In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up!
NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action.
Man the cold war was the USA's fault and the soviet union didn't actually support global revolution or a completely different form of society that they wanted the world to follow. The soviet union was actually just a misunderstood republic of prosperous people that didn't suffer from constant suffering or threat of famine. Let me go tell the Polish and the Ukrainians that they just misunderstood their oppressors.
On December 20 2017 05:33 Sermokala wrote: Man the cold war was the USA's fault and the soviet union didn't actually support global revolution or a completely different form of society that they wanted the world to follow. The soviet union was actually just a misunderstood republic of prosperous people that didn't suffer from constant suffering or threat of famine. Let me go tell the Polish and the Ukrainians that they just misunderstood their oppressors.
You know there doesn't have to be one right side and one wrong side right? It's not a zero sum game.
On December 19 2017 17:50 mozoku wrote: Ehh, that's still not that close to what you said and the article is definitely trying to spin a narrative.
For example, it claims the PKI was openly working within the system and unarmed. And that Suharto "blamed" the coup on a PKI plot. In reality, the PKI was in power to begin with and lost power when a preemptive assassination of some alleged leaders of a suspected coup went badly wrong. That hardly rings of the "innocent victim portrayal in article. Not that that justifies anything on its own.
Here's a recent NYT article that covers the same cables, but with less innuendo.
The US involvement is limited to handing over some lists of known communists to be purged and aiding in media suppression. Not a shining star for the US, but not really an outlier by the standards of the time. I'm less sympathetic to some geopolitics-based justification for immorality in 2017, but the Cold War was a time when there were legitimate survival motives in play.
It's hardly comparable to, say, what the British Empire did--which is the impression you give when you accuse the US of supporting genocide, mass enslavement, and resource exploitation. For one, the US was primarily motivated by self-defense in the Cold War, rather than profit. Second, no enslavement actually happened. Third, Indonesia (voluntarily) welcomed US corporations because it felt the investment would simulate the economy--which it most certainly did. The US didn't show up with an army and enslave/massacre the locals for profit.
Moreover, it's much easier to say the US should have acted more in alignment with its stated principles on 2017 than it was in 1967. Given the uncertainty of the period, I can sympathize with US leaders at the time compromising on principles some to err on the side of keeping its citizens safe. I would expect Indonesians to do the same to Americans if the situation were reversed, and I wouldn't think any less of them for it.
So you're saying you would be ok with a million murdered Americans if it furthered Indonesian economic interests? Are you taking the piss?
There was no legitimate survival interest in this genocide, it was an economic coup, organized and supported by America and the UK, with the aim of stamping out an ideology that they didn't like and the secondary goal getting an infinite supply of cheap labour and cheap natural resources from a country that should be one of the richest in the world. A million people killed, with the full support of the US government. Minimize it all you want, its a disgrace.
Yes, the Cold War was an imperialist plot to exploit poor countries. There was no real threat. How could I forget?
That's a strawman if I've ever seen one. Nobody is saying there wasn't a "real threat" + Show Spoiler +
(although, if you care to, please do define that threat. Were they going to invade the US? Take over the world? What is it exactly that was so threatening? Was it the dark ominous music in the background that played on the TV whenever they mentioned the Soviets that was so threatening to you in the 70s or 80s? What was it, exactly? Did you read a textbook that said the Soviets were considered a threat by the US government and then just left your thoughts at accepting that as a fact rather than an assessment from a power that had the distinct interest to picture such a threat? Please, expand on this "real threat")
. It's just the way that this was handled was... less than optimal... in many cases.
On December 20 2017 04:57 Plansix wrote: The cold war was poor countries being used as pawn in a proxy war that no one ever bothered to clean up after. The US made the fate mistake of winning the cold war decisively, so they were the only country left to blame for the state of the middle east and other developing nations.
Haha. Yeah, nobody blames Russia for anything that's happened. Haha. It's just so funny, I can't stop laughing. Come on man, you're just feeling hurt (once again) for being confronted (once again) by the evils of your own nation that you so patriotically support.
