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Tuesday, May 27, 2008 - 06:10 pm  Slayke i dont now what you are on about the princes balls are in his mouth because his mother is dead you daft twat PRINCESS DIANA
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| Wednesday, May 28, 2008 - 05:26 am About the raceist topic at the begning of this furom i would like to say that me and maria (my girlfreind) are both nazis. Now i no what your thinking that were stupid rasist bastards but thats my oppinon and it should be respected. I think racism should be aloud because it is a beleaf and if you dont like nazis or other racist groups heres a good word of advice. Dont get involved with us if u dont like it.
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| Wednesday, May 28, 2008 - 05:29 am i would also like to add that i agree with zorridor but the american casulties only number 4000 cause were kick ass warriors!
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| Wednesday, May 28, 2008 - 05:31 am also im a white american and tom im from german descent stupid brit! :p
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| Wednesday, May 28, 2008 - 05:36 am Hiel Josey Wales!
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| Thursday, May 29, 2008 - 02:44 am @little nazi I'm pretty sure your 'beleaf' has to do with your low level of education. I could try and argue with you but i'd never get an intelligent response.
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| Thursday, May 29, 2008 - 03:24 am your choicecoen just my oppinon
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| Wednesday, June 4, 2008 - 04:36 am bump
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| Wednesday, June 4, 2008 - 10:26 am "Now i no what your thinking that were stupid rasist bastards but thats my oppinon and it should be respected. " I think you're a stupid racist bastard, I know you're thinking I should respect you, but that's my opinion and it should be respected.
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| Thursday, June 5, 2008 - 04:11 pm Good one zyna!!! No guys im not really a nazi i added this to make my furom NAZISM more beleavable. Plz read NAZISM and add your comments.
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| Thursday, June 19, 2008 - 10:06 pm ANYBODY KNOW WHY NO ONE REPLYS TO MAIL THEY GET???????
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| Monday, June 30, 2008 - 05:58 am bump
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| Monday, June 30, 2008 - 05:48 pm bump
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| Sunday, July 27, 2008 - 06:34 pm America rocks. Second only to Britain.
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| Monday, July 28, 2008 - 02:35 am I HAVE ONE THING TO SAY TO EVERYBODY WHO SAYS THAT AMERICA IS THE LEADER OF DEMOCRACY AND THE FIGHTER OF TERROR, WELL WHICH COUNTRY OWNED MOST OF AMERICA BRITAIN AND ENGLAND WAS THE LEADER OF DEMOCRACY AND HAS ALWAYS BEEN BECAUSE IT TAUGHT AMERICA. ALSO IF AMERICA PEOPLE ARE THE WORLD POWERS THEN SO IS BRITAIN BECAUSE EVERY WHITE AMERICAN IS FROM BRITISH DESCENT. AMERICA IS ALSO A FAGGET WHEN IT COMES TO WAR BECAUSE I CANT THINK OF ONE WAR WHICH AMERICA FOUGHT SOULY ON THEIR OWN AMERICAN WAR OF INDEPENDANCE:FRANCE HELPED AMERICAN CIVIL WAR:IMMIGRANTS FROM CHINA AND THE EAST HELPED THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR:HELP FROM FRANCE AND ALSO IMMIGRANTS FORCED TO FIGHT WW1:THEY ONLY FOUGHT FROM 1917 TO 1918 AND WENT ON SAY THEY WON THE WAR WW2:JOINED IN AGAIN LATER THAN ALL MAIN COUNTRYS AND SAY THEY WON THE WAR PACIFIC WAR:HELP FROM BRITISH SOLDIERS AFTER FIGHTING 6 LONG YEARS OF WAR NOT JUST 3YEARS KOREAN WAR:HELP FROM MOST MAJOR POWERS IN THE WORLD BRITAIN,FRANCE AND OTHER PLACES TO BE MENTIONED VIETNAM WAR:HELP FROM BRITAIN ALSO AND AUSTRALIAN HOMELAND AS A BASE COLD WAR:FOUGHT BY BOTH BRITAIN AND AMERICAN AGAIN DESERT STORM:HELP FROM ARAB COUNTRYS AND LITTLE HELP FROM UN FORCES AFGAN WAR:BOTH BRITAIN AND AMERICA MAJOR FIGHTERS IN THIS WAR IRAQI WAR:SAME BOTH BRITAIN AND AMERICA MAJOR FIGHTERS IN THIS WAR BUT MOST BRITISH DEATH AT THE HANDS OF AMERICAN DICKHEADS, ALSO HELP FROM MOST COUNTRYS OVER THE WOR I just read through this whole damn thing, and this was the MOST entertaining post to date. 1: I am of Italian/Scottish/German/French descent your dumbass Brit! lol. Nothing british about me whatsoever. Plus, the American colonies (particularly Pennsylvania, where I'm from, is mostly GERMAN descent, NOT British) 2: Your right about your country teaching us about Democracy: Your arbitrary, monarchical decisions were no good. Hence: we LEARNED from your crappy system, so we INVENTED a new one....called Democracy. 3. The French did jackshit to help us during the Revolution. They finally sent their ships to blockade Yorktown to keep the British army from fleeing the Americans. That, and they sent Laffeyette (spelling?) to help us....actually, he wasn't sent, so much as he wanted to help America himself. 4. The American Civil War was faught completely, and totally on American soil, and faught BY nothing BUT Americans. 5. There used to be a thing called a "draft" and immigrants were drafted at the same rate as "regular" Americans. If this is going to be peoples' adopted country, then they should fight for her as well. Also, once again, the French did jackshit during the Spanish War. The American Navy emerged as the strongest navy in the world, surpassing GB for the first time. And it was America's Great White Fleet which brought swift victory. Also brought Japan out of isolationism. 6. I WILL concede the point that Americans did the least during WW1. But I think of us entering the war, like a baseball team bringing in a closer in the 9th inning, trying to preserve that 1 lead. All others were tired and exhausted, and the war was likely to go on for another decade at that rate. American troops were incredibly fresh, and brought new vigour into the war for the Allies. 7. We didn't join in WW2 for the same reason why we didn't enter WW1: It wasn't our fight. It took Pearl Harbor to make the American public realize how much a threat this war was to us. Before Pearl Harbor, however, Roosevelt knew America had to eventually become involved to "preserve the World for Democracy." Also the great Winston Churchill even admitted that since Pearl Harbor was attacked, the war was won. ALSO the Japanese admiral who was doing the attacking said that all they did was "awake a sleeping giant." The Russians, too, realized the war would be won now that America become involved. Jews all over Europe, indeed, Jews the world over, celebrated wherever they were, after the American Declaration of War. We led the way into North Africa. We led the way into Anzio. We liberated the southern half of Italy. We led the way to Normandy. Our 101st Airborne was disrupting German supply lines and all that. Our airforce nearly collapsed the German economy. By this time, English, French, and Italian troops were mainly supporting roles, in a largely American offensive. (Yes, there were Italian troops fighting against the axis. My grandfather was one of them. He's from Sicily, and was an underground partisan throughout most of the war. He then hooked up with the Patton's Army in North Africa, and got a scout-like role for the army....like I said, they were support roles.) 8. The Korean and Vietnam Wars were mostly support roles for the British....the French were hardly there, if at all. Most other countries didn't even bother. 9. The "Cold War" wasn't even a FIGHT, so your "point" there can just be totally stricken out altogether. Although it was a good 90%, if not more, of American supplies and airplanes that were used to drop supplies into Berlin during that one crisis, whatever it was called. The British didn't even DO anything to help West Berlin. But other than that, I don't think the "Cold War could even be counted at all. That was mostly the USSR struggling to survive, and eventually collapsing because Communism sucks. 10. The Iraqi wars...particularly the first one, was, once agian, a good 90-99% American troops fighting those. The first war, the Gulf War, was a spectacular success, and was completely justified. We went in, demolished Iraqi forces with very little collateral damage while protecting Kuwait from an aggressor nation. We didn't go into Iraq and meddle in their gov't, we were there simply to protect a nation that didn't have the means to do so on their own. The second (current war) in Iraq is a quagmire, and I would love to see us leave, but I have no clue as to how the hell that could happen. As for the US getting involved around the world in wars that don't really pertain to us: Well, all I can say is: We have been attacked twice, unprovoked, in the 20th century. Our gov't has frequently tried to stay out of Europe's affairs before and between the wars. The first wars' attacks were just tragic...hundreds of American lives being lost on the high seas. The second attack was (could have been)catistrauphic (shit can't think of how to spell that word! LOL) After that, we became suspicious of foreign nations, and what they plan. Hence: the CIA's involvement in governments around the world....Now I'm not saying that's right, but it is what it is. As for Israel, yes OF COURSE they have a right to exist. Just like any other group of people around the world has a right to exist. They have a right to exist right where they're at, because that is their homeland, ordained by God himself (I'm Christian, and I strongly believe this). Not only that, but self-determination is an ideal sanctioned by the UN. I could go on, I have other points, but Iv'e been at this for a long time now and would like to talk a bit about the UN The UN: The UN is a just, and rightful organization. It may not be able to prevent wars, or political strife directly. But I often wonder: How many wars would have erupted since WW2, if there wasn't a medium for gov'ts the world over could sit and discuss the problems they have with eachother? I'm mainly thinking of the US, USSR/Russia, and China. There have been MANY heated debates, I am sure, in the rooms of the UN building in NYC. But ya know, we have never come to blows...isn't that amazing? I would much much rather see a bunch of old stodgy men screaming at each other than to see a bunch of nukes raining down on NYC, Washington, Philadelphia, Moscow, Paris, London, Beijing, Tokyo and what have you. Not to mention all the smaller wars that could've happened. I'm thinking of some of the disasters around the world in which the UN was the only organization able to respond. Yes, it didn't do much to stop the genocides in Africa, such as Sudan, Rwanda, and Darfur (which is part of Sudan, but I was thinking of sudan BEFORE Darfur...going in and out of violence the way it does). But it does do some good as well.
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| Monday, July 28, 2008 - 02:03 pm Whoa! Big post. Just wanted to respond to a few of the points you raised: I am of Italian/Scottish/German/French descent your dumbass Brit! lol. Nothing british about me whatsoever. I think you'll find that Scotland is part of Britain which makes you 25% British. There is nothing English about you (though most of the English, me included, have some Scottish and Welsh in them plus bits from all over Europe and further afield, so you probably have a bunch of everything in you). Your right about your country teaching us about Democracy: Your arbitrary, monarchical decisions were no good. Hence: we LEARNED from your crappy system, so we INVENTED a new one....called Democracy. Yes, we had a crap democracy when you broke away. We did give the vote to women before you (although New Zealand was first in 1897) and I believe that residents of Washington D.C. are not represented in the U.S. Senate? Beware of claiming to have a good democracy. ALL democratic countries have their problems. Switzerland puts most issues to its population in referenda making it far more democratic than most countries. Unfortunately this usually gives vent to prejudice and tyranny of the majority. Re: American involvement in various wars, and non-American involvement in American-led wars Most countries seek out a coalition of powers when starting a war. It gives it a veil of decency and legitimacy. There is no shame in fighting alongside other countries. The U.S. was late joining both World Wars for political reasons (had the Germans not sunk the Lusitania, nor the Japanese bomber Pearl Harbour, it would have been political suicide for the President to join either war). What irritates me is when I hear Americans state that they declared war on Germany in WW2. I believe it even states something like "America and her allies declared war on Germany" on a War Memorial somewhere in the States (not sure on this one). America didn't declare on ANYONE in WW2. Japan declared on America by bombing Pearl Harbour and Germany declared war on America in support of Japan. Cold War: The British didn't even DO anything to help West Berlin. No, we were too busy repairing damage to our own country being virtually bankrupt after the war with many more pressing domestic problems. We did provide some demobilised cargo planes, I think, and a number of runways from which American cargo took off. Iraq wars This would be an example of an American-led war that we were dragged into (I'm responding more to early posts that America was dragged into too many European wars, more than your post, Michael). The first gulf war could be justified. The second, I don't think so; particularly British involvement in it was unjustified, following a demonstration by over 750,000 people (police figures, organisers claim over 2 million). Some democracy we have! Israel: They have a right to exist right where they're at, because that is their homeland, ordained by God himself Hmm, Britain really botched this one when it gave Palestine to the Jews. Far too many religious groups claim that area as their homeland and it is a recipe for disaster. That said, Israel exists and I do not advocate getting rid of it. I worry that there are too many nutters in America (and here) that think that peace in the Middle East is the first step on the road to some sort of End of Days rubbish based on prophecies in the bible. Anyway, this gets into whether or not one should take the bible literally which deserves and requires a thread of its own, so I shan't argue about it here. The UN Hurrah! Another champion of the UN. It's toothless and corrupt, but the best we've got.
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| Monday, July 28, 2008 - 04:25 pm Back to the point about helping West Germany... Britain did help, the most obvious example being the rebuilding of the Volkswagen company. Others include rebuilding in general. Not to mention stopping the Soviets invading Denmark at the end of the war. Just an FYI.
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| Tuesday, July 29, 2008 - 12:57 am Zetetic: Scottish is not Brittish. The Scots are a Celtic tribe, there long before the Brits. The Brits were a Germanic tribe, who lived in Normandy orginally. In the year 1166, or 1266, or 1366 or something like that. I'm pretty sure it was in the 60's of one of them centuries way back then lol, when the British invaded the island. Oh, and uh, just because I AM Christian, doesn't mean I take the Bible literally all the time. The whole thing about creationism v. evolution, I believe they actually go hand-in-hand. I do not believe God created the Earth in 7 days. It's mostly the New Testament I believe in (and most of the history of the Jews in the Old). As far as prophesy is concerned: No, I do not believe peace in the Middle East would bring about the End of Days. In fact, I would welcome peace over there, since all the major religions (Western ones I should say) stake a claim there. Other than that, I'm pretty much agreed with you on the rest of your post. Zeta: I'm not really all that familiar with the rebuilding of Volkwagen, sorry. And I will give credit to the British special forces in Denmark as well
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| Tuesday, July 29, 2008 - 06:15 am Scottish and British may well originally be two different tribes. Although I think you're forgetting that "British" is a combination of numerous ethic groups, created over millenia. Angles, Saxons, Normans, Celts, etc. But do a little research on the Act of Union 1707, and you will find that Scotland has been a willing constituent of the United Kingdom for quite some time, which makes them British. Scotland, England, Northern Ireland and Wales are all part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Norther Ireland. Britain or UK for short. Each one is British. On a geographical note, Great Britain is actually the name of the large island on which you will find England, Scotland and Wales - The British mainland. So Scotland is indeed British, both politically and geographically, no matter what the tribes were originally called.
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| Tuesday, July 29, 2008 - 09:17 am Can't help but jump in here. I've been following the thread, but have been determined to stay out of it because a lot of the folks posting (particularly the one MM quoted) are just so far off base in their thinking that they scare me. I am an American, but I have also had the opportunity to live in 4 other countries, I have visited every continent except Antarctica, been in every country in Europe, etc. Is the US perfect? Of course not, we've done some stupid things, just as every country in the world at one point or another in their history. The "you suck/we rule" arguments are ludicrous and serve no useful purpose. But now that Zetetic and MM have jumped in, and Zeta, the tone has gotten a bit more civilized, so couldn't resist jumping in. Just a couple points. The US is not a democracy, it is a republic. The difference is slight, but there nonetheless. With the exception of some indigeneous (doggone it MM, it's contagious! Spelling?) tribes in the far past there has never been a true democracy anywhere. Ancient Greece is often held up as an example, but they only allowed male property owners to have a say. The US originally was set up as a confederation modeled after the Iroquois "7 Nations" confederation. MM, as you're from PA, check into Ben Franklin, he was the major player in using the Iroquois example. The United Kingdom has never pretended to be a democracy. They are a Constitutional Monarchy. The Magna Carta was the first step in the evolution of the modern concept of individual rights. Prior to that, if you weren't in the aristocracy you had no rights. And even the Magna Carta only granted rights to members of the nobility, not the commoner. The peeing contest about who did what and who did the most is silly. In the American Revolution the French did not help in a massive military way, but their naval power was a godsend, the colonies had no viable navy. Also, if you want to get down to it, the world was at war at that time. The French alliance with the colonies forced the British to maintain forces in other areas to deal with the French threat. The original neanderthal's claim that the Chinese fought the American Civil War is not worth going into. The Spanish-American War was the first war that the US as a nation took on an established European nation and won. It established the US as a global power, and as MM states, was the birth of American naval power. I wouldn't go so far as to say they surpassed the British navy at that time. BTW, Commodore Perry actually opened Japan back in 1848. WWI would have gone on a lot longer without the US entry. The October Revoulution in Russia had removed the Russians from the Allied force, and allowed the Central powers to fight on just one front. The populations of France and the UK were extremely war weary, and the economies were is great disrepair. Women handled most of the agricultural duties in Great Britain (land girls), and also were the vast majority of the ambulance drivers just behind the front lines (known as VAD's). The influx of fresh American bodies and material, along with the British naval blockade of Germany, turned the tide. WWII was a joint effort. No one has mentioned the Canadian contribution, which was significant. But without the US industrial contribution it is very doubtful the war would have been won as quickly as it was. Incidentally, the US did indeed declare war against the Axis. On December 8th Congress voted a declaration of war against Japan. They did not declare against Germany until Germany declared against them. One point of interest about both of the Congressional votes is that the votes were passed with only one "nay" vote. The woman representative who cast this no vote was the same woman who cast the only "nay" vote in the WWI declaration. The Korean War was the first truly UN war, and armies from over 100 countries actually contributed troops. Vietnam was also a joint effort, albeit on a much smaller scale. It originated with the US assisting their French allies, then the French got smart and got out. Units from Australia and South Korea fought with the Americans until almost the end. The Cold War was, as MM points out, not a "hot" war at all. It was a political, economic, and intelligence war. It was again a worldwide effort. The recent fights in the middle east have again been worldwide efforts. I disagree strongly with our tactics in Iraq after the total destruction of the 4th largest army in the world, but militarily we did everything we were supposed to. Mr. Richardson irritates the crap out of me with his idiotic rant and total lack of any knowledge or sense of world history. As for the UN, I'm not a huge fan. Only because the corruption runs deep and wide. But I will definitely agree that without it there would have been much more bloodshed. One of the primary causes of WWI was the interlocking and complex alliances that nations had built, strictly for their own national security. Because Ausria declared on Serbia, Russia had to declare on Austria. Because Russia declared on Austria, Germany had to declare on Russia. Because Germany declared on Russia, France had to declare on Germany. And so on and so forth. At least the UN allows a forum for these grievances to be talked out before the first shots are fired. Okay, already. To sum up, I wouldn't live anywhere else but the US, as bad as it is (LOL). But I love to travel to the UK, and Ireland, and Europe. Australia is also one of my favorite places to visit. Every country has SOMETHING to offer. Oh, forgot one thing. Zetetic, Washington D.C. was never intended to have a "live-in" population. It was designed strictly for the operation of the Federal government. The idea was the people would come in, work, and go back home to Virginia or Maryland at day's end. Funny, their license plates on their cars have a "taxation without representation" slogan!
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| Tuesday, July 29, 2008 - 10:28 am MM: Scottish is not Brittish. The Scots are a Celtic tribe, there long before the Brits. The Brits were a Germanic tribe, who lived in Normandy orginally. In the year 1166, or 1266, or 1366 or something like that. Yes, the Scots are a Celtic tribe. In terms of blood or genetic material, you'll find a handful of people on remote islands off the coast of Scotland who can still claim to be Celtic rather than British. The "Brits" were not a Germanic tribe, or rather, they were not a tribe at all. The Angles were the first to invade England (well, after the ice age crossings, romans and vikings, and a few others) which is where it gets its name from (it is still Angleterre, or Angle-land, in French). We still have a county called East Anglia. The Angles were Germanic. They were joined by a whole bunch of Saxons (another Germanic tribe) so that when the Normans arrived (they're French, not Germanic) in 1066 we became a nation formed primarily from three tribes. The intervening millenium resulted in much procreation involving neighbouring peoples, including the Celts to produce the mix we have today. There is no way anyone can lay claim to being descended from one particular tribe as they have all interbred in the meantime forming the current batch of Brits. JMR: WWII was a joint effort. No one has mentioned the Canadian contribution Agreed. The "British" forces were an extremely multinational bunch. It is interesting to note that we got more volunteers from India than were conscripted in Britain. We also had a huge contingent from other countries in the Empire including, of course, the ANZAC forces (Australia and New Zealand). Whilst I do not defend our imperial conquests as a particularly ethical era in our history, I think it is important to note that we must have got something right when we ruled a quarter of the globe, as millions of men from across the empire volunteered to help us out in Europe and East Asia without being coerced or conscripted. JMR: One of the primary causes of WWI was the interlocking and complex alliances that nations had built, strictly for their own national security. Not just for their own national security. Europe had been through periods of large-scale warfare before, often the result of a contested succession in one of the ruling Houses (very common given the level of interbreeding between them - Princes and Princesses from all over Europe could probably come up with a justifiable claim to any throne, and the interbreeding did cause problems with procreation at times). The complex web of alliances were supposed to prevent large-scale warfare breaking out again. Needless to say, it failed. Miserably. JMR: To sum up, I wouldn't live anywhere else but the US, as bad as it is (LOL). You highlight the difference between a patriot and a nationalist. A patriot loves his country, but can see its faults. A nationalist is unable to see any fault in his country. I would never live anywhere other than Europe (though I haven't made it very far out of it yet). The cultural diversity here is amazing in such a small area and even a 2 hour train ride takes you somewhere completely different, often requiring a new language! JMR: Washington D.C. was never intended to have a "live-in" population. It was designed strictly for the operation of the Federal government... Funny, their license plates on their cars have a "taxation without representation" slogan! I thought there would have been a reason for it! I think this is a result of the Law of Unintended Consequences. Seems history has gone full circle with another group of Americans demanding no taxation without representation.
