New essay at Pajamas Media:
Anti-Bush Truther shoots up Pentagon; Should we play the political blame game?
On Thursday, a “9/11 Truth” fanatic named John Patrick Bedell started shooting at the Pentagon and managed to wound two guards before they mercifully put him out of our misery.
We now know that the guy thought the government and the Bush family were behind the 9/11 attacks (or “demolitions” as he called them), and was basically frothing at the mouth with Bush hatred.
Now, I’ve been to innumerable “Truther” rallies over the last 8 years, and can say with some confidence that about 98% of folks who think 9/11 was a hoax are left-wingers, or at the very least fit in very comfortably in the left-wing milieu, since the impetus behind Truthism is to undermine the basis for Bush’s “War on Terror,” an impetus which is also a cornerstone of modern Leftist thought as well.
So far, however, I’ve noticed a deafening quietude on the left-leaning blogs about this guy’s affiliations and belief systems. Those brave enough to troll leftist comments sections have noted mumblings therein that the guy was probably a secret “teabagger,” despite all evidence to the contrary. …
…
Read the rest here before you jump to any conclusions!
(Note: This is not a photo of me, but rather
1Starless on Mar 5, 2010 at 4:37 am:
Ah, but guilt or credit by association is one of the primary weapons of contemporary leftism, whether it’s a club to beat conservatism about the head or a pillar to support identity politicking. Isn’t it Womyn’s Mandatory Cultural History Boot-licking Month right now? There were womyn who did great things in the past, therefore all womyn are great and all men are bad because past HIS-torians didn’t properly recognize them.
That’s how this game works.
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2Ringo the Gringo on Mar 5, 2010 at 9:10 am:
“…about 98% of folks who think 9/11 was a hoax are left-wingers”
From my experience, I’d say the “truther” numbers break down more like this: 70-75% left-wingers, 10% devout Muslims and 15-20% Ron Paul / Alex Jones type Libertarians, with anti-Semitism being the common thread between the last two groups.
The percentage of regular conservatives, or Republicans, who are “truthers” close to zero.
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3Ringo the Gringo on Mar 5, 2010 at 9:14 am:
“There are plenty of ways to logically disembowel Marxism and its numerous noxious contemporary offspring without having to resort to an unnecessary round of political “gotcha!”…”
Absolutely.
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4Starless on Mar 5, 2010 at 10:49 am:
R to the G:
100% kooks.
There’s a common thread running through conspiracy theorists/pseudo-scientists/apocalyptic doomsayers no matter their political stripe and that is that despite their apparent nuttiness, you can always find one of two motivations at the core of their nuttiness: money and/or attention. Obviously, this person wasn’t getting enough of the attention he thought he should.
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5a on Mar 5, 2010 at 2:22 pm:
You’re taking a beating at LGF
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6Starless on Mar 5, 2010 at 2:45 pm:
And so it begins.
And for good measure, throw in some statistics to reiterate the narrative:
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7Ringo the Gringo on Mar 5, 2010 at 3:34 pm:
Seems to me that Bedell falls into the Alex Jones / Libertarian extremist camp. Contrary to what LGF and HuffPo are promoting, I know from first hand experience that these types of “truthers” are ubiquitous at all International ANSWER sponsored anti-war demonstrations, but I have not seen any of them at the handful of “tea parties” I’ve attended. You can call them “right-wing” if you like, but they are definitely not conservative. Actually, they are the exact opposite of conservative, they are radicals - and nuts. They’re anti-military, anti-war, anti-Bush, conspiracy kooks who often stink of majijuana.
If a group like this bunch Alex Jones supporters were to show up at any “tea party” I’ve been to, I suspect they’d be run out, or at the very least booed and heckled. At anti-war demonstrations these very same people are welcomed with open arms. In fact, it’s not uncommon to see followers of “Libertarian” Alex Jones and members of the Maoist group, The World Can’t Wait, marching together carrying the same “9/11 truth” banner.
