[Handsome Creepy Eel]

The war with Germany was avoidable?



How so?

[soup]

(03-04-2013 07:16 AM)Icarus Wrote:  

(03-04-2013 07:01 AM)soup Wrote:  

Except for that holocaust/WWII thingy.

Technically speaking, Nazi Germany wasn't fascist, it was "national socialist" (according to Hitler's definition). The true fascists were the Italians under Mussolini. People like to conflate "Authoritarian Nationalism" with "Fascism", but they are not the same thing. Both Hitler and Mussolini were heavily influenced by Sparta and Ancient Rome, but Hitler incorporated Nordicism and other racialist ideologies into it, whereas Mussolini focused on Statism.

Portugal and Spain in the 1930s were also "quasi-fascist", and they did not invade any country, or start any wars with other countries (though Spain had its civil war).

Fascism, Nazism, and its variants were reactions against the internationalism of American capitalism and Soviet socialism. In WWII, the two major internationalists (US and USSR) won, and the two major nationalists (Germany and Japan) lost. If Germany and Japan had won, the world today would have been very, very different.

"it was "national socialist" (according to Hitler's definition)."

There you have it.

[Icarus]

(03-04-2013 07:36 AM)Handsome Creepy Eel Wrote:  

The war with Germany was avoidable? How so?

France and the UK declared war on Germany after the Nazi invasion of Poland in September 1939. After the long sitzkrieg, Germany invaded France, Hitler spared the Brits at Dunkirk because he had no interest in fighting the British Empire at the time.

WWII in Europe was between Germany and the USSR. Hitler wanted to humiliate the French (because of WWI), to avoid war with the British Empire, and to defeat the Soviets in order to create "living space" for the Germans in Eastern Europe. The occupation of Poland by the Nazis and the Soviets, and the Soviet invasion of Finland were carried out in order to create a "buffer zone": Berlin was really close to the Polish border, and East Prussia was dangerously close to Saint Petersburg.

The Brits decided that it was better to fight Germany right away, before they became too strong. The French wanted to avoid war, then were occupied, and once they were occupied, they decided it was better to wait for the Germans and the Russians to destroy each other, and once Germany was weakened, France could fight back.

The Americans had it easy in Europe. They did not save Europe from Hitler, but they saved Europe from Stalin.

[Handsome Creepy Eel]

I think that is a debatable claim, as the fact that UK declared war on Germany immediately after it had invaded Poland did not mean that actual war operations started ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoney_War ). I also do not think that Germany somehow "allowed" the British ground forces to evacuate from Dunkirk - the retreat was under fire and heavily contested ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunkirk_evacuation ).

I was already aware of all the other facts. But that's not avoidable, that's just "delay-able"! Deciding to fight before the enemy grows completely out of control is a purely tactical decision, not a moral one. You made it sound like Churchill somehow incited a war with Germany that otherwise wouldn't have happened at all.

[Icarus]

(03-04-2013 08:13 AM)Handsome Creepy Eel Wrote:  

I was already aware of all the other facts. But that's not avoidable, that's just "delay-able"! Deciding to fight before the enemy grows completely out of control is a purely tactical decision, not a moral one. You made it sound like Churchill somehow incited a war with Germany that otherwise wouldn't have happened at all.

I agree. Being in charge of an empire is a tough job, and Churchill had to make decisions with very limited information. Germany had gone mad, and Churchill decided that the sooner the fight started, the better.

We now know that it might have been better to fight Germany later, when they were weaker. In a way, that is what actually happened, since the D-Day took place when the Soviets were already at the gates of Warsaw.

[Mr.Barbarian]

I subscribed to this thread, but I'm going to wait to respond because I want to have something thoughtful and reflective to contribute. Good topic, and thank you to the OP for raising the issue.

[Handsome Creepy Eel]

That's all true - but consider the possibility that Hitler would have succeeded in advancing to Moscow and conquering it if a large part of his forces (particularly aerial) had been free instead of being tied up on the coast of France. Then all of history would be decrying Churchill for not declaring war earlier.

