Off-Topic Cafe: Churchill et al

[Timbuktu1]

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bentley wrote:

Timbuktu stated:

Just wondering Bentley, what did he think could have been worked out with Great Britain?  I can see that Hitler would have approuved of the British, in a genetic sense (yuck).  The Queen is German and I believe the king that abdicated (for the woman he loved), was it Edward VI? was a Nazi sympathizer.  Does he mean that the British could have made a deal with Germany?  Didn't the Norwegians do something like that?   There's so much I have to read but I really am curious about that book.  I understand your reactions.  When I read Death of the West I had similar feelings.  He makes brilliant points, really original, independent thinking, and then you realize the creepy part that underlies what he's saying.  But a good idea is a good idea, whatever it's source.  

Bentley responded:

Hard to tell yet; he keeps throwing curve balls; he praises then he pulls the rug right from underneath the same people.  I don't think he was too much for the GB and Poland alliance; he seemed to be singing Lord Salisbury's protectionist policies first and then he seemed to take a swipe at him too; but I think he was leaning towards Salisbury's approach (whatever that really was about).  

I think the incident with Edward was misunderstood; even Churchill has stated as much; but there are always going to be some who believe what you stated. In Chasing Churchill the bodyguard described that situation according to Churchill, and basically indicated that this situation was very overblown and made to sound controversial when it was not.

Genetically, H liked a pure race and in that vein; H would have approved of GB, that is true.  But I think he had a respect for GB; but not necessarily did that mean that a) they could trust him or b) that any negotiation would work.  In fact, Chamberlain tried that and had egg on his face.  So GB tried both a and b; and failed.  That is why I do not buy his arguments on that point.  GB had to fight as hard as they could; otherwise things could have turned out very differently. 

You are right about his ideas and he is brilliant; but there is something so preachy about him and smug; almost as if he has been listening to himself too long.  

He is good for the television medium; but not for the oval office. 

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LOl!  Smug!  that's the word.  Very good!

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[Timbuktu1]

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bentley wrote:

Convinced that Buchanan loved Lord Salisbury and his policies:

Here is another quote:

"Strategic retreats that turn into routs are often the result of what Lord Salisbury called “the commonest error in politics … sticking to the carcass of dead policies.”

Another article that I found -  pretty much shows where the entire book that I am listening to is going:

http://buchanan.org/blog/2008/07/pjb-honorable-exit-from-empire/

Article is called Honorable Exit from Empire! 

He makes a lot of sense.  I'm just not sure.  He's so isolationist.

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[Timbuktu1]

Socrates entire life was about recognizing the difference between a stool and a chair, but most of all, a good government from a bad one.  Do you think he would say "who's to say which is better, Persia or Athens?  It's all point of view."  "Perhaps Thermopylae was for nothing."  It's all about who can make the better argument?  We can never know the truth?

This really ties in with the Bucannan discussion.  He's a brilliant, knowledgeable man.  But does he know "the good"?  That's what is essential.  Without that, the most brilliant argument is empty.  BTW, you're the one who helped me understand this! 

[Choisya]

but some of the images posted may be hard for some groups to handle. 

I very rarely make statements about such important matters without producing some evidence to back up my words and I search long and hard to obtain a balanced POV - it is part of my research background and something I was once paid to do.  I had apologised in advance for the hurt that the links might cause and there was no need to open them up as they were embedded in my text, which was in itself self-explanatory.  The links were primarily addressed to Everyman to produce evidence about, for instance, what Hitler Youth was set up to do and what they did and to show the real Nuremberg rallies as opposed to the Reifenstahl/Speer staged one.  I suspect that those who may have been hurt have, regrettably, seen these images many times before or may even have been involved in them or have relatives who were involved in them.

