BS: Armistice Day (debate)

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 14 Dec 13 - 09:30 AM

I have no opinion of Irvine.
I know little about him.
I have not read any of his stuff, and have no wish to.

Do you regard Todman as an historian?
Gary Sheffield?
Max Hastings.
Hart?
Malcolm Brown?
Fritz Fischer?
etc., etc.,.......the expensive cars, holidays and share ownership you love to brag about.)
(Again, remember the libel laws.
You are a prime target with the expensive cars, holidays and share ownership you love to brag about.)

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 14 Dec 13 - 10:16 AM

"Jim, this thread is not only for Keith. For example"
This is now the umpteenth thread that this clown has driven into the ground with his ignorance and his bigoted dishonesty.
There are plenty of people on this forum who I disagree with and who I have learned from in discussion with - Keith is most certainly not one of these.
I suggest you count how many threads he has filibusted into silence - how many he has had the last word on- how many he has confessed to total ignorance of the subject and how any 'phantom friends' he has called on to excuse his ignorance and has invented statements in his own support when he has been unable to obtain it from anywhere else.
His behavior kills threads and stifles honest argument and friendly disagreement.
I'm happy to, and often do disagree and even argue strongly with MtheGM - I know he will put up an honest, well-thought-out argument - not the case here.
Of course we could leave these topics to Keith - we invariably do, even the ones that concern us deeply and know a little about - the 'last-man-standing' tactics that this individual adopts is not democratic, enjoyable or fruitful - it is like trying to talk over a precocious, self-centred child.
I've had enough of this subject just as I've had enough of many others that interest me.
If it continues I will have had enough of this forum; just as I will not remain in a household where the occupants are unable to control their children
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 14 Dec 13 - 01:12 PM

Jim, a thread is about a topic, normally not about particular persons. We should discuss statements, one at a time, not persons and wholesale ideologies. At each statement from any poster, we are free to respond or not; we are not obliged to keep stating our disagreement with posters who only strive to have the last word (which "trophy" they may stick wherever they want).

Usually there are interested readers who do not join the argument but study the positions of the protagonists. MtheGM declared himself thus upthread; I do the same with hand-selected other threads. Therefore, all posters are well-advised to imagine themselves addressing the general public, not just their fellow posters.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 14 Dec 13 - 05:05 PM

and has invented statements in his own support when he has been unable to obtain it from anywhere else.
That is a dirty lie.
If you can produce such a thing I swear now I will leave Mudcat for ever, but you can not.
It is just a filthy lie.

he has confessed to total ignorance of the subject and how any 'phantom friends' he has called on to excuse his ignorance

I am not ignorant.
I have made a lifelong study of WW1.
That is why I am fully cognisant of the history, and can produce any number of historians to support everything I have said.
You are ignorant.
You can produce nothing to support anything you have claimed because it is bollocks.
Those "OTHER HISTORIANS" do not exist.
Neither dfo those books you claim to have read.
You are an ignorant liar.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Dec 13 - 06:18 PM

As long as everybody's having a good time.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 14 Dec 13 - 06:59 PM

"That is why I am fully cognisant of the history,"
You are an obsessive moron - you have produced nothing other than cut-'n-pastes here
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 15 Dec 13 - 02:34 AM

you have produced nothing other than cut-'n-pastes here

Cut and paste quotes from acclaimed and eminent experts of that conflict that support everything I have said.
What have you produced Jim?
An anonymous, un-sourced Wiki page that supported my view anyway.
Ask Greg his opinion of "blogopedia" as a reference source.
He is always scathing, except when you do it.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 15 Dec 13 - 02:48 AM

Keith A Hole of Hertford sets out why historians are the oracle and how he has them set his view for him.

Then, when you mention an historian who was inprisoned for revising world war history he claims to know nothing about him.

Fascinating.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 15 Dec 13 - 04:27 AM

Are you talking about the Irvine who believes the government and Royal Family are alien, shape shifting lizards?
Is he a fellow of any reputable historical society?
Does he lecture at any prestigious university.
Any acclaimed publications on any historical period or event?