(Of course, I completely agree that USA's contribution to winning WW2 happened mainly in the Pacific, and D-Day was important but not nearly critical in comparison to all other factors in Europe).

[j r]

I've yet to see how you can call something the best form of government when the two biggest examples of it ended in abject failure. And it's not like Franco's Spain or Salazar's Portugal were huge successes either.

[kosko]

(03-04-2013 08:48 AM)j r Wrote:  

I've yet to see how you can call something the best form of government when the two biggest examples of it ended in abject failure. And it's not like Franco's Spain or Salazar's Portugal were huge successes either.

America seems to have done okay to me.

[Icarus]

(03-04-2013 08:48 AM)j r Wrote:  

I've yet to see how you can call something the best form of government when the two biggest examples of it ended in abject failure. And it's not like Franco's Spain or Salazar's Portugal were huge successes either.

They did not end in abject failure, they ended in military defeat.

If you follow that line of thought, Democracy is a failure because the Ancient Athenians no longer exist. And Monarchy is a failure because there are no more kings or queens with actual power in Europe. So, what government systems are left? The principles and the implementation of such principles are different things.

WWII was a clash of empires disguised as a clash of value systems. The U.S. and the USSR did not win because their ideology was superior, but because they had superior military might, more resources, stronger industry, better technology (in case of the U.S.) or more cannon fodder (in case of the USSR), easier access to oil, etc.

Spain had its civil war. Salazar was an idiot, but he kept Portugal neutral during WWII, and were it not for the U.S. and the USSR arming the African rebels, Angola and Mozambique would still be part of the Portuguese Empire. Instead, Portugal is now part of the "Angolan Empire".

[shameus_o'reaaly]

I'll play devil's advocate and say the best form of government=SMALL democratic state. THis was the original model for democracies-everyone knows who their leaders are-knows them personally, so bureaucracy is minimal-everyone knows what the issues are, so secrecy is minimal-elections are much more transparent, and candidates have to stand by their issues, and most of all, the majority rules in any decision
In ancient Athens, the ideal size for a state was estimated at 5,040 people- just right.
Fascism appeals because there is no pointless discussion or delaying in the parlimentary process, so government can drive policies through, and you avoid a situation like India, which although very democratic, has so many layers of government, so many special interests competing that decisions are made incredibly slowly and subject to delays. A Fascist government doesn't have to consider minorities, appeals-they decide and that's that. But that will inevitably ride roughshod over any group that isn't in the minority-religious dissenters, disenfranchised workers, or just anyone without power of their own.

[soup]

B) Lock up all dissidents

By this logic, A feminist dictator would lock everyone on this board up and you'd be happy with that.

[Icarus]

(03-04-2013 09:44 AM)soup Wrote:  

B) Lock up all dissidents

By this logic, A feminist dictator would lock everyone on this board up and you'd be happy with that.

No. Such a dictator would be a "feminist totalitarian", not a fascist.

One of the core tenets of Fascism is Palingenesis, i.e., rebirth. Mussolini wanted Italy to be reborn in the form of a New Roman Empire. Hitler wanted Germany to be reborn in the form of a 3rd German Empire ("Reich").

Feminism cannot be fascist because that which never existed cannot be born again. There was no Ancient Feminist Empire. The Amazon warriors are mythical creatures, like unicorns and leprechauns.

Moreover, Fascism is extremely anti-liberal, whereas feminists are "liberal" extremists in the sense that they want to be liberated from society's expectations, judgements, and demands. Feminists also want to be liberated from consequences and responsibility, which makes it clear that it's an ideology that appeals to spoiled princesses out of touch with reality.

Fascism sees society as an organic body to be preserved, and that means that it cannot squander its women's fertility, since a society cannot be perpetuated without functioning baby-factories. Feminism sees squandering women's fertility as a virtue, as a form of empowerment.

[soup]

(03-04-2013 10:20 AM)Icarus Wrote:  

(03-04-2013 09:44 AM)soup Wrote:  

B) Lock up all dissidents

By this logic, A feminist dictator would lock everyone on this board up and you'd be happy with that.

No. Such a dictator would be a "feminist totalitarian", not a fascist.

