# Traitors Whom History Has Forgotten



## kamalayka

I pick John Tyler, 10th President of the Unired States.

Wikipedia:

_ "Tyler's death was the only one in presidential history not to be officially recognized in Washington, because of his allegiance to the Confederacy. He had requested a simple burial, but Confederate President Jefferson Davis and his fellows delivered a grand, politically pointed funeral, painting Tyler as a hero to the Confederacy." 
_


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## PetrB

In American history, Benedict Arnold's name is eponymous for "Traitor."

In British history, since Arnold was only being true to King and Country, he is a hero.

Context is everything.

A reminder, too, that most historic accounting is infamously written _by those who prevailed_.

In this case, America 'prevailed' but Britain also continued to prevail (just not in that one group of colonies) - ergo, the two polarized portraits of Mr. Arnold


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## KenOC

When John Tyler was president, there was no "confederacy." He was a staunch supporter of states rights (over the central government) as were many others and, in fact, many today. In late life he sided with the Confederate States, as did millions of others. We usually do not call them "traitors."


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## Cnote11

Composers who failed to push music forward and innovate.


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## Cnote11

Well, they weren't forgotten (actually, they were the only ones remembered), but they are traitors!


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## Flamme

Everything is in the eyes of beholder...Beauty ugliness good or evil...


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## Kopachris

History will probably forget Julian Assange. He's not officially a traitor, but is often likened to one. Whether what he helped do is right or not, I always tend to like whistleblowers.


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## Flamme

I think hes a fake trojan horse probably unleashed by same ppl who are ''against him'' the CIA


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## quack

I see your petty political traitors and raise you Thomas Midgley, Jr. planetary traitor. Who "had more impact on the atmosphere than any other single organism in Earth's history."


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## violadude

Kopachris said:


> History will probably forget Julian Assange. He's not officially a traitor, but is often likened to one. Whether what he helped do is right or not, I always tend to like whistleblowers.


I think who is really already forgotten by many in this situation is Bradly Manning. Don't get me wrong, I like Assange, but Manning is the guy who actually gave him the information. Assange just posted it on his website. And Bradly Manning is still being detained for his "crime" even to this day. And with stories from Guantanamo Bay having been exposed, who knows what they are doing to him .


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## Flamme

I think history wasnt fair to this guy...
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/487555/Vidkun-Quisling


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## Renaissance

Most traitors are well-grounded with high positions and glory in history...because history belongs to them.


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## Lunasong

Flamme said:


> I think history wasnt fair to this guy...
> http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/487555/Vidkun-Quisling


Why do you say that? If anything, his traitorous acts have been overshadowed only by more heinous crimes of that era.


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## Flamme

Well if one cannot defeat the stronger enemy who is ready to use methods of genocide if provoked one should pretend to work with him or cooperate in some things so the majority of his country would be spared of persecution...


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## samurai

He sold out his own people to the Nazis instead of joining the many courageous Norwegians who continued to fight in the underground and risk their lives; by definition, anyone who continued to oppose them would have been "persecuted", if not killed outright. What history are you reading, anyway?


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## Flamme

Im not sure you can find he has ''sold'' one norwgian man to nazis he sold the jews true...Which i condemn...
Dude my grandfather was in german camp for officers i know many things from first hands he was not mistreated tehre cause he was a pilot and he worked in one german family...His brother fought germans as a pilot in elgrade attack in 1941 took three of tehir planes down ald later saved 10 ally pilots in his operative zone as a commander who were later transported to West in operation Halyardhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Halyard He is even mentioned here...
...I dont like nazism but im sad communism wasnt smashed in the same round cause it devastated my country more than nazism..


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## Lunasong

I think you have your history wrong. Quisling urged the Nazis to occupy Norway, he instituted programs to force teachers and ministers to promote Nazi doctrine from their schools and pulpits, and he was held responsible for the deaths of over 1000 Norwegian Jews and other "undesirables" in concentration camps.
http://www.joancutuly.com/norway.htm

Read more about the Norwegian Resistance movement here:
http://www.ppu.org.uk/learn/infodocs/nvww2/ww2_nonviolence_norway1.html


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## Flamme

Im just sayin it wasnt all so black and white...Northern countries lived in fear of soviet attack in that time and Nazis used it...


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## SiegendesLicht

Flamme said:


> ...I dont like nazism but im sad communism wasnt smashed in the same round ...


I can't give you as many likes as that comment deserves.