What is your point Muppet?
What is the point of you?
Find a corner somewhere else for your giggling and drooling.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 15 Dec 13 - 04:39 AM

Perhaps you mean Irving?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 15 Dec 13 - 04:47 AM

" Irving's reputation can be seen in the surveys of the historiography of the Third Reich produced by Ian Kershaw. In the first edition of Kershaw's book The Nazi Dictatorship in 1985, Irving was called a "maverick" historian working outside the mainstream of the historical profession.[133] By the time of the fourth edition of The Nazi Dictatorship in 2000, Irving was described only as a historical writer who had in the 1970s engaged in "provocations" intended to provide an "exculpation of Hitler's role in the Final Solution".[134]"

From wiki but with sources.
What has he to do with any of the highly acclaimed historians I have cited?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 15 Dec 13 - 04:53 AM

I always did. I also wished to know if you had heard of him. Hence the opportunity for pedantry.

He is called a historian on account of publishing history books. A bit like a newspaper hack being recognised by the same honorarium.

So..... Why is income from publication by some historians fact whilst income from publication by other historians fiction? Or to put it another way, why insult the intelligence of mudcat members by assuming only you are capable of deciding which historian based comment is true or not?

You are as absurd on this thread as you are on the subject of Christians and statistics.

Bugger off to church. It's time you scrubbed up and went to be grateful again.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 15 Dec 13 - 08:51 AM

If a historian starts producing stuff that does not stand up to scrutiny, other historians expose and vilify him.
That happened to Irving.
That has not happened to any of the historians I have cited.

On the issues we have been discussing, they are all in agreement.
Their individual researches have produced the same results.

Your version of History is ideologically sound, and "right-on," but not actually true.
Mine is.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 15 Dec 13 - 09:29 AM

I wish to share something with you. I thought of Keith half an hour ago when researching a paper I am writing as commentary on the latest NHS mortality figures.

I wrote a comment refuting a claim by someone from Dept of Health. I wrote "you can't reason people out of positions they didn't reason themselves into."

Being lazy I would like to write that in this thread also and dedicate it to our resident evangelist for the establishment Keith A Hole of Hertford.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 15 Dec 13 - 09:38 AM

"you can't reason people out of positions they didn't reason themselves into."

Musket believes all the historians are wrong, and he is right.

You could write a comment about that.

Subject: RE: BS: the Somme Battle 1916
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 16 Dec 13 - 05:55 AM

Musket recently posted some thoughts on the Somme.
I find I have a book on my shelves on that subject by military historian Malcolm Brown.
The famous historian Richard Holmes said of it in The Times Literary Supplement, "If you can buy only one book on the Somme, it should be Malcolm Brown's powerful and scholarly account."

From the foreword.
"The character of the Somme fighting is seen as so appalling and the losses it entailed so unimaginably huge that decent civilised people find themselves, as it were, angrily demanding that it should be called off, for the sake of the wretched victims duped into fighting it.
The advantage of researching what the alleged victims wrote at the time is that they don't seem to have seen things that way. Even those who clearly deplored the brutal, inhuman aspects of the Somme - and there are not a few of that persuasion in this book - believed that there was no option other than that of carrying on with the fighting. They might not like the practice, but there was little argument with the principle. After all, the Germans were occupying French and Belgian soil and had to be removed."

He quotes Charles Carrington who wrote the "classic" A Subaltern's War in 1929. "The Somme battle raised the morale of the British Army. Although we did not win a decisive victory there was what matters most, a definite and growing sense of superiority over the enemy. man to man....We were quite sure that we had the Germans beat: next spring we would deliver the knock-out blow."

Prof. Dr. Gary Sheffield in the interview I mentioned last week.

How about your view of the most decisive battle?

"I would argue that the single most decisive battle came two years earlier, on the Somme."
http://www.historynet.com/interview-with-military-historian-gary-sheffield.htm

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 16 Dec 13 - 05:56 AM

http://www.historynet.com/interview-with-military-historian-gary-sheffield.htm

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 16 Dec 13 - 06:02 AM

Hundreds of thousands felt fairly knocked out themselves.

In the brief milliseconds they had to consider their fate.....

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 17 Dec 13 - 02:53 AM

Canadian John McRae was the poet who wrote the iconic "In Flanders Fields."

McCrae fought in the second battle of Ypres in the Flanders region of Belgium where the German army launched one of the first chemical attacks in the history of war. They attacked the Canadian position with chlorine gas on April 22, 1915, but were unable to break through the Canadian line which held for over two weeks. In a letter written to his mother, McCrae described the battle as a "nightmare": "For seventeen days and seventeen nights none of us have had our clothes off, nor our boots even, except occasionally. In all that time while I was awake, gunfire and rifle fire never ceased for sixty seconds ..... And behind it all was the constant background of the sights of the dead, the wounded, the maimed, and a terrible anxiety lest the line should give way."[7] Alexis Helmer, a close friend, was killed during the battle on May 2. McCrae performed the burial service himself, at which time he noted how poppies quickly grew around the graves of those who died at Ypres. The next day, he composed the poem while sitting in the back of an ambulance.[8]

An extract. The final verse.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
   The torch; be yours to hold it high.
   If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
         In Flanders fields.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Troubadour
Date: 17 Dec 13 - 05:06 AM

In the period leading up to any war, there are always hundreds of Keith As, vomiting the message of right and duty, and the evil nature of the other side.