Bedell may not have been a Leftist, but he was most certainly not a conservative either. And he was not a Republican.
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8zombie on Mar 5, 2010 at 3:50 pm:
#7 Ringo the Gringo:
Interesting take on the matter! So interesting, in fact, that I have now added your comment as an update to my original post! :
See “Update III” at the end.
Thanks!
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9Ringo the Gringo on Mar 5, 2010 at 4:02 pm:
Thanks zombie.
….I only wish you would have corrected my misspelling of “marijuana”.
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10zombie on Mar 5, 2010 at 4:36 pm:
Done!
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11Incognito on Mar 5, 2010 at 4:53 pm:
HI Zombie ! Great job on an essay that deals with “name calling”….like what does “right winger” means?
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12Starless on Mar 5, 2010 at 6:23 pm:
The MSM wants you to believe that they have more in common with ’90s Timothy McVeigh-style militias than with UFO conspiracists — their true brethren.
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13Starless on Mar 5, 2010 at 6:33 pm:
Let me revise that: they have more in common with JFK assassination conspiracy theorists. Like that staunch conservative Oliver Stone.
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14psaturn on Mar 6, 2010 at 3:28 pm:
And how about the Biology Professor who shot to death three of her colleagues? She was a staunch Democrat and Obama supporter. Does that mean anything ? But news see to fit any other murderer as being Sunday school teacher, a pro life supporter or a Republican, things like that but nothing that would hurt their own pet side.
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15lincolntf on Mar 7, 2010 at 7:44 am:
If these people had 1/10th the connection to “conservatism” that they do to “liberalism”, there would be no question of their political bent. Whatever. Anyone who cares to pay attention can find the truth in a few mouse clicks.
There are now two distinct populations in America, those who get their news and information from the MSM, and the informed.
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16Bob on Mar 7, 2010 at 9:27 am:
Zombie, wonderful essay as always.
I just can’t believe the libertarian bashing that’s going on in the comment section over at PJM. People can’t seem to wrap their heads around the idea that most libertarians don’t listen to Alex Jones and aren’t Truthers.
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17Starless on Mar 7, 2010 at 1:10 pm:
The trouble with libertarianism is that the detritus of the small gov’t crowd tends to gravitate toward it, so you end up with people whose single issue is drug legalization or sister-marrying or the right to bear thermonukular weapons. And the libertarian movement itself isn’t particularly focused, so the kooks tend to be the ones to get the attention.
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18Ozone on Mar 7, 2010 at 8:59 pm:
While our unbiased media today censors a lot about leftist crazies, I do remember back in the 90’s when the Unabomber was active there were more than a few quotes from some of the elites on the left saying that while they didn’t agree with his methods (always followed by a few winks) they found a lot to like in his targets.
I’d say there is plenty of blame to go around, but most of the blame lies in the corner of the education establishment for creating a market for this loony crap. Critical thinking skills are at a premium these days due to short supply.
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19Ken on Mar 9, 2010 at 1:11 am:
Has any MSM source called him a “right-winger” other than CSM (which isn’t exactly “mainstream”)? Not trying to start a fight here, just asking. I haven’t seen anything beyond that one article (or others that link to it) using that particular term.
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20Starless on Mar 9, 2010 at 5:13 am:
CSM not mainstream? It is, and has been for quite some time, one of the main sources of news and commentary for NPR and despite what the Volvo-driving (I guess it would be “Prius-driving” now) liberals of NPR would like you to think, they are indeed very mainstream.
I don’t think any other MSM sources have been willing to be as blatant as CSM, but they’re all using the term “anti-government” quite a lot, followed by a gigantic wink. We know and they know that when they say “anti-government” they’re stirring up the “anti-government right-wing militia” subtext they created in the ’90s. Maybe a good comparison would be to ask how often they referred to anti-war/pro-illegal immigration/generally anti-Bush protesters during the Bush years as “anti-government”.
