10 most rightist posters on poly

[St Leo]

Originally posted by DarkCloud
which is, of course, why republicans have traditionally supported 'buy american' only movements becasue they are 'patriotic.' ... correct?

Yes. Adam Smith's model relies on voluntary patriotism. Outsourcing is reductio ad absurdum -- it destroys capitalism by pushing it beyond its tolerances.

[Pax]

Once again, I have to agree with Ned that Great Britain either directly or indirectly caused WW1 and WW2. Their presence in the Far East caused the weakening of China and the modernization and expansion of Japan directly or indirectly. What I don't understand is why you are coming down on the British when America does the same kinds of things today and you don't seem to have a problem with it.

[Drake Tungsten]

Their presence in the Far East caused the weakening of China and the modernization and expansion of Japan directly or indirectly.

Agreed. I really don't understand why some people can't grasp this obvious fact.

Also, looking back through the thread, I noticed a post I had missed earlier in which Ned accused molly of arguing against strawmen. I agree completely. No one has argued that the British controlled Japanese foreign policy, yet molly keeps asking for proof for this unmade argument. As far as I can tell, the farthest anyone has gone is accusing the British of playing a vital role in creating the conditions that led to the outbreak of WWII. I don't know if I agree completely with that accusation, particularly with regards to East Asia, but it is definitely an argument that could be made based on the historical facts. It's certainly not a point of view that deserves the derision that molly has directed toward Ned in this thread from the word go...

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Ned


As to the role of Wilson: I never said he did not cooperate. I said the reason he cooperated was that he was a dumbkopf and was easily manipulated by Britain in France. While the VOA blurb does not so state, other renditions of what happened at Versailles also conclude that Wilson was steamrolled by the Brits and the French and they conclude that Wilson must of have been naive -- at best.

I suggest you provide some proof for your assertion that Wilson was 'a dummkopf' and that he was steamrollered by France and Great Britain.

So far, each time you've made this assertion, you've signally failed to provide any evidence that Wilson was duped by the Allied powers or pressured into giving in by them.

What the Voice of America extract shows, is that in order to get his way, Wilson was prepared to let the Japanese have what they wanted- the same way he was prepared to let Masaryk have a Czechoslovak state.

I'm sorry you seem unable to grasp this simple fact, and have instead to rely on blackening Wilson's character and belittling his intellect- all without any foundation.


You said that the British Empire was responsible for the enmity between China and Japan- time and again, I've asked you for evidence of this, and time and again, you've failed to provide any.


Now see, unlike some people, my books aren't for show, or bought by the yard.

Here's John Keegan from 'The First World War' (publ. Hutchinson, Pimlico imprint, 1999):

" On the outbreak of the war, the British and French at once took action to reduce the garrisons of Germany's colonies; the Japanese, who had enetered the war (on 23rd August) on a narrow interpretation of their obligations under the Anglo-Japanese Treaty of 1911, but in practice to improve their strategic position in the Pacific at Germany's expense, likewise moved against Tsingtao and the central Pacific Islands."

Barbara Tuchman, 'August 1914' (publ. Four Square May 1962):

[Lieutenant Colonel Max Hoffmann]... Germany's military observer to the Russo-Japanese War. When a Japanese general refused him permission to watch a battle froma bearby hill, etiquette gave way:

"You are a yellow-skin; you are uncivilized if you will not let me go to that hill!"

Hoffmann yelled at the general in the presence of other foreign attaches and at least one foreign correspondent. Belonging to a race hardly second to the Germans in sense of self-improtance, the general yelled back:

"We Japanese are paying for this military information with our blood and we don't propose to share it with others!"


It was the Japanese victory in the Russo-Japanese War which gave them access to Manchuria and Port Arthur, and also spurred Kaiser Wilhelm to utter the phrase:
'Die gelbe Gefahr' - the Yellow Peril.

