Tacitus on Obama in Berlin

Submitted by vinteuil on Fri, 07/25/2008 - 2:55pm. Tags:

Over at his personal website, our blog-father, Tacitus, aka Josh Trevino, has published what is, I think, a very insightful piece on Barack Obama's speech in Berlin.

The whole piece makes for great reading, but this stands out:

"...Barack Obama's...speech was...very much in the rhetorical tradition of one George W. Bush. In listening to it, the recollection was...of the current President's Second Inaugural Address. The central themes are quite nearly the same: a wholesale reversal of John Quincy Adams's formulation of American foreign policy, which stated that America 'goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.' George W. Bush explicitly rejected this when he proclaimed, 'The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.' Barack Obama expressed the same rejection less succinctly:

"'Now is the time to join together, through constant cooperation, strong institutions, shared sacrifice, and a global commitment to progress, to meet the challenges of the 21st century...Now the world will watch and remember what we do here - what we do with this moment. Will we extend our hand to the people in the forgotten corners of this world who yearn for lives marked by dignity and opportunity; by security and justice? Will we lift the child in Bangladesh from poverty, shelter the refugee in Chad, and banish the scourge of AIDS in our time? Will we stand for the human rights of the dissident in Burma, the blogger in Iran, or the voter in Zimbabwe? Will we give meaning to the words 'never again' in Darfur?

"The implied answer to each query: under President Obama, yes we can will!...

"In the end, [George W. Bush and Barack Obama] share the most vapid platitude of all: that America's mission in the world is to, well, 'lift the child in Bangladesh from poverty.' We're a long way from the United States's former mission - you know, the one compelling it to 'form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessing of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.' America's engagement in the world after 1945 used to be justified and justifiable on those terms, and every postwar president till now more or less grasped this. George W. Bush decisively changed that, and the question was whether his re-orientation of America's raison d'etre was unique to him, or a lasting shift in foundations of American policy. With Barack Obama's speech in Berlin today, we know the terrible answer."

Paul J. Cella, my colleague at What's Wrong With the World, adds these pertinent observations:

"Republican commentators have been full of snarls at Obama's one-worldism, which he articulated through the fitting metaphor (given the location of the speech) of oppressive walls. 'The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The walls between races and tribes, natives and immigrants, Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down.' But these right-wing snarls ring pretty hollow, for we have heard the same drivel from Republicans for eight years and more. Hostility toward nationality, antipathy for the distinctiveness of peoples, contempt for the particularity of nations - this has been a bipartisan game for many a long year now...

"If America is the one indispensable and universal nation, vindicator of liberty everywhere, organized for the project of throwing down all tyranny, then indeed her opposition to all walls of distinctiveness must be implacable. She is moved by what Burke called an armed doctrine: she is revolution on the march. If, however, America is to remain the well-wisher of freedom but champion only of her own, then particularity is not a stark staring contradiction of her identity, interest still guides her aspirations, and walls may be not merely necessary, but noble and just."
--

e pur si muove!

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e pur si muove!

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e pur si muove!

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e pur si muove!

--

Live not by lies.

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"What's Wrong With The World" (#105588)
by mmghosh on Sun, 07/27/2008 - 2:07am

What a site.

What’s Wrong with the World is dedicated to the defense of what remains of Christendom, the civilization made by the men of the Cross of Christ. Athwart two hostile Powers we stand: The Jihad and Liberalism.

We are happy warriors, for our defense is motivated primarily by gratitude for what our ancestors bequeathed to us. We are hardly what the world calls “optimists,” for our sense of the crisis of our age is robust indeed; but despair is among the more fashionable sins today, and our hostility to it, too, is implacable. We put not our trust in princes, but stand on the Solid Rock, against which neither the tyranny of the Crescent nor the blank negations of Liberalism shall prevail...

We are happy warriors, for our defense is motivated primarily by gratitude for what our ancestors bequeathed to us. We are hardly what the world calls “optimists,” for our sense of the crisis of our age is robust indeed; but despair is among the more fashionable sins today, and our hostility to it, too, is implacable.

