Sir Winston Churchill... yay or nay?

[Very_Boring_Name]

Poll question: Sir Winston Churchill... yay or nay?

[hlthe2b]

1. What has lead to this poll, I'm wondering...

Has some new revelation come to light re: Churchill?

[Very_Boring_Name]

83. Nothing sinister, I was actually just youtubing some of his speeches

after seeing "the king's speech", and many of the youtube comments were very critical of him, and seemed to be coming from the left (war-mongerer, racist, etc). So I was just curious to see how many of the left wingers on DU felt about him.

[unkachuck]

2. nay....he was pond scum....n/t

[bbinacan]

7. Care to elaborate? n/t

[HEyHEY]

10. Ever heard of Croke Park?

http://sarasmichaelcollinssite.com/bloody_sunday

[sabrina 1]

48. He was a bigot. He actually proposed dropping chemical

weapons on 'arabs' who weren't 'cooperative' with Colonialism, as an 'experiment.

He was a horrible man.

Sometimes I wonder about this world, the people we call 'heroes'.

[cali]

69. He was a right old bastard

but I still vote yea.

[catabryna]

3. But, he came up with some great quotes!

:)

[provis99]

33. His apocryphal quotes were his best ones.

"At parties, always be gracious to the ladies, just in case two of them might be interested in a threesome."

[catabryna]

38. Oh, that's totally classic!

But, I'm a good girl.... and I don't "share".

Linky? Got one?

[TygrBright]

4. My view of him is favorable in some respects and negative in others.

Doesn't seem to be an option for that.

exasperatedly,
Bright

[Nye Bevan]

27. The majority of great people had flaws. Washington and Jefferson were slaveholders, for example.

But they were still great men.

[provis99]

34. Being a slaveowner is one serious fucking flaw.

Alexander Hamilton was better; he didn't own slaves.

[Nye Bevan]

43. Like my favorite founding father; John Adams (nt)

[white_wolf]

46. Or my favorite; Thomas Paine.

[bbinacan]

5. I have a VERY favorable

view of Churchill.

[sabrina 1]

49. Why? Do you know anything about him, his willingness to

annihilate 'arabs' eg, with chemical weapons? Just one lovely fact about the man.

[Canuckistanian]

6. He was always an arch-conservative

But he happened to be an inspiring war-time leader. But as a civilian leader, he was sent packing.

[Matilda]

11. I think we former colonials have a similar point of view.

He was the perfect wartime leader - bulldog determination to see it through, and his rhetoric was wonderful.

But he was also racist and xenophobic, and he was quite prepared to let Australia fall to the Japanese rather than divert Allied attention from Europe. On behalf of the thousands of Australian, Kiwi and British troops who were interned by the Japanese, I can't forgive him for that.

[Nye Bevan]

28. And Lincoln was prepared to save the union "without freeing a single slave".

Can you forgive Lincoln for that? War is full of difficult choices.

[MedicalAdmin]

82. The right man for the job at the right time.

While America was diddling itself deciding if Hitler was a bastard or just someone they wanted to sell oil to (See Bush and Koch: family histories), his leadership helped England (and allied commonwealth countries) hold on.

After the war, England wisely broomed him into retirement. Like all humans he was flawed and complex. On the whole, he did a good and necessary job at a time when it was needed. Everything else about him, except the quotes and the paintings, I am not a fan of.

[Fuzz]

8. I don't like his cigar size.

[HEyHEY]

9. His asshole behaviour toward the Irish is forgotten all too often

[Darth_Kitten]

13. His asshole behaviour towards MANY people in many countries seems to be forgotten.

:(

[Nye Bevan]

15. Yes. He was very very mean to the Nazis and said *terrible* things about Hitler.

The meanie.

[HEyHEY]

18. He also terrorized the Irish and was responsible for the infamous Black and Tans

And was in high command when the first bloody sunday at Croke park took place. I'm sorry, but the germans basically did to the English what they did to the Irish. Maybe that helped Churchill reflect on the crimes he committed 20 years before WW2. I don't think his actions in the war were without merit, obviously they were. But that doesn't excuse his past.