The other side has 'em too, with the same message, the same jingoistic fervour and the same lies!

The world would benefit greatly from their absence!

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 17 Dec 13 - 05:19 AM

You would have given Hitler and the Kaiser a free run.
Fortunately for the world, there were men and women prepared to put a stop to their ambitions.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 17 Dec 13 - 05:59 AM

Keith, so far you have failed to reply to my message of 11 Dec 13 - 05:49 AM, now one page back. Allow me to restate it:

Assume you were in a village fire brigade who have extinguished a large fire in a factory. Many of your comrades were killed because of poisons that were stored in the building without sufficient security measures. You may well say "Gosh, we're glad we did it!", but if the factory owner says "We can be really proud of our village!" - what would you reply?

Nobody advocates giving the fire a free run.

(I am now convinced that you are immune to any argument; the abusers make your agenda unnecessarily easy. Other readers may be more attentive.)

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 17 Dec 13 - 06:05 AM

I reject the analogy.

The fire was arson.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 17 Dec 13 - 06:08 AM

I am now convinced that you are immune to any argument

I have responded to every argument.
I have not said or claimed anything that is not supported by experts on that conflict.
What exactly is your criticism of me?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 17 Dec 13 - 06:37 AM

What exactly is your criticism of me?

You do not even try to understand our objections, and dismiss all critics as "lefties". For example, you did not read my parable properly.

The fire was arson.

Of course it was, but the factory owner consciously took excessive risk, for profit. The same story again and again. Many a "victim" of arson had previously even sponsored and equipped the arsonists (Taliban, Saddam Hussein, ...), believing that they would light the competitors' factories only, or be "appeased".

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 17 Dec 13 - 07:02 AM

I have not dismissed anyone as a lefty.
I have shown that their views are not supported by History.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Dec 13 - 07:59 AM

Keith, you do not even honour your own words of 14 Dec 13 - 03:21 AM. See my post of 14 Dec 13 - 05:38 AM.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 17 Dec 13 - 08:19 AM

I did not dismiss them.
I did show that their views were not held by historians.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 17 Dec 13 - 09:50 AM

I did show that their views were not held by historians.

Correction: "not held by some historians" - a statement that could be made about anything whatsoever, and thus nugatory..

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 17 Dec 13 - 09:57 AM

If it was only by some, you could find some, or perhaps just one, who does share their views.

Funny you can't find one Greg.
Funny no-one else can either.
That is because there are none.

I did show that their views are not held by historians.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 17 Dec 13 - 01:48 PM

Dream on. Keith. I just can't be arsed to list dozens (hundreds?) of names that wouldn't shake your delusions in the least.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 17 Dec 13 - 02:10 PM

Just one than Greg, you lying fool.
You have not got even one.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 17 Dec 13 - 03:26 PM

Dream on, Kevin.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 17 Dec 13 - 05:17 PM

I dream of you finding one and making me look silly.
Go for it Greg.
Show the world you are not a lying fool.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 17 Dec 13 - 05:23 PM

I once again refer you, Keith, to the catalogue of The British Library, where you will find books by a veritable legion of historians who disagree with your bullshit.

IF you look for them.

Or, you can keep your head up your arse.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 18 Dec 13 - 02:35 AM

I have.
Can't find one.
Neither can you, because there are none.

You are a lying fool and everyone reading your shit KNOWS you are a lying fool.

I produce historians.
You can produce nothing but lies and shit.

But, it is not too late.
Name one Greg.
Just one.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 18 Dec 13 - 03:27 AM

Anti-establishment Max Hastings.
" Mr Cameron is deluded. The tragic truth is that Britain accomplished NOTHING in Afghanistan."

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 18 Dec 13 - 03:56 AM

Would that be the Max Hastings who is paid to write newspaper opinion or the Max Hastings who researches history? In this case, prior to the end of the campaign he is commenting on....

This is the rub. I would like to agree with him on his Afghanistan stance, with the caveat that a read of the Afghanaid website reveals the many advances for the general population that would not have come about without the removal of the Taliban. Having had a close family member carrying out aid work there, I am tainted with a one sided view, but there again, we all weigh such evidence higher than that we may suspect as loaded....

