Actually, you are wrong regarding “MANY” (genuine) historians. (I would suggest that you would be wrong that there are “ANY” (genuine) historians who believe that trash, but there is a legitimate gray area where some historians hold conflicting views.)
The war with Japan was pretty much inevitable. They were an expanding empire and our empire had possession of resources they needed to keep going. We had been preparing for war with Japan since at least the 1920s. However, FDR considered Germany the more serious threat to the U.S., our ally Great Britain, and civilization, in general, and the last thing he wanted was a hot war with Japan dividing our resources. (The famous Louisiana Maneuvers were all conducted with a view to German tank battles–even though the Army was so under-prepared that a number of the “weapons” employed were broomsticks.) The notion that FDR was deliberately seeking war with Japan is nonsense.
FDR certainly knew that the Japanese were preparing for some war at some point, but his actions to reduce the shipments of iron and oil to Japan were not intended to “force” Japan into attacking. The gray area of discussion involves whether FDR could have predicted that the embargoes were more likely to stall the Japanese or more likely to precipitate an attack or whether he could have used a different diplomatic approach to stall that war until Germany had been defeated. Claims that he deliberately sought a war with Japan at the end of 1941 are nothing more than boilerplate Conspiracy Theories.
There is much made of the lack or preparedeness by the defenders of Hawaii, (and most of the CT boobs consentrate on that), but all the “evidence” that FDR knew that the Japanese fleet was on its way across the Pacific at the end of November is based on anachronistic reworking of information or on outright lies. Alternatively, it looks at the normal preparations of any military to begin preparing for a foreseen eventual conflict as “evidence” that FDR knew of a specific attack.
I consider the idea impossible for the same reasons that I consider impossible your claims that the government is using vaccinations to poison us, that the Holocaust was a hoax, and all of the other crazy conspiracy theories that you advance on a daily basis. Those reasons being that: (1) you’re unable to link to any evidence in favor of this conspiracy theory (2) in place of actually evidence, you link to insane cranks and (3) if the conspiracy theory were actually true, someone involved in it would have come forward at some point. No one has.
Not usually. Take the Vietnam War and consider how popular the American government was at the beginning vs at the end. Take the Damn Fool War (Cecil’s name for the second Iraq War) and ask the same question.
What war were we building up to in the early 49’s? You should really learn about this nice button called “Preview” that allows you to double-check your post.
Your entire conspiracy theory is based on the assumption that the Democrats and the American government were deliberately conducting a "buildup for war during the early 40’s. They were not. They were making every possible effort to stay out of war. Unfortunately for you, the claim that the United States sought war with Japan or Germany is easily proved false. We were at peace with Japan until Japan attacked us. We were at peace with Germany until Germany declared war on us on Dec. 11, 1941. Those are the facts, much as you’ll try to deny them. In fact, I can go further and point out that both Japan and Germany had attacked the United States long before Pearl Harbor. Japan sank the American gunship U. S. S. Panama in China several years before Pearl Harbor, and Germany sank three American ships months before declaring war on us. Yet despite these things, the United States did not enter WWII until Japan and Germany launched all-out attacks on us. How does that fit with your claim that the United States was deliberately seeking war? It doesn’t.
Of course, in Dec. 1941 we were not a nation “embattled [sic] in the Great Depression”. The Great Depression had already been over for several years by then. We did not have high unemployment because New Deal policies had succeeded.
After all, if he was a conspiracy theorist he’d believe in wacky ideas without supporting evidence like, say, FDR knew about Pearl Harbor in advance, and when people pointed out the lack of evidence, he’d kvetch about how close minded everyone else is and suggest that since wars have been ginned up on dubious grounds before (ie Gulf of Tonkin) that’s all the reason we need to believe WW2 started the same way. The fact that he doesn’t do any of that shows he’s no conspiracy theorist.
Besides the lack of credible evidence, there’s the following issue of logic: Even if FDR did want an outside event to force the US into WW2, it hardly seems likely that he’d want to enter the war with a large hunk of the Pacific fleet on the bottom of the ocean. If military intelligence happened to warn the commanders at Pearl Harbor a couple of hours in advance on the morning of Dec. 7, there’d still be a hell of a causus belli but the US fleet would presumably take less of a pasting since it would have enough time to scramble planes into the air.
Yet oddly, not immense enough to declare war after Japan sank the US Panay in 1937 or after Germany sank the Ruben James in 1940.
I’m not arguing with you on this, nor do I doubt these event, but I’m kind of curious - why didn’t the US declare war after those events? Maybe the Panay was an accident, but 3 sinkings by Germany?
I’ve read plenty and here’s the short answer: You can make about as much of an argument that Roosevelt knew about Pearl harbor as you can that Bush knew about 9/11.