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## Flamme

> Lieutenant Colonel Todor Gogić, commander of the Morava group Corps sent a radiogram to Mihailović on 17 April:
> " On 15 April at about 11 hours, due to engine failure, a B-24 Liberator with a crew of 10 made an emergency landing near the village of Drenovac south of Paraćin. We managed to rescue nine crew members from the Germans and Bulgarians, but one airmen was captured. The crew is from the 861st Squadron, 460th bomber group.[7]


And this brave guy who came back from Egypt where he went to fight in RAF here to fight both nazis and communists, guywho was pro democracy and capitalism was killed by the communist partisans in that way we dont know till today when he was killed by whom and where his bones lie...


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## violadude

I understand how "communism" went bad under certain leaders and regimes, but in theory it's not nearly as bad compared to Nazism in theory. Also, communism never actually existed yet in the industrial era.


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## Flamme

Well coming from a country which had a mild communism comparing to USSSR i can tell you that ''ideal communism'' will end up in class less society of total justice and good will some sort of paradise...But roads to Hell are paved with good intentions...


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## violadude

Flamme said:


> Well coming from a country which had a mild communism comparing to USSSR i can tell you that ''ideal communism'' will end up in class less society of total justice and good will some sort of paradise...But roads to Hell are paved with good intentions...


Well...ideal communism is definitely possible because it has basically existed before in the indigenous tribes of the United States and Australia. It's a complicated situation though for sure and I don't agree with communist regimes that take over other countries. I'd be interested in researching exactly what happened in your country in regards to it's relationship to the USSR.


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## Flamme

Communist YU had its own special brand of communism...With western help...


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## violadude

Flamme said:


> Communist YU had its own special brand of communism...With western help...


Communist YU? What does that refer to?


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## Cnote11

violadude said:


> Well...ideal communism is definitely possible because it has basically existed before in the indigenous tribes of the United States and Australia. It's a complicated situation though for sure and I don't agree with communist regimes that take over other countries. I'd be interested in researching exactly what happened in your country in regards to it's relationship to the USSR.


Eh, egalitarianism is seen in all food foraging and small band type societies. I don't know if I'd call it communism through Marx's vision, because there was no conversion of capitalistic means of production for use of society as a whole. I guess perhaps it shows partially that people can live that way, but I think a big part of communism is going from Point A (Capitalism) to Point B (Communism). Can society do that? I suppose it remains to be seen.


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## violadude

Cnote11 said:


> Eh, egalitarianism is seen in all food foraging and small band type societies. I don't know if I'd call it communism through Marx's vision, because there was no conversion of capitalistic means of production for use of society as a whole. I guess perhaps it shows partially that people can live that way, but I think a big part of communism is going from Point A (Capitalism) to Point B (Communism). Can society do that? I suppose it remains to be seen.


Ya true, there are aspects about Marxism that aren't pertinent to those cultures but as far as I can tell some of the general principles regarding the human nature and such from a communist perspective is seen there (i.e. humans not necessarily needing to be driven by competition or money to work). But ya, point A to point B would be a real struggle if possible.


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## Crudblud

I wish it weren't the case that the majority must necessarily conflate communism with totalitarianism. The so called communist states of our time do not represent communism, they represent only the propensity for corruption among human beings who are raised above their fellows. Note that I am not a communist, I just wish people would recognise that communism is not the inherently evil threat it was made out to be in the 1950s.


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## Flamme

violadude said:


> Communist YU? What does that refer to?


Commmunist Yugoslavia...


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## violadude

Flamme said:


> Commmunist Yugoslavia...


Ok, that's what I thought. Just making sure. Well ya, Westerners help out with a lot of those kinds of things. Saddam Hussein's dictatorship in Iraq was a special brand of dictatorship with western help too!

On that note, can I consider the USA to be a traitor to democracy?


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## SiegendesLicht

Crudblud said:


> I wish it weren't the case that the majority must necessarily conflate communism with totalitarianism. The so called communist states of our time do not represent communism, they represent only the propensity for corruption among human beings who are raised above their fellows. Note that I am not a communist, I just wish people would recognise that communism is not the inherently evil threat it was made out to be in the 1950s.


So, how many social experiments more have to be carried out, until the communist ideal will finally be achieved? Provided that human beings are essentially always the same and always have the potential for corruption?

I have already said this a hundred times, I know, but if a certail social model has been tried many times in different cultures and under different conditions, and it has failed every single time, because it does not take into account the human nature and its corruptability, it's only reasonable to admit that it's not working.


