Armistice: The End Game of WW1 (First World War Documentary) | Timeline

You Tube ^ | 2018 | Timeline - David Reynolds

[Fai Mao]

The eleventh, day of the eleventh month is either today or tomorrow depending on where you live.

[familyop]

The United Nations wants a one-world government in less than twelve years
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3704999/posts

[Paul R.]

To BroJoeK --

I most certainly DID watch both entire vids. Go to near the end of the 2nd vid where the narrator is talking about the 'peace loving nations of the world' and on screen we see flags flying closely together, including the Soviet flag. There is plenty more regarding "the world" doing this and doing that, along with images to reinforce the narration. Are you blind to the methods of propaganda, and / or the point of view the vid comes from?

Don't get me wrong: The Nazis and their sympathizers needed to be smashed into oblivion, and Germany beaten to a pulp, then kept in a chokehold for a bit, in order to end the threat of a militaristic Germany for good. Ditto for Japan. This required continued Allied cooperation -- temporary as it was. But including the Soviets in 'peace loving nations of the world' is almost farcical propaganda, and one only has to go back a few years to find examples of most of the major "Allies", including ourselves (See: Philippines & Spanish-American War) doing some rather questionable (at best) things.

For that matter, we the USA in alliance with, among others, some of our old partners, have taken very dubious actions in our recent past (Libya, Syria). For now I will set all that aside.

However, the issue of "empire" as you define it -- and I will for the moment accept your definition -- is not necessarily the same as that of one world government, which is then not the same as the issue of globalism or empire. Setting "empire" per your definition aside as well, we still have one world government and globalism to be cognizant of.

To miss the obvious agendas of several parts of the 2nd vid is just, like I said... blind, at best.

Now, as to America's overall role in the world, yes America as a PEOPLE have generally steered away from empire building, over-entangling alliances, one world government, loss of sovereignity, and more recently, globalism (Thank you George Washington!). I agree that in general we HAVE supported freedom and self-government, even when at times the people we intended to help were not ready for such (See, IRAQ, recently, and some would argue, Philippines, after WW2.) However, considerable numbers of the "elites" have always pushed in one or more of those negative directions I mentioned: Empire, over-entangling alliances, one world government, loss of sovereignity, and more recently, globalism. This sadly includes most of our recent Presidents, to one degree or another. At certain points, large chunks of the population have been swayed in some of those ways too ("Manifest Destiny" and Philippines again come to to mind as an example. "Open borders" is another.) Even today, how many lib / Dem voters support, in effect, loss of sovereignity and a sort of subjugation to the world as a whole? We must steer away from those things, but isolationism is a fool's path as well.

I might say I view America sort of like my wife: She is not perfect, but I love her dearly, would die for her, and IMO there is no better. :-)

In closing, getting back to the vids, both present a lot of fascinating and useful information, but both also are incomplete, and come at the viewer from particular points of view, which then one should try to take realistically and objectively into account. One might say, it is possible to read too much between the lines, and it is possible to see too little between the lines.

Have a good day.

[familyop]

I agree with Paul R. on his whole comment #22 except maybe the mention of Syria. Allowing the forming nuclear-capable axis to gain a stronger foothold there would be a strategic error in my opinion. At the same time, getting involved in Syria was not a happy thing. There are negative consequences either way.

[Paul R.]

I am not sure we could have entirely avoided involvement, sooner or later, in Syria. But I do think it should have been handled differently - which is a whole ‘nother discussion!

[BroJoeK]

Paul R.: "I most certainly DID watch both entire vids. Go to near the end of the 2nd vid "

There's only one video link at the beginning of this thread.
It says nothing about "peace loving nations".

Paul R.: "But including the Soviets in 'peace loving nations of the world' is almost farcical propaganda, "

Agreed, but that was not in the video linked at the beginning of this thread.

Paul R.: " Setting "empire" per your definition aside as well, we still have one world government and globalism to be cognizant of.
To miss the obvious agendas of several parts of the 2nd vid is just, like I said... blind, at best."

I know nothing about a second video.
Where was that posted?

Paul R.: "I might say I view America sort of like my wife: She is not perfect, but I love her dearly, would die for her, and IMO there is no better. :-)"

{sigh}

[Paul R.]