Which power was it that mediated the peace which gave Japan the territorial gains after the Russo-Japanese War, Ned ? Was it the United States, perhaps ?

http://www.lib.byu.edu/~rdh/wwi/1914m/portsmouth.html

From 'August 1914' again:

" Japan had her own ideas of her best interests in a European war, and these were well understood by their intended victim:

"Japan is going to take advantage of this war to gain control of China."

foretold President Yuan Shi-kai (of China, Ned)

As it proved, Japan used the opportunity of the war while the European powers were too busy to stop her, to impose the Twenty One Demands on China and to make the incursions into Chinese sovereignty and territory which were to twist the history of the Twentieth Century."

Page 305, in case you're interested.

Now what had happened in an earlier war- the Sino-japanese War ?

From: 'The Dragon Empress' by Marina Warner (publ.Sphere Books, Cardinal edition, 1974)-

"The Japanese terms at Shimonoseki were unequivocally harsh: they demanded the Liaotung peninsula on which Port Arthur was situated, the Pescadero Islands and Formosa...

After Shimonoseki, Li Hung-chang trusted the Western nations to maintain the balance of power in China and to 'request' Japan's withdrawal from the key Liaotung peninsula (and Port Arthur). As expected, Russia France and Germany politely did so, and Japan, not entirely unaware of a number of Russian men-of-war in the area, graciously concurred." pp. 181-182

And after Russia had applied this pressure, what occurred in 1899 ?

'The Dragon Empress' again:

"Japan, sore at the sight of its prize, Port Arthur disappearing into the jaws of Russia, wanted Fukien opposite newly-acquired Formosa..." p. 207

and what occurred just after the Boxer Rebellion ?

" In return for its kind offices, Russia hoped to wrest Manchuria from China, as in 1860 Vladivostok had been the prize of trifling diplomatic assistance."

p. 249

"From 1904 the Russians fought the Japanese on Chinese territory for the possession of Manchuria, and China could do nothing..."

p. 258


Now what does Paul Kennedy have to say about the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese wars ?

"And while China, Manchuria and (even more alarming) Korea might fall into the hands of another Great Power, geography had placed Japan far closer to those lands than any one of the other imperialist states- as Russia was to find to its discomfort when it tried to supply an army along 6 000 miles of railway in 1904-5."

from: 'The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers' (publ. Unwin Hyman 1988).

And what about that American mediation in 1905 ?

Let's see what Barbara Tuchman has to say about it in 'The Proud Tower', (publ. Hamish Hamilton, 1966):

"Three months after Tsushima, in July 1905, the President of the United States offered to mediate between Russia and Japan, less to save the Russians than to halt the Japanese who seemed to him to have gone far enough."

p. 271

Now forgive me - but where in all that can you detect the British being responsible for the enmity between Japan and China, or Japan and Russia, or Japan and Germany or Japan and Korea for that matter ?

Here's how a book on Japanese history puts it:

"The weakness and disunity of China and Korea in the last part of the nineteenth century put temptation in the way of Japanese leaders. A few in the tradition of Hideyoshi, cherished ambitions of hegemony in East Asia."

that's from W. G. Beasley's 'The Japanese Experience', Chapter 13, p. 231.

On page 233, there's a reproduction of a Japanese cartoon from 1894 (Yorozu Choho) depicting a Japanese boy pupil lying on the floor at the foot of a bearded Western teacher, then eventually rising up and tweaking his beard.

It's celebrating two foreign policy successes not wholly welcome to the Western teacher, the treaty revision and the successful attack on China.

And it still fails to mention the British Empire.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten


I really don't understand why some people can't grasp this obvious fact.

Also, looking back through the thread, I noticed a post I had missed earlier in which Ned accused molly of arguing against strawmen. I agree completely. No one has argued that the British controlled Japanese foreign policy, yet molly keeps asking for proof for this unmade argument. As far as I can tell, the farthest anyone has gone is accusing the British of playing a vital role in creating the conditions that led to the outbreak of WWII. I don't know if I agree completely with that accusation, particularly with regards to East Asia, but it is definitely an argument that could be made based on the historical facts. It's certainly not a point of view that deserves the derision that molly has directed toward Ned in this thread from the word go...

