they also wanted to head off the
candidacy of Wendell Willkie, a very public Interventionist, whose
views on Germany parallelled Roosevelt's. The Abwehr also stuck iself
in with an independant propoganda campaign, populated by shadow
organizations, falsified documents,
Others of the Midwest Progressives who threw in with the Nazis include
Philip Fox LaFollette, theGovernor of Wisconsin, Senator Wayland
Brooks, of Illinois, and Robert McCormick, publisher of the Chicago
Tribune.

In the end, it was all for nought - Roosevelt adn Willkie wer
resoundingly nominated, and the election went bad for Germany.

Why these noted Liberal of their time would so whole-heartedly hate
FDR, or, for that matter throw in with the Nazis is an interesting
question. A fiar chunk of the hatred and resentment seems to come
from the idea that FDR "hijacked" their programs and platforms for teh
New Deal. Some of it may have been a legitiamate fear of being drawn
into another European War. There may be another factor as well- the
1930s was The Age of Dictators. Social change was seen to be achieved
not through evolution, or even widesprad Revolution, but by a "Strong
Leader" (read violent thug, such as Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin) who
sezed power and forced his nation to his will. (:aFollette was
particualry subject to this - he was very nearly Roosevelt's Attorny
General, until he started running his own vest-pocket Nuremburg
Rallys. (LaFollette had attended several of the real Nuremburg
Rallys.)

A good place to start researching this it Ladislad Farago's "The Game
of the Foxes", which is mostly based on the Abwehr Records found at
teh end of the war, and C.John Rogge's "The Official German Report"
(Rogge served as Assistant United Stated Attorney General in charge of
the Criminal Division of teh Justice Department during the war, and
ran the DOJ's investigation into German activites in the U.S.

I find the parellels fascinating.

--
Pete Stickney
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures. -- Daniel Webster
  #28  
Old September 14th 04, 08:07 PM
Remus
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[OT] Nothing Learned From History


There is nothing to learn from history. It is all merely
endless, purposeless, random destruction, having no value
whatsoever.

The moment you try to learn from it, it does something else.

It can be mildly entertaining, but that's about it.
  #30  
Old September 15th 04, 11:49 PM
VA Teacher
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"robert j. kolker" wrote in message
news:LDA1d.434849$%_6.212951@attbi_s01...


Peter Stickney wrote:


Well, there was also the Berlin Crisis of 1961, which saw a long-term
nuclear showdown with the Soviets, including having the the National
Guard activated to, among other things, stand Victor Alert (That's


He allowed the Berlin wall to built. When American tanks faced Soviet
tanks in August of 1961, it was the U.S. that blinked. I witnessed that
and I was ashamed.


before I jump in here, i have to say that I have never understood the
mystique that surrounds JFK...he was an average President, at best.
However, what would you have had us do in regards to the Berlin Wall? Was
it worth a war, especially a nuclear war? ESPECIALLY, when the wall was a
great public relations failure for the USSR (admitting they couldn't keep
their own people inside without a fortified barrier)?


We spent most of the Kennedy era with the Guard and Reserve activated,
with everybody primed for Nuclear Conflict, toe-to-toe with the
Russkies. One crisis after another. Now, mind you, a lot of that was
due to Kruschev's hopeless misreading of Kennedy's intellect and
willpower, but I can recall some rather scary times.


Yes it was scary. If Kennedy had followd through on the Bay of Pigs
Invasion the Cuban Missile Crisis would never have occurred.


Again, was it worth a war? Im no dove, I firmly believe that there are
things worth fightring and dying for...Cuba isn't one of them, not in the
1960s.

Kennedy was mostly sizzle and very little meat.


Agreed.

Bob Kolker




 




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