--

Manish Ghosh

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Manish, I had nothing to do... (#105631)
by vinteuil on Sun, 07/27/2008 - 1:40pm

...with the somewhat orotund "statement of purpose" over there. (I mean, who reads such things, anyway?) But, be that as it may, I don't think forvm-ites are in any position to complain about the general level of posts and comments at WWWtheW.

--

Live not by lies.

( | parent )
Orotund is right. (#105717)
by mmghosh on Sun, 07/27/2008 - 11:38pm

And I kind of conflated Hitchens and Cella in my last post (not that they are that dissimilar) - sorry about that.

Anyway, you being a Nietzschean, I would have expected you to laugh heartily at such nonsense!

--

Manish Ghosh

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You may not realize it (#105592)
by HankP on Sun, 07/27/2008 - 3:05am

but our very own vinteuil is an author there. I agree about the site, though. Way off the deep end - and also founded by Josh Trevino.

--

I blame it all on the Internet

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Funny (#105463)
by HankP on Sat, 07/26/2008 - 11:05am

no one seemed to mind when Reagan stated "I speak today as both a citizen of the United States and of the world" when he spoke at the UN in 1982.

Republicans are trying to box Obama in, if he's generic in his speech they say he has no specific policies, if he gives specific policies in a speech they say that's he's presumptuous since he's not the President yet. Yes, I know it sounds silly but that's what I've been hearing their minions say on the talking head shows.

The fact is, McCain has given speeches on foreign soil within the last month, in both Columbia and Canada. What is really killing the Rs, and driving them into anti-logical and anti-factual madness, is that 200,000 people didn't show up to see McCain.

--

I blame it all on the Internet

( )
Kierk has stirred up some thoughts about KC appropriate here. (#105469)
by BlaiseP on Sat, 07/26/2008 - 11:43am

Robert Fripp once said something to this effect: "The musician is like a radio amplifier." His job is to tune into a specific frequency and give life to what's being broadcast there.

Don't know how many of you are musicians, but all of you are writers. Have you ever felt, after writing something particularly good, that it was entirely original, had never been said before in one form or another? I'll bet not one of you will answer Yes. Good writing is ultimately derivative, and so is music, a way of translating deeply felt feelings into seven-bit ascii or inserting a YouTube embed, attempting to convey what is in your heart to an audience which you feel ought to take you seriously but may not.

I once had a writing teacher say "All stories are ultimately the stories of Homer and the old myths. You will never create anything new, but you will forge new things from old metal." The walls of Obama's speech are as old as the walls of Troy and the defensive trenches of the Greeks... and both were breached. These tales of aggrieved men and meddling gods, of wily Odysseus, who in the long telling of the story is not saved by his wiliness but by the protection of Athena. Some victory: the outraged citizens of Ithaca are doubly angered by the loss of his sailors and the deaths of the suitors. No good deed goes unpunished, for all good deeds are alloyed with calculating selfishness.

And thus it is with Obama's speech. If it is derivative, all the great speeches are derived from noble themes and ancient archetypes. Without them, we are left with the dodgy Newspeak of Dana Perino, conveying no meaning, shallow and empty, a sort of non-speaking.

History is written every day, that is to say, when it is not covered up like a cat burying his turd in the litter box as is the case with the Bush Administration, whose entire raison d'être has been secrecy and lies. We are left to dig around in that foul gravel to find the truth of the things they do. But there is no real hiding of these things, any more than Macbeth could hide his intentions. Birnam Wood did come to Dunsinane, and the historians will have their say on George W Bush.

Call him derivative if you wish, yes, even derivative of GWB. Our president cannot write, his every uttered word and phrase, (save only for his unfortunate malapropisms and analogies to market failures and drunks, topics on which he is an acknowledged authority) has been the product of speechwriters, who must match their writing to Bush's inability to utter a sentence containing a comma.