[Darth_Kitten]

22. +1

:)

[Darth_Kitten]

21. Oh, you mean he stood up and made pretty speeches against Hitler?

Golly, what a GREAT guy. :eyes:

You should read how he treated some people who actually STOOD up to Hitler. What his real views on some countries were.

I didn't know Winnie won the war on his own. :sarcasm:

[provis99]

32. here's what he said about Hitler after the Munich Pact.

"I have always said that if Great Britain were defeated in war I hoped we should find a Hitler to lead us back to our right­ful posi­tion among the nations. I am sorry, how­ever, that he has not been mel­lowed by the great suc­cess that has attended him. The whole world would rejoice to see the Hitler of peace and tol­er­ance, and noth­ing would adorn his name in world his­tory so much as acts of mag­na­nim­ity and of mercy and of pity to the for­lorn and friend­less, to the weak and poor."

yeah, real mean to Hitler.

[white_wolf]

47. I am not defending Chruchwill because I don't know enough

but in this case I think what he might be saying is that he wishes there was a man with Hitler's speech skills and statesmen skills who would have been as good a man as Hitler was an evil bastard. I could be wrong though just my take.

[Puregonzo1188]

35. I take it you're not aware of the British Empire.

Not a nice guy. I can't believe there are DUers defending him.

[sabrina 1]

52. Maybe you should learn some more about him other than his role in

WW11. He was a nasty bigot who would have been very comfortable in the deep south in this country as a member of the KKK.

Winston Churchill

Racial supremacist

Quote:

Churchill was particularly keen on chemical weapons, suggesting they be used "against recalcitrant Arabs as an experiment". He dismissed objections as "unreasonable". "I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes... (to) spread a lively terror" In today's terms, "the Arab" needed to be shocked and awed. A good gassing might well do the job.


By 1937 he had gone on to explain in a little more detail his views on the worth of subject peoples in his submission to the Palestine Commission, arguing:

Quote:

I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place.


Meanwhile, In India

It wasn't just the unfortunates of the Axis that Churchill was happily slaughtering, he presided over some of the nastiest activities the British government has yet managed while waving his V-sign and proclaiming Britain as the beacon for All That Is Good In The World.

Quote:

When in 1942 the popular Quit India Movement threatened to disrupt the war effort, it was brutally put down with public shootings and mass whippings, torturing of protesters and burning of villages, leading even bourgeois observers to make comparisons with 'Nazi dreadfulness'. When in 1943 food shortages began as a direct result of British scorched earth policies, the War Cabinet ignored the problem, refusing to stop ordering Indian food abroad in the interests of the war effort. The resulting man-made famine in Bengal may have accounted for as many as four million deaths.
His charming response when asked about this was to castigate the Indian people for:

Quote:

Breeding like rabbits and being paid a million a day by us for doing nothing by us about the war

He was a very nasty little man. I don't understand why he is viewed in a positive light at all. Today he would be viewed as a war criminal and tried at the Hague. He makes Bush like a kitty cat.

Typical of British Colonialists at the time though and probably his views were shared by many in that brutal Empire.

[JVS]

39. As are his bouts of military folly.

Gallipoli was a total catastrophe. His idea.

Soft underbelly of Europe, while not a catastrophe, did delay the opening of a full scale second front to the point where the outcome of the war was pretty much decided. That's why Stalin and Roosevelt laughed at him.

[sabrina 1]

50. Not by the Irish, nor by the Arabs or any of the other people

he perceived to be sub-human. He was an awful man.

[Darth_Kitten]

12. Nay, he was a rotten character.

When you very deliberately lie and scapegoat people to cover your own country NOT being prepared for war, you are not an honourable character.

[Nye Bevan]

14. A great, great, man.

Kind of amusing to see him denigrated as "pond scum" etc. by folks whose major accomplishment in life is to string together a couple of sentences on an internet discussion board.