Plenty of people do both but we consider them crackpots.
What you’ve read are conspiracy theory and polemics targetted at people who would be incline to believe it in the first place.
There have been ten government inquiries into this exact topic and none of them pointed a damning finger at Roosevelt. They uncovered incompetence and a failure of various intelligence agencies to effectivelty share information but none of the ten inquiries found a smoking gun.
Sure there were peices of knowledge within the government that if put together would have pointed to an attack on Pearl harbor that day. Yes we KNEW that the Japanese might attack us sometime soon (we were basically goading the Japanese into giving us an excuse to enter the war). But the notion that Rooselvelt knew that Pearl harbor would be attacked on December 7th is still mere conspiracy theory.
We’ve had this discussion before and it was pretty conclusively established that slavery was the cause of the Civil War. Without the slavery issue, noone gave a shit about states rights.
Yeah, cuz we’ve seen what states do with their power.
That’s odd because local governments are notoriously more corrupt than federal government. All the horror stories about ridiculously high pensions occur at the state level.
What is it about local government that you prefer over federal government because I gotta tell you teh track record seems to support larger federal role over a larger state and local role.
And if he was a conspiracy theorist he’d say things like this:
It keeps on quacking like a duck while insisting it is absolutely not a duck, really.
Belief in conspiracies, past/present/future is what feeds many of the Ron Paul groupie army - They don’t want us to know, but Ron has revealed Their plots and will protect us from Them.
Exactly as often as I participate in threads started by you, since you’re the only person I encounter regularly who spends a great deal of time promoting persons and organizations devoted to the hatred of blacks, Jews, and Mexicans.
First of all, you accuse me of not knowing what racism is. I offer the following definition: “The belief that some racial group, as a whole, has some negative quality or is involved in some bad activity.” With that definition established, it will be easy to prove that many of your sources are racist.
Let’s start with rense.com, which you have not only endorsed as a good site but defended at very great length. In these defenses, you have repeatedly brought up Israel and Palestine and accused me of believing that “an Israeli life is worth more than a Palestinian life” and that “we should bow down before the government of Israel”. Now I have never mentioned anything about Israel or Palestine in this thread. So why are you accusing me of saying something that I flatly did not say? Remember that you’ve promised repeatedly to answer every question. I’m greatly looking forward to your answer to this one.
Now that we’ve established that my criticism of rense.com has nothing to do with Israel or Palestine, let’s go over the list of anti-Semitic material on that site. Of course I’ve posted this list twice already and you’ve responded by ignoring it twice already, but I’m tenacious. I’m going to continue posting this until you’re willing to acknowledge it’s existence and explain why you’re promoting a website with this material. Here is an article declaring that Jews are responsible for World War II and that the Nazi policies towards Jews were a good thing. Here is an article which says that the Holocaust never occurred and that Jews should be thankful for how they were treated by the Nazis. Here is a video that Jeff Rense links to which says that Jews are responsible for slavery. Here is another. Here is an article claiming that America’s Jewish citizens are plotting to control the country. Here is an article blaming the Jews for 9/11. Here’s a second such article. Here’s a video that he links to implying the same. And right now on the front page there’s a large picture claiming that Zionists are responsible for 9/11, followed by about thirty truther articles. Note that none of these examples of anti-Semitism and racism have anything to do with the Palestinians.
So now let me ask you two questios. Do you believe that the Jews were responsible for starting World War II, that the Holocaust was a hoax, that the Jews should be thankful for how the Nazis treated him, that American Jews are all conspiring to bring down the country, that Jews are secretly running the media and the banking system, and that Jews are responsible for the 9/11 terrorist attacks? If not, then why have you promoted and repeatedly defended a website which says all of these things in a big, bold way? (If your response is to try changing the subject to something dealing with Israel and the Palestinians, please keep in mind that I’ve already explained that none of the things I’m referring to make any mention of that issue. Also don’t try saying again that Rense is good guy who “occasionally slips into conspiracy theories” when there’s very little on his webpage that isn’t aggressively promoting hatred of the Jews or someone else.) Unless you’re willing to answer these questions, I will assume that you’ve acknowledged that this website is antisemitic and that you’re therefore guilty of promoting an antisemitic website.
As far as Jeff Rense promoting David Duke for President, there was a large blue banner saying “David Duke for President” on the website when you first linked to it. That banner is gone now, but Rense does still have a link to this video. So Rense is, in fact, promoting David Duke for President and you can’t deny it. So again, do you feel that David Duke would make a good president, and if not then why promote a website that promotes Duke?