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| Tuesday, July 29, 2008 - 11:48 am MM: Oh, and uh, just because I AM Christian, doesn't mean I take the Bible literally all the time. Meant to add in my previous post that I didn't mean to offend you by suggesting you take the Bible literally. Your previous post triggered my worries that too many people do take it literally and my comments were meant to be directed at them.
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| Tuesday, July 29, 2008 - 08:30 pm Oh, sorry. I didn't mean for that to sound like I was offended. That was not my intention. I just wanted to clarify that I wasn't one of "those" Christians. JMR: That was a very good history lesson. Most of that I already knew, just wasn't too clear on the dates. (Although I did think Commodore Perry [That was his name! yay!] was in the late 19 century, but I looked it up, and you were right) I was gonna respond to the Washington thing, but forgot to. I was going to say people make the choice to live in DC rather than MD or VA. Originally, as you already said, people weren't supposed to live in the District, and so never set a way to have representatives in Congress, becuase they wouldn't be representing anyone LOL. Amazing how THAT worked out. As for calling Scots, or Irish, or Scots-Irish British, I know my brother whole family he married into would take offense to that lol. I can only hear it now "I am NOT British!!" in his father-in-law's scottish accent. No, I think of more like how it is in America. We all consider ourselves to be American here, but we're all of different nationalities and cultures. Only I think England is actually composed of more diversity than anywhere in the States.I know the city of London has got to be one of the most diverse cities in the world.They have Seikhs, Sunnis, Christians, and Jews all living in a few blocks of eachother. I've been to Europe myself, twice, but never further north than the Southern Coast of France/Northern Coast of Italy. Other than that, the reason why I got into this thread is because, first of all, I read the whole damn thing, and came down to the complete nonsence that was typed in all caps and was immidiately irritated. That's is the exact reason why people from other countries hate Americans. That sence-less redneck ranting does no good. Other than that, I think JMR did an excellent job in summing up American History. One thing I would like to add though: Reason why America gets involved in world affairs in these modern times, for the most part, is because others around the world are needlessly suffering tremendously. We being the richest, most powerful, resource-rich nation the world has ever seen, coupled with our Christian background, we have a concience, and feel like we can, and SHOULD do something to alleviate that suffering, despite what others may believe. And just because someone is democratically-elected, does NOT mean they are going to be good rulers and abide by international law. (Hitler is a perfect example of a democratically-elected leader, and he led the world into one of the worst tragedies in human history). As quoted from Zorridor: 1949 CIA helps overthrow the democratically elected government of Syria, which brings in the dictatorship of Husni al-Za'im 1953 Operation Ajax: CIA and British MI6 successfully orchestrate the removal of democratically-elected Iranian prime minister Mohammed Mossadegh, and installs the Shah as dictator. 1963 -- Iraq. The C.I.A. supports a coup in Iraq against the democratically-elected Qassim government. 1973 -- The destruction of democracy in Chile and the support of a bloody dictatorship there under Augusto Pinochet. 1987 -- Fiji. Support to coup against Timoci Bavadra, democratically-elected Prime Minister. 2002 -- Venezuela. CIA-backed abortive coup against democratically-elected President Hugo Ch�¡vez. 2004 -- 2004 Ha�¯ti rebellion occurs. US-backed rebel leaders gain control of Haiti, ousting the government of democratically-elected, populist priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Hugo Chavez? Husni al-Za'im? Mohammed Mossadegh? Not to mention all the countless democratically-elected war-lords in Africa. Those guys have all been idealist nationalist types a lot like Hitler himself, and after what happened throughout the early-mid 20th centuries, and beyond, the American gov't is a bit paranoid, and that's why they try to be a police force in the world. I'm not syaing America policing the world is right by any means, I'm just saying the reason WHY it is the way it is. The only way to figure it out how we got where we are at, is by studying history. It's like a football game (American, but you can think soccer, doesn't matter what sport at all). It's the 4th quarter and people are screaming and yelling, and someone walks in who hasn't seen the first 3/4 of the game. He starts analyzing, and criticising everything the coach or team does on the field. He's never going to be able to figure out why a coach made such-and-such a decision without first seeing the begining of the game. Same thing with modern history. You'll never be able to understand why the world is the way it is, or why America pokes its nose into everything, without first studying history. (Note: did I just rant or what? I think I changed subjects about 800 times without ever meaning too lol)
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| Tuesday, July 29, 2008 - 08:53 pm Also, about the heavy stuff we got involved in in the 50s, 602, and 70s. You gotta remember, the world still had WW2 fresh in its mind. They also had the idea that Russia and the United States was going to duke it out with nuclear weapons. Americans thought of Russia in the same light as 1930s Germany. Everyone wanted to steer clear of another war with Germany, and so they appeased Hitler. They allowed him to take nation after nation in Eastern Europe. Germany and Russia even divided Poland up between them. Hitler allied itself with Italy and Japan, and eventually attacked yet more countries. Czechoslovakia, I believe, was the last straw for both France and Britiain. They had almost no choice bu to prepare for war. Well, after the war, it was Russia's turn to take over Eastern Europe. China went Communist and pretty much backed up Russia (I know they definitely had their disagreements, but still). America was the ONLY nation able to stand up to Russia. Yes, we had support from other countries,as did Russia, only becuase, well, with two nations squaring off with nucs pointed at eachother, other countries, such as the UK and Australia, didn't want to just sit around and get THEIR asses blown away in a war between 2 countries, so everyone....I mean EVERYONE chose sides, and kinda turned into this, "either your with us or against us" kind of mentality, for both the USSR (not Russia, sorry) and the US. The US did'nt want to follow in the footsteps of the UK and France in the 1930s and be like "oh, sure, you can have such and such a country as long as we don't have to go to war". Well, that appeasement policy did not work, and actually failed quite miserably. Well, the USSR collapsed in 1991, leaving the US the sole superpower on the planet. and since then, the US tries feverishly to keep any upstarts from upsetting this 63 years of "relative" peace A good example of this is the bully on the playground. He can go around picking on kids, stealing their lunch money, because he knows noone is willing to do anything to stop him. He'll continue doing it until someone is big and strong enough to put a stop to it. That's kinda what WW2 and post WW2 is like. Big bad Germany picked on the kids in Eastern Europe for while, got in a fight and was defeated. Big Bad USSR picked on the kids in Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, the only one left to put a stop to it is the US. Big Bad USSR becomes a more civilized, democratic Russia, and isn't really considered as much a threat, so USA polices the playground to keep some other ballsy child from stealing another kids lunch money
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| Wednesday, July 30, 2008 - 01:28 am Hmmm... very interesting takes. Would like to throw something out for Zetetic, since he referenced the Norman conquest in 1066 at Hastings (I think). Were you aware of just how close the British Isles came to being something completely different? On 25 Sept. 1066, a Norwegian army under King Harald Hardrada landed some 300 ships filled with Viking warriors on the shores of the British Isles. He was met by the English King Harold Godwinsson at a place near York called Stamford Bridge. The battle was a disaster for the Norsemen, only 24 ships survived to return to Norway. It was only a matter of a few weeks when the Normans showed up. Many historians attribute the English defeat to the losses they suffered at Stamford Bridge. Glad to accept the clarifications regarding the backdrop of WWI, and also glad to accept the gentle chiding reminder that during WWII Canada was still a Dominion. And yes, the ANZACS were critical to victory in Italy, among other places. And the Indian contingent was doubly amazing considering the push for independence going on there during that time frame. I learned something, I wasn't aware of the fact of Indian volunteers outnumbering conscripted Brits. I think that the British Empire (upon which the sun never set) was successful in part due to the fact that they copied one aspect of the ancient Roman Empire. That aspect was that, after conquering a region, both of those Empires more or less allowed the region a good deal of self-rule. Yes, the Governor would be from the Empire's homeland, but as long as the local rulers kept the population quiet, the Empire let them do their own thing. My personal bet is that Britain learned from their experience in North America during the latter half of the 18th century!  Back now to MM: Some well put points. Just a couple things to say. It was actually Poland that pushed the UK and France into war. The annexation of the Sudentenland (part of what was then Czechoslovakia) was allowed with nary a whimper. Which was ironic considering that Czechoslovakia at that time had the most pure democracy on the planet. It was when Hitler decided to stop his successful diplomatic war and turn to his military that the UK and France could no longer just hope he'd go away. Your take on the cold war era is good. What the bashers have conveniently overlooked are the Soviet coups and actions during this same period. The world was a gigantic chessboard, with the US and USSR commanding the table, and their allies all standing at the ready. The implications of having a communist (or even Soviet supporting democracy) in our back yard was something that could not be tolerated, just as having a democracy or US supporting government in most of Asia or anywhere in Eastern Europe was not to be tolerated by the Soviets. I refer you to Hungary 1956, Czechoslovakia 1968, and others. Afica was unfortunately for them, the only open battleground left in the world. Can anyone remember Cuban troops in Angola? Not because Cuba wanted what Angola had, but the USSR said, if you want to keep getting foreign aid this is what you need to do. And while I respect David Walker's opinion of Castro and Cuba, I think he's a little misguided. Cuba has indeed accomplished some amazing things under the Castro regime (their literacy rate is among the highest in the world, as is their % of people covered by health care), however, without the USSR footing the bill economically it's questionable whether the result would have been the same. Be careful about buying into the idea of the US being the only superpower remaining. Russia is slowly but surely returning to a more autocratic style of leadership, and has quietly but steadily been increasing their economic power throughout the world. They control a majority of the oil and natural gas shipments into much of Europe, and have some of the largest known reserves of both those commodities on the planet. Additionally, China has been upgrading their military at an alarming rate and has been exerting itself politically and economically round the globe. The old saying used to be "sure, they've got the people, but they don't have the trucks to move them, and sure they've got nukes but they can't fly them straight." Well, they're getting the trucks, and thanks to a certain US president they now have the technology to fly the nukes straight. There's an old Arabic curse which goes "May you live in interesting times." I think we are, and I'm curious to see how all this washes out.
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| Wednesday, July 30, 2008 - 05:34 am Very learned discussion. Robert, your comments were exceptional. The only point on which I would chime in is that the Brits most assuredly did NOT hand over Palestine to the pre-Israeli's. Quite the opposite. The infrastructure of the area, notably the police stations complete with armaments, was given to the local arabs. A black spot on modern British culture is the anti-semitism which was most evident in the implementation of the UN partitition plan. History has been seriously muddled in recent years regarding how Israel was created and who the real troublemakers were.
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| Wednesday, July 30, 2008 - 07:03 am Excellent summary of the current geopolitical situation as well. We are transitioning from loose bipolar model to a mutipolar one. I suspect the distribution of world "power" will closely resemble that of the 1920's in form, if not actors, within a generation. The US is credited for being the sole "superpower" due to our unrivaled capacity to project force not for our overall strength.
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| Wednesday, July 30, 2008 - 08:12 am Mostly what I was refering to the US as being the only superpower was mostly the 1991 - 2000 range (one could argue we still are, but I'm not about to make that argument) There is one thing China isn't quite up to speed compared to us if it ever came to (conventional) blows: And that's a Navy. I'm sure they have a strong navy, but not as technologically advance. Control the oceans, and your pretty much a fortress. Not that any conflict of any type would even be considered by either party. It would be incredibly idiotic to even talk of such things. We have a rocky relationship with that country to be sure, but the last thing either side would want is a war, conventional or not... I know I'm not nearly as smart as you guys when it comes to history, but I think I DO have a pretty good IMPRESSION of history, and the reasons why people made some of the decisions they have. One of the biggest problems I have with people saying "oh, that was a terrible decision" or "why would other people think that way? The problem I have with that attitude, is that they're using hindsight, and ONLY hindsight. By putting yourself in they're shoes, and taking yourself back to those times, I believe most people should have a better understanding of history. As for the Norman invasion in 1066, I knew the year ended in 66, I said 1166, or 1266, or 1366 or some damn thing. And I said the invaders came came from Normandy...is that right? Not terribly sure. Anyway, back to what the original topic was about, it is completely unreasonable for people to actually hate the US the way they do. They may dislike it...or the government. And yes, the US does things purely out of self interest, but ya know what? There are now over 300 million Americans. It is the govmnts responibility to look after its own ppl and to do what's best for us. in fact, EVERY nations' govmnt has that responsibility, not just the US. Only the US has all this EXTRA abilities, and just tries to take care of others around the world as well. Sometimes that means getting involved in controversial things with other nations, but those nations have innocent people who would be more than welcoming to see someone cares about them, and is thinking of them, and is trying to do SOMETHING to change their lot in life.
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Wednesday, July 30, 2008 - 08:16 am
Russia still has over 5000 nuclear weapons deployed and unlike the United States has been dismantling older weapons and upgrading to mobile and high accuracy warheads. Russia also is testing a new SLBM on par with a first generation Trident. The SS-25 is a road mobile launcher with shoot and scoot capabilities. Not good enough for counterforce but plenty capable of retalitory strikes on the 100 largest American cities. Or over half the population....
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| Wednesday, July 30, 2008 - 08:32 am Excellent point Sam. The Russians are also continuing to develope top of the line conventional hardware, most notably high performance aircraft.
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| Wednesday, July 30, 2008 - 09:27 am Woo-woo! Somebody (or bodies) gets it. Russia has been very skillfully flying under the radar ever since Putin was elected. He was able to counter the malaise that the population had sunk into, in much the same way that President Reagan brought this country back from the disaster of J. Carter, by appealing to the national pride AND by making the country economically sound again. The major reason the USSR collapsed was economic. Those of us playing SC are well aware how hard it is to give your people both guns AND butter. The economic recovery in the US during the Reagan administration and the accompanying increase and modernization of the military caused much concern in the Soviet Union. Their effort to "keep up" while at the same time running a war in Afghanistan AND dealing with widespread dissatisfaction in Eastern Europe was too much, and the economy imploded. Make no mistake. Putin has publicly declared his desire to reunite much of the old USSR. And the man is a hero to his people. During the most recent election cycle (yes, I do know he's not Pres any more, but they created a Prime Minister type position just for him)the number one song on the Russian charts was a rock and roll group singing about Putin being the "savior" of the country. Putin learned his lessons from the previous collapse, and is quietly returning Russia to a force to be reckoned with. Meanwhile, in a sort of deja vue all over again sort of scenario, the Clinton administration under the guise of a "peace dividend" did everything it could to castrate the US military and intelligence services. Then the current administration repeated the mistakes of a generation ago, and now it's the US falling asleep at the switch with a struggling economy and a war in Afghanistan and Iraq. MM, the largest part of the Chinese modernization program has been their Navy. They are spending double what the US does on naval weaponry and R&D. They have consistently tested the US response. Do you recall the incident where they captured one of our intel gathering aircraft and refused to release the crew for weeks? I'm not sure we ever did get the plane back. They ran a massive military excercise off the coast of Taiwan. One of their "stealth" subs with nuke capability was able to shadow a US carrier group without us knowing it was there until it had to surface for one reason or another, and it was so close the carrier escorts could see it without binoculars! There have been incidents of both Russian and Chinese aircraft "buzzing" our planes. The Chinese are also intensely developing their space program and "star wars" type space based weaponry. Bottom line is, as Farmer pointed out, history tends to run in cycles. The names and nations change, but the "game" remains the same. Anyway MM, your gut instincts and the original reason for restarting this thread are valid, so don't stop just because you don't feel knowledgeable enough. We all specialize in different things. I have an advantage because I earn a portion of my living by writing about history, US and other. Don't let me intimidate you. Now the God of War, on the other hand... (just joking)
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| Wednesday, July 30, 2008 - 02:35 pm MM: As for calling Scots, or Irish, or Scots-Irish British, I know my brother whole family he married into would take offense to that lol. I can only hear it now "I am NOT British!!" in his father-in-law's scottish accent. Quite! And woe-betide any American (or other non-Brit) who makes the grave error of calling a Scot, English! (I've seen it happen.) It looks as though Scotland will eventually become independent from England. I must say, I'd be tempted to move there if that happens as I have agreed more with the policies and actions of Holyrood than Westminster (separate parliaments for Scotland and England+United Kingdom). We do have a whole bunch of everything in London and, mostly, they all get along. The 7/7 bombers were from Bradford which is much more divided by race and religion. Reason why America gets involved in world affairs in these modern times, for the most part, is because others around the world are needlessly suffering tremendously. We being the richest, most powerful, resource-rich nation the world has ever seen, coupled with our Christian background, we have a concience, and feel like we can, and SHOULD do something to alleviate that suffering, despite what others may believe. This, I would disagree with, in part. I don't believe ANY country has ever gone to war for any reason other than political. In WW2, Britain declared war on Nazi Germany supposedly because we were Poland's ally. Even though there were plenty of reports of the treatment of Jews in Nazi Germany at the time, they didn't even get a mention in our declaration of war and Poland only got mentioned once (not much, bearing in mind that the document ran to tens of pages). If America really wanted to do something about suffering, they would have invaded Darfur in the Sudan, North Korea, Zimbabwe and probably a whole lot more. The first two were definitely a problem before the most recent invasion of Iraq and arguably, the suffering in Iraq has increased post-occupation. In the past, America's military actions were used to defend Capitalism against Communism. That was a political battle. Nowadays, I'm not so sure what it is about. I think the invasion in Iraq was more to do with retribution for 11/9 (that's 9/11 to you guys) as a worrying number of Americans still think Iraq had something to do with it. Strange given that Saddam had booted (the Saudi) bin Laden out who had moved to Afghanistan to recruit for the attack. That would make it political in the sense that the American people wanted to see some action in response to 11/9. I don't necessarily think that it's a problem that all wars are fought for political reasons, nor do I object to any or all actions of the US as a result of political considerations. I just wish it was acknowledged sometimes. Hitler is a perfect example of a democratically-elected leader, and he led the world into one of the worst tragedies in human history Hitler was NOT elected Chancellor democratically. The Nazi party, including Hitler, did gain a significant portion of seats in the German parliament democratically during the 1932 election. However, the previous ruling party failed to secure an absolute majority. Hitler and the Nazis entered a coalition government with the NSDAP and DNVP. The most powerful figure was supposed to be Papen, a devout Catholic and head of the Catholic Zentrum party, who intended to use Hitler as a figurehead which is why Hitler was given the position of Chancellor, with Papen stepping down to Vice-Chancellor. The Catholic Church in Germany released a statement wiping out previous criticim of Nazism and congratulated Hitler on his assumption of power. Previously, the Nazi party had garnered much of its support from Protestant churches in Germany. With the nod from the Catholic church, the Nazi party drew in support from both sides of the sectarian divide. The next election in March 1933 produced even greater support for the Nazi party (possibly due to a fire in the Reichstag building blamed on communists). This was the pretext for additional powers suspending basic rights (including habeus corpus) and suppression of the Communist party. The Nazi party failed to gain an absolute majority, but was returned as the senior partner in a coalition government. An enabling act was signed using support from the Zentrum party (given following verbal assurances of the liberty of the Church) that gave the Cabinet legislative powers. With this combination of legislative and executive power, Hitler was able to suppress the remaining political opposition. The SA paramilitary were used to push Hugenberg (Zentrum Minister for the Economy) to resign isolating Vice-Chancellor Papen. "President Paul von Hindenburg died on 2 August 1934. Rather than holding new presidential elections, Hitler's cabinet passed a law proclaiming the presidency dormant and transferred the role and powers of the head of state to Hitler as Führer und Reichskanzler (leader and chancellor)." (Wikipedia). As you can see, although Hitler became a junior partner in a coalition government through legitimate means, he used this limited power, and the muscle of the SA, to seize total power with a veil of decency. I, more or less, completely agree with your comments on the Cold War. JMR: Were you aware of just how close the British Isles came to being something completely different? I was actually. It is a fascinating story. The poor army had to march from North-East England to the south coast within weeks of a big battle and arrived exhausted and unprepared for another major invasion attempt. I think that the British Empire (upon which the sun never set) was successful in part due to the fact that they copied one aspect of the ancient Roman Empire. That aspect was that, after conquering a region, both of those Empires more or less allowed the region a good deal of self-rule. Yes, the Governor would be from the Empire's homeland, but as long as the local rulers kept the population quiet, the Empire let them do their own thing. My personal bet is that Britain learned from their experience in North America during the latter half of the 18th century! I agree, up to a point. Canada, Australia, NZ, South Africa and our Asian colonies were granted considerable local power. India in particular was ruled primarily by the Indian Civil Service, staffed almost entirely from local people. The ICS is still a beacon of un-corruptibility in a post-decolonisation world full of corrupt bureaucracies. We did, however, make a right pig's breakfast of Africa. This, I am ashamed to say, was mainly due to racism. It was thought, much as it was in the US at that time, that black people were uncivilised and incapable of ruling for themselves. That's where the white man took over in the guise of colonial government. The state of Africa now is, in part, a result of that. When we granted independence, we left most African states without any form of civil service as the preceding governing bodies were all staffed by whites (and Indians) who left. Africa was left without the expertise to govern itself properly leading to civil wars and shocking corruption. There's an old Arabic curse which goes "May you live in interesting times." I think we are, and I'm curious to see how all this washes out. LOVE IT! I must remember that one. MM: As for the Norman invasion in 1066, I knew the year ended in 66, I said 1166, or 1266, or 1366 or some damn thing. And I said the invaders came came from Normandy...is that right? Not terribly sure. Yep, Normans invaded 1066. Various peeps: USSR becoming a more civilised, democratic Russia I wish it were so. Despite a veneer of democracy, Russia is in some respects very un-democratic. It's been through a lot of turmoil since the fall of communism, but is getting back to strength again. Quetzalcoatl and others, are right to worry about the new warheads, etc., in development in Russia. More so because Russia is taking offence at American plans to build a missile defence shield in the Czech Republic.
