281–290 of 309 posts
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I don't think u/dontupvoteme meant it the way you took it. "Are you daft?" didn't come across as a swipe but as a bit of a British-like exclamation on their point. Could be a language thing.
Considering how understated British insults are, this looks like a slap to the face comparatively speaking.
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By all means, please cite your sources for the pile of revisionist idiocy you just spewed. The British killed more people than the Nazis during WW2? I'd love to see the source for that in particular at least. Yes, there was the Bengal famine of 1943, and Churchill's callous initial response to it, but this was not a deliberate attempt at starving 3 million bengalis to death. That doesn't excuse it, but there is a dif…
>By all means, please cite your sources for the pile of revisionist idiocy you just spewed. Ah yes, ignorance and white supremacist history is total bliss. Just because you think you are a hero doesn't mean you are one. The British caused famines during WW2 alone killed millions in India (estimates go from 1 to 6 million). That's just the famines. As for the rest of the total figures of british raj casualty - the est…
Also worth noting that your book's highly debatable assertions cover a span of time stretching across 40 years and ending 20 years before the second world war even began. Compare these tenous arguments to the Nazis's well documented, direct responsibility for over 21 million deaths (including the 11 million killed in specific, targeted extermination campaigns), in just 5 years. Thus even if the book you reference were completely accurate, it would make the Nazis worse during the relevant time span.
None of these arguments have anything to do with me being a white supremacist. And idiotic ideological label now commonly assigned to anyone for absurd reasons because they don't agree with very specific agendas.
Your apparent overall spin on this strongly reminds of a general tendency among some people today to do everything possible to paint the western countries as the most terrible no matter the logical costs or the contortions of whataboutism that this involves. It's an old line of "reasoning" but one that has found fresh material with people making completely ridiculous arguments in defense of policies by countries like Russia and China, specifically because it means shitting on the west.
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Sad as it may be, I don’t think this has ever been a real problem for other countries. In the case of Stalin, the issue was lending credibility to socialism. Herr Hitler looked like a respectable man because he was very much against socialism, sending those filthy reds to a lager.
Weimar Germany was mostly dominated (to the extent that it could've been, being such a mess and of course they never had an outright majority) by the socialist party. They hated the bolsheviks as much as(if not more) anyone, even going as far to having them shot and thrown into canals... Arguably without Stalin and USSR supporting German communists most of their voters (~10% of the country) would've shifted to the So…
I think the rest wouldn’t change much: the things you mention don’t have much to do with having moral scruples against Stalin’s mass murders. It seems to me that the main reason was still “we don’t do business with bolsheviks”. Of course the main reason is not the only one, and had the other powers realized who was leading Germany they maybe would have been more open to Stalin’s requests…
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You know, I did not expect a serious debate from post 1 of you, but I was curious if you would eventually have something to say besides insults. Apparently not much. Because "considerably higher" than 9000 would still be way below 200 000, right? Can you acknowledge that? Because this is not an honest debate otherwise. And about the insult that I am caring water for Putin. Well, you don't seem to read very well, what…
So you don't see even the slightest trace of bad faith in comparing a (disputed) figure of 200,000 deaths over 20 years with a figure of 9,000 deaths over 18 months which is acknowledged as an underestimate by the very agency that cites it? I mean, I have little choice but to believe you when you say you're not on the side of the Russian government here -- and you're certainly right in that #NotAllRussians are to bla…
Because there is so much talk from the US side about how russia has to pay for all their crimes, that they broke international law and Putin has to go to Den Haag, etc.
But to me - and as far as I am aware, actually most of the not NATO world - consider this as hypocrisy, when the USA never had to pay for their crimes and rather still have made it clear, that they consider themself above the international law, with the den hague invasion act.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Service-Members%27_Pr...
"What point do you imagine you are making?"
That an alternative to more escalation would be strengthening international law again and that would have to start with officially acknowledging guilt and accepting international war crime courts also for US personal.
In other words, actually start leading by example of being a beacon of human rights and rule of law for everyone.
If this would happen, then I can assure you, that way more countries would be joining the sanctions and military aid. Up to the point that Russia would be isolated to the point of giving up.
Because yes, quite some of the russian soft power comes from lies, propaganda and manipulation (Putin comes from the KGB after all). But this propaganda only works, if there is truth in it.
And in my opinion there is just way too much truth buried inside the russian propaganda. Remove the base for the propaganda and suddenly there would be no more soft power ammunition and a strong united front against russia and aggressors alike could form. But currently the USA and NATO are simply trusted enough, which is why russia can sell their oil and gas without much problems and continue the war til eternity as it seems. And sure, after 20 years civilian casualties will be way higher. But it does not have to come to this. Even russia can change again - because this is my main grieving point with the situation. Because I was born under russian occupation and I grew up with the russians parting in peace and a general expectation of working things out and trading freely to the west and the east. And some years it was like this. It came different and I certainly don't say or think this is all just western fault. But the west could have indeed done better. And I think this is mainly what we have to do - fixing our shit first and not messing with other peoples and countries affairs. But yes, pragmatically the military aid to Ukraine should also go on. But not as the only solution.
That was my point.
