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Post by MC Habber on Mar 8, 2005 5:26:37 GMT -5
Everyone likes to say, "Hitler did this", and, "Hitler did that". But the truth is Hitler did very little. He was a world class tyrant, but the evil actually done by the Third Reich, from the death camps to WW2 was all done by German citizens who were afraid to question if what they were told by their government was the truth or not, and who because they did not want to admit to themselves that they were afraid to question the government, refused to see the truth behind the Reichstag Fire, refused to see the invasion by Poland was a staged fake, and followed Hitler into national disaster.
The German people of the late 1930s imagined themselves to be brave. They saw themselves as the heroic Germans depicted by the Wagnerian Operas, the descendants of the fierce Germanic warriors who had hunted wild boar with nothing but spears and who had defeated three of Rome's mightiest legions in the Tuetenberg Forest.
But in truth, by the 1930s, the German people had become civilized and tamed, culturally obsessed with fine details in both science and society. Their self-image of bravery was both salve and slavery. Germans were required to behave as if they were brave, even when they were not.
It's easy to look back and realize what a jerk Hitler was. But at the time, Hitler looked pretty good to the German people, with the help of the media. He was TIME Magazine's Man Of The Year in 1938. The German people assumed they were safe from a tyrant. They lived in a Republic, after all, with strict laws regarding what the government could and more importantly could not do. Their leader was a devoutly religious man, and had even sung with the boy's choir of a monastery in his youth.
The reality was that the German people, as individuals, had lost their courage. The German government preferred it that way as a fearful people are easier to rule than a courageous one. But the German people didn't wish to lose their self-image of courage. So, when confronted with a situation demanding individual courage, in the form of a government gone wrong, the German people simply pretended that the situation did not exist. And in that simple self-deception lay the ruin of an entire nation and the coming of the second World War.
When the Reichstag burned down, most Germans simply refused to believe suggestions that the fire had been staged by Hitler himself. They were afraid to. But so trapped were the Germans by their belief in their own bravery that they willed themselves to be blind to the evidence before their eyes, so that they could nod in agreement with Der Fuhrer while still imagining themselves to have courage, even as they avoided the one situation which most required real courage; to stand up to Hitler's lies and deceptions.
When Hitler requested temporary extraordinary powers, powers specifically banned under German law, but powers Hitler claimed he needed to have to deal with the "terrorists", the German people, having already sold their souls to their self-delusions, agreed. The temporary powers were conferred, and once conferred lasted until Germany itself was destroyed.
When Hitler staged a phony invasion from Poland, the vast majority of the German people, their own self-image dependant on continuing blindness to Hitler's deceptions, did not question why Poland would have done something so stupid, and found themselves in a war.Sound familiar? It is naive, not to mention racist to assume that tyrants appear only in other nations and that somehow America is immune simply because we're Americans. America has escaped the clutches of a dictatorship thus far only through the efforts of those citizens who, unlike the Germans of the 1930s, have the moral courage to stand up and point out where the government is lying to the people. And unless more Americans are willing to have that kind of individual courage, then future generations may well look back on the American people with the same harshness of judgement with which we look back on the 1930s Germans.www.whatreallyhappened.com/reich.html(I'm not saying I agree with the whole thing, but the parallels are eerie)
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Post by Habs_fan_in_LA on Mar 8, 2005 12:27:16 GMT -5
Toe Blake coached the hab's, Mario Tremblay coached the habs.
Blake was emotional, Tremblay was emotional.
Blake traded players who were insubordinate, Tremblay did too.
We can always find parallels, but comparing Tremblay to Blake is a monumental stretch.
Hitler was a better orator than Bush and Bush is a superior leader. There is little other comparison between the two.
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Post by HabbaDasher on Mar 8, 2005 12:46:36 GMT -5
They both tricked their populations into illegal wars.
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Post by Doc Holliday on Mar 8, 2005 12:48:40 GMT -5
...generally I think that ever since the USSR has been dismantled, the world's military power is dangerolusly tilted towards the United States. I do not believe Americans are dangerous or evil by nature, not do I believe any nations are like that but a disturbed men at the head of the United States, could do some world class damage. As shown twice already, Bush will not listen or take into consideration world's opinion or even his allie's before he goes forward to invade country he feels should be invaded. That in itself is very troubling.