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bentley wrote:

As an observer, this conversation though a very interesting one appears to be going in the wrong direction.  I have no problem with most tangential topics in the Off Topic Cafe aside from those that may bring discomfort to any individual.  There is no problem with any of the postings here if they are sensitive to the community who may be reading MY EARLY LIFE. I wholeheartedly believe in free speech; but some of the images posted may be hard for some groups to handle. 

Is it more important to win the argument; if the images or links are causing discomfort.  I don't know what else to say.  Again, I respect everyone's viewpoint here and admittedly the discourse is thought provoking; but a word of caution, please.

Just a thought to consider.   

Bentley 

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[Choisya]

I have watched it often enough and do not deny that it is a superb piece of cinematographic art.  Many films about distasteful subjects or which exaggerate or distort truths win awards - it is the art which is being awarded, not the facts within it. Soviet propaganda films also won awards. I would be pleased to see the words of a film critic or expert on such matters who denies it is a propaganda film.  Refenstahl's assertion that it was purely a documentary can hardly be taken as gospel in this matter words, considering all the controversy her work caused. In any case it denies what Hitler and Goebbels said.   

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Everyman wrote:

How recently have you watched Triumph of the Will and listened both to the translation of it and to Leni Riefenstahl's comments on the making of it?  With the perspective of some distance from the actual events and the war, it is much easier to look at it objectively than was possible in the 1940s and 50s. 

If it had really been viewed when it was made as Nazi propaganda and militaristic, it seems curious that it would have won major awards not only in Germany but in Vienna (a gold medal at the 1935 Venice Biennale) and France (Grand Prix at the 1937 World Exhibition in Paris). 

Whether the film should be considered art, documentary, propaganda, or some mix of those is still hotly debated, and by no means resolved.  What is undeniable is that it is a magnificent piece of creativity and the product of an extraordinary cinematic talent.

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[Choisya]

Now he is trying to prove his theory that the west is doomed and in fact we are not procreating enough to sustain ourselves and the genesis of this gloom and doom theory are these two world wars. 

This is a commonly held theory at the moment and there is no doubt that demographically it could be true.  None of the Western nations are producing enough children to carry our nations forward into another century and the huge losses sustained in two world wars, particularly the first world war, were a catalyst for this change.  I don't know whether the US have had state paid 'family allowances' but the UK, France and Germany tried to redress this imbalance after WWII by paying an allowance to parents for each child and this goes on today, when favourable tax terms are also employed.  But it has not stopped the demographic downturn.

However, it is also a somewhat racist argument because there are still millions of non-white people who wish to settle in our countries and we are letting them do so.  Also, they are mostly immigrants who have larger families than ours but that changes over time. So their numbers will swell our ranks and in due course we will no longer be classed as Caucasian peoples which, of course, is another fear that some people have.  I have read that durring this century, for instance, that Hispanic people will become the majority in the US and it is likely that our nation will be of largely Asian extraction, although right now there is an influx coming in from Eastern Europe which is changing that forecast. 

As for the west being 'doomed' I think we can already see the rise of the Eastern nations again - China and India, 'Chindia' - and given the huge size of their populations, which can fuel their productive capacity, it seems highly likely that their economies will overtake even the US.   The times they are a-changin. 

Bentley wrote:

