Is it France or Vichy France we have today?

[Davros]

Just a note on the "cowboy" thing. I repect the traditional cowboys of old, but think that most of the world has moved on from the stereotype view of a cowboy as a guy that rides a hoss and has a trusty six-shooter.

A whole different venacular has grown up and uses the term cowboy in many other ways. In day to day operation of the plant I work in, we refer to cowboys in an industrial sense. These are people that typically charge off with a single minded notion, focussed on one thing and unable to see the bigger picture. Having a "cowboy attitude" is to see only your paradigm of life. I regularly hear the terms "What bloody cowboy took the flocculant off that thickener" or "Let's slow down here - we don't want anyone behaving like a cowboy now do we".

That single minded focus and only seeing the one paradigm is why I think Bush gets associated with the term cowboy. Many of the world's citizens he is charging up and crying out "I am right - follow me". Even though I agree with the removal of Saddam, I can understand the association between the two. Besides - there is nothing to say that single minded highly focussed people of the world are wrong - some cowboys make the right choices.

[Ronn_Bman]

Night Stalker, just a little clarification, Benedict Arnold was not executed for treason. He died some 20 years after the war in England. The spy caught with the evidence of Arnold's treason was hanged. The US wanted to exchange the two and hang Arnold instead, but the English wouldn't make the trade. Then, as today, you don't give up your assets, even when they are completely compromised.

[Moiraine]

Wutang - so you didn't appreciate my attempt at poking fun ? Why, am I not allowed to play too ? BTW, have you heard the current joke about US people, that they are the only civilization that managed to go directly from barbary to decadence ? Isn't that jolly fun ?

Now seriously. Yes, you apologized. But I'd prefer if you realized that going all peremptory and generalizing about a country and its people is not bloody funny, really. Neither is flinging at a person the bloody mistakes SOME of her countrymen did 50 years ago. Yes, some French people collaborated with the Nazis. But your first post was really insulting to all the French people who stood up against them - many in humble ways ; do you realize the courage it took to shelter children and families from the Nazis ?

My country is not white as a newborn lamb - neither is yours. If I wanted to hit below the belt, there are plenty of things I could say. I won't ever - I don't believe the people living today should be made responsible from the mistakes made by their ancestors, I believe it is irrelevant to the current matter, and I believe if anything those arguments will only make things worse. But I am only human - and I am getting tired of trying to be always fair and not geting the same in return.

Night Stalker. If I believed in stereotypes I wouldn't be talking here. Yes, there will always be people in all countries to voice them. Does that imply that we, here, now, should not make an extra effort to get rid of that biased thinking, if only between us ?

I believe that each and everyone of us on earth have the power to make the world a little better place, if only, humbly, around us. Refuse the peremptory generalizations, try to understand each others, struggle to stay honest. Accept, welcome and enjoy the difference. Saying like you do, Wutang, that "Aye I wish we lived in a utopian society but we simply don't. it's human nature to fight amongst ourselves. Distrust, greed, ambition, power are all human emotions that we can't eliminate." is true and again it is not. Better to ask oneself "How can I, me, personnally, make the world a better place ?" and aim for that humble goal, no ? [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Donut]

Originally posted by Timber Loftis: Okay, Sir_ Tainly, have at thee: 1. The US was involved with large financial/supplies contributions prior to Pearl Harbor. Otherwise, point conceded - we were too isolationist then, and are trying to avoid that mistake now.

Calling them contributions suggests that they were given for nothing. Everything was paid for whether in gold or in military bases.

"IN ONE OF HIS FAMOUS SPEECHES Churchill asked America 'Give us the tools and we will finish the job'. But America wouldn't 'give' anything without payment. After two years of war, Roosevelt had drained Britain dry, stripping her of all her assets in the USA, including real estate and property. The British owned Viscose Company, worth £125 million was liquidated, Britain receiving only £87 million. Britain's £1,924 million investments in Canada were sold off to pay for raw materials bought in the United States. To make sure that Roosevelt got his money, he dispatched the American cruiser, 'Louisville ' to the South African naval base of Simonstown to pick up forty two million Pounds worth of British gold, Britain's last negotiable asset, to help pay for American guns and ammunition!. Not content with stripping Britain of her gold and assets, in return for 50 old destroyers, he demanded that Britain transfer all her scientific and technological secrets to the USA. Also, he demanded leases on the islands of Newfoundland, Jamaica, Trinidad and Bermuda for the setting up of American military and naval bases in case Britain should fall. (Of the 50 lend lease destroyers supplied to Britain, 9 were lost in WW11) "

I'm not suggesting the US should have given us anything without payment BTW.

[ 02-18-2003, 08:00 AM: Message edited by: Donut ]

[Sir Taliesin]

Originally posted by johnny: [/qb]

*Off topic for the last time* They didn't use suicidebombers, but they strapped landmines on dogs. They tought the dogs to look for food under army vehicles, and in combat they destroyed quite a few good Tigertanks.[/QB][/QUOTE]
You are right of course, this is off-topic. I'll PM you tonight with some books in which I have read this. For now one is John Keegan's WAFFEN SS printed by Ballantine Books.