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## violadude

SiegendesLicht said:


> So, how many social experiments more have to be carried out, until the communist ideal will finally be achieved? Provided that human beings are essentially always the same and always have the potential for corruption?


Isn't life itself a social experiment?


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## SiegendesLicht

violadude said:


> Isn't life itself a social experiment?


Maybe, but I still don't like the idea of some government experimenting on *me*. My favorite, (though a very sad one) example of a failed communist experiment is East and West Germany. One nation, with the same culture, speaking the same language, which was divided in two halves by a wall, and the communist paradise was attempted to be built in one of them. *Those people risked their lives in order to escape from that "paradise"! *


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## Crudblud

SiegendesLicht said:


> So, how many social experiments more have to be carried out, until the communist ideal will finally be achieved? Provided that human beings are essentially always the same and always have the potential for corruption?


If you mean to say that communism is too idealistic, then I would agree with you, but let's not pretend things are any better now, capitalism is certainly not corruption proof and the "democracy" we have in the western world is not a pure paragon of fair governance. Basically what I'm saying is that when you put the few in charge of the majority you will always end up in the same position, and since from an anthropological standpoint it is the few that tend towards dominance, the corruption we're talking about may as well be inborn.


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## violadude

SiegendesLicht said:


> Maybe, but I still don't like the idea of some government experimenting on *me*. My favorite, (though a very sad one) example of a failed communist experiment is East and West Germany. One nation, with the same culture, speaking the same language, which was divided in two halves by a wall, and the communist paradise was attempted to be built in one of them. *Those people risked their lives in order to escape from that "paradise"! *


I think all governments are guilty of experimenting on their people, whether communist or capitalist economies.

But anyway, I haven't looked into the situation in East and West Germany. It's certainly not the most lauded example of communism, even among communists, if it was communism at all.


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## Cnote11

Crudblud said:


> If you mean to say that communism is too idealistic, then I would agree with you, but let's not pretend things are any better now, capitalism is certainly not corruption proof and the "democracy" we have in the western world is not a pure paragon of fair governance. Basically what I'm saying is that when you put the few in charge of the majority you will always end up in the same position, and since from an anthropological standpoint it is the few that tend towards dominance, the corruption we're talking about may as well be inborn.


A lot of people are ignorant of the issues stemming from their espoused form of government because they happen to be on the favorable side of it


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## Cnote11

Also, it didn't help that other countries chose to meddle in the affairs of states trying to set up new forms of government. Many South American countries were demolished by the United States any time they tried to set up a new government. That isn't a very fair shot. We'll see how places like Vietnam do in the next 30 years.


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## SiegendesLicht

Crudblud said:


> If you mean to say that communism is too idealistic, then I would agree with you, but let's not pretend things are any better now, capitalism is certainly not corruption proof and the "democracy" we have in the western world is not a pure paragon of fair governance.


Things are not perfect now of course (and probably will never be), but at least here in Eastern Europe they are much, much better than they used to be under communist government.


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## violadude

SiegendesLicht said:


> I have already said this a hundred times, I know, but if a certail social model has been tried many times in different cultures and under different conditions, and it has failed every single time, because it does not take into account the human nature and its corruptability, it's only reasonable to admit that it's not working.


Well, I don't believe that there is one, unchanging and static "human nature."


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## Cnote11

SiegendesLicht said:


> Things are not perfect now of course (and probably will never be), but at least here in Eastern Europe they are much, much better than they used to be under communist government.


I'd agree to that. If a new form of government is to be set up, one should be quite wary about it and it is the populace's duty to ensure that all the mechanisms needed for a free state are implemented. One should probably be wary of any government claiming to get from x to y overnight, anyway.

Marx always said that it was a process in which capitalism was needed first. He did not support Russia in its revolution.


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## violadude

Cnote11 said:


> I'd agree to that. If a new form of government is to be set up, one should be quite wary about it and it is the populace's duty to ensure that all the mechanisms needed for a free state are implemented. One should probably be wary of any government claiming to get from x to y overnight, anyway.
> 
> Marx always said that it was a process in which capitalism was needed first. He did not support Russia in its revolution.


The October Revolution was a traitor to Karl Marx!  (sorry, just trying to tie this all in with the actual topic haha).


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## KenOC

Cnote11 said:


> Marx always said that it was a process in which capitalism was needed first. He did not support Russia in its revolution.


Perhaps because by that time he had been dead for 30 years...