Hitler was at the helm of a nation that was on it's knees since WWI, batling against incredible odds and he almost took over Europe and Asia, because that's what he felt needed to be done. What would a guy like Hitler have done if he had the military power the US have right now with a dismantled and broken USSR ? Scary.
That being said, until Bush conducts genocides on millions of civilians, any comparison to Hitler is unfair.
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Post by blaise on Mar 8, 2005 15:41:41 GMT -5
Much as I despise him, I wouldn't accuse Bush of genocide. He's bellicose but not given over to blood lust.
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Post by MC Habber on Mar 8, 2005 22:23:43 GMT -5
Much as I despise him, I wouldn't accuse Bush of genocide. He's bellicose but not given over to blood lust. I agree. |
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Post by MC Habber on Mar 8, 2005 22:28:40 GMT -5
That being said, until Bush conducts genocides on millions of civilians, any comparison to Hitler is unfair. Only because, in most people's minds, Hitler = Genocidal Maniac and nothing else. Bush isn't responsible for genocide (at least not nearly as directly as Hitler), but there could still be other facets of them that are worth comparing. |
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Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on Mar 9, 2005 10:47:42 GMT -5
Only because, in most people's minds, Hitler = Genocidal Maniac and nothing else. Bush isn't responsible for genocide (at least not nearly as directly as Hitler), but there could still be other facets of them that are worth comparing. I agree. And I would add that due vigilance be maintained and public awareness raised so that there is no chance of the slide into darkness described in the article. The present partial eclipse is plenty disturbing enough. |
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Post by HabbaDasher on Mar 9, 2005 12:47:21 GMT -5
Hear, hear.
And check out PTH's sig.
"Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leader. This is easy. All you have to do is tell them they're being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country."
-Hermann Göring
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Post by blaise on Mar 9, 2005 13:45:10 GMT -5
If the shortsighted morons Clemenceau and Lloyd George hadn't imposed such vengeful, backbreaking terms on Germany despite Wilson's arguments against it, Hitler would probably not have come to power. Hitler played on the horrendous inflation and poverty and humiliation the once-proud Germans had to endure in the aftermath of the Versailles Treaty. Germany was ripe for a change because they had nothing to lose and the Weimar Republic offered no hope. If the people hadn't elected the National Socialists they might well have opted for the Communists.
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Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on Mar 9, 2005 14:01:59 GMT -5
If it weren't for the French we wouldn't even be talking about George W Bush today.
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Post by blaise on Mar 9, 2005 14:12:53 GMT -5
If it weren't for the French we wouldn't even be talking about George W Bush today. We're living in the 21st century, not that far removed from the period 1918-1939. People born in that era are still alive today. This idée fixe about the mid-1760s war you are alluding to is as irrelevant to the present as the defeat by Henry V at Agincourt was to Louis XIV. In my considered opinion, the Americans would have ousted the French in a fraction of the time it did to expel the British, and that didn't take very long. The French monarchy was rotten to the core by the time Louis XVI ascended to the throne and was incapable of quelling an insurgency 3000 miles away. It couldn't even save its own neck (literally). |
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Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on Mar 9, 2005 15:04:42 GMT -5
We're living in the 21st century, not that far removed from the period 1918-1939. People born in that era are still alive today. This idée fixe about the mid-1760s war you are alluding to is as irrelevant to the present as the defeat by Henry V at Agincourt was to Louis XIV. In my considered opinion, the Americans would have ousted the French in a fraction of the time it did to expel the British, and that didn't take very long. The French monarchy was rotten to the core by the time Louis XVI ascended to the throne and was incapable of quelling an insurgency 3000 miles away. It couldn't even save its own neck (literally). Somersault all you like. Hypothetical scenarios are nothing but intellectual acrobatics. They are not history. The indisputable, undeniable fact is that the French were instrumental in the Americans achieving victory in their War of Independence against the British. That was and remains the reality that resulted in the birth of the nation we now know as the United States of America. To claim actual history as being