Yes, they have.  It is interesting to listen to folks speak and realize that even certain single words would never be stated today without some repercussions from someone.  Never mind the landscape of some of these ideas.  BTW: the librarian had a new audio book of the Buchanan book which I decided to listen to probably much to my future chagrin.  However, it is very complementary to Churchill, Roosevelt, Great Britain, the allies at the beginning. Then he starts to discuss that these world wars were the beginning of the destruction of the West, millions of young men were completely wiped out affecting population growths in these countries (France, etc. - true statement); and that World War II was an unnecessary war and he quotes Churchill in his statement to Roosevelt which we discussed.  He also seems to feel that these wars resulted in the demise of the British Empire (probably true) and here is where I differ - he states that he believes that Germany looked up to Great Britain and all it had been able to accomplish and probably something could have been done aside from what occurred (doubtful I believe); then he goes on to state that thank goodness the British people and Churchill were so stalwart otherwise we would all be speaking German and that would not have been a good thing from his viewpoint (true); but then he backtracks and talks about a Churchill cult (and I think he is lumping Bush into that equation somehow - Bush trying to be Churchillian) and that Bush is basically demonizing other countries who have not attacked us as being perceived enemies and that these folks who are not bothering the US ostensibly have to be destroyed before they destroy us (here I have no idea what connections he is trying to make between Churchill and Bush unless he is talking ad nauseum about the Iraq War which was an unnecessary war - other than that I do not see the connection; but Buchanan does).  Now he is trying to prove his theory that the west is doomed and in fact we are not procreating enough to sustain ourselves and the genesis of this gloom and doom theory are these two world wars.

Well Timbuktu that is where I am so far; would never have picked it up if it had not been mentioned by you.  

My feeling is that so far it is entertaining, and that facts are mixed with his very far reaching hypothesis and personal feelings.  But I think I will finish it anyways at this point because he does mention different things about the Boers,  Kitchener etc which I find very informative based upon the connection to these events in My Early Life. He is also quoting Lord Roseberry, Lord Salisbury, Joseph Chamberlain and Queen Victoria (he gets around in term of historic timelines).

I do think that Buchanan likes to be a sensationalist and still feel it is all about the money.  

Bentley 

Message Edited by bentley on 08-03-2008 03:50 PM

Just wondering Bentley, what did he think could have been worked out with Great Britain?  I can see that Hitler would have approuved of the British, in a genetic sense (yuck).  The Queen is German and I believe the king that abdicated (for the woman he loved), was it Edward VI? was a Nazi sympathizer.  Does he mean that the British could have made a deal with Germany?  Didn't the Norwegians do something like that?   There's so much I have to read but I really am curious about that book.  I understand your reactions.  When I read Death of the West I had similar feelings.  He makes brilliant points, really original, independent thinking, and then you realize the creepy part that underlies what he's saying.  But a good idea is a good idea, whatever it's source.  

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[Choisya]

When the Greeks were talking about truth in relation to facts or anything else they had very few means of proving anything.  Nowadays we can make records of practically everything that happens and films in particular show events exactly as they happen, just as the Pathe News Gazette films of Germany during the time leading up to WWII show. Much as some people might like to deny that Kristallnacht happened, for instance, there are numerous photographic records of it around the world, just as there are numerous photographic records of the liberation of the death camps.  Even the written word is photographed now.  Unless governments suppress or change such records they are there for us all to see with our own eyes, something the Greeks did not have and so could argue ad infinitum about what was 'truth'. 

Much of David Irving's evidence in ' Did 6 milliion Really Die' etc. fell down because it was not only the Allies who had photographic and written evidence but the Germans had left behind such records too.

Message Edited by Choisya on 08-04-2008 05:09 AM

[Choisya]

Yours was the 'straw man' argument in going off on a tangent about 'uniforms' when the embedded link I provided was there to give extensive information on Hitler's reason for setting up the HYM and of their infamous activities within it, not about their uniforms.  I took exception to your inference that because all the European youth movements wore uniforms at this period they were the same.  I was not arguing about uniforms, I was arguing about the activities the HYM engaged in. At no time have you acknowledged the infamy of these activities but instead you continue to propound straw man arguments about uniforms.    

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Everyman wrote:

 Choisya criticised my post by saying: "The truth is that to compare the Hitler Youth Movement to the Boy Scout and Girl Guide Movement is an insult to the thousands of young people who grew up in those organisations and who fought in both world wars. "  As though I had made a general comparison of the two.  Which I had not, and it is both dishonest and shameful to imply that I had.

