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They deserve credit but there is no way the US would have wasted soldiers the way the Soviets did. They got possibly millions of their own soldiers killed from sheer incompetence. Just because they died like flies does not mean they won the war. It was a win/win for the US when Germans and Russians were killing each other at that time. Would be like North Korea and ISIS at war for us today.
That was basically "Union" strategy during the Civil War. Wear down the south because you outnumber them and outproduce them.
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Originally Posted by Brave New World
Unlike George VI and the Queen Consort who refused to leave London during the Blitz and visited the people of the East End and bombed out areas during the war.
But had Edward remained King and not been "pushed out", wouldn't he have done the same?
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Originally Posted by Brave New World
The East End at the time was mainly full of white working class dock workers, who worked on the masssive docks on what was once the largest port in the entire world. There were a few ethnic communities, however the East End a was by and large dockers and their families at the time and was nothing like Chicago.
My overall point is, East London was hardly representative of England as a whole. And as you know, most of the divide in politics is between rural and urban. Rural people are overwhelmingly nationalistic, cities aren't. So the "blackshirts" being outnumbered in East London, would be like Trump supporters being outnumbered in Portland, or at Berkeley. It is to be expected.
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Originally Posted by Brave New World
Britain entered the war due to the invasion of Poland, as did France, the Commonwwealth (Empire) forces fought with us, but the reason that triggered our entry in to WW2 was the invasion of Poland.
Britain was an empire, it had invaded countless countries. France was an empire, it invaded countless countries. The Japanese had been fighting a war with China for many years already. The Soviet Union also invaded Poland alongside Germany.
If Britain was going to go to war merely over an invasion, then why did Britain only go to war with Germany? And why did it ally with the Soviet Union who also did the invading?
You are skirting the issue by simplifying the narrative. Britain didn't just go to war because Hitler invaded. They went to war because Germany was becoming too strong, and if they took Poland, they would become even stronger, and that would threaten the British Empire. Because the only purpose of Britain's involvement in WWII was the preservation of the British Empire.
If you believe Churchill and the British Empire were behaving in a benevolent fashion, merely because of their love and concern for the Poles, you are delusional.
WW 2 was a checkers game.......our goal was to destroy Germany and Japan until their unconditional surrender. But the A-bomb changed the rules and the Cold War was a chess game. We fought that war with 1 hand tied behind our backs to avoid a global nuclear war. That's the reason North Vietnam and North Korea are not parking lots today.
The Communists were testing us in many places and if We didn't fight in Vietnam or Korea or show them we were willing to use force then where and when? When and where you draw the line and fight against communist aggression during the Cold War?
Sure, we lost 50,000 lives in NAM but how many other wars it avoided by showing our enemies that we were willing to fight you anywhere and anytime and for each life we lose they would lose 3 times that..........this is what chess tactics is all about and the Soviets and Chinese were playing it like we were and at the end We won by avoiding a nuclear global war.
The United States was put up against the wall fighting a 2-front war on opposite sides of the globe, with either front so strong it could have defeated us alone.
While it's easy to remember the valor of our fighting men, it's far less easy to recall how much suffering our civilians underwent. The citizens of the United States were called upon to give everything they had, and then to give even more. And more than that.
The response was far more than only patriotism. We were engaged in a fight for our national survival.
While it was unlikely we would have ever been occupied by our victorious foes, our government could have been enslaved, and Americans would never have submitted to that. If the Axis power had won that war, America's future was going to be one of perpetual ever-lasting war against them here, in our motherland.
The United States was close to bankrupt by the last of 1945.
It was do or die.
The civilian population was closer to exhaustion than our military was and could not keep up supporting the war much longer, no matter how hard they all tried.
We have never been in that position since, and we had only been in it once before, during the Civil War.
Because we triumphed in the end was most naturally sentimentalized and glorified. Giving our all did not end with the fighting. Far from it. Once we were victorious, we had to move very quickly to set things right, and if we failed, more war was sure to break out that would come to us.
That meant more suffering for our civilians, but they could foresee an end coming to the suffering. And the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan both worked so well the suffering ended sooner than our people expected. The peace was better than envisioned.
