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The Incredibly Stupid One

lowellmilkencenter.org

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Re: The Incredibly Stupid One

#71

Post by justinclift »

Banana699 wrote: post #70
derefr wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is that okay now that he is donating money to cancer research? If someone was an asshole, but has decided to stop being an asshole and try out "being a nice person" instead — then your choice, as an onlooker, is between either encouraging them in their new take on life; or pushing back due to their past actions. Through your actions, you can choose to live in a society where "turning over a new leaf" like that is e…

As a sibling comment points out, there is always a tradeoff between forgiveness and commitment, forgive too much and you incentivize people to take advantage of you (why not? You always forgive in the end), but forgive too little and you incentivize people to go all-in once they make one initial mistake. Abrahamic religions solve this by imagining an entity capable of deciphering all of your intentions perfectly and…

> Abrahamic religions solve this

Perhaps better worded as "attempt to solve this", as clearly it's not working for them in practise. ;)

Re: The Incredibly Stupid One

#73

Post by einpoklum »

Stratoscope wrote: post #40

This reminds me of Jeremiah Denton, a POW in that same war who was interviewed on TV to explain that the prisoners were being treated humanely. As he gave the verbal answers his captors expected, he blinked his eyes in Morse Code: – ––– •–• – ••– •–• • T O R T U R E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rufnWLVQcKg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremiah_Denton https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morse_code Epilog: A few years ag…

> It made me think how so few of us in each country really wanted to fight these wars.

Don't make a false equivalence. The Vietnamese were occupied by foreigners and did indeed - on the whole - want to struggle and fight for liberation from the US. As for people in the US - they were sent off to fight for geopolitical advantages of the ruling elite, for rubber supply security etc.

Re: The Incredibly Stupid One

#74

Post by lern_too_spel »

refurb wrote: post #49
lern_too_spel wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

South Vietnam never had a functioning government.

Not really true unless your standard is Western style democracy. And I can't think of too many developing countries who went from dictatorship to full democracy while fighting an insurgency/superpower proxy war. South Korea, Taiwan were both dictatorships for decades after the fighting ended. The peak of the Southern government was '71-72, prior to the Easter Offensive by the North. The Tet Offensive had destroyed th…

It's true in the sense that no government in South Vietnam had sufficient domestic support to stand on its own. For that matter, none had sufficient support to stand with American aid, with coup after coup until the US left.

Imagine if instead of being red-baited into escalating the conflict in Vietnam, LBJ had directed the money to his Great Society programs. Generational poverty would have been drastically reduced, more people would be educated, there would be less crime, and we would have more and better science. There would be less government suspicion, enabling the federal government to attract more top tier talent, leading to a more effective government. That's the real travesty. Even if South Vietnam got a supported non-communist government, it wouldn't have gotten the financial and technological support that South Korea got from Japan, so chasil's vision would not have happened.

Re: The Incredibly Stupid One

#75

Post by einpoklum »

gedy wrote: post #51
Stratoscope wrote: post #40

This reminds me of Jeremiah Denton, a POW in that same war who was interviewed on TV to explain that the prisoners were being treated humanely. As he gave the verbal answers his captors expected, he blinked his eyes in Morse Code: – ––– •–• – ••– •–• • T O R T U R E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rufnWLVQcKg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremiah_Denton https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morse_code Epilog: A few years ag…

> It made me think how so few of us in each country really wanted to fight these wars. I don't know about that, I do think it shows that the lives lost to fight 'American Imperialism' were mostly a waste, as Vietnam today is largely indistinguishable from if South Vietnam had won/continued. There's no US bases there I suppose, but USSR did have bases after the war. They also lost hundreds of thousands afterwards as b…

> largely indistinguishable from if South Vietnam had won/continued

Oh, it's not even remotely similar.

Re: The Incredibly Stupid One

#76

Post by tedheath123 »

retcon wrote: post #68
tedheath123 wrote: post #11

Irrelevant to the content of the article, but worth pointing out that this project is funded by the proceeds of crimes committed at Drexel Burnham in the 80s. Michael Milken and his brother Lowell undoubtedly do good through their philanthrophy, but the cynic in me suspects that it is primarily an attempt to rehabilate their image and is treated as a business expense. Maybe it doesn't matter if you do good for the wr…

Drexel was shut down by order of one certain ambitious NY Assistant AG by the name of Rudy Giuliani. The indictment? Criminal prosecution for statutory civil offences of two counts of failure to file stock transfer forms that by the letter of the law impose a fin e. Sentence: 12 years in federal. Appealed and won. Key witnesses for the prosecution included the convicted fraudster Ivan Boesky. RICO was the act abused…

Regarding Giuliani and his handling of the case, you make a good point. The politicization of law enforcement is something we should all be concerned about.

You're quite right that the charges were dropped against Lowell in return for a guilty plea from his brother. However, if Stewart's account in Den of Thieves is to be believed, then Lowell was intimately involved in the affair.

Re: The Incredibly Stupid One

#77

Post by refurb »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #74
refurb wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really true unless your standard is Western style democracy. And I can't think of too many developing countries who went from dictatorship to full democracy while fighting an insurgency/superpower proxy war. South Korea, Taiwan were both dictatorships for decades after the fighting ended. The peak of the Southern government was '71-72, prior to the Easter Offensive by the North. The Tet Offensive had destroyed th…

It's true in the sense that no government in South Vietnam had sufficient domestic support to stand on its own. For that matter, none had sufficient support to stand with American aid, with coup after coup until the US left. Imagine if instead of being red-baited into escalating the conflict in Vietnam, LBJ had directed the money to his Great Society programs. Generational poverty would have been drastically reduced,…

America left in ‘73 and the last coup was in ‘63. There was no “coup after coup until America left”.

And LBJ did offer a Great Society funding scheme to the North and it was rejected as “trickery”.

Re: The Incredibly Stupid One

#78

Post by DiggyJohnson »

InefficientRed wrote: post #67
DiggyJohnson wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is your alternative? Lock em up? Better to get all of them and a few more than let a single one go free…?

Yes, there's no middle ground between locking everyone up and letting people keep billions in ill-gotten gains /s.

I'm literally asking - genuinely asking - what a solution in the middleground would look like.

The purpose of the sentence that has bothered you is just to stake out the other side of the spectrum from where we are now. That's all. Please argue against the best possible interpretation of comments on this site.

Re: The Incredibly Stupid One

#79

Post by thriftwy »

einpoklum wrote: post #75
gedy wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It made me think how so few of us in each country really wanted to fight these wars. I don't know about that, I do think it shows that the lives lost to fight 'American Imperialism' were mostly a waste, as Vietnam today is largely indistinguishable from if South Vietnam had won/continued. There's no US bases there I suppose, but USSR did have bases after the war. They also lost hundreds of thousands afterwards as b…

> largely indistinguishable from if South Vietnam had won/continued Oh, it's not even remotely similar.

South Vietnam was so corrupt and badly run that I would expect Vietnam to look much worse upon its legacy. Maybe looking more like Sri Lanka today.

Re: The Incredibly Stupid One

#80

Post by einpoklum »

thriftwy wrote: post #79
einpoklum wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> largely indistinguishable from if South Vietnam had won/continued Oh, it's not even remotely similar.

South Vietnam was so corrupt and badly run that I would expect Vietnam to look much worse upon its legacy. Maybe looking more like Sri Lanka today.

Exactly. South Vietnam was in many ways like Afghanistan under US rule.
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