Well argued. I disagree. We are already paying the price of appeasement for 2014, perhaps 2008. Love your implying that the U.S. caused World War II. Please do not confuse the end of World War II with its beginning. Putin will likely, hopefully, bring the same fate down on his gangster régime and the belligerent culture that enables him …
Well argued. I disagree. We are already paying the price of appeasement for 2014, perhaps 2008. Love your implying that the U.S. caused World War II. Please do not confuse the end of World War II with its beginning. Putin will likely, hopefully, bring the same fate down on his gangster régime and the belligerent culture that enables him and his likely successor. The appeasement we see today is worse than that of Prime Minister Chamberlain.
1st, Prime Minister Chamberlain had no overwhelming lesson-learned about what happens when appeasement of someone like Hitler or Putin.
2nd, Prime Minister Chamberlain was desperate to avoid a repeat of what had been the worst war ever until his time in office.
3rd, Prime Minister Chamberlain needed -- or felt he needed -- to buy time for Britain to be prepared for war.
4th, Germany was not aiming at Britain, at least yet.
5th, the U.K. economy had been stagnating with the Great Depression.
6th, as you point out, the Japanese slaughter in China had direct implications for the British Empire; that is, a cluttered radar screen.
Now of these conditions exist today. So why the appeasement with the lessons-learned; the overwhelming advantage of N.A.T.O.; and, the many weapons open to being transferred? The U.K. and Europe are doing their part? When do we do ours? When do we say, "Okay, Ukraine, take the gloves off."?
Sorry, rather than you, I will place my faith in the sentiment conveyed to my by many Ukrainians during my time there two years ago: Putin goes to sleep dreaming of Peter the Great and wakes up thinking like Stalin.
I did not imply that we caused WWII - that was going to happen with or without us. Nonetheless, our embargoes against Japan did precipitate their decision to attack Pearl Harbor to try to take our navy out of the equation long enough for them to consolidate the so-called East Asian Co-prosperity Sphere before we could marshal enough force to stop them. Of course their army leaders failed to take into account what Yamamoto seems to have known, that we would be a far greater danger to them than Tojo and his cohorts anticipated.
As to appeasement, I know the argument and I know the history, but everything the world believed about the nature of great power confrontations and war, even after the bloodbath on the western front in WWI, was upended on August 6th, 1945. The great power games we have been playing since have several times brought us to the brink of nuclear war. You may say, yes, but we always pulled back. Actually in at least two cases, it was a single Russian officer who did so, but we cannot continually count on such men or such luck. The decision time is too short and the possibilities too terrible. We have to find a better way than these continual confrontations, or sooner or later we are going to pay a price we cannot afford.
Unfortunately, we are by nature a rather short-sighted species, which up until now hasn't been anywhere as dangerous as it is with our present capabilities.
My sense is that the Ukrainians have 'taken the gloves off' - at least what gloves they have, and again, I'm all in favor of our aid, short of American boots on the ground over there. But there has never been a time when, in a split second, one man or one little group of men could start something no one on earth could finish. That must be taken into account, but since we've never experienced what might happen, the saber rattling goes on almost as if we were still in the age of horse cavalry and the rifled musket. We are not.
I owe you an apology. I knew damn well you were not implying that the U.S. started World War II. I am having what my sister describes lovingly as one of my sh*tful moods. Cranky and over my skis, unfortunately. Your analysis makes a lot of sense. We draw different conclusions from the facts you lay out. I suspect, however, that if, somehow, I were in the big chair on which President sits, my feelings would be the same but my outlook would be different. (I.e., I would likely feel the heavy burden of a nuclear miscalculation, too.) Thank you for taking a lot of time to craft a really interesting, well researched, and persuasive response, James. Yes, we have a good man in the White House; thank G-D. As a conservative, I will welcome President Biden's re-election; if he does not survive a second term, I will welcome a President Harris.
I was taken to task as well, for mistaking my dates about our involvement in Vietnam. From this distance such things are all too easy.
I agree completely about Mr Biden, although I would certainly not wish the weight of that decision on anyone and hope to god no one ever actually has to.
Politically I’m not sure what I’d call myself, often finding myself in some hard-to-define middle ground. With Aristotle, I’m often looking for that all-too elusive Golden Mean. It’s not easy these days. As the Chinese say, Yi Lu ping an - a good road to you!