I hate to use anything George Will wrote or said, but he made a good point not long ago that when Democrats are in power and not accomplishing what they want to accomplish, all of a sudden the media starts asking the question, “Is America ungovernable?” but they never ask that question when Republicans are in power and having similar problems. The same thing happens with this sort of situation — a nominally political act of violence commited when the Democrats are in power is followed in the media by images of Terry Nichols and Timothy McVeigh and lots of questions about whether conservatives are inherently unhinged, but when the situation is reversed, the acts of violence are civil disobedience commited from a position of conscience and justifiable outrage.
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21GuyAverage on Mar 9, 2010 at 11:12 pm:
That’s a feather in your cap, Zombie. You know you’ve made it when the Lizard Army sticks out their collective tongues at you.
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22Kun on Mar 10, 2010 at 1:44 am:
That liberals cling onto conspiracy theories isn’t new. A lot are still utterly fascinated by the JFK conspiracy theory.
On a Marxist critique of conspiracists (”left” and right), see: http://theredphoenix.wordpress.com/2010/02/13/who-shot-jfk-who-cares/
I don’t think you’d find too many conspiratorial leftists. The World Can’t Wait doesn’t really count, since it’s meant to be a “popular front”-esque group, ergo it works with Truthers and such as part of its “mass-based” appeal, though there’s certainly a lot of illogical Bush hatred in the RCPUSA due to its overall lameness.
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23Starless on Mar 10, 2010 at 4:39 am:
Huh? So, leftists don’t believe that The Corporations are conspiring in a star chamber to keep the Common Man down? That’s their raison d’etre. (Sorry about the French.)
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24Dane on Mar 10, 2010 at 10:50 am:
I remember when Zombie’s articles used to get front-page billing on LGF.
It’s kind of entertaining that Johnson claims it’s not views that have changed, but everyone elses’.
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25Kun on Mar 11, 2010 at 6:02 am:
@Starless,
It depends what you mean by “leftists.” For Marxists, the bourgeoisie (that is, the people who own the means of production and buy labor-power, etc.) hold political power in a capitalist state. Every state is ruled by what is known as a “[Class] Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie,” because of their political power. The goal of the Communists is to establish the Dictatorship of the Proletariat (aka DOTP) which transfers power to the proletariat (wage-earners; those who are exploited via the extraction of surplus-value) and which will work to eliminate class distinctions once and for all.
But if your definition of “leftist” is an anti-corporate liberal, then his views will obviously be different.
It reminds me of a comrade I know, who said this in response to a liberal (on buying consumer goods and drinking soda):
“See, you believe that there is a difference between small capitalists and big capitalists, and supporting smaller ones is somehow ‘better’ than supporting big capitalists. Me, I hold no such beliefs; in my view, the Marxist view, a capitalist big or small is a capitalist. A mom and pop store may not be Walmart, but it has the potential to become one, and supporting petty-bourgeoisie is not preferable to supporting big bourgeoisie. In the meantime, until the workers control the means of production, all basic commodities that I require on a day-to-day basis are manufactured by capitalists.
Would starvation make me more proletarian? Marx said that ‘communism deprives no man of the ability to appropriate the products of society; it simply deprives him of the ability to subjugate the labour of others.’ My solution to the corporate stranglehold on production is not a liberal/social-democratic style boycott, but rather to organize the workers to seize all productive facilities as part of a greater revolution.”
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26Starless on Mar 11, 2010 at 7:32 am:
Kun, you’re making a distinction which can only be appreciated by Communists. When you, I, or anyone else talk about “leftists” in the United States we’re talking about the kind of people you’re trying to distinguish yourself from. World Can’t Wait, A.N.S.W.E.R., protesters with giant puppets, rock-throwers, cop car burners — all “leftists”. The one thing they all seem to agree on is that the fat-cat capitalists are out to get them and that meetings like those of the WTO are conspiracies to that end.