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The point is (#105479)
by HankP on Sat, 07/26/2008 - 12:16pm

every politician visiting a foreign country will speak of universal values and the brotherhood of man, it's silly to think otherwise. Even when laying out a policy, they'll couch it in the most inclusive and friendly terms possible - it would, quite frankly, be stupid to do otherwise. Of course it's derivative, there are only so many ways to say "We're all in this together". Speeches are meant to inspire, they have very little to do with the negotiations that take place in meetings.

As far as Homer, well, I try to keep the phrases "rosy fingered dawn" and "wine dark sea" out of my writing.

--

I blame it all on the Internet

( | parent )
There's a reason for all that repetition in Homer. (#105497)
by BlaiseP on Sat, 07/26/2008 - 1:21pm

It makes perfect sense in the meter, and serves as a good vamp for what follows. It was, after all, an oral tradition which gave rise to Homer.

Josh is being very silly when he says "Barack Obama’s celebrity appeal is not (contrary to what he appears to believe) fueled wholly by his innate qualities: the elements of desperation and projection, powerfully amplified by his comparative lack of public accomplishment, build him into the apparent juggernaut — and thus enable him to travel to Berlin, deliver a thoroughly pedestrian speech, and receive adoration for it."

This was no pedestrian speech on the order of We Are the World. Feeble casuistry of this sort is mere jealousy. George Bush could never give this speech. Bush, for better or worse, is the most inept speaker in modern times.

As for this bit of idiocy: "If George W. Bush and Barack Obama share the same conceptual view of America-in-the-world as an active exporter of values and mores, it does not follow that they are the same in their particulars. (The President, mercifully, never inflicted upon us pseudo-scientific whoppers such as, “As we speak, cars in Boston and factories in Beijing are melting the ice caps in the Arctic, shrinking coastlines in the Atlantic, and bringing drought to farms from Kansas to Kenya.” Question: will some alert member of the press corps ask Obama to identify and travel to the inch of Atlantic coastline that “cars in Boston and factories in Beijing” shrunk?) Nonetheless, it is tremendously important to understand that their differences are fundamentally those of process, not premise."

-- this deserves a thorough fisking. I recently went to the Georgia Aquarium. The guide explained the largest tank, containing the whale sharks, had fish from every ocean, for the ocean must be considered a single entity. Josh snidely asks us to point to which inch of the Atlantic, I respond, with absolute accuracy, every inch. Granted, it's not Al Gore's 20 feet, but let's not kid ourselves. Josh needs to take a course in grade school science wherein Archimedes and liquid displacement is taught. Honest people may differ on the causes of that rise and the melting of the ice caps, but it is happening, and we are all in this problem together.

Josh's problem is this: he lives in the world of Ptolemy and Euclid when the real geometry of the world is that of Riemann and the sphere, where the lines of longitude intersect not once but twice, at the poles.

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Well (#105504)
by HankP on Sat, 07/26/2008 - 2:00pm

I always thought that works like Homer's that started out from the oral tradition had a bunch of stock phrases that were there so the speaker could pop them into the narrative if he momentarily had a problem remembering the next line. But maybe that's just the cynic in me.

There is a factor of imputing characteristics to a candidate when the party members feel that they have a winner on their hands, but that's not limited to Obama, I remember the same type of gushing over Bush, and before him Clinton, and before him Reagan, etc. etc. A presidential candidate has to at least sound moderate to have any chance of getting elected, so they actively try to make themselves blank slates that voters can project onto. I'm pretty sure that's why euphemisms were invented.

I think the problem that conservatives have with Obama is much simpler than what you propose, it's just that he's appealing to a wide variety of Americans and the mud they throw doesn't seem to stick. It's criticism born of frustration, and it shows.

--

I blame it all on the Internet

( | parent )
Bush's First Inaugural (#105451)
by BlaiseP on Sat, 07/26/2008 - 9:48am

His first inaugural said:

We will confront weapons of mass destruction, so that a new century is spared new horrors.

The enemies of liberty and our country should make no mistake: America remains engaged in the world by history and by choice, shaping a balance of power that favors freedom. We will defend our allies and our interests. We will show purpose without arrogance. We will meet aggression and bad faith with resolve and strength. And to all nations, we will speak for the values that gave our nation birth.