[Forkboy]

17. Says the one who just strung a couple of sentences together on an internet discussion board.

[Nye Bevan]

19. But I acknowledge that Churchill was a far greater man than I will ever be.

And I don't look down on him as being "pond scum".

It's the DUers who snidely type away on their keyboards while denigrating Churchill who amuse me.

[Forkboy]

20. Sounds like love.

[Darth_Kitten]

24. Maybe some DU'ers have actually read about the man....

and don't think a liar and a manipulator makes a great man. haha.

[Puregonzo1188]

37. He was a racist and pretty violent in upholding the British Empire.

And yet he's a far greater man than you will ever be?

You must have some terrible skeletons in your closet.

Hitler was an evil, horrible man, but that doesn't excuse what Churchill did to other people or his racist views.

Besides, the Nazi are basically guilty of practicing colonialism against Europeans. Which doesn't make it right or any less evil, but I wish people could muster the same moral outrage for the Holocaust that happened on our continent, the trans atlantic slave trade, or any of the various genocides committed by colonial regimes.

Yet, for a lot of people crimes aren't crimes, or they're lesser crimes, if they're not committed against white Europeans. So Hitler's annexation of his neighbors is an atrocity, but European colonization of Africa, Asia, Latin America just misfortunes. And what happened to the indigenous people of the Wester hemisphre just a tragic mistake, but certainly not a Holocaust.

The racism is sickening.

[Nye Bevan]

42. George Washington owned hundreds of slaves. Do you think he was a great man? (nt)

[Forkboy]

45. Well, we already know racism and eugenics is acceptable in your definition of great.

Why not slavery?

[Nye Bevan]

51. So anyone who thinks Churchill was a great man is now a racist eugenicist.

Just like anyone who praised Robert Byrd is pro-Klan and in favor of lynchings.

[Forkboy]

54. I gave you numerous quotes in my other post (the one you're ignoring).

So I'll ask you again here, what about those quotes do you consider to be great?

And no, I didn't call you a racist eugenicist, but you do consider one to be a great man. You sort it out, it's your brain that has to reconcile his views with your own view of him.

[sabrina 1]

55. Reality check. The man was one of the worst bigots

ever. And he carried his bigotry beyond just words. Try reading below before you say anything more about DUers who apparently know a little more than you do, unless you approve of the genocide of indigenous people, which he certainly did and was not shy about saying so:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=525790&mesg_id=526618

[Nye Bevan]

65. You have praised that Exalted Cyclops Robert Byrd here on DU.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=4448380&mesg_id=4449649

Being an officer in the Klan is certainly "carrying bigotry beyond words". I guess you think that in Byrd's case, the good outweighed the bad. As others have said in this thread, it is hard to find a great man completely devoid of flaws.

[sabrina 1]

79. Wow, the old far right smear against Byrd, here on DU???

Was that 'investigation' of my comments meant to 'mean something'? Just so you don't waste any more time attempting to make some kind of point, although I'm not sure what, I stand by every comment I made about Byrd. Not sure what you thought you might be accomplishing here. I am proud of my defense of Byrd against the far right attacks on him. Did you expect something else from me? Sorry to disappoint you. Feel free to repost my comments on Byrd, I am very proud of them all.

Churchill otoh, was an unapologetic genocidal bigot to his dying day. Not the only British Empire representative whose stated goals were to eradicate from the face of the earth, indigenous people they considered to be sub-human.

If you have some evidence of Byrd making statements about other human beings that even come close to Churchill's stated criminal goals for those he considered not worthy of occupying this planet, please feel free to post them.

Meantime, I admire a man who can look into his own soul and realize that what is there needs changing.


Maybe you are just in denial about Byrd's growth as a human being for the purpose of an attempted, childish, and OLD, and predictable failure btw, to achieve some kind of 'gotcha' moment on an internet board? I AM familiar with this but only from the far right so far.