So we celebrated ourselves for a long time afterward. Rightly so. We had tried our best to avoid falling into that war, but we did fall and we did emerge intact. And we returned to prosperity.
It's unlikely that any future struggle would yield the same results again. The Greatest Generation understood that, but their kids never did because they never went through the desperation.
So, while our people in Viet Nam were fighting and dying, the party at home never stopped. In the end, the Axis defeated us from the national hubris they generated in us just as much as Ho Chi Min's people defeated us.
We failed to realize for the Vietnamese, their war was do or die for them. And that they were just as resolute as we had been a generation before when we fought our own war for survival.
because the jews run hollywood since we decided that is the common war thread we got.
History and public op is now about movies, and entertainment for generations to come.
That was basically "Union" strategy during the Civil War. Wear down the south because you outnumber them and outproduce them.
But had Edward remained King and not been "pushed out", wouldn't he have done the same?
My overall point is, East London was hardly representative of England as a whole. And as you know, most of the divide in politics is between rural and urban. Rural people are overwhelmingly nationalistic, cities aren't. So the "blackshirts" being outnumbered in East London, would be like Trump supporters being outnumbered in Portland, or at Berkeley. It is to be expected.
I am not sure what your overall point is, the East End in the 1930's had a lot of white working class dock workers, whilst fascism was never popular in the UK and this was reflected in the fact that the Blackshirts had no representation in our Parliament unlike fascist parties in other parts of Europe.
Furthermore millions of Britons including my own family fought Hitler and fascism, indeed the war effort involved nearly the entire nation and national economy.
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Originally Posted by Redshadowz
Britain was an empire, it had invaded countless countries. France was an empire, it invaded countless countries. The Japanese had been fighting a war with China for many years already. The Soviet Union also invaded Poland alongside Germany.
In terms of the British Empire it started off with Chartered companies such as the Hudson Bay Compant or Dutch East Indies companies and these companies helped forge the British Empire, which was largely a trading Empire indeed Britain a naval power kept a much smaller army that her European rivals, and often relied on the local rulers to keep order. In terms of India, the Maharajas ruled different regions and had there own Armies, and Britain kept them happy by making them wealthy through international trade. Britain's vast Navy protected this trade, and those docks in the East End of London and other docks in the UK were where hubs for trade from across the Empire.
First, WW2 was a response to the attacks of evil countries bent on world domination and the extermination of those they felt were less than human then themselves. Second, it was an actual declared war while USA’s involvement in Vietnam was never officially declared a war. Third, WW2 involved battles in almost all continents. Fourth, it was the last war in which the non-military citizens of USA made sacrifices at home to help with the war efforts and supported the returning veterans instead of greeting veterans with protest and insults. Fifth, the troops had a clear idea of why they were fighting the war against Germany, Italy, and Japan. Troops in Vietnam didn’t have a clear reason why we (USA troops) were in Vietnam fighting in what was essentially a civil war.
If Britain was going to go to war merely over an invasion, then why did Britain only go to war with Germany? And why did it ally with the Soviet Union who also did the invading?
You are skirting the issue by simplifying the narrative. Britain didn't just go to war because Hitler invaded. They went to war because Germany was becoming too strong, and if they took Poland, they would become even stronger, and that would threaten the British Empire. Because the only purpose of Britain's involvement in WWII was the preservation of the British Empire.
If you believe Churchill and the British Empire were behaving in a benevolent fashion, merely because of their love and concern for the Poles, you are delusional.
Britain and France had military alliances with Poland, and both Britain and France both declared war on Germany on the 3rd September 1939 after Germany invaded Poland.
As for Churchill he had spent most of the 1930's as a backbench MP and was not Prime Minister when we declared war on Germany,the British Prime at the time was Neville Chamberlain, and it was Chamberlein who declared war on Germany after they invaded Poland and not Winston Churchill.
During the 1930's Churchill fell out with the leadership of the Conservative Party and was not invited to join the Cabinet indeed he was in political isolation for many years. At this time Churchill was at the low-point in his career, in a period known as "the wilderness year", during this period he did a lot of writing and campaigning.