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27Kun on Mar 12, 2010 at 12:03 am:
@ Starless:
I’m aware of that. They “dislike capitalism” but offer no real alternate or analysis beyond “THE CORPORATIONS” so they often go into conspiratorial nonsense and such. Our meanings of “leftist” will obviously differ. Case in point for differing meanings for words, in the 1930’s the CPUSA condemned Roosevelt’s New Deal as “American fascism,” but at this same time considered him progressive because he was likely to enter the Second World War against the Axis powers as opposed to reactionary movements such as the America First Committee. To be a “progressive” meant and means for Communists today someone who objectively allows socialist movements to grow or weakens imperialism, so both Chávez and Hamas are progressive, even though neither are socialist (I don’t consider Chávez to be a socialist, more like a populist social-democrat).
For liberals, “progressive” is just a label some apply to themselves. For Communists, “progressive” is a label apply to a movement or person who isn’t [a] Communist, and often initiates debates between Communists. (For example, when the USSR invaded Afghanistan in 1979, who was progressive? Pro-Soviet types said the Soviets, Maoists and Hoxhaists—I quote the latter from 1980: “… express the profound conviction that the courageous people of Afghanistan will deal crushing blows to the Soviet social-imperialist aggressors and will oust them from their homeland.”)
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28Starless on Mar 12, 2010 at 4:59 am:
Kun, you seem to be talking about ideological purity which makes too fine of a point about who is and isn’t “leftist”. But I suppose for Communists that’s par for the course — like reading Das Kapital or attending a Party meeting — long, turgid, and obsessive about each fine point. You want to distinguish yourself from limp-wristed, weekend warrior liberals who think of themselves as leftist — that’s fine, I’ll happily accept your self-definition — but I know I and probably many people, will continue to think of them as leftists.
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29Render on Mar 12, 2010 at 7:09 am:
From 1939 to 1941 Soviet Russia was one of the “Axis Powers.” See Ribbentrop Agreement and the invasion of Poland.
NO
REWRITES,
R
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30Dane on Mar 12, 2010 at 9:28 am:
Kun, your arguements appear to be dancing dangerously close to No True Scotsman territory, if they haven’t reached that point already.
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31Kun on Mar 13, 2010 at 3:26 am:
@Render:
“From 1939 to 1941 Soviet Russia was one of the ‘Axis Powers.’ See Ribbentrop Agreement and the invasion of Poland.”
You’re talking about a nonaggression treaty. Using this logic Poland was allied with the Soviet Union because it also had a nonaggression treaty with it. The M-R treaty noted “spheres of influence,” although for Poland the question was more like “If either country invades Poland, they may not cross this line.” The Nazi invasion of Poland and the surprising dissolution of the Polish Government (and at any rate, the Germans declared that Poland had ceased to exist as a state after they invaded) made the treaty invalid, thus necessitating the Soviets moving in days later to reach the Curzon Line (so that the Nazis would not go up to the Soviet border) and the subsequent renegotiation of the treaty at a later date to take into account the end of Poland as an independent state.
See: http://chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/research/mlg09/did_ussr_invade_poland.html
International reaction generally saw the Soviet moves into Poland as defensive. “Winston Churchill said in a radio broadcast October 1: ‘The Soviets have stopped the Nazis in Eastern Poland; I only wish they were doing it as our allies.’ … Even Prime Minister Chamberlain sourly told the House of Commons, October 26: ‘It has been necessary for the Red Army to occupy part of Poland as protection against Germany.’ The Polish government-in-exile, which was in flight through Romania at the time but reached London some weeks later, never ventured to declare that Soviet march an act of war… The Polish commander of the Lvov garrison, who for several days had been fighting against German attack on three sides, quickly surrendered to the Red Army when it appeared on the fourth side, saying: ‘There is no Polish government left to give me orders and I have no orders to fight the Bolsheviks.’” (A.L. Strong, The Stalin Era, 1956)
The other areas of “influence” (e.g. Bessarabia, the Baltics) were of course more “You may do what you want in these areas.” It wasn’t “We’re going to invade X and Y.”