Byrd, one of the few Democrats who voted against the War in Iraq, and perhaps the only one who in his brilliant and moving speech on the night of the vote for War, addressed the issue of what that crime they were about to embark on, would do to the Iraqi People.


Yes, there is nothing I admire more than a man who has the courage to face his own demons and slay them, as Byrd did.

Thank you for reminding of Sen. Byrd. He distinguished himself as a man of principle during the Bush years of war crimes, but the far right, as you have attempted to do, tried to distract from his courageous stand against those crimes, by pretending that he was a member of the KKK.

I remember engaging the Right because of those false allegations against Byrd. He scared the Warmongers and Bigots with his fierce advocacy on behalf of the Iraqi people and U.S. troops who he pointed out when everyone else was scared to do so, should not die for lies.

That was ALL they had, a long ago past that he had long ago rejected. And they, like you, failed to drown out his brilliant words against the Warmongering, profiteers.

You chose the wrong person to use the rightwing 'Byrd is KKK' ancient now btw, smear. I spent two or more years on rightwing boards where that particular lie was a standard talking point. I gained a lot of knowledge and experience, exposing the lies they told, despite their well-organized and paid-for attacks on anyone who disagreed with them.

I had the pleasure of being able to tell Byrd's moving story as he travelled through life. THEY because of their attacks, gave me that opportunity and I thanked them for it. Naturally they were not happy with me and generally did what was expected, resorted to insults etc. to which I am pretty immune, btw. Four years on rightwing forums tends to do that.

But it's sad to see a similar tactic being attempted here on a democratic board. It's been a while since I bothered engaging the right as their talking points and attacks on liberals got so old so long ago that I finally just became bored by them, along with their standard insults. Nothing grew more old than their 'Byrd is KKK' lie.


Sen. Byrd's strong voice for justice in the Senate is badly missed! I didn't agree with ever decision he made, but I respected him and knew that if you could prove him wrong, he would at least listen.

R.I.P. to a man who was wise and humble at the same time, possessing the ability of intense introspection even when it was not pleasant. Too bad more people are not as capable as he was of doing so.

Churchill was a dangerous, bigoted man who directly caused the deaths of many innocent people who to him were 'dogs'.

Byrd, otoh, attempted to save the lives of the citizens of the same country Churchill wanted to drop chemical weapons on.

You display an enormous amount of ignorance of history, including recent history, in your attempt to compare these two people. A stunning ignorance, actually.

[Nye Bevan]

81. So you believe Byrd was not in the KKK? You should go and edit his Wikipedia entry.

In the early 1940s, Byrd recruited 150 of his friends and associates to create a new chapter of the Ku Klux Klan.

According to Byrd, a Klan official told him, "You have a talent for leadership, Bob ... The country needs young men like you in the leadership of the nation."

....

Byrd held the titles Kleagle (recruiter) and Exalted Cyclops. When it came time to elect the "Exalted Cyclops", the top officer in the local Klan unit, Byrd won unanimously.

In 1944, Byrd wrote to segregationist Mississippi Senator Theodore G. Bilbo: “I shall never fight in the armed forces with a Negro by my side ... Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds.”

....

In 1946 or 1947, Byrd wrote a letter to a Grand Wizard stating, "The Klan is needed today as never before, and I am anxious to see its rebirth here in West Virginia and in every state in the nation."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_byrd

[HEyHEY]

25. He murdered the Irish like animals

GO ahead and support him cause you watch too much history channel

[Forkboy]

31. Some quotes from the man you call great.

Speaking about the 'simple-minded' he said they - "should, if possible, be segregated under proper conditions so that their curse died with them and was not transmitted to future generations"

"The unnatural and increasingly rapid growth of the feeble-minded and insane classes, coupled as it is with a steady restriction among all the thrifty, energetic and superior stocks, constitutes a national and race danger which it is impossible to exaggerate... I feel that the source from which the stream of madness is fed should be cut off and sealed up before another year has passed." -- Churchill to Asquith, 1910

In others words, he was a fan of eugenics. Do you feel that support for eugenics is a great, great thing?