All I said about the issue was "As to the Hitler Youth wearing military-style uniforms, that is pretty meaningless.  After all, Baden-Powell's English Scouts wore military-style uniforms, in at least some cases deliberately chosen for their military associations.   And as the Wikipedia article on B-P points out, "Several of his military books, written for military reconnaissance and scout training in his African years, were also read by boys. Based on those earlier books, he wrote Scouting for Boys, published in 1908 by Pearson, for youth readership."  Indeed, the very term scout had for him a military connotation.  So it's pretty ironical to criticize the Hitler Youth for having military-style uniforms when the major British youth movement had the same.   It was just the way things were done in Europe at that time of history, and was nothing unique to Hitler or Germany."

This is another example of your frequent practice of changing the ground in the middle of a discussion and setting up false straw men for the fun of knocking them down.  I did not compare the Hitler Youth to the Boy Scout movement (and I didn't even mention the Girl Guide movement, hyour bringing that in is ) other than to uniforms and the overall military aspects of the two organizations.

All that you said in your initial post that I responded to was:  "Historical accuracy also leads me to point out that the Nuremberg Rallies were rallies of members of the National Socialist Party and its spin-off, the Hitler Youth movement, who wore military style uniforms."   You didn't say anything about the activities of the Hitler Youth, anything about what they stood for, but based your criticism only on the fact that they wore military style uniforms.  I accurately pointed out that so did the Baden-Powell Scouts.  If you don't like that aspect of the Scouts, okay, but it was there in both England and Germany, and puffing getting all indignant at me doesn't change that reality.

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[Choisya]

The 'infamous and unforgiveable actions of the Nazis and Hitler Youth' included the invasion of Poland and yes, the HYM were active in the Jewish ghettoes of Warsaw from the outset. Pearl Harbour was certainly the US catalyst (and Poland was ours) but other voices, not least Churchill's, were persuading FDR that these various invasions in Europe and the persecution of non-Aryan peoples had to be resisted because of Hitler's territorial ambitions. 

It may well be that on this side of the Atlantic we heard more about Hitler's persecution of the Jews than Americans did, although from posts on this board and on others, and my reading, I was under the impression that a large number of Americans, particularly Jews, were pressing Roosevelt to enter the war for this reason.  The Jewish lobby, for instance, was strong in America then, just as it is now and powerful Jewish businessmen were rightly concerned about what was happening in Europe. 

I agree that our countries had several different reasons for going to war but I do not think that Hitler's persecution of the Jews since 1933 was a minor one.  Many major speeches were made about it on both side of the Atlantic.  Despite Poland and Pearl Harbour there were other, older underlying reasons and recorded conversations with both British and American servicemen frequently mention the plight of the Jews, who were fleeing Germany in large numbers by 1939.  Of course, anti-semites would not agree with me and would put emphasis on the destruction of American  ships, broken treaties etc. There are even those who maintain that American only went into the war to make money from armaments.  I also think that the reasons statesmen 'decide' to go to war can be vastly different to why people think they are fighting it. (Tolstoy writes about this in his Notes to War and Peace.) 

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Everyman wrote:

Choisya wrote in part:  The truth requires me to remember that I am proud to have been brought up with a certain point of view about these matters because I was under the impression that it was the infamous and unforgiveable activities of the Nazis and the Hitler Youth which drove both our countries into war.

This just shows how different the world looks from different sides of the Atlantic.  

I was brought up to believe that the persecution of the Jews, Kristalnacht and other atrocities, aren't what brought England or America into the war, that both countries were in reality willing to overlook those as internal matters to Germany (as today we don't go to war over the Chinese persecution of the Tibetans because it's an internal matter to China).  German invasions of Austria and the Sudenland didn't even provoke declarations of war by either of our cuntries.  It wasn't until Germany invaded Poland in 1939, almost a year after Kristallnacht, that England declared war. And I'm not aware, though I may be wrong, that the Hitler Youth had any role in the invasion of Poland, so it's hard to blame them for driving the countries into war.