What a change four years bring. Bush's bravado was mere bluster. There was nothing to it at the time, and this is still true. The tragedy of 9/11 panicked poor George Bush, like My Pet Goat in the Headlights. Bush's confrontation of weapons of mass destruction has brought our new century horrors we could not have imagined. The values that gave our nation birth have been flushed down the toilet of history in the secret prisons which now hold a unknown number of persons denied the benefits of those values.

All these things have been said before, but the veiled threat of WMDs was on Bush's agenda from his very first minutes of his administration. Bush beat plowshares into swords, angered our erstwhile allies and thought his own values best represented our country. Resolve and strength were beyond him. And ever more lies upon lies were his stock in trade. Noble lies about WMDs were not the product of misapplication of faulty intelligence, the deadly truths were laid out in his first inaugural.

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I admit (#105433)
by Gabriel on Fri, 07/25/2008 - 8:39pm

I never understood the obsession by many (including historians and other 'professionals') with politician's speeches. I don't think I've listened or read a whole political speech in my life. They not only bore me to tears but, what's worse, I don't see them as useful in understanding what a politician will do.

Let's say that Tac is right and Obama's and Bush's speeches have strong similarities. So what? Does anyone actually believe that means their policies will be similar? To talk of 'internationalism' in 2008 is almost like saying we need to breathe. It's a given, but unless you very clearly and explicitly operationalize it, it tells you almost nothing.

For example, Bush went out of his way to antagonize Chavez in Venezuela, when there was no need, and to no advantage to the US. Will Obama do the same?

--

Standard Disclaimer: I only speak for myself. I may or not agree with others. Ask, if you are curious. If I post about X I may not have an opinion about Y, no matter how closely related you think they are.

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Gabriel, sorry, but I missed this before... (#105560)
by vinteuil on Sat, 07/26/2008 - 8:48pm

You ask the questions that need to be answered.

--

Live not by lies.

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The rhetorical tradition of one George W. Bush. (#105424)
by Spartacvs on Fri, 07/25/2008 - 7:14pm

is the rhetorical tradition of whoever happened to write it, not one George W. Bush.

Obama wrote and delivered an eloquent speech in a foreign capital, get over it. As for Obama's apparent popularity abroad, the rest of the world would appear to be as enthusiastic about another Republican US President as we are at home.

--

GW Bush, leading contender for worst President ever.

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Ah .... (#105410)
by Elagabalus on Fri, 07/25/2008 - 5:19pm

Obama makes a speech about internationalism in front of an international crowd. What exactly did Tac think he was going say? "I'm a jelly donut"!

--

I had discovered a great secret. That everyone loves themselves more than they love anybody else. And if I wanted them to love me, I better be like THEM!... Ken Nordine

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The trouble with NOT upholding overarching ideals... (#105409)
by Wagster on Fri, 07/25/2008 - 5:18pm

... is that when you need help to achieve your selfish needs your rallying cry is less than persuasive. Instead of "all for one and one for all!" it's "me for me and all for me!" Forgive the bystanders if they don't rush right in.

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More Wagster!

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So that is your Diplomacy secret (#105417)
by Bill White on Fri, 07/25/2008 - 6:25pm

Silly me, I thought you were using mind control lasers.

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. . . and it looks as though they’ll punish the monkey and let the organ grinder go . . .

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Thank God... (#105431)
by Wagster on Fri, 07/25/2008 - 8:23pm

... we don't have ideals in Diplomacy.

However... the powers that only serve their present self-interest -- either alone or in purely circumstantial alliances -- will invariably lose to to powers that occasionally are willing to sacrifice their self-interest for lasting relationships. That is true in Diplomacy and in foreign relations writ large.

Of course, the United States should not and cannot ascribe the same value to the interests of others as to its own. But when the value justifies the cost it should be willing to stand up for humanitarian values, political ideals, and the interests of long-time friends.

Disengagement from the world is not a mistake can afford to make anymore.

--

More Wagster!

