Comments by "Ralph Bernhard" (@ralphbernhard1757) on "Monsieur Z"
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"At the end of the war [WW2], Britain, physically devastated and financially bankrupt, lacked factories to produce goods for rebuilding, the materials to rebuild the factories or purchase the machines to fill them, or with the money to pay for any of it. Britain’s situation was so dire, the government sent the economist John Maynard Keynes with a delegation to the US to beg for financial assistance, claiming that Britain was facing a "financial Dunkirk”. The Americans were willing to do so, on one condition: They would supply Britain with the financing, goods and materials to rebuild itself, but dictated that Britain must first eliminate those Sterling Balances by repudiating all its debts to its colonies. The alternative was to receive neither assistance nor credit from the US. Britain, impoverished and in debt, with no natural resources and no credit or ability to pay, had little choice but to capitulate. And of course with all receivables cancelled and since the US could produce today, those colonial nations had no further reason for refusing manufactured goods from the US. The strategy was successful. By the time Britain rebuilt itself, the US had more or less captured all of Britain’s former colonial markets, and for some time after the war’s end the US was manufacturing more than 50% of everything produced in the world. And that was the end of the British Empire, and the beginning of the last stage of America’s rise."
[globalresearch(dot)ca/save-queen/5693500]
How'd that work out after WW2?
Brits being squeezed like a lemon by US banks, having their Pound crushed by the US dominated IMF, being refused the mutually developed nukes to act as a deterrent against the SU's expansion, munching on war rations till way into the 1950s, losing the Suez Canal in a final attempt at "acting tough" and imposing hegemony over a vital sphere of interest...and going under...lol, "third fiddle" in the "Concerto de Cold War"...
Maybe they should have informed themselves how "empires" tick, because there was another "ring".
A "ring which ruled them all".
The American Century.
So they woke up one morning, only to discover that their "best fwiends forever" had stolen all their markets.
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By that time (1897/1898) it was clear that "family ties" could not patch things up in divided Europe, in a changing world.
Of course one could argue that there wasn't any "European unity" to "divide" at the time (around 1900), but that isn't the only purpose of "divide and rule". Divide and rule also seeks preventive action, to avoid unity if such a threat is spotted on the horizon...
Also, there was no "1900 alpha" with a "Truman Doctrine"-style tool to create unity (under which it had the sole "ultimate weapon") by
creating a common rival/enemy either...
Only "a Wilhelm" trying to unite European powers behind a common cause...
Unfortunately in the study of history we only have two options: Simply believe what others tell us, or do own research.
Please download and read "Germany and the Spanish-American War" from JSTOR (free pdf).
The US plans to overpower Spain and take their colonies started in 1897.
So did Berlin's contigency plans for the USA (low-key at first, later adapted as the Spanish-American War progressed).
Yet what remains today as "important history"?
The historian explains (its only 12 pages from a longer book) how uniting Europe behind a common cause ("defending own European interests by uniting and siding with Spain") was Wilhelm's real goal.
The "German planned attack on America" today being widely spread as the assumed sign of "Wilhelm's evil" and "desire to rule the world", is an ancillary detail of course. Yes, a highly emotionally charged one (google "appeal to emotion") and can therefore serve as a sort of "clickbait" in history to distract from the more tedious and boring books explaining what really happened.
The Spanish-American War was the last opportunity to unite Europe behind a common cause.
Too bad the alpha at the time was ruled by a gambler and womanizer (Edward) and otherwise engaged (Second Boer War). Too busy to come up with a "turn of the century (1900)"-version of the Truman Doctrine herself.
According to that history, in 1897/1898 Wilhelm did not want to act alone, but preferred to try and find common concensus "along family lines" first, but failed because European capitals were more about "me first", in a rapidly changing world.
Subsequently Europe made it easy for Washington DC to start playing their "divide and rule". Paris was the first to try and snuggle up to a disinterested Washington DC, followed by London...
And today?
The post-WW2 Truman Doctrine and the "united Europe" it helped to forge (at least in the west after WW2), no longer serves its intended purpose.
Time to "divide and rule" again...
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