irrelevant seems to me to be the height of folly. Is history irrelevant to the Jews in Israel? The French in Québec? The First Nations of North Amerca? Et cetera, et cetera... History is not just what happened 20 minutes or 20 years ago (or whatever time-frame you consider convenient). Frites, alors it goes back at least as far as the American War of Independence. The occurence of a specific event leads to other events occuring and excludes yet others from happening. To compress the timeline: the French made it possible for the Americans to win their War of Independence and today George W Bush is president of the United States of America. That's how it was and how it is. One thing leads to another. Whether one likes it or not is another matter altogether. * France in the revolutionFrance Bashers Ignorant of American HistoryThe French Contribution to the American War of IndependenceFrance's Contribution to American Independence |
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Post by blaise on Mar 9, 2005 19:42:33 GMT -5
No sale, pal. You've presented those shabby goods before. Above all, they're not facts. Use your own common sense and come to a more logical and realistic conclusion: If Montcalm had won on the Plains of Abraham, the French would still not have been in a position to conquer what is now the US. How long do you think the French would have lasted? Surely you cannot maintain that they would have been in New York and Boston and Philadelphia and Baltimore? Did you ever consider the state of the French economy in the 1770s? They were taxing the whey out of their own people. The monarchy was decadent and corrupt, and the populace was restive over their crushing taxes going to extravagances like Versailles. It would be naive and untutored to believe that the French could have held sway over an English-speaking, preponderantly Protestant populace who would no more tolerate the imposition of taxation, tyranny, and corruption under Louis XV or Louis XVI than under George III. Even as puny a force as the Colonial Army under George Washington would easily have been able to expel any French expeditionary force.
Long before turning to my present calling I did graduate work in European history and am comfortable in defending my positions, as I did in seminars at an esteemed university. I sense uncritical citation of "authorities" in yours. So, before recycling your tiresome assertions once more, try refuting my arguments in the preceding paragraph. I eagerly await your reply to my challenge. This time, no circumlocution or flippancy, please.
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Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on Mar 9, 2005 20:10:12 GMT -5
No sale, pal. You've presented those shabby goods before. Nothing shabby about them. It's the way it was. You call the combination of fact and fantasy below "realistic"? I don't think so. What are you going on about? My point was, and is, the fact is that French aid provided to the American freedom fighters made their victory, and the establishment of a newly independent country possible. That is fact, not speculation. Oh, that, and that history is a continuum wherein past events affect present events which affect future events, ad infinitum. So we can thank the French for George W Bush. You are way out in left field on this one. Your hybrid of fact and fiction has no bearing on the topic whatsoever. You'll have to find a windmill elsewhere. |
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Post by blaise on Mar 9, 2005 20:20:58 GMT -5
You are way out in left field on this one. Your hybrid of fact and fiction has no bearing on the topic whatsoever. You'll have to find a windmill elsewhere. Brave talk, substantive nonsense. But at least you're more articulate than HFLA. |
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Post by blaise on Mar 9, 2005 20:54:06 GMT -5
Nothing shabby about them. It's the way it was. You call the combination of fact and fantasy below "realistic"? I don't think so. What are you going on about? My point was, and is, the fact is that French aid provided to the American freedom fighters made their victory, and the establishment of a newly independent country possible. That is fact, not speculation. Oh, that, and that history is a continuum wherein past events affect present events which affect future events, ad infinitum. So we can thank the French for George W Bush. You are way out in left field on this one. Your hybrid of fact and fiction has no bearing on the topic whatsoever. You'll have to find a windmill elsewhere. Porcine ablutions. Boar bath. Eaux de cochon. Pig perfume. Oink oil. Facts require proof. If it is a fact, can you prove George W. Bush would not be president today? Of course not, because it cannot be excluded. You are not a logician or a scientist because you confuse plausible conjecture with fact. You are not a credible historian because you don't grasp the fragility of a putative French empire in North America. |
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Post by Toronthab on Mar 9, 2005 23:41:34 GMT -5
