Do you think they will admit they were wrong?

[lazarus]

Many times acts of war are just ignored.

During Clinton's watch .... we bombed China. But that was over looked by the Chinese.

LOL, you need to do "stand up"

[there buster]

Quote:

The American's [sic] did not establish democracy in either country.

So, after the populations of Germany and Japan "were disenchanted with military rule, wanted elected governments" democracy broke out spontaneously. There was no guerrilla resistance in either place, and no significant efforts to derail democracy. Americans just arrived in time for the celebration. No doubt, democracy would have had an easier time if we hadn't blown up things.

You remind me of the guy who went duck hunting. He shot a duck high in the air, and his companion, a young boy said, "He fell a long way."

"Yup," the hunter laughed, "the fall would'a killed him."

"Then why shoot him?" the boy asked.

Yup. Shootin' had nothin to do with it.

[Dr. Shane]

I think it is clear that some people think so highly of their opinions that they cannot consider the possibility of being wrong. It has nothing to do with ideology but rather personality.

I admit I was misled by various media sources about Valerie Plame and thus I formed a wrong opinion. Sinners are known to make mistakes and I am one of them.

[bevin]

Quote:

There was no guerrilla resistance in either place, and no significant efforts to derail democracy.

Correct. In both Japan and Germany there was no significant portion of society that did not want a return to the democracy that they had lost

Quote:

Americans just arrived in time for the celebration. No doubt, democracy would have had an easier time if we hadn't blown up things.

Nope. Leaders such as Tojo and Hitler, having gained control, are very hard to get rid of.

It is useful to look at the loss of democracy in Rome, Japan, and Germany. These were all countries which had given power to the elected representatives, elected leaders, and then had those leaders grab more and more power until they declared themselves above the need for further elections.

These leaders pointed to outside threats to justify suspending the rules that were supposed to limit their powers. They persuaded the populace that it was in the populace's interest that these cumbersome restrictions that stopped their doing what needed to be done be dropped.

And in all cases the cure was worse than the disease.

/Bevin

[bevin]

Quote:

I admit I was misled by various media sources about Valerie Plame and thus I formed a wrong opinion. Sinners are known to make mistakes and I am one of them.

We all have had the experience of trusting sources that turned out to be wrong.

I remember as a teenager thinking the then-Prime-Minister of NZ, Rob Muldoon, was an excellent leader - and realising as an adult he was awful.

I remember thinking that books like Velikovsky's "Earth in Upheavel" were scholarly - and later discovering they were utterly bogus.

My opinions of Newt Gringrich changed when I listened to him on the current state of the Republican Party a few months ago - it moved him from the yuck to the has-good-ideas column in my mind.

And Bush has gone down drastically in my estimate. When he was first elected, he seemed like he would be okay. Since then he has become the "education" president - has he ever given the USA an education!

/Bevin

[Dr. Shane]

Quote:

These were all countries which had given power to the elected representatives, elected leaders, and then had those leaders grab more and more power until they declared themselves above the need for further elections.

Sounds like Venezuela.

[bevin]

Yes, and several other countries - it is a pattern that has repeated many times - and the people in the next repetition don't seem to catch on until too late.

/Bevin

[there buster]

Quote:

Quote:

There was no guerrilla resistance in either place, and no significant efforts to derail democracy.

Correct.

Wrong again. In Japan, officers attempted a coup, which included an attempt on the Emperor, just a day or two before the surrender.

In Germany, former SS staged guerrilla raids for approximately two years.

There would have been more resistance in both countries, except they had been subjected to nearly total warfare for a period approaching six years.

Had we bombed Iraq, especially the areas controlled by the Sunnis, for six years, there would be little resistance there, either.

[there buster]

Quote:

it is a pattern that has repeated many times - and the people in the next repetition don't seem to catch on until too late.

And it's almost always socialists of one form or another.

[bevin]

Quote:

Quote:

EDD: There was no guerrilla resistance in either place, and no significant efforts to derail democracy.

Bevin: Correct.

EDD: Wrong again. In Japan, officers attempted a coup, which included an attempt on the Emperor, just a day or two before the surrender.

Oh, I'm sorry. I was merely agreeing with your personal assessment of the strength of the opposition.

I didn't realize that you wanted me to correct your obviously wrong factual statement.

/Bevin

[Woody]

Originally Posted By: Redwood

Many times acts of war are just ignored.

During Clinton's watch .... we bombed China. But that was over looked by the Chinese.

LOL, you need to do "stand up"

Not sure what you are laughing at. Perhaps the Chinese did demand payment for the damage of the bombs. But, they did not go to war over it. They didn't bomb us in return. That says a lot.

[Bravus]

Anyone got the time to do a quick count of the political persuasions of dictators? I'd be very surprised if it is 'usually socialists'... unless we include 'National Socialists'.

[there buster]

Quote:

Oh, I'm sorry. I was merely agreeing with your personal assessment of the strength of the opposition.

I didn't realize that you wanted me to correct your obviously wrong factual statement.

Just regurgitating your mistaken view of history. Knew you couldn't see the inconsistencies in your position. You didn't disappoint.

[there buster]

I can understand you wanting to disavow the "National Socialists" but they were in fact socialists.

You shouldn't be surprised. The description:

Quote:

These leaders pointed to outside threats to justify suspending the rules that were supposed to limit their powers. They persuaded the populace that it was in the populace's interest that these cumbersome restrictions that stopped their doing what needed to be done be dropped.

Socialism always wants to protect the people through control and distribution of resources.

"Enemies of the revolution" serves nicely as an "outside enemy." Or it could be "predatory corporations." The 20th century produced lots of socialist dictators. Lenins, Stalin, Brezhnev, Tito, Mao, Castro, Pol Pot, Peron, a raft of African dictators like Mugabe, Ho Chi Minh. Hitler, Mussolini, the Ba'ath parties of Syria and Iraq were modeled on Nazism. Every one in that list socialist. With a little effort, we could find many more.