And certainly the United States didn't enter the war because of the atrocities against Jews.  We stayed clear of the European theater, at least officially and legally, though we did give aid and comfort to our fellow English-speaking friends (arguably in violation of international law).  We didn't enter the war and declare war on Japan and then Germany until Pearl Harbor, which certainly had nothing directly to do with  "the infamous and unforgiveable activities of the Nazis and the Hitler Youth."

So obviously you and I were brought up with very different points of view and impressions of what drove both of our countries into war. Of course, I may be wrong, and maybe it was indeed the activities of the Hitler Youth which drove both England's declaration of war after the invasion of Poland in late 1939 and our declaration of war after Pearl Harbor more than two years later.  But that's not what I was taught, and frankly not what I now believe. 

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[bentley]

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Timbuktu1 wrote:

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bentley wrote:

Convinced that Buchanan loved Lord Salisbury and his policies:

Here is another quote:

"Strategic retreats that turn into routs are often the result of what Lord Salisbury called “the commonest error in politics … sticking to the carcass of dead policies.”

Another article that I found -  pretty much shows where the entire book that I am listening to is going:

http://buchanan.org/blog/2008/07/pjb-honorable-exit-from-empire/

Article is called Honorable Exit from Empire! 

He makes a lot of sense.  I'm just not sure.  He's so isolationist.

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So was Lord Salisbury; just keep up the business of the British Empire and ignore the rest of the people.  Slow, deliberate, eye on the ball.

Like I said, the turn of the words and some of the ideas are understandable and even likeable and then just one or two of them maybe found in the same argument are the kind that you would never be associated with and that makes all of these arguments specious.

Odd, a brilliant man who goes too far with his arguments turning off most people; but just likes to hear himself talk.   

[Choisya]

Sorry, the word 'words' appeared in error in my previous post, nor did I finish it, because my hairdresser arrived!

My whole point about the 1934 Reifenstahl film was not that it was not a good one - it is excellent and possibly the best of its kind - but that your original statement that 

'many Germans joined the Nazi party not because it was the party of war or anti-Semitism, which were not early parts of Hitler's appeal, but because it was the route to prosperity and employment.  I don't know whether you've ever seen the brilliant film "Triumph of the Will," but one of the interesting things about it is that though there are vast scenes of Germans marching in ranks and filling the stadium at Nuremburg, there is not a single military unit among them.  They are all civilian units, and the theme was rebuilding Germany, not waging war' 

was a misrepresentation of the facts because its staged performances misrepresented the real Nuremberg Rallies, to which I gave links. It is those real Nuremberg Rallies from 1933 onwards, and the speeches given at them (to which I also gave links), which show the extreme militaristic nature of the German people at this time, the show of military might, the anti-semitism, the territorial ambitions and so on, all of which frightened many Western observers and statesmen.  Another of my links told how the Hitler Youth Movement were actually trained to hate Jews, how they marched from all over Germany to those rallies and how afterwards they (and others) were involved in attacks on Jews.

There is a lot of documentary evidence about these matters and a lot of it is on American documentary films taken at the time.  There is also similar evidence in the German film archives.  Quite a few of these are now on the internet, or at least abstracts, and most of them are available at various libraries on both sides of the Atlantic.  They all tell a very different tale from Reifenstahl but that wasn't her job of course, she was employed by Hitler to make him and his regime acceptable to the outside world.  Perhaps she cannot be blamed for her production of what was clearly a propaganda film for what was already an evil regime because many artists and writers have done similar things - they have to earn a living too.  She may not even have known that Gypsies from one of the concentration camps were used as 'extras' by Speer - I expect the regime were anxious to keep certain facts from her just as they were anxious to keep them from everyone else.      

