What America's Greatest Generation Knew ...

F

fzappa13

Well-known member
jgarden said:
Americans in the 1930's and 40's were considered both soft and self-indulgent by the Germans and Japanese.
Click to expand...

As history records, they were forced to reassess that evaluation.


Part of their strategy was to inflict such high casualties that the US would be forced to negotiate for peace.
Click to expand...

And there I thought the Aborigines invented the boomerang.


I'm sure that both nations couldn't believe their good fortune with the amount of war materials US corporations were allowed to export to both, prior to and during the first 3 years of WW2.
Click to expand...

Well, it seems you can conceive of the concept of military profiteering but you haven't quite yet figured out who is profiting just yet. So, it appears that the industrial mechanism necessary for the U.S. to fight World War 2 was already in place prior to Pearl Harbor. What do you make of that?
Americans have invented a mythology that they were saving the world from tyranny when in reality they stood by from 1939 to the end of 1941, making huge war profits, while providing war materials to the Japanese as they invaded Korea, Manchuria and China while the Germans occupied Poland, France, North Africa, Russia, Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Greece, Yugoslavia, etc.
Click to expand...

Americans did not invent military profiteering though many who have assumed office in that country work for those whose predecessors did. They had a really good PR department and I would suggest that those folks did not have American sovereignty as their primary interest.

Footnote: - Charlie Chaplin was born in England.
-He was labelled a communist in America during the Cold War, received a subpoena to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee and was investigated by the FBI.
- Unwilling to change his "leftist" views or apply for American citizenship, Chaplin moved to Switzerland.
- Representative John E. Rankin, who helped establish the House Un-American Activities Committee told Congress in June 1947 that: "[Chaplin's] very life in Hollywood is detrimental to the moral fabric of America. [If he is deported] ... his loathsome pictures can be kept from before the eyes of the American youth. He should be deported and gotten rid of at once."
Click to expand...

HUAC was not unlike the Senators wives who took a brief stint at trying to label music according to the level of it's obscenity. Those involved were intimately related to those who created the problem in the first place.
 
Totton Linnet

Totton Linnet

New member
Silver Subscriber
PureX said:
This was filmed in 1940. There was no Pearl Harbor attack, yet. And there were no atomic bombs.

And FDR was talking about joining our British allies against the nazis when he said "I want to be a war president". He understood that Europe couldn't be allowed to become a gigantic fascist state.
Click to expand...

I LOVE Americans but I hate America's politics...Americans react by saying "what about the British?"

Yeah but we know politicians stink...Americans just do not believe that their leaders are all corrupt and treacherous

Sanctions is war. it is the ancient method of laying siege. It is through trade sanctions that America goaded Japan into war.

Was Korea really justified? was Vietnam? America has been holding the whole world hostage since 1948 through the Bretton Wood agreement.

Would I prefer if Hitler or Stalin had prevailed NO but still I don't kid myself about America...their first plan in the 2nd world war was to allow Britain and Germany slug it out and then to invade Europe.
 
F

fzappa13

Well-known member
This ought to be fun. You know, I've got another buddy that has a penchant for oversimplifying the historic reasons for war.
 
PureX

PureX

Well-known member
Totton Linnet said:
I LOVE Americans but I hate America's politics...Americans react by saying "what about the British?"

Yeah but we know politicians stink...Americans just do not believe that their leaders are all corrupt and treacherous

Sanctions is war. it is the ancient method of laying siege. It is through trade sanctions that America goaded Japan into war.

Was Korea really justified? was Vietnam? America has been holding the whole world hostage since 1948 through the Bretton Wood agreement.

Would I prefer if Hitler or Stalin had prevailed NO but still I don't kid myself about America...their first plan in the 2nd world war was to allow Britain and Germany slug it out and then to invade Europe.
Click to expand...
Are you somehow under the mistaken impression that I am saying that the U.S. was ever perfect? Are you under the mistaken impression that I am saying that america's "greatest generation" was perfect? Because if your are, I wasn't saying that at all.

What I am saying is that generation more than any other in U.S. history (and it's actually a couple generations overlapped) understood the concept of social unity, and lived by it better than any other. They learned it the hard way, because like all of us, they were not born wise, but selfish. But through great struggle they had to learn to come together, and to fight, and even to die if needed, to ensure that they and their children could live relatively free from the oppression and exploitation of the bottomless greed and endless lusts of the amoral wealth and power-hungry few. A struggle that has faced humanity from the dawn of our time on Earth, I'm sure.

It is wisdom that has since been lost among Americans, as that generation has passed on. And we are being subjugated by those greedy and power-hungry few once again, as a result.
 
Rusha

Rusha

LIFETIME MEMBER
LIFETIME MEMBER
Hall of Fame
Granite said:
Yes, we did. Our Pacific adventurism and economic policies goaded the Japanese into believing they had no choice but attack. Pearl Harbor didn't just come out of the blue, in other words.
Click to expand...

They drew first blood, we merely responded.
 
