[lit-ideas] Re: Barnett's Blueprint for Action
- From: "Judith Evans" <judithevans1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 10 Sep 2006 19:53:46 +0100
LH> the Russians could not have stopped the Germans without America's supplies.
I read that's not the case; the Russians had stopped the Germans by then.
(I don't see your point re your reductio, but will read the exchange again.
LH> I know emotion enters in here and thinks that the colossal loss
LH> of Russian life ought to count for more than American supplies,
It certainly does think that, but also you said
L.H.> > Look at all the troops we lost
Judy Evans, Cardiff
----- Original Message -----
From: Lawrence Helm
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Sunday, September 10, 2006 7:45 PM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Barnett's Blueprint for Action
Judy,
I was intending a reduction ad absurdum. Irene probably missed it as well
but for different reasons.
On the other hand, assuming you have a tangent here, the Russians could not
have stopped the Germans without America's supplies. I know emotion enters in
here and thinks that the colossal loss of Russian life ought to count for more
than American supplies, but it is what it is. America's productive capacity
was crucial to the winning of WWII.
I have been reading James Bowman's Honor, a History this morning and got up
through the First World War and noted that this war is credited with a quantum
jump in the giving of honor a bad name -- and war as well. Bowman writes on
page 142, "One reason for the popularity in the west of policies of appeasement
in the 1930s was that even liberal opinion had largely come to accept that war
was avoidable simply by refusing to fight [an opinion Irene and Mike seem to
hold today]. It was in the year of Munich when C.V. Wedgwood's magisterial yet
popular history The Thirty Years War was published. It ends with the severe
moral: 'they wanted peace and they fought for thirty years to be sure of it.
They did not learn then, and have not since, that war breeds only war." [Now
doesn't that sound like Irene?]
If we look at the events of WWI we see that the absurd loss of life on both
sides was due not so much to anything intrinsic in the nature of war itself as
from leaders who refused to come up with tactics to match the modern weaponry
of the day. No platoon with fixed bayonets was a match for a well placed
machine gun. The solution to the machine gun was new tactics not what they did
in that war: the sending of another platoon with fixed bayonets. If the
tactics had been updated, and each army had skilled leaders who knew what the
updating should consist of (although the stodgy senior military staffs kept
them from being heard), the troops would not have felt their lives were being
thrown away. That is, with different tactics the troops would see that they
had a fighting chance. They would not have come away, those who survived, with
the feeling that they were merely canon fodder. My point here is that it was
poor leadership rather than war itself which caused the "Lost Generation" and
the despairing novels and movies that created the anti-hero and a different
sort of honor that honored the victim rather than the hero.
I know that if Andreas reads this he will be thinking, there is Lawrence
praising war once again, but that isn't my intention. My intention is to
criticize the destructive anti-war sentiment that was based on the wrong
things. Further, the Wedgwood (not to mention Irene & Mike) approach to
wishing war away is absurd and has been proved absurd even though anyone
thinking about it should have been able to see it as an unworkable precept.
Also, Andreas should watch the Barnett interview before he criticizes my
opinions about war again. There are steps that can be taken that offer a
plausible process for the ultimate elimination of war. But we won't start out
with a Wedgwood-type wishing it away. We start out strong enough so that the
petty tyrants of the non-integrating gap know that it will not be to their
advantage to war with us.
http://www.booktv.org/ram/afterwords/1005/arc_btv102905_4.ram
Lawrence
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Judith Evans
Sent: Sunday, September 10, 2006 9:47 AM
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Barnett's Blueprint for Action
LH>You obviously missed the absurdity of Irene's statement
LH> and my drawing attention to it.
I read both posts, Lawrence. I don't read all the lit-ideas posts,
I admit; some are too long (IMO). I'm not though sure which
statement of Irene's you meant.
Anyway. My reaction has nothing to do with the context/s of those
of your comments that I singled out (but if you feel the context/s
exonerate them, please say so). It's all to do with the history of
"Europe"-baiting on this list and its predecessor (a baiting you did not
begin; my anger predates your posts, you will find it in Phil-Lit's
archives). It's crass, it's unpleasant, it's historically inaccurate,
and when not that, historically ill-informed, it's nasty. It
continues in the face of factual correction.
Garry Younge was surprised to find (some) Americans saying
"If it weren't for us, you'd be speaking German now". ("No",
he's been known to reply, "I'd probably be speaking Yoruba".)
You know what? If it weren't for the French, you'd be speaking
the Queen's English now.
My Polish neighbours moved out about a fortnight ago but not, as they
were going to, to return to Poland; they have a flat there but
are staying in Cardiff, in a smaller house. They're part of Britain's
settled Polish community. Poland never formally surrendered to
Germany, the Poles fought on inside and outside mainland
Europe, and their Air Force was crucial to the Battle of Britain.
My neighbour is somewhat younger than that. He doesn't talk about
that. He does talk about his liberation by Russian soldiers.
He speaks of their kindness.
Back off.
Judy Evans, Cardiff
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