Choisya wrote:

I have watched it often enough and do not deny that it is a superb piece of cinematographic art.  Many films about distasteful subjects or which exaggerate or distort truths win awards - it is the art which is being awarded, not the facts within it. Soviet propaganda films also won awards. I would be pleased to see the words of a film critic or expert on such matters who denies it is a propaganda film.  Refenstahl's assertion that it was purely a documentary can hardly be taken as gospel in this matter words, considering all the controversy her work caused. In any case it denies what Hitler and Goebbels said.   

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Everyman wrote:

How recently have you watched Triumph of the Will and listened both to the translation of it and to Leni Riefenstahl's comments on the making of it?  With the perspective of some distance from the actual events and the war, it is much easier to look at it objectively than was possible in the 1940s and 50s. 

If it had really been viewed when it was made as Nazi propaganda and militaristic, it seems curious that it would have won major awards not only in Germany but in Vienna (a gold medal at the 1935 Venice Biennale) and France (Grand Prix at the 1937 World Exhibition in Paris). 

Whether the film should be considered art, documentary, propaganda, or some mix of those is still hotly debated, and by no means resolved.  What is undeniable is that it is a magnificent piece of creativity and the product of an extraordinary cinematic talent.

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Message Edited by Choisya on 08-04-2008 08:45 AM

[Choisya]

Timbukto:  This extract from Hitchen's book on The Chamberlain-Hitler Deal is relevant to your posts here. Page 4 of the link gives quotes and arguments from Chamberlain and others about negotiating with Hitler and page 5 gives arguments as to why Churchill was persuaded to enter the war. 

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1132/is_n8_v46/ai_16380657/pg_3

I love the quote from Trotsky that 'Chamberlain would give away all the democracies of the world for one-tenth of India'!

Message Edited by Choisya on 08-04-2008 09:31 AM

[jplatzer]

Choisya -

Thanks for all of your valuable insight. You provide alot of great background material. I'm looking forward to your thoughts when we get to Herodotus next month.

I liked your comments about the Reifenstahl film. It's definitely a propaganda film of the highest order. I agree with you that although Hitler and the Nazis had an anti-Semite platform, they got the German people to embrace them by perpetuating a strong German nationalism and blaming the "failure" of WWI and the Treay of Versailles (which they abhorred) to those they deemed the "November criminals". (i.e. the men who formed the Weimar Republic. Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by Shirer is an excellent book on all of this.

[Choisya]

Thanks a lot jp.  Yes, Shirer is excellent and of course he was one of the journalists who covered the Nuremberg rallies.  I can see it on my father's bookshelves now, next to Mein Kampf!. 

It is perhaps to America's credit that they refused to ratify the Versailles Treaty. This is a nice little school piece on the treaty, in case it comes up again when folks discuss what Churchill said Lloyd George's part in it.

Now Herodotus is another matter - the Greeks aren't my strong point. 

Message Edited by Choisya on 08-04-2008 11:15 AM

[Oldesq]

I am looking forward to exploring the Histories together although all I remember from a reading a long time ago is that there is a lot of stealth boiling and serving one's relations to an unknowing diner as revenge!

[bentley]

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Oldesq wrote:
I am looking forward to exploring the Histories together although all I remember from a reading a long time ago is that there is a lot of stealth boiling and serving one's relations to an unknowing diner as revenge!

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Oldesq, 

Well you know since we haven't anything one way or another I will put a syllabus up for the Histories starting September 2nd. Hopefully, we will get the green light or get a response.

Bentley 

[Choisya]

Which translation are you/others using Bentley?  I have an old Penguin somewhere.

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bentley wrote:

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Oldesq wrote:
I am looking forward to exploring the Histories together although all I remember from a reading a long time ago is that there is a lot of stealth boiling and serving one's relations to an unknowing diner as revenge!

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Oldesq, 

Well you know since we haven't anything one way or another I will put a syllabus up for the Histories starting September 2nd. Hopefully, we will get the green light or get a response.

Bentley 

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[Everyman]

I haven't been talking about good at all.  Just about interpreting historical facts.

