0
muff528

Where were you.....

By muff528, in Speakers Corner

Recommended Posts

rehmwa    2

rehmwa
I live in 2010 - I have no desire to fantasize about a member of a filthy rich corrupt family and the hopes of a certain population segment to romantacize a short lived leader and wish for a time in the past and the concept of American royalty in what should be a free nation.

We have problems today to deal with and our own batch of corrupt leaders to deal with every two years.

We don't need an aristocracy and we really don't need pointless rear view mirror sobbing.

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

Share this post

Link to post
Share on other sites

muff528    3

muff528
Quote

I live in 2010 - I have no desire to fantasize about a member of a filthy rich corrupt family and the hopes of a certain population segment to romantacize a short lived leader and wish for a time in the past and the concept of American royalty in what should be a free nation.

We have problems today to deal with and our own batch of corrupt leaders to deal with every two years.

We don't need an aristocracy and we really don't need pointless rear view mirror sobbing.



I really wasn't trying to make a political statement or lament the loss of JFK and "Camelot". (I am really not a fan of the Kennedys). Just trying to express the assassination of a President through the eyes of a 13 y.o. kid, who up until that time, grew up in an era when (most) American children were, for the most part, shielded from the "evils" of the outside world by parents who lived through the Great American Depression and WW2.

Share this post

Link to post
Share on other sites

Amazon    7

Amazon
Quote

I still wonder what the world would be like now had he not been assasinated that day. I know my life would have been far different because I doubt I would have lost those I did in SE Asia[:/][:/]



Don't be so sure. Kennedy was, after all, the dumb SOB who got us involved in that mess to begin with and wouldn't pull our troops out for "political considerations".

Not that simple.

Ho Chi Minh and Vo Nguyen Giap fought with honor alongside us against the Japanese, with assurance from Roosevelt that self-determination would be theirs after victory was achieved.

Truman, OTOH, chose to keep the Japanese on as administrators until the French could get around to re-establishing domination over Indochina. Those who collaborated with the Japanese were rewarded and remained in power, and those who fought and died with us remained bainshed to the hills.

The French used the Foreign Legion to maintain order; the Legion, being made up of non-French nationals who are skilled at fighting and have reason to disappear, were heavily populated with war criminals from the recent conflict in Europe. Read "SS."

Thus, the troops defeated at Dien Bien Phu by the Viet Minh were largely the worst sort of Nazis (the real McCoy).

Thus, it was Truman who turned his back on staunch allies (the Vietnamese Constitution is still a near-carbon copy of the U.S. variant), leaving them at the mercy of a series of people against whom we had just defeated, many of whom were guilty of unspeakable atrocities.

Kennedy had his own basis for a claim to mediocrity, and the facade was beginning to fail when he was assassinated and beatified. Had he survived his first term, his legacy would be quite different.

In short, he made for a great martyr, but was at best a middling president.


BSBD,

Winsor

I do agree that Truman in his zeal to return the French to Indo-China was a HUGE mistake that led us down a very bad path. Eisenhower managed to also keep us engaged supporting the wrong people. I do not think that the Vietnamese would have turned to the communists had we supported them from 1945 onward. What many people failed to realize is that they were nationalists first and formost. Our ability to support despots who support right wing ideals has bitten us over and over and over. In the case of supporting the Catholic minority ruling class that included Diem, everythign went downhill from there.


Hmm since you hate Nazi's so much... should we bring up the Bush family ties to the Third Reich???

Some people seem to go to great lengths to gloss over that support and complicit business dealings over a long period of time.

Share this post

Link to post
Share on other sites

winsor    236

winsor
Hmm since you hate Nazi's so much... should we bring up the Bush family ties to the Third Reich???

Some people seem to go to great lengths to gloss over that support and complicit business dealings over a long period of time.



Hate Nazis?! WTF?

It is not so much hating them as it is being the tiniest bit nervous about a group of people with the stated intent, as well as a track record, of dedication to extermination of a group of people of which I am a member. I am just a bit leery of ANY group of people who says "KILL ALL THE xxx!!!" if I am part of group xxx.

As far as the Bush clan goes, where did you ever get the impression that I am even the slightest bit in favor of that crowd? GWB undid years of progress in the public standing of retarded people, and it will take many Special Olympics to wipe out the bad name he gave to stupidity.

Having lived in Germany for years, I do not have so simplistic a view of the whole NSDAP thing.

Thanks to Communists (for real) rioting in Kiel, the Kaiser sued for peace; it was NOT a surrender. Unfortunately the Communists - who are universally assholes - who were responsible for the riots were largely Jewish (what did you think Marx was, a Scientologist?).

Due to the terms of the armistice, the ReichsMark collapsed in 1923 and hundreds of thousands of Germans died of starvation and starvation-related illnesses.

The Jewish economy operated somewhat in parallel with the German economy, primarily due to regulations put in place by the Germans, so a lot of the Jewish community was spared the brunt of the economic disaster that befell Germany in the '20s.

Thus, people blamed "the Jews" for losing the war (partly true), and never forgave Jews for being able to eat while their family members starved to death (also partly true).

It is easy to condemn the raw hatred that fueled the Nazi movement, but it is not hard to understand when its source was from people watching their family members die a slow, nasty death. That level of cold fury does not lend itself to much in the way of reason.

I doubt that Prescott Bush had Nazi leanings beyond turning a buck wherever possible. His record makes accusations of Nazi affiliation particularly unlikely.

OTOH, Joe Kennedy was gleeful in his admiration of Berlin. I suspect he would have supported anyone that gave the British a hard time, but he was rather in tune with the business model of the thugs from Bavaria.

To a large extent, many of the people who supported the Third Reich were in denial, and were horrified when the extent of their excesses became known.

FWIW, Joe Stalin & Chairman Mao made Adolf & Co. look like rank amateurs when it came to capricious cruelty.


BSBD,

Winsor

Share this post

Link to post
Share on other sites

rehmwa    2

rehmwa
Quote

Quote

I live in 2010 - I have no desire to fantasize about a member of a filthy rich corrupt family and the hopes of a certain population segment to romantacize a short lived leader and wish for a time in the past and the concept of American royalty in what should be a free nation.

We have problems today to deal with and our own batch of corrupt leaders to deal with every two years.

We don't need an aristocracy and we really don't need pointless rear view mirror sobbing.



I really wasn't trying to make a political statement or lament the loss of JFK and "Camelot". (I am really not a fan of the Kennedys). Just trying to express the assassination of a President through the eyes of a 13 y.o. kid, who up until that time, grew up in an era when (most) American children were, for the most part, shielded from the "evils" of the outside world by parents who lived through the Great American Depression and WW2.



I forgot the whole "camelot" phrasing. that's great.

No problems here, I'm just off on a random rant with no real agenda -

for the children

...
Driving is a one dimensional activity - a monkey can do it - being proud of your driving abilities is like being proud of being able to put on pants

Share this post

Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
0
Go To Topic Listing