Now on to Lou Dobbs and his anti-Mexican tirades. Your attempt to slip away from the facts here is very similar to what you do with Jeff Rense and his antisemitism. You try to claim that the video of Dobbs and the various other anti-Mexican websites you’ve linked are only concerned about border security and national sovereignty, not about attacking Mexicans themselves. But what Dobbs actually said in the video you linked to was that “Mexicans are currently at war with America” and are “trying to destroy America”. Nothing about illegal immigrants. Nothing about border security. Nothing about national sovereignty. You linked to something saying that all Mexicans are bad people who are out to get us. Nor is that video the only instance of you doing so; I’ve already pointed out several others.
No, I don’t think there are good reasons top oppose such things other than hating Mexicans. There is not now and never has been the slightest piece of evidence that there was every any plan for either of these two things. So why do we hear about these two things from the far right? Simply because the far right wants to convince people that Mexicans are trying to destroy our country because that will increase the amount of hatred for Mexicans. Can you name any person who believes in either of these conspiracy theories and does not hate Mexicans generally? (I’m glad to hear you saying these things are “far out there” since it represents a complete turnaround from your previous threads, where you made dozens of posts assuring me that the process for replacing the dollar with the Amero and creating the North American Union was already underway.
And there’s also the fact that you linked to rense.com, which is full of Holocaust denial and Hitler-worship. Wouldn’t want to forget that. And then we’ve got the article John Denson.
Nevertheless, there is the unfortunate fact that Hitler killed millions of people merely because they were Jews or members of some other group labeled inferior. When Denson says that Hitler “only” wanted to avenge the Versailles Treaty and fight communism, he apparently also believes that Hitler did not want to exterminate the Jews and others, which is akin to saying that the Holocaust is a hoax. Now you’ve acknowledged that the Holocaust is real, so how do you square that with what Denson says?
Again, what about that little business with the Jews? Was that drawing on “real, justified anger” too? Did the Jews also “share some of the blame” for it? If not, then how can this be anything other than an attempt to downplay or deny the Holocaust?
Once again I ask you, when have I’ve ever mentioned the Israel Lobby? PLease answer.
Okay, I give up. Why do you think that an Israeli life is worth more than a Palestinian life?
That disproportionate influence exists in your head but not in reality.
Not acknowledging the existence of slavery is “a minor oversight”. It seems pretty major to me.
Let me explain something. When I listen to NPR, I know I won’t hear that the Holocaust is a hoax. When I log on to kos, I know I won’t read see an endorsement of David Duke for President. When I watched the Daily Show, I won’t see a claim that American Jews are conspiring to take over the country. I can find news sources that aren’t routinely racist and antisemitic. Why can’t you?
Oooh, a threat. I like threats. Tell me what you’re going to do to me once things get ugly.
Turns out that auditing the gold at Fort Knox isn’t a completely novel idea. To quote from Richard Shenkman & Kurt Reiger’s “One Night Stands with American History,” pg. 250-51*:
“One of the least serious charges ever made against the New Deal Democrats was that they had stolen the gold in Fort Knox. Only a few crackpots believed the accusation**. But in 1953, the Daughters of the American Revolution forced Dwight Eisenhower, the first Republican president in twenty years, to have the gold counted. Investigators found that the Fort contained $30,442,415,581.70 worth of the precious metal. That was ten dollars less than it should have been. Mrs. Georgia Clark, treasurer of the United States under the Democrats, sent the government a check to cover the loss.”
So, $10 over 20 years…good God, at that rate, the government may have stolen uncounted twenties of dollars worth of gold since the last audit!
*Their source: Eric F. Goldman, “The Crucial Decade – And After: America, 1945-1960” (Vintage Books, 1960), p. 239
**The more things change…
This is dumb. I am not associating the desire to audit the gold with ANY conspiracy theory whatsoever. If your point is, in 1953 the gold was there, what dioes that prove? I want to open up ALL economic and financial entities to increased oversight and scrutiny. I would start with the Federal Reserve and continue on to Fort Knox.
Plus, when the dollar is wiped out through hyperinflation and we decide to start over with a sound dollar backed by gold, we should know how much gold is there, right?
If you’re so sure you hyperinflation is going to imminent, why don’t I lend you $1000 at a 200% interest rate. You can pay me back at any time in next 20 years.
Nothing really, although “The last time crackpots wanted Fort Knox audited, they came up with bupkiss, therefore they’ll find nothing now” is logically equivalent to your “The Gulf of Tonkin was a fraud to get the US into a war, therefore Pearl Harbor must have been, too.”
So you think it’s “highly believable” that the CIA is stealing the gold from Fort Knox, but you aren’t pushing any conspiracy theory with you audit demands. Does that 'bout sum it up?
I always have to laught at the term “conspiricy theorist” like ANYONE who even suggests a conspiricy of any kind is a nutcase.
Conspiricies happen all the time.
This all started after the Kennedy assasination, to make sure that anyone suggesting something other that the governments official explaination would not be taken seriously.