The appeasers of Fascism were the politicians of the right.

Well, here are my final words on it, then, too: The Soviet-Nazi Pact of August 1939.

And whether you want to quibble about the semantic differences between, say, the UK Labour Party policy calling for the unilateral “disarmament” of the West or Labour’s George Lansbury trying to get Britain out of the war in 1939, versus Chamberlain’s attempts at “appeasing” Hitler, it was the Conservatives who led Britain through the war and included Labour’s Attlee and Greenwood in the War Cabinet.

My memory of researching this a while back is that in a speech he made in 1936/7, after becoming Opposition Leader, in criicising the them government’s imperial defence policyCurtin argued that Australia’s best contribution to Imperial defence was through ensuringthat it could defend itself so that it would not be a burden on the rest of the Empire and that in doing so it should build up its defence industries and that he mentioned the manufacture of aircraft as part of this. It’s a while back but I have a vague recolection that the speech was in reply to the then government’s budget speech.

Mr and Mrs Howard, their son Richard, their daughter Melanie and her husband Rowan McDonald dined with Mr Bush, his wife Laura, Mr Bush’s daughter Jena and her fiance.

Plenty of “networking opportunities”, I’m sure.

In 1940, the German blitzkrieg — not so much the Stukas as such, they were too short-ranged to do much work across the Channel — was indeed feared in Britain: that’s why the British referred to the Blitz. I could go on and on (and on) about this but won’t Oh, but I can refer interested readers to a couple of relevant posts on my blog: http://airminded.org/2006/11/21/spain-and-the-aeroplane/ and http://airminded.org/2007/06/20/from-blitzkrieg-to-blitz/ — I’d apologise again for the off-topicness but I suppose it would be less convincing this time around

Thanks to Eliot & Paul B for conducting a debate with plenty of concrete examples and conclusions. No thanks at all to Katz & Kim, who fire off a few insults and seem to think that’s a good minute’s work. It doesn’t wash with me, at least.

I think it’s very germane to consider what happened in Europpe and around the globe in the 1930s, and the actions and words of the participants in those years. We now have the benefit of an extra 70 years of biography, archival digging, newly available material, reconsideration of attitudes etc. No final answers, but much more to sift through and consider. Eliot and Paul have done so; good on you both.

It’s just as germane to consider what Australian politicians and people did during (say) 1930-1950.

In considering the Indochina conflicts which touched us in the 1960s and 1970s, and touch us still, it’s germane to consider what France, USSR, China, Thailand, SEATO, USA, Australia, etc were doing…. and useful (I think) to try and keep an open mind. There are trials going on in Cambodia right now of several top Khmer Rouge (KR) “leaders”. The shambles and bloodshed of the DRK “government” they led was “situated” in both regional and international contexts, during the Cold War. But the DRV and PRG leaderships didn’t behave like Pol Pot’s crew. Why not? I think we need to know. The better to understand our region. The better to avoid murderous outcomes in the future. There were Aussies who applauded the KR victory in April 1975. At what point did those Aussies realise the dream had nightmarish nuances? IMHO, it’s one thing to scoff at predictions of a “Red bloodbath”; quite another to come to terms with a bloodbath when it unfolds in an isolated far-off land under the control of a secretive regime.

Eliot and Paul can see some parallels between old history and current history. Why others see this topic as an opportunity to fling insults, I can’t fathom. Several months ago on another thread I foolishly opined that KPD members in Germany in the 1930’s had acted as cat’s paws of Stalin. Herr Katz (Frau Katz?) leapt to their defence. I still don’t understand why.

auf wiedersehen

Thats my understanding too, Condor legion and (in latter stages Stukas) was extremely effective - in fact, Franco may not have been the goods without it.

But by 1941, would the Brits also have had the fall of France in mind? Stukas wrought absolute havoc in the that (short) battle.

I haven’t read Marwick’s book, but I understand it deals with the 60s in Britain.

No, it deals with Britain, the USA, France and Italy. And the ALP was no more “avowedly socialist” under Whitlam than under his protege Keating.

The sorts of major social transformations and social and political movements you mention, including the anti-war movement, feminism, black rights and environmental battles, “just to mention some of the issues”, largely originated in the USA. No social democrats there, buddy.

As Marwick’s book makes perfectly clear, these were very complex movements where much of the initiative was taken by prosperous, educated, liberal-leaning urbanites.

Oddly, some of the more avowedly Marxist or otherwise socialist adventures of the time, for example the UK Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), petered out after a while, though bits and pieces of their rhetoric and symbolism were picked up by student-based movements like the anti-Vietnam war movement.

In fact, the major engines for lasting social change, especially those focussed on young people, were invariably centred around private enterprise regardless of whether it was in the USA, the UK or elsewhere - recording studios, publishing, the fashion industry, the arts, films.

This is not to say socialists and various marxisant offshoots weren’t a part of the action. But they weren’t decisive. Or even dominant.

Take the Civil Rights movement in the USA. Or indeed the early Aboriginal rights movement in Australia. People like Martin Luther King weren’t socialist. Charlie Perkins AO wasn’t a socialist, and expressly based his early campaigns not on socialist models but the US civil rights movement.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Perkins

Black labour unions in the USA which pushed for improved conditions for sanitation workers weren’t socialist. The anti-segregation ‘Freedom Riders’ weren’t socialist.

You refer to Whitlam’s “achievements (having) become too engrained in our society.”

Well, Australia isn’t socialist - and never was.

While Australia was voting on the 1967 Referendum on Aboriginal citizenship (not under Labour) socialism in Poland was eliminating the final remnants of its Jews.

That sort of thing at the time didn’t feature prominently as a concern with left wing groups in Australia, but they could nonetheless rev themselves into a frenzy about segregation in Alabama.

Sometimes I miss that guilt-ridden, self-torturing ultra-montanist.

But, on the other hand, I guess he had to stop it before he went blind.

Capitalising appeasement as a Policy is not the only egregiously false point crammed into this 20 word sentence. I count at least two others. Can you find more? First one with the correct answer wins a peppermint bullseye.

“Does this all sound familiar?”

It certainly does. Can anyone else think of a former commentator here who’d take seriously googled historical data, fling it through a burning hoop of sophistry and then blame his interlocutors for the straw man that flops smouldering to the ground at his feet?

I’m starting to suspect that you’re actually Dolly Downer. Too much time on your hands and historical “understanding” characterised only by a desire to score silly partisan points.