BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer

Subject: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: GUEST,not a member
Date: 11 May 09 - 12:08 PM

seeing as Guests aren't allowed to start BS threads.
Please could a mod/member ask this question..

or maybe make an exception and let this one go ?

reason for asking; just been watching documentaries
on satelite TV, re Stalins adverse impact on Russian Scientific/military technology.

So...

What if Stalin had lived and stayed in power 10 years longer ?

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 May 09 - 12:15 PM

A scary thought! Well, it would certainly have slowed down the pace of liberalization of the Soviet system. Other than that, I can't say...I don't know enough about it.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Acorn4
Date: 11 May 09 - 12:25 PM

Among his other sins, he was a strong supporter of the notion of target setting, so he has a lot to answer for outside of Russia as well.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Wolfgang
Date: 11 May 09 - 12:33 PM

I sometimes think about the question what if Hitler had lived 10 years less.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 May 09 - 01:27 PM

Indeed!

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 11 May 09 - 01:29 PM

What if the South had won the Civil War in the USA - I love that one!!

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 11 May 09 - 02:03 PM

So many of these - if Lenin had lived long enough to dump Stalin, if Montcalm had beaten Wolfe and Canada stayed French, if Clinton had kept his pants on...

It's scary thinking how arbitrary it all is sometimes.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Skivee
Date: 11 May 09 - 02:10 PM

IMHO Stalin's paranoid nature, coupled with the hard-line faction in Curtis LeMay's SAC and the Soviet Air Force, and the pressure of posturing politicians on boths sides may well have resulted in a thermo-nuclear war. The resulting nuclear winter may well have ended human life on the planet. The actors on both sides did not appreciate the consequenses of their actions. They tended to think of atomic and thermonuclear as being just the same as a bunch of the old iron bombs, only more-so.

Regarding Wolfgang's Hilter supposition. It's unlikely that Hitler would have lived another 10 years. It would be difficult to imagine how he could have avoided capture by the Allies, or the personal retribution of Stalin.
Between his various severe medical issues, the disillusionment of Germans with the disasterous results of his failed evil policies, and the power of the various armies bent on stopping him, he was a dead man walking by the winter of 1944.

This dialog from "Band of Brothers" pretty much says it all:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Cpt. Nixon: Hitler's dead.
Liebgott: Holy shit.
Cpt. Nixon: Shot himself in Berlin.
Sgt. Denver 'Bull' Randleman: Is the war over, sir?
Cpt. Nixon: No. We have orders to Berchtesgaden. We move out in one hour.
Pvt. David Kenyon Webster: Why? The man's not home. He should have killed himself three years ago. Saved us all a lot of trouble.
Cpt. Nixon: Yeah, he should have...But he didn't.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Acorn4
Date: 11 May 09 - 02:12 PM

Napoleon, apparently, early in his life thought about a commision in the British navy?

What if the wind on that day in 1066 had been blowing in the opposite direction and Harold had fought William of Normandy before Harald Hadrada?

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 May 09 - 02:19 PM

What if Custer had listened to his Indian scouts, not divided his forces into 3 separate groups who couldn't help each other, and had made a far more judicious and sensible massed attack on the enormous Indian encampment at the Little Big Horn?

(In my opinion, he'd still have probably experienced a reverse and had to retreat eventually...but his people wouldn't have got wiped out the way they did.)

Custer, however, was a man who never hesitated, but always struck without delay, no matter what the odds. It had served him well in previous encounters. It did not serve him well at Little Big Horn.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: michaelr
Date: 11 May 09 - 03:44 PM

What if there were no hypothetical questions?

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 May 09 - 03:56 PM

Aha! Spoken like a true Taoist. ;-) The uncarved block. The silent mind.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: robomatic
Date: 11 May 09 - 04:37 PM

This is getting awfully close to nonexistence theory, which I should have copywritted in 1967.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 May 09 - 04:47 PM

Non-existence is required in order to supply the endless field of apparent emptiness and nothingness upon which and within which all the things that seem to "exist" appear...

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Rapparee
Date: 11 May 09 - 04:48 PM

Well, Stalin would have been 10 years older when he died. I'm sure of that.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 11 May 09 - 04:59 PM

Of course if David Deutsch is right, and "many worlds theory" is actually how things really are, none of this is hypothetical, it's just a matter of which of the many worlds that make up the multiverse we happen to be in. (The Fabric of Reality)

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 11 May 09 - 05:20 PM

Skivee, you answered a question that Wolfgang didn't ask. The one he did ask was more interesting.

We know now that there were elements (some of them Jewish) within western capitalism that had a significant vested interest in the prospect of war. For them Hitler, and his readiness to exploit the antisemitism that had been rampant not only in Germany but equally across most of Europe and to some extent in the US, was a godsend. They might still have managed to engineer their war. The criminal insanity of the Versailles treaty had given them plenty to work with. But Hitler's extraodinary demagogy gave it to them on a plate.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 May 09 - 06:25 PM

A great way to end a worldwide financial depression, wasn't it?

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Peace
Date: 11 May 09 - 07:46 PM

"What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer"

He'd a died in 1963.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 11 May 09 - 07:52 PM

I think we did a 'what if Hitler won the war?' thread sometime back.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: robomatic
Date: 11 May 09 - 08:41 PM

Gee Peter K why not peddle that over on the Nazi website where you can get an amen brother.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Skivee
Date: 11 May 09 - 09:09 PM

Peter and Wolfgang...errrrps. You are correct, sir. I need new glasses.
On the other hand, the implied idea that broad capitalist interests in the US engineered the conflicts with the Japanese and Germans is a bit broad. The great depression was fading years before we were sucked into the conflict.
The Nazis were building ties WITH American industry as far back as the Early 30s. The support of Henry Ford, Charles Lindburgh, Joseph Kennedy for Nazi policies is well documented. It is less well known that many huge American companies forged bonds with them. Beyer and Sherling pharmacuticals, Standard Oil, Western Electric, Ford, Boeing were all doing business (just for a few examples, There were many more). Lots of folks in the higher strata of American society were far from viewing Hitler as an evil player.
If Hitler had not come along or had been killed in the vicious early internal intrigues of the party, It's quite possible that Heidrich would have followed a similar path. They were cut from the same cloth.
There's no doubt that capitalists made a lot of capital during the war, but that's not the same things as them working to start it.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: CarolC
Date: 11 May 09 - 09:59 PM

What sort of creature would dolphins be if they had never gone to live in the ocean? And would they be primates?

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Ron Davies
Date: 11 May 09 - 10:01 PM

Lindbergh, Ford, and Kennedy, in addition to being deluded in their individual ways, were also antisemitic.   But we'd need more evidence before concluding that "lots of folks" in the upper strata did not view Hitler as an evil player. At the beginning of his influence many may not have taken him as a serious threat, just as many Germans saw him as a buffoon at the start. But that is not the same as endorsing him or his ideas.