Clearly, some people can't grasp that Ned makes claims he can't provide evidence for. Or indeed, prove capable of reading his posts. Or paraphrase mine, without misrepresenting me. No change there...

But as to WWII and as to a lot of the other conflicts in the world since WWI*, Britian is deeply involved in creating the causes for war and to actually starting them. Now I am not the only one who has ever said this, as it appears to be a consensus view among all of Britains victims. But, British propaganda is very good, I agree. It almost has most of the world convinced that Britain is the most disinterested, kindly and munificent nation that ever existed.

Ned's original, in which he claims that the British Empire either started the conflict between or created the causes for war between :

Germany and Poland

China and Japan

India and Pakistan

Israel and various Arab states.


So far he's ignored: 19th century Pan-German nationalism, Pan Slav and little Slav nationalism in Austria-Hungary and Russia and the German Empire, 19th Century Zionism and Jewish immigration into the Ottoman held areas of Palestine, the existence of the Muslim League in India and Hindu chauvinism, and signally failed to show again and again how the British were responsible for the various Sino-Japanese conflicts.

He's misrepresented the character and intelligence of Woodrow Wilson, ignored the American role in East Asia and seems oblivious to the notion of people actually being able to think for themselves without the aid or involvement of the British.

He seems entirely ignorant of Chinese history in the 19th and early 20th centuries, relying entirely as he seems to on a film he saw about Manchuria.

All in all, he has my sympathy, not my derision.

[Ned]

Molly, let's end this discussion. As always, its been fun. We all seem to learn from something from discussions of this type.

I think we ended that you would agree that Versailles indeed did contribute to the causes of WWII, but you do not agree that Britain is solely responsible, pointing to Wilson, the American, as being at least as culpable.

On the latter point, Wilson was indeed held to blame by Congress and the American people. But apparently, the British never thought that Versailles was wrong at all in any respect. With that attitude, I submit, the Brits are bound to repeat their mistakes.

[Saras]

Ned, ever considered the role of the FRENCH at Versailles?

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Saras
Ned, ever considered the role of the FRENCH at Versailles?

If anything, at least we now know we messed up.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Spiffor

If anything, at least we now know we messed up.

Yeah, you should have burned that railcar.

[Saras]

Originally posted by Spiffor

If anything, at least we now know we messed up.

Fact - reparations imposed on France in 1870's by Prussia were LARGER as % of GDP than those on Germany at Versailles.

[Ted Striker]

Saras,

I had never made that connection. We don't get much history on 19th century Europe. It seems like a vicious cycle that leads all the way to world war 2.

Okay, so BEFORE the 1870s and the reparations by Prussia, what happened to lead up to THAT?

[Ben Kenobi]

So is their going to be a poll for most rightwing poly poster coming up soon, I dont want to miss that.

When this thread dies down.

[Saras]

Originally posted by Ted Striker
Saras,

I had never made that connection. We don't get much history on 19th century Europe. It seems like a vicious cycle that leads all the way to world war 2.

Okay, so BEFORE the 1870s and the reparations by Prussia, what happened to lead up to THAT?

My point is that France grinned and bore it, while Germany *****ed about it, leading up to Hitler.

[DAVOUT]

Originally posted by Saras


My point is that France grinned and bore it, while Germany *****ed about it, leading up to Hitler.

We can only agree with that point, particularly when we observe that reparations paid by the defeated nation were much more justified after WWI that after 1870.

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by Saras
Ned, ever considered the role of the FRENCH at Versailles?

Ned couldn't care less - The only thing that matters is that if Britain have had just a tiny influence, then they are the masterminds behind it all and are to blame for all evil.