B.L.U.F. (bottom-line, up-front): you are a good man who cares deeply for our country; it is a privilege for me to make your virtual acquaintance as it is with Mr Gary Loft; I wish I could tag Gary. You two show me the way. Our shared devotion to our belovèd and flawed America renders marginal -- at least when my wits return -- the specific differences we may have.
✌️
ABOVE ALL: I HUMBLY SALUTE YOUR SERVICE TO MY COUNTRY DURING A HORRID TIME. And a good road to you, Sir.
🤫--- rest is totally optional; bloviation by me ---🤫
Rather than Aristotle. I tend toward Platonist ideals. Your thought of the Golden Mean makes sense to me through that Platonist prism, too. I will never attain that blessèd state, other than briefly. Nevertheless, it is my duty to keep trying and progressing to my best rather than to perfection. Like people said in 1967-71: we keep on truckin'.
🚶
Well, I hope my reference to training advisors through President Kennedy and eighteen months of President Johnson was not taking you to task. SHAME ON ME for my pettiness if those words did insult you. I can only say that I did not intend to; I figured you meant 1957-61. Your point -- your idea and its logic -- are paramount here. Seems I have constantly to edit even one-sentence replies.
🤭
In actuality, I suspect you and I are more alike than not, with the exception of my loving a good argument, of course. Different in our specifics, perhaps, but willing to take what we agree with from both (and other) sides of the political spectrum and to leave the rest. I also suspect that most people do the same.
🤝
The problems for me begin when I feel I have to prove the rightness of my argument, opinion, or assertion. I then start to filter out the what-ifs, the uncertainties, the could-it-bees, etc. -- those margins of error -- and end up in a position that is not only untenable, likely wrong-headed, but also not a position I would ever have assumed off-the-bat ( at least so rigidly).
⚖️
So, my sense of the Golden Mean, well put, flies away and I can become just mean. Marcus Aurelius wrote wisely, "Remember that to change thy opinion and to follow him who corrects thy error is as consistent with freedom as it is to persist in thy error." Again, from my Platonist bent, I am imperfect at welcoming the wisdom of a better argument, but I keep on truckin'.
No, it was not you who took me to task for my error. And for sure we are all imperfect!
I was very taken with Socrates and Plato when I first began my exploration of Greek philosophy, and I still think aspects of the cave analogy are completely valid.
For myself, when I found myself intellectually exhausted in the midst of a then incomplete college education in 1966, and the draft was coming for me, I (as we used to say) enlisted to avoid it. It turned out to be a very mixed blessing, in which feeling I daresay I was not alone. The best that came of it was that since the odds were at least even that I'd end up in Vietnam (which, thank god I did not!), I set out to discover why it was that after four centuries of mass warfare, we still overindulged ourselves in it. I can't say I've found an answer that satisfies me, but as in any such quest, I ended up pursuing a rather larger issue - that of our origins and evolution as a species. I took my degree in anthropology, and I'm still on that one, albeit more as a sort of intellectual hobby than a focused pursuit.
I ended up teaching US and ancient history at the elementary level, at which I spent just over 40 years, and I have not regretted one day of that profession. I too love a good argument, and I'm certainly not above insisting on my own interpretation, at times somewhat past the point of reality. I always had my classes sit in a circle rather than at a row of desks, and I think of these online discussions, which I relish, as somewhat the same kind of thing, albeit in a rather larger 'room' in which I am participant instead of teacher. I'm very grateful to Dr. Richardson and to so many of her 'regulars' for stimulating this one.
As I said to Gary Loft: copy that, Peter, copy that all the way. On the ghastly war in lndochina, in 1967 I was ten and playing with model airplanes, living in Australia. As we would sail on week-ends, I was an inattentive jib-man because I was too busy with my model airplanes (W.W.2 Navy fighters) single-handedly liberating Hanoi. There had been push-back, including by some relatives, against that wretched war when we left the U.S. in 1966; I was simply unaware of it.
When we returned to the U.S. in December 1968, everybody was against the war and hated my proxy grand-pa, Lyndon Johnson. I have never really been able to wrap my head around the ghastly war in Viêt Nam. It was, and remains, a stain on the American soul. We need to remain mindful of that stain. My sympathies these days go out to the young men placed in an impossible situation, the great majority of whom did their country proud.