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| Wednesday, July 30, 2008 - 04:33 pm On the Scottish independance thing... Scotland would soon go bankrupt if it split off from the UK. Their policy is one of overspending in relation to their actual income, hence why so much of Scotland's services are funded from Westminster. A split for them would ultimately be a disaster. Their total economy is weaker than that of the county of Yorkshire, which ought to put it into perspective. Scotland is a nation of some 5 million people, with an economy and public services heavily reliant on that of England. Devolution is a grand idea, but full independance would be catastrophic. And Scottish bankrupcy was the reason they wanted the union in the first place.
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| Wednesday, July 30, 2008 - 05:02 pm That's one of the arguments frequently put forward against Scottish Independence. However, Scotland's economy is fairly strong (per capita, it is the third region in the UK after London, and the South-East) and might not necessarily require contributions from England. Oil revenues also help prop up the Scottish economy although this is unsustainable as North Sea oil production peaked in 1999. Much of the revenue from this went to Westminster rather than Scotland. That said, I would agree that full independence for Scotland would weaken both Scotland and England.
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| Wednesday, July 30, 2008 - 08:24 pm A quick analysis of the various regions of the UK yields the following results for GDP per Capita in US Dollars: London $71,041.60 South East $50,080.00 East $44,444.80 South West $43,756.80 East Midlands $42,692.80 West Midlands $41,489.60 North West $40,633.60 Yorkshire $40,480.00 Scotland $39,680.00 Northern Ireland $38,813.94 North East $36,617.60 Wales $30,546.00 As for the oil, it didn't really matter where the revenue went at the time given that it was owned by the British Government. Now, I believe it's mostly a private venture. And any territorial claims to the waters would be under much dispute. The closest nation doesn't always own it. Falklands, Gibraltar, etc. And then there would be the whole mess created by figuring out who owns which overseas territories. Everything from services to infrastructure, economy to armed forces would have to be broken down. It would all be very messy. And, as you say, Scotland has nothing to gain from leaving the union other than their national pride. England has nothing to gain other than a lowered demand on government finances. Scotland and England work so much better together within the UK. The global ramifications, also, could prove startling. The United Kingdom would no longer exist. What would happen to the seat on the UN security council? What would happen to all British Crown Dependancies overseas? What would happen to institutions which are heavily integrated into every nation of the UK, such as the NHS, military, industry and commerce? And imagine the cost of removing all that lovely blue from the Union Flag...
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| Thursday, July 31, 2008 - 01:04 am Where did you get your numbers from? I've found this list, but it's GVA which takes into account tax and subsidies (Economy of UK regions). The Office of National Statistics seems particularly fond of this measure. Anyway, the decision will be political rather than economic. Re: The global ramifications. That is pretty startling. The Crown Dependencies would remain as such. Alex Salmond (First Minister of Scotland) favours becoming a Dominion like Canada and Australia so that wouldn't be affected. The NHS is devolved to Scotland already (from before the establishment of their parliament) and I suspect Scotland would retain the Pound Sterling. Given that much of our economic activity is already regulated by the EU, I don't think industry and commerce would be overly affected. Neither side would be likely to impose trade embargoes! Our international obligations are a different matter. I would expect that we would remain the United Kingdom of England, Wales and Northern Ireland which would leave much of things unchanged. When the numerous states of the USSR separated (the Baltics, Ukraine and Belorussia that were politically part of the same entity, rather than Poland et al. which had puppet governments), the seat on the UN security council remained with Russia. Scotland would gain independence from the UK, so I would assume something similar would apply. Re: the Union Flag. Damn good point! Maybe we'd work the Welsh dragon into it at the same time: Wales is currently unrepresented!
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| Thursday, July 31, 2008 - 02:45 am THAT would be freakin awesome looking! The british flag with a (golden?) dragon in the middle! It would be like "yeah, we're the UK, don't mess with our fire breathing dragon!" Zetitec: About the Chinese sub shadowing the US carrier group, I DO remember that. The media was all abuzz about that. However, the Chinese govnt may be spending twice as much on their R&D for their military as we are, but does that mean their as efficient? The American defense contractors are incredibly efficient at what they they do. My brother was in the Navy about 8 years ago, and worked for Spay-war up until last year. He was talking a bit about some of the Top Secret projects he was able to see. Well, all he said about 2 of them was they they were pretty damn cool, and other nations better not even THINK of messing with us, or our allies....so yeah, I'm not terribly worried about that aspect a whole lot. The Russians are so far behind both the US and China, that neither nation would be terribly worried about them (Well, except their nukes, obviously, but if it had to come to that, the world would just end immediately anyway. I'm mostly thinking of conventional warfare, since nuclear warfare is pretty much out of the question, except for terrorists) And besides, why in the hell would nations like China and Russia, who are finally coming out of hard times, want to risk all that they have worked so hard for in the past decade. The building of all these new weapon systems are to be used as a deterrant against aggression. Much like how the nuclear buildup after WW2 was used. And wasn't it Cambodia/Burma that just had a huge earthquake several months ago? Whatever country it was, the govnt refused to open their borders for international aid, and I seem to remember the American govnt doing everything it could to get the aid to those ppl. So no, not everything the US is is based purely on politics...The majority of what it does may be political, but not everything. I guess I'm just a more glass half-full, kinda guy.
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| Thursday, July 31, 2008 - 05:46 am Ok. Where to start on this discussion? As a 100% American Scotsman, the entire clan picked up and emigrated to the colonies in the 1740's, I say with pride that we are only good for fighting, screwing, and inventing ridiculous sports. Despite the history, Scotland is firmly bound to the UK. Though my people may be stupid enough to talk about independence, eventually the whiskey runs out and we sober up. The scary thing about the Chinese is their progress in areas that exploit American vulnerabilities. They have demonstrated the ability to destroy satellites, adios GPS navigation and targeting guidance. Also, they are likely the world leaders of the next generation of warfare, cyberwar. They have been caught with their hand in the cookie jar many times in that arena. Why would China seek conflict when their economy is booming and they would seem to be on the verge of reestablishing the middle kingdom as a preeminent world power? Why did Japan in 1933? Is the Chinese position now in regards to resources any different than Japan's in the 30's? Who did Japan view as the greatest potential threat to their regional hegemony at the time? Would Chinese strategic assessments lead to different conclusions? Wars are most frequently about population pressures and their economic consequences. Follow the money. In some leader's minds over the course of human history, it was an easy decision to choose to take by force what could have been gained by other means. For the exercise of power is the greatest drug ever known to man. The ruling oligarchs of modern China are extraordinarily powerful individuals. At what point might they realize for China to take the next step towards becoming a true superpower, they will require more resources than can be purchased or traded? Interesting times. Why would Russia be following a similar path? Who is on their SouthEast border? Nuff said. We Westerners will be facing some hard realities in the coming decades. Are we now seeing history repeating itself with new players?
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| Thursday, July 31, 2008 - 06:12 am Wales isn't on the Union FLag because it technically isn't a nation. It's a principality of England.
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| Thursday, July 31, 2008 - 07:24 am In regards to comparing Japan in 1933 to China now: In 1933, you remember, the entire world's economy was pretty much dead. Japan was still an Imperial nation, who wanted to just go about land-grabbing. Also, there was no such thing as nukes back then. You seem to forget the knowledge of the power of nuclear weapons that people have. That power is incredibly enourmous. There is no way China, in it's right mind, would want to risk such a catastrophe. Remember how Russia "blinked" during the Cuba missile crissis? That was because they were just as afraid of war as Americans ever were. I believe the Chinese are just afraid of it as well. Now, considering that people cannot live in fear forever, either 1 of 2 things will happend: 1: The superpowers of the world (USA, Russia, China, perhaps the EU) would come to terms, and begin to establish a more peaceful world, or... 2: We'll end up blowing eachother up after all. I don't think the second option will happen. (There's the possiblity of course, but still) I DO believe it is very possible Red China will fall, and leave in its place a True People's Republic of China. It won't be any kinda of large revolution like in Russia in 1917. It won't even be any kind of collapse of their economy like Russia in 1991. Instead, it'll take place slowly, and evolve on its own. After the Cold War generation is dead and gone, hell maybe even after MY generation is dead and gone. It's already taking place. Beijing is huge construction zone of city, in which millions of square footage of office space is opening. Same with Shanghai. The office tower is the most powerful symbol of a free market/free society there is, which is why terrorists target such buildings. The Olympics are coming to China (I know they don't exactly have the best human right's record in the world, which is why I'm reluctant to defend that nation at all to begin with). But the leaders of China HAVE been trying to rectify it as much as possible. I'm not giving them a whole lotta credit there though, all things considering. Their Justice System is evolving, it isn't nearly as corrupt as it was, even 10 years ago. Don't get me wrong, they are an incredible threat to the West. But like I said, people cannot live in fear forever. Either one thing or the other is going to happen. And I pray with all that is in me that China does reform, and become a great friend of the West. Which brings me to another point: The Chinese people...the normal, everyday people I mean, are actually in love with American culture, much like how the Japanese people are. And the American people, vice versa. There are many Americans who are obsessed with Eastern culture, which is why I don't think any kinda of warfare is going to be feasible for all parties concerned. And if warfare were to happen, that would just make it that much more tragic anyway. We'll just end up playing these silly little war games with eachother for a while, but I highly doubt anything big is ever going to come of it.
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| Friday, August 1, 2008 - 09:49 am Jeez, go away for a bit and miss a bunch! Just to touch on the interesting prospect of the Scottish Kingdom devolving from the UK. I need to spend some time over in the UK outside of London again. I wasn't aware that the idea was even being considered. I would hope that the idea is similar to the Quebecquois in Canada, something they continually grumble about, but don't really intend to do. I have some very fond memories of Scotland. The first out of country trip my girlfriend and I took was to the UK. We based out of a resort in Stratford-upon-Avon, and the only mistake we made was renting a car (as Americans WILL do!) instead of getting a two week BritRail pass. We drove up to Scotland (yeah, from the Midlands, on the back roads)and checked out Stonehenge, then motored over to Edinburgh. Got there just as dark was falling so we decided to park the car and find a pub for some dinner. Walked around, got lost, suddenly came upon this tiny little place that I wish I could remember the name of. Had a GREAT meal, and the absolute best cider I've ever drank in my life, before or after. We had parked close to the castle, and the barkeep kindly directed us back there. Came around a corner, and there was the castle, lit up and one of the most impressive sights I've seen. Needless to say we did not drive back that evening. And we've been back 3 or 4 times looking for that pub, and it's as if it was the magical beings of Scotland that eve, 'cuz the darn thing just isn't there. And neither one of us can remember the name of it. I ramble. My apologies. I just feel that both sides would be overall losers if it ever came to fruition. The history of the two is so intertwined. Now I need to slip back to the other topic. Farmer, you're dead on in your assessment of the Chinese. One of the reasons the US "needed" to use a missile to shoot down that errant satellite a while back was to show the Chinese government we had the capability also. As you mentioned, the Chinese had without warning done the same thing with one of their's earlier. It's eerie you mention good bye GPS, etc. The US media did not cover this, at least to my knowledge, but earlier this year a handbook which is issued to all Chinese General officers found it's way into Western hands. It covers all the basics, and includes the methods to be used in the case of civil disturbance. But the most interesting part of the manual is at the end, where various scenarios and battle plans are laid out. You have either seen that report or know something of it's contents. There is a scenario which deals with the recapture of Taiwan, something the mainland has wanted since it became independent. That scenario calls for, simultaneously, a massive disruption via cyberwar to all US military and government systems in the Far East, and an attack via missile launches to destroy as many satellites as possible to leave the US Navy high and dry. While this is going on a series of tactical nuclear strikes (yes, I said nuke) will be launched against selected military complexes in Taiwan, the Chinese Navy will move to block the Straits of Formosa, and the invasion fleet will set out, preceeded (sp?) by an aerial bombardment. This is not fiction. MM, I really appreciate your viewpoint. Everything you say makes sense to Westerners, who place a value on human life. But if you will allow me, a brief synopsis on China. China is an ancient Kingdom/country. It has been around for thousands of years. The Chinese people believe it is their destiny to control, at the very least, all of the Far East. Korea has been through much of history under their hegemony. Japan has been their traditional enemy for eons, both those cultures believe it is their destiny to have a controlling interest in the region. Since the end of WWII Japan has had to be content to be the economic power, which of course the Chinese are in the process of supplanting. If they have not already. Another thing that's hard for us to understand is the viewpoint on human life. We in the West demand and expect personal freedom and rights, and expect our governments to safeguard our lives and liberties. In the Eastern culture it's completely opposite. The individual is secondary, one's allegiance to family, clan, and state supercede all other considerations. Honor is the only thing an individual can control, and the code of honor is immense. To "lose face" no longer requires ritualistic suicide, but it can destroy lives and careers nonetheless. Do you have any idea how many bodies are buried inside the Great Wall in China? The peasants were worked up to 16 hours a day to build it, and when a peasant died from whatever reason they were just mortared over. Tens of thousands of them died and are entombed in the Wall. And the bizarre thing? They did it willingly, because the Emperor had decreed it. Granted, things are much improved over there now. But don't look for a revolution any time in the near future. Remember Tiananmen Square? Thousands of students tried to protest for more freedom. The Army ran them over with tanks. The mentality hasn't changed. You can get the internet now, but you won't be reading this discussion there. Google, Yahoo, and the rest agreed to allow the government to censor what it's citizens could see. One last thing about the Chinese, they have a LOT of patience. They don't really care if it takes generations to accomplish their goals, they've been around for a mess of generations already, and expect to be around for a mess more. I agree with you on the construction bit, and on the fascination with Western culture among the young. And I second your hope that the reforms continue. As I said earlier, I really respect your thoughts and opinions. I like to think of myself as a "glass half-full" type too. But as two heros of mine said: "Walk softly, but carry a BIG stick." Theodore Roosevelt, US President, Nobel Peace Prize winner, first conservationist, and the buster of the monopolies in the US. And "Trust, but verify." Ronald Reagan, whom I don't need to tell about.
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| Friday, August 1, 2008 - 10:32 am I would hope that the idea is similar to the Quebecquois in Canada, something they continually grumble about, but don't really intend to do. Well, they've been grumbling about it for decades and have got their own parliament out of it. The Scottish Nationalist Party finally won a majority (though not a controlling majority) at the last election and have promised a referendum before 2012. They don't have enough support in the parliament to push it through, though, and it won't be legally binding as constitutional matters are still under the control of Westminster. That said, if the Scots voted for independence, there would be a lot of pressure on Westminster to accede to the demands. the only mistake we made was renting a car (as Americans WILL do!) instead of getting a two week BritRail pass. Our rail network is much better than in the States, but leaves a lot to be desired after decades of under-funding. That said, the amount of congestion on the roads generally makes rail travel more appealing. We drove up to Scotland (yeah, from the Midlands, on the back roads)and checked out Stonehenge, then motored over to Edinburgh. Not sure what you saw in Scotland, but it wasn't Stonehenge. That's near England's south coast, some 600 miles from Scotland. It's not the only Stone Age stone circle, though, just the most famous.
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| Friday, August 1, 2008 - 06:53 pm Thank you Robert for contributing the details about Chinese history and Eastern cultures. The point being folks, that in real world discussions of this type, the planning process revolves arounds THREATS and RESPONSES. This is how militaries function at the strategic level. Who are our potential enemies? what are their current and projected capabilities? What are their plans and intentions that we can determine from their weapons programs, training regimens, and force structure. Order of Battle? Etc., Etc., Etc. We then make the same assessments of ourselves and plan responses for all manner of possible conflicts and political crises. So when NCA calls a theater CINC and asks "what can we do about this?", that general or admiral can turn to his J3 and get firm, preplanned answers in the form of up to date operations plans. So goes the theory anyway. The point I am making here is that this debate is not quite as theoretical and hypothetical as you might believe. Conflicts WILL occur at some point in that area that involve Western powers. The nuclear capabilities of some of the actors only decreases the likely scale of the conflicts but does not mitigate the perceived NEED for military actions. "Incidents" among the PRC, PI, and Vietnam have occured already over oil fields in the South China Sea. That is only one area of potential strife in that AO. Robert, Japan, with US encouragement, has been considering taking a much more aggresive role in their regional security. Even to the point of becoming nuclear capable with our blessings. The recent AirForce screwups involving strategic ordanance and components have the devious part of my mind wondering if we aren't "losing" things through "accountability errors" that end up in Japanese hands. Not like this hasn't happened before. There are many ways aroung Congressional oversight. Though my work in the intel field was focused on the Warsaw Pact, China has always represented the geatest long term threat to US interests. Your assessment of their psychology is spot on, though they are not monolithic in their culture and politics. Many unquantifiable variable are in play in China, and we have always been woefully lacking in assets to gauge their internal political heirarchy. When stepping back and looking at China's actions and progress, however, one cannot be more concerned when one considers the ramifications of their current economic and military policies. Their energy demands alone will dwarf the West's in the next 10 years. They are not attempting to make a technological generation leap into renewables, but are rather following in our footsteps to develope a modern real world economy based on the old systems. Factories, IC engines, coal fired power. While their urban populations have been granted much greater freedoms to embrace the fruits of capitalism and hence contribute to the economic progress of their nation, their political freedoms have remained unchanged. In Western societies, the development of a large, productive middle class inevitably led to devolvement of political power into more egalitarian political systems. Such need not necessarily be the case in China. The pressures to share political power with those who have the economic power will be there, but whether China's ruling oligarchy is willing or able to do so is very much in doubt. As you said. Interesting Times. A discussion such as this is entirely proper in the context of SimCountry, however. Can you see real world parallels between how political/military assessments are conducted?
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| Friday, August 1, 2008 - 07:01 pm I would LOVE to visit Scotland. From all accounts, it's an incredibly lovely country. I wish I could see it. My brother's wife (sister-in-law I guess you could say?) is from Edinbourgh. When they came to visit, she just kept remarking how Pennsylvania (my homestate) is so much like the country-side in Scotland (with quite a few more trees, of course) In fact, while driving on I180 (a highway which goes through my hometown, Williamsport) she even remarked how she could swear she was driving on the wrong side of one of the highways that run through Scotland down to England. [I]I agree with you on the construction bit, and on the fascination with Western culture among the young.[/I] Which gives me hope of a good future for that nation. Maybe in 30 - 50 years, the more idealistic young people now will come to power in China, and begin to take on some Western morals, such as the various freedoms we enjoy here. That has already happened in Japan, which is a country that's just as ancient, with very similar codes of honor and so forth, as China. The great thing about my hometown, is the Little League World Series is held here every year. Hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world come here every single year, and each year brings more and more people. From 1993 - 1998, I was a soda vendor/program vendor at the ages of 10-15 (back then, it was only a week long, and there was only 4 American teams, and 4 International teams. Now it is double that, at 8 American, and 8 International.) While I would walk around selling my soda, I couldn't tell you how many of the various Far-Eastern people would travel to the opposite side of the globe to come to Willyport.(whichever country happened to qualify that year, used to be Taiwan. Japan was there once, and China was there as well)Seems the Far-easterners consistently had far more, louder fans, then any other team that made it. They were also the most polite as well. And I couldn't tell you how many times a family would stop me and take a picture of me with my dumb little vendor holder and take pictures of me. Then take pictures of me with their family members. Watching them downtown, their eyes were always wide open, taking everything in. ALWAYS taking pictures of everything. They would also sell out the movie theater as well. They always seemed like they had the most fun than any other countries. They are also the ones that bring in cow bells by the thousands. It is a very nostalgic thing to me, hearing cowbells at baseball games, cuz that's all you would hear at the LL Complex. Anyway, my point is, if we could hold off any conflict for the next half generation, the people coming into power in China could very well make much-needed reforms. Seems every new generation of Chinese are getting a bit more liberal than the previous generation I mean classic liberalism, which is freedom from coercion. Not mordern-day liberalism, which is basically every single interest group under the sun has more rights than the majority of Americans. Those people irritate me to no end. I am also very familiar with Teddy Roosevelt. One of my favorite teachers was obsessed with teaching us about the guy.