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Wagster, this is so well put: (#105561)
by vinteuil on Sat, 07/26/2008 - 9:03pm

"...the powers that only serve their present self-interest -- either alone or in purely circumstantial alliances - will invariably lose to powers that occasionally are willing to sacrifice their self-interest for lasting relationships..."

But are you entirely sure that you want to be pointing that out, just now?

--

Live not by lies.

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I agree, of course (#105435)
by Bill White on Fri, 07/25/2008 - 8:46pm

pretty much 100% with the above comment

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. . . and it looks as though they’ll punish the monkey and let the organ grinder go . . .

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Pardon the drive-by (#105398)
by hobbesist on Fri, 07/25/2008 - 4:40pm

... but when Trevino's right, he's right. The rhetoric and ideology of moralistic internationalism crosses party boundaries with ease.

--

Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio.

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So is there a problem with internationalism? (#105589)
by mmghosh on Sun, 07/27/2008 - 2:10am

Why, exactly?

--

Manish Ghosh

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It's the moralism (#105735)
by hobbesist on Mon, 07/28/2008 - 11:43am

... that rankles.

--

Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio.

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The Monroe Doctrine. The Roosevelt Corollary. (#105392)
by Jordan on Fri, 07/25/2008 - 4:20pm

The Truman Doctrine. The Reagan Doctrine. All established, legitimate, constitutionally-derived US policy based on the notion that we must expand and defend American-style freedoms on behalf other people around the world.

None of this is new. Certainly not 21st century-new. John Adams did not set US foreign policy precedent. Neither did the grumpily isolationist George Washington. James Monroe did, for better or for worse. Not sure how a smart guy like Trevino could've forgotten that.

Not often I get to repeat a comment tout court on a different diary. :)

--

Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. -JH

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Established? Certainly. (#105396)
by hobbesist on Fri, 07/25/2008 - 4:38pm

Legitimate? Sez who?

Constitutionally-derived? Show your work, Jordan.

--

Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio.

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Well I guess you don't have to take James Monroe's word (#105407)
by Jordan on Fri, 07/25/2008 - 5:14pm

for it. Or James Madison, John C. Calhoun, John Quincy Adams, or Teejay (Thomas Jefferson) for that matter. Monroe writes

It is impossible that the allied powers should extend their political system to any portion of either continent without endangering our peace and happiness; nor can anyone believe that our southern brethren, if left to themselves, would adopt it of their own accord. It is equally impossible, therefore, that we should behold such interposition in any form with indifference.

echoing the language (and the revolutionary consent-of-the-governed principle) of the Declaration while assuming the default political system for the Americas is a US-style republic. There are foundational ideas at work here, though they haven't faced a SCOTUS challenge that I know of.

In any case these are legal policies of the US (the Lodge Corollary was even ratified by the Senate), which confers constitutional derivation of a kind.

--

Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. -JH

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The distinction (#105438)
by hobbesist on Fri, 07/25/2008 - 9:10pm

between the Declaration and the Constitution, and their respective political uses - a distinction I think you're eliding - makes all the difference.

I didn't dispute the well-established-ness of the (purportedly) emancipatory tradition in American foreign policy; I merely wondered from which part of our constitution you believed it to be derived. With regard to its legitimacy - rattling off a slew of 'Great Men' isn't going to cut it.

And as for your tendentious & selective reading of the Monroe Doctrine - that's beside the point.

--

Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio.

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Tendentious & selective? Why I never! (#105442)
by Jordan on Fri, 07/25/2008 - 9:52pm

Well ok, I sometimes.

Looking around to see if I have any legs left to stand on....

Ok so the Declaration, even the Preamble, are probably not legally binding documents. I think it's pretty easy to show a continuity in *policy* from the Declaration through the Monroe Doctrine -- though the Constitution's careful to limit its purview to US citizens. The policy being anti-colonialism in the western hemisphere.

With regard to legitimacy, the "Lodge Corollary" to the Monroe Doctrine was actually approved by the Senate, though as I said, two centuries' intervention in the western hemisphere hasn't really met any judicial challenges. The Monroe Doctrine hasn't been up for review, far as I know.

