Hiroshima visit, a missed op.

@Karl7:

Wow!

Sorry I’ve been away from this discussion!  I’ve been on summer vacation for several weeks.

So, I’m not really sure what arguments are being made on a theoretical level.

Kurt, you’re saying the UK put in place a food blockade?  Yes, and…?  That’s war.

You are basically arguing that the Allies were hypocrites.  They condemned Nazi Germany for “human rights violations” and yet committed them themselves.

Well, yes an no.  What’s a “human rights violation” and when was it declared such?

You are engaging in a basic logical/historical fallacy liberals always engage in which is: liberal democracy that respects human rights has always been achievable and thus the baseline on which all historical-national actions must be judged.

That is a load of nonsense.  Reality/history is the absolute opposite: violence, meaningful or arbitrary, against the weak to dominate or exploit them is the real rule of humanity.  It has only been by the extraordinary striving of counties like the US and UK that even a semblance of “international law/human rights” has gained ground, even if superficially.  There’s no absolute truth or requirement for the respect of “human rights” when its violation has been the historical norm.  There is no thing as some “natural state” of human rights.

The reality is that few people really care about that stuff.  And if push comes to shove, it’s all out the window.  If you are a nation that strives to achieve the “rule of law” domestically and internationally and are confronted with an external power that absolutely doesn’t care, what are you going to do?  You’re seriously not going to blockade them? You’re seriously not going to bomb their cities–the center of that nation’s power?  What if you lose?  Then all that high minded shitt is out the window.  No one cares.

Come on Bro… that’s just dumb.  You’re inviting victory-- against yourself!  :-P

The highest best possible position is to say: we believe individuals have rights, but when a group of individuals collectively or individually act otherwise, they will be dealt with by all means NECESSARY.  That’s it.

An by necessary, forget this “proportionality” nonsense.  The “necessary” aspect is determined and judged by the power that conducts the act.

That is all.

Debate closed.

Thank you for coming.

The ruling class of any Western nation consists of two categories of people: politicians and plutocrats. Plutocrats are those at the very top of the economic pyramid. They are the ones with the money to buy media corporations, to make large contributions to political campaigns, to pressure universities through their alumni donations, etc. Of the two categories of ruling class people, plutocrats exert more power than politicians.

The actions of the Western nations’ ruling class bear no relationship at all to the values they claim to have. This goes well beyond mere hypocrisy. They are demonstrating every bit as much malignant intent as you’d expect from a hostile foreign occupier. In some cases, more malignant intent!

To give some specific examples: in recent times, the ruling class made it so that declaring bankruptcy no longer protects you from student loan debt. Lenders responded by greatly increasing their willingness to lend. The more money lenders were willing to provide, the more colleges raised their tuition in response. In modern America college has become a money grab–an act of financial predation against the middle class. College degrees are often economically worthless, and graduates labor under a crushing pile of student debt. Few members of the ruling class have shown interest in reforming this broken system. On the other hand, that same ruling class spent over $2 trillion on bailouts to themselves–TARP money, funded by the taxpayers, that went toward further enriching the rich. The near-complete absence of benign intent among members of the ruling class is seen in nearly all aspects of Washington lawmaking: the Omnibus spending bill, the law allowing robocalling to cell phones, immigration policy, the repeal of Glass-Steagall, etc.

The ruling class was every bit as divorced from benign intent during the '30s and '40s as it is today. In 1932 - '33, Stalin used an artificial famine to murder 7 million innocent Ukrainians, including 3 million children. The New York Times helped whitewash that crime by denying a famine occurred. FDR did the same, and extended diplomatic recognition to the Soviet Union within a year of the completion of that famine. Within three years of the conclusion of that famine, France and Czechoslovakia had signed defensive alliances with the Soviet Union.

When Hitler invaded Poland, Britain and France responded by declaring war on Nazi Germany. They did not, however, declare war on the Soviet Union, even though the U.S.S.R. gobbled up the eastern half of Poland in 1939. And even though eastern Poland would lose 10% of its population during 1939 - ‘41 due to Soviet death squads and deportations. Western nations’ ruling class did, however, impose a food blockade on all of German-held Europe. No humanitarian aid was allowed through that blockade. The result was that millions of Poles (and tens of millions of others) died of starvation. Due to Allied victory, all of Poland was ultimately subject to hostile Soviet foreign occupation.