On the 3rd September 1939, the day Britain declared war on Germany following the outbreak of the Second World War, Churchill was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty, the same position he had held during the first part of the First World War. As such he was a member of Chamberlain's small War Cabinet
On the 3rd April 1940: The Ministerial Defence Committee, with the First Lord of the Admiralty (Winston Churchill) as its chair, replaces Lord Chatfield's ministerial position of Minister for Coordination of Defence.
On the 10th May 1940: Germany invades Belgium, France, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. As a result the Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain resigns and Winston Churchill becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
I never considered myself one with Bakunin in the sense I didn't agree with his mutualist political philosophy, I nonetheless decided to read this essay at face value, and not of the person who wrote it.
From the first part I can understand his point on liberty in the absolute, if regulations are put on people then that is the end of liberty regardless of scale.
insofar as that goes for each person to act independent of some lawful force, I can understand that to a greater extent. It's not that people shouldn't be stopped from acting a certain way, it is just that such an infringement on ones actions shouldn't be produced by 'rightful' power.
I can also understand then, if one were to live in a community, they shouldn't be enforced by the majority (or minority) to restrict their own behavior in a systematic way. Ok, in that case I could see things ranging from different external threats like building a faulty house or poisoning a river (that the community gets water from) a case of property, not authority. People can't do what they want in your house, because you operate that house and lay claim to its space. In the same way a plot of land in the middle of a town (like a road way) that is used by multiple persons is owned by multiple people. As multiple people cannot each use something with indifference to the next (same as a family living in a house) they must come to a democratic agreement in as much to how and to what capacity it is used.
Speaking of democracy, I once again express democracy as a voluntary action of those involved. If democracy were applied to centralized power then the same problems applied to state power apply to democracy. If democracy is limited to only those who participate in it, the nature of the agreement is held at a more personal level.
That being said, all involved in the direct utilization of something must agree on its terms mutually. If three people live in a house (use a road, work on a farm, etc.) and a fourth person comes in, just by nature of the fact others are using what they are now a part of, they're are participating in this mutual democracy.
On a side note, I don't believe real anarchy would have capitalism, as for people to truly practice liberty, the nature of material ownership must be based on function and usage, as it was before the period of empire. Value isn't derived by some artificial number, but from the function it gives to each individual (on a case by case scenario). Further I can't see how making an object makes it yours, the greatest claim to what you have is what you use. The neanderthal tribes never held property that wasn't personally theirs, and paperwork with state backing does not make such discarded items retain ownership by its maker. Anyways all material is part of earth, not created by humans in any technical sense.
Where I do see myself disagreeing with you is in possibility. Yes, states, as the essay suggests, are formed from power and wish to retain that power, but while power can not be eliminated, it can be controlled through natural means.
If you look at societies before modern times (even early agrarian societies for the most part) goods were not able to be stored, and as such could not be accumulated. People then formed groups, provided for each other freely, and all mutually benefited from it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sentinel_Island
And before I move on, it seems I hit another one of Bakunin's point. If a group of people form, would not an individual feel threatened by the greater numbers and want to form their own group breeding conflict? I guess.
That is one of the many flaws of tribal societies, and in retrospect I can see why. My only answer would be that if people organized as such but through location, not identity, would it not like a city model form a greater area (country) were all the different localities are interconnected (but not under one authoritative state). I'm not sure, but the possibility to limit access to goods is possible without turning the clock back. If ownership capacities were limited to the individual, then accumulation of wealth too would be severely limited. Along with no money to control capital, people would be forced to group together to provide in greater size. Then the question of what about those not in those groups (unions, workplaces)? I still retain like Kropotkin that as industrial means formed greater production abilities, all excess production would become a public good as not all the producers involved can take/consume all within their own personal capacity to carry and store (which is not extensive). Even if they stored all their production together, that space would only be additive of all their abilities, leaving the same level of excess production for everyone else.