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## PetrB

violadude said:


> Ok, that's what I thought. Just making sure. Well ya, Westerners help out with a lot of those kinds of things. Saddam Hussein's dictatorship in Iraq was a special brand of dictatorship with western help too!
> 
> On that note, can I consider the USA to be a traitor to democracy?


Yep, stretched that far, a Republic is a 'traitor' to Democracy -- though the Athenian root of democracy was only a 'Democracy' for male landowners, and there, owned slaves were a part of the equation


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## violadude

PetrB said:


> Yep, stretched that far, a Republic is a 'traitor' to Democracy -- though the Athenian root of democracy was only a 'Democracy' for male landowners, and there, owned slaves were a part of the equation


Sometimes it seems to me that the countries/societies that scream egalitarian sentiments the loudest are the ones that least support them in practice.


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## cwarchc

It's difficult to comment on this.
One mans traitor is another mans saviour
Unless you were there at the time, living under the circumstances
How are you qualified to comment
Here's a quote that rings very true on this:
Who controls the past controls the future - who controls the present controls the past


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## Cnote11

KenOC said:


> Perhaps because by that time he had been dead for 30 years...


Marx was well aware of the political situation in Russia and wrote many articles about Russia and foreshadowed their revolution. He laid out why it would fail if they undertook it anytime in the near future and why he would disapprove of a revolution in the near future. You're either trying to be funny or you're ignorant of Marx.


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## KenOC

PetrB said:


> Yep, stretched that far, a Republic is a 'traitor' to Democracy -- though the Athenian root of democracy was only a 'Democracy' for male landowners, and there, owned slaves were a part of the equation


A pretty good descriptipon of the USA when it was established! But we might as well say that Democracy is a traitor to the Republic. In those days, "democracy" was pretty much a pejorative word; the term "mobocracy" was often used in its place. After all, if the people in general had direct control of the government, they might do all sorts of selfish and foolish things. As de Toqueville said, "The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money."

Well, we all know that can never happen! :lol:


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## violadude

Cnote11 said:


> Marx was well aware of the political situation in Russia and *wrote many articles about Russia and foreshadowed their revolution. He laid out why it would fail if they undertook it anytime in the near future and why he would disapprove of a revolution in the near future.* You're either trying to be funny or you're ignorant of Marx.











...............


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## moody

Flamme said:


> I think history wasnt fair to this guy...
> http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/487555/Vidkun-Quisling


I don't understand your point of view,he was disgusting and beyond the pale.


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## Vaneyes

Tyler, one in a string of eight flunkies, until Abe was elected.


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## KenOC

Vaneyes said:


> Tyler, one in a string of eight flunkies, until Abe was elected.


Are you including Polk in your list of flunkies? He vowed to be a one-term president and kept that promise. But in his four years (to quote from Borneman's biography): "He fought for and won tariff reductions, reestablished an independent Treasury, brought Texas into the Union, bluffed Great Britain out of the lion's share of Oregon, and wrested California and much of the Southwest from Mexico." In fact, he doubled the nation's size, even taking the earlier Louisiana Purchase into account.

True, there was that bit of nastiness with Mexico, but I haven't heard many calls lately to return their property. In any event, hardly a "flunky"!


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## Cnote11

He ruined America by acquiring all those territories. I'm with Vaneyes.


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## samurai

violadude said:


> Ok, that's what I thought. Just making sure. Well ya, Westerners help out with a lot of those kinds of things. Saddam Hussein's dictatorship in Iraq was a special brand of dictatorship with western help too!
> 
> On that note, can I consider the USA to be a traitor to democracy?


We've helped a lot of dictatorships whom we thought would work for and be to our own benefit, as have most world powers throughout history. I belive the appropriate term for this is realpolitik or geo-politics, take your pick. In either case/definition, it all comes down to *power* *and influence. 
*As PetrB so aptly pointed out, there is no such thing either as "pure democracy", except maybe in one of the ancient Greek city-states. On any larger scale, it would prove to be too chaotic, almost to the point of anarchy. So, as always, we--both as a nation and as individuals-- are left with the choice of the "lesser of two evils".


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## samurai

Flamme said:


> Im not sure you can find he has ''sold'' one norwgian man to nazis he sold the jews true...Which i condemn...
> Dude my grandfather was in german camp for officers i know many things from first hands he was not mistreated tehre cause he was a pilot and he worked in one german family...His brother fought germans as a pilot in elgrade attack in 1941 took three of tehir planes down ald later saved 10 ally pilots in his operative zone as a commander who were later transported to West in operation Halyardhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Halyard He is even mentioned here...
> ...I dont like nazism but im sad communism wasnt smashed in the same round cause it devastated my country more than nazism..