One of the core tenets of Fascism is Palingenesis, i.e., rebirth. Mussolini wanted Italy to be reborn in the form of a New Roman Empire. Hitler wanted Germany to be reborn in the form of a 3rd German Empire ("Reich").

Feminism cannot be fascist because that which never existed cannot be born again. There was no Ancient Feminist Empire. The Amazon warriors are mythical creatures, like unicorns and leprechauns.

Moreover, Fascism is extremely anti-liberal, whereas feminists are "liberal" extremists in the sense that they want to be liberated from society's expectations, judgements, and demands. Feminists also want to be liberated from consequences and responsibility, which makes it clear that it's an ideology that appeals to spoiled princesses out of touch with reality.

Fascism sees society as an organic body to be preserved, and that means that it cannot squander its women's fertility, since a society cannot be perpetuated without functioning baby-factories. Feminism sees squandering women's fertility as a virtue, as a form of empowerment.

If Hitler cared so much about consequences, why did he end up dying in a bunker. He was reckless for starting a war. A big baby.

Facism can't see anything- it doesn't have eyes. The Facist sees only his society as an organic body to be preserved, not society in general.

[JohnKreese]

As much as people are looking at the political ideals of facism, it's just as, if not more important to consider the social aspect of it. Look at countries where it came into favor, the two most popular examples being Italy and Germany (I know it wasn't technically, but close enough) during WW2. What kinds of populations do you have in these countries? Very homogenous. A large tenant of facism is the emphasis on the unity of the population, contributing to the esteem of the state. Pushing national, patriotic priciples, pervasisve symbolism, etc. Because of the diversity of the U.S., facism, at least in this form, could never exist; too many competing interests and traditions.

[Emancipator]

One form of government I find interesting is a technocracy, hasn't really been tried out.

Or something that mixes in technocracy ideas with regular economist, businessmen and politicians, forming a sort of council of different ideas.

The closest thing to that is China.

Although I could see an issue with this type of council if one member got power hungry and outmaneuvered the others.

[Mr.Barbarian]

(03-04-2013 07:36 AM)Handsome Creepy Eel Wrote:  

The war with Germany was avoidable?



How so?

http://original.antiwar.com/buchanan/200...-want-war/

Quote:

The German-Polish war had come out of a quarrel over a town the size of Ocean City, Md., in summer. Danzig, 95 percent German, had been severed from Germany at Versailles in violation of Woodrow Wilson’s principle of self-determination. Even British leaders thought Danzig should be returned.

Why did Warsaw not negotiate with Berlin, which was hinting at an offer of compensatory territory in Slovakia? Because the Poles had a war guarantee from Britain that, should Germany attack, Britain and her empire would come to Poland’s rescue.

But why would Britain hand an unsolicited war guarantee to a junta of Polish colonels, giving them the power to drag Britain into a second war with the most powerful nation in Europe?

Was Danzig worth a war? Unlike the 7 million Hong Kongese whom the British surrendered to Beijing, who didn’t want to go, the Danzigers were clamoring to return to Germany. ...

But if Hitler was out to conquer the world—Britain, Africa, the Middle East, the United States, Canada, South America, India, Asia, Australia—why did he spend three years building that hugely expensive Siegfried Line to protect Germany from France? Why did he start the war with no surface fleet, no troop transports and only 29 oceangoing submarines? How do you conquer the world with a navy that can’t get out of the Baltic Sea?

If Hitler wanted the world, why did he not build strategic bombers, instead of two-engine Dorniers and Heinkels that could not even reach Britain from Germany?

Why did he let the British army go at Dunkirk?

Why did he offer the British peace, twice, after Poland fell, and again after France fell?

Why, when Paris fell, did Hitler not demand the French fleet, as the Allies demanded and got the Kaiser’s fleet? Why did he not demand bases in French-controlled Syria to attack Suez? Why did he beg Benito Mussolini not to attack Greece? ...