And federation (local) structures, besides helping to facilitate this level of distribution, would enact other positive forces that are not authoritative like a state. Creating something new doe not infringe on the liberty of others the same way taking something away does. Federations (a platform for people in the community to voice their opinion, even in the thousands, like David in your last video mentioned) could only organize voluntary labor, but they couldn't jail, tax, or regulate others. Only the leveling of sanctions by member syndicates could their be a majority agreement (and majority rule is the basis of participatory agreement) in the case of bad behavior (so called crime).
I know you believe human nature to be opposed to such order, but my question to you would be why the animal kingdom, without the same level of expressive intelligence as humans, almost without failure has an instinctive behavior to share with others and not act in terms of radical greed (as mutual aid is still self-beneficial)? Ants for example exile other members that refuse to share their part of the pie when ask to from another member. Bee colonies share similar traits as well as more advanced species like birds, stags, and even predators like wolves.
With all that being said, I can't really find myself disagreeing with anything said in the essay.
And more than that your phrase "on-your-side" (intentionally or not) did get me thinking. I feel perhaps I too closely put value towards political identity rather than the claims being brought forth. You have a tendency (which I think is a good one) to quote from a wide arrange of people, each with their own piece of truth, and it probably helps bring a clearer understanding about what one believes rather than just picking a side, that becomes too oppressed under dogma overtime. If anything I think I've learned that much from your posts. So thank you for that.
edit: I'll read Spooner's piece tomorrow when I have time.
Lysander Spooner is done as well now.
I see his quite differently than Bakunin's essay, some agreement, but more disagreements.
Firstly he takes the legal claim that the constitution is not a binding agreement to all members of the country, nor is it a binding document to the posterity of all at the time for it only extends to those who were in existence at that time.
My impression is by in existence he means signatory members of the constitution, but we'll put that aside for now. The general claim here is against legal power, and yet he uses legal authority to denounce it.
As such he does not broach the subject that no agreement can be binding, regardless of extent, as writing does not cause a person to withdraw their consent for any period of time. For example if I make a deal or sign a paper that involves giving up my labor for three years, I am not the same person for that entire duration of time, and my mind on where my consent lies can change at any time within those three years. Allowing for the legal presence of authority even in the subject of consent invariably leads to private rule over individuals and capital (such as freed slaves returning to indentured servitude after the civil war thanks to labor contracts).
The accumulation of such wealth is pertained on power, and state power is derived from the centers of wealth (though they can help instigate growth in certain concentrations of wealth).
Spooner does to his credit accurately discuss the context by which these agreements are made and why they can not mean the absolute agreement of both members of an agreement, but he limits this analysis to constitutional authority rather than the more broad legal authority (which seems to be central to his argument).
Here I go back to my support of democracy, legal agreements pertain unjust authority while democracy relies on mutual consent. If, as in most cases, the agreement relies on some distribution or usage of capital, it must be done on equal parts by the say of all members, not just an owner class and a peasant class coming to agreed terms (as in that case the power imbalances lead to abuse of freedom).
More extensively than that democracy affecting those participating must also be discussed.
In Spooner's case, participation involves voting or practicing your say in a certain agreement. I don't agree with that assessment as for too many times does usage determine well being. If someone is using something that others are also using (such as public spaces, etc.) they are implicitly joined to the agreement made on the usage of that thing.
If someone moved into your house, they are just as responsible to the rules that were agreed upon before their entrance, but only they have a say to change it if they so wish. This doesn't apply to wide areas, but specific capital that can be determined as being operated on (like farm land, factory space, or a town square).
The more problematic segment of Spooner's writing is in taxes. I understand his point that government does not have privileged to take as they see fit, but then one has to look at money and its actual ownership value. When the government taxes an individual, they are not taking physical paper from their hands (even though they may do this in practice), the more relevant thing is that they are taking numerical value that you lay claim to.
No one can claim potential ownership (which is what money is) of capital beyond what they directly have access to, but if one were to, it would represent the privilege of accumulation of wealth which invariably leads to excess power (like I said before) which leads to the limitation of others freedom. Now that doesn't mean the state should control the direction wealth is distributed as they too centralize it around different purposes, but for true freedom to be achieved one would need to allow scarcity of capital, not in the material sense, but in the property sense.
In that case power would be limited to what capital could be consumed/at what rate, and not what capital could be stored and maintained.
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