a thread for fatbadger's stupid ramblings

[fatbadger]

The second world war was started because we promised to protect friends of ours ie Poland.

But our mutual defence alliance with Poland was created as part of our defence of our imperial possessions from an emergent, militaristic German state.

 

[Yorkie]

Nothing to do with trying to keep Communism at bay then?

Which I believe is nearer your political ideaology?

 

[Seagullsgonnagetya]

Fatbadger wrote:
“Our war dead of the last couple of centuries have been sacrificed for our imperial pretensions”

In the past five years, nearly 60 UK servicemen have lost their lives in the Balkans through combat or accident.
British troops are also stationed in significant numbers in Sierra Leone, Kosovo and Bosnia, overseeing the implementation of protracted PEACE and reconciliation processes.
Since the end of the war in Kosovo in 1999, at least 10 British troops have died on active service in overseas peacekeeping missions:
• Sapper Ian Collins, 22, died on Saturday after youths hurled a lump of concrete through the windscreen of his Land Rover.
• RAF pilots Captain Andrew Crous, 28, and Flight Lieutenant James Maguire, 31, died when their Puma helicopter crashed near the Kosovo-Macedonia border in April this year.
•Trooper Adam Slater, 20, of the 9/12 Lancers, was also killed in April when his armoured car struck a mine near the Macedonian border.
•Bombardier Brad Tinnion of the Royal Artillery, on attachment to the SAS, died in Sierra Leone last September during a raid on the base of the West Side Boys militia where six British soldiers were being held.
•Private Richard Lloyd, 18, and Lance Corporal William Vanstone, 27, with the Nato-led peace keepers in Bosnia were killed in December 1999 when their armoured car went off a bridge.
•A bomb disposal expert with a land mine clearance team was killed in September 1999 in Bugojna, central Bosnia, after being given a hand grenade by a boy. The device exploded as the soldier tried to make it safe.
•Two British Gurkha soldiers were killed in Kosovo in June 1999, shortly after the end of the conflict as they cleared explosives from a school.

 

[fatbadger]

Nothing to do with trying to keep Communism at bay then?

Which I believe is nearer your political ideaology?

I am NOT a communist - far form it.

And, no, it wasn't. The integrity of Poland was guaranteed by France and Britain in March 1939 in response to continued German sabre-rattling after the effective dissolution of Czechoslovakia.

 

[Eastleigh Seagull]

Poland as I am sure you are aware was never part of the british empire so how can you claim that a British pledge to aid Poland if it's independence was threatened by Germany (not a mutual defence treaty - that was France and Poland) has anything to do with imperial possessions. It was much more about drawing a line in the sand against a facist state that had already broken a number of previous agreements designed to avert war as the memory of WW1 was still fresh in the mind - exactly why we have Remembrance Day.

 

[fatbadger]

Seagullsgonnagetya - Kosovo was a Nato action; and Nato is clearly the military arm of western imperialism. It was, indeed, a very effective action - it created the conditions by which the UN Security Council has been sidelined ever since. That, of course, was the intention.

 

[fatbadger]

Poland as I am sure you are aware was never part of the british empire so how can you claim that a British pledge to aid Poland if it's independence was threatened by Germany (not a mutual defence treaty - that was France and Poland) has anything to do with imperial possessions. It was much more about drawing a line in the sand against a facist state that had already broken a number of previous agreements designed to avert war as the memory of WW1 was still fresh in the mind - exactly why we have Remembrance Day.

Imperialist wars are not only fought within the Empire's boundaries.

 

[Eastleigh Seagull]

Imperialist wars are not only fought within the Empire's boundaries.

Also to be read as 'I havent got even the faintest idea of how to respond to a very valid point so I will make a statement that is utterly irrelevant to the question and hope nobody spots the idiocy of my ongoing argument'

 

[fatbadger]

Also to be read as 'I havent got even the faintest idea of how to respond to a very valid point so I will make a statement that is utterly irrelevant to the question and hope nobody spots the idiocy of my ongoing argument'

eh?

Germany was our leading competitor for imperial possessions in the inter-war period, particularly in Africa. Dedicated as we still were in 1939 to maintaining, and indeed increasing, our imperial possessions, it was essential to oppose the military build-up of the German state. We were doing that very effectively in Africa itself, but as it was recognised that a German takeover of Poland would vastly increase the sources of coal for the growing German Empire (which was almost certainly the reason behind Hitler's desire to take over Poland), it was clear that the most effective block to Germany's imperial ambitions was to damage the economic might on which it would be based. Too much had already been ceded with the take over of Czechoslovakia, particularly its highly efficient and productive heavy industry of the west of the country.

 

[DTES]

So the thread about remembrance is not the place to discuss the politics of remembrance, then. I see. It's all so much clearer now.

Oh dear, I think you know full well that wasn't what I meant, and you have to resort to a post like that.

A thread about remembrance would be a place to discuss it. A thread for remembrance, for the purpose of remembering those who died is not.

BB's thread was the latter. And you know it.

 

[Raphael Meade]

so fatbadger, are you saying we shouldnt have gone to war to defend poland? should we have waited until hitler had conquered all of europe and beyond and exterminated anyone who wasn't of the aryan race?

 

[Brovion]

Yes ok we are a load of Imperialist warmongers. I cannot argue with any of your historical analyses - they are all correct. (See also my post on the original thread)

However the fact remains that, albeit for perhaps the 'wrong' reasons, we fought a bloody war and stopped Hitler. And what we want to do today is remember the ordinary British people who did that. There are plenty of other days for banging on about the Arms Trade, British Imperialism, U.S. neo-colonialism, etc etc. You can't even bring yourself to admit that it was actually 'good' that the Allies won the war.