And, as Skivee points out, we need a LOT more evidence before concluding that US industrialists were pushing for a war.

But let the conspiracy theories begin. After all, this is Mudcat.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Ron Davies
Date: 11 May 09 - 10:15 PM

Re: Napoleon and Royal Navy:   Washington really wanted a commission as an officer in the British Army. And of course was turned down. Admittedly at the time he was pushing for this (about 1758) he had "played a leading role" in two massacres: "one a massacre that he oversaw, the other a massacre that he survived; one an embarrassing defeat; the other a hollow victory." (His Excellency George Washington, by Joseph J Ellis, p 38).

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Ron Davies
Date: 11 May 09 - 10:22 PM

Ellis p 26: Washington: "we (Virginia troops) want nothing but Commissions from His Majesty to make us as regular a Corps as any upon the Continent." He wrote this in 1755 (before the Braddock massacre).

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Skivee
Date: 11 May 09 - 10:32 PM

Ron, one source is the book "A Man Called Intrepid" by William Stephenson. It deals extensively with the socio-politico- economico-hypheno-espianagio climate from the early 20s to the end of WWII.
There are pictures in the book of several hundred American industrialists being wined and dined by Nazi representatives and dupes in NYC. The Nazi's were drumming up alliances and sodifying new ones.
I know that this is a single example,. but it's late, and I don't feel like writing a tome about it here.
Wanna borrow the book? It's a great read.
"But we'd need more evidence before concluding that "lots of folks" in the upper strata did not view Hitler as an evil player". I'm not saying that they were right...or smart,... or moral.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 May 09 - 10:42 PM

Ron, I have an old copy here of one the Toronto newspapers from about the mid-thirties, and on the front page is an article about how Chancellor Hitler of Germany is revitalizing the German economy. There isn't even a hint in the article that Hitler might in any way be a bad guy or a danger to other nations. Rather, he is presented simply as a highly effective and well respected national leader among western nations.

It's fascinating to read this article now in a mainstream Canadian newspaper of the time with the benefit of hindsight and realize that most people's view of Hitler in North America and in the UK and Europe also was radically different than it became after the Czech crisis in '38. He was clearly not seen as a threat by the average Canadian at the time that article was written. I imagine that was true of the average American or Englishman too. Given that situation, why would most North American businessmen not have happily done business with Germany when there was money to be made?

The powers that be, after all, meaning our governments and our mainstream media, had not yet officially labelled him as a threat...

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: number 6
Date: 11 May 09 - 11:01 PM

what if Stalin died 10 years earlier?

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Little Hawk
Date: 11 May 09 - 11:12 PM

That would have been quite a psychological blow to the Russians in 1943...and the Nazis would have been in absolute ecstasy at the news! However, I think the Russians would have soon recovered from their initial shock and would still have won the war handily in any case.

Hitler was briefly elated when the news of FDR's death came in 1945 (very shortly before the fall of Berlin.) He seemed to think it was the hand of God that had struck down the American president and that the tide would turn and Germany would somehow win the war now that Roosevelt was gone. He was dead wrong about that...

He didn't understand how the American government works, obviously. It didn't stop the USA one bit. Stalin's death wouldn't have stopped the Russians either in '43, but it might have improved their government some.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Riginslinger
Date: 11 May 09 - 11:27 PM

Washington really wanted a commission as an officer in the British Army."

          If that's what he wanted, that's what he got. From Wikipedai - In 1754, Dinwiddie commissioned Washington a lieutenant colonel and ordered him to lead an expedition to Fort Duquesne to drive out the French

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Riginslinger
Date: 11 May 09 - 11:30 PM

"Lindbergh, Ford, and Kennedy, in addition to being deluded in their individual ways, were also antisemitic."


                   These are people who had to deal with Jewish banking cartels. We are experiencing now what they were dealing with then.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: meself
Date: 11 May 09 - 11:48 PM

As to Custer - I can't see that it would have made much difference if he had fared better at the Little Bighorn.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 May 09 - 01:19 AM

Well, it wouldn't have made too much difference to the ultimate fate of the Indians...but it would have made a hell of a big difference to the length of Custer's lifespan, I think. ;-D He might even have gone on to serve in Congress. After all, Crook was repulsed by Crazy Horse at the Battle of the Rosebud, and Crook went on to a glorious career after that.

If Custer's unit had extricated itself from Little Big Horn in reasonably good shape, I'm sure they would have spun it into a tale of bravery and grit that would have served Custer very well for helping fulfull his further ambitions.

The papers would have said something like:

"Severely outnumbered by the howling Indian hordes, the courageous 7th Cavalry demonstrated matchless skill and endurance under Custer's inspired command, and they inflicted great loss upon their savage adversaries, writing another glorious chapter in the history of the US Cavalry...blah, blah, blah!...."

Yeah, I bet it would have made great reading back East. ;-D

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Riginslinger
Date: 12 May 09 - 08:36 AM

But what would they have called him after his hair turned white?

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Les from Hull
Date: 12 May 09 - 11:29 AM

There's been some controversy over Stalin's death (whether it was a brain hemorrhage, or if he was possibly poisoned by his rivals). As it was I don't think the option of living 10 more years was open to him - too many enemies, too much booze. more here

As to the others:

The French could never have retained Canada as the British fought them three times: American Revolution, French Revolutionary War and Napoleonic War. I'm sure that in the last two a French Canada would have fallen to Britain after more American Loyalists had moved there and Britain had control of the sea.

In my not very humble opinion Lt Colonel Custer (as he was at Little Big Horn) should not have been allowed command of a Boy Scout Troop. He prided himself on never reversing a decision - even when everyone around him told him he was wrong. The only reason most people had heard of him was because of his shameless self-publicity. LH is right about what the newspapers would have said, particularly as Custer took his own journalist with him - Mark Kellogg, who died at the battle.

And as for the traitor Washington - obviously no self-interest there!

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 May 09 - 12:23 PM

Well, Les, I'd give Custer maybe a C+ or a B- as a commander, based on his whole career.

His strengths were: tremendous courage under fire, great enthusiasm, a good deal of charisma for leading men into battle, lots of energy and determination, and great tenacity.

His weaknesses: arrogance, over-confidence, recklessness, some dishonesty here and there in negotiations, a tendency to break the standard military rules (he went AWOL to visit his wife on one occasion and got in major shit for it) , and as you point out, an inability to admit to having made an error.

He fought well and effectively in the Civil War, though, and he did so also in the Indian wars up until his disastrous fight at Little Big Horn.

History has judged Custer harshly for one and only one reason: he screwed up at his very last battle and got himself and his men killed.