Socialism and freedom are in opposition to one another. Socialism doesn't like free markets, free enterprise, or free expression. On American campuses, where socialists rule, "speech codes" limiting free expression have become common. The same radicals who wanted 'free speech' in the sixties, now have tenure and want to suppress it. Shows where their hearts are.

They always demand freedom for themselves, deny it to others.

[Bravus]

This quick description of Hitler's 'National Socialism' from the Encarta encyclopedia pretty much sounds like the opposite of socialism in all points:

"National Socialism was similar in many respects to Italian fascism (see Fascism). The roots of National Socialism, however, were peculiarly German, grounded, for example, in the Prussian tradition of military authoritarianism and expansion; in the German romantic tradition of hostility to rationalism, liberalism, and democracy; in various racist doctrines according to which the Nordic peoples, as so-called pure Aryans, were not only physically superior to other races, but were the carriers of a superior morality and culture; and in certain philosophical traditions that idealized the state or exalted the superior individual and exempted such a person from conventional restraints."

So on the right in fact if not in label would be the Nazis, the Italian fascists, the Spanish fascists under Franco, Pinochet in Chile, Marcos in the Phillipines, arguably Meghistu in Ethiopia. If the Ba'ath parties are modelled on Nazism then they would be on the right politically in all the measures that count.

My point is not to say that the right spawns *more* dictators, or worse ones, but just that this particular evil is pretty equal-opportunity. The claim that dictators are usually socialist is found not to be a strong one, if we put aside the claim that fascists are really socialists because they say they are.

[Bravus]

http://www.bartleby.com/65/na/NatlSoci.html

[Bravus]

John Maddox Roberts says:

"Most people forget that the National Socialist Party (Nazis) existed before Hitler joined it. The founders were a mishmash of eccentrics but most actually held some socialist ideals. These mainly dealt with what the early 20th century defined as social issues - job security for workers, public schooling, a modicum of guaranteed medical care, above all protection of the proletariat from predatory capitalism. As Hitler gained power and took over the party, he continued to call himself a socialist, but as he needed the support of German capital more and more, he gradually dropped most of the socialist aims of the party. The final blow was the Night of the Long Knives, when Ernst Rohm and the SA leadership were arrested and executed. Rohm was a repulsive figure, but he was a socialist and so were many of his subordinates, many of whom had been party members before Hitler joined. After that, the socialist pretensions of the party pretty much disappeared, though the name was kept."

[Bravus]

PS The repeated posts are not an attempt to bolster the case: I just got interested in the question of whether Nazi's were socialists and have been researching it.

[there buster]

Well, try this on for size:

Quote:

private ownership of the means of production existed in name only under the Nazis . . . the actual substance of ownership of the means of production resided in the German government. For it was the German government and not the nominal private owners that exercised all of the substantive powers of ownership: it, not the nominal private owners, decided what was to be produced, in what quantity, by what methods, and to whom it was to be distributed, as well as what prices would be charged and what wages would be paid, and what dividends or other income the nominal private owners would be permitted to receive. The position of the alleged private owners. . .was reduced essentially to that of government pensioners.

De facto government ownership of the means of production . . . was logically implied by such fundamental collectivist principles embraced by the Nazis as that the common good comes before the private good and the individual exists as a means to the ends of the State. If the individual is a means to the ends of the State, so too, of course, is his property. Just as he is owned by the State, his property is also owned by the State.

That's socialism. The left would like to disown it, but they were cheerleaders for Stalin and Hitler when they signed the non-aggression pact. Only after Hitler invaded Russia did the Socialist International decide to disown Nazism and start a disinformation campaign attempting to hide the similarities.

Socialism is what socialism does.

[Bravus]

Or, to put it another way, a very successful author of historical fiction with a background in history gives a thoughtful description of the history of the Nazi party that is in accord with most of the accounts I've read in encyclopedias and other sources.

[Dr. Shane]

How much control did the US government have over our car companies like Ford and General Motors during WW2?

[Bravus]

From another friend:

"The confusion derives from the attempt to explain why two systems - Stalinism and Right-wing dictatorship - are remarkably similar in everything except rhetoric. A sensible approach might be to ignore the bunting and concentrate on the substance of how these authoritarian systems behave in practise, but that would hardly do when the method of analysis also requires a heavy ionvestment in maligning the left. But authoritarians are authoritarians - their claimed programs for classless egalitarianism are as illusory as their claimed programs for free markets. If they're real clever, like the Chinese, they'll claim to be doing both.

In the 1930s the only opposition to the far right Fascists were the far left, anarchists and socialists, whether in Spain or on the streets of Berlin or in the Reichstag. The moderate right and left were cosying up to Hitler as a bulwark against those nasty leftists, an historical template that has never gone away. It was the German conservatives that gave Hitler the Chancelloship, it was a conservative president who made the Reichstag decree and it was the conservatives (and centrists) who voted with the Nazis to pass the Enabling Act. The socialists voted against it; the communists couldn't because they'd already been arrested.

Initial socialist interest in Fascist movements - much more a feature in Italy than elsewhere - quickly foundered on Fascist accomodation with the business class. Leftists were the Fascist's rivals, not allies. Conservatives and business leaders recognised their usefulness in fighting communists, socialists and unions. Rightwingers everywhere praised them; Churchill thought Mussolini was a peach (mind you, so did Cole Porter, if the original lyrics of "You're the Top" are anything to go by). If Bravus' friend wants to lump the Nazis in with the socialists he might want to explain why socialist-haters were so happy to aid and praise the Nazis and Fascists, up to and including the policy of appeasement."