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| Friday, August 1, 2008 - 07:33 pm AAHH, about the energy thing. China is making a serious mistake with trying to copy our energy models. The use of Fossil Fuels is not sustainable. Many people across the US are making a push for more renewable resources. Many Western nations have already made that transition. When fossil fuels run out: Some argue we wont for hundreds of years, and others argue that we already are running out. From my point of view, I tend to agree more with the assessments of the latter than the former. I am now making more money than I ever have, and am struggling more than ever in putting gas in my car so to me, that is an indication that we must be running out. And whenever that happens, the countries that have not made the transition to green energy will be left in the dust. That is one thing that angers me about this nation: we have the means/technology to begin switching to greener energy, but people refuse to do so for some completely, stupid....GAWD there's no word to describe these people! An example: Lycoming County (in the state of PA) was planning on building a large wind farm, that a retired farmer donated to the county government. This windfarm would produce enough power to supply half the county, including Williamsport. The nuke power plant in Berwick would be able to scale back. However, there were these "[b]PEOPLE!!!!![/b] that think these wind mills would hurt wildlife!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This was in the Billtown paper. I was like WTF?!?!? hurt wild life??? The hell kind of an argument is that? GAWD I was PISSED. I immediately wrote the Sun Gazette, in complete opposition to the article. After that, I swear, people kept writing into the paper for the next 2 weeks on that subject. The big argument against the wind farm was some stupid little bird that tends to nest in these windmills, and they endanger these birds' lives for some god-unknown reason. The windfarm never got built! Now we're stuck with high energy costs! AND we get brownouts because the nuke plant cannot keep up with the supply of power! All because some stupid, cretin, tree hugging hippies wanted to preserve the most idiotic bird in existence!!! If ANYHTING, the damned windmills would help to not only PRESERVE wildlife, by producing the cleanest possible energy in the world (THE WIND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) but it would help to alleviate high energy costs, stop the brownouts, use less nuclear waste (Thereby preserving EVEN MORE wildlife) and well....damn... heh, anyways, sorry bout that stupid rant, but the thought of using all that oil, not producing the hybrids, not building windmills, not building geothermal plants, not producing solar panels in bulk...well...that just pisses me off to no end. I should just move to Iceland, which gets 99% of its energy completely naturally.
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| Friday, August 1, 2008 - 10:47 pm Will come back later for more discussion, but just HAVE to say "egg on my face!" with regard to Stonehenge! I COULD say I was just testing you Zetetic, but I'd be lying. We did see Stonehenge on our two week trip, but we also saw some famous attraction in Scotland prior to going on to Edinburgh, but guess I'm getting old. It was 20 years ago or so, and we've been over there 10-15 more times (try to do a once a year) since then, so things tend to blur a bit. Again, gracias for pointing out my error. I normally do a proofread and double check of facts before I post, but naturally the time I don't I get caught! Oh well, I guess a 90% is better than zero.
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| Saturday, August 2, 2008 - 08:16 am Looks like I end up with a double. MM, you and I are going to bang heads here a little. Not that I disagree with the thought of moving away from "dirty" energy into cleaner burning fuels, I do think so. You are paying higher prices at the gas pump not because oil is scarce, it's not. The US, thanks to the environmentalists, has not built a new refinery in over 30 years. The current refineries are running at 100% capacity, and have been for years. When they have to shut down for annual maintenance, we have shortfalls. When they make the transition from gasoline to heating oil production and back again we have shortfalls. Just recently for the first time in its' history The US had to begin importing REFINED gasoline. That's asinine. There has not been a new nuclear power plant built in this country in over 30 years. France has no energy problem because the vast majority of their electricity comes from nuclear power. If we would have built just one plant every 5 years since the 70s, we would not have a problem. Thank you again environmentalists. If Detroit would have increased the mpg of vehicles by just 1/4 of a mile per gallon each year since the 70s, we would not have a problem. Thank you big auto, who are now paying a heavy price for sticking their heads in the sand. Even with all that, the primary reason the price of oil went through the roof is not lack of supply, it is speculators. Oil is a commodity, bought and sold in contracts along with other commodities on the various commodity exchanges around the world. The majority of these contracts are not traded by corporations, but by individual investors who have no intention of using the product. I won't go into a lesson on commodities here, but suffice it to say that George Soros made hundreds of millions of dollars trading oil contracts in 2007. Those of us who were around in the 70s probably remember when the Hunt brothers tried to corner the silver market, and the price of silver went from 5 bucks an ounce to over 50. Same thing here. The Dakotas have been sitting on an estimated 500 billion barrels of oil for over two decades. It is in a hard to reach location, and will cost about 20-30 dollars a barrel to get it out, so until the past couple years it just wasn't profitable to drill. Last year the state finally began issuing drilling permits, and guess how many are in operation now? None. Before the ink even dries on the permit the environmentalists are filing lawsuits to block it. Not because there is anything in the area as far as wildlife or natural beauty that should be preserved, it is being done because these people are off the wall and determined to block any and every effort to help the US become energy independent. Foreign countries are putting up oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, and laughing all the way to the bank as we stand by sucking our thumbs. Anwar should be opened. The Alaska pipeline has actually been beneficial to the wildlife in the areas it passes through. The pipeline needs to be heated to protect the flow of oil, and small animals and even caribou have made their nests/home territories in it's neighborhood. There are hundreds of oil rigs in Texas just begging to be uncapped and production resumed. Not happening. The entire thing is just a simple scam being foisted on the common guy by people with an agenda. Just like the recent ethanol fiasco here in the US. A simple feel good measure by our politicos so they can tell the people they're doing something about the energy "crisis". Ethanol is a farce. It decreases mpg. It costs more energy to create a gallon of ethanol than a gallon of gasoline. Due to it's volatility, ethanol cannot be pipelined. So it needs to be trucked from point of manufacture to point of use, using more gas. Ethanol here in the US is made from corn. It can, and is, being made in other countries by using sugar cane, which is more efficient than corn, and is actually a pretty decent alternative to gasoline. Brazil in particular manufactures huge quantities of it. But gee, the politicians made sure to outlaw any foreign ethanol purchases when they made the law! Noticed your grocery bills skyrocketing? Can you guess why? What does livestock eat? Corn, soymeal, alfalfa, other crops. If you are a farmer and can get 8 bucks a bushel for corn or 5 for soybeans, what are you most likely to grow? With the demand for corn for ethanol use, a huge chunk has been taken out of the animal husbandry food chain. Hence, higher meat and dairy prices. Thanks to a 40 year old law making it illegal for US companies to buy sugar anywhere except the US (the late Sen. Inoue of Hawaii was responsible for that bit of hocus-pocus), the vast majority of sweetening product used in sodas, candy, etc., is corn syrup. Up goes the price of anything which needs sweetened. If we flattened the entire US and planted every acre with corn, we would still not meet 25% of our consumption needs. The ethanol thing is a crock, and it's costing the average Joe a lot of money in a lot of different ways. Wind power is one alternative source, and one which the technology is improving, but it is still not very efficient. Solar power is another technology which is improving, but the critical thing there is getting the storage capability squared away. If you're in Arizona or southern Cal., solar is great. Elsewhere they need to find a more efficient storage method for it to be practical. Iceland is unique. A volcanic island that indeed gets most of their energy from geothermal. I'd like to see more geothermal usage here in the states. It's reliable, it's efficient, you don't need to worry about birds or if the sun will shine today. And the technology is already proven. Almost hate to say this, but I would have been on the birds' side in the great windmill debate in Williamsport. Wind farms, under the current tech, are just not efficient enough. If you don't have a consistent source of wind, such as close to the shore, it just doesn't pay. I doubt if you would have seen an appreciable decrease in your bills. And if the brownouts come from lack of capacity at the nuke plant, the small amount that the wind farm would have produced would not have impacted that very much either. Not sure about "your" birds, but out West they have had a lot of trouble because the wind farms are built in the direct migratory path of some species, and they get sucked into the windmills and instant McNuggets, killing them by the thousands. Where were the environmentalists for that? Windfarms are part of their agenda, that's why they didn't bother to file lawsuits. Where are my buds from PETA? Now I'm ranting, so I'll close by saying that you may have sold me a soda as a youngster at the LLWS. A buddy of mine and I went to see the LLWS in 1996. He lives in Philly, and I was visiting, so it wasn't a hard commute.
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| Saturday, August 2, 2008 - 02:35 pm Wind power has potential, but it is limited. Because the energy comes from the Kinetic Energy of the wind, if the wind speed halves, the energy produced goes down by a factor of 4 (energy is proportional to the square of velocity). Geothermal is great, but there are few areas that are able to produce it. Hydroelectric is excellent. Norway gets nearly all of its electricity from hydro and Switzerland gets a large portion (topped up by nuclear). It also has the advantage of almost instant supply. We have a number of hydroelectric dams in the UK and they are used to provide power when there is a sudden spike in demand. A hydroelectric dam can go from producing zero to full power in 30 seconds, whereas a coal plant can take up to a day. It's used when Coronation Street (very popular soap here in the UK, hate it myself) goes to an ad break (commercial break). There is usually a huge spike in demand as everyone sticks the kettle on for a cup of tea. Britain is investing too much in wind power to my mind (and the environmentalists keep opposing new wind farms anyway which means more than half of those planned, never get built). We are also putting money into wave and tidal power (of which we have plenty to exploit being an island), but it is expensive and the technology is not quite advanced enough yet. Likewise, we have been foolish enough not to continue expanding our nuclear capacity. The current government seems in favour of doing so, but even if we start construction tomorrow, the new plants won't be complete by the time our current lot have to be decommissioned. Also, we would still be reliant on volatile supplies of uranium which does nothing to help our energy security. Most comes from Canada at the moment, but other important Uranium mining countries are Russia, Niger, Namibia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Solar power is more advanced than people give credit for. Unfortunately, we're generally a bit cloudy here, so can't exploit it terribly well. There has been a proposal to cover large areas of the Sahara in solar panels, which would generate more than enough energy for North Africa and Europe, but the infrastructure to get the power across the Med and distributed throughout Europe, just isn't there without a huge amount of investment. Plus: energy security if our electricity is generated in Africa. Personally, I think the best bet is locally produced electricity. Stick a few solar panels on your roof, and a moderately-sized turbine in your garden (as many have already done) and you can end up selling electricity back to the National Grid. If it clouds over or the wind speed drops, you can then draw on the National Grid so that you have a constant supply. Combine that with more efficient electrical devices and you have the makings of an energy efficient economy. Transport is a separate matter. There has recently been a considerable improvement in fuel cell technology which raises hope for an alternative to petrol and diesel. However, you still need to generate the electricity to separate the oxygen and hydrogen in water to fuel the cell. If we can manage to generate enough clean power to run vehicles off fuel cells, and invest in electrification of our rail network, we could almost eliminate our reliance on fossil fuels as a source of energy. No one potential solution will suffice, I think it will have to be a combination of everything we have available to us, including energy savings from more efficient appliances.
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| Saturday, August 2, 2008 - 08:09 pm WOW! Lots to reply to! I have to admit, I know nothing of commodities, or commodity exchanges. And I personally think it's all a huge scam anyways from, all accounts. As for the use of gasoline/ethanol: What's assisnine is people who promote the production of ethanol from corn. As you said, corn is incredibly inefficient to use. Instead of corn, there's a type of grass, called switchgrass, that is HIGHLY HIGHLY HIGHLY effective. Corn requires very careful care, and maintenance. So much so, that the land that is needed to grow it is actually incredibly valuable. Whereas switchgrass can pretty much be grown ANYWHERE. Now what type of land in this country is not being utilized at all, in which there are literally millions of square acreage that could be used for one crop, and only one crop, called switchgrass? That land would happen to reside along all the highways of America. Well, mostly the eastcoast highways, in which both side of the highway is mostly open grassy areas as it is. No farmer would be able to grow corn, even if he was allowed to, along these loooong stretches of un-utilized land. Switch grass has proven to also yield a much higher return of energy, per acre, than corn Citation: http://bioenergy.ornl.gov/papers/misc/switgrs.html "Test plots of switchgrass at Auburn University have produced up to 15 tons of dry biomass per acre, and five- year yields average 11.5 tons—enough to make 1,150 gallons of ethanol per acre each year." There are soooo many more benefits on this article that I care to list here. The one I sited above was the one that stuck out the most. This grass could be grown almost virtually anywhere in the continental US. NOT true for corn. In other words, the good plots of land would be reserved for corn, soybeans, and many other types of food vegetation. So there would not be the conflict of "guns or butter" so to speak, in this case. And yes, the reason why I'm glad to see the American auto-makers going broke is for the reason you stated: they refused to do R&D on alternative fuels. They deserve to go under. Not that it's beneficial to us, but I'm hoping when they finally do, it'll be a wake-up call for all the other industries. The reason Toyota, Mazda, and other foreign manufacturers are doing so well, is because they didn't sell out to the oil industry, and have instead, been doing extensive R&D into better fuel-economy cars. Case-in-point: A local technical school in my town, Pennsylvania College of technology, is one of the the premiere tech schools in the state, has been working extensively with Toyota. Toyota donates 2 or 3 alternative-fuel cars a year to the school, so the students can learn the ins-and-outs of how the engine is designed. As quoted from: http://www.pct.edu/schools/tt/bau/ "The automobile industry's future, of keen interest to the automotive teachers mentoring tomorrow's vehicle technicians, is today's reality at Penn College. The North American Council of Automotive Instructors, holding its 35th annual conference on campus, heard presentations Tuesday on vehicles that use technology to reduce petroleum dependency and greenhouse-gas emissions. Toyota brought along a prototype fuel-cell vehicle, which attracted considerable attention (and some willing test-drivers) from attendees and the media alike. Also on hand was The Pennsylvania State University's EcoCAR research vehicle, which gives engineering students the opportunity to design and build cars that demonstrate leading-edge technologies, with the goal of minimizing the environmental impact of personal transportation. Among the visitors was WNEP's Norm Jones, whose report on the Toyota vehicle aired at 5:30 Tuesday evening. Additional coverage, including his interviews with conference organizers and attendees, tentatively was to broadcast later in the day. The Williamsport Sun-Gazette also published an article about the car on the front page of Wednesday's editions." Another switch of topic: The whole idea of other nations setting up oil rigs right off our shores and we are not aloud to do the same, is laughable. As I said in another thread somewhere, all the interest groups in the US, have more rights than the majority. THAT is laughable as well, and downright infuriating. Which is why I was so upset over the opposition to wind-mills. (Nuclear power kinda scares me a bit. Nobody is still allowed to step foot on three-mile-island down in Harrisburgh, which just a 2 hour drive away form where I live. Berwick is the closest I live to a nuke plant, and is only 45 minutes away. The opposition to nuke power is quite understandable, considering the high-risk they involve.) The wind farm proposal is situated on a tree-less plateu (spelling?) in the north-east corner of Lycoming county. There are plenty of wind sheers up there. And considering the county population is pretty sparse, the wind-mill WOULD put a dent in energy costs in this region. And since local taxes would support the mill, it would not have to be put on the National Grid. It would still help the Grid, by taking 100,000 households or so off of it at some points throughout the year. Especially throughout the fall and winter months. Geothermal energy: The entire West Coast of the US is full of hypothermal vents. Sure, it may not do much directly for us inthe East, but California is notorious for brownouts. The East...indeed, the entire nation, would benefit for the reduced dependance on oil. I know I read somewhere there was serious talk about contructing geothermal stations up in Washington state, and one in Hawaii. The East coast has many, in fact, it is full, of rivers and their tributaries. granted, they could effect the wildlife, particularly the fishing migrations, above the dam, but ecosystems have been known to adapt to, and change around the damn. Indeed, life is incredibly resilient that way. If it wasn't we would not even be here discussing this right now, if you think about it. There is only 1 major hydroelectric dam on the East Coast that I can think of, and that's up in Buffalo. Canada gets half the electricity from that dam. There are a bunch in Tennessee, I am sure, from the TVA project back during the Great Depression, which i think is still around. I'm not terribly sure about that though. someone can correct me if I'm wrong here. Solar Power: like you said Zetetic, would only be effective in Arizona, and CA (actually, NM, TX, and all them other Southwestern states would benefit form it just as well). However, if we could take THOSE states off the Grid by insituting solar panel electricity throughout that region, it would reduce our dependance on fossil fuels by at least 1/4, if not more, without the construction of more nuke plants. Plus, also, like you said, the UK is developing a wave-powered source of electricity, the US should be doing the same. Hell, we got more mileage of coast land than any other nation on the entire globe. OF COURSE we would benefit HUGELY from such a technology, and WHY are WE not devloping such a technology? The Gulf Stream alone could produce millions, if not billions, of kwh. I guess to sum it all up, it isn't just 1 source of green technology that should be used, its a combination of some, or ALL of these technologies. My first example of a wind farm was just that, an example. The example would reduce the dependancy of my small little county that I live in. Yes, it's just one little population out of 300 million, but if ALL these small little populations throughout the nation were to do some small little green contribution like this, then the US could be more like Brazil, or Iceland. We wouldn't have to worry about oil, and the Middle East would be worthless to us. As it should be right now, but isn't because of these greedy, selfish corporate commodity types. Little do they know, if this keeps up the way it's going, they will begin to lose out as well in the end. *Deep Breath!* Zetetic, it would be awesome if I did end up selling a soda to ya back then. Although in 1996 I believe I got "promoted" to selling programs instead hehe.
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| Saturday, August 2, 2008 - 08:26 pm Double post. Sorry, that last statement was meant for JMR not Zet. My bad. As for the rail thing, the US has been beuilding more rail, because it's simply cheaper right now for large corporations, like Wal-Mart, to ship their products by rail, rather than by road. However, it will be much more difficult and expensive for our government to construct as extrensive a rail system as the UK has simply because the UK is only about the size, if not smaller, than the STATE that I live in. In other words, the US is at least 50 times the size of the UK, with much more varying landscapes than the UK has as well. So the use of road will forever be used more often than rail in this nation. Simply because the volume of a road can be many time that of rail. I don't know where I was going with that, but I guess, mostly because I was afraid the English people on these boards would think Americans were morons for not utilizing the railroad as much as they do in the UK. It's, simply put, a lot harder for us to do so, and would require hell of a lot more money to maintain and create in order to use the amount of volume that is required.