Winston Churchill was right when he called it “The Unnecessary War” ...

http://www.lewrockwell.com/gottfried/gottfried113.html

Quote:

Pat's assignment of at least some responsibility to what Hanson calls "neutral Poland" in fanning hostilities with Germany seems indisputable. The Polish government in the mid- and late 1930s went on the rampage inciting violence against Germans and periodically closing off Danzig and the "Polish Corridor," a strip of land through which Germans by agreement with the victorious Allies were allowed free access between East Prussia and Central Germany. As former German major general and military historian Gerd-Schultze Rhonhof demonstrates exhaustively (although not to the satisfaction of the obsessively antinational German press) in 1939: Der Krieg, der viele Väter hat (1939: The War that Had Many Fathers), Hitler's bargaining position in dealing with Poland's military dictatorship up until September 3, 1939, was actually quite reasonable.

The most Hitler demanded from the other side was joint German-Polish control over Danzig and assurances that Germans would be permitted to move through the Corridor without Polish military harassment. It should be possible (although perhaps it is not) to document Polish abuses of German minorities, without being accused of being in love with Hitler. In the same way it would be reasonable (and perhaps even helpful to an ambitious journalist in his leftist profession) to point out that what Stalin devoured after the Second World War was what Churchill and FDR had helped put on his plate.

Needless to say, I could make this observation, unlike discussing Polish provocation in September 1939, without running the risk of being called a Nazi-sympathizer.

Rhonhof and the Russian (Jewish) historian Dmitrij Chmelnizki, both of whom deal with the outbreak of the war in the East, do not deny the brutality of Hitler's regime. Their conclusion, however, is that other belligerents had something to do with inciting the war. And the unwillingness of the Allies to address the wretched treatment of German minorities in the successor states they supported after World War One added to the tensions contributing to the next European war. Had the German head of state in 1939 not been Hitler but any patriotic German, he too in all likelihood would have pressed the Polish government on the same grievances Hitler raised.

[j r]

What's the obsession over empires. Empires are stupid. Not only do they involve the subjugation of other people, but, in the long run, they are more of an expense to the home country than a benefit. Empires benefit a number of small concentrated interests in both the home country and the colony. Unless you're in one of those groups, you're getting screwed.

[Icarus]

(03-04-2013 12:19 PM)j r Wrote:  

What's the obsession over empires. Empires are stupid.

Empires are natural. A given tribe suddenly becomes stronger, starts expanding, subjugates other tribes, and takes its genes, ideas, language, art, architecture, and religion to foreign lands. Empire is the only constant in human history. Besides, who will prevent a strong tribe from expanding? The Pope? How many tank divisions does the Pope have?

Do I like this reality? No, I do not. But that is human nature. The powerful do what they want, and the weak do what they must. To prevent war, arm yourself to the teeth, and keep your populace well-trained in the art of war. It's also a good idea to keep your women busy producing children.

The Roman Empire was not perfect, but everyone uses the Latin alphabet, and it's been over 1600 years since the empire fell.

[Angry Beaver]

(03-04-2013 09:38 AM)shameus_oreaaly Wrote:  

In ancient Athens, the ideal size for a state was estimated at 5,040 people- just right.

Democracy in Ancient Athens was conducted/involved citizens, which made up 15-20% of the population. Slavery is the key here and that is probably not your take on democracy now.

[Caligula]

(03-04-2013 11:47 AM)Emancipator Wrote:  

One form of government I find interesting is a technocracy, hasn't really been tried out.

Or something that mixes in technocracy ideas with regular economist, businessmen and politicians, forming a sort of council of different ideas.

The closest thing to that is China.

Although I could see an issue with this type of council if one member got power hungry and outmaneuvered the others.

One of the problems with technocracy is that you need a normative direction to decide what to optimise for. The ideal technocracy is one that is extremely efficient, but it's an illusion is that a technocratic government can be value-neutral. Politics is about making difficult decisions and if you don't have some ideology guiding you in choosing priorities you end up adrift.

Italy had a technocratic government recently under Monti. However, for all their talk of being ideologically neutral they were not. They simply refused to talk ideology and talked in terms of securing 'the common good'. But how you define the common good comes down to values.

[Ovid]

(03-04-2013 12:47 PM)Icarus Wrote:  

(03-04-2013 12:19 PM)j r Wrote:  

What's the obsession over empires. Empires are stupid.