People of Polish descent have every reason to regard the Western ruling class as malignant, because that ruling class’s blockade starved millions of Poles. (While also demonstrating the falsehood of that ruling class’s claims to want to “help” the Polish.) Germans had every reason to distrust the Western ruling class, because of the starvation that ruling class deliberately created in postwar Germany.

But can people in Western nations trust our own ruling classes? The simple answer is that we cannot. The ruling class in almost any Western nation pursues a malignant “divide and rule” strategy against its own nation. The basic game plan is simple. Open the floodgates to immigration, in order to make the population as heterogeneous as possible. That way the nation’s people become divided against themselves. If that alone isn’t enough to divide a nation, stir up animosity amongst the people through race baiting and other means. Get the people so busy opposing each other that they’ll fail to notice (or at least, fail to adequately oppose) the iron grip on power held by the ruling class. The fact this “divide and rule” strategy is an excellent way of converting First World nations into Third World nations is, for the ruling class, beside the point. The ruling classes of Western nations do not have benign intent toward the nations they rule, and are quite content to see First World nations turn into Third World nations. Just as, decades earlier, they’d contentedly watched Stalin murder tens of millions of innocent people, while themselves helping Stalin get his hands on additional millions he’d wanted to kill.

When Hitler invaded Poland, Britain and France responded by declaring war on Nazi Germany. They did not, however, declare war on the Soviet Union, even though the U.S.S.R. gobbled up the eastern half of Poland in 1939. And even though eastern Poland would lose 10% of its population during 1939 - '41 due to Soviet death squads and deportations.

Typical kurt…

Forgot to mention that most of the Polish people were killed by Germany…then goes to make the Soviets the scapegoat again to make Hitler look “better”

The official Polish government report on war damages prepared in 1947 put Poland’s war dead at 6,028,000; 3.0 million ethnic Poles and 3.0 million Jews not including losses of Polish citizens from the Ukrainian and Belarusian ethnic groups.

Nazi crimes against the Polish nation claimed the lives of 2.77 million Christian Poles,[1] and 2.7 to 2.9 million Polish Jews, according to estimates of the Polish government-affiliated Institute of National Remembrance

So taking the lower estimate, Germany killed 5.47 million, leaving a balance of 558,000 dead by the Soviets. Good job with the facts Kurt. I guess these numbers are also from Hoover?

When Hitler invaded Poland, Britain and France responded by declaring war on Nazi Germany. They did not, however, declare war on the Soviet Union, even though the U.S.S.R. gobbled up the eastern half of Poland in 1939.

And again in this sentence you make somehow France and England look somehow worse by not DOW against Soviet Union, knowing fully well they had a defensive alliance with them and not acknowledging the greater crime of Hitler starting a world war. Nice job Kurt!

People of Polish descent have every reason to regard the Western ruling class as malignant, because that ruling class’s blockade starved millions of Poles.

Are you again ignoring what Tooze says in Wages of Destruction Kurt? He said Hitler didn’t prepare for war and wasn’t ready for war and easily suffered the effects of war, when it could have been saved any chance of “bogus starvation” claims. It’s Hitlers fault that anybody starved because he didn’t prepare for war. So don’t blame the allies, it was obvious that they weren’t going to let any ship in a German port to deliver anything if any war occurred…Everybody knows this so just blame German leadership.

Germans had every reason to distrust the Western ruling class, because of the starvation that ruling class deliberately created in postwar Germany.

Right. Germany should have never started a world war knowing the potential for this after they lost. Blame Germany for that too.

But can people in Western nations trust our own ruling classes? The simple answer is that we cannot. The ruling class in almost any Western nation pursues a malignant “divide and rule” strategy against its own nation. The basic game plan is simple. Open the floodgates to immigration, in order to make the population as heterogeneous as possible. That way the nation’s people become divided against themselves. If that alone isn’t enough to divide a nation, stir up animosity amongst the people through race baiting and other means. Get the people so busy opposing each other that they’ll fail to notice (or at least, fail to adequately oppose) the iron grip on power held by the ruling class. The fact this “divide and rule” strategy is an excellent way of converting First World nations into Third World nations is, for the ruling class, beside the point. The ruling classes of Western nations do not have benign intent toward the nations they rule, and are quite content to see First World nations turn into Third World nations. Just as, decades earlier, they’d contentedly watched Stalin murder tens of millions of innocent people, while themselves helping Stalin get his hands on additional millions he’d wanted to kill.