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| Saturday, August 2, 2008 - 08:31 pm hummm... You can still edit your post and correct that. See the notepad with the pen? Click it. ; )
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| Saturday, August 2, 2008 - 09:11 pm Got your people mixed up MM, but I don't mind if Zetetic doesn't! First off Zetetic: Saying the British Isles are "a bit cloudy" is an understatement! Just like our Oregonians here, the Brits don't suntan, they rust! Back to MM for a second: TMI is okay. The one reactor is down, but the other two are up and running, and have been. One of my high school classmates (J. Heuser) is head of security there. On to the discussion. Zetetic, your assessment of the energy problems/solutions is on target. Hydro is clean, efficient, and incredibly low maintenance. Watched a program(me) on the History Channel a couple months back which attempted to show what the world would be like if every human disappeared tomorrow. One of the things which amazed me was that the Hoover Dam would continue to pump out electric for a couple decades even with no one there to operate it! And it would go on practically forever if it wasn't for a pesky little barnacle that likes to live in the water intake channels. Hydro runs into the same problem here with environmentalist opposition. I'd like to make something clear here. I am not opposed to conservation. Every major religion (and anyone with common sense) tells their adherents to be good stewards of the land. It is the hypocrisy of the environmental movement that arouses my ire. The man who makes millions making false movies about polar bears has a house whose monthly electric use could supply hundreds of homes, while the man the world loves to hate owns a home which is over 80% powered by geothermal. People who place their "agenda" over the common good have more power than the average guy in the street. I don't pretend to have the answer to that, but I love complaining about it. Zetetic: Right on target with the solar panel idea. My home has a solar panel, unfortunately it was put up in the 70s when the tech was brand new, so it is not very efficient. And you are correct that solar has come a long way. If you'd like to be futuristic about things, the idea of placing massive solar panels in space is an interesting alternative. The only drawback currently is the transmission of the power from space to earth. Space based solar panels benefit from no atmospheric interference, no cloud cover concerns, and 24 hour production. Anyone see a problem? Another futuristic option, although a somewhat scary one, is the development of fusion power. Or is it fission? I get the two confused. Pretty sure it's fusion I'm talking about. It takes nuke power to the next level. Self sustaining, no waste. But an accident would probably wipe out half the population of the earth. But hey, that would solve the energy problem, right? LOL. Your comments about fuel cells are also on target. Back when I was a preteen I lived in Japan for 5 years. Mitsubishi corporate headquarters had a section of their building open to the public which showcased the "products of the future". They make a lot more than just cars,and I was fascinated by the stuff they had. Included in the display was a car with fuel cell technology. Oh, did I mention that I lived there from 1965-1970? Additionally, when cars were first coming out, the Dusenbergs, etc., did not run entirely on gasoline. My grandfather's first car was a Stanley Steamer, which by it's name you know what it ran on. You cannot convince me that with today's technology we can't just take the old models and find a way to upgrade them to fit today's world. As both Zetetic and MM mention, no single solution will suffice, it has to be a broad ranged effort along many different fronts. MM, excellent article regarding biofuels. Corn based ethanol is a very sore subject with me, it ranks as probably the worst legislation in the US since Prohibition. Especially since it was just a "shut the people up so we can get reelected" program. Now if the three of us ran the real world instead of countries on SC... Concluding, MM, you may have then sold me a program, I always buy one of those too. But if you did you forgot my little pencil, and I want it! LOL.
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| Saturday, August 2, 2008 - 09:50 pm John: I didn't know what that notepad was for. I been searching for an edit button, but now I know lol. I'll use it next time JMR, I watched that exact same program on the History Channel too! incredibly interesting stuff they had on there. The wind mills, too, would still be producing electricity as well. Pretty interesting thinking about how green technology would far surpass fossil fuel tech, even long after humans have vanished! lol! JMR, I have no idea why you would hand someone a pencil when they're selling you a program, but I don't ever remembering someone giving me one to use lol. I DO remember that Kevin Costner stole my pen after I asked him for an autograph there lol. But, um, I guess after all these rants, my original point was that the Chinese should put all their energy into developing all these technologies we have been talking about, in order to be more independant from foreign resources. They're following the exact same path that we did, and look where it got us. If we were to switch to alternative energies, we should be able to leap-frog back ahead of the Chinese again, and let them suffer the consequences of being too dependant on Fossile Fuels.
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| Sunday, August 3, 2008 - 12:28 am Got it backwards MM. The program guy is supposed to give the buyer one of those pint sized pencils to keep score with. I didn't get one that day, and I still want it! lol. Regarding the Chinese once again, they're not strictly developing fossil fuel programs. They are also beginning construction on what would be one of the largest hydroelectric complexes in the world on a river in western China running along the border with Tibet. The name of the river escapes me at the moment, but it's a large river which runs down into India. And therein lies a problem. If the project is completed the river flow will be so drastically reduced that approximately 1 million Indians will be without water. Considering the on again/off again relations between China and India, this could be interesting.
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| Sunday, August 3, 2008 - 01:41 am Off topic interlude.... This thread was started on Thursday, May 24, 2007.....Is wwwporkchop even playing anymore?
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| Sunday, August 3, 2008 - 05:38 am lol who knows? but its a fun thread so... Yeah I think it's the Yangze River, or the Yellow River (that may very well be the same damn river tho) One hydroelectric dam is not going to put a dent in the future energy demands of China though. They'll probably do what we did, and in fact they already are: throw up a bunch of cheap coal or oil burning plants.
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| Sunday, August 3, 2008 - 07:53 am Robert. Fusion is what you were looking for. The process as theorized is to covert a hydrogen isotope into helium which liberates massive emounts of energy in the process. E=mcsquared I believe. The developemental problems have centered around magnetic containment of the process and energy output/input ratios as I recall, but it does indeed represent the best long term prospects for mass energy production. The "blow up the world" thing is so much misinformation. Unlike fission, the splitting of heavy elements, fusion is not a process that is self sustaining. It can't "run away" or get out of control. However, it does produce heat energy in "bursts" that largely contribute to the engineering challenges in utilizing it for electrical production. I believe the French are developing a plant which uses fusion to produce lower temp plasma to heat water to steam turbines much like fission plants work today. At any rate, I haven't researched it in any depth lately, but you might look into it. Zet. I believe you hit on an excellent point. Small scale energy diversification would go a long way to allieviate our current problems. The alternative energy options are all viable, but limited in potential. None have the capacity individually or collectively to meet the worlds demands, but they can each contribute if used on a widespread but "micro scale". Solar panels on car tops, as roofing materials, and transluscent solar films on window glass can all enable energy production at the site to reduce overall demand from the grid. Small wind generators, not the huge airplane wing type, on high rise roof tops and edges are another option. It does require a shift in thinking, however. The Industrial Age are produced a mentality of centralization to take advantage of economies of scale, and produced a psychological conditioning in our populations for "bigger is better". The powers that be also tend to prefer to have as much control over the factors of our lives as well. Therefore, the resistance to decentralization of energy production encounters resistance from above and below. It's time has come though. Regarding Hydroelectric. It also is an excellent alternative, but limited by geography to how wide spread it can be used. I believe the US has actually used every hydro source practical in our territory by the late 60's. Therefore, its potential for helping in the long term is severely limited. I trust in the creative potential of mankind to find solutions if we free ourselves from our devotion to ideology which currently drives the energy debate.
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| Sunday, August 3, 2008 - 07:57 am Incidently, someone might want to fire up some new threads for this discussion as this one seems to be becoming a bit unwieldy. Just a thought.
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| Sunday, August 3, 2008 - 02:00 pm MM: Switch grass Never heard of it, but it sounds very interesting. Renewable sources of energy I think the best way of selling the idea of large-scale conversion to renewables to a reluctant population (such as oil-dependent Americans) would be in terms of energy security. Even if it works out as slightly more expensive in the short term, the investment will pay off as the price of the technology will fall with widespread adoption. You then have a country that is less dependent on potentially expensive imports from unstable parts of the world. Britain used to be self-sufficient in oil until output from the North Sea peaked in 1999. Even then, the price of North Sea Oil fluctuated with the global price, so even self-sufficiency in a commodity does not guarantee a secure supply (if foreign buyers will pay more, they'll be able to buy more raising prices for domestic buyers). MM: The Gulf Stream alone could produce millions, if not billions, of kwh. Probably not - it's too far out to sea to be economical to harness. Most tidal barriers and wave-energy generators are constructed across wide river estuaries and straits between mainland and islands. There are new potential generators that are efficient enough to convert the flow of water in a river to electricity without damming the river (they essentially take the form of a turbine placed on the river bed), but I don't think they've been tried anywhere yet. "I was afraid the English people on these boards would think Americans were morons for not utilizing the railroad as much as they do in the UK." Yes, and no. Americans are much better at exploiting their railroads for freight than we are. Our railways still carry far more passengers than freight so we could each learn from the other. The US coasts would be ideal places to build high-speed lines linking large population centres with fast, frequent, electric trains. Fewer internal flights means fewer emissions, reduced dependency on oil for fuel and reduced risk of terrorism (although we have had a number of rail bombings in Europe in the last few years). Not to mention the hassle you avoid by not going through airport security. Rail travel is often very competitive with air travel over medium distances (up to 600 miles). The journeys are usually city centre to city centre so you don't have the trek to an out-of-town airport. You avoid the queues for security and you don't need to switch your laptop and mobiles off for take-off on a train. There are now no flights between Paris and Belgium because of the High-Speed rail link and fewer between London and Paris and Brussels because of Eurostar. JMR: Hydro runs into the same problem here with environmentalist opposition. I'd like to make something clear here. I am not opposed to conservation. Yep, it's irritating. Most dams seek to alleviate the environmental problems as best they can. Most have salmon runs at the side so that migration patterns of fish are not disrupted. Solar panels Back to solar panels again: the UK government provides grant money to home-owners who wish to invest in solar panels or other renewable generators. They have been doing this for a few years, making money available each month. To begin with, applications would use up the supply within a month. Supply hasn't kept up with demand though, and currently the grant money is snapped up within 40 minutes of being made available. JMR: Another futuristic option, although a somewhat scary one, is the development of fusion power. It is fusion, not fission. It's the same source of power that powers the sun and other stars: fusion of hydrogen into helium. It's not scary as the only radioactive material that is produced is the walls of the reactor (a tokamak: from the Russian for Toroidal Chamber with Magnetic Coils). The high heat needed to sustain nuclear fusion is beyond all known materials, so it has to be contained by very strong magnetic fields. The latest generation of tokamak is planned to sustain nuclear fusion for a WHOPPING eight minutes (!) and will require less energy to sustain fusion than it generates during those eight minutes. Fusion Power is still a pipe-dream and we are unlikely to get a commercial reactor before 2050 with widespread adoption in the following 30 years. That said, people have been predicting commercial reactors within the next 30 years for the past 50 years, so keep your fingers crossed. To follow up on FarmerBob's post. ITER is being built in Caderache in France, but it is very much an international project part-funded by the US. JMR: They are also beginning construction on what would be one of the largest hydroelectric complexes in the world on a river in western China running along the border with Tibet. It's not the Yangtze as suggested by MM. The Chinese have already dammed that with the Three Gorges Project (creating the largest man-made lake thus far). Air travel in a low-carbon economy Just had a thought about longer-range travel where railways are impossible or uncompetitive. The Soviets developed a Wing-In-Ground effect (WIG) vehicle in the 1970s. It's a sort of cross between a ship and a plane and uses the extra lift generated by wings at very low altitude. See ekranoplan on Wikipeda. Their craft were designed to fly no higher than 5 or 6 metres and required a huge number of jet engines to take off, but once airborne, needed very little fuel to continue flying. This may seem like a ridiculous suggestion, but Boeing have a concept aircraft, the Pelican, which would take off as normal from a runway, but fly over the oceans at 6-15 metres. These types of craft, would be far faster than a ship, but slower than current airliners. They would use far less fuel, potentially making them able to exploit fuel cells or solar cells which would be unlikely to provide enough power for a traditional airliner.
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| Sunday, August 3, 2008 - 03:30 pm Thought I would turn this into a double post and cement my position as a science nerd (it was inevitable really, my first degree is in physics - it's alright though, I'm better now)! I thought I would take the opportunity to waffle on about nuclear fusion. E=m(c squared) does play a part as FarmerBob mentioned, but it's a whole lot more complicated than that. If you are bored easily by science, might be worth skipping over this post. Put simply, it takes a lot of energy to force two hydrogen atoms together. This is because they are positively charged and like-charges repel. However, once they get very close together, the attractive power of the strong nuclear force takes over and the two atoms crash together to form an atom of helium. The strong nuclear force governs the binding energy of atoms. Binding Energy is the energy required to break an atom apart into its constituent components, i.e., the energy needed to push the protons and neutrons far enough apart that the strong nuclear force is no longer sufficient to overcome the repulsive effect of the positive charge of the protons. This is where E=m(c squared) comes in. Einstein's famous equation states that the mass of a particle has an energy associated with it (the 'c squared' being a constant of proportionality). This is extremely weird and has the counter-intuitive result that even massless particles, such as the proton, can posses momentum (normally the reserve of something with mass). This is the principle behind solar sails since, with momentum, light can exert a pressure. When two or more particles are bound together (such as when two hydrogen atoms are fused), they have a lower overall energy level (another counter-intuitive result, but it has been experimentally verified). Because of this lower energy level, there is actually a difference between the mass of a two-particle system (say a deuterium atom of one proton and one neutron) and a separate system of separate particles (one free proton and one free neutron). This has been experimentally verified. This means that by combining, or fusing, two protons (hydrogen atoms), you can extract this difference of energy in the form of movement (kinetic energy, or rather, heat). The reaction used in Fusion Reactors (tokamaks) actually involves two isotopes of hydrogen, deuterium and tritium, which each have one proton (otherwise they wouldn't be hydrogen) and respectively 1 and 2 neutrons. When fused, this reaction produces an atom of helium (2 protons plus 2 neutrons) plus one free neutron which between them have 17.6MeV of usable energy. This is far greater than the 0.01MeV needed to force the particles together in the first place. (The electron-Volt, eV, is a fancy measure of energy used by physicists. It's much easier to handle than its equivalent in Joules when dealing with the small numbers involved with individual particles.) In order to overcome this energy barrier (the 0.01MeV to overcome the repulsive forces of the positively-charged particles), we heat the particles in a reactor (tokamak) to over 100 million degrees (Celsius) forming a plasma (a state of matter where the electrons have too much kinetic energy to remain in orbit around the nucleus of an atom). This gives them the necessary energy to overcome the repulsion, and they fuse to form helium and a free neutron. This free neutron, as it is uncharged, can move across the magnetic field used to contain the plasma providing sufficient heat to sustain the reaction, and carrying excess heat out of the containment field where it can be used to generate electricity. Congratulations on sticking with me to the end of this post. I hope I have explained things clearly and not confused or bored too many of you too much!
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| Sunday, August 3, 2008 - 06:30 pm I'm going to answer Zetetic's post in a new thread, since I agree with Quetzalcoatl and FarmerBob that this is getting unwieldy. Hard to know what to call it since we've diverged from the original. Guess I'll just go with the tried and true. Look for "U.S.opinion, the sequel."
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| Sunday, August 3, 2008 - 07:59 pm LOL! I actually understood what zet was saying in his second post...up until he was talking about the MeV thing.... In response to Zet's first post about switchgrass: http://bioenergy.ornl.gov/papers/misc/switgrs.html It is actually an amazing plant. Incredibly adaptable to whatever environment we want to grow it in, unlike corn. It produces hundreds of times of energy that corn ever possibly could. First time I heard of it, the plant specialist guy that presented the idea of growing switchgrass on the sides of highways. Millions of square-acreage that generally aren't wooded
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Sunday, August 3, 2008 - 10:33 pm
Sounds like the prologue of a plague.
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| Monday, August 4, 2008 - 03:31 am Yes a white plague......... 0_0
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| Monday, August 4, 2008 - 04:53 am [quote] "� Now, though, in research plots and laboratories in the Plains states and even in the Deep South the seeds of change are germinating. The tall, native grasses of the prairie, so vital to our land's ecological past, may prove equally vital to its economic future. Such grasses once fed millions of bison. Soon, grown as energy crops, they may help fuel millions of cars and trucks, spin power turbines, and supply chemicals to American industries." [/quote] Ummm, actually, if anything, it'll reduce the likelyhood of plague. It will be restoring what was there before the white man came and ruined it all....
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| Thursday, August 7, 2008 - 07:24 am Wow This thread is Awesome!
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| Thursday, August 7, 2008 - 07:35 am lol liar! This has gotta be the longest thread in the history of....threading!
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| Thursday, August 7, 2008 - 09:49 am Yep, this thread is so "Awesome" that it got its very own sequel!
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| Friday, August 8, 2008 - 07:47 pm lol yeah I discovered that
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| Saturday, August 9, 2008 - 02:10 am LMAO!! LET THE THREAD CONTINUE!
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| Saturday, August 9, 2008 - 11:12 pm lol why?
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| Sunday, August 10, 2008 - 05:29 pm I would rather live here than in a country with the freedom to believe what i wish than in a country that supports genocide, terrorism, or a government that will kill my entire family because i had an opinion. BTW i am not a racist ( for those who might interpet this post as so )i judge people on their words and actions alone. And curious as to what people of other countries out there think the US should do about the conflict between Georgia and Russia. ( you know the people who think the US should stay out of foreign affairs ) Should the US stand up for what Georgia is looking to become or let Russia and the Ex' KGB spy/new President start re-forming the Soviet Union?
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| Sunday, August 10, 2008 - 07:23 pm What? That isn't a question worth considering. Georgia is such a minor country that it wouldn't possibly affect us whatsoever. This has absolutely nothing to do with us at all. It does not present any kind of national security issues. The conflict between Russia and Georgia is over a piece of land that has been in dispute ever since the USSR broke up. It is a very worthless peice of land as well, and why Russia cares about it is beyond me. I also highly doubt it has anything to do with Putin, a new president, ex-KGB spies or what have you, are trying to reform the Soviet Union. If there is any foreign involvement at all, it would be handled purely by the UN, and in all liklyhood, Russia would end up losing that disputed territory anyway if the UN did get involved. Also, the funny thing is, America is considered to be pretty damn well "hated" throughout the world. I don't think that assessment is correct at all, considering this is the most desirable country to live in. Mexicans would not be illegaly crossing the border by the MILLIONS, regular civilians hold celebrations in other countries if they can get exit visas to the US. Indians come here to study because of our education system. This is the number one vacation destination in the entire world for Japanese people.
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| Sunday, August 10, 2008 - 08:04 pm America generally isn't hated. Just the hypocrisy and "oppression", depending on your point of view. Like the lectures to other nations over human rights. Or condemning wars of aggression. Or condemning state-sponsered terrorism. The world isn't black and white; good vs evil; with us or against us. It's about time America realised this.
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| Sunday, August 10, 2008 - 08:55 pm Lectures on human right? You think we are HIPOCRITES on that subject matter? Yes, we had slavery, yes we had the race riots. But that is all in the past. There is hardly any "opression" at all in this country. Unless you happen to think that all the huge capitalists are inherently oppressive. Well, all I can say to that is that, there are no such things as "sweatshops" here, where 8 year olds get paid a penny a day to make 300,000 shoes. Of course we should condemn wars of aggression. The UN should be condemning those wars as well, but they don't. State-sponsered terrorism? When have WE sponsered terrorism? We go after military targets, not civilian, at least, not purposely. Civilian targets will inevidably get hit, but we do NOT target them with the means to just kill a bunch of innocent civilians. And if we have not stepped in to prevent such wars, let's seee what the world would look like. First, the nazis would be ruling Europe with an iron fist for a couple of decades. Then Russia would have finally defeated Germany, due to the sheer numbers of Russians. But then Europe would have been ruled with an Iron Communist Fist. Same with all of Southeast Asia, including Japan. Now, lets say what happened exactly what happened until the 1990s. Iraq would have taken over the oil fields in Kuwait, then would have attacked another country in the region to take over some other resource. Using these newly aquired resources, they would have attacked Israel, and combined with Soviet-backed Syria, would have continued attacking any other neighbors that have not fallen in line. Then what? when would it have stopped? in Egypt? In Greece? In Italy? In France? Same thing happened with Nazi Germany. They just attacked, and attacked, and attacked, until FINALLY, after much great effort and the cost of millions of lives, the Nazis were put down. So no, the US does NOT put up with countries that attack their sovereign neighbors. If we don't no one else would.
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| Sunday, August 10, 2008 - 09:57 pm Let's analyse this, shall we? Guantanamo bay - Even people who've worked there, from the soldiers themselves to the lawyers who represent those who are unlawfully kept there aknowledge that torture occurs there. Read into it a little bit. You'll find quite a bit of factual evidence listing the nature of the human rights violations occuring there. And yes, capitalism is by it's very nature oppressive. But then, so is the racial segregation which still exists in the US. The right wing mindset of the US governmental institutions pretty much ensure that it stays that way, because, as all Americans know, "socialism" is "evil."
And then there's the whole Israel thing, which involves the ritual and most brutal terrorism of Palestinian civilians. Not just potential terrorists, but innocent men, women and children as well. As for world war two, this myth that the US stepped in and saved the world from the Nazis needs to be dispelled. The facts are far more complex (and compelling) than that. The Soviets were conducting something of a trade-off between land and time. This is well documented, in the speeches of Stalin himself, that they were allowing themselves the time to build up sufficient force to repel the German invaders. Specifically, waiting on the brutal Russian winter. Russia, for one, was never in any real danger of falling to the Nazis. They simply relocated their heavy industry to the east, well out of the reach of the Nazi forces. As for America's "decisive" intervention, there is no doubt that America sped up the war. But the tides were already turning by the time the US got involved. The turning point for the war on the Western Front was just after the battle of Britain, when the Nazis changed their tactics from attacking the RAF to attacking industrial targets, such as the cities. With the RAF still intact (and actually having more planes at the end of the Battle than it did at the beginning) Britain was in no danger of falling. The first major breakthrough was the British breaking of the enigma, several months before Germany declared war on the US. It allowed Britain to intercept and understand the Nazi military transmissions, locating naval forces and u-boats, and save the convoys, changing 80% losses into an 80% survival rate. Britain was no longer in danger of starving. Also take into account that British munitions productions when America joined the fight were greater than that of the US. Britain was holding it's own, though taking a pasting from bombing raids. In North Africa, victory at the second battle of El Alamein by the British, Australians, Indians, New Zealanders, Greek, Free French and South Africans which significantly altered the flow of the war - opening up the possible invasion of Italy, and thus the first landing by allied forces on mainland Europe. And, when the Normandy invasion occured, there were some 156,000 military personnel involved in the initial invasion. 2/3 of these were British. And finally, at wars end, when Churchill ordered the British to blockade the Danish peninsula, preventing the Soviets from advancing into western Europe. No, the second world war was not won by America. They did not save Europe from Nazis or Communists. They helped greatly, but the tide had already turned. As for Iraq, I guess it was alright to supply them with weapons when they were on the side of the West, right? Who knows? Nazi Germany's mistakes were declaring war on Russia. The moment they opened up that second front, they were certain to lose.