The Indians of the time admired Custer on a personal basis for his bravery and flamboyant warrior style....but they were quite angry that he had broken his word to them in various past negotiations, and they had sworn to kill him over that issue.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Les from Hull
Date: 12 May 09 - 02:23 PM

LH I think what you are saying is that he would have been a great sergeant, but should have never been promoted past captain. He was bottom of his class at West Point, and even then his class was passed out early because the American Civil War had started.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 May 09 - 02:30 PM

I think you have hit on a pretty good assessment of Mr Custer there, Les. :-)

Mind you, the man was tremendously ambitious. That was one reason why he rose as high in the chain of command as he did.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: robomatic
Date: 12 May 09 - 03:57 PM

RE: Pre-war Germany the United States was full of differing reactions to what was going on in Germany. My mother remembered German exchange students singing Nazi songs in her high school in New York City.

RE: "A Man Called Intrepid" read this a few years ago and I understand it's considered somewhat mythological regarding the importance and ever-presence of its main character. I am not steeped in the historical events but the book left me suspicious about the central character and what really happened around him.

Just read an interesting book of fiction based on a real period of history: "Germania" by Brendan McNally which is placed at the end of WWII at Hitler's demise and the brief reign of the Doenitz government in Flensburg. It is somewhat fantastical with its fictional characters but so are the real-life events of the time. It was a good read and I'm still ruminating on it.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 May 09 - 05:27 PM

There were differing reactions to the Nazis in Germany too in the pre-war era. There were many Germans who distrusted or even detested the Nazi Party. Unfortunately, there weren't quite enough of them to prevent Hitler's party from winning a plurality in the 1933 elections. Then the Reichstag fire happened, and a frightened nation gave Hitler emergency powers. (think 911) Once a party has gained that sort of power in a crisis situation, it starts re-shaping things according to its own notions...look what Bush did between 2000 and 2008. He legalized torture, invaded 2 countries, set up offshore prisons for enemy combatants....

Once a country goes to war, specially if that war is viewed as a legitimate act of defense by its own people (and it almost always is seen that way)....well, you very quickly have the public lining up willingly to do their patriotic duty. Very few voices of open dissent can be found once the bullets start flying and the bombs start dropping. This is even more true in a major war such as Germany got into in 1939.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Amergin
Date: 12 May 09 - 06:06 PM

I think if Hitler had died ten years earlier...the fight would have been against Stalin...

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 May 09 - 06:11 PM

Possibly...

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 12 May 09 - 08:20 PM

You think that if the French had still been in force in Canada and points South and West that there would have much call in the American Colonies for getting rid of the British connection, Little Hawk? And without an American Revolution would there have been a French one?

Once you make any significant change all kinds of other things change too.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: robomatic
Date: 12 May 09 - 08:47 PM

What if Adam was allergic to fruit?

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Ron Davies
Date: 12 May 09 - 08:51 PM

What-if's are a classic black hole of time.   Any one of the topics raised in this thread could be a thread in itself --and some have.


I'll only address Custer this time: no time for anything else.

No way would I give Custer anything remotely approaching a B- or C+ for command.

He was a discipline-crazed hypocrite, among other qualities.   He had deserters shot on the spot.   But for himself, another standard. Concerned about his wife or desperate to see her, he rode 60 miles in a mule-drawn ambulance, then hopped a train to her.

For the shooting of the deserters and for leaving his regiment, he was courtmartialed (convicted). Sentence: to be suspended from rank and command for a year and forfeit his pay for the same time.

General Grant on the sentence: "in awarding so lenient a sentence", the Court must have taken into account his previous service (possibly in the Civil War, where he had to be rescued at least once.) Son of the Morning Star, by Evan S Connell, obviously not an objective report--name one that is!---states that Custer lost more men in the Civil War than almost any other commander.

Custer threatened to cowhide with a rawhide quirt the party who had passed on to a newspaper an account of a campaign (during the Indian wars) which displeased him.

Grant on Little Bighorn: "I regard Custer's massacre as a sacrifice of troops, brought on by Custer himself, that was wholly unnecessary--wholly unnecessary.   He was not to have made the attack before effecting the junction with Terry and Gibbon".

Why did he do it?   Connell p 259: "On at least two occasions--at Fort Lincoln and at Young Man Butte--he told the Ree scouts that this campaign against the Sioux would be his last and he must win a great victory. Yet even a small victory, he told them, would make him president."

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Ron Davies
Date: 12 May 09 - 09:07 PM

Obviously Grant is also not an objective observer--Custer testified against his brother early in 1876--but the question is whether what Grant says is supported.   It seems clear that it is.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Skivee
Date: 13 May 09 - 01:57 AM

Robomatic, you are correct in saying that there is some scepticism about the Intrepid book.
I took some of it with a bit of salt. I will note, however that the nature of secret opps that many people would not know the extent of Intrepid's involvement.

On the other hand, there are folks to the west of Toronto, who regarded him enough to name a park after him at the site of a spy training faciolity he ran, Camp X. Ian Fleming used many of Intrepid's exploits as models of various James Bond stories; and the points I was directing Ron to can be found in other sources. It just happened that I've been re-reading "Intrepid", so it was the first book that came to mind.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Little Hawk
Date: 13 May 09 - 02:02 AM

McGrath, I think that there probably would have been a French Revolution eventually anyway, yes, but it might have been delayed by a decade or so, because the success of the American Revolution certainly helped inspire the later revolutionary efforts in France.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Skivee
Date: 13 May 09 - 10:55 AM

Hey, Wolfgang,
regarding the Nazi sub-thread, since you actually live in a place that was greatly affected by the consequences of Hitler's action, what do YOU think would have happened?

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: GUEST,John from Kemsing
Date: 13 May 09 - 11:16 AM

If he had of done it would have cost old Ivan a fortune in Birthday cards!!

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 May 09 - 12:39 PM

Delay the French Revolution a decade or so, and by that time there might have been an English Revolution. Every change opens up fresh changes. And maybe they all happen...

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Little Hawk
Date: 13 May 09 - 12:57 PM

An even more disturbing thought: What if no one had thought to use selective breeding to bring the Dachshund into the world??? What then??????

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Skivee
Date: 13 May 09 - 01:17 PM

Some ideas are simply to horrible to contemplate.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 May 09 - 01:39 PM

How about if Max hadn't offered to host the Digital Tradition...

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Riginslinger
Date: 13 May 09 - 02:40 PM

"What if no one had thought to use selective breeding to bring the Dachshund into the world???"

                We'd have had to make do with Bassets!

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: robomatic
Date: 13 May 09 - 08:47 PM

There WAS an English revolution, well ahead of the French one, it was magnificent (by which I mean it was on multiple levels, dramatic and profound and well worth studying)and probably a necessary precurser for the successful American War of Independence. It may have been a necessary precurser for the Soviet Revolution, for that matter (Levellers and all that).