Why are you always blaming Hitler and Germany for all these things? All you ever do is talk about how bad Germany was and how they schemed other races out of life. What does Hoover say about that?  I know he had great Chicken recipes and failed as president, and was the preeminent authority on all History on how the Allies were the “Baddies”.

BTW Kurt, Hoover killed 130 people by starvation. They never got that Chicken recipe in the mail….

President Herbert Hoover declared, “Nobody is actually starving. The hoboes are better fed than they have ever been.” But in New York City in 1931, there were 20 known cases of starvation; in 1934, there were 110 deaths caused by hunger. There were so many accounts of people starving in New York that the West African nation of Cameroon sent $3.77 in relief.

He sounds kinda like you. He subscribes to the exact opposite of what is factual.

@KurtGodel7:

@Karl7:

Wow!

Sorry I’ve been away from this discussion!  I’ve been on summer vacation for several weeks.

So, I’m not really sure what arguments are being made on a theoretical level.

Kurt, you’re saying the UK put in place a food blockade?  Yes, and…?  That’s war.

You are basically arguing that the Allies were hypocrites.  They condemned Nazi Germany for “human rights violations” and yet committed them themselves.

Well, yes an no.  What’s a “human rights violation” and when was it declared such?

You are engaging in a basic logical/historical fallacy liberals always engage in which is: liberal democracy that respects human rights has always been achievable and thus the baseline on which all historical-national actions must be judged.

That is a load of nonsense.  Reality/history is the absolute opposite: violence, meaningful or arbitrary, against the weak to dominate or exploit them is the real rule of humanity.  It has only been by the extraordinary striving of counties like the US and UK that even a semblance of “international law/human rights” has gained ground, even if superficially.  There’s no absolute truth or requirement for the respect of “human rights” when its violation has been the historical norm.  There is no thing as some “natural state” of human rights.

The reality is that few people really care about that stuff.  And if push comes to shove, it’s all out the window.  If you are a nation that strives to achieve the “rule of law” domestically and internationally and are confronted with an external power that absolutely doesn’t care, what are you going to do?  You’re seriously not going to blockade them? You’re seriously not going to bomb their cities–the center of that nation’s power?  What if you lose?  Then all that high minded shitt is out the window.  No one cares.

Come on Bro… that’s just dumb.  You’re inviting victory-- against yourself!  :-P

The highest best possible position is to say: we believe individuals have rights, but when a group of individuals collectively or individually act otherwise, they will be dealt with by all means NECESSARY.  That’s it.

An by necessary, forget this “proportionality” nonsense.  The “necessary” aspect is determined and judged by the power that conducts the act.

That is all.

Debate closed.

Thank you for coming.

The ruling class of any Western nation consists of two categories of people: politicians and plutocrats. Plutocrats are those at the very top of the economic pyramid. They are the ones with the money to buy media corporations, to make large contributions to political campaigns, to pressure universities through their alumni donations, etc. Of the two categories of ruling class people, plutocrats exert more power than politicians.

The actions of the Western nations’ ruling class bear no relationship at all to the values they claim to have. This goes well beyond mere hypocrisy. They are demonstrating every bit as much malignant intent as you’d expect from a hostile foreign occupier. In some cases, more malignant intent!

To give some specific examples: in recent times, the ruling class made it so that declaring bankruptcy no longer protects you from student loan debt. Lenders responded by greatly increasing their willingness to lend. The more money lenders were willing to provide, the more colleges raised their tuition in response. In modern America college has become a money grab–an act of financial predation against the middle class. College degrees are often economically worthless, and graduates labor under a crushing pile of student debt. Few members of the ruling class have shown interest in reforming this broken system. On the other hand, that same ruling class spent over $2 trillion on bailouts to themselves–TARP money, funded by the taxpayers, that went toward further enriching the rich. The near-complete absence of benign intent among members of the ruling class is seen in nearly all aspects of Washington lawmaking: the Omnibus spending bill, the law allowing robocalling to cell phones, immigration policy, the repeal of Glass-Steagall, etc.