(and I am glad that it seems, that we still managed to get some kind of communication after all)
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> They already had it. And they gave up on it voluntarily You can't say they they gave up eastern Europe voluntarily when they didn't have a choice. They could handle a revolution in a single Warsaw pact country not in all of them at the same time and especially not at a time when the internal situation in the USSR itself was quite precarious. > made a bad deal What deal? There was a no deal involving entire Eastern…
First, russia is not a monolithic coherent group. "And they broke every single point of that treaty, except the one prohibiting the usage of nuclear weapons against any of these countries" Second, much later. Third, there were russian troops all over east europe. Lots of them. (I remember) They could have smashed any uprising - but they choose not to. They choose democracy at that time. And it did not pay off for the…
Doubtful, unless you're talking about the soldiers choosing not to. The coup attempt in 1991 proved that the army in general had no interest in propping up the failing communist regime.
Even if they wanted to they failed to defeat Chechnya a couple years later despite it being smaller several than east Europe by several magnitudes.
> But there was a time when they were open for change. In my opinion, the west blew it.
Well most of Eastern Europe ended up doing just fine despite most of the 90s being a disaster there just like in Russia. So it seems like Russia actually blew it themselves (and well to be fair Ukraine and Belarus too).
> First, russia is not a monolithic coherent group.
Well I'm sorry but you're the one who keeps saying "they" and that "Russia wanted X" which implies that they are a single monolithic coherent group (then again one might argue whether that's really the case in Russia currently).
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Weimar Germany was mostly dominated (to the extent that it could've been, being such a mess and of course they never had an outright majority) by the socialist party. They hated the bolsheviks as much as(if not more) anyone, even going as far to having them shot and thrown into canals... Arguably without Stalin and USSR supporting German communists most of their voters (~10% of the country) would've shifted to the So…
You have a point when you notice that I lazily used “socialism”, I did mean the bolsheviks and the communist revolutionaries. I think the rest wouldn’t change much: the things you mention don’t have much to do with having moral scruples against Stalin’s mass murders. It seems to me that the main reason was still “we don’t do business with bolsheviks”. Of course the main reason is not the only one, and had the other p…
I don't agree ( if you also include Lenin's mass murders). Of course a lot of it has to do with the fear the the Bolsheviks would do the same in their countries in they ever came to power.
> It seems to me that the main reason was still “we don’t do business with bolsheviks
Main reason of what? Poland had some pretty good reasons to not want any soviet troops in it's territory.
> would have been more open to Stalin’s requests…
Like allowing him to have Eastern Europe? Well the Anglo-Polish treaty even had a secret clause saying that it only applied in case Germany specifically attacked Poland and Britain was not obliged to join the war in case the Soviets invaded.
Again it's not that relevant. It's highly unlikely that Germany could have defeated France in 1940 without Soviet support. Germany had almost no oil and many other vital resources left after the invasion of Poland (it imported most of it's oil from America). So the Soviets simply had to stay out it. They chose to support Germany instead. I really don't see how anything that the allies did could be considered to be more foolish and/or shortsighted than the German–Soviet Commercial Agreement of 1940.
Amongst other things Germany would've entirely ran out of grain, rubber, manganese and oil by the Autumn of 1941 or much earlier without the imports form the USSR but Stalin had a better plan which resulted in millions of unnecessary deaths..
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> A "myth" recorded in Ukraine's laws by passing bills like 5670-d that effectively made the Russian language illegal in most aspects of public life. Doing so in a multi-ethnic nation in any other part of the world would have raised howls of fascism and anti-democracy by the US mass media and state dept and extensive condemnations in the UN. But hey, its Ukraine - a promised NATO partner - who cares about the folks a…
"This desperate attempt to look oppressed by Russia is pathetic at this point." This desperate attempt to deflect the actual and real ramifications of the law which made Russians pariahs in their communities is utterly laughable. Maybe you should take some time to investigate yourself. No Russian in theatres, no Russian on documents, No Russian film dubbings, be careful talking Rusian or get beat up or killed - spend…
I don’t need to speak to FSB and GRU agents to know what the Russian intelligence community is trying to push as the narrative in Ukraine thanks.
If they think that the main language of the country they are in being the offical language of the area then perhaps they should move to a country where that language is the offical language.
But I don’t expect that to happen because Russians are forever imagining oppression and have forever something to gripe about.
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Well, it certainly seems their instincts to separate themselves from Russia and Russian culture and seek greater alignment with the West were correct. One side has a future, the other is a gas station with nukes, run by mobsters (although it could be argued that I'm misspelling 'monsters' here.)
Who decides who are the mobsters anyways ? Invading and occupying sovereign nations and stealing resources from them doesn't make the US a mobster apparently. Human rights and sovereignty is only grandiosely trumpeted when it is in the favour of the US.
I’m pretty sure there was endless articles about the human rights situation in most countries the us invaded and also massive protests so this is patently false.
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I don't think equating Washington and Mao makes even the tiniest bit of sense. Washington never aspired be an absolute ruler or to fundamentally transform the American society into something else by force. But yeah I get your point, it's unfortunate that China never had its Khrushchev moment.
They were equating those two people in terms of how people look back at each of them and see positives despite acknowledging significant negatives. I'm not somebody who can say to what extent that comparison does or doesn't make sense, but your response is irrelevant because they weren't saying that Mao and Washington were comparable in terms of their aspirations or specific actions.
It is unfortunate that you feel that way because it's not all ambiguous.
I mean for instance a German person could say "that Bismarck and Hitler were comparable in terms of their aspirations or specific actions" and they would technically be correct in a certain way (much more so than someone comparing Mao and Washington anyway). However that would be in no way a morally sensible comparison.