As Harry Truman said "The only thing new is the history you don't know!" ("Plain Speaking")

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Riginslinger
Date: 13 May 09 - 10:00 PM

Cromwell took the British public to a very bad place from which many of them are still trying to recover.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Ron Davies
Date: 14 May 09 - 09:14 PM

Skivee-

"wined and dined"---but do we have any concrete results, aside from contented and sleepy industrialists?

Can we have some direct quotes--as I have given about Washington?

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: robomatic
Date: 14 May 09 - 09:26 PM

Rig:

I think if I were European I'd take Cromwell over Marat. Talk about going to a bad place, whatever that means.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Ron Davies
Date: 14 May 09 - 09:29 PM

LH--

Also, It's a question of time. I did an extensive study of the picture of the US as seen in the pages of the Voelkischer Beobachter, from at least 1936 to 1945 and it was fascinating how it changed.

It's certainly likely that in 1933-34 the ignorance about Hitler on this side of the Pond would have resulted in at least some people getting the picture that the 3rd Reich wanted to portray, and that was depicted in the pages of that organ:   specifically that Hitler and FDR were very similar: each one led a country with a very serious unemployment problem, and was administering tough medicine for a desperate time.

The question is how long the parallel was seen in North America.   I'd be very interested to know the exact date of the newspaper to which you refer.

It's also well known that there were Nazi sympathizers in North America.   As I recall one group was the "Silver Shirts".   Not to mention the Bund. And the followers of Father Coughlin must have been about as tolerant as the Hitler Youth.

So who ran the Toronto paper to which you refer in those years? That would be another interesting question?

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 May 09 - 09:55 PM

Yes, Ron.

I'm not sure which of the Toronto papers it was. It's stored away here somewhere. It might have been the Star, the Globe and Mail, or the Telegram. I don't think it was the Globe, but I'm not sure between the other two.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Ron Davies
Date: 14 May 09 - 09:58 PM

Also: Washington:

What Dinwiddie offered was not a position as a regular commissioned officer in the British Army, but a position in the colonial army--which was considered lower-grade by the regular British army. Washington's annoyance at this attitude expressed itself in contempt for his British superiors--which probably did not help in his campaign to become a commissioned officer in the regular British Army

After the Braddock debacle, Washington "had come to regard himself as superior to anyone, British or American, in conducting this kind of guerilla war, and it rankled him that neither he nor his troops were paid at the same rate as British regulars"..."His protest on this score was more personal than ideological; that is, it derived less from any political convictions about colonial rights than from his own disappointment that neither he nor his regiment were sufficiently appreciated".

It seems likely that had a full commission in the regular British army been offered at that point, he would have been anchored in that society, and not so likely to be willing to lead the rebels.

Again, what-if's are basically nothing but a huge waste of time. If we want to discuss, we should at least break the topics up into different threads.

But a bit more on Washington:

What I find fascinating is that the "traitor" Washington, during the Revolutionary War, was in fact lionized by a large section of the British intelligentsia. It appears that the Revolution was indeed, as Stanley Weintraub depicts in Iron Tears, which I heartily recommend, Britain's Vietnam-- in so many ways.

And as for the straw man about self-interest: nobody claims Washington was without self-interest.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Ron Davies
Date: 14 May 09 - 10:02 PM

My quote about Washington's annoyance with his British superiors was again Ellis, p. 26.   I should have stated that.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Ron Davies
Date: 14 May 09 - 10:17 PM

And as far as the "English revolution" being "magnificent"--I assume you refer to the "Glorious Revolution" of 1688-- it depends on your perspective. A king was deposed, after a son had been born to him, and a foreigner was invited in to take his place, because of fear of Catholicism--and, no doubt, fear of possible entanglement with Catholic states like France, since at that point religion and politics were inseparable.   

But this is absurd to start discussing on a "Stalin" thread.

No more what-if's for me.

Separate threads, or I will read but not comment. (I'm sure some will be relieved).

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Riginslinger
Date: 14 May 09 - 10:20 PM

"It's certainly likely that in 1933-34 the ignorance about Hitler on this side of the Pond would have resulted in at least some people getting the picture that the 3rd Reich wanted to portray, and that was depicted in the pages of that organ: specifically that Hitler and FDR were very similar: each one led a country with a very serious unemployment problem, and was administering tough medicine for a desperate time."

                   And the conclusion is completely dependent on who won the war.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Ron Davies
Date: 14 May 09 - 10:26 PM

Rig, please translate that last cryptic remark. And take your remark about "Jewish banking cartels" to the gutter where it belongs.   And leave it there.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Joe Offer
Date: 15 May 09 - 04:03 AM

Please remember that posts from unnamed guests are not allowed. Use a name in the "from" box, and use the same name for every message you post.
By rights, I should delete the entire thread, since it is a non-music thread started by a non-member.
Refer to our Posting Policy.
-Joe Offer, Forum Moderator-

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Les from Hull
Date: 15 May 09 - 03:39 PM

Riginslinger - I don't understand your remark about Cromwell. Our Civil War was basically an upper middle class revolution, leaving the majority of the English public unaffected, other than pushed into fighting for either side, and quite often dead. But give me Cromwell over Charles Stuart any day.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 May 09 - 03:50 PM

As well we aren't faced with that choice. If I had to I suppose I'd have to choose the other way. It comes down to, which would be more likely to kill my family.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: robomatic
Date: 15 May 09 - 05:02 PM

As far as the English Revolution goes, I'm well aware that is still a pretty controversial topic. By 'magnificent' I strictly meant from a point of view of what a nexus it was and how grand for study:

Religious motivations (Catholic, Protestant, Puritan, Presbyterian, Jewish, Millenarian)
Social (Class issues, the Levellers)
Political
Ethnic (Scot, English, Irish)
Military (Innovations in tactics and battlefield behavior).
Historical (Enabled structural changes to the American colonial governments which made the American War of Independence more likely to occur, and, having occurred, more likely to succeed).

In seeing it from an American 20th century viewpoint, it always tickles me when I reflect that Parliament put their king on trial for 'tyranny' - isn't that like accusing a bear of being hairy? What a notion! What other country came close in that time period to an ideal of limited monarchy? At least they gave him a trial, I don't know if Louis XVI ever got that much of a chance a hundred fifty years later.

And on a personal note, I got to visit London on my family's only vacation overseas, and got to see Patton and Cromwell in their first releases in English theatres.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: robomatic
Date: 15 May 09 - 05:13 PM

11 May 09 Peter K:

We know now that there were elements (some of them Jewish) within western capitalism that had a significant vested interest in the prospect of war.

11 May 09 Riginslinger (in answer to a comment in quotes):

"Lindbergh, Ford, and Kennedy, in addition to being deluded in their individual ways, were also antisemitic."


                   These are people who had to deal with Jewish banking cartels. We are experiencing now what they were dealing with then.