He wasn't a big fan of the Indians, Native Americans, Arabs or Aboriginals either...

"I do not admit... That a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia... by the fact that a stronger race, a higher grade race... has come and taken their place."

"I hate Indians'', he said. ''They are a beastly people with a beastly religion".

""(India is) a godless land of snobs and bores." -- In a letter to his mother, 1896

"The qualities of mongrels are rarely admirable, and the mixture of the Arab and negro types has produced a debased and cruel breed, more shocking because they are more intelligent than the primitive savages.."

“The Arabs are a backwards people who eat nothing but Camel dung”

He didn't even like Ghandi, for fucks sake lol...

"It is alarming and nauseating to see Mr Gandhi, a seditious Middle Temple lawyer, now posing as a fakir of a type well known in the east, striding half naked up the steps of the viceregal palace, while he is still organising and conducting a campaign of civil disobedience, to parlay on equal terms with the representative of the Emperor-King." -- Commenting on Gandhi's meeting with the Viceroy of India, 1931

He had no qualms about gassing people he saw as lower than him, another sure sign of a great, great man...

"I do not understand the squeamishness about the use of gas. I am strongly in favour of using poisonous gas against uncivilised tribes." -- Writing as president of the Air Council, 1919

And, as already pointed out, he was certainly no fan of the Irish...

"The choice was clearly open: crush them with vain and unstinted force, or try to give them what they want. These were the only alternatives and most people were unprepared for either. Here indeed was the Irish spectre - horrid and inexorcisable." — Writing in The World Crisis and the Aftermath, 1923-31

But, he did find time to praise Hitler as admirable...

"One may dislike Hitler's system and yet admire his patriotic achievement. If our country were defeated, I hope we should find a champion as admirable to restore our courage and lead us back to our place among the nations." -- From his Great Contemporaries, 1937

Perhaps you can come back and tell us which parts make him a great, great man in your view. Is it the eugenics, the racism or the willingness to gas people?

[sabrina 1]

53. He was pond scum, and that's being kind.

Some of his major accomplishments in his lifetime involved the slaughter and the proposed chemical eradication of indigenous people from Iraq to India to Ireland.

He was a bigot who outdid even the KKK in this country.

What I find amusing is how little people know about him and simply accept the sanitized version of a man who should have been tried for crimes against humanity. He viewed all ethnic people of color as 'dogs' worthy of a 'little gassing'.

I think you need to read up on Churchill. Even many Brits find it embarrassing that he has been viewed as some kind of hero.

[WhaTHellsgoingonhere]

16. I have a favorable view, but me thinks I've been set up

[coalition_unwilling]

23. He was correct about Hitler and Naziism. He was quite the racist

when it came to peoples in the third world. (I remember reading a quote where he said he favored using chemical weapons on Arabs but cannot locate the source now.) So I voted 'Neutral\Unsure'. I would never have voted for the Tory party or for him, as I would have been a solid Labor supporter.

[rabs]

26. Barack Obama apparently does not think much of WC

Shortly after taking office, he had a bust of Churchill removed from the Oval Office and returned to the British Embassy in Washington.

The reason may have been:

----------------

Maybe it's no surprise that Obama wouldn't want Churchill watching over his shoulder. After all, it was Churchill who, in 1952, ordered a crackdown on the Mau Mau rebellion against British colonial rule in Kenya, Obama's ancestral homeland. Obama's grandfather, Hussein Onyango Obama, was labeled a subversive during the uprising and spent months in detention.

http://www.newsweek.com/2009/02/20/busted-the-churchill-flap.html

-------------------

My vote: Favorable for Churchill's WWII leadership when England stood alone.