In defense of Moiraine (not that she needs any defense, She's quite capible), I have never known her to utter a negative word about the US. In fact I remember when this topic came up a couple of years ago, she was quick to come to our defense and put down some others who were!

[Ronn_Bman]

Donut your point is taken, but it's also important to remember that America was isolationist and completely uninterested in the war despite FDR's insistence of it's importance. Lend Lease was the only way to get aid through, and even that didn't sit well with Congress. All of the items sold had to be "positioned" so that they wouldn't appear to be direct war aid, and of course, they had to be paid for. Did we gouge? I honestly don't know, but I'd say the price of freedom is high. I also wish I could say we did "give" what was needed at that point.

The price of rebuilding Europe was high as well. $20 billion in loans were made to European countries immediately after the war, but that money alone wasn't working very well towards the rebuilding of Europe, so something else had to be done. Under the Marshall Plan the American taxpayers spent $11,820,700,000 on rebuilding Europe during those 4 years. Also loan repayments to the US, in the amount of $1,505,100,000 , were spent towards rebuilding Europe during this same time. The Marshall Plan wasn't a loan, and of the loan amount mentioned earlier, most was forgiven.

I'm not saying the US didn't benefit from a strong Europe, but there were, at least a few things, given.

[ 02-19-2003, 06:50 AM: Message edited by: Ronn_Bman ]

[Yorick]

[quote]Originally posted by Timber Loftis:

Originally posted by Wutang: [qb] As for offending the French on the board - I'll not waver in saying anything for fear of *that.* Why? Because we yanks get trounced upon, teased, poked, prodded, harrangued, villified (and a bunch of other unseemly bashing-oriented verbs I can't be bothered ty type out right now) all the time on this board. If you can dish it out.....

There are two French on the board Timber, neither of whom have ever derided America. Show some courtesy.

[Timber Loftis]

Originally posted by Yorick: Quote: Originally posted by Timber Loftis: Originally posted by Wutang: [qb] As for offending the French on the board - I'll not waver in saying anything for fear of *that.* Why? Because we yanks get trounced upon, teased, poked, prodded, harrangued, villified (and a bunch of other unseemly bashing-oriented verbs I can't be bothered ty type out right now) all the time on this board. If you can dish it out..... There are two French on the board Timber, neither of whom have ever derided America. Show some courtesy.

So, because they haven't ever insulted someone, I'm not allowed to deride their government? You need to read my subsequent posts. I do not attack the members of the board, but I WILL - WILL, dammit - feel free to mock any government, official, leader, or organization I please. You need to read my subsequent posts.

Following your logic, if the Yanks on the board quite deriding other countries, no one would be allowed to post anti-Bush commentary. I'm fine with that, if you are.

[ 02-18-2003, 02:38 PM: Message edited by: Timber Loftis ]

[Wutang]

Moiraine - I totally agree with you. Generalizations and stereotyping is bad. But Europeans generalize about Americans all the time and we have to live with it as well. In my original post, I didn't think anyone would take it that seriously. It was meant in jest like what Andy Rooney said on 60 Mins here in the US.

Again I sincerely apologize.

I'm not trying to be intentionally callous. I do know something about the brutality of war and what it means to live under a foreign occupation.

I also lost relatives in WWII under the brutal Japanese occupation in China. My mother lived through the bombings and saw the Japanese army marching in and then later fleeing the Communists in 1949. My family lost everything. We lost our house, all our belongings, and our history.

If it hadn't been for the US Navy evacuating Shanghai in 1949, my family would probably be dead.

So just wanted to let you know that I'm not a sheltered American.

[ 02-19-2003, 12:45 AM: Message edited by: Wutang ]

[Yorick]

Originally posted by Timber Loftis: Sorry, folks, but France is disappointing me more and more. regarding France: 1. it took 'em about 20 minutes to lose WWII 4. Only to see everyone cowering for cover a minute later when a lone sniper opened fire. In short, he surmised: I can oppose President Bush for wanting to go to war in Iraq. France can't - they haven't earned the right. 'Nuff Said.

That's not just the govt. you're deriding, but the moral fibre of the French and the RIGHT FOR A DISSENTING VOICE.

This is intolerable. You would shut out the voice of free nations because they were conquered by a genocidal maniac?

Does Poland lose it's right for a voice? Does Austria or Bohemia? For that matter does Kuwait?

You have not mentioned Chirac or any other French governmental figure by name, you've only ever lumped "The French" all together. Past, present, civilian, military.

I repeat, the two French on the board have NOT derided Ameriecans. Yet you used as a defense an argument of: "Well he punched me so I can punch her".

Hardly.

The French people and government have the right to speak against any US war, and power to them. The last I checked America did not rule the world.

And if that's all this is about, if opposing the war is purely so that the US government do not feel they can do whatever they like whenever they like to whomever they like - regardless of world opinion - then that is a worthy cause in my book. The enemy that can grow within is to be feared more than the enemy without.