--

Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes. -JH

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I dunno about the constitution... (#105428)
by Wagster on Fri, 07/25/2008 - 7:35pm

but yes, the declaration of independence expressly makes claims not just for Americans, but for all mankind.

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More Wagster!

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Wasn't tom getting smacked around (#105436)
by hobbesist on Fri, 07/25/2008 - 8:56pm

... for conflating the Declaration with the Constitution? Don't worry, though, Jordan - we like you better ;^D

--

Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio.

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When Lincoln said four score and seven (#105441)
by Bill White on Fri, 07/25/2008 - 9:26pm

that counts back to 1776 not 1787.

1776 defines the objectives of the American regime. 1787 was a second attempt to forge a viable way of doing that.

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. . . and it looks as though they’ll punish the monkey and let the organ grinder go . . .

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Exactly (#105381)
by Kierkegaard on Fri, 07/25/2008 - 3:19pm

Obama reminds me more and more of Bush with every passing day. Except he's far more cerebral and charming. But his essential hollowness, his desire to appear all things to all people, his need to appropriate every cliche of 'compassion', even his campaign speeches and tactics, are very similar.

I personally do not care to see walls being torn down. I like walls. The world is a safer place when they're built in the right places. And I care nothing for people starving overseas. I care only that my countrymen are not starving. I would have happily sacrificed all of Somalia if it had somehow meant saving the victims of Katrina.

In fact, I'll go further: despite my close friendships with many Europeans, I care only for my countrymen, politically speaking. Watching Obama running for 'president of the world' is a sickening spectacle. Let the Europeans import him to rule over them like an Emperor Maximilian, if they so desire. Or let them apply for statehood if they desire our vote. I believe this European side-show of his to have been a colossal mistake--and I have no doubt that's how it's playing out among white voters in Ohio and Michigan.

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These figures are often repeated (#105448)
by Micky Love on Sat, 07/26/2008 - 4:32am

These figures are often repeated: the US consumes 25% of the world's resources, while constituting 5% of the world's population. In these times of concern for the future, any talk of putting up walls between Americans and the resources they wish to consume is foolishness.

You don't need to go overseas to find hunger. Recent 'tortilla riots' in Mexico might have caught your attention had you been interested.

--

Nothing resembles virtue more than a great crime. Saint-Just

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Barack In Berlin Resonated Well With Me...But Then It Would.... (#105385)
by Traveller on Fri, 07/25/2008 - 3:39pm

...I fear you may be right about Ohio and Michigan.

Though to me....I loved the images of Obama in Europe. (BTW, with 350 million people, Europe can out vote us, so maybe we don't want them in the Union....lol)

Traveller

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I'd love them to join the Union anyway (#105414)
by Kierkegaard on Fri, 07/25/2008 - 5:54pm

Ditto with Canada. And the Phillippines. I believe our Constitution is robust enough to survive that and even win some converts.

The point I'm making is that those images are empty symbolism. I have a black niece who's already a high-powered New York attorney. She went to the same law school as the Obamas and is twice as smart. I've already felt the thrill of her triumph. And you know what--ultimately it has nothing to do with race at all. If Obama were white, he'd be Martin O'Malley--and nobody's mentioned him for president yet.

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Let us take this quote as true (#105378)
by Bill White on Fri, 07/25/2008 - 3:06pm

Let us not argue about the accuracy of this quote but instead can anyone reconcile the continuing occupation of Iraq with this passage?

"If America is the one indispensable and universal nation, vindicator of liberty everywhere, organized for the project of throwing down all tyranny, then indeed her opposition to all walls of distinctiveness must be implacable. She is moved by what Burke called an armed doctrine: she is revolution on the march. If, however, America is to remain the well-wisher of freedom but champion only of her own, then particularity is not a stark staring contradiction of her identity, interest still guides her aspirations, and walls may be not merely necessary, but noble and just."

= = =

What all this proves, of course, is that George W. Bush was never a conservative to begin with. And with John McCain embracing Bush in so many ways, neither is he.