Don't make me laugh. Let's go all the way back to 1776 and start there, shall we? The systematic slaughter of native American tribes as the US expanded westwards. Exploitation, oppression, genocide. The regular wars of aggression conducted against the US's sovereign neighbours of Canada (then British ruled) specifically, and to a lesser extent, Mexico. Mostly for land. World War 2, in which the US declared war on neither Imperial Japan nor Nazi Germany, both of which had been expanding into their sovereign neighbours for the larger part of a decade. It took Japan and Germany declaring war on the US before America would no longer "put up with countries that attack their sovereign neighbors" as you put it. Whereas the UK was in against the Nazis when they invaded Poland. If you've read all of that, and now take the time to go out and conduct a little research of your own, perhaps you will uncover quite a few other untruths about the way you view your nation and it's place within the world. Specifically, the second world war. Don't look to historians alone for your answers. Read some of the major players speeches, direct accounts of battle, military information, etc. I'm sure by this point you see me as anti-American. It's that whole "With us or against us" thing. Well I'm neither with America or against it. I'm just trying to set the record straight. Comments such as
are ignorant of both history and the sacrifices made by millions of non-Americans in the defence of theirs and others' way of life. People and nations across the world have been fighting for their right to freedom since long before America was founded (my own included), and they will be long after America is nothing more than a few pages in the history books. "Justice" and "Freedom" are relative terms. And they are a weak and feeble excuse to justify yourself as righteous and correct. Imposing our own moral code on others, and our way of life, is oppressive and hypocritical. And it's something that every human being is guilty of. It has to stop. I look forwards to your riposte. May it be both passionate and thoughtful. But that's all I have to say on such matters.
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| Monday, August 11, 2008 - 03:11 am So tell me, Zeta. How many civilians did I bayonet, rape, shoot, sodomize, and murder during my 2 tours in Vietnam? You posted quotes. Were they from this thread or some other source? Sorry. 26 years in uniform. That touched a nerve.
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| Monday, August 11, 2008 - 03:16 pm Zet, don't make me laugh. First I am not about to start any kind real detailed argument over America's place in the world anymore. This has been argued so many fricken times, it isn't even funny, especially the WWII thing. NO WHERE does ANY American claim "socialism is evil." We are, believe it or not, quite socialist ourselves. We just happen to have Capitalism there. About our capitalist economy: NOWHERE ELSE in the entire world does a person born in a poor family have as good a chance of becoming rich and successful as in the US. A por person may have to work harder, that's a given, but poor people are not nearly as "stuck" in their class as most people would believe. Anyway, it is Communism that is "evil." There IS quite a bit of difference. Actually, 1 bit of WW2 history you got wrong: North Africa: As I recall, it was the Americans, led by General Dwight Eisenhower (later, the 34th president of the US), that led the fight through North Africa. Then we hit up El Alamein. I could give you a very detailed history of the battle of North Africa if you like. The Brits and Company were falling apart after many offensives, and counter offensives against the Italians. Don't even get me started on Normandy either. Between the American Navy and the 101st Airborne, we fought smart, not hard. Look it up. The whole Native American wars of aggression: No other country has admitted terrible mistakes that have been made as the US has. WE HAVE NEVER TRIED TO KEEP SECRET, OR DOWNPLAY THE TERRIBLE PERIOD OF WHEN THE AMERICAN ARMY WAS SLAUGHERTING THE NATIVES BY THE THOUSANDS!!!!!! Actually, only the Germans, perhaps, preach more about their mistakes in the 20th century, then we do about ours in the 19th. The point is, the English HAVE NEVER admitted they were EVER wrong in ANYTHING. They seem to believe that they had the right to go about conquering the world, ans subjegating all other peoples. WHY do you think the American Revolution was fought??? Same thing goes with the whole slavery idea as well. we have NEVER tried to downplay the slavery thing. In fact, hundreds of thousands of Americans died to try to end slavery. (Please, DO NOT tell me those Americans died just to save the Union. The frist year and half of that war, it is true. The rest of the war was fought to preserve the Union, AND to try to end slavery. There are MANY journals, and correspondence that have been written about that very subject, before Lincoln's famous speech.) Same thing goes for the whole civil rights movement for African Americans. They fought for their rights, and they won! With the help of President Kennedy, I might add. Vietnam: Bob already said 'nuff bout that. Guantanamo Bay: YOU, SIR, would NEVER have even HEARD of what was going on at Guantanamo Bay if it weren't for all the hype that AMERICANS were putting out there of what happened. The torture of those TERRORISTS was NOT BY ANY MEANS SANCTIONED BY THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT!!! In fact, there was this HUGE debate over the use of waterboarding after the whole torture thing came out. And waterboarding does no physical harm! Oh MAN, I could go on, but like I said, I am not going to argue over this incredibly STUPID idea that Americans are somehow responsible for all the terrible things that have happened in human history...from wars, to genocides, to slavery....sorry, but I do take it that you are Anti-American, and no, I do not at all believe the whole "you are with us, or against us" notion. Bush is an idiot! But, when you are posting on a thread (I know this is only a stupid forum on the internet, and no matter what I say, even with supporting evidence, it is not going to change anyone's mind, nor solve any kind of conflict. So really, there is no point in posting at all I don't think.) Anyway, when someone is talking that much trash about any nation, your only going to inflame the people of that nation. Most other nationalities would retaliate with far worse/harsher words, and consider you an enemy right on the spot if you were going on a smear campaign about other countries. Look at China: No foreign reporters in China are allowed to say anything negative about that country. Need I say more?? I already posted too much here, and will go no further than this line: AMERICANS ARE NOT EVIL WE DID NOT INVENT WAR WE DID NOT INVENT CHILD SACRIFICE WE DID NOT INVENT GENOCIDE WE DID NOT INVENT SLAVERY WE TRY TO PUT A STOP TO THESE TERRIBLE THINGS WE ARE HUMNAN BUT ARE THE ONLY NATION OTHER THAN GERMANY TO TRY TO RECTIFY THE WRONGS WE HAVE COMMITTED ENGLAND WOULD HAVE LOST WORLD WAR TWO IF NOT FOR AMERICAN SUPPORT IT WAS CALLED LEND LEASE WITH OUT LEND LEASE ENGLAND WOULD HAVE FALLEN FAR BEFORE THEY INVENTED RADAR WE PREVENTED MILLIONS UPON MILLIONS OF LIVES FROM BEING LOST BY ENTERING THE WAR WHEN WE DID AND YES RUSSIA WOULD HAVE TAKEN OVER GERMANY COMPLETELY AND MAYBE EVEN CONTInUED THEIR MARCH EAST IF WE DID NOT STOP THEM AT THE WEST GERMAN BORDER THE REST OF ASIA INCLUDING JAPAN WOULD BE UNDER EITHER THE RED SOVIET OR RED CHINAS FLAG RIGHT NOW IF NOT FOR KOREA AND VIETNAM VIETNAM WAS CONDUCTED POORLY I ADMIT BUT WAS STILL PRETTY NECESSARY TO "SAVE THE WORLD FOR DEMOCRACY" AND YES DEMOCRACY IS THE BEST FORM OF GOVERNMENT EVER INVENTED AND EVERYONE WHO LIVES UNDER A REAL DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY HAS MANY PRIVELEDGES THAT PEOPLE OF OTHER COUNTRIES THAT DO NAT HAVE TRULY DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENTS RECOGNIZE WE INVENTED FREEDOM OF RELIGION THIS IS THE VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY FIRST NATION TO COME UP WITH THE IDEA OF RELIGIOUS FREEDOM SO WE MUST BE THE MOST OPEN MINDED PEOPLE IN THE ENTIRE HISTORY OF THE WORLD PEOPLE HAVE COME TO AMERICA FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD BY THE HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS TO ESCAPE POVERTY AND OPPRESSION AND TO SEEK ACTUALY FREEDOMS IN ORDER TO MAKE A BETTER LIFE FOR THEMSELVES AND THEIR FAMILIES PEOPLE ARE STILL FLOCKING TO THE AMERICAN SHORES TO CONTINUE ESCAPING THOSE THINGS WE HAVE TO ERECT WALLS AROUND MEXICO BECAUSE OUT NATION CANNOT SUPPORT THE FLOOD OF PEOPLES COMING HERE ANY LONGER WE ARE RUNNING OUT OF RESOURCES TO HELP AND SUPPORT THESE PEOPLE THE POPULATION OF THIS COUNTRY ROSE BY MORE THAN TWENTY MILLION IN LESS THAN TEN YEARS SO WE ARE STILL DOING SOMETHING RIGHT There, I am done!
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Monday, August 11, 2008 - 06:13 pm
Yes, about your economy; it's called the Anglo-Saxon model, based heavily on the economic modely pioneered by the natives of the British Isles (The Angles and Saxons, surprisingly enough) during the mid to late middle ages. It's the same system they have had in Western Europe for centuries. And I think you will find that the states around the world which offer the most fluid class structures, and thus potential for movement between the various classes are the places like Australia and Norway. The best representation of this is the Human Development Index. Iceland, Norway, Australia, Canada, Ireland being the top five in the world.
An intriguing point of view. Please do recount the history of the war in North Africa. Funnily enough, the victory of El Alamein - which is well documented as being the end point of Axis progress in North Africa - had nothing to do with the Americans. So I don't know where this "We hit up El Alamein" comes in.
Sounds more like a stalemate than the so called "Falling Apart" that you mention. But I would still like to hear your version of events.
Perhaps you should go back and read what I said about it? I did not for a moment say that the Americans weren't involved. I'm just making it clear that they weren't alone. That others made sacrifices too. As for the whole apology to the natives thing,
Look up the British apologies to the descendants of those who suffered during the slave trade. Or the Australian apologies to the natives of their great country. Social guilt for past atrocities is something many western powers share. And many have apologised repeatedly for their past. I think it shows that some of us are learning from past mistakes.
Indeed he did. But I fear he misunderstood my point.
Actually, we learned about it largely due to the European citizens who were being held there unlawfully. Most notably the British citizens who were held there for the best part of a decade without charge. Not because of any noble stand against such a place.
Terrorists? What ever happened to innocent until proven guilty? Most of the prisoners held there have had no trial, little legal representation and no protection of their human rights. Yes, some no doubt are terrorists. But as we've seen, time and again, most have committed no crime of terror. The evidence generally proves to be either false, or circumstantial at best. Not sanctioned by the government, eh? Well, perhaps the army down in Cuba is acting of it's own accord. I doubt it, but hey, you never know?
I haven't once said that America (nor Americans, for that matter) are responsible for all bad things in the world. Perhaps we should revisit my initial point;
I was defining the main reason why so many around the world are percieved to "hate" the US. Not stating that the US is somehow worse or the worst in terms of moral standing, but rather that the "Holier than thou" attitude which the US government (like many other Western nations, I hastily add - UK, France, Germany, ETC) reguarly adopts when dealing with other nations around the world is the cause of the vast majority of the US's problems around the globe. It also undermines the US's position and the strength of her argument, no matter how right she may be. Lecturing China on human rights with institutions such as Gitmo in operation, largely unopposed by the government of the US, lends an air of hypocrisy, don't you think? And lecturing Russia on wars of aggression without due cause is just as bad, because you just know that the Russians will start talking about US ventures abroad - such as Iraq.
Try tuning in to the BBC and listening to some of their reports from places like Beijing. Undoubtedly, China's record - whilst not perfect - is improving. As far as being Anti-American, that couldn't be further from the truth. This just happens to be the topic about America, and I'm taking up the counterpoint to several arguments posed above. Were this a topic about the UK's own "Holier than thou" attitude (You're welcome to start one) then my response would be just as critical as this one, and along very simmilar lines. Regarding your final wall of upper-case text: I'm not claiming Americans are evil. It is not my intention to try and tar any particular subculture with a single brush. Everybody is different. Slavery: Much of the enforcement to halt the slave trade came from the British Empire, specifically in Western Europe. Slave Trade Act, 1807 - pretty good reading. As I recall, it took a civil war almost 60 years later for America to abolish the trade. Not having a dig. Just laying out some facts which may interest you. Radar was invented several years before the start of World War 2. Theory for it existed as far back as 1904, and the first patent was taken out in 1935. Lend-lease: The renting out of British military bases in exchange for access to resources from 1941-1945, in which Britain recieved $31.4 billion in "rent" for access to her world network of military bases in the West Indies and Newfoundland. It was a deliberate effort on the part of America to avoid the appearance of intervention in the war. Lend-Lease wasn't so much of an act in the name of freedom as a trade agreement. Much like the loans the US currently holds with the Chinese. Though I doubt anybody will be thanking the Chinese for their contribuitions to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Which is a shame, really. Saving the world for democracy? Sorry, but I have to quote one of my favourite books here:
John O'Farrell - An Utterly Impartial History of Britain (Or, 2000 years of Upper Class Idiots In Charge) - A fantastic read. I highly reccommend it, if you like your history with a dash of humour. At the time, World War 2 wasn't about freedom or anything like that. World War 2 began due to treaty obligations, and ended the way it did because Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan bit off more than they could chew. Not until the Soviets happened upon the terrible atrocities of the camps was the true horror revealed. The privileges and rights that you enjoy are based on something called English Common Law. Also fascinating to read about. But freedom of religion was not a new idea when the US stumbled across it. The very concept can be traced back to Renaissance Europe. It went to America with the British, French and Spanish Empires. Yes, America is a grand defender of those who seek to live within her boundaries. But, to put it into a context of populational ratios, the number of immigrants moving to the US to live is not really much greater than France or Germany, nor the British Isles for that matter. I agree. America is very open minded. And it's a fine democracy. But to claim that it's the most open minded place, ever, seems somewhat counter-intuitive to that statement, surely? Compare the US to just about any or the EU member states, and you'll find little difference in the freedoms or rights which both peoples - Americans and Europeans - enjoy. As I've said, American law lends it's heritage to English Common Law, and between the two political entities the sharing of ideas, ideals and ways of life has reached such an extent that they can both be clearly seen to influence one-another. But that's a topic for another debate. Having said all of that, I'd like to reiterate that depite how you may interpret my words, they are not intended with any degree of venom. They're just a summary of various facts to which I've been exposed, seasoned with both the culture in which I have grown up, and my own opinion. These are the biases to which we're all exposed, and they lend themselves to interesting debate. I am not Anti-American. I've said before and I say it again that were this topic about the UK, France, Germany, China, Russia, India, Australia, etc, then I would be more than willing to speak in much the same manner as I do here. This just happens to be the US thread. What I detest is the attitude expressed by most western powers that we're right because we have some sort of moral supremacy over other nations, when in fact we're just as guilty of (insert crime here) as any of them. I see you love your country. I admire that, and I understand entirely. But no country is without fault, no matter how much we may wish it. I hope you can see that, and make it this far through my post having read it all, rather than simply scanning it for fodder with which to attack various points I've tried to make. With respect, Zeta
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| Monday, August 11, 2008 - 07:31 pm Zeta. I would not disagree with your criticisms. In point of fact, I have many complaints about this country, our culture, and at times, our political conduct on the world stage. HOWEVER, what I do find fault with is the unrealistic comparisons of our nation to the truly horrific states of past and present. The differences are vast. The "torture" at Gitmo would be considered friendly interview at many civil police stations in much of the world. I don't agree with current policy, these individuals are POW's, but their treatment has hardly risen to the level of "torture". Total lack of perspective. That is the issue with many of your points. Valid, but overstated. Words like genocide get tossed around and that damages credibility. Hitler, Mao, and Pol Pot defined that word quite well. Applying it to American actions is gross mischaracterization. Words have meaning. You have an excellent grasp for the flow of history. Excellent. Just apply perspective to that knowledge in your application of moral judgements.
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| Monday, August 11, 2008 - 08:30 pm Yeah. That was exactly what I was thinking what Bob said. That whole crappy line of "Caps" was meant to be taken as a gross over-exageration, which apparently was lost to ya somehow, zet. The point I was subtly trying to make was to show how terribly over-exagerated you make the US's so-called "genocides," and "tortures," and "violation of human rights," and "hipocracies." You should know by now, I should hope, that I am generally not one to right in caps, but when I do, it is usually to either drive home a point, or, in the case of my "wall of caps" to express exageration/sarcasm. The countries we put pressure on and lecture the most are nations such as China, most of the African states, and the Mid-East. About that article you posted (I stopped reading about halfway through, because I really feel I got the point) What that article that you put on there failed to mention was that America, led by Eisenhower, was IN Africa by 1942. The article only said the word "allies" after they mentioned "by 1942." BELIEVE ME! I KNOW for a fact that America was HEAVILY engaged in Africa against Germany's Afrika Corps. And that we are the ones that led the assault on El Alamein. I'll tell ya a little story as to WHY I know this to be FACT. My grandfather is from Palermo Sicily (In fact, that city happens to be named after my family.) Now, the Sicilians, as you should so well know, resent being ruled by Italy. They especially resented being ruled by a dictator from Italy. There were two Italian armies. One that opposed Mussolini, and one that was under Mussolini's control. The army that opposed Mussolini consisted mostly of Sicilians. They were called "partisans," as well as the "Underground Italian Army." They pulled off secret missions. Sabotage, that sort of thing. They also pulled off missions into Germany to help rescue a couple of Jews here and there. When my grandfather got word that the Americans had landed in N. Africa to fight against the axis, there was literally a celebration all over Sicily. Same thing happened all over Europe, including the UK, because EVERYONE KNEW the war was going to over a lot sooner! My grandfather and the other men, women, and children in his group eventually met up with Eisenhower's army. The Americans used their knowledge, and expertise to find the best places to do battle. They, in effect, were pretty much scouts. They participated in the battle of El Alamein with Americans, British and Co. Eventually, near the end of the war, my grandfather finally met his future wife (my grandmother of course!) in Rome. My granfather eventually met up with one of the Americans who he happened to have met, and became friends with, on the battlefield after the war. The man also used to work in the State Department. The man (I cannot remember his name by gawd!) was able to secure an exit visa for my grandfather and his wife to America. And so that is how my mom's side of the family came here. Also, America DID invent freedom of religion. That was unheard of in England in 1776. The country has been almost torn apart over the issue of slavery, even from the very beginning, when the "nation" was under the Articles of Confederation. In fact, it was such a bitter topic, that discussions on the new Constitution almost came to a complete stop over. Many time beyond that, the Civil War could have been started far before 1860. It just happened in 1860 because the pressures were becoming too great to deal with it in any other manner. A thing about so-called British "freedoms" before the Americans re-invented democracy: Funny thing that: The English people, as well as people from all over Europe came flocking to America to escape persecutions, and discriminations, and also to be able to own their own property. Under British customs, when was born in a rich, land owning family, that person will remain in that class. One who is born poor, there is almost nothing they can do to improve their lot in life, even if it wasn't illegal for them to do so. America changed all of that. Anyone who works hard, and has a dream, can BECOME someone! Only reason why you only hear about how great English Common Law was, is because the people who had the money wrote the books. The people with the money and land, ganed these right because Parliament faught against the king way back when, and secured those right for the people they represented. It has been that way for hundreds of years, and only pretty slowly started to become more liberal AFTER America gained her independance. And yes, I did take quite a bit of offense to your words simply because it sounded like you were trying to compare us to people who have always been pure evil in this world. I really do not think you realize the impact this country has truly had over the past 150 years or so in spreading democracy and freedom everywhere. And denying that fact is not giving enough credit to the American heroes who have fought and died to secure these freedoms for every human. Besides, America has largely been pretty isolationist for the first half of its history (with the exception of 1898), until those stupid stupid wars in Europe would continually pull this country in. After all that the world has been through in the 20th century, we are the only country with the power and assertiveness to make sure history does not repeat itself. The UN is supposed to do that, but it is too damn corrupt, and other countries do not contribute nearly enough resources for it to be effective. So we end up taking up the whole police role. If we do nothing, we are just rich greedy bastords who are insensitive to people who are suffering around the world. If we do something, we are nosey asshats who get involved in things that ahve nothing to do with us. Damned if we do, and damned if we don't.
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| Monday, August 11, 2008 - 08:44 pm That's exactly what I was looking for. Thank you both, FarmerBob and Michael Morrison, for taking the time to do what you've done. All the best.
