I'm going to start the continuation of this landmark thread with something a little provocative. I saw this clip from the Daily Show over at TORC (thanks to Democritis for posting it), and I think that it is worth watching. I know that the interviewees are not necessarily representative, but the fact that anyone thinks this way really does provide food for thought.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=168561&title=indecision-2008-west-virginia

(Needless to say, since it is the Daily Show, it is not completely family friendly, or PC)

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'But very bright were the stars upon the margin of the world, when at times the clouds about the West were drawn aside.'

Oh, my. How many redneck stereotypes (the Last Acceptable Bigotry) can we strew around in one segment?

Poor, benighted rednecks (or Blue-Collar Rural Non-College White Voters, BCRNCWVees)! Too ignorant and racist to perceive the manifest Truth, that Barck Obama is the Second Coming, Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and King Arthur all rolled into one.

Back to the 'real' news: St Barack of the Southside sure has a thin skin when his Messiahship is questioned, doesn't he? Calling Bush's mention of the A-word to the Knesset an "appalling attack." http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/20 ... nswer-for/

Well, if the bowler fits, Neville.......

what sol said...

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For the TROUBLED may you find PEACE
For the DESPAIRING may you find HOPE
For the LONELY may you find LOVE
For the SKEPTICAL may you find FAITH
-Frances C. Arrillaga 1941-1995

Diplomacy does get in the way of a good rousing war from time to time. Pity, that.

. . . What's wrong with trying to avoid a war? It's not as if the option is not still there when actually needed, as it was with Hitler. Yet now it seems no one can suggest diplomacy without being derided as insufficiently manly, an appeaser, a wimp.

We've built ourselves a great big huge hammer, and now every problem in the world is a nail.

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“There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

Prim, how many millions died because Chamberlain sold out the Czechs and didn't go to war to finish Hitler- still quite weak- in 1938?

soli, the White House all but acknowledged, privately, that Bush was talking about Obama. Whether one agrees with what he said or not (and you know that I don't), it was absolutely unprecedented for a sitting president to interject presidential politics in a speech made on foreign soil.

However, as it is likely to hurt McCain more than Obama, I guess I can't complain too much.

Regarding the Daily Show clip, those interviews speak for themselves. Ignorance is a bad thing, whatever label you put on it.

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'But very bright were the stars upon the margin of the world, when at times the clouds about the West were drawn aside.'

There's a difference between talking to someone and appeasing them. Obama has proposed the former, not the latter.

A lot of historians now think Chamberlain was buying time, admittedly at the expense of the Czechs; reportedly, Hitler was furious that Chamberlain didn't provoke him in Munich, to provide enough of a casus belli. Hitler was ready for war in 1938--England wasn't. It barely was when it did happen, and a couple of very important things had come about in the interim: the radar net across the south of England, the development and production of modern fighter planes, and a more general war footing.

If he had just, like the brain-dead testosterone-poisoned "macho" men currently in charge no doubt would have, started the war at Munich...I will leave the rest to you.

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Resentment is no excuse for baldface stupidity.
-- Garrison Keillor

The disagreement is here, as many believe he is proposing the latter, as he sounds just like Jimmy Carter!

And if Bush was talking about anyone obvious, it would have been Carter.

Obama would have looked a whole lot better if he had come out and said Bush was absolutely right, we can't appease them.

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For the TROUBLED may you find PEACE
For the DESPAIRING may you find HOPE
For the LONELY may you find LOVE
For the SKEPTICAL may you find FAITH
-Frances C. Arrillaga 1941-1995

And VtF, you can go find ignorant people everywhere. Showcasing it, and labeling an entire state by such interviews is not only absurd, but it is insulting.

I expect it from Jon Stewart, but not from you.

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For the TROUBLED may you find PEACE
For the DESPAIRING may you find HOPE
For the LONELY may you find LOVE
For the SKEPTICAL may you find FAITH
-Frances C. Arrillaga 1941-1995

hal, it was not my intention to claim that those few people are representative of the whole state of West Virginia (as I think I said in my post). Rather, the fact that there are any people that think that way is extremely disturbing to me.

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to clarify that.

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'But very bright were the stars upon the margin of the world, when at times the clouds about the West were drawn aside.'

How many millions died because America sat on its hands until December 7, 1941?


There might possibly just maybe be some teeny little tad, a jot and/or a tittle of sense in solictr's insistence that "the enemy" must be bombed back to the Stone Age. But . . . which enemy? Where? Think about it. A Thousand Front War.

Man. Just like a video game!

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Dig deeper.

Quite untrue. It took the entire Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe to subdue little Czecho- Germany was undefended and buns-up in the West, and Hitler knew it. It was even still the case during the Phoney War after the invasion of Poland- the General Staff were amazed that France and Britain didn't attack.

Radar and fighter defense only made a difference to England because by that time Hitler had airbases in France and the Low Countries- he possessed no long-range bombers. And of course he possessed vastly more medium bombers and fighters than he had two years earlier.

The position you laid out, Ax, is *arch*revisionism. I suggest you read the pertinent chapters in Churchill.

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Now, since 'talking' isn't 'appeasing'- what, pray tell, are Obama and A'hmadimnutjob going to talk about? Perhaps allowing the mullahs to finish building their bomb if they pinkie-swear not to use it?

The proper foreign policy objective for the United Stes governmjent should be eliminating the odious Iranian regime, not accommodating it.

Sure. And no doubt it will be the blazing success story that Iraq is.

And peace shall break out and all manner of things will be well.

I can just see it! Some dork in a boilersuit standing up with his arms in the air shrieking "Mission Accomplished"!!!

Are there enough young people in the US to feed this furnace? Or are those combat robots actually ready for action?

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Dig deeper.

Churchill was Chamberlain's rival, and the person who most directly profited from Chamberlain's fall from power. I'm afraid the charges of revisionism really should go back to him.

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Resentment is no excuse for baldface stupidity.
-- Garrison Keillor

It was politically impossible to act before Pearl Harbor (except for the unacknowledged Navy and Coast Guard convoy and U-boat efforts). Politically impossible? Yes, because the body politic was dominated by the doves and peaceniks, who didn't think fighting Nazi Germany was 'worth it.'

I have no effing clue what Obama and Ahmanijehad (sp?) are going to talk about. Presumably about what the Iranians want, what the US wants, and why a nuclear war in the Mid-East is the epitome of a bad idea. Who knows. Maybe reason will fail. But when you weigh the cost of yet another war against the cost of a real and honest attempt at diplomacy, not just a bunch of chest-beating and leaf-tossing, the latter comes out cheaper.

As far as current US-orchestrated regime changes go, our successes in Iraq and Afghanistan sorta speak for themselves. As does Iran, in its own way. Let's quit while we're ahead.

Forgive me, soli, but that is too funny. You can seriously suggest that Churchill is an objective historian on this point.

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'But very bright were the stars upon the margin of the world, when at times the clouds about the West were drawn aside.'

Objective? No. Includes copious original documents? Yes. Right? Absolutely.

The idea that Chamberlain believed he was 'buying time' is indeed a postfacto rationalisation.