Thank you Dad.

 

[Seagullsgonnagetya]

Seagullsgonnagetya - Kosovo was a Nato action; and Nato is clearly the military arm of western imperialism. It was, indeed, a very effective action - it created the conditions by which the UN Security Council has been sidelined ever since. That, of course, was the intention.

So FB... the people who lost loved ones in that action or indeed any other should not be entitled to remember and respect them with dignity?

Afterall we do this at civilian funerals (or is this 'carnival' also) and may continue to conduct memorials to civillians on certain befitting dates annually. I expect, in your opinion that a civilian funeral has some hidden, deep rooted, misguided, class orientated meaning with imperialist state sponsored backing...but it does not in mine.

Carnival is not what rememberance is.. nor a celebration of war or imperialism (your fetish word). It is about contemplation, it is about respect and that is not something I now expect you to understand.

You cannot get all the answers from the text book you are regurgitating a crystal ball would be more useful.

 

[chip]

FG, you have an interesting revisionist idea of history - probably to do with your GCSE project that you are completing by reading Frederick Toben and David Irvings web pages.

I think you mean interpolate, which is fitting a curve to a set of data points so that you can estimate values that you do nat have data for. Actually, its probably extrapolate that you meant to use which is predicting future data values from past ones.

 

[chip]

Oops, FB, so much like FG

 

[Eastleigh Seagull]

If we really were so interested in protecting our imperialist possessions against the German 'threat' in Africa at a time that we were actually looking to peacfully dismantle the Empire rather than increase it as you suggest then surely the most efficient and cheapest way would have been to accept the deal on the table from one of the greatest admirers of the British Empire - Hitler. The proposal to carve up most of the world in an Anglo-German alliance must have looked very attractive to the warmongers in London.

Instead we chose to oppose the force of facism and all that it stood for which led directly to the decline of the British Empire and cost millions of lives. And before you argue the case sure this is said in hindsight but it was obvious to all concerned that a war against Hitler was going to be long, expensive and extremely damaging. yet we chose to do it becasue it was right to oppose such an evil force and today we should be remmebering those that sacrificed their lives to enable people like you to make such bizarre statements.

 

[SM BHAFC]

Fatbadger you are a top plum there is no doubt about it.

History you have a handle on but your interpretation is somewhat strange.

I am one of those people who have no problem with the British empire and am very proud to be British becase of the good we did and still do araound the world.

I do realise we did most of it for our own good but i do not have any problem with that at all. Yes there are things in history we must be ashamed of but for the most part i am both happy and comfortable with Britain's past.

I am proud to be British (very odd concept for you to grasp I expect)

You decided to spread your crap, albeit well argued crap on a thread about remeberance on the 11th Nov so you deserve all the abuse you get.

 

[fatbadger]

FG, you have an interesting revisionist idea of history - probably to do with your GCSE project that you are completing by reading Frederick Toben and David Irvings web pages.

I think you mean interpolate, which is fitting a curve to a set of data points so that you can estimate values that you do nat have data for. Actually, its probably extrapolate that you meant to use which is predicting future data values from past ones.

Dear, oh dear, oh dear.

No, I mean interpellate. See my post above.

As for your childish digs regarding GCSE projects, I won't even go into how far off the mark you are.

And as for revisionism ... things are beginning to get really confused now. Revisionism is a right-wing phenomenon. Part of my own work is to refute the revisionist exercise (not with regard to WWII, admittedly, but rather a different set of wars also regarding English freedoms and the liberty of the subject). And yet I am being accused of being a leftie by other posters. Who do you think is right?

Furthermore, I fail to see how what I have been saying can in any way be seen as revisionist. I have indeed done some work on WWII revisionism, and I can assure you that the revisionists would never say what I said. Indeed, they would be apoplectic with rage over it all.

Which, perhaps, puts some (but not all) of the responses I have had into perspective.

As I said earlier, the worst kind of intellectual crime - indeed, the most basic form of historical revisionism - is teleology, something which has been present in the large majority (but, again, not all) of the responses I have had. All I am suggesting is that people should practice a non-teleological historiography.

 

[Eastleigh Seagull]

anyone who uses the phrase 'intellectual crime' is immediately designated as completely pretentious - as is the constant harping on about teleology. For those without an interest in history this is basically a label given to what most would recognise as the way we all learnt history at school - looking at the facts of what happened after the event - naturally with some western bias as that is our culture.

Obviously fb is one of those that have gone on to study history beyond this level, which is important for us all, but a large number of people who take this path seem to have the need to impress upon all the rest of us that they are so much cleverer than us. Apparently what the majority know about history is all misguided (not wrong as they dont argue facts but instead the interpretation) due to our inbuilt British desire to hanker after the good old days of the Empire. it really is the worst kind of liberal crap and people such as this spend most of their time at varous conferences patting each other on the back and writing nice book reviews about each others work and generally congratulating themselves on being so smart.

You can tell fb comes from that stance because of his statement that revisionism is right-wing. Yes it has been hijacked by people like Irving but that is like saying Al Qa'eda represent mainstream Islamic views. Revisionists work along the 'ignore history and repeat it line' and upset the liberal wings by refusing to work from the anti-white man stance.

Still they all like each other

 

[Icy Gull]

I think Eastleigh is now winning this argument

Interesting, if heavy stuff , though