[Rabblevox]

29. He was a rat bastard in oh.so.many.ways...But I'm not sure we could have won WW ll without him.../nt

[provis99]

30. Churchill was a rotten bastard. Here is a link explaining why.

http://s1.zetaboards.com/anthroscape/topic/3894022/1/

[Rowdyboy]

36. If others admire him, thats their business-I find him repulsive.....

Britain's version of Dan Quayle.

[BlueCheese]

40. On balance, an uncommonly great man with common flaws.

Like many people of his time, he had his flaws when it came to colonialism.

Unlike almost anyone of his time, he had the courage and determination that the world needed to defeat Hitler and Nazi Germany.

From June 1940, after France collapsed, until June 1941, when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, Germany's only declared enemy was Britain. Had a lesser man than Churchill been in command, Britain could easily have accepted a negotiated end to the war that would have left Germany as a world power. To refuse to give in, and to keep the British people's spirit up during the pounding of the Blitz in the fall of 1940, with no real prospect of victory in the next several years, was an indispensable act of history.

To me, Churchill is one of the few indispensable people of the 20th century. A truly great man at a time the world desperately needed one.

[sabrina 1]

56. He wasn't indespensible. He could easily have been replaced.

He was there, that's about it and his murderous nature made it possible for him to go beyond what was necessary to win the war.

He is still one of the world's worst bigots who was willing to commit genocide on peoples he considered less than human.

Had there been no world war during his lifetime, he would happily have spent his time killing people anyhow. It came naturally to him.

Here is just a small example of who the man was in his own words. There is no way to admire such a person as his crimes against humanity are impossible for decent people to overlook.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=525790&mesg_id=526618

[Hippo_Tron]

59. Out of curiosity, who could have replaced him?

As I said below, the fall of Britain may or may not have meant the fall of western civilization to Hitler depending on which historical counterfactual you want to believe.

But the fact that Churchill held his country together through all of that is extraordinary. It doesn't excuse everything else he did and it doesn't even mean it was necessary to win the war, but it was pretty extraordinary. If somebody else could've done it then I would be curious as to whom that might be.

[cali]

74. easily? I doubt it. Who could have replaced him? Names please.

And he was a bigot but no worse then many of his day and age. Rather garden variety actually. And had there been no WW, it's rather difficult to say what he would have done. It's just as likely he would have meed an eccentric painte.

[truebrit71]

78. By whom? He was just about the only one that saw Hitler and Fascism as the true threat it was...

...if not for him my life would have turned out very differently..

[Rabblevox]

61. I grudgingly have to agree...

Churchill is really REALLY easy to hate. Especially if you are Irish.

But WWll could not have been won without his colonialist, racist, militaristic ass, IMO.

[TreasonousBastard]

41. Why is there no option for a seriously flawed person in rhe right place at...

the right time?

He was inept and fired from some positions earlier, and should have been fired from more. But, somehow he was the person who kept Britain together at the time of its greatest peril and was central to defeating one of the great evils of History.

But, so was Stalin.

So, what defines him, or anyone else we decide is a hero or villain? Does the good outweigh the bad, or the bad outweigh the good? Do we add up the pluses and minuses to get a score, or do we just pick the point in time that we like best to use to define him? Or is it perhaps one outstandingly good or bad moment that defines him?

The sorry truth is that there are no saints-- only varying degrees of sinners.

[Nye Bevan]

44. As with that racist slaveholder George Washington, the good far outweighs the bad (nt)

[Hippo_Tron]

57. A lot of it has to do with your views on historical counterfactuals

Pretty much every ugly thing that people have out about Winston Churchill on this thread is true. But it's entirely possible we might all be speaking German (or Japanese) right now, if Churchill had not held his country together to stand against Hitler. On the other hand if Britain had fell, it is possible that the Russians and the Germans would've just worn each other down eventually.

Lets also consider the fact that FDR put the Japanese into internment camps and we frequently overlook that fact while praising his greatness on DU.

[Jack Rabbit]

58. Mixed review

As I like to say, there is neither original sin nor original virtue. The natural state of mankind is morally ambiguous.