Somersault all you like. Hypothetical scenarios are nothing but intellectual acrobatics. They are not history. The indisputable, undeniable fact is that the French were instrumental in the Americans achieving victory in their War of Independence against the British. That was and remains the reality that resulted in the birth of the nation we now know as the United States of America. To claim actual history as being irrelevant seems to me to be the height of folly. Is history irrelevant to the Jews in Israel? The French in Québec? The First Nations of North Amerca? Et cetera, et cetera... History is not just what happened 20 minutes or 20 years ago (or whatever time-frame you consider convenient). Frites, alors it goes back at least as far as the American War of Independence. The occurence of a specific event leads to other events occuring and excludes yet others from happening. To compress the timeline: the French made it possible for the Americans to win their War of Independence and today George W Bush is president of the United States of America. That's how it was and how it is. One thing leads to another. Whether one likes it or not is another matter altogether. * France in the revolutionFrance Bashers Ignorant of American HistoryThe French Contribution to the American War of IndependenceFrance's Contribution to American IndependenceYou are completely right. There is nothing even remotely controversial in the above. One further note. From what I could glean from "Paris 1919", was not Clemenceau's France the country that had suffered something like 60 million dead along with a devasted country. Comparatively easy for LLoyd George and Wilson to get along without, but France had borne the brunt of the agresson and destruction. And was it not the point of the book that the reparations properly set out at Versailles were not as critisal a factor as is commonly believed. The low grade anti-french bigotry one encounters in North America is so very, very repulsive. Lord Simcoe himself remarked upion this ugly and lamentable cancer in the human heart. All part of being a good ignorant lackey, I suppose. |
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Post by MC Habber on Mar 10, 2005 0:23:28 GMT -5
If it weren't for the French we wouldn't even be talking about George W Bush today. I agree with this statement, but only because I believe in chaos theory. I don't think there is a historical basis to make a stronger statement than "if it weren't for the French we might not even be talking about George W Bush today." If chaos theory could not be applied to history then it would seem likely that the events of the last hundred years would not be radically different if the US had been formed without French assisstance. |
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Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on Mar 10, 2005 9:42:52 GMT -5
I don't think there is a historical basis to make a stronger statement than "if it weren't for the French we might not even be talking about George W Bush today." Quite right and thanks for pointing that out. |
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Post by HabbaDasher on Mar 10, 2005 9:51:03 GMT -5
It seems to me there are two distinct questions here:
1) Did the French help the USA gain independance?
2) Would the USA have (eventually) gained independance without France's aid?
I strongly suspect you guys would actually agree on both if you weren't so busy arguing.... ;D
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Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on Mar 10, 2005 10:04:12 GMT -5
It seems to me there are two distinct questions here: 1) Did the French help the USA gain independance? Yes they did. The evidence is irrefutable. Is George W Bush the president of the USA? Yes, there he, believe it or not, is. We can thank the French for George W Bush.I don't care to mix history and specualation. If I were a novelist I likely would use that device. #1 is unquestionably true. #2 is nothing more than an intellectual parlour game, with no bearing on reality. A fiction. |
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Post by blaise on Mar 10, 2005 10:26:44 GMT -5
I am grateful that someone using a gentler tone than mine has made the point I was about to make (if I hadn't logged on so late) that a statement predicated on an if is a premise, not a fact. Yes, the French helped the US gain its independence from the British, but that is insufficient to make the point. It fails to meet the criteria of logical truth. Moreover, a powerful case can be made that if the French hadn't helped, subsequent revolts could easily have been successful. The colonials were favored by demographics and the availability of natural resources needed for industrialization. There would have been ample time for the Bush family tree to reach its present branching state, although it was far from inevitable that Spurious George would have become president (or monarch).
So what is an example of irrefutable fact? George W. Bush isn't Paul Martin and vice versa.