I think you guys need to be called on those bigoted remarks. What constitutes Jewish elements or Jewish banking cartels? What were the "significant vested interests in the prospect of war"? This is precisely the kind of stuff the fascists and Nazis argued (and argue still) during times of economic woe, no matter what the woe was nor who or what caused it. If you are going to persist in these comments you need to back 'em up back down. Inserted comments for effect are actions more of a guttersnipe nature than a mature member.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Monique
Date: 15 May 09 - 07:18 PM

Trial of Louis XVI

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Riginslinger
Date: 15 May 09 - 11:17 PM

"Lindbergh, Ford, and Kennedy, in addition to being deluded in their individual ways, were also antisemitic."

    "These are people who had to deal with Jewish banking cartels. We are experiencing now what they were dealing with then."

          Okay, robomatic, let's assume that the original poster was referencing Joseph Kennedy because he is the one that is often pegged with antisemitism. Maybe he got burned by bankers, maybe not, but Ford and Lindbergh were both trying to ramp up major industrial enterprizes, where would you think they would have to go for capital on the scale they would need it?

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: robomatic
Date: 16 May 09 - 02:41 PM

Riginsliger YOU'RE the one who is the banking expert here. This simply exposes your knowledge (or lack thereof) and your ability to parse that knowledge (or inabiility).

Right know you are reading like ignorance mixed with prejudice.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Riginslinger
Date: 16 May 09 - 04:22 PM

Okay - I think this whole thing is getting way off topic. To the extent that it's my fault, I apologize. The only thing I know about banks is I'm always getting screwed by them. I just thought they'd do the same thing to big time customers like Henry Ford--maybe not.
                  In any event, I don't want to insult anybody else, so I'm just going to shut up about it.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: GUEST
Date: 16 May 09 - 05:57 PM

Ron, my replies to your posts have been vanishing for a few days. My cookies are disappearing into the ether.
I am researching the underlying truths in the Intrepid book, including a visit to the National Cryptological Museum.
With luck, I'll have verifiable info before the thread goes away.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: robomatic
Date: 16 May 09 - 06:26 PM

RIG:
you writted:
Okay - I think this whole thing is getting way off topic. To the extent that it's my fault, I apologize. The only thing I know about banks is I'm always getting screwed by them. I just thought they'd do the same thing to big time customers like Henry Ford--maybe not.
                  In any event, I don't want to insult anybody else, so I'm just going to shut up about it.

Being 'screwed by' banks is not what is the issue:
This is what brought a reaction from me and at least one other:

   These are people who had to deal with Jewish banking cartels. We are experiencing now what they were dealing with then.

You are trying not to insult anybody 'else', but you already passed a calumny against Jews. You seem to have made an association between Jews and banks. Your last post in which you apologize evades the Jewish part and tries to make it simply a matter of banks. To me there are a couple of issues, your problem with banks, (which may also be my problem with banks), and your association of banks with Jews, which you have not buttressed with any facts. Peter K above made a similar allusion before he disappeared, also with no support. I think the nasty part of this is the seagull approach to this attack(fly in, crap, then fly out- no harm done).

If you've got something against 'Jewish banking cartels' float it out or specifically say you have no information, you were just passing gas so to speak.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: GUEST,Skivee
Date: 16 May 09 - 07:35 PM

Ron, that unknown guest at 5:57 was me above...again.
I dunno what the problem is.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: robomatic
Date: 16 May 09 - 08:26 PM

Skivee:

I'm interested in your Intrepid research, i.e. what sources are there how does this stuff get confirmed, y'know the epistemological realities of our past. I think it might be worth its own thread because it concerns more than mere 'what ifs'.

BTW, local public television (US) just aired a mini series documentary with re-enactments about Stalin, the Nazis, and the West. I don't really think there was much that was new there but I'm wondering what the motivation was for someone to dredge up a lot of nasty stuff about Soviet German Polish inter-nastiness.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 17 May 09 - 07:42 AM

What would have happened if Germany had won the FIRST World War? And why does no-one ever seem to ask this question (apart from me, of course)?

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Little Hawk
Date: 17 May 09 - 09:20 PM

If Germany had won the FIRST world war, it might have been a rather good thing, I think.

It would have left the French and the Russians weakened. The Russian Revolution would probably have occurred anyway in much the same way, either before or following a German victory. The French would have retrenched after the war and done some soul-searching...and they would probably have lost a small amount of land around Alsace-Lorraine, the traditional piece of ground that the Germans and French have fought over repeatedly. There would have been NO cause for the future rise of either Hitler or the Nazis. The German overseas empire in Africa and Asia would have been secured for a time, but I doubt that the British would have suffered any notable defeat themselves in the war (except for their armies on the continent of Europe), so Britain would have remained strong in the world regardless with a huge navy...and their naval rivalry with the Germans would have continued as a potential source of some future conflict. The Austro-Hungarians were so disorganized by 1914 that they might well have gone on to their own revolution, even if the Central Powers had won the First World War. Germany would have become the strongest and most secure nation on the continent of Europe...matched by the similar power of both Great Britain and the USA.

I find the whole scenario considerably preferable to what DID happen with Hitler and the Nazis.

I think it would have been a more stable and less dangerous situation for the world than what did occur in 1914-18.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Little Hawk
Date: 17 May 09 - 09:29 PM

The French, however, would probably disagree passionately with my views on that! ;-D

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Monique
Date: 18 May 09 - 01:36 AM

Little Hawk, I agree that probably most of us would disagree, but they could ask "What if we had won the 1870 war when we lost Alsace-Lorraine" etc etc and we can go backwards on time till we reach "what if some apes hadn't 'lost' a pair of chromosomes = we wouldn't be here asking what if's..." and it would spoil the whole chat, wouldn't it?

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: robomatic
Date: 18 May 09 - 09:47 PM

Y'see- Back to Nonexistence Theory, which I invented in the late sixties, which then went out of existence in the early seventies, but which encompasses an infinity of threads like this one as a minor corollary-







-Which does not exist!

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 19 May 09 - 04:34 AM

Thank you, LH.
I suspect that you're right. I also suspect that, given the level of suffering and death that the First World War entailed, the idea that the world might have been a better place if the Allies had lost it is just unthinkable to many people.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 May 09 - 10:47 AM

That sort of thing is usually unthinkable to people, Shimrod....but it's not nearly such a big deal in the long run as they think it is. A German victory in 1918 would not have been the end of France, England, democracy, civilization, liberty, or anything else we hold dear.

Monique, you made a good point there! ;-D

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Monique
Date: 19 May 09 - 03:08 PM

I agree about the long run. I suppose the French, as other people, wouldn't find unthinkable a different outcome of long passed wars -let's say 150+ years. Actually, I don't believe a different outcome of WW I and WW II to be "unthinkable", I feel it more as "unbearable" therefore we don't want to even think of it, as Shimrod said. But... in the year 2525 if man is still alive, if woman can survive they may find...