He was, as most of us are aware, a great wartime leader. As several have pointed out, he was also an a believer in the British Empire who was willing to spill the blood of blood of black brown people to perpetuate the mastery of the white race over them. He once called Mahatma Gandhi "a naked little fakir."

It is ridiculous to sum up any person's life as simply a "good guy" or a "bad guy," as this poll purports to do. I know that we Americans have a hard time handling moral ambiguity, but the plain truth is that life is not a cheap B-western.

[bhikkhu]

60. Contrary to popular opinion, that was a terrible era for good people

war, greed, and hatred twist humanity into ugly forms. There was plenty of that, and Churchill represented his fair share.

[cowcommander]

62. Without Churchill, Europe would be a) completely under Nazi rule or b) completely under Soviet rule

His most important contribution to WW2 was giving America an unsinkable aircraft carrier.

[Darth_Kitten]

72. Tell that to the Belgians....

http://www.winstonchurchill.org/support/the-churchill-centre/publications/finest-hour/issues-109-to-144/no-138/898-feeding-the-crocodile-was-leopold-guilty

[Raine]

63. Unfavorable

he gave great speeches but that's not enough to make up for what kind of person he was otherwise.

[melm00se]

64. Let us not forget that

he succeeded Neville Chamberlain who carries a significant weight for his appeasement policies that most certainly led directly to WWII.

Churchill, admittedly by rhetoric, gave the British people the strength to persevere thru the London Blitz and stand fast until the US entered the war.

Additionally, along with Roosevelt and Stalin, decided that only complete and unconditional surrender of the Axis powers was the only way to prevent a 3rd war on the European continent.

History has proven him right, there was no rise of a 3rd German government willing to turn to war.

Did he have flaws? sure did but please, I beg of you, show me a man completely devoid of flaws.

[LeftishBrit]

66. Outstanding war leader; not a good domestic politician

[HereSince1628]

67. I think that says it in a nutshell. n/t

[Macoy51]

71. He was an Arch-Nationalist

I wish I could live 100 more years to see how all of our heroes of today are slammed because they violated 22nd century sense of morals. I feel you can not just pluck a person out of time and judge them by our rules. We need to understand the society of the time in order to understand the person.

And yes, I think Churchill was a great man, he was an arch-nationalist who did what he felt best for the British Empire. Of course, as an American, I feel he is a war criminal for what he did to get America in to WWI.


Macoy

[blindpig]

68. Imperialist swine....

with a gift for gab.

[mwooldri]

70. He was bipolar. That he managed to do despite this...

... means in my book my view is generally favourable. However as others have pointed out he has said and done some rotten things too.

I have my own biases being brought up by the WWII generation. This thread has been enlightening on Sir Winston, and revealed to me a few things I didn't know.

[MadHound]

73. An excellent war leader, the right person at the right time during WWII.

Otherwise he was a bastard who wasn't above employing violence and intimidation when it came to keeping the people of the British Empire subjugated.

[cali]

75. DU shows it's black/white "thinking"

We don't much like paradox- I mean humans, not just DUers.

[Forkboy]

80. For the record, while my posts above are extremely negative, he was right for the war.

I needed an "Other" option, so I didn't vote. The poll itself was black and white, so it's no surprise that many of the responses are as well.

[WinkyDink]

76. Genius. His multi-volume "History of the English-Speaking Peoples" is brilliant. Held off Hitler

while THE UNITED STATES FLIRTED WITH ISOLATIONISM.

[truebrit71]

77. Love him. If it weren't for him my upbringing in the second half of the 20th century....

...would likely have been very, very different.

He also held some repugnant views and had his own personal flaws, but overall he was a great man.

[mdmc]

84. ..

[some guy]

85. I read

his History of the English Speaking People.

In one of the volumes he wrote something to the effect that Africa was colonized because there were no people living there. It was appallingly racist, so I lost a lot of respect for him on that point alone.

He was also a "My country right or wrong" type - Mark Twain may have convinced him what a poor position that was to hold.