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Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on Mar 10, 2005 10:42:48 GMT -5
You are completely right. Yes, well...modesty has got my tongue. Of course there isn't. The existence of points A and B are clearly documented. The journey from one to the other would be interesting to trace. |
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Post by Toronthab on Mar 13, 2005 14:30:27 GMT -5
No sale, pal. You've presented those shabby goods before. Above all, they're not facts. Use your own common sense and come to a more logical and realistic conclusion: If Montcalm had won on the Plains of Abraham, the French would still not have been in a position to conquer what is now the US. How long do you think the French would have lasted? Surely you cannot maintain that they would have been in New York and Boston and Philadelphia and Baltimore? Did you ever consider the state of the French economy in the 1770s? They were taxing the whey out of their own people. The monarchy was decadent and corrupt, and the populace was restive over their crushing taxes going to extravagances like Versailles. It would be naive and untutored to believe that the French could have held sway over an English-speaking, preponderantly Protestant populace who would no more tolerate the imposition of taxation, tyranny, and corruption under Louis XV or Louis XVI than under George III. Even as puny a force as the Colonial Army under George Washington would easily have been able to expel any French expeditionary force. Long before turning to my present calling I did graduate work in European history and am comfortable in defending my positions, as I did in seminars at an esteemed university. I sense uncritical citation of "authorities" in yours. So, before recycling your tiresome assertions once more, try refuting my arguments in the preceding paragraph. I eagerly await your reply to my challenge. This time, no circumlocution or flippancy, please. While drawing a direct line from the fleet french fleet to the bushes is of course conjectural, history is what it is. The French were an important part of the victory. That's the way it was. And did not Cardinal Richelieu by refusing the American plan against the British if they assured religious an cultural rights there by set a critical course for North America. Lastly Montcalm's sneaky ruse worked, but the french quicklyrecaptured Quebec. The territory of New France was later ceded as part of a general treaty. I'm surprised that you had a "Calling". You hear voices too? Saint Joan, pray for us. |
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Post by Toronthab on Mar 13, 2005 14:39:07 GMT -5
They both tricked their populations into illegal wars. A pithy observation. |
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Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on Mar 13, 2005 17:38:52 GMT -5
While drawing a direct line from the fleet french fleet to the bushes is of course conjectural, history is what it is. The French were an important part of the victory. That's the way it was. Coming from a long line of quibblers, I must take exception with the statement "drawing a direct line". While I have no doubt that we can thank the French for George W Bush, nowhere do I claim that the path from the first to the second is straight. In fact it would make wonderful obsessive, government funded work for some academic library dweller. With that pressing clarification off my chest I'll now go back to reading Grammatical Man and ponder more effective ways to increase the entropy of this board. |
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Post by Toronthab on Mar 13, 2005 19:18:07 GMT -5
Coming from a long line of quibblers, I must take exception with the statement "drawing a direct line". While I have no doubt that we can thank the French for George W Bush, nowhere do I claim that the path from the first to the second is straight. In fact it would make wonderful obsessive, government funded work for some academic library dweller. With that pressing clarification off my chest I'll now go back to reading Grammatical Man and ponder more effective ways to increase the entropy of this board. Actually I didn't think you had, but wonder at the criticisms. I didn't think you had implied a divine all-encompassing causality to the friendly fleet, but rather were insisting upon the role the actually played in US independence. Now, whether or not it was worth the bother, well, that may be a more interesting question. |
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Post by M. Beaux-Eaux on Mar 13, 2005 19:31:30 GMT -5
Actually I didn't think you had, but wonder at the criticisms. I didn't think you had implied a divine all-encompassing causality to the friendly fleet, but rather were insisting upon the role the actually played in US independence. Now, whether or not it was worth the bother, well, that may be a more interesting question. The prompt for my observation was its high irony content. The observation itself seemed to me to be simple, elegant and obvious. I certainly did not anticipate the ensuing hullabaloo (the first time around; this second time did contain a seed of mischief, I must admit). The frothing, foaming and flailing though amusing, was puzzling. Oh well. Vive les Etats-Unis libre! |
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Post by Toronthab on Mar 15, 2005 23:55:15 GMT -5
The prompt for my observation was its high irony content. The observation itself seemed to me to be simple, elegant and obvious. I certainly did not anticipate the ensuing hullabaloo (the first time around; this second time did contain a seed of mischief, I must admit). The frothing, foaming and flailing though amusing, was puzzling. Oh well. Vive les Etats-Unis libre!Go Louis GO! |
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