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 May 09 - 04:47 PM

It does feel pretty unbearable to lose a major war, specially if your own country is invaded and devastated during that war and specially if you have given your all for your country. Many German soldiers and civilians committed suicide in the last days of Nazi Germany. Many Japanese also, needless to say, killed themselves in despair when they found they had lost the war. It seems unbearable at the time, and there's a deep grieving process that people go through. Then you start rebuilding, and life resumes.

Many nations have gone through this. The southern states of the USA went through it in 1865. The northern and most of the western states have never gone through it.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Ron Davies
Date: 19 May 09 - 09:53 PM

I know I said I would only read, not comment. And as long as it's just speculation, fine. But when assertions of historical fact are made, it is reasonable to ask for evidence.   "Many German soldiers and civilians" committed suicide in the last days of Nazi Germany. I don't think it's reasonable to count the Volkssturm in this category--they thought they were defending Germany.   And what "many" German soldiers and civilians did at the end of World War II was flee west, hoping to avoid being captured by the Russians.   I know personally two of them--I used to work for one--and there were far more who did this than committed suicide.

It would be quite easy to provide evidence for this view.

The self-identification of most Germans with the Third Reich was quite weak by the end of the war, certainly not enough to commit suicide---aside from Hitler's inner circle-- Goebbels and his wife being obvious examples, who also had their children killed. The exception was if suicide was considered better than capture by the Russians.   Quite a few were quite willing to surrender to Westerners.

However, if there is in fact evidence to support the "many Germans committed suicide" theory, we can certainly consider it.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Little Hawk
Date: 20 May 09 - 03:43 AM

Don't get carried away by overestimating what I mean when I say the word "many", Ron. I am not suggesting that a large percentage of the overall German population committed suicide, but I am suggesting that quite a significant number of ordinary soldiers and civilians did so under the stress of facing total defeat and destruction of the society they had just spent over 5 years fighting for to the best of their ability. They were in despair. It was that despair that drove most of them to suicide, not some kind of fanatic loyalty to Naziism (although that would have applied in a few cases).

I'm not talking about the bigwigs like Goebbels, Hitler, etc...I'm talking about ordinary people. Many Berliners in particular committed suicide, specially a considerable number of women who had been raped and beaten by Russian soldiers. A good many German soldiers shot themselves rather than be captured by the Russians, because they expected that being captured would lead to far worse suffering than they wished to endure...and a worse death than a self-inflicted bullet.

And they had good reason to think so. Most of the German soldiers who were taken prisoner by the Russians went east to concentration camps from which they never returned. They died in those camps.

As regards the vast number of people who fled west toward the western Allies...you are dead right about that. Any German who could find any feasible way to escape west and surrender (with the exception of Hitler and Goebbels and Mrs Goebbels) made the utmost effort to do so.

I was not suggesting that "many" Germans in the western theatre of action committed suicide at war's end. I was referring to those in the Russian-occupied areas.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Ron Davies
Date: 20 May 09 - 10:02 PM

"...5 years fighting for that society".   I'd disagree.   They mainly fought for Germany, and, as soldiers always do, for their fellow soldiers---not for the 3rd Reich. Hitler tried to merge the two--but for most of the military that was a veneer, which was long gone by the final stages of the war.

It was not despair at the destruction of the 3rd Reich which drove some to suicide--and I'd still like some figures on numbers of suicides. and a specific, reputable source.   I'd particularly like some hard evidence that more than a few soldiers committed suicide.

I just pointed out that the main reason by far for any to commit suicide was fear of falling into the hands of the Russians, since many were aware of the incredibly inhumane treatment meted out by the 3rd Reich to the Russians, and, with good reason, feared payback. And some women did commit suicide after their treatment by the Russians.

The main reason any--aside from Hitler's inner circle--would commit suicide, was not    despair at the disaster after "having given your all for your country" but a very personal fear--primarily a well-grounded fear of the Russians.

It is not reasonable to make generalizations about the Germans and the Japanese together on this topic.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Little Hawk
Date: 20 May 09 - 10:21 PM

That's what I mean, Ron. They were fighting for Germany. That's what I MEAN when I say "that society". And they were fighting, naturally, for their fellow soldiers, and their families, towns, and cities....as any soldier does.

If you weren't so busy trying by hook or by crook to find something...anything....some tiny bit of minutiae...to disagree with me about, you wouldn't keep misunderstanding what I am saying in the first place.

Your combative attitude is the problem here, Ron. We DO not disagree about anything substantial on this subject, and you are wasting your time and mine looking for a dispute that isn't real.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Ron Davies
Date: 20 May 09 - 10:27 PM

"Minutiae".   Anything the poster says. I like facts. Evidence. Logic. Some people like empty pontificating--no particular person meant, of course.

The poster is of course welcome to actually provide some evidence. With source.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Teribus
Date: 21 May 09 - 10:38 AM

Had Stalin lived 10 years longer, I believe that the Soviet Union would have collapsed very rapidly after his death.

Had the French retained Canada after the Seven years War, a number of things would have followed that would have had a significant impact on that side of the "pond". There would have been no War of Independence and there would have been no expansion by the "colonists" westward into the Ohio and Wabash Basins, Britains fledgling colonies on the eastern seaboard of America were hemmed in by French and Spanish possessions, and it would have they who would have "Won the West" - a thing I suppose the natives would have been much happier with.

Points made regarding what would have happened if Germany had won the First World War rather fancifully allows France retention of her overseas possessions. Now I say fancifully as IIRC Kaiser Bill at one point or other prior to the totally pointless stramash that became known as the "Great War" was known to have wittered on about Germany "winning her place in the sun". In the wake of a German victory France would have lost her colonies to France and that would have set Germany on a collision course with Great Britain.

While the thinking behind the treaty of Versailles was seriously flawed (at the insistance of Clemanceau) Hitler would have been stopped dead in his tracks if he had been confronted the second that Germany started to break and ignore the conditions of the treaty that they had signed.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Teribus
Date: 21 May 09 - 12:41 PM

Apologies that should have read

"In the wake of a German victory France would have lost her colonies to Germany and that would have set Germany on a collision course with Great Britain."

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Little Hawk
Date: 21 May 09 - 01:42 PM

Ron, we have nothing to argue about on this particular subject. I know you must find that somewhat disappointing, but we don't, so kindly piss off.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: robomatic
Date: 21 May 09 - 09:06 PM

Little Hawk, as usual you mean well but you don't always mean what the rest of us mean.

To say the Germans were fighting for Germany is to overlook that they were fighting for Germany in Poland, they were fighting for Germany in Belgium, Czechoslovakia, in Norway, over England, in France, in Russia. Much as the Japanese were fighting for Japan in Korea, China, Russia.