The ruling class was every bit as divorced from benign intent during the '30s and '40s as it is today. In 1932 - '33, Stalin used an artificial famine to murder 7 million innocent Ukrainians, including 3 million children. The New York Times helped whitewash that crime by denying a famine occurred. FDR did the same, and extended diplomatic recognition to the Soviet Union within a year of the completion of that famine. Within three years of the conclusion of that famine, France and Czechoslovakia had signed defensive alliances with the Soviet Union.

When Hitler invaded Poland, Britain and France responded by declaring war on Nazi Germany. They did not, however, declare war on the Soviet Union, even though the U.S.S.R. gobbled up the eastern half of Poland in 1939. And even though eastern Poland would lose 10% of its population during 1939 - ‘41 due to Soviet death squads and deportations. Western nations’ ruling class did, however, impose a food blockade on all of German-held Europe. No humanitarian aid was allowed through that blockade. The result was that millions of Poles (and tens of millions of others) died of starvation. Due to Allied victory, all of Poland was ultimately subject to hostile Soviet foreign occupation.

People of Polish descent have every reason to regard the Western ruling class as malignant, because that ruling class’s blockade starved millions of Poles. (While also demonstrating the falsehood of that ruling class’s claims to want to “help” the Polish.) Germans had every reason to distrust the Western ruling class, because of the starvation that ruling class deliberately created in postwar Germany.

But can people in Western nations trust our own ruling classes? The simple answer is that we cannot. The ruling class in almost any Western nation pursues a malignant “divide and rule” strategy against its own nation. The basic game plan is simple. Open the floodgates to immigration, in order to make the population as heterogeneous as possible. That way the nation’s people become divided against themselves. If that alone isn’t enough to divide a nation, stir up animosity amongst the people through race baiting and other means. Get the people so busy opposing each other that they’ll fail to notice (or at least, fail to adequately oppose) the iron grip on power held by the ruling class. The fact this “divide and rule” strategy is an excellent way of converting First World nations into Third World nations is, for the ruling class, beside the point. The ruling classes of Western nations do not have benign intent toward the nations they rule, and are quite content to see First World nations turn into Third World nations. Just as, decades earlier, they’d contentedly watched Stalin murder tens of millions of innocent people, while themselves helping Stalin get his hands on additional millions he’d wanted to kill.

Interesting points, but not sure what this has to do with international warfare.  I guess if you are saying war is all an “inside job” meant to sustain elites… well, that isn’t true by a long shot.  The empires of central Europe were swept away by WWI. The Nazis were liquidated. The Japanese militarists were eliminated. The Soviet communist party (although its members changed hats) is gone. Etc…  War is something beyond the “control” of the powerful, because at the end of the day the outcome of the war is determined by factors unrelated to the ruling class’s position within its own country.  Elites may unleash war to secure their position, but that doesn’t mean they will inevitably win the war and survive.

Not to get personal, but I always laugh when people, especially liberals, get hyped up about the “conspiracy of the elites” nonsense. Yes, people with power can abuse it and get sweat heart, inside deals, but the reality–a reality confirmed by my 14 years practicing law and suing or defending such people or companies-- is that the elites are actually more often then not fairly incompetent.  Many people in power are not there because of their diabolical intelligence or scheming, but because they “lasted” the longest. Indeed, I am not so afraid of the evil machinations of some international elite as by their actual stupidity.  Just read “The Big Short” by Micheal Lewis. It tells the tale. Stupidity from top to bottom in such institutions as Goldman Sacks et al reigned, and they blew themselves up. Their only strategy at the end was to cry to the government.  Not smart, or brilliant, just begging.

if you want to talk about US domestic politics and economics, I am game. But that would be another thread all together.  Indeed, I think a thread that would be banned?  :-P

I love it when people talk of “Ruling elites” pulling the strings behind the scenes and manipulating/controlling the world.

Sure… there are always influences, and tools of influence, but here’s the truth.

Look at any subsection of society, a work place, a family, a military unit, whatever and look at the social structure.  Pick one that has TOTAL control of it’s circumstances.  A Construction jobsite, sports team, or Military unit are prime examples.

Now go and look at the challenges that social structure has in just trying to achieve basic objectives - even though they have dedicated persons in TOTAL control of the organization.  Mistakes still get made, discipline is never 100%, people have different perspectives and opinions, get-along/or-dont etc.  The outcome is never certain on the micro scale.