Must be nice to live in a nation where everyone pays for your security and you get to heckle from the sidelines. You get all the rewards from those evils and get to assume none of the responsibility. One of the first nations to sign up to have America to fight the USSR for them. Complacent in every way but the moral high ground to spit on people from.
On December 20 2017 05:33 Sermokala wrote: Man the cold war was the USA's fault and the soviet union didn't actually support global revolution or a completely different form of society that they wanted the world to follow. The soviet union was actually just a misunderstood republic of prosperous people that didn't suffer from constant suffering or threat of famine. Let me go tell the Polish and the Ukrainians that they just misunderstood their oppressors.
You know there doesn't have to be one right side and one wrong side right? It's not a zero sum game.
At some point people in the US get sick of being blamed by EU members for everything while they happily enjoyed the longest era of peace Europe has ever known. Its like complaining about poor conditions in the Iphone factory while owning a shit load of Apple stock.
On December 20 2017 05:33 Sermokala wrote: Man the cold war was the USA's fault and the soviet union didn't actually support global revolution or a completely different form of society that they wanted the world to follow. The soviet union was actually just a misunderstood republic of prosperous people that didn't suffer from constant suffering or threat of famine. Let me go tell the Polish and the Ukrainians that they just misunderstood their oppressors.
You know there doesn't have to be one right side and one wrong side right? It's not a zero sum game.
Theres one side that has Costco, aldi, and sams club while the other side has you waiting in line for a loaf of bread. One side advocating for famine and the other side advocating for plenty. Its not a 100% good 100% evil scoreboard but anyone whos up their own ass to say that the US wasn't clearly the better option for world domination is a sad joke.
On December 20 2017 05:33 Sermokala wrote: Man the cold war was the USA's fault and the soviet union didn't actually support global revolution or a completely different form of society that they wanted the world to follow. The soviet union was actually just a misunderstood republic of prosperous people that didn't suffer from constant suffering or threat of famine. Let me go tell the Polish and the Ukrainians that they just misunderstood their oppressors.
You know there doesn't have to be one right side and one wrong side right? It's not a zero sum game.
At some point people in the US get sick of being blamed by EU members for everything while they happily enjoyed the longest era of peace Europe has ever known. Its like complaining about poor conditions in the Iphone factory while owning a shit load of Apple stock.
To be honest I can't imagine what's it must be like to be Russian, or more accurately been Russian back in the day, and get no credit for the 10-20 million people who died either (depending on how you count it).
On December 20 2017 05:33 Sermokala wrote: Man the cold war was the USA's fault and the soviet union didn't actually support global revolution or a completely different form of society that they wanted the world to follow. The soviet union was actually just a misunderstood republic of prosperous people that didn't suffer from constant suffering or threat of famine. Let me go tell the Polish and the Ukrainians that they just misunderstood their oppressors.
You know there doesn't have to be one right side and one wrong side right? It's not a zero sum game.
Theres one side that has Costco, aldi, and sams club while the other side has you waiting in line for a loaf of bread. One side advocating for famine and the other side advocating for plenty. Its not a 100% good 100% evil scoreboard but anyone whos up their own ass to say that the US wasn't clearly the better option for world domination is a sad joke.
I didn't realize the 60s had Costco (est. 1976) and Sam's Club (est. 1983). Both seem quite late additions to the US scoreboard.
On Friday, the Washington Post published a story that began:
"The Trump administration is prohibiting officials at the nation’s top public health agency from using a list of seven words or phrases — including “fetus” and “transgender” — in official documents being prepared for next year’s budget." The story goes on to complicate this claim a little bit, noting, for instance, some distinctions between terms that were supposedly flagged as prohibited in draft budget documents and others regarding which a prohibition “had been conveyed verbally” in a meeting among career officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But the basic claim of the story is that HHS is telling its employees they’re not allowed to use seven words or terms—“vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “transgender,” “fetus,” “evidence-based” and “science-based.”