“Stalin indeed looked forward to profiting from an Anglo-German conflict. In a letter of September 7 [1939] to Georgii Dimitrov, the head of the Communist International, Stalin wrote that ‘we are not against’ a war between capitalist states in which they ‘would weaken each other.’ Hitler, nolens volens [aka unwillingly], was on his way to destroying the capitalist system.”
(Alfred Erich Senn. Lithuania 1940: Revolution from Above. New York: 2007. p. 21.)
@Dane:
My point was not to say that liberals were “false leftists,” but rather that Starless had been a bit confused (as it were) over the communist definition of leftist at first, so I clarified it by saying what I meant by the term “leftist” in-re conspiracy theories. I never said “The Democrats aren’t true leftists,” I simply said that (a vast majority of) communists don’t recognize them as such.
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32Starless on Mar 13, 2010 at 5:24 am:
I’ve watched and interacted with leftists in the US for a very, very long time and I’m very well aware of what they think. So, no, I’m not confused. Spin it however you want, but one of the meat-and-potatoes elements of leftist thinking in the US, across the entire spectrum, is that there is at the very least, if not an outright conspiracy, then a conspiratorial atmosphere among capitalist industry leaders to put and keep the worker down.
Regardless, I didn’t bring Communism into the discussion, you did and I’m not going to be led down the rabbit hole of discussing the finer details of the differences between a Marxist, Communist, Leninist, Stalinist, Leftist, Liberal, ad nauseum.
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33Dane on Mar 13, 2010 at 9:03 am:
…the Soviet invasion of Poland was defensive?
Uh, come again?
No matter how you want to lawer the wording of the Ribbentrop pact, Poland was divided between Russia and Germany before the invasion - which makes an arguement that the Soviet invasion of Poland was a reaction to the German one completely absurd, since they clearly had prior knowledge. In fact, most serious military historical analyses of Fall Weiss that I’ve seen (that is, not done by Stalin-apologist professors of Social Sciences) indicate that it was the unexpected Soviet invasion following on the heels of the German one that caused the rapid and total collapse of the Polish army - which had been doing fairly well, considering the disparity in forces, up until that point.
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34Dane on Mar 13, 2010 at 9:05 am:
Err, ‘lawyer’ and ‘argument’, rather. My spelling is really off today.
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35Kun on Mar 13, 2010 at 10:41 am:
@Starless:
“Spin it however you want, but one of the meat-and-potatoes elements of leftist thinking in the US, across the entire spectrum, is that there is at the very least, if not an outright conspiracy, then a conspiratorial atmosphere among capitalist industry leaders to put and keep the worker down.”
Except I had differentiated between “THE CORPORATION” ramblings of liberals and the theory of historical materialism as noted by Marxists.
@Dane:
Poland was not divided between the USSR and Germany in the nonaggression treaty. You could claim that Germany wanted to invade Poland (no debate there, the Soviets also expected such a thing, hence why the treaty was concluded in the first place), but that doesn’t mean that the USSR agreed to “carve up” Poland. The Polish Army suffered from its government fleeing the country after the Nazi invasion (and before Soviet forces moved in) along with the fact that most forces were pointed eastwards towards the USSR rather than westwards towards Germany. Furthermore, the Germans crossed the Western Bug and San in violation of the line established in the nonaggression treaty.
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36Dianna on Mar 13, 2010 at 8:20 pm:
*Groan*
Zombie’s initial point should be referred to: Bishop, Stack, and Beddel were nuts who went postal.
I will cite their leanings if I must, but, honestly, the Undead One is right. These are people who are mentally ill. That their illness led to evil is a pitiable consequence, but it has nothing to do with their politics.
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37Dianna on Mar 13, 2010 at 8:28 pm:
May I simply append a heartfelt, “Oh, Mother Mary most merciful, it’s the ultimate conspiracy. You don’t even know that you’re a part of it!”