Chicken-hawks like me who, unlike you, never served, need to be particularly mindful. Thank G-D that you came through unscathed. My mother was a teacher of grade school English and History. A noble calling; good for you. An honor to correspond with you, Sir. 🙏
Well argued. I disagree. We are already paying the price of appeasement for 2014, perhaps 2008. Love your implying that the U.S. caused World War II. Please do not confuse the end of World War II with its beginning. Putin will likely, hopefully, bring the same fate down on his gangster régime and the belligerent culture that enables him and his likely successor. The appeasement we see today is worse than that of Prime Minister Chamberlain.
1st, Prime Minister Chamberlain had no overwhelming lesson-learned about what happens when appeasement of someone like Hitler or Putin.
2nd, Prime Minister Chamberlain was desperate to avoid a repeat of what had been the worst war ever until his time in office.
3rd, Prime Minister Chamberlain needed -- or felt he needed -- to buy time for Britain to be prepared for war.
4th, Germany was not aiming at Britain, at least yet.
5th, the U.K. economy had been stagnating with the Great Depression.
6th, as you point out, the Japanese slaughter in China had direct implications for the British Empire; that is, a cluttered radar screen.
Now of these conditions exist today. So why the appeasement with the lessons-learned; the overwhelming advantage of N.A.T.O.; and, the many weapons open to being transferred? The U.K. and Europe are doing their part? When do we do ours? When do we say, "Okay, Ukraine, take the gloves off."?
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6963114645016461313/
Sorry, rather than you, I will place my faith in the sentiment conveyed to my by many Ukrainians during my time there two years ago: Putin goes to sleep dreaming of Peter the Great and wakes up thinking like Stalin.
I did not imply that we caused WWII - that was going to happen with or without us. Nonetheless, our embargoes against Japan did precipitate their decision to attack Pearl Harbor to try to take our navy out of the equation long enough for them to consolidate the so-called East Asian Co-prosperity Sphere before we could marshal enough force to stop them. Of course their army leaders failed to take into account what Yamamoto seems to have known, that we would be a far greater danger to them than Tojo and his cohorts anticipated.
As to appeasement, I know the argument and I know the history, but everything the world believed about the nature of great power confrontations and war, even after the bloodbath on the western front in WWI, was upended on August 6th, 1945. The great power games we have been playing since have several times brought us to the brink of nuclear war. You may say, yes, but we always pulled back. Actually in at least two cases, it was a single Russian officer who did so, but we cannot continually count on such men or such luck. The decision time is too short and the possibilities too terrible. We have to find a better way than these continual confrontations, or sooner or later we are going to pay a price we cannot afford.
Unfortunately, we are by nature a rather short-sighted species, which up until now hasn't been anywhere as dangerous as it is with our present capabilities.
My sense is that the Ukrainians have 'taken the gloves off' - at least what gloves they have, and again, I'm all in favor of our aid, short of American boots on the ground over there. But there has never been a time when, in a split second, one man or one little group of men could start something no one on earth could finish. That must be taken into account, but since we've never experienced what might happen, the saber rattling goes on almost as if we were still in the age of horse cavalry and the rifled musket. We are not.
I owe you an apology. I knew damn well you were not implying that the U.S. started World War II. I am having what my sister describes lovingly as one of my sh*tful moods. Cranky and over my skis, unfortunately. Your analysis makes a lot of sense. We draw different conclusions from the facts you lay out. I suspect, however, that if, somehow, I were in the big chair on which President sits, my feelings would be the same but my outlook would be different. (I.e., I would likely feel the heavy burden of a nuclear miscalculation, too.) Thank you for taking a lot of time to craft a really interesting, well researched, and persuasive response, James. Yes, we have a good man in the White House; thank G-D. As a conservative, I will welcome President Biden's re-election; if he does not survive a second term, I will welcome a President Harris.
I was taken to task as well, for mistaking my dates about our involvement in Vietnam. From this distance such things are all too easy.
I agree completely about Mr Biden, although I would certainly not wish the weight of that decision on anyone and hope to god no one ever actually has to.
Politically I’m not sure what I’d call myself, often finding myself in some hard-to-define middle ground. With Aristotle, I’m often looking for that all-too elusive Golden Mean. It’s not easy these days. As the Chinese say, Yi Lu ping an - a good road to you!
