Flight simulator - Re: Rule, Britannia, Britannia rule the waves, Britons never will

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Re: Rule, Britannia, Britannia rule the waves, Britons never will

James Calivar

2005-07-17, 12:31 am

Briarroot wrote:

quote:

> leadfoot wrote:
>
>
>
> Are you trying to say that the World Trade Center bombing in 1993, the
> Khobar Towers bombing in Dharan, Saudi Arabia in 1996, the US Embassy
> bombing in Nairobi in 1998, the attack on the USS Cole in 2000, and the
> September 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington DC, were all
> fictitious?
>
> <boggle>

From http://ramblingrhodes.mu.nu/archives/019722.html, an interesting
analysis and dissection of this overhyped quote:

"This Hermann Goering Quote Has Been Bothering Me

I try to keep up with the anti-Iraq-war and anti-war-on-terror
viewpoints because, as much as I continually believe I'm always right,
I'm willing to acquiesce that sometimes, occasionally, other people may
have something compelling to say that could change my mind. I thought
such an occurence came about about a month ago when this Hermann Goering
quote started making appearances all over the blogosphere.

Goering, for those unfamiliar with history, was the Commander-in-Chief
of the Luftwaffe in Nazi Germany during World War II. He said:

"Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of
the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to
drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship,
or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the
people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is
easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and
denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country
to greater danger."

The emphasis here, of course, is usually provided by the folks who plop
this quote on their blogs, and they wave this as proof that the Bush Jr.
administration is dragging the U.S. along the same simple formula. As
I've said before, I'm no huge fan of the Bush administration. Until they
pull this economy out of the muck and start addressing, successfully,
some of the problems here at home, that Texan won't earn my vote in '04.

However, the real Bush haters, the ones who feel he stole an election
and simply wages war for oil, are determined to transmogrify the man
into a short angry leader with a wispy cookie duster moustache and a bad
combover. They cry fascism any time the terror alert system clicks up a
notch or a celebrity is chastised for blowing their ignorant blather.

First, it should be noted that Goering was not a professional
propagandist. That honor fell to Joseph Goebbels. Second, Goering did
not utter that infamous quote during testimony at the Nuremburg Trials,
as many believe. Rather, he was engaged in debate, while sitting in his
cell, with an individual named Gustave Gilbert. Gilbert, who was given
free access to the inmates awaiting sentencing, kept a journal of his
conversations with the prisoners. So, in other words, you essentially
have a condemned man, who is not a professional propagandist, lamenting
his fate to whoever will listen, trying to deflect blame for his
murderous role in history. Goering was not exactly an authority on
anything at that point, in my opinion.

But, let me pick apart the quote itself.

Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of
the leaders.

Well, not really. If there's one thing that Vietnam taught us, it's that
people aren't necessarily mindless cows being trotted out to pasture and
back. But, that was Vietnam. If we were to take Goering at his word
here, today, with the Iraq conflict and the war on terror, we should
have seen the resurrection of the draft with everyone clamboring to grab
a rifle. But, that didn't happen.

All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce
the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to
greater danger.

The major problem here is that we weren't just TOLD we were being
attacked. We WERE attacked. 9/11 wasn't some fluke navigational error.
It was a coordinated assault on our home soil and our very way of life,
and if you don't believe that, you've been watching too much American
Idol and refusing to acknowledge the realities of the world today. If
you really, truly, honestly believe that dreadful day was an isolated
incident that couldn't possibly happen again, you seriously need a big
steaming mug of "wake the XXXX up."

As for denouncing pacifists, the sword cuts both ways here. Well, yeah,
pacifists have been denounced, but at the same time, war-proponents are
subject to criticism, too. How many "peaceful" protests have turned ugly
when the protestors tossed a rock through a store window sporting a
"Liberate Iraq" sign, and how many 9/11 memorials have been defiled by
the same?

The crushing of dissent in both camps is alive and well, but you
primarily hear about anti-war folks being denounced because, more often
then not, they're high-profile celebrities spewing ignorance. Where do
they get the idea that they're somehow an authority on anything but
acting? I can just about imagine the repercussions if I were to use this
magazine's weekly editorial meetings to ascend the pulpit and use the
entire hour to spout off about the war. I certainly HOPE my co-workers
would tell me to shut up and sit down, because it's not my job to
express my opinions on world affairs; it's my job to write about high
technology news. The same goes for celebs. Their job is to act, not
subject everyone to their half-formed ideas about how the government
works or doesn't work.

Take the Goering quote however you will, but I tend to view it as a
stream-of-consciousness uttering from a desperate and destroyed man, not
as an ominious denunciation of the current war on terror."