And--pray tell--exactly by whom was the smashing to be done? The Western Allies by the end of WW 2 were exhausted, both physically and financially. As well, please let's not forget that Soviet Russia {no matter what we think of her in later years due to her domination and brutalization of Eastern Europe etc., etc.}, was still an *ally* of ours.


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## Flamme

KenOC said:


> A pretty good descriptipon of the USA when it was established! *But we might as well say that Democracy is a traitor to the Republic.* In those days, "democracy" was pretty much a pejorative word; the term "mobocracy" was often used in its place. After all, if the people in general had direct control of the government, they might do all sorts of selfish and foolish things. As de Toqueville said, "The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money."
> 
> Well, we all know that can never happen! :lol:


Monarchy rulez!


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## Ukko

I am pretty sure that Quisling did not rationalize his actions along the lines _Flamme_ uses. Quisling was a Norwegian Nazi, as were a lot of his countrymen. His ideology accepted the 'necessity of breaking some eggs' to make the National Socialist omelet. I think he considered the Germans to be helping him at least as much as he was helping them.


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## Flamme

If gerries were so bad in Scandinavia how do you explain mighty Thors hammer Wiking Panzer Division
http://www.wiking.org/topics/history.htm




Made up of volunteers from northern countries who fought bravely than regular german units with motto...''First in last out''...


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## moody

Flamme said:


> If gerries were so bad in Scandinavia how do you explain mighty Thors hammer Wiking Panzer Division
> http://www.wiking.org/topics/history.htm
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Made up of volunteers from northern countries who fought bravely than regular german units with motto...''First in last out''...


They were Waffen SS, many European countries supplied SS units to the Nazis.
I am happy to say that the British did not .although we had the traitor known as Lord Haw Haw,he made defeatist broadcasts to Britain---and was later executed!!


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## cwarchc

Sorry moody, don't want to sound pedantic, but I think you'll find we contributed with:
The Legion of St. George of Britisches Freikorps



moody said:


> They were Waffen SS, many European countries supplied SS units to the Nazis.
> I am happy to say that the British did not .although we had the traitor known as Lord Haw Haw,he made defeatist broadcasts to Britain---and was later executed!!


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## Flamme

Hmm you had pretty strong nazi party and few aristos supported that cause
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/martin-bright/2007/12/unity-mitford-home-hitler-war


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## elgar's ghost

cwarchc said:


> Sorry moody, don't want to sound pedantic, but I think you'll find we contributed with:
> The Legion of St. George of Britisches Freikorps


Good point, but they were previously prisoners of war and at its 'height' never got even close to three figures. No doubt a few volunteered but as they were prisoners perhaps there was the fear of what their fate might be as Germany's situation got even worse, especially if the camp they were in was staffed by the SS. That said, it could be argued that their fate could be equally uncertain if they volunteered and were subsequently captured by the Red Army. Towards the end of the conflict the SS in their desperation were scraping together units from all kinds of disparate sources - in 1939 they wouldn't have countenanced organising a brigade consisting of Balkan moslems but this is exactly what happened. I'm not excusing the UK and Commonwealth men who did join (some maintained that they considered it a chance to spy for the UK) but as the SS tried to recruit from all Allied prisoners I think the very small number who did volunteer is to the UK and Commonwealth's credit bearing in mind the total amount of men who were in captivity.


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## SiegendesLicht

samurai said:


> And--pray tell--exactly by whom was the smashing to be done? The Western Allies by the end of WW 2 were exhausted, both physically and financially. As well, please let's not forget that Soviet Russia {no matter what we think of her in later years due to her domination and brutalization of Eastern Europe etc., etc.}, was still an *ally* of ours.


As well, please let's not forget that before Hitler decided to attack Soviet Russia, he and Stalin were best buddies who made an agreement on dividing Europe between them and whose troops conducted military parades together. In fact, I am not sure Hitler would have proceeded with his war plans in 1939 at all, if he was not sure the Russians would stand by him and supply the Reich with thousands of tons of oil and other materials necessary for war. Of course Stalin would be very pleased to see the Western countries tear each other to pieces. The Soviets have never been allies of the West, and they would not have taken its side in the war if they had not been attacked themselves.