I know nothing about a second video. Where was that posted?

Oh, for Heaven's sake. Post #2, in this thread, posted by familyop, who I was responding to (not the OP.)

If you're going to jump in & attack Freepers having a discussion, you might do well to consider that in these discussions FReepers OFTEN reference additional sources of information pertinent to the discussion, and often the discussion becomes as much or more about the added info. than the original post...

[BroJoeK]

So you guys tried to hijack this thread with a totally unrelated subject, and now you refuse to apologize for blowing smoke up everyone’s caboose?

Have a great day, sir.

[Paul R.]

Hello “Argument Clinic”.

familyop challenged an assertion made in the presentation / description on You Tube of the 1st vid, and contributed additional information. Others (including the OP!!) got to discussing the larger context and related issues, and YOU call that hijacking the thread and blowing smoke up everyone’s caboose?

Fai Mao, if you object to my part in the larger discussion about WW1 and WW2, then let me know and I will apologize.

Otherwise it is BroJoeK who should apologize for attacking FReepers having an interesting and not even really contentious discussion, compared to many on FR — until he / she / it came along.

I think we know who “blew up the thread”.

[Paul R.]

BTW, back to more like the original discussion, what is the opinion by FReepers of the effect of the reparations that were demanded of Germany by the Allies after WW1? Did they help create an environment conducive to extremism in Germany?

[Fai Mao]

I have have enjoyed reading the replies

I don’t post politics on FR instead focusing on cultural and historical things (Asian movies the like)

History avocational for me since my training is library cataloging and educational philosophy.

[Paul R.]

Thanks. And... Cool!

[BroJoeK]

Paul R.: "I think we know who “blew up the thread”."

A cleverer man than I would have noticed your comments referred to the second link, the one from post #2 above.
So the first real thread comment was your post #3 referring not to Fai Mao's very interesting video, but to something else entirely.

I've never before seen a thread hijacked like that in it's first two posts -- wow!
Pardon my assumptions.

[familyop]

You might be interested in this one posted by me yesterday.

Pinkerton: Learning the Right Lesson of World War I on Its 100th Anniversary
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3705091/posts

Here’s the link to the full article. It was well written, in my opinion.

https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2018/11/11/pinkerton-learning-the-right-lesson-of-world-war-i-on-its-100th-anniversary/

[familyop]

"BTW, back to more like the original discussion, what is the opinion by FReepers of the effect of the reparations that were demanded of Germany by the Allies after WW1? Did they help create an environment conducive to extremism in Germany?"

I'm *not* implying anything about you, but that argument has been written by neo-Nazis. But even so, I don't discount it completely. It did give the Nazis something to complain about. Other questions in the search for causes might be, "Would the extremism have found its way into government, if the reparations hadn't been demanded? Would the Beer Hall Putsch have happened? When did Hitler start trying to gather support from others for his beliefs?"

[BroJoeK]

Paul R.: " BTW, back to more like the original discussion, what is the opinion by FReepers of the effect of the reparations that were demanded of Germany by the Allies after WW1?
Did they help create an environment conducive to extremism in Germany?"

Extremism had no hold on Germans until the Great Depression made millions desperate.
Even then Nazis never achieved a majority in free elections.

As for reparations, Germany only ever paid one year -- the first year -- in their own hard currency, gold, etc.
After that they tried to pay with inflated money and so ruined their economy.
So American financiers stepped in to loan Germany money to pay their reparations, a deal which worked well until... until... well, until roughly the summer of 1929.
Then, iirc, American financiers became p*ssed off at increased German military spending and refused to loan them more money to pay reparations.
The result was Germans stopped paying reparations to Britain & France, whose markets quickly collapsed causing what is known as "Black Friday" on Wall Street, October 24, 1929.

But the fact is that many Allied leaders understood on November 11, 1918 that Germany's request for armistice was just a 20 year cease-fire, after which they'd return for Round Two.
Reparations or no reparations didn't matter, nothing would stop Germans from another try at the Victory they came so close to in 1914.

That's the reason in 1942 President Roosevelt insisted the only acceptable outcome for the Second World War was Germanys Unconditional Surrender.
FDR wanted to make d*mn sure they'd never start a Third.