You see, Keith uses his gut feelings too, but rather than be guided by them, he defies anyone to disagree with them. That is boorish at best, stupid at worst and irresponsible in general.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 18 Dec 13 - 04:03 AM

He is paid for his opinion because he is an authority on military matters.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 18 Dec 13 - 07:15 AM

Anti-establishment Max Hastings.
"Mr Cameron is deluded. The tragic truth is that Britain accomplished NOTHING in Afghanistan."

The real "tragedy" is that the militias later known as the Taliban had previously been fostered, funded, and equipped by British and US governments to fight the then Soviet Union in the 1980s. When will they ever learn (- the democratic internationalists, not the Taliban)?

As I wrote before, there does not seem to be much dispute about facts, but about interpretation and consequences for present-day political philosophy. In these fields, historians are not experts at all; they have their opinions and political convictions as ordinary persons.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 18 Dec 13 - 07:51 AM

Yes Grishka, but this debate was not about interpretation.

It started because I gave the opinion, based on my knowledge and reading of History, that British troops knew what they were fighting for, and mostly believed in what they were doing.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 18 Dec 13 - 08:38 AM

What I see as the kernel of the debate is whether politics about 1900 by British and French governments can be seen as justified by present-day standards, and communicated honestly. Only if so, the formulation "Most knew what they fought for" would make sense, otherwise "Most believed in the official reasons" is adequate - we agreed on the latter.

Afghanistan after 1979 makes a good model. Those western soldiers - this time including Germans - who believed they were fighting for girls' right of schooling were not downright wrong, but missed the half of the story of which their governments should be ashamed.

I bet Keith will have the last word in this thread. I hope my point is clear enough to unbiased readers.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 18 Dec 13 - 08:40 AM

this debate was not about interpretation. It started because I gave the opinion

Righto, Keith, and that opinion is your interpretation. Or should I say misnerpretation?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 18 Dec 13 - 09:08 AM

It is what the historians say, so why would I not believe them.
Unless you know some that say different Greg.
Do you?
How many Greg?

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 18 Dec 13 - 01:27 PM

It is what the historians say,

No, once again, it is what SOME historians say, fuckwit.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 18 Dec 13 - 02:40 PM

No, once again, it is what SOME historians say, fuckwit.

No, once again, it is what HISTORIANS say.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Greg F.
Date: 18 Dec 13 - 04:31 PM

I seem to recall an adage about teaching pigs to sing........

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket with bucket of swill
Date: 19 Dec 13 - 01:46 AM

Also something about trying to educate pork.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 19 Dec 13 - 02:52 AM

Educating pork!
Are you describing the frustration you feel when telling the leading historians in the land that they know nothing, and should take lessons from you?

I felt the same when I told you that your views were long discredited by research.(Like you with the creationists.)
I was ridiculed for that truth.
I reported the findings of someone hailed by historians as the nation's leading military historian.
More hoots of derision.

I steadily added more historians.
Muppet actually stated, "those historians should know better" LIKE HE DOES!

I now have, Richard Holmes, Peter Hart, David Stephenson, Fritz Fischer, Dan Todman, Gary Sheffield, Max Hastings, Malcolm Brown, Stuart Halifax.

The list includes ALL the military historians with an interest or specialism in WW1, the historians commissioned by the BBC to write about WW1 on their history site, and all the historians used by the television companies to educate and inform the public.

But no use.
Like trying to educate pork.
Never mind. I have so enjoyed exposing the arrogance, hubris, ignorance and stupidity of all the muppets in this show.

Subject: RE: BS: Armistice Day (debate)
From: GUEST,Musket
Date: 19 Dec 13 - 04:41 AM

I'd have thought Miss Piggy was the obvious muppet?

Your list is getting quite impressive Keith. If it keeps growing at this rate, you might have enough to convince a few shallow fools that propaganda never existed, that the white feathers were nice but not necessary, that firing squads were just practicing for the enemy.

The accounts of those there, especially the poets who could articulate their feelings. Nothing compared to those who get cited by The BBC eh? If you look carefully, (you never do though,) the history section also includes a smattering of Wilfred Owen and speaks of propaganda and enforced hate lessons for soldiers. It speaks of deserters, it rattles on merrily about the butcher of the Somme.

zzzzzzz


Hoots of derision. Thanks, I couldn't have articulated it better myself. Hoot hoot! (Boom Boom..)