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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   33487 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 19, 2023

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There is always this stupid idea that if only we were a bit kinder with those leaders (be it Hitler, Putin or others), if we had made just one or two small concessions, there would have been no war.

Even if we grant that, Hitler only rose to power due to Germany being horribly abused after WWI and Putin due to how terrible transition from communism was in Russia compared to other post soviet countries.

By the way, I remember quite precisely what happened, and the jews were not responsible of it. All of America wanted this war.

Americans were wildly misled about the situation, for example, lots of them thought that Saddam was connected with 9/11. Taking down Iraq was strategic goal of Israel. Look up "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm", lead authored by Richard Perle, "architect of Iraq war".

Even if we grant that, Hitler only rose to power due to Germany being horribly abused after WWI

Horribly humiliated and somewhat, but not horribly abused. By about 1924, the Allies were seeking ways to strengthen Germany again. Germany experienced a net inflow of capital in the Weimar Period: hardly a nation being sucked dry with reparations.

Additionally, if Germany had finished WWI with honour, no loss of territory, and not economic dependence, would there have been a WWII akin to WWI? Would Hitler have been able to ride a wave of traditional German imperialism? The underlying strength of Germany and the rivalry with Russia/France would still be there. It might not have been as bad as WWII in reality, but to deny its possibility is to be cavalier with historical causation and counterfactuals.

Putin due to how terrible transition from communism was in Russia compared to other post soviet countries.

The West was very kind to Russia in that period: feeding them, not attempting to roll them back further in Chechenya or Crimea, letting Russia take over the USSR's Security Council seat, stopped it sliding into civil war in 1996 etc.

Putin and his regime still ended up blaming the West for Russia's woes in the transition period. That's not to say that those acts of kindness were bad: they saved many lives in Russia, kept it from collapsing into even more bloodshed, and possibly bought a decade or more of Russian passitivity towards its neighbours - maybe the longest period of peace from Russian aggression in Eastern European history.

The point is that kindness towards your enemies is not enough. Reagan had the right idea of assertive strength and openness to mutual concessions. That won't always work - the results would be very different with Hitler than Gorbachev - but it's a relatively robust strategy. Ironically, it's not so different from what Chamberlain and Baldwin actually pursued in the 1930s, in that they undertook Reagan-style rearmanent. However, the concessions were not matched with concessions from Germany.

Putin due to how terrible transition from communism was in Russia compared to other post soviet countries.

The criminal mafia Putin ended up heading is the one of the major reasons why the transition ended up being so terrible, and his comrades took a significant part in making this transition so terrible, and that's how they all became multi-billionaires.

Americans were wildly misled about the situation, for example, lots of them thought that Saddam was connected with 9/11. Taking down Iraq was strategic goal of Israel.

It seems to me that people that are so easily mislead should take part in no decision at all. As I said somewhere else, being dumb is no excuse.

So abolish democracy? Based.

Germany was not horribly abused after WWI. In fact, I would go far as to say they got off easier than the Russians, the Austrians, and the Ottomans, and they well got off easier than the French in 1871. Indeed, the same figures that engineered WWI - the militarists of Germany - faced no punishments, and indeed became fellow travelers of the Nazis.

Indeed, the same figures that engineered WWI - the militarists of Germany - faced no punishments, and indeed became fellow travelers of the Nazis.

I am not opposed to punishment of people personally responsible, but what happened to civilian population, like continuing starvation blockade between armistice and signing the treaty, reparations causing hyper inflation, etc.

Is there any evidence that large number of Germans starved to death after WW1? It's a longstanding (as in, back to the 1920s) revisionist claim, but I think the evidence is lacking.

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