You have an automatic sympathy for the underdog, no matter how much of a cur he might be.

I just finished a book called "Germania" which concerns itself with the end of the Hitler regime and the brief Doenitz government. As the Americans and English are encountered, Doenitz is trying to surrender under terms that the Germans will immediately become allies of the West and proceed against the common enemy, the Soviets. Their desperation and exhaustian has fed this delusion to the extent that they can't comprehend that the West won't do this.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Ron Davies
Date: 21 May 09 - 09:31 PM

Too bad, LH, that you feel compelled to sink to gutter language.

It's simple. Either you can refrain from making unsupportable statements or you can support them. Among other assertions "A good number of German soldiers" shot themselves rather than be taken prisoner by the Soviets.

Source?

Either you can support that with a specific quote from a reputable, and verifiable, source, or it bears all the field marks of somebody running off at the mouth just to hear himself talk.   I'm sure you wouldn't want to be lumped with those who ramble on meaninglessly, so since you are not one of that sort, you can support what you say.

When I make a historical assertion, I'm prepared to back it up.

I have too much respect for history to accept dubious notions--without evidence. So sorry if that doesn't meet with your approval.

But you may as well get used to it--or go back to your what-if's--the ostensible topic of this thread--which will be safe from my unwanted queries for evidence, logic, sources etc.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Ron Davies
Date: 21 May 09 - 10:09 PM

As far as I can tell, Germania appears to be a novel. But it's certainly true that Donitz and others were desperately grasping at straws to try to persuade the Western Allies to join them in an anti-Bolshevik crusade. I've just recently read a fascinating book called Tapping Hitler's Generals.   British intelligence set up a means to record, between 1942 and 1945, conversations of German high-ranking prisoners--officers-- they had set up in an (amazingly luxurious) estate in North London.   The Germans discussed freely--and argued with each other, forming cliques etc., often on the basis of attitudes toward Hitler, and dealt with questions of the war in great detail. They appear to truly have not realized they were being recorded, since some gave incriminating anti-Semitic remarks and discussed atrocities, etc.

Among many other things, the excuses given are amazing, as are the stories of how some at least tried to bring soldiers who committed atrocities--against Russians at least,--to justice. And how any attempts to do so were steamrollered by higher authorities.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Riginslinger
Date: 21 May 09 - 10:16 PM

It must have occurred to anyone who is a student of history that the "story" is written by the victors. Therefore something might very well have happened and have been handed down by word-of-mouth through generations, but when a heckler demands to know "what's the source," the documentation is hard to come by.
                              Consider the factions that control what is published in the mean stream media today, and the many issues that you, yourself, might know a great deal about, and how often what is reported to the public is blatantly wrong. But you saw what you saw, and you know what you know, while the public continues to believe the fairy tale because you simply don't have a microphone.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Ron Davies
Date: 21 May 09 - 10:31 PM

If you don't think there is such a thing as a reliable source, especially when confirmed by other sources, you have no place in a historical discussion--though you will be a master of wasting everybody's time.

I'm sorry, but a Mudcatter who for instance believes that Hitler had no choice but to grow up a mass murderer since he was raised a Catholic, is not quite as reliable a source as some published authors might be.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Ron Davies
Date: 21 May 09 - 10:36 PM

Talk about those who "ramble on meaninglessly"--that wisdom about history and the victors was right on cue. I couldn't possibly have come up with a better illustration.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Riginslinger
Date: 22 May 09 - 06:59 AM

Over the course of the last year or so, we've been advised by many sources that Rupert Murdoch has purchased the Wall Street Journal--along with a series of other media outlets that were owned by the Journal. And we see posters use the WSJ as a source, but is that a reliable source?
          The following items were found in various Wikipedia sites. The source is Wikipedia:

Within a few years Murdoch was acting as the front-man for Oppenheimer, Bronfman, Armand Hammer, and the Rothschild empire. This almost limitless financial backing is the real force behind Murdoch's mercurial rise to control, among his other media interests, a yearly newspaper circulation of 3.5 billion copies.


Hammer was born in Manhattan, New York to Russian-born Jewish immigrants Julius and Rose (Robinson) Hammer.[5] His father (from a family that had made and lost its fortune in shipbuilding) was brought to the United States from Odessa in 1875, and settled in The Bronx, where he ran a general medical practice and five drugstores.

The Rothschild family (often referred to simply as the Rothschilds), is an international banking and finance dynasty of German Jewish origin that established operations across Europe, and was ennobled by the Austrian and British governments.

The Bronfman family is one of the most influential Jewish families in the world. It owes its initial fame to Samuel Bronfman (1889-1971), who made a fortune in the alcoholic distilled beverage business during the 20th century through the family's Seagram Company. The family is of Russian Jewish heritage. Most of its members are Canadian citizens, most of whom are based in Montreal and New York City.

Harry Frederick Oppenheimer (28 October 1908 – 19 August 2000) was a prominent South African businessman and one of the world's richest men. In 2004 he was voted 60th in the SABC3's Great South Africans.
The son of Sir Ernest Oppenheimer, Harry was born to an assimilated Jewish family of German origins in Kimberley, the original centre for diamond mining in South Africa, and lived most of his life in Johannesburg. He had a formal Bar mitzvah ("coming of age") ceremony in the Kimberley synagogue when he turned thirteen.


       So any source owned by Rupert Murdoch is probably not going to report much about the better part of Hitler, and will omit elements they don't want to see surface about WWII.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Teribus
Date: 22 May 09 - 11:02 AM

There again Riginslinger - History is not written by newspaper journalists or editors - so who does or does not provide financial backing to Rupert Murdoch is totally irrelevant.

I am actually amazed that there are any people left who actually believe what is written and reported in newspapers these days.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Riginslinger
Date: 22 May 09 - 11:50 AM

Well, Teribus, the discussion was really about "sources." One poster on this thread seems to think nothing can be true without a source. If the source was something Uncle Herb said in 1952, and Uncle Herb died 10 years ago, it has no credibility to him.

                        On the other hand, when we see historians research a topic, they often go back to the media of the day, be it newspapers or hieroglyphics. I would agree that historians--at least those without an axe to grind--get it more right than popular media, but they are still influenced by what is found. And certainly more by what is not found.

                         Therefore, if you have a conspiratorial media that is keeping some voices silenced, 50 years down the road, those voices won't be found by even the most dedicated historians.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: robomatic
Date: 22 May 09 - 02:13 PM

Rig:

You stream together a bunch of disparate factoids (not fact, reported as fact) frankly cherry-picked out of the thin silicon that is wikipedia and we are left with no additional knowledge but a very definite implication.

Even an organ grinder's monkey could do better!