And, btw, I’m a pagan. Lord Janus of the Portal, but you’re lost if you believe one word of that swill you wrote.
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38Kun on Mar 14, 2010 at 3:58 am:
Unlike conspiracy theories, which posit unbroken chains of rulers from the ancient era to modern-day (e.g. the “Illuminati” claims, etc.), we simply believe that class societies should be abolished. Obviously the bourgeoisie want to hold onto their powers, just as the feudal aristocrats wanted 200 years ago, and just like tribal rulers wanted thousands of years ago, etc. We don’t claim that a “secret elite” controls the world or whatever.
Of course one could claim that anything is a conspiracy if they try hard enough.
But if you were to view these two works (at least the first considering its brevity), I doubt you’d find anything conspiratorial about them:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/prin-com.htm
http://www.kibristasosyalistgercek.net/english/polecon/FrmIntIndex1.htm
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39Ken on Mar 15, 2010 at 1:46 am:
I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but: Kun seems to know what he’s talking about.
At least he’s got the best cites thus far.
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40Starless on Mar 15, 2010 at 4:33 am:
I’m well aware of what you’re doing and as I said before, I’m not going down that rabbit hole. I know your thing is to argue about the minutiae of Marxist theory until the proletariat worker cows (such as good salt-of-the-Earth Herefords, not those snooty, privileged bourgeois Angus) come home but I’ll reiterate: what you’re talking about is a distinction which can only be appreciated by other hardcore Commies (and pointy-headed academics). Yes, “‘THE CORPORATION’” ramblings” come from posers, but they identify with leftism, they think they’re leftists, they yell about being leftists, and they promote fundamentally leftist ideals. In the US, they are leftists.
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41Render on May 11, 2010 at 7:55 am:
I should have come back to this months ago…
Lemme guess, Katyn Forest didn’t really happen? You might wanna let Putin know about that, he just apologized for it.
Basil Liddell-Hart was just making the whole thing up?
“The German and Russian forces had met and greeted each other, as partners, on a line running south from East Prussia past Bialystok, Brest-Litvosk, and Lwow to the Carpathians. That partnership was sealed, but not cemented, by a mutual partition of Poland.”
-History of the Second World War
All those German, French, British, Russian, and Polish maps showing the September 1939 dispositions of the bulk of the Polish Army west of the Vistula River were faked? The ghosts of Rundstedt, Reichenau, Kluge, and Blaskowitz must be greatly disappointed.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8d/Poland1939_GermanPlanMap.jpg
Hans von Seeckt and all those future Luftwaffe pilots training in 1920’s Soviet Russia didn’t really exist?
The Treaty of Riga is now a “non-aggression pact?” Oddly enough neither Lenin nor Pilsudski thought so at the time.
===
Revisionist attempts to rehabilitate Josef Stalin fall upon deaf ears.
The Soviets invaded Poland just one day before (September 17th, 1939) the remains of the Polish government and high command fled into Romanian exile. That alone proves pre-disposition on the part of the Soviets. Armies do not move forward into enemy territory without advance planning.
===
Ken, you know I hate to disagree with you, but Kun’s revisionist cites actually suck.
Let’s take a quick look at the conclusion of the Montclair revisionism link…
“The Polish government should have remained somewhere in Poland – if not in the capital, Warsaw, then in Eastern Poland. If they had set up an alternative capital in the East — something the Soviets had prepared to do East of Moscow, in case the Nazis captured Moscow — then they could have preserved a “rump” Poland.”
R -There was no Eastern Poland, the Soviets already had it.
“There it should have capitulated – as, for example, the French Government did in July 1940. Or, it could have sued for peace, as the Finnish government did in March 1940.”
R - Being sued for peace by Poland was not in the nazi’s plans. Note that the Finns sued the Soviet Union for peace, not the nazi’s, and were only able to do so after beating Stalins masses to a standstill.
“Then Poland, like Finland, would have remained as a state, though it would certainly have lost territory.”