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## Flamme

In the bulls eye...In my country local communists didnt lift a finger against german invaders till the Fat lady sang in Soviet Union...There were of communists sabotage military industry and call for resistance against government efforts in France to strengthten its defense


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## moody

cwarchc said:


> Sorry moody, don't want to sound pedantic, but I think you'll find we contributed with:
> The Legion of St. George of Britisches Freikorps


They were prisoners of war from the UK and the Dominions who were recruited. they amounted at any one time to 27 persons, no doubt this had a big effect on the German war effort.
The British Nazi party was run by Sir Oswald Moseley in the 1930's. Once Hitler started invading countries support more or less vanished. By 1940 Moseley and his core supporters were locked up for the duration
I was born in 1938 and there was no discussion after the war about British Nazis,but you must remember that the idea of National Socialism seemed to be worth looking at until the truth was seen.
I have just learned that Lord Haw Haw was actually born in New York.
I was invited to a party at a big hall in Dallas in the 1970's that turned out to be the local Nazi Party, they were all dressed up in SS uniforns---quite a shock! But of course there is a huge German background population in Texas.


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## Ukko

moody said:


> [...]
> I was invited to a party at a big hall in Dallas in the 1970's that turned out to be the local Nazi Party, they were all dressed up in SS uniforns---quite a shock! But of course there is a huge German background population in Texas.


Hah! Reliving the glory, eh?

I worked in Houston and Dallas/Ft.Worth in the '80s. There was significant freely expressed racial/ethnic bigotry around at that time. The Master Race concept would fit in well.

The mindset was probably little different from that in other places; the difference may have been that Texans are big on 'speaking their minds'.


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## cwarchc

As I mentioned earlier in the thread, the point on who is a traitor and who is a saviour all depends on were you are, and what situation you are in.
My father was one of the "Untermensch" he always maintained that Churchill was a traitor to his people, by placating Stalin. 
No Polish servicemen were present at the 1946 victory parade in London, to them the war didn't end until the fall of the USSR in 1989, ending 50 years of occupation and repression
This just shows that one of Britain's lionised heros is somebody else's monster.
It's too easy for people to judge. 
Nobody knows how they would have reacted, if they were in the same situation?


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## moody

Flamme said:


> Hmm you had pretty strong nazi party and few aristos supported that cause
> http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/martin-bright/2007/12/unity-mitford-home-hitler-war


I have seldom seen such nonsensical tittle-tattle as this article,are you au fait with the New Statesman ?
The Mitfords and their silly upper class gang of hanger -ons were a laughing stock then and their memory still is.
It is interesting to note that the Waffen SS "Kama" Division was recruited from Croatian Muslims because of their hate for Christian Serbs--they commited vile atrocities.
Source: The SS: Hitler's Instrument of Terror.


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## moody

cwarchc said:


> As I mentioned earlier in the thread, the point on who is a traitor and who is a saviour all depends on were you are, and what situation you are in.
> My father was one of the "Untermensch" he always maintained that Churchill was a traitor to his people, by placating Stalin.
> No Polish servicemen were present at the 1946 victory parade in London, to them the war didn't end until the fall of the USSR in 1989, ending 50 years of occupation and repression
> This just shows that one of Britain's lionised heros is somebody else's monster.
> It's too easy for people to judge.
> Nobody knows how they would have reacted, if they were in the same situation?


The Polish servicemen who came here to fight agaist the Nazis were highly regarded and still are,
On Churchill,what would we have done without him---that's the question?


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## Huilunsoittaja

Cnote11 said:


> Composers who failed to push music forward and innovate.


Good one Cnote... I'll remember that...

And I hope to remember to tell Glazunov that when I see him.


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## Guest

kamalayka said:


> I pick John Tyler, 10th President of the Unired States.
> 
> Wikipedia:
> 
> _ "Tyler's death was the only one in presidential history not to be officially recognized in Washington, because of his allegiance to the Confederacy. He had requested a simple burial, but Confederate President Jefferson Davis and his fellows delivered a grand, politically pointed funeral, painting Tyler as a hero to the Confederacy."
> _


I'm curious to know why you would want to launch this thread on a site mainly aimed at discussing classical music? What prompted it?


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## Flamme

Huilunsoittaja said:


> Good one Cnote... I'll remember that...
> 
> And I hope to remember to tell Glazunov that when I see him.


Grey men...Some cause they Must be like that some cause they adjust to the conditions of the like Jim Jones would say in ''inhuman world''...
I dont know why but this reminds me of this rant by WSB


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## Cnote11

Huilunsoittaja said:


> Good one Cnote... I'll remember that...
> 
> And I hope to remember to tell Glazunov that when I see him.