B.L.U.F. (bottom-line, up-front): you are a good man who cares deeply for our country; it is a privilege for me to make your virtual acquaintance as it is with Mr Gary Loft; I wish I could tag Gary. You two show me the way. Our shared devotion to our belovèd and flawed America renders marginal -- at least when my wits return -- the specific differences we may have.
✌️
ABOVE ALL: I HUMBLY SALUTE YOUR SERVICE TO MY COUNTRY DURING A HORRID TIME. And a good road to you, Sir.
🤫--- rest is totally optional; bloviation by me ---🤫
Rather than Aristotle. I tend toward Platonist ideals. Your thought of the Golden Mean makes sense to me through that Platonist prism, too. I will never attain that blessèd state, other than briefly. Nevertheless, it is my duty to keep trying and progressing to my best rather than to perfection. Like people said in 1967-71: we keep on truckin'.
🚶
Well, I hope my reference to training advisors through President Kennedy and eighteen months of President Johnson was not taking you to task. SHAME ON ME for my pettiness if those words did insult you. I can only say that I did not intend to; I figured you meant 1957-61. Your point -- your idea and its logic -- are paramount here. Seems I have constantly to edit even one-sentence replies.
🤭
In actuality, I suspect you and I are more alike than not, with the exception of my loving a good argument, of course. Different in our specifics, perhaps, but willing to take what we agree with from both (and other) sides of the political spectrum and to leave the rest. I also suspect that most people do the same.
🤝
The problems for me begin when I feel I have to prove the rightness of my argument, opinion, or assertion. I then start to filter out the what-ifs, the uncertainties, the could-it-bees, etc. -- those margins of error -- and end up in a position that is not only untenable, likely wrong-headed, but also not a position I would ever have assumed off-the-bat ( at least so rigidly).
⚖️
So, my sense of the Golden Mean, well put, flies away and I can become just mean. Marcus Aurelius wrote wisely, "Remember that to change thy opinion and to follow him who corrects thy error is as consistent with freedom as it is to persist in thy error." Again, from my Platonist bent, I am imperfect at welcoming the wisdom of a better argument, but I keep on truckin'.
No, it was not you who took me to task for my error. And for sure we are all imperfect!
I was very taken with Socrates and Plato when I first began my exploration of Greek philosophy, and I still think aspects of the cave analogy are completely valid.
For myself, when I found myself intellectually exhausted in the midst of a then incomplete college education in 1966, and the draft was coming for me, I (as we used to say) enlisted to avoid it. It turned out to be a very mixed blessing, in which feeling I daresay I was not alone. The best that came of it was that since the odds were at least even that I'd end up in Vietnam (which, thank god I did not!), I set out to discover why it was that after four centuries of mass warfare, we still overindulged ourselves in it. I can't say I've found an answer that satisfies me, but as in any such quest, I ended up pursuing a rather larger issue - that of our origins and evolution as a species. I took my degree in anthropology, and I'm still on that one, albeit more as a sort of intellectual hobby than a focused pursuit.
I ended up teaching US and ancient history at the elementary level, at which I spent just over 40 years, and I have not regretted one day of that profession. I too love a good argument, and I'm certainly not above insisting on my own interpretation, at times somewhat past the point of reality. I always had my classes sit in a circle rather than at a row of desks, and I think of these online discussions, which I relish, as somewhat the same kind of thing, albeit in a rather larger 'room' in which I am participant instead of teacher. I'm very grateful to Dr. Richardson and to so many of her 'regulars' for stimulating this one.
As I said to Gary Loft: copy that, Peter, copy that all the way. On the ghastly war in lndochina, in 1967 I was ten and playing with model airplanes, living in Australia. As we would sail on week-ends, I was an inattentive jib-man because I was too busy with my model airplanes (W.W.2 Navy fighters) single-handedly liberating Hanoi. There had been push-back, including by some relatives, against that wretched war when we left the U.S. in 1966; I was simply unaware of it.
When we returned to the U.S. in December 1968, everybody was against the war and hated my proxy grand-pa, Lyndon Johnson. I have never really been able to wrap my head around the ghastly war in Viêt Nam. It was, and remains, a stain on the American soul. We need to remain mindful of that stain. My sympathies these days go out to the young men placed in an impossible situation, the great majority of whom did their country proud.
Chicken-hawks like me who, unlike you, never served, need to be particularly mindful. Thank G-D that you came through unscathed. My mother was a teacher of grade school English and History. A noble calling; good for you. An honor to correspond with you, Sir. 🙏