badmouthing our president

[habilis]

doemel, what world do YOU live in that you think it's gone?

What do you think is REALLY at the heart of the anti-America anti-war anti-Bush sentiment?

The cancer of Socialsm is only in a dormant stage right now.

[edX]

one of the things about this whole war on terrorism that scares the bejeezers out of many of us americans is that it is potentially another excuse for a new witch hunt. unknown enemies make potential enemies of everyone. especially when your own president is spouting rhetoric like "you're either with us or against us." at what point do i become an enemy of the state because i disagree with it? at what point does this become a step backwards to the days of the 'red scare'? at what point am i labeled the enemy because i believe more in humanity than nationalism?

and if any of that happens, are any of you who believe that freedom should be protected at all costs going to come to my aid? are you going to stand up for my rights or are you simply going to feel safer knowing that one less different opinion has been silenced?

btw - propaganda comes in all flavors.

[Ugg]

Habilis, I haven't mad myself clear. I'm not discussing the end result of WWI and WWII, but rather how they came to be. The Germans in trying to solidify and extend their new country (Germany didn't come into existence as a country until 1871) during WWI overextended their reach and lost. They were then penalized beyond belief and left impoverished by the treaty of Versailles. This once proud land of Wagner and Humboldt became the breeding ground of disenchantment in central Europe. Had the treaty of Versailles been less about penalizing and more about humane treatment. Hitler probably wouldn't have come to power. Hitler like GW came to power on a platform of restoring Germany to its rightful place in the world. He was all bluster and guts and as we all know to well full of nascent german nationalism.

Even though he was a scrawny little Austrian and not to offend any Austrians but Adolf's formative years were spent in Austria, not Germany, he was a very commanding presence. Even contemporary jewish accounts of his early years are full of awe of this little man.

He convinced the Germans that the only way for them to regain the glory of the German nation was to eliminate those who opposed it, those who ridiculed it and those too weak to oppose it.
He succeeded.

I am not saying that GW and Hitler are one and the same nor am I saying that the situations are the same. You, Habilis, are saying that we should learn from the past so am I. I just don't think that we should follow in the footsteps of Hitler, Stalin, Suharto and all the other despots this world has known. We supported all three of the above in the beginning. We even supported Saddam in the 80s.

But as with so many Americans you seem to think that the only way to achieve lasting to change is by destroying the existing structures and then rebuilding from scratch. I don't think we need to do it that way.

[doemel]

something slightly OT:
did you guys realize that many of us are discussing about related issues in several threads at the same time? i spent half my day reading/posting instead of working

[toast]

So that's a list of socialist books...

1) André Glucksmann is an apolitic philosopher.
2) Tocqueville supported aristocracy at his time.
3) Dictionary of Twentieth Century Geopolitics and Geostrategy Issues is hardly a political book.
4) Theodor Adorno was more right-wing but his works are completely apolitic.
5) Moisei Ostrogorski is completely apolitic too.
6) Noam Chomsky is left-wing
7) Howard Zinn is left-wing.
8) Zbigniew Brzezinski is hardly left wing

That's two leftists out of 8 authors. May I add socialism wasn't a structured political tendency when Ostrogorski and Tocqueville lived, which makes it very hard for them to be socialists

I'm still waiting for the list of books you were 'looking back and seeing' when you wrote your post.

[Ugg]

My personal recommendation would be de Toqueville. Although he is a snooty French aristocrat, he has a lot of very valid things to say about the US that stand true today. I believe that he even made it as far as Cleveland during his travels.

This recommendation comes strictly from my readings of American History. Sometimes the views of someone on the outside looking in are more valuable than those of an insider. This is not always the case but in de Toqueville's case it definitely is.

[edX]

Originally posted by doemel
something slightly OT:
did you guys realize that many of us are discussing about related issues in several threads at the same time? i spent half my day reading/posting instead of working

doemel - i'm guessing that you don't realize that some of us are not only debating these things in different threads, but also at another forum site. at least one of the threads there has the same name as one here. although it just got shut down for name calling as we briefly had to do with one yesterday as well.

but i'll have to admit, i'm running out of much new to add. i'm starting to feel like i've said my 'peace' and need to rest until more develops.

[habilis]

Originally posted by toast

I'm still waiting for the list of books you were 'looking back and seeing' when you wrote your post.

This kind of snooty elitist sarcasm is gettin old Jack. Your percieved intellectual superiority is getting offensive and this is the last time I'm going to respond to it. I almost feel bad for you thinking that you're better than anyone who didn't read those books.

Ed, I've said my peace too, this is getting tiring.