Don't blame me! I'm only relaying user Some Guy's feelings.


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## kamalayka

PetrB said:


> In American history, Benedict Arnold's name is eponymous for "Traitor."
> 
> In British history, since Arnold was only being true to King and Country, he is a hero.
> 
> Context is everything.
> 
> A reminder, too, that most historic accounting is infamously written _by those who prevailed_.
> 
> In this case, America 'prevailed' but Britain also continued to prevail (just not in that one group of colonies) - ergo, the two polarized portraits of Mr. Arnold


Thanks for telling me what I already know.

Still, a British person might praise Arnold, but his status as a traitor is something that can be objectively known. He betrayed the American cause.


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## kamalayka

MacLeod said:


> I'm curious to know why you would want to launch this thread on a site mainly aimed at discussing classical music? What prompted it?


You already answered your own question. By calling it a site _mainly_ aimed at classical music, you imply that there is room for other discussion as well.

Didn't I post it in the right section?


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## Cnote11

Yes



youuuu areeeeeee


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## KenOC

kamalayka said:


> Still, a British person might praise Arnold, but his status as a traitor is something that can be objectively known. He betrayed the American cause.


If the British had won the revolutionary war, neither you nor I would be calling Benedict Arnold a traitor. So I don't think the appelation is strictly "objective."


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## Guest

kamalayka said:


> You already answered your own question. By calling it a site _mainly_ aimed at classical music, you imply that there is room for other discussion as well.
> 
> Didn't I post it in the right section?


That wasn't my question. I'm not a moderator - you can post what you like, where you like, as far as I'm concerned. It's just that this subject is not the first alternative to classical that springs to mind. Discussions about books, films, other music are common enough on specialist forums. "Traitors in history" is somewhat unusual.

So, my question still stands. What prompted you to want to post on this subject?


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## Sid James

I agree with what PetrB said in his first post on this thread. Who or what is a traitor can depend on from which viewpoint one looks at it. In many dictatorships, people who committed treason and war crimes often claimed after that they where doing these things to protect their country. Stuff like that. All for 'love of country,' the usual patriotic cliches. & ironically, those resisting these dictatorships where often branded as traitors and killed for their actions. Now I'd say that those in the resistance where the real patriots and the dictatorships they fought against where the real traitors, not the other way round.

There's an anecdote I recently read about. During the war in Budapest, the Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg worked to save the lives of hundreds (thousands?) of Hungarian Jews. During the war, he had a meeting with Eichmann, mastermind of the final solution. Eichmann argued that Germany would win the war (it was at that stage by far unwinnable for Germany) and other propaganda/jargon. Wallenberg said to him that it was unwinnable, and drew back the curtain of the apartment to reveal the glow of Russian katyusha rockets in the bombardment of a distant area. They where closing in on Budapest fast. With his logic and saying it how it was, Wallenberg demolished Eichmann's rubbish ideological arguments. Wallenberg even said that once the war was over, Eichmann would be tried as a war criminal. This did not go down well with Eichmann, who was furious.

Wallenberg's prediction was right, no matter what Eichmann said, no matter what brutal force the Nazi regime carried. Legally at that time, Wallenberg was a traitor, it was illegal to help Jews, punishments could be severe. Wallenberg was only protected due to being a diplomat, and Nazi Germany did not want a diplomatic incident with Sweden, which manufactured weapons for them (and the allies) during the war. & legally, Eichmann was at that time right, the unjust laws of the Third Reich where behind him.

But my point is that the truth will always come out right. I am an optimist in this regard.

But politics is like this. Smoke and mirrors. Ideology can justify the worst of things, for lover or protection of country, or whatever. I just call it window dressing. What you got in the shop window is not the same as what you're actually selling inside the shop. Its like Alice in Wonderland, through the looking glass and all that. Nothing is as it seems.


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese

Not sure these guys have been forgotten but Have you had Guy Fawkes, Robert Hanssen, Jane Fonda (topical), Brutus, Wang Jingwei, The Rosenbergs, Aldrich Ames, Vidkun Quisling on your lists?


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## KenOC

EddieRUKiddingVarese said:


> Not sure these guys have been forgotten but Have you had Guy Fawkes, Robert Hanssen, Jane Fonda (topical), Brutus, Wang Jingwei, The Rosenbergs, Aldrich Ames, Vidkun Quisling on your lists?


Not sure that Guy Fawkes or Brutus qualify as traitors. Neither betrayed his country.