R - Poland had no territory left to lose by September 19th, it was entirely occupied by two enemy nations.
“Or, the Polish government could have fled to Great Britain or France, countries already at war with Germany.
Polish government leaders could have fled by air any time. Or they could have gotten to the Polish port of Gdynia, which held out until September 14, and fled by boat.”
R - Elements of the Polish Army and government did eventually end up in Great Britain and flew in the Battle of Britain among other things. The Luftwaffe controlled the Polish skies, nobody was fleeing by air. Gdynia surrendered on the 14th, the Polish government fled into Romania on the 17th, any attempt to flee north would have run smack into one or both arms of the Panzer advance. The Germans had anyway already blockaded the Polish Baltic coast by that time (battle of Danzig Bay September 1st, 1939).
“Why didn’t they? Did Polish government leaders think they might be killed? Well, so what? Tens of thousands of their fellow citizens and soldiers were being killed!”
R - As it turns out (Katyn Forest) the Polish leaders were right if that was their thought. It seems to me that going into exile to fight on is and was vastly preferable to suicidal stupidity and far less cowardly then abject surrender as the French choose to do.
“Maybe they really did believe Rumania would violate its neutrality with Germany and let them pass through to France? If they did believe this, they were remarkably stupid. There’s never been any evidence that the Rumanian government gave them permission to do this.”
R - Or maybe the location of the German and Russian forces within Poland at the time, and the speed of the German advance left them no other viable alternatives?
“Did they believe Britain and France were going to “save” them? If so, that too was remarkably stupid.”
R - Well, they did have that treaty and Chamberlins vague promises. In hindsight trusting Chamberlin was remarkably stupid but the Poles were hardly the only ones to make that mistake in the late 1930’s.
“Even if the British and French really intended to field a large army to attack German forces in the West, the Polish army would have had to hold against the Wehrmacht for a month at least, perhaps more. But the Polish Army was in rapid retreat after the first day or two of the war.”
R - As events clearly show the British and French did in fact field a large army to fight the Germans in the West and it did take them considerably more then a month to do so (Sitzkrieg). The Polish Army marched on foot for the most part (less then 200 tanks in the entire army), it did nothing “rapidly” in either direction and in any case when it did retreat the leading panzer arms were already far behind them.
“Or, maybe they fled simply out of sheer cowardice. That is what their flight out of Warsaw, the Polish capital, suggests.”
R - Yet Warsaw managed to hold out until the 26th of September. Rare is the 20th century politition who is also a successful warrior. By the 19th they (Polish political leadership) would have been little more then useless extra mouths to feed and defend in a besieged Warsaw.
MAKES
MY HEAD
HURT,
R
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42Arslan Amirkhanov on May 26, 2010 at 9:15 am:
Pathetic, Render. Let’s correct a few mistakes shall we?
“Hans von Seeckt and all those future Luftwaffe pilots training in 1920’s Soviet Russia didn’t really exist?”
Moron, that was called the Treaty of Rapallo, and in case you hadn’t heard, Hitler didn’t take power until 1933.
“The Treaty of Riga is now a “non-aggression pact?” Oddly enough neither Lenin nor Pilsudski thought so at the time”
Nobody called the Treaty of Riga a non-aggression pact. Poland and the USSR signed a non-aggression pact in 1932. Fun fact: Poland later signed a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany, along with a trade agreement, and was “rewarded” with a piece of Slovakia(a non-Polish territory) when the Germans dismantled Czechoslovakia. But of course we never hear of the “allies Nazi Germany and Poland carving up Czechoslovkia.”
“There was no Eastern Poland, the Soviets already had it.”
This is half-right, because “Eastern Poland” is actually Western Ukraine and Belarus.
Moreover, the flight of the Polish government had been reported as early as 15 September. This is beside the point however, the orders issued to the Red Army were to prevent the Germans from crossing into Galicia, Volyn, or Western Belarus. This they actually tried to do on several occasions.
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