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Ron Davies
Date: 22 May 09 - 09:55 PM

Oh, don't be hard on poor Rig. Just think of him as Mudcat's very own Red Queen.   Believing 6 impossible things before breakfast is child's play for him.   All he has to do is open his mouth and another pops out.   Let's see:

1)   Hitler's murderous nature is due to his Catholic upbringing.

2) Hillary would have been a stronger opponent for McCain.

3) That perennial favorite:   the danger of the world-wide Jewish banking conspiracy

4) The Brown Peril:   Illegal Mexican immigration will destroy the US.   


6 things?   No sweat.    And then another 16 before lunch.


But he does provide good comic relief. Anytime the discussion threatens to actually get anywhere, the class clown steps in.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Riginslinger
Date: 22 May 09 - 10:20 PM

Ron - I might quibble with the "Red Queen" analogy, but at least I don't use the Wall Street Journal as a source--which I thought was the point of this stretch of this conversation.
                     I think Hitler's murderous nature being due to his Catholic upbringing came from some place else. I think he was motivated by other forces.
                     As far as Hillary, I think she would have made a fine president, but Obama has surprised me. I'm very pleased with what he has done so far.
                     There is no real danger in the world-wide Jewish banking conspiracy--though it was kind of unfortunate what George Soros did to the UK a few years back--but I don't like the idea of being manipulated by outside forces.
                     Illegal immigration has pretty much done in California. It would be a good thing, in my opinion, if Obama does not bail them out and the people there are forced to deal with the problem that has caused them so much misery. Obama says he's going after the employers, though, which is a much better policy than George W. Bush's non-policy.
                     The Wall Street Journal is a good source if one wants to know how many bushels of corn were produced in Iowa last yeae, but as a political source, it's in the bag with the the New York Times.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Ron Davies
Date: 22 May 09 - 11:06 PM

Now, run along, don't you have some important TV to watch--maybe "America's Stupidest Conspiracy Theories", or something of that nature?

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Riginslinger
Date: 23 May 09 - 12:22 AM

I'm sure it pains you to discover that Fox News and MSNBC are on the same side, but...

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Teribus
Date: 23 May 09 - 03:10 AM

I'll stand by what I said Rig, newspaper journalists and editors do not write history.

A historian will use every source of information he can uncover. If something is worth reporting in the media that newspaper report will not be the only thing that records the event.

Changes in the way things are reported by the media over the years have to be taken into account as well. 100 years ago events were reported far more factually than they are today. What you get today is spin and predetermined opinion.

100 years ahead someone will pick up a copy of Piers Morgan's Daily Mirror and state that British troops abused Iraqi prisoners and provide photographic "evidence" to back it up - what that researcher will not know unless he has all the subsequent editions of the newspaper and other newspapers of the period will be that the photographic "evidence" was all fake and the incidents reported never happened at all. A historian will look at the photographic evidence and question it, if that historian studies military history and is familiar with the period they will deduce very quickly, from fairly basic sources (relating to uniform, equipment and weapons), that the photographs are fake.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: robomatic
Date: 23 May 09 - 08:59 AM

still waiting for the worldwide Jewish banking conspiracy to pay a dividend

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 23 May 09 - 09:33 AM

What if MacArthur had gone on to attack Manchuria in the Korean war?

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Riginslinger
Date: 23 May 09 - 09:45 AM

"...still waiting for the worldwide Jewish banking conspiracy to pay a dividend..."

               Maybe we forgot to mention, it only pays dividends to members of the conspiracy--though "conspiracy" is not really the right word.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Riginslinger
Date: 23 May 09 - 09:48 AM

"What if MacArthur had gone on to attack Manchuria in the Korean war?"


                     I suspect we'd still be there, the economic boom of the '50s and '60s wouldn't have happened, Vietnam probably wouldn't have happened, and Ronald Reagan would have become an opium addict in Los Angeles.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Ron Davies
Date: 23 May 09 - 11:12 AM

This is too pathetically easy but:   Fox News and MSNBC are not in fact both owned by Mr. Murdoch---(whose real name is probably thought by Mudcat's Red Queen to be Murdochstein ). The Queen will have to dig into his bottomless bag of stale conspiracy theories to find another one.   Tough luck.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Riginslinger
Date: 23 May 09 - 12:00 PM

Of course the owner's names are different that show up on the titles, but one is owned by Murdoch and the other is owned by America's largest defense contractor.
                         You need to do more research, Ron, and quit worrying about sources. This is all common knowledge.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: GUEST,CLETUS HARDDINGER
Date: 23 May 09 - 02:24 PM

I never much git ta say anything on theez kinda threads but heers one I know the answer to cuz I got a solid forth grayd edgeekashun!

Iffen Stalin had lived 10 yeerz longer heeda bin 10 yeerz older.

CLETUS

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: robomatic
Date: 23 May 09 - 05:30 PM

"...still waiting for the worldwide Jewish banking conspiracy to pay a dividend..."

               Maybe we forgot to mention, it only pays dividends to members of the conspiracy--though "conspiracy" is not really the right word.

Well, according to YOU, rig, I qualify.

still waitin'....

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Riginslinger
Date: 23 May 09 - 08:36 PM

What can I say, robo, call up the board of directors and bitch!

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Ron Davies
Date: 24 May 09 - 01:05 PM

As usual, the Red Queen of Mudcat tells only part of the story. I suppose we should be grateful he got any part of it;   usually his version and the truth have only a coincidental relationship. MSNBC is owned both by GE and by Microsoft--as he should have been able to figure out.

Ah well, perhaps he needs to get some more input from "America's Most Stupid Conspiracy Theories",   which must be his favorite show by far.

So now he adds another to the list of his all-powerful foes:   Catholics, Jews, Mexicans ( a bit of overlap there with an earlier entry) and now GE. Ah yes, and not to forget his sworn enemies: sources, facts and logic.

I wonder if there's anything he's not afraid of.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Riginslinger
Date: 24 May 09 - 09:20 PM

Well, Ron, as long as you are going to refuse to research anything, he's certainly not afraid of you. Though maybe he should be, collectively, if theres enough of you, and you all vote.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Ron Davies
Date: 25 May 09 - 12:27 PM

Not afraid of me. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I am neither Catholic, Jewish, Mexican, black, nor an employee of GE--nor a strong Christian or believer of any stripe.

It seems to be mainly these which summon forth the Queen's irrational fear and hate. Who knows why.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Riginslinger
Date: 25 May 09 - 12:34 PM

I can recall when Ronald Reagan was selected to host the General Electric Theater. He used the notoriety to launch into a campaign for president, and was probably the only General Electric employee that I ever came to fear and hate.

Subject: RE: BS: What if Stalin had lived 10 years longer
From: Ron Davies
Date: 26 May 09 - 09:59 PM

Truth be told, it's probably not the attitude toward GE employees which is the problem.

On the other hand, the attitude toward blacks, Jews, Catholics, Mexicans etc...