The Macro scale is never certain either…

@Karl7:

Interesting points, but not sure what this has to do with international warfare.  I guess if you are saying war is all an “inside job” meant to sustain elites… well, that isn’t true by a long shot.  The empires of central Europe were swept away by WWI. The Nazis were liquidated. The Japanese militarists were eliminated. The Soviet communist party (although its members changed hats) is gone. Etc…  War is something beyond the “control” of the powerful, because at the end of the day the outcome of the war is determined by factors unrelated to the ruling class’s position within its own country.  Elites may unleash war to secure their position, but that doesn’t mean they will inevitably win the war and survive.

Not to get personal, but I always laugh when people, especially liberals, get hyped up about the “conspiracy of the elites” nonsense. Yes, people with power can abuse it and get sweat heart, inside deals, but the reality–a reality confirmed by my 14 years practicing law and suing or defending such people or companies-- is that the elites are actually more often then not fairly incompetent.  Many people in power are not there because of their diabolical intelligence or scheming, but because they “lasted” the longest. Indeed, I am not so afraid of the evil machinations of some international elite as by their actual stupidity.  Just read “The Big Short” by Micheal Lewis. It tells the tale. Stupidity from top to bottom in such institutions as Goldman Sacks et al reigned, and they blew themselves up. Their only strategy at the end was to cry to the government.  Not smart, or brilliant, just begging.

if you want to talk about US domestic politics and economics, I am game. But that would be another thread all together.  Indeed, I think a thread that would be banned?  :-P

The more familiar one becomes with the Establishment, the more it becomes clear that Establishment is actively hostile to the nations it rules. That’s as true in the U.S. as it is in Canada or the EU. The Establishment should be regarded as a hostile foreign occupier.

If media ownership is consolidated among a small number of companies, the Establishment will have virtually unlimited opportunities to lie to the people. Even in the Internet age, when people have access to non-Establishment media, there is still a strong tendency among the Establishment to use the mainstream media they do control to promote a fundamentally dishonest, malignant political agenda. Such tactics can be surprisingly effective, at least among those who get most of their news from Establishment-controlled sources.

Media consolidation was also an important theme in America’s past. During the first half of the 20th century, the typical pattern was for anti-war newspapers to get bought up by pro-war newspapers. We now know that the Establishment’s history of lying to the American people is not a new thing. Lies were used to get America involved in both world wars.

There is this idea that the world wars were fought to serve American interests. That, however, is not the case. They were fought to serve the Establishment’s best interests.

WWII represented a power grab by the Establishment. As a result of the Nazi defeat, the Establishment gained power over Western and part of Central Europe. Even more importantly (from the Establishment’s perspective), a potential alternative to Establishment rule was extinguished. During the first four years of Hitler’s rule, he greatly increased wages for German workers, expanded vacation time, transformed the German economy, improved work safety standards, implemented clean air and clean water measures, and ended the malnutrition/near starvation which had existed in the Weimar Republic. (And which was also a problem for the lower classes in other nations, such as Britain.) Later, the Nazis would implement a fairly successful anti-smoking program. The Establishment did not want their own, lackluster results compared against all that.

The Establishment could probably have achieved most of those things too, had its rule been benign. Instead, its typical policy has been to give the people just enough to create the illusion of benign rule, and no more than that. Creating the illusion of benign intent takes work, and recently the Establishment’s willingness to do that work appears to have waned. The Omnibus Spending Bill, the decision to flood Europe with migrants, and unlimited electronic surveillance against the people are all evidence that the Establishment is no longer all that interested in maintaining the illusion of benign intent.

@KurtGodel7:

During the first four years of Hitler’s rule, he greatly increased wages for German workers, expanded vacation time, transformed the German economy, improved work safety standards, implemented clean air and clean water measures, and ended the malnutrition/near starvation which had existed in the Weimar Republic. (And which was also a problem for the lower classes in other nations, such as Britain.) Later, the Nazis would implement a fairly successful anti-smoking program.

Credit for that particular non-smoking program, one of the many socially, economically and ecologically progressive measures for which the Nazi regime is widely admired, no doubt ultimately rests with Adolf Hitler, a non-smoker who prohibited smoking in his presence.  He was a also vegetarian and a non-drinker, which is further evidence that he was passionately devoted to the promotion of healthy lifestyle habits.