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese

KenOC said:


> Not sure that Guy Fawkes or Brutus qualify as traitors. Neither betrayed his country.


If trying to blow up your county's Parliament is a noble thing maybe! From my memory Guy was part of a revolutionary group of Roman Catholics, who plotted to blow up most of England's aristocracy in 1605, hence Guy Fawkes night on the fifth of November: it celebrates the failure of his notorious plot.

and didn't Marcus Junius Brutus assassinat Julius Caesar with the group of senators

I think these qualify as betrayals of their countries at those times.


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## KenOC

Negative. Both were (failed) revolutionaries, owing allegiance to no foreign power. I go by the definition "a person who commits treason by betraying his or her country."

All the other names put forth meet this definition.


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese

KenOC said:


> Negative. Both were (failed) revolutionaries, owing allegiance to no foreign power. I go by the definition "a person who commits treason by betraying his or her country."
> 
> All the other names put forth meet this definition.


Ok but I think Guy not being considered a traitor is stretching it a bit on many peoples definition. He may have been part of a revolutionary group, but it was was going against the current ruling authority of England at the time, all be it to loosen the influence of the Spanish on British affairs


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## Richannes Wrahms

violadude said:


> Well...*ideal communism is definitely possible because it has basically existed before in the indigenous tribes of the United States and Australia.* It's a complicated situation though for sure and I don't agree with communist regimes that take over other countries. I'd be interested in researching exactly what happened in your country in regards to it's relationship to the USSR.


That is a lie. Go ask them, they'll tell you it is a lie.


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## elgar's ghost

Ganelon, perhaps? He was part of Charlemagne's inner circle who secretly betrayed the Frankish army so that the Saracens could attack it as it was returning to France through the Pyrenees. Mind you, it was so long ago that the episode has been embellished in order to fit in with the semi-legendary story of Charlemagne's warrior-hero, Roland.


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## Guest

I don't get this whole one man's traitor is another man's hero argument. Yes, the traitorous actions of a person may very well have been advantageous to the other side. That doesn't change the fact that the person was a traitor. Benedict Arnold had declared himself for the side of the American colonists in their revolution against the British monarchy. He wasn't forced to fight with the revolutionaries. His betrayal of the side that he willingly chose marks him as a traitor. What the British felt of him is irrelevant.

And as for aboriginal people in the Americas and Australia practicing forms of communism, that is simply ridiculous. They may have lived a communal lifestyle, but that hardly makes one communist. At any rate, the best that says for communism, when compared to the larger experiments, is that it is good for not much more than small communities living hand-to-mouth, subsistence lifestyles.

As for the ideal communist community - pipe dream. You need a completely voluntary force to accomplish such a thing, and as the Soviets and Chinese and Cubans have discovered, you don't ever get that. So they have to establish totalitarian regimes to force people into the communist life, which has always ended up with repression. Capitalism and free market economies have been much more successful because they recognize human nature and factor that in. Capitalism and free markets allow for self-interest - it is the grease that keeps the wheels turning. You can pretend that self-interest can be taught out of people to gain a communist society, but so far nobody has been able to prove it - at least not on anything higher than a tribal, hunter-gatherer scale.


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## Guest

I think it is also quite telling that free market and capitalistic systems emerge quite naturally and organically, especially where there is repression - look at how black markets spring up when some good or commodity is over-taxed, over-regulated, or even forbidden. In contrast, where has there ever been the natural emergence of a communist, command economy system? On the contrary, they have had to be forced upon people, frequently through brutal means, because they run contrary to human nature.


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## Morimur

Lucifer is the traitor of traitors. Unfortunately, he (it) is quite influential in our world.


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## Kibbles Croquettes

Morimur said:


> Lucifer is the traitor of traitors. Unfortunately, he (it) is quite influential in our world.


Yes, and she has been quite successful in making as believe that she doesn't really exist.


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## Posie

Cnote11 said:


> Composers who failed to push music forward and innovate.


Mozart? A traitor?


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## GhenghisKhan

Kibbles Croquettes said:


> Yes, and she has been quite successful in making as believe that she doesn't really exist.


The devil is a chick?

I knew it!


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## starthrower

Morimur said:


> Lucifer is the traitor of traitors. Unfortunately, he (it) is quite influential in our world.


He was bored out of his effin' mind up there in heaven, so he came down here for a bit of mischief.


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## Kibbles Croquettes

GhenghisKhan said:


> The devil is a chick?
> 
> I knew it!


Yeah, I'm quite sure about that!


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