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Timbuktu1 wrote:

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Everyman wrote:

Timbuktu1 wrote, in part:   Everyman!  When did you become a relativist?  What happened to Plato?  Universal truth?  The Good? 

They're still there!  But we're talking here not about the forms, which are universal truth, but about the interpretations of them.  A chair is a chair because it conforms to the universal truth of the eidos of chair, as a stool is a stool because it conforms to the universal eidos of stool.   But whether a particular thing is seen to be a chair or a stool is interpretative.  We will never know.  On one level you could say that it is what it is, and the person who calls it one thing is right and the one who calls it the other is wrong, but the problem is that here on earth we can never know which is which.  I may call it a chair and you may call it a stool, and we may both hae our reasons for saying that, and who's to know which of us is actually right?  We won't know until we meet the eidae face to face.

And I'm not sure there is an eidos of historical events, particular recent historical events.  They are so prone to interpretation, generally based on one's personal experiences, upbringing, and value systems.  It's tempting to think that a fact is a fact and that's all there is to say about it, but other than the most basic facts such as dates, places, and even those can be controversial, the fact is that a historical fact is very seldom a fact, but is usually a viewpoint based on one interpretation of the evidence.  This doesn't mean that there is no universal truth or good; it's a recognition that while we may seek and strive for it, the actuality is that we aren't going to find it here on earth.  

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But Socrates said that to hurt another human being is to hurt yourself.  What you're saying means there is no purpose and no way to know, so anything goes, which sure sounds like the Sophists to me!  Man is the measure of all things?  What about the image of the hero?  The image of the good society?  If there's no way to know, then why bother?  Why try?  If  your idea of good is as valid as my idea of good then Hitler's idea of good is equally valid, pretty much what you've said!  

 

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[Everyman]

I think you're mixing up my discussion with the Buchanan discussion.

I haven't been talking at all about which government was better, who was morally right, or any of that. I've just been talking about the problem of interpreting historical facts, and more specifically that there can be many ways of looking at the historical facts, and they can all appear equally true from the perspective of the viewer.   

It's trite, but also true, to say that history is written by the winners.  If Britain had won in 1775, the history books would have a whole different take on Washington, Jefferson, Adams, etc.  They would have been traitors executed for rebelling against the lawful authority of the Crown, not heroes founding a new nation.  If the South had won the War Between the States, Lee would have been a national hero to native Georgians (maybe he still is tomany).

But don't mix this up with what is ultimately "right" or "good."  I haven't been talking about them.  

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Timbuktu1 wrote:

Socrates entire life was about recognizing the difference between a stool and a chair, but most of all, a good government from a bad one.  Do you think he would say "who's to say which is better, Persia or Athens?  It's all point of view."  "Perhaps Thermopylae was for nothing."  It's all about who can make the better argument?  We can never know the truth?

This really ties in with the Bucannan discussion.  He's a brilliant, knowledgeable man.  But does he know "the good"?  That's what is essential.  Without that, the most brilliant argument is empty.  BTW, you're the one who helped me understand this! 

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[Everyman]

Choisya wrote in part films in particular show events exactly as they happen.

Oh, please.  Films show what the filmmaker wants to show.  Even if the images have not been altered, which is often enough, they at best show a small slice of what actually happened.

Back when I was in high school I had a very specific and clear example of this.  The House Un-American Activities Committee produced a film, "Operation Abolition," which  tried to show that the Berkeley demonstrations were caused by subversives.  Every image it showed was of an actual event, but the editing of it gave a completely false picture of what happened.  I had the privilege of debating the chief legal counsel for HUAC in front of an audience of the American Legion, and was able to point out many of the gross and deliberate distortions in the film, gaining grudging respect from many of the AL members when my opponent stormed out of the debate saying that he wasn't going to take this from a high school student.  

Film is a totally manipulatable medium and is far from showing exactly what happened.