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| Sunday, August 24, 2008 - 01:36 am hey im an american an damn proud of it if u think were racist check again!
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| Sunday, August 24, 2008 - 06:30 am Hey Zet: Are you talking about the debate/discussion we carried on here? If you are, it was acutally kind of fun. I learned some things I never really knew
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| Monday, August 25, 2008 - 04:49 pm Debate often encourages one to learn things which exist outside of their "conventional" knowledge and comfort zone. Its when people start taking it personally that problems arise. Though some of the facts are sketchy, and one or two are erroneous in the extreme (Second Battle of El Alamein, for example), I've learned a fair bit about America's role in the world, it's take on history, and how her citizens view themselves as a part of it. I've always taken exception to the view that America is the "last bastion of freedom" or that the American interpretation of the world and particularly it's views on what constitutes liberty is what everybody should aspire to. Freedom is a relative term, and to most it simply means the right to live without external (international) intervention in domestic policy. For others - and this is what I believe Americans to mean when they refer to "liberty" - it means not having the state interfere with private affairs. For me, freedom is the right of self-determination. A right for which my own country has fought for since as long ago as Roman times, and no doubt long before that too. Everybody else will have a differing version of what freedom or liberty means to them. I would hope for these differences in interpretation to be the basis of any argument, rather than any misplaced sense of nationalism and defence thereof.
Racism exists everywhere. Discrimination is human nature. It is ingrained in society's nature, no matter how equal we wish it to be.
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| Tuesday, August 26, 2008 - 05:25 am Many healthy judgements of human nature are labeled "racist". While prejudging someone soley on the basis of skin color or ethnicity is the epitome of ignorance, making ration judgements of cultures or societies is not. There are plenty of places in the world that I wouldn't want to raise a dog much less a human being. All cultures are not equal. That said, people must be respected as individuals.
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| Saturday, August 30, 2008 - 06:17 am Yes, and "racism" is actually a survival trait for most animals, particularly humans. It is virtually impossible to completely wipe out all racist preconceptions you have, no matter how liberal one is. As for "freedoms," I do not believe Americans are the most free people in the world. Our live are controlled more and more by the corporate hive. Corporations try to control every single aspect of their employee's lives. For instance, I work at Arby's Roast Beef part time, just got hired there the other week, trying to get through my last year in college. They are trying to tell me I am not allowed to hang out with, or date, any other employees! My question is: HOW THE HELL CAN ARBYS TELL ME WITH WHOM I CAN ASSOCIATE WITH???? THAT is one of THE most basic of American rights! I literally told the head manager "well, screw that! I am 25 years old, and an American, If I want to hang out, or date anyone who works here, I have every right to do so!" Boy, did SHE get angry when I told her that! lol, I told her she has no rights to interfere in my personal life, and I am willing to use my family's attorney to press the issue if need be! America is TOO capitalist for my tastes. I would love nothing more than to see the Wal-Marts of the nation be compeletly destroyed! I refuse to shop at wal-mart, no matter how little money I have. I am thinking of moving to Europe....possibly to Italy....in the future. BTW, I just got back from vacation. That's why I have not been around.
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| Saturday, August 30, 2008 - 05:50 pm LOL Just don't be suprised, Michael, when you find out what real corruption is. We Americans take many things for granted.
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| Monday, September 1, 2008 - 02:59 am Well, the only reason why I WOULD move out of this country, even to Europe, would because of a decent paying job. I would love to live in Italy for a while. Been there twice. Spent a whole summer there at my family's house in Palermo. BTW, I got written up at work! The paper says "for being disrespectful to my superior." I refused to sign it. I told them, first off, the head manager is NOT my "superior" in any way. (I hate that word!) Second of all, I was not disrespectful. I merely stated my right as an American. I have the right to assembly, says it right in the constitution. Nobody, and nothing is going to take my rights away without a fight. I also have the right to free speech, so if I have a problem with management, I am going to tell them so. I can be downright bullheaded. Needless to say, I have been filling out new applications in my area lol.
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| Saturday, October 18, 2008 - 07:09 am American people are good the government is crazy. ITs like one of those crazy annoying players that likes invading and nuking C3 countries next to your own territory etc and thinks he controls it all.
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| Saturday, October 18, 2008 - 04:34 pm I couldn't live in the US. I mean, they have a red, blue and white flag. How gay is that?!
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| Saturday, December 6, 2008 - 11:36 pm i live in the USA, and i have to say, im not liking the way our government sticks its nose it hard working revolutionaries' business. how is the NPA or PKK supposed to get things done?
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| Monday, December 8, 2008 - 08:40 pm My opinion was: PRO-KYOTO ANTI-YANKIE Until I met some Americans in Jerusalem. Now it's: PRO-KYOTO ANTI-UNITED STATES ADMINISTRATION
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| Wednesday, December 10, 2008 - 01:49 am Britain is not a superpower at all. and for everyone's information in the American revolution when we americans got aid from the french navy the British were being aided by German hessians. The british had a blockade of ships and won most of the big city battles. and yet 13 colonies not even the full power of what america is today defeated the redcoats. in ww1 britain and france along with germany and russia went apeshit over a litte incident that occurred in austria-hungary. because of all there promises they had made to their alliances. In ww2 france was conquered by the germans although a little piece in the south was given to french traitors. As for britain it was pushed all the way back. when pearl harbor was attacked you had to have known Churchill had a smile on his face. It was the only way you were gonna get americans in the war. And when we did that's when we started to win. Who was the Supreme commander... oh was it Dwight D. Eisenhower an American. I wont say America did everything though Russia did help too.
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| Wednesday, December 10, 2008 - 02:45 am Sir Smokes Alot. We honour our promises. Britain knew war was not to be taken lightly after WW1. But when the line was crossed they did not hesitate to help their fellow man. Our people in our cities were bombed to high heaven and still they stood strong. Strong enough to even mount a counter attack knowing the concequences they would ensue. 1 million tonnes of bombs dropped on one UK city in one night. God saved our King and Queen many times. Then America turned up. Without Britain being there as a base, America would'nt have been able to have mounted a counter attack. Let alone win the war. Anyway. I thought America got involved in the Europe War because their trade ships were getting torpedoed in the North Atlantic. I'm sure aswell that Bush also had a smile on his face when we said we would stand shoulder to shoulder with him in this War on Terror........Dood.....
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| Wednesday, December 10, 2008 - 03:11 am russia is a sad image of its former self.....if it resurrects its old communist ways, i will be happy
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| Friday, December 12, 2008 - 09:48 am WE LOVE AMERICA
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| Friday, December 12, 2008 - 06:13 pm Why?
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| Saturday, December 13, 2008 - 06:06 am "The secret of Happiness is Freedom, and the secret of Freedom, Courage." -- Thucydides,Ancient Greek historian and author, 460-404bc Though frequently wrong-headed, immature, self-obsessed, and unwise, the American People have always proven to have courage when put to the test. Why? Because this nation was built by those who had the courage to risk everything and cross the world to build for themselves a better life.
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| Sunday, December 14, 2008 - 04:01 pm The secret of Happiness is Love, and the secret of Love, Understanding. Alot of Americans only seem to understand how to get what they want, regardless to how it effects others. Not alot of Love there.
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| Tuesday, December 23, 2008 - 10:00 pm "BTW, I got written up at work! The paper says "for being disrespectful to my superior." I refused to sign it. I told them, first off, the head manager is NOT my "superior" in any way. (I hate that word!) Second of all, I was not disrespectful. I merely stated my right as an American. I have the right to assembly, says it right in the constitution. Nobody, and nothing is going to take my rights away without a fight." I realize this is old but everybody should know that your rights working for a private company are not exactly the same as the ones you have from the constitution. The Bill of Rights were written to limit the GOVERNMENT not private firms. People that work for the government have different rights then those who work in the private sector except in infractions of labor law, collective bargaining agreements, or other legally binding contracts. BC
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| Monday, December 29, 2008 - 08:45 pm I fully back Michael Morrison. So long as I had comepleted my work, asked for more and supported other areas, I would work how and when I liked. I also decided if I wanted a pay rise. If I didn't like somthing I would say so and stand by it. I believe it's right they have the right to fire you but I also believe it's my right to stand by my promised freedoms and my beliefs and perhaps just get another job. I did this mainly by contracting and being self-employed as I'm not a good employee and never want to be. We are all equals. We should work together and not against each other.
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| Monday, April 13, 2009 - 09:58 pm Nix, A forward: Your post really offended me, so I hope this does the same to you. I'm not sure if it was misinformation controlling you post or not, but I would advise you to dredge up some knowledge about history. What the hell are you talking about with the WWII stuff. Sure we used Britian as a base, but we invaded into North Africa as our first real offensive in the war. Our air raids based out of Britian AND North Africa allowed us to severely damage the Axis infrastructure. Mount a counter attack? Which major entirely BRITISH counter attack established a beachhead in the European mainland? I never heard about that one. Mabeye you didn't either? Britian would have been hosed in WWII had the US not gotten involved. Hell, a few more years without US intervention and Britian would have been nuked off the face of the planet. God wouldn't have saved the king and queen that day. Face it, the US was the largest Allied player in that war. Britian brought up a tidy second place. In the words of Winston Churchill himself, "Up to El Alamein we survived, after, we conquered." Coincedentally the US created it's North African beachhead at about that time. We helped form the pincer movement that trapped Rommel's forces. And, as a final cheap jab, Britian's contribution to the war on terror was a sick joke. You guys are already on the run after a mere sub 400 (military) casualty figure. I find it funny that a country that had a few trains blown up by your beloved terrorists was so pathetic when a chance to fight back against that kind of crap came up. Note to all Brits in this thread. This post is just a biased reply to Nix's biased post. I wrote it because his ignorance pissed me off. Don't take it personally.
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| Monday, April 13, 2009 - 11:32 pm The counter attack, I'm sure it was after the Battle of Britain (I'll dig it out) was on the German cities through the means of bombers. The order as given knowing that the Germans would respond with everything they had. '1 million tonnes of bombs dropped on one UK city in one night.' This was before the USA got involved. So much for our special friendship. I'll take the rest of it personally. We backed you, again knowing that it will bring death to the home land, and this is what you have to say about it.
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| Tuesday, April 14, 2009 - 09:40 pm To be fair Master, the Big One in Europe was largely decided on the plains of Russia. The Western Front was a sideshow and coup d'grace, little more. Pissing contests between Brit and Yank are an insult to the brave men and women who paid the price for both our society's survival. Nix, do you take night classes on how to piss people off with stupid comments?
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| Wednesday, April 15, 2009 - 03:23 am Your right of course FarmerBob. And I apologize. It's just the fact that his post really hit a nerve of mine. I don't think he could have said much else that would have pissed me off more. But a question for you FarmerBob; What makes you think the results of WWII were decided on the fields of Russia alone? I mean, obviously Hitler suffered massive losses on the eastern front, but I wouldn't go so far as to say D-Day and all other offencives in the east were merely a "slideshow". Ben
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| Wednesday, April 15, 2009 - 06:31 am Hitler was an incompetent Commander in Chief. Invading Russia is a fools errand as history should have demonstrated. The war was lost on June 22 1941...The rest of the conflict was a foregone conclusion.
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| Thursday, April 16, 2009 - 01:46 am Sam nailed it. When crazy Adolf decided to execute Barbarosa, invading the USSR on a wide front aimed at occupation of the population centers, it was all over but the shouting. By June '44, allied planners were already starting to think "Post War". The only chance The Third Reich ever had was a Southern attack towards Turkey, the ME, and the southern Sov oil fields. They would likely have still been overwhelmed from the combined economic and industrial capacities of the Allies, but with adequate POL supplies(a luxury they rarely enjoyed), the Wehrmacht would have been able to fight even more effectively, possibly to a strategic stalemate. It was the combination of manpower, petroleum, and industrial limitations that doomed the Thousand Year Reich from the beginning. Had Adolf tried to "liberate" and arm the Ukrainians, organize the Muslim world against their colonial occupiers, and coordinate with the Japanese for effective strategic objectives, who knows? But that would not have been Hitler or National Socialism. This is why any single ideology will never conquer the World. It's inherent contradictions will eventually prove fatal. A fool's errand, indeed. Adolf should have learned a lesson from Mons. Bonaparte.
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| Thursday, April 16, 2009 - 02:51 am Thank you for the excellent summary FB. I think you may have misunderstood me a bit. I wasn't really saying the Axis had a chance in hell of winning the war, I was merely saying the use of the word "sideshow" seemed to downplay the sacrifices and combat that occured in the western front. I personally don't think Hitler could have ever taken over the entire world. He simply didn't have enough manpower. Hell, the resistance forces based in conquered countries could have defeated his occupation forces once he was stretched that thin. Germany dosen't even have enough people. Speaking very bluntly (meaning I wouldn't have approved of this), his best bet would have been to negotiate a settlement with the Allies that would have allowed him control of all of Europe (except for Britian). Assuming he got the Allies to agree with that, he would have had to slowly exterminate all of the native populations in Europe, thereby destroying resistance and opening up Europe for colonization by his "master race". Note the fact that I think Hitler was a mad man and I don't approve of any of his actions. I think he overlooked the most important fact during his conquests. Instead of improving life for conquered peoples, he subjucated them and made them hate him. I think that in order to conquer the world (or even a part of it) you need to provide a conquered nations populace with better rights and a higher standard of living than what they had before. Even give them a lesser government with representation in your main government. It's hard for people to be loyal to a government that opresses them and is just generally bad. That's my opinion anyways.
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| Thursday, April 16, 2009 - 03:58 pm That's it exactly, Ben. It's been estimated that the Ukraine alone could have supplied the Werhrmacht with 100 divsions who would gladly have joined the Germans and allies in marching on Moscow. Thank God Hitler was Hitler. It could be a very different world if he hadn't been an insane meglomaniac. But again, lebensraum meant for Aryan subjegation of the Untermenschen and ruling them as fuedal masters. Kinda tough sell. Especially when the SS fanatics roll in and start mass executions in the "liberated" territories.
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| Friday, April 17, 2009 - 05:19 am Indeed. If Hitler had increased funding for Werner Von Braun he could have finished the A9/A10 ICBM. The original plan for WWII called for hostilities in 1945. A much different world if the Nazis had the bomb and a means to deliver it. Along with a proper navy and top flight air force and army.
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| Friday, April 17, 2009 - 01:57 pm A very interesting what if? to ponder is if Germany and Italy and refrained from declaring war on the US, following Dec. 11.
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| Saturday, April 18, 2009 - 01:17 am This could be biased because I'm an american, but, I think that one of the Axis's greatest mistakes was the decision to declare war on and attack the US. They should have let us sit in our isolationist ignorance and consolidated their gains. Hitlers mistake was the he essentially tried to blitzkrieg all of Europe and much of Africa. He overextended his forces and was just too brutal to garner much foreign support.
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| Saturday, March 13, 2010 - 04:53 am I have to disagree. The failure wasn't in Operation Barbarossa, but the timing. Stopping to pull the Italian chestnuts out of the fire in Greece delayed the start for over a month. German forces were in sight of Moscow when the Russian winter started adversely affecting operations. Given that extra month of time, Moscow may have well fallen, cutting off much of Russia with the concurrent loss of Russia's major transportation hub, as well as it's governmental locus. If Operation Barbarossa hadn't gone forward, it wouldn't have been much longer before Stalin invaded German occupied Poland, putting a different spin on the war, but leaving it substantively the same. The blitzkrieg was the only way to wage war that Germany had. It was born of economic necessity. Throughout the war, German forces never enjoyed a stockpile of more than 30 days of war supplies. With a friendly government in Spain, the only country left in Europe that wasn't in Germany's thrall was England. Africa wouldn't have needed too many troops to conquer. After all, how many troops did the other colonial powers have there? And yet they managed to keep the people there subjugated until after the war. I acknowledge the fact that there is a vast difference between conquering a country and keeping it pacified. I fact I learned the hard way from 1967 to 1970. Hitler was indeed a poor commander in chief. His military thinking was in large part confined to that of a corporal, not that of a member of the General Staff - which he held in contempt. Nix, the British response of bombing German cities was first carried out on 5 September 1940, after German air craft strayed over London, and dropped bombs in the North east and Eastern portions of the city. The deliberate bombing of civilians was started by the Allies. Great strategically, since it made Hitler furious and derailed operational plans that had Britain on the ropes. Without this change, British effective participation in the European conflict would have ended in weeks, even with lend/lease. There are many things that could have made the war spin out differently. The thing to remember, I think, is to take each individually, and work from there. Too many things would have had to have been different for the Axis to conquer the entire world in that conflict. The question remains is whether that was ever a goal of any of the Axis powers. Germany wanted room in Eastern Europe and Western Asia - it's attacks on Western Europe were merely to further that goal. Japan wanted resources - it's attacks on America were to delay American response to it's subjugation of IndoChina and the Pacific Islands. Perhaps they were aware of Gen. Smedley Butler's quip that "the American dollar goes overseas and gets lonely. So we send the army over to keep it company." (Sorry if the quote isn't exact, I haven't read war is a racket in years." Italian goals were confined to Eastern Africa and the Mediterrean rim. The Axis, if the war had been decided in their favor, may have dominated the world, but I don't think they would have bothered with attacking the rest of it for many years. The conquest of America wasn't even contemplated by the Japanese - Pearl Harbor was just a spoiling attack. But none of the Axis governments were very good at judging their opponents. Thanks for the rant room.
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| Saturday, March 13, 2010 - 05:04 am Here's the actual quote from Major General Smedley Butler (USMC) I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we'll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.
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| Saturday, March 13, 2010 - 05:38 am Richard you posted as follows, "The deliberate bombing of civilians was started by the allies." I suppose those Stuka dive bombers over Warsaw in September of 1939 were just stray aircraft that somehow managed to level the city. Oh, and the bombimg of Rotterdam in May of 1940 was mistaken for a dam. I guess the Nazis were just bad at flight navigation. Give me a break. The British didn't need an excuse to bomb German cities. The fact that the Germans had already bombed civilian targets in the countries of British allies was all the justification the British needed.
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| Saturday, March 13, 2010 - 04:04 pm Neidy, Point conceded. The air attacks on Polish troops stationed in the city could be construed that way. Or the attacks on the so-called "Black Monday" on GERMAN troops by the Luftwaffe in the Northwest suburbs. Entrenching troops in an urban population should absolutely prevent the enemy from attacking it.(That has worked so well in world history.) There is a huge difference between Operation Wasserkante, and the allied attacks on civilian populations in world war 2 which had as it's purpose only the death of civilians - with the military objective being ostensibly the destruction of the governments' will to resist. I'll include the terror bombings that Germany resorted to after the initial bombing of Berlin in that category. I never stated that only the Allies were guilty of war atrocities. Rotterdam was indeed bombed - after troops there under Colonel Scharroo refused to surrender the city without a fight, knowing full well that the city would then be attacked. Even after the first ultimatum was refused, and the bombers had started going in, to be warned off with flares - another chance was given to the forces there to surrender. And still Colonel Scharroo decided to continue the fight. There is indeed some controversy concerning the second group of bombers who were not in position to see the flares, as well as the timing of the recall order itself. And speaking of Rotterdam, let's not forget the bombing in 1943. Or if you want to continue with other cities, Dresden, Hiroshima or Nagasaki. Plenty of blame to accrue to both sides. Britain needed no justification to begin it's atrocities, and would have invented whatever was needed - just as the Germans did in the Warsaw uprisings, or indeed it's justification for the entire war. Seeking to demonize one side, and point to the other as being part of the forces of righteousness is as old as warfare. But antiquity does not lend a veneer of respectability in this instance. If the Allies had indeed wanted to be on the side on the angels, the Holocaust would have taken pride of place in their justification for war - as and when they learned of it, instead of years later, when it was politically expedient. I'm going to have to refrain from giving you a break. And continue arguing from facts, not rhetoric.