Thus, true conservatives find it very difficult to actually say anything serious without being irrelevant to mainstream politics.

--

. . . and it looks as though they’ll punish the monkey and let the organ grinder go . . .

( )
No, Bill, nobody can. (#105397)
by vinteuil on Fri, 07/25/2008 - 4:38pm

And the fact that "George W. Bush was never a conservative to begin with" goes without saying. He is, was, & ever shall be, like his father, a progressive internationalist, to the very core of his being, world without end, amen. And John McCain? Even more so, if that's possible.

"...true conservatives find it very difficult to actually say anything serious without being irrelevant to mainstream politics."

Well, indeed. That's why, these days, I prefer to spend my internet time pasting together YouTube videos.

I am, precisely, "irrelevant to mainstream politics." So why bother?

Still, I admire my colleagues who keep on keepin' on.

--

Live not by lies.

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Cultivate that garden, my man -nt- (#105399)
by hobbesist on Fri, 07/25/2008 - 4:41pm

--

Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio.

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I'm now working... (#105403)
by vinteuil on Fri, 07/25/2008 - 4:49pm

...on another absolutely *killer*, *to die for*, youtube video.

Anton Bruckner and Sergiu Celibidache are both involved.

--

Live not by lies.

( | parent )
First comment? (#105376)
by Bill White on Fri, 07/25/2008 - 3:03pm

World War Two and thereafter our occupation of parts of Berlin and Tokyo terminated the John Quincy Adam's view of American foreign policy with far more consequence than anything George W. Bush did or Barack Obama is now saying.

Also, George W. Bush never meant what he said in his Second Inaugural. Or perhaps failed to understand the words. IMHO, of course.

But if we are NOT occupying foreign lands to spread the principles and ideals of 1776 and 1787 then why are we occupying foreign lands?

--

. . . and it looks as though they’ll punish the monkey and let the organ grinder go . . .

( )
Your first para makes no sense to me. (#105388)
by tomsyl on Fri, 07/25/2008 - 3:53pm

We did not fight WWII to liberate the Japanese and the Germans.

--

Rust never sleeps.

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We did not enter WW2 with a globalist mindset (#105418)
by Bill White on Fri, 07/25/2008 - 6:33pm

But in 1945 / 1946 we were gung ho for the United Nations and the struggle to contain the Soviet Union (rightfully so) was global.

Today, in the age of al Qaeda, using Afghan heroin money for funding, is there a corner of the globe we dare ignore? Global trade creates a similar situation. When medical transcription of a by-pass operation done in Denver is typed out in Bangalore; when our apparel is almost universally manufactured in China or SE Asia; when China holds as much of our debt as they do, whatever walls we build are easily breached.

After 1945 it would be impossible to merely look inward again.

--

. . . and it looks as though they’ll punish the monkey and let the organ grinder go . . .

( | parent )
I think BW's point is this (#105394)
by Wagster on Fri, 07/25/2008 - 4:26pm

WW1 taught us the perils of non-engagement... it created the monster that came to our doors in WW2. After WW2 we engaged with the world... the Marshall plan, the nation-building in Japan and Germany, the security arrangements that eventually defeated the USSR. Apparently enough time has passed for some of us to forget those lessons.

--

More Wagster!

( | parent )
Wait; what? (#105395)
by hobbesist on Fri, 07/25/2008 - 4:36pm

WW1 taught us the perils of non-engagement? Why is that the lesson to be drawn from WW1?

--

Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio.

( | parent )
The Aftermath Arguably Did, Anyway (#105402)
by M Scott Eiland on Fri, 07/25/2008 - 4:46pm

We didn't join the League of Nations, and the League proved to be utterly helpless in the face of Japanese, Italian, and German aggression. Given that the US armed forces between the wars weren't exactly epic, though, the presence of the US in the hapless League might not have accomplished much.

Of course, the biggest failure between the wars was the failure of Great Britain and France in not squashing Hitler like a bug the first time he gave them an excuse. I'd characterize that behavior properly, but I have a bet to win.

