Sunday, August 29, 2010

SWP- Hilter, "not all bad"

I am getting better, I no longer wait, baited breath, for Wednesday morning when I can read the latest ramblings of Socialist Worker for more evidence of the demise of senile Trotskyism into its final dotage.
I am indebted therfore to Ian Bone for flagging up the latest triumphant Low in a catalogue of all time lows from the SWP.
In an article attacking the sacrifice and bravery of those who defeated Nazi Germany's attempt to invade Britain in 1940, Chris Bambery, attack dog of the Central committee reveals the following gem:
"Another Falsehood is that Hitler was planning to invade Britain"

Bambers goes on to claim that the real fascist was Churchill, not Hitler. that the blame for the deaths of so many Londoners during the Blitz was down to Churchill, not the Nazi bombers. That the battle of Britain was nothing to do with defending Britain but to boost Churchill's reputation. And that the whole thing was a propaganda exercise:
The air battles of 1940 were used to huge effect to win sympathy for Britain in the US.

I have read much of this filth before; it is the mainstay of the so called "revisionists", who seek to absolve Hitler and the nazi regime from all culpability for the Second world war and ultimately to explain away and deny the reality of the Holocaust.

If you think that I am quoting out of context or twisting Bambi's words read the original here

3 comments:

Wirral Socialists said...

Channel Islands.

Jez said...

You're right of course, it's a particularly crass example of the kind of liberal, anyone-but-Britain twaddle that Trots peddle so enthusiastically.

There is a lot of national chauvanism being peddled by the mainstream at the moment, and it is important to try and encourage people to see how that then, as now, "our country" responds to events (not least war), in anything but a simplistic, monolothic way.

The Swappies though, as ever, represent the mirror image of the establishment: presenting a patronising oversimplification of events to try and turn history into what they'd like it to be.

JN said...

"SWP- Hilter, "not all bad""

Except that Chris Bambery says nothing of the kind. What he does say is that Hitler did not have the naval forces necessary to attempt a serious invasion of Britain. Now that is debatable, but in no way could it reasonably be interpreted as "absolving Hitler and the Nazi regime" or "deny[ing] the reality of the Holocaust".

Bambery does not "attack" the pilots who fought in the Battle of Britian. He merely points out that most of them went to state schools & that about a fifth of them were not originally from Britain.

Neither does Bambery "claim that the real fascist was Churchill, not Hitler". At no point is it implied that Hitler is anything other than a mass-murdering racist fascist. What is said is that Churchill was an imperialist & was not against fascism in principle (in Spain, for example). Those are both historical, verifiable facts, whether you like them or not.

Again, Bambery does not say, or in any way imply, that "the deaths of so many Londoners during the Blitz was down to Churchill, not the Nazi bombers". He explicitly states that "in the six months between July and December 1940, 27,000 civilians were killed in the bombings, with as many injured." How much more clear does that need to be for you to understand it? What Bambery does say is that proper bomb shelters were not available to most people.

Yet again, he does not say "that the battle of Britain was nothing to do with defending Britain" or that "the whole thing was a propaganda exercise". It is made quite clear that Britain was being continually bombed. Obviously "The air battles of 1940 [would be] used... to win sympathy for Britain in the US" because Britian wanted US support in order to win the war. That would seem pretty uncontroversial to me.

In short, your obvious dislike of the SWP has led you to 'revise' what Chris Bambery actually wrote so that you can, absurdly & dishonestly, call him a Nazi.