@CWO:

Credit for that particular non-smoking program, one of the many socially, economically and ecologically progressive measures for which the Nazi regime is widely admired, no doubt ultimately rests with Adolf Hitler, a non-smoker who prohibited smoking in his presence.  He was a also vegetarian and a non-drinker, which is further evidence that he was passionately devoted to the promotion of healthy lifestyle habits.

Born in Austria he was also a passionate mountain climber, and in his later days he build a cottage with view up in the Bergthesgaden mountains. When the Austrian climbers Heinrich Harrer and Heclmeier did the first ascend of Eiger Nordwand in 1934 he would invite them home for dinner just to show his admiration for real heroes. When he arranged the Olympic Games in 1938, no other national leader have ever showed that much enthusiasm as he did, he actually climbed on the chair, jumping up and down yelling RUN RUN RUN to the atleths passing by.

Compared to Churchill he was a saint. He never went to any bordello neither. Churchill on the other hand lived in bordellos instead of hotels when he travelled, he chain smoked as a train, and was always drunk, and would eat nothing but beefs. So basically we got this fat, smoking, drinking, beefeater bordello customer that believed in personal freedom and democracy, and his antagonist the slim, non smoking, non drinking vegetarian athlete with real high morale whos only wish was to enslave the world and subdue every man, except the Jews who he wanted to kill by gas.

Go figure

Some quotes by Winston Churchill:

“[Mahatma Gandhi] ought to be lain bound hand and foot at the gates of Delhi, and then trampled on by an enormous elephant with the new Viceroy seated on its back.”

“I hate Indians . . . They are a beastly people with a beastly religion.”

Churchill’s blunt refusal to supply food to Bengal arguably led to the deaths of 3 million people.

British officials in the Indian region begged the Prime Minister to send aid to the Indian region, which was hit by wide-spread famine in 1943. Churchill said it was their own fault for ‘breeding like rabbits’. He said the plague was ‘merrily’ culling the population.

“This movement among the Jews is not new. . . . this worldwide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilisation and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence, and impossible equality, has been steadily growing. It has been the mainspring of every subversive movement during the 19th century.”

@Narvik:

Born in Austria he was also a passionate mountain climber, and in his later days he build a cottage with view up in the Bergthesgaden mountains. When the Austrian climbers Heinrich Harrer and Heclmeier did the first ascend of Eiger Nordwand in 1934 he would invite them home for dinner just to show his admiration for real heroes. When he arranged the Olympic Games in 1938, no other national leader have ever showed that much enthusiasm as he did, he actually climbed on the chair, jumping up and down yelling RUN RUN RUN to the atleths passing by.

Compared to Churchill he was a saint. He never went to any bordello neither. Churchill on the other hand lived in bordellos instead of hotels when he travelled, he chain smoked as a train, and was always drunk, and would eat nothing but beefs. So basically we got this fat, smoking, drinking, beefeater bordello customer that believed in personal freedom and democracy, and his antagonist the slim, non smoking, non drinking vegetarian athlete with real high morale whos only wish was to enslave the world and subdue every man, except the Jews who he wanted to kill by gas.

Go figure

Indeed, the contrast between Churchill’s hedonism and Hitler’s austere lifestyle was noted by John Keegan in his book The Mask of Command.  Keegan says that unlike Churchill, whose daily breakfasts of pheasant or partridge cheerfully exceeded the weekly wartime protein allwoance of British schoolchildren, Hitler spent the war living on bleak fare (such as mashed apples) in miserable surroundings (such as his isolated headquarters at Rastenburg, which was a pure military facility with no luxuries).  It should also be noted that Hitler, sensitive and artistically-inclined man that he was, admired not just the well-proportioned physiques of Aryan men and women (as widely depicted in German visual arts of the time, though not quite so widely found in the Fuhrer’s immediate entourage, the devilishly handsome Reinhard Heidrich being a notable exception) but also had a keen eye for the beauties of the natural world, as expressed by a popular German song of the time (which can be heard in the documentary series The World at War) whose refrain roughly translates as “Adolf Hitler’s favourite flower is the delicate edelweiss.”