PureX

PureX

Well-known member
jgarden said:
Americans in the 1930's and 40's were considered both soft and self-indulgent by the Germans and Japanese. Part of their strategy was to inflict such high casualties that the US would be forced to negotiate for peace.
Click to expand...
An assumption that proved quite wrong, as those same Americans had just survived the great depression, and were far tougher than the Japanese or Germans knew. They mistook our unwillingness to join the fight for weakness. When it was not.
jgarden said:
I'm sure that both nations couldn't believe their good fortune with the amount of war materials US corporations were allowed to export to both, prior to and during the first 3 years of WW2.
Click to expand...
Wars are big business in the industrial age. And the industrial age was still young, then. So of course the industrialists of all nations tried to 'cash in'. But those people did not represent the ideals of most Americans. They represented the ideals of the people Chaplin was speaking against.
jgarden said:
Americans have invented a mythology that they were saving the world from tyranny when in reality they stood by from 1939 to the end of 1941, making huge war profits, while providing war materials to the Japanese as they invaded Korea, Manchuria and China while the Germans occupied Poland, France, North Africa, Russia, Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Greece, Yugoslavia, etc.
Click to expand...
Why are you so wildly over-stating this, so as to condemn America and it's people? Only a few wealthy industrialists did this, and only for a short time, until it became apparent that the threat of global fascism was real, and had to be fought.
jgarden said:
Footnote: - Charlie Chaplin was born in England.
-He was labelled a communist in America during the Cold War, received a subpoena to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee and was investigated by the FBI.
- Unwilling to change his "leftist" views or apply for American citizenship, Chaplin moved to Switzerland.
- Representative John E. Rankin, who helped establish the House Un-American Activities Committee told Congress in June 1947 that: "[Chaplin's] very life in Hollywood is detrimental to the moral fabric of America. [If he is deported] ... his loathsome pictures can be kept from before the eyes of the American youth. He should be deported and gotten rid of at once."
Click to expand...
Half of America was accused of being a "communist" during that era: one of our sadder moments in history. But once again, the people realized (eventually) what was happening, and the would-be dictator (McCarthy) was humiliated and removed from power. Thus ending the "communist" witch-hunt.

It often takes a whole nation of people some time to finally realize what's going on, and to react to it. But that generation did figure it out, and they did react. Which is sadly far more than we can say for this one.
 
PureX

PureX

Well-known member
fzappa13 said:
Well, yeah, you remember what Jesus said about the love of money ...
Click to expand...
Yes, and it's still true. But I have noticed that greed is a bit like an addiction, in that the last ones to recognize it's existence are those who have succumbed to it.
 
F

fzappa13

Well-known member
PureX said:
Yes, and it's still true. But I have noticed that greed is a bit like an addiction, in that the last ones to recognize it's existence are those who have succumbed to it.
Click to expand...

I wish it were that benign but the words of Gordon Gekko, though fictional, I think apropos when describing the motive force of so many who chase green paper with butt sweat on it ...


"Greed is Good"
 
PureX

PureX

Well-known member
fzappa13 said:
I wish it were that benign but the words of Gordon Gekko, though fictional, I think apropos when describing the motive force of so many who chase green paper with butt sweat on it ...


"Greed is Good"
Click to expand...
It seems they can't differentiate between greed and ambition, much the same way a drunk can't differentiate between social drinking and alcoholism.
 
F

fzappa13

Well-known member
PureX said:
It seems they can't differentiate between greed and ambition, much the same way a drunk can't differentiate between social drinking and alcoholism.
Click to expand...

If I were charged with picking a difference between the two I would have to go with a concern for your fellow man. The lesson lay in the Jew's wilderness experience I think. Everybody gathered what they could, some more than others, and none went hungry.
 
PureX

PureX

Well-known member
fzappa13 said:
If I were charged with picking a difference between the two I would have to go with a concern for your fellow man. The lesson lay in the Jew's wilderness experience I think. Everybody gathered what they could, some more than others, and none went hungry.
Click to expand...
Exactly. The greedy man wants as much as he can get for as little as he can give in return. The ambitious man wants to increase his own by creating increase for everyone.

Sadly, there are a great many Americans these days that not only seek increase only for themselves, but they actually resent having to share anything with others. And yet they don't see themselves as being greedy, at all. They think greed is just a normal, reasonable mode of thought and behavior.
 
TomO

TomO

Get used to it.
Hall of Fame
fzappa13 said:
Charlie suggested we could create our own utopia. He was and is mistaken. He touched on the book of Luke but neglected to mention it's author and His plans for us. I think it a part of God's plan that He is going to let us get a real good snoot full of what it is like when we try to get it right. When we finally get enough and surrender then He'll show us how it's done.

The great dictator ... since God first called out a people they soon cried "give us a king." ... and so He did, much to their chagrin. Being ruled by Him was insufficient. We have been paying the price for that ever since. I think think peoples lives are a sort of abbreviation of so much of what we might consider history in the Bible and my life is no exception. I tried in my own Scotch/ Irish hard headed way to make the world around me right. Didn't work. It will never work. I know that now. I do not have the power however well intended I might be. We don't have the power.


Come Lord Jesus.
Click to expand...

61783392.jpg
 
TomO

TomO

Get used to it.
Hall of Fame
Granite said:
You guys actually think civilization's been paying a price for what an ancient insignificant tribe may or may not have decided when it came time to picking a chieftain.
Click to expand...

Dude...Civilization has been paying a price for alot longer than that. Just one more decision in a long line of bad ones which continue to stretch through history. :plain:
 
TomO

TomO

Get used to it.
Hall of Fame
Granite said:
Be that as it may they didn't attack for no reason, or because they were crazy, or because they were evil.
Click to expand...

They attacked because we were making them very uncomfortable with our economic sanctions levied over their adventurism in China. Their only two choices were to get us to back off of our sanction enforcement or stop their brutal militaristic expansion.

Guess which option they chose. :plain:
 
F

fzappa13

Well-known member
Granite said:
You guys actually think civilization's been paying a price for what an ancient insignificant tribe may or may not have decided when it came time to picking a chieftain.
Click to expand...

You guys ...

Dear Brother Granite,

You are continually trying to lump people together for the purpose of putting words in their mouth with which you can disagree. Why don't you just address the individual and what they actually said?

Love,

Mateo
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top