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| Sunday, March 14, 2010 - 01:11 am Lol! It's funny how you "concede" my point and then try and justify the actions of the Nazis. I'm sorry to say, you sound like a post war apologist for them. You conveniently overlook the fact that Warsaw was surrounded, and Polish Troops squeezed from the east by Russians and the West by the Nazis, had nowhere else to go. The Nazis had more humanitarian options aside from laying waste to the city. They could have laid siege to the city and waited in out few more months. They chose the more brutal option. As for Rotterdam, you again try to be an apologist. 'Oh poor Rotterdam! It only got leveled because of poor communication'! Hey, Richard. Did it ever occur to you that the Nazis had no right to invade the neutral countries of Belgium, Holland, and Luxembourg in the first place? Why, the nerve of those little countries trying to defend there cities against naked aggression. The fact is that Germany prior to September 1939 and Japan prior to December of 1941 had already used air terror tactics against civilian populations. In the case of Germany, I point to the terrot air raids against civilian populatins in support of Franco during the Spanish Civil War. Japan's worst examples were the "Rape of Nanking" and bombing of Shanghai. You conveniently forget these facts. The Axis powers set the rules for engangemment in World War II even before the war began. They threw the shit and the shit hit the fan. Too bad for them. They chose total war and in fact set the example. As for your accusation that I am demonizing one side over the other. You are damn right I am. My premise as to who to view as the good guys vs. the bad guys rests on the simple view of a post war world where the Axis were victorous vs. one where the Allies won. I prefer the latter. You also actually try to blame the Holocaust on Britain and France. While I definitely agree that they could have done a better job of allowing more Jewish refugees into their countries, that in no way implicates them in the greatest deliberate murder of humans based on race in Western history. ( Of course Soviet Russia was even worse during the purges in the 1930's) I have great respect for the culture of Germany and Japan. Unfortunately, the achievements of those nations made a certain sector of the people of those nations view themselves as racially superior and more entitled than the other nations of the world, while at the same time too many more level headed people in those countries looked the other way. If it had to take total war and destruction to eliminate this notion from their national thought and thus allow other countries to live with some sense of security, then so be it. I do not feel sorry for Germany and Japan. When the war was over, they were treated with respect, rebuilt and became among the most prosperous nations in the world. Would a Nazi Germany and Militarist Japan have treated defeated nations in the same way had they been victorious?. I think we know the answer to that question.
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| Sunday, March 14, 2010 - 04:09 am Neidy, It was not my intention to apologize for any of the actions on either side in that war. Only to point out that both sides are worthy of condemnation. You conveniently overlook the fact that those troops squeezed into those cities indeed had other options - one could look to both Paris and Rome for an example on either side. Each was in line with the 1907 Hague Convention. Britain and France were not to blame for the Holocaust - they pulled no triggers. Neither did America when it refused emmigration. Nor was the Catholic Church who aided and abetted the fascists. Nor were the Syrians, Jordanians, and Palestians who rioted in their streets when it was proposed to send the Jews there. Germany and Germany alone had the responsibility. Along with all the enthusiastic collaborators in France and Poland, and in other occupied countries who shared their anti-Semitic views. The fact that the "civilized" nations of the world have repeatedly looked away when genocide has been committed is a troubling fact to me. Especially those that supposedly champion human rights. And whether that has occurred in Germany under Hitler, the Ukraine under Stalin, the Cultural revolution in china, Pol Pot, Darfur, Rwanda, the list just goes on and on. However, I think the fact that Germany tried to remove them before executing them does deserve some mention. As well as the fact that their policies concerning racial purity were an outgrowth of United States policies at that time. Eugenics is a dirty word now, but back then it was prevalent in all Western civilizations. Sweden ended their Eugenics program in the 1970s. Is it really that much of a difference in why people are discriminated against? Whether it's skin color, culture, or age, gender, or physical infirmity? All seem equally repugnant to me. You do realize that we were allies with Stalin? Who killed over 5 times the amount of people that Hitler did? I see you do. Again, demonizing one side over the other. 6 million in German controlled areas versus 30 million in the Ukraine. While both are reprehensible, calling the lesser evil a greater one requires some agile mental gymnastics, doesn't it? However using this as a justification for the war is similar to Lincoln using the slave issue in the United States as a justification for war. Sounds nice, but it just ain't so. True, the Germans had no justification for the invading of countries who were not party to the Treaty of Versailles. But, that includes those poor countries you mentioned. What was taken? Not just overseas colonies, such as those subjugated by the British and French in Africa, the middle east, the near east and Indo-china; but territory that was part of the country of Germany itself. I urge you to consider what a British or American response would be to the permanent annexation of California or Wales would be. I am no respecter of any culture. It would be great if men were all brothers under our skin, but the truth is we are all murderers, rapists and cannibals ( to paraphrase Mencken). As to your comment about total war and destruction being necessary to relive wrong-headed notions about superiority, who is going to be the arbiter? With the current world situation, are you recommending the carpet bombing of Muslim countries? What about the Chinese who have always considered themselves superior to the Westerners? Should we preemptively bomb them, so we don't have to worry about a future war, which is surely coming? I'm going to have to disagree with you about the countries in question being treated with respect. Again, that requires mental gymnastics that I can't quite achieve. Would Germany and Japan have treated defeated nations differently? I sincerely doubt Germany would have. After all, they partitioned France and occupied part of it. Just as was done to them. I think a country defeated by the Japanese would have suffered more than just the permanent elimination of their armed forces (although that has been worked around). Or the impression of up to 300k comfort women to service the occupying forces. (although in a small way they achieved some revenge for that. Over 25% of the occupying forces left with some form of venereal disease.) The original plan was for de-industrialization of Japan, not it's economic growth. We rebuilt Germany in order to have something to counterpoise to our Great Ally Stalin. Indeed, certain segments of the American military forces wanted to keep going all the way to the Pacific. And enlist the Nazi's to help do it. The plan for Japan was changed for pretty much the same reason.
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| Sunday, March 14, 2010 - 05:19 am Richard, my problem with your argument is you mix too many apples with oranges. Every nation can look back at some sordid time in their past. As I already noted in my prior post, there was insufficient moral outcry against the persecutuion of Jews in Germany as we both have correctly pointed out in the immigration policies of the western countries. We are talking about World War II and the specific manner of war making between the nations. Were there collaborators? Of course. We all know that. But that symapthy with the Nazi theology didn't represent the overall view of the nations and people of Europe and America. Yes, they had their religious and racial prejudices, but there were lines that they didn't cross. Such as the instigated state policy of eliminating an entire race of people. You again say you do not mean to be an apologist for the Nazis, yet at the same time point out that the Nazis weren't so bad since they at least offered to let the German Jews emigrate FROM THEIR OWN COUNTRY! 'We'll give you a chance to leave before we murder you'. Wow. I see the Nazis in a new light. As for the alliance with Russia. That was out of reality rather than choice. After all, Hitler invaded Russia. You can only deal with one mass murderer at a time. You know and I know that that was neccesitated by the time and circumstances. When a country is fighting for its survival, it sometimes can't be picky about who it will choose as it's friends. I knew the Treaty of Versailles would come up in this. Another attempt to excuse Nazi agression.Before the war began, Germany had already swallowed up Czechoslovakia. A nation with which it had absolutely no territorial claims. Not even the Sudenland had ever been part of Germany.Germany, in her conquests exported her program of extermination. That's the big difference. What the hell does China have to do with this? They were under unprovoked attack by the Japanese. I could care less what they think of their racial superiority. The average Chinese wouldn't know what you are talking about. The Chinese consumer today is too busy trying to copy western cultural practices to think about whether they are undermining what you claim to be their belief in their own racial and cultural supremacy. You make no sense. Look. Here's the bottom line.Fascists of the 1930's and 40's: Really, really bad asses who meant to take over the world geographically to the extent they could and dominate it politically. The Allies: Scared shitless, found their cojones, became double the bad asses and then kicked ass. And we are all the better for it. Spare me the political philosophers and all that other crap.
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| Sunday, March 14, 2010 - 09:07 am Neidy, Kind of hard to spare you in anyway, when you keep using the same pretext to justify your own opinions that I use in mine. Until 1948 the Jews didn't have a country. If Germany was indeed their country, you have just undermined your argument about the Sudetenland - where ethnic Germans tried to form their own country under Woodrow Wilson's 14 point plan. A process that was tried repeatedly by democratic and peaceful means. It's got to be either one way or the other, not one way for you and another for myself. Anything else is simply intellectual dishonesty. Belgium, Luxembourg and Holland was the topic you broached. Moving those countries into the Sudetenland is bad geography. I believe the area you are looking for in Czechoslovakia that was German is Upper Silesia, particularly the Hultschin area. The Sudetenland was ethnic Germans seeking to form their own country - an entirely separate issue. Your argument about being picky holds little water. Expediency can never trump morality, else your entire argument against the Nazi's collapses of it's own weight. The Treaty of Versailles was a major cause of the war. I think that's beyond disputation. Since you seem to think otherwise, I'd welcome your reasoning. After all, if the Germans had honored that treaty, reparations would only have just over another decade to run before it was paid off. A ruinous peace often leads to war - as America found out in Afghanistan. What does China have to do with this? Perhaps you should go back and read your post, where you posited than anyone who thought they were superior, and had the capacity to attack other nations should be eradicated with total war. I strenuously object to your statement that the average Chinese wouldn't know what I was talking about. I think the average Chinese knows exactly where the phrase "the Middle Kingdom" comes from. Their practice of using barbarians to control barbarians continues to this day.China has been planning since the beginning of the armistice in Korea on how to successfully attack my country, the USA. And sooner or later, I think that will flare into open warfare, besides the economic and cyber warfare we are already engaged in. Is it that you only care about the German and Japanese view that they were superior, and care little about the same thing among other nations? By your statement in your latest post, I assume that to be the case. Either something is right for all, or it is wrong for all. There goes that philosophy again. Perhaps you could explain in detail how the same action for one is different for the same action in another? That seems to be the majority of your arguments. I only differ in stating that it is bad for both. We're already half in agreement, perhaps you can persuade me the rest of the way. Since World War 2 doesn't seem to be your forte, care to move this discussion into a different context?
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| Sunday, March 14, 2010 - 04:05 pm Shelton, you argue so many points, ranging over such a wide range of importance. What's your main point--that the Axis weren't entirely evil automatons but real people, and that the Allies weren't purely good automatons but real people? Of course that's true and it is good to remind us all of that. But it's less than useful to carry it to the point of arguing the moral equivalencies of all parties. Neidy's summary is right on the mark.
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| Sunday, March 14, 2010 - 06:53 pm Richard. Where one is born, there lies his or her country. Don't tell me that German Jews didn't consider themselves German. Again you act as an apologist for the Nazi thuggery. Sudetenland was not part of Germany prior to the Versaille treaty. It was part of the Austia Hunagarian Empire. Hitler's interest in the Sudetenlnd was motivated only out of purely military need. Czechoslovakia was allied with France in the event of war with Germany. The area in question was heavily fortified and was a linchpin of the Czechoslovakian defense. Hitler knew that in the event of war in the East he would not only have to possibly face France in the west, but also the entire Bavarian region of Germany would be at risk. He knew that if he could get the Sudetenland wrenched from the Czechs, any future invasion of Czechoslovakia would be a cake walk. This was evidenced by the fact the Czechs didn't even bother to put up a fight in March 1939 when Hitler followed up the Munich appeasement with the takeover of Czechoslovakia. I don't know what you are talking about regarding the Low countries. I didn't move them geographically. You must be confused. Re read my post. Don't try to lecture me about Europe and the world wars. I'll run circles around you. Versaille was simply a convenient way for the Nazis to exploit German nationalism and make Germans think they had some how been wronged. In fact there probably was too harsh a peace forced upon Germany. But, that will never justify there reaction to it. As for the rest of your post, you once again are starying from the topic. The "middle kingdom"? ... whatever...
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| Tuesday, March 16, 2010 - 03:43 am ww1 was a stalemate til US stepped in ww2 The Germans were winning till the African Invasion desert storm yes there were others nut US and its advanced weapons did most of the work B52 b2B a10 apache f117 f22 raptor Nimitz Carrier 5 acres of sovereign real-state m2 browning been around 90 years and still kills well. its killed germans, japs, koreans, VC, and arabs Iowa battleship the go away comeback refit ship my favorite warship M1 Abrams most advanced tank in world its problem lack of competition also your probably running on a Dell, HP, or gateway using windows XP or higher
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| Sunday, March 21, 2010 - 09:10 am Neidy, Sorry, it's been a busy couple of days on the other side of the orb. Hitler's interest in the Sudetenland may have been purely military. The Sudetenland's interest in a Germanic Austria predated Hitler's rise to power. No other world leader was prepared to get involved into breaking up a country - like Bosnia and environs. The middle kingdom quip was in response to your statement about the average Chinese. An intrinsic part of Chinese cultural is their belief in their superiority over all other cultures. And, now, having beat this subject into the ground, how about a new topic?
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| Sunday, March 21, 2010 - 03:44 pm I thought Hans Chinese believed in the Father looking after the Son until the Son needs to look after the Father? If so, surely that would explain their belief in their superiority over all other cultures? For what is life if it is not to take care of family? Anyways. I think that once the people of the USA wise up to the Federal Reserves illegitimacy and tell their government to take back control of their money, the USA and the World will be a nicer place.
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| | Saturday, February 2, 2013 - 04:32 am Authentication ErrorBy: (IP:202.143.190.74) You can only post messages if you are logged on as player of simcountry.You must also have a country in one of the worlds. New members can join the forum about 48 hours after registration.
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| | Monday, February 4, 2013 - 06:21 pm Authentication ErrorBy: (IP:203.198.23.82) You can only post messages if you are logged on as player of simcountry.You must also have a country in one of the worlds. New members can join the forum about 48 hours after registration.
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| Saturday, April 6, 2013 - 07:32 pm .....A lot of these posts are funny as hell to read.
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| Thursday, April 11, 2013 - 05:32 pm I like what Michael Morrison put, "quote" "Scottish is not Brittish. The Scots are a Celtic tribe, there long before the Brits. The Brits were a Germanic tribe, who lived in Normandy orginally. In the year 1166, or 1266, or 1366 or something like that. I'm pretty sure it was in the 60's of one of them centuries way back then lol, when the British invaded the island." What a daft bastard putting that, thinking he knows what british and what is'nt lol :P. The nationally "british" is a group of 4 different nationalities which is the english, scottish, welsh and irish. However the word "brit" actually means a painted person, is what the romans reffered to the original britons (the celts), as they wore woad paint, or war paint as they went into battle. It was actually a "latinized" germanic group called the Normans who invaded England which had the Saxon inhabitants (another germanic group) living there. The Scottish, welsh and irish are celtic groups which were conquered over the ensueing centuries.
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| Wednesday, April 17, 2013 - 11:41 pm ...tell that to those who don't know their history. Heck, technically England was under French control for a time, since William of Normandy was a French duke.
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| Thursday, April 18, 2013 - 04:48 am I believe that the Duke, William of Normandy when he declared himself king of England, also declared independence from France at the same time. Before that, he was just a vassal of the king of France. William may have been a French duke born in France, but really he was a descendant (several generations) from the vikings who adopted the french latin ways. My surname alone is an anglo norman name which means that I myself could be a descendant from one of his many soldiers.
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| Friday, April 19, 2013 - 10:36 pm Or some of the nobles that joined him.
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| Saturday, April 20, 2013 - 12:15 pm Possibly, but theres no way I will be able to prove any of that since it is too far back, only my surname proves it. Try and find out the origins of your surname and see what you come up with.
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| Tuesday, June 18, 2013 - 08:32 pm MURICA!!!
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| Thursday, June 20, 2013 - 07:43 am we are the number one
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| Saturday, June 22, 2013 - 10:22 pm ....I say, did we just have another attempt at a thread revival?
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| Thursday, July 18, 2013 - 12:44 am My surname was actually the nickname of a Danish Prince that assisted with the restoration of King Fergus the Second of Scotland to the throne and his dependants then took the nickname Cam'shron as their surname and it later evolved to Cameron.
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| Thursday, July 18, 2013 - 02:35 am MERICA, we are number 2!
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| Wednesday, July 24, 2013 - 09:22 am Michael Morrison is too Patriotically British, even if it was a long time ago... Trying to hide weakness with assistance and cooperation in many wars, when he didn't realize Britain was nearly starved to death by Germany in WWI were it not for the late Americans.
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| Thursday, August 15, 2013 - 02:27 am What can I say, we Americans love helping our British friends........we're just gonna ask for something in return, that's all.
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| Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - 03:38 am I'm pretty sure England almost starved Germany to death in ww1 were it not for the Haber process..... I think you must mean ww2 but idk much about the food situation in that war
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| Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - 03:40 am if mattheaw Patton is still here id just like to tell him that anyone with a favorite battleship is either an utter tool or in 6 grade
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| Wednesday, April 9, 2014 - 03:42 am makes me sad that "patriots" like Patton apparently only care about Americas contributions to the world in terms of weapons we made and wars we "won" "singlehandedly" ...... whata fool
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| Monday, April 28, 2014 - 01:00 pm Why does everyone forget Canadian involvement in things? You use us as shock troops and we win the war for you. You took our small army, broke it into smaller groups and spread them around Europe. The Canadian forces in Italy during WW2 were one of the most vicious fight forces there, we fought house to house and cleared more land than the Americans and the axis forces fled when they heard they had to fight Canadians house to house. Lets not forget the war of 1812, where America attacked Canada, pushed half way through the country before we knew there was an invasion, and then got pushed back to their own southern states where we then signed peace and formed the current borders. We could have ended America and became the largest country in the world in 1812 but we're to nice to wipe out an entire country.
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| Monday, April 28, 2014 - 01:56 pm Ah, yes, let us reemember when Canada, with its mighty armies, crushed the United States until only a small band of rednecks was left to resist. Hmmmm... that almost sounds like one of my parodies....
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| Monday, April 28, 2014 - 09:32 pm Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha
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| Friday, May 16, 2014 - 04:49 pm thats exactly the noise i would make if i heard that the canadians were coming and we had to fight them house to house
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| Saturday, June 21, 2014 - 10:02 pm Let's look back at America's times of war. 1.) WW2 pt1, War with Japan, won by hitting them with nukes because if they invaded they would have lost. 2.) WW2 pt2, Italian Campaign, used Canadians as bullet shields but instead fought the campaign for America and won. 3.)Iraq, used Ac130's and gunships like some call of duty shit and then sent forces to shoot half dead people. 4.) WW1, joined the war as it was ending and killed a few outposts. 5.) Korea, barley made an impact and the war ended in ceasefire. 6.) Vietnam, got their asses kicked by people with less advanced weapons. 7.)War of 1812, got their asses handed to them by Canadian MILITA. 8.) War of Independence, aided by the natives and the British didn't even have a large presence in the Thirteen Colonies.
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| Saturday, June 21, 2014 - 10:45 pm All I have to say is this whole long ass thread needs to return to the depths of hell from whence it came.
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| Sunday, June 22, 2014 - 12:23 am Sounds to me ian like you think americans are just tank followers
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| Sunday, June 22, 2014 - 01:14 am Well Alterd Carbon he has a point. I mean the defense of this nation is not that good when more than half of your army is invading another nation or just stationing in Foreign Countries. (Speaking as a German Native) Why are there still US Military bases in Germany. We don't need them here. We have our own military and the US people fail to realize that we had troops in the Middle East to aide the US too so therefor I think we can defend ourselves.
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| Sunday, June 22, 2014 - 06:47 pm I agree, with cl108
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| Monday, June 23, 2014 - 06:24 pm BUMP!
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| Tuesday, June 24, 2014 - 04:54 am I have not dared to read this thread in its full length.... WHEW. At one point the US need these Depots for WW2. now they are functional military bases. We were allies more then than we are now. People wanted US to help back them, but the world view is changed. US and others have polluted this world, its not just the US and never would I conclude that russia, china, and others have had their say so, but unfortunate for the US, we like the spot light and these other countries did it under the radar. Something the US has learned from others in the past, but also a monster we created as well. The US will be the peaceful equivalent of Rome in history. Rome collapsed for the same/similar reasons America could collapse under. I think the general population of america would like to get along with others more than intimidate them. My opinion is mixed, America is a great country as well as others, we have given and helped a lot of people. We have done bad things as well. This being said, add that the goals and motives of power are not good goals. Commercialism and its pros and cons should be taken up next time. I think that rules the people more than Governments really rule the world. lol
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| Tuesday, June 24, 2014 - 01:55 pm Lol Canadian!!!!
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| Thursday, June 26, 2014 - 04:53 pm Very good post, Drys.
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| Monday, December 29, 2014 - 02:59 am BUMP BABY BUMP!!!!! Where all ma homies at?
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| Monday, February 9, 2015 - 02:21 pm so after reading the 1st 5 long posts or so i have came to a sad conclusion. The educational system of not only the us nut of a few other nations is Shockley poor.  either that are no one ever pays attention in world / us history class. I would try to explain but the amount of ignorance is to baffling i don't even know where to start.
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| Monday, February 9, 2015 - 03:15 pm One thing that sticks out was the statement that the french didn't really help during the war for independence. The french sent 1/3rd of both its army and navy. causing the french to go into even greater dept and also was one of the major causes for the french revolution. Now, i am no fan of the french. ( unjust bias i know, but it is true non the less. ) That with out the french the USA would not of won its independence. and the French ( .gov atleast ) payed a huge price. and the post 'bout all whites in the USA are of English decent. Irish, Scottish, French and Germany are all "white" nations. and all three said nations have had huge immigration into the USA. --------------- according to the USA 2000 census ( https://www.census.gov/prod/2011pubs/11statab/pop.pdf --- page 10 ) There was 281,425,000 whites in the USA There was 277,527,000 non-whites in the USA That means there was 50.35% whites in the USA Vs 49.65% non-whites.
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| Wednesday, February 18, 2015 - 06:32 am That's a lot more people listed than the USA actually has.
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