Empires are natural. A given tribe suddenly becomes stronger, starts expanding, subjugates other tribes, and takes its genes, ideas, language, art, architecture, and religion to foreign lands. Empire is the only constant in human history. Besides, who will prevent a strong tribe from expanding? The Pope? How many tank divisions does the Pope have?

Do I like this reality? No, I do not. But that is human nature. The powerful do what they want, and the weak do what they must. To prevent war, arm yourself to the teeth, and keep your populace well-trained in the art of war. It's also a good idea to keep your women busy producing children.

The Roman Empire was not perfect, but everyone uses the Latin alphabet, and it's been over 1600 years since the empire fell.

Aye. If Rome had not conquered it's neighbors, eventually it would have been conquered by them. Today, we might speak of the great Sabine, Etruscan, Gallic, or Carthaginian Empires instead. And if those had not manifested a sufficiently virile spirit of self-preservation and pride in their own greatness to take proactive steps to ensure their continuance as an independent state, some other power might have arisen to wipe them all from the map. Rome, England, Spain, etc. all benefited hugely from their empires. Thanks to several centuries of colonization, conquest, and trading monopolies, London is one of the foremost cities of the world and the English people have a standard of living which surpasses most other places, despite the fact that their empire has crumbled.

[j r]

(03-04-2013 01:58 PM)Ovid Wrote:  

(03-04-2013 12:47 PM)Icarus Wrote:  

(03-04-2013 12:19 PM)j r Wrote:  

What's the obsession over empires. Empires are stupid.

Empires are natural. A given tribe suddenly becomes stronger, starts expanding, subjugates other tribes, and takes its genes, ideas, language, art, architecture, and religion to foreign lands. Empire is the only constant in human history. Besides, who will prevent a strong tribe from expanding? The Pope? How many tank divisions does the Pope have?

Do I like this reality? No, I do not. But that is human nature. The powerful do what they want, and the weak do what they must. To prevent war, arm yourself to the teeth, and keep your populace well-trained in the art of war. It's also a good idea to keep your women busy producing children.

The Roman Empire was not perfect, but everyone uses the Latin alphabet, and it's been over 1600 years since the empire fell.

Aye. If Rome had not conquered it's neighbors, eventually it would have been conquered by them. Today, we might speak of the great Sabine, Etruscan, Gallic, or Carthaginian Empires instead. And if those had not manifested a sufficiently virile spirit of self-preservation and pride in their own greatness to take proactive steps to ensure their continuance as an independent state, some other power might have arisen to wipe them all from the map. Rome, England, Spain, etc. all benefited hugely from their empires. Thanks to several centuries of colonization, conquest, and trading monopolies, London is one of the foremost cities of the world and the English people have a standard of living which surpasses most other places, despite the fact that their empire has crumbled.

Right. And if we hadn't invaded Iraq, we'd all be speaking Arabic and praying to Mecca five times a day. There are real wars of self-defense, but most wars are just elites conning everyone else into killing and dying for the benefits of elites.

By the way, the British Empire is a good case in point. There is a pretty robust literature attempting to quantify whether the British empire was a net contributor or a net gain to the domestic Beitish economy. I don't know the literature well enough to come down strongly either way, but it's pretty uncontroversial to note that whatever the positive effects of empire are they come with tremendous costs. And whereas the cost are born by society at large, the benefits tend to accrue to the elites in both the home country and the colony.

[soup]

Why does it have to be so extreme? I don't think it's good to have a slow government or good to have all the power in the hands of one person.

[Icarus]

(03-04-2013 02:16 PM)soup Wrote:  

to have all the power in the hands of one person.

Power is actually never in the hands of one person, though nominally it may be. A dictator is also a human being and, thus, can never be omniscient. A dictator must make decisions based on information provided by his advisers. His advisers can manipulate the ruler by choosing to withhold certain information, for example.

In fact, that is the best way to rule: behind the curtain, fooling the king into choosing the course of action you desire. You benefit if it works, and he takes the blame if it fails. If he falls, you may have a chance to replace him.