--

( | parent )
Truth be told, Scott (#105437)
by hobbesist on Fri, 07/25/2008 - 9:04pm

- I haven't the foggiest what kinds of lessons ought to be drawn from that war or its aftermath. The whole sick menagerie offends good sense.

--

Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio.

( | parent )
Actually, the legacy of Versailles begat the Marshall Plan (#105419)
by Bill White on Fri, 07/25/2008 - 6:37pm

and American generosity did far more to turn post-WW2 enemies (Germany and Japan) into allies than any decision to squash Hitler.

An interesting counter-factual question. If Hitler had died in a prosaic accident in 1927 (for example) what would have happened in Germany thereafter?

The Weimar Republic, crushed by reparations burdens, would have remained extraordinarily weak and ripe for fascist overthrow.

Could someone else have played a role analogous to Hitler's role?

--

. . . and it looks as though they’ll punish the monkey and let the organ grinder go . . .

( | parent )
Few Today Would Defend Versailles. . . (#105432)
by M Scott Eiland on Fri, 07/25/2008 - 8:26pm

. . .but the fact that the Allies foolishly chose to impose its terms on Germany made it doubly incumbent on them to slay any monsters it spawned. They could have, for example, crushed Hitler and the Nazis and offered any successor government more generous terms than Versailles had provided (but kept Germany demilitarized, given German bad faith in that area).

As for your last question, Mein Kampf drew supporters to Hitler at the (in practice negligible) cost of making his intentions known. A post-Hitler German leader who hadn't tipped his hand in that manner would almost certainly have found drawing followers more challenging, particularly if the takedown of the Nazis had been a bloody one.

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The Allies did not impose much on Germany (#105447)
by Micky Love on Sat, 07/26/2008 - 4:08am

The Allies did not impose much on Germany. There was a great deal of public support in France and Britain for punishing Germany, and this is evident in the initial demand of 269 billion gold marks. But the politicians were not so intent on punishing Germany. A year later the demands were down to 132 billion. They were reduced once again to 112 billion on the eve of the stock market crash of 1929 and after the crash there was a moratorium on payments. By 1932 the international community voted to scrap the reparations. Germany had paid only one eighth the amount demanded of them.

That's from the wikipedia. Historian Margaret MacMillan in 6 Months That Changed The World is very energetic in debunking your onerous reparations theory.
http://www.amazon.com/Paris-1919-Months-Changed-World/dp/0375760520/ref=...

As for Hitler, his election in 1933 was greeted with optimism by many of the Western powers. Here is Canadian Prime Minister MacKenzie King on Hitler after his June 1937 visit:

"He smiled very pleasantly, and indeed had a sort of appealing and affectionate look in his eyes. My sizing up of the man as I sat and talked with him was that he is really one who truly loves his fellow man and his country ... his eyes impressed me most of all. There was a liquid quality about them which indicated keen perception and profound sympathy (calm, composed) - and one could see how particularly humble folk would come to have a profound love for the man."

King and other Western leaders hoped that Hitler would be a bulwark against the Stalinists whom they actually did fear.

--

Nothing resembles virtue more than a great crime. Saint-Just

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M. Scott - who's that guy... (#105406)
by vinteuil on Fri, 07/25/2008 - 4:57pm

...in the lower left hand corner of your post, and how did he get there???

Are we doing "avatars," now?

--

Live not by lies.

( | parent )
It's Me. . . (#105430)
by M Scott Eiland on Fri, 07/25/2008 - 8:18pm

. . .having fun with having discovered how to imbed pictures and having started up a Photobucket account. The picture is a cropped screenshot of Razor Nova, one of my City of Heroes characters. The sparkly stuff is his "aura", which--like the mirrorshades--has no actual game effect except looking cool.

--

( | parent )
I should have said... (#105405)
by Wagster on Fri, 07/25/2008 - 4:56pm

... and meant the aftermath of the war.

--

More Wagster!

( | parent )
hobbesist, I admire your restraint, here. (#105401)
by vinteuil on Fri, 07/25/2008 - 4:42pm

What could wagster possibly be thinking?

--

Live not by lies.

( | parent )
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