Quote:
Originally Posted by cmac2012
Man, you have a real way of convoluting a train of thought.
The near extermination of Native Americans was indeed a sad and ugly chapter in world history. It was also sorta inevitable, I'm afraid. It wasn't just a clash of cultures, it was a clash of eras. I used to think it was a shame the Europeans couldn't have been more tolerant of native populations but I now see it wasn't going to happen. The natives required vast tracts of land for their nomadic life and land hungry Europeans and their superior weaponry were too, well, land hungry. Natives were not going to willingly cede the land they felt was there's.
Some think that many natives died from small pox, etc. without any tainted blankets being given them. Explorers reported finding empty villages, lived in not long previous. Some small contact with Euros years or months before had been enough to plant various deadly diseases which most Europeans had immunity to, unlike Natives.
France would have been unable to replicate the North American Euro example in Vietnam even if they'd wanted to. Vietnam's population was far, larger, French people were not emigrating in droves to Vietnam, and Vietnam had a much more cohesive culture than Native Americans, none of whom had even a decent written language. North America was a collection of warring tribes that would have made current Afg. look civilized.
Point being, the Americas under Britain were much different that Vietnam under the French. We find it perfectly fitting, proper, and laudable that our founders threw off the Brits, with whom they shared much culture, but many apparently don't get that the Vietnamese would be equally, if not way more eager to throw off the French who were utterly foreign.
Vietnamese atrocities as outlined by Jasper and others were awful, no getting around it. But some culpability is due the French, who provided an enormous irritant among nationalists, and divided the country into sympathizers and rebels.
As for Jasper being only one man, and not the entire JBS, oh golly, I'm a beaten man all right. He didn't get to be the senior editor of the JBS house organ for decades by being a loner. His words clearly had the backing of many Birchers, else he'd have been out long ago.
uno más tiempo, THE QUOTE MARKS WERE YOURS. I never claimed to be quoting anyone word for word. Such hair splitting is desperate. He denigrated Patti and his assertions. Is that better? Jeez . . .
As for Jasper's opinion on the French being the rightful rulers:
With OSS hands like General Philip Gallagher, Colonel Edward Lansdale, George Sheldon, Major Archimedes Patti, and Major William Stevens helping him from one side, and Stalin helping from the other, Ho was in a very strong position to take on the French, who were weakened from the war and were undermined at every turn by the same pro-Communist forces in our State Department and the OSS who were at that very time preparing China for turnover to Mao Zedong.
He's crying that the French were having difficulty hanging onto their most prized colonial possession. What, Vietnamese nationalists were villains for wishing to garner enough strength to oust the French? The French were brutal overlords in most all their colonies from what I can gather.
Jasper is a whack job lunatic supremacist - perfectly suited to be a high mucky muck and chief SPOKESDUDE for the Birchers.
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“Man, you have a real way of convoluting a train of thought.”
I’m just following where you are leading if the convolutions bother you stop making them!
So when you stated “He makes it clear that he believes that France was the rightful ruler of Vietnam around the end of WW2.”
You divined that from Jasper’s analysis that Ho’s position was enhanced by pro-communists and Stalin vis a vis’ that the French had been weakened from war?
I mean you’ve opined “He (Jasper) makes it clear that he believes that France was the rightful ruler of Vietnam around the end of WW2” and you’ve provided this excerpt, and now added “He's crying that the French were having difficulty hanging onto their most prized colonial possession.”:
“With OSS hands like General Philip Gallagher, Colonel Edward Lansdale, George Sheldon, Major Archimedes Patti, and Major William Stevens helping him from one side, and Stalin helping from the other, Ho was in a very strong position to take on the French, who were weakened from the war and were undermined at every turn by the same pro-Communist forces in our State Department and the OSS who were at that very time preparing China for turnover to Mao Zedong”
Reading the words in the excerpt you’ve provided is there any word or words that suggest the “clear” position you attribute to Jasper? Is there a single word that could be construed to mean that in Jasper’s mind there existed any thought of France’s position ruling Vietnam rightfully or not? What words can be construed to mean that Jasper was “crying” when he states that” Ho was in a very strong position to take on the French, who were weakened from the war and undermined at every turn”? Any honest reading of not only the literal wording but the overall tone shows that Jasper makes not a single comment on the value or lack thereof with regard to French colonial fetishes!
And when you further opined “France was to Vietnam much as Britain was to the American colonies in the late 18th century with one big exception. The Brits founded and peopled much of the American colonies whereas France just waltzed in and exploited Vietnam.”
Had nothing to do with the prior sentence in that paragraph and your contention of Jasper’s “clear” position on French rule. You where actually, simply and unrelated, attempting to juxtapose the perceived dichotomy of America colonial revolutionaries to Vietnamese colonial revolutionaries in the twisted minds of unenlightened Americans!
“Point being, the Americas under Britain were much different that Vietnam under the French. We find it perfectly fitting, proper, and laudable that our founders threw off the Brits, with whom they shared much culture, but many apparently don't get that the Vietnamese would be equally, if not way more eager to throw off the French who were utterly foreign.”
When you made the earlier statement “The John Birchers called Patti a stooge and a dim-witted pawn of Ho. I don't buy it. Patti wasn't the greatest writer (his book badly needed professional editing IMO, his daughter did it instead IIRC) but his account of Ho makes sense to me and rings true in the light of history.
You actually meant an article was written in a JBS publication where the author “denigrated” Patti and his assertions rather than “The John Birchers called Patti a stooge and a dim-witted pawn of Ho.”?
THE QUOTE MARKS WERE YOURS
No one ever assumed you where actually quoting anyone word for word, I placed quote marks around your words, mischaracterizations they have been shown to be.