Naturally, this assertion has caused a big stir, setting loose everything from charges of censorship to worries that the CDC won’t be able to help victims of terrible diseases if they can’t communicate openly about their work. I was pretty startled by the story myself, and it sent me reaching out to a number of officials at HHS and its sub-agencies for an explanation. These conversations have left me persuaded that the impression created by the Post’s story is not accurate. What seems to have happened here involves two sets of circumstances. First, the budget office at HHS sent the various divisions of the department a style guide to use in their budget-proposal language and “congressional justification” documents for the coming year. That style guide, which sets out a standard style for everything from capitalization of the titles of key offices to some commonly disputed points of grammar and punctuation, also sets out some words to be avoided. These, I am told, are avoided because they are frequently misused or regularly overused in departmental documents (make of that what you will) and they include three terms on the Post’s list: “vulnerable,” “diversity,” and “entitlement.” The style guide does not prohibit the use of these terms, but it says they should be used only when alternatives (which it proposes in some cases) cannot be.
I don’t remember there being a style guide for budget documents when I worked at HHS and at the White House in the Bush years, but one person I spoke with suggested there was one and that the Obama administration also used a style guide. Either way, many organizations in and out of government do the same, of course, as indeed the Washington Post does. No one denied, however, that these three terms were added to the budget-proposal style guide in this administration.
On December 20 2017 05:33 Sermokala wrote: Man the cold war was the USA's fault and the soviet union didn't actually support global revolution or a completely different form of society that they wanted the world to follow. The soviet union was actually just a misunderstood republic of prosperous people that didn't suffer from constant suffering or threat of famine. Let me go tell the Polish and the Ukrainians that they just misunderstood their oppressors.
You know there doesn't have to be one right side and one wrong side right? It's not a zero sum game.
At some point people in the US get sick of being blamed by EU members for everything while they happily enjoyed the longest era of peace Europe has ever known. Its like complaining about poor conditions in the Iphone factory while owning a shit load of Apple stock.
To be honest I can't imagine what's it must be like to be Russian, or more accurately been Russian back in the day, and get no credit for the 10-20 million people who died either (depending on how you count it).
On December 20 2017 05:33 Sermokala wrote: Man the cold war was the USA's fault and the soviet union didn't actually support global revolution or a completely different form of society that they wanted the world to follow. The soviet union was actually just a misunderstood republic of prosperous people that didn't suffer from constant suffering or threat of famine. Let me go tell the Polish and the Ukrainians that they just misunderstood their oppressors.
You know there doesn't have to be one right side and one wrong side right? It's not a zero sum game.
Theres one side that has Costco, aldi, and sams club while the other side has you waiting in line for a loaf of bread. One side advocating for famine and the other side advocating for plenty. Its not a 100% good 100% evil scoreboard but anyone whos up their own ass to say that the US wasn't clearly the better option for world domination is a sad joke.
I didn't realize the 60s had Costco (est. 1976) and Sam's Club (est. 1983).
Also none of that addresses the point?
They're supermarkets that are filled with food all the time that you can go and get food whenever you want. His point was that it wasn't a zero sum game and I said no but America is tons better beacuse we don't starve tens of millions of people on an oppsie. We also don't use tanks and machine guns to kill people. We use cops and "detectives" to pretend to do it legaly.
On December 20 2017 05:33 Sermokala wrote: Man the cold war was the USA's fault and the soviet union didn't actually support global revolution or a completely different form of society that they wanted the world to follow. The soviet union was actually just a misunderstood republic of prosperous people that didn't suffer from constant suffering or threat of famine. Let me go tell the Polish and the Ukrainians that they just misunderstood their oppressors.
You know there doesn't have to be one right side and one wrong side right? It's not a zero sum game.
At some point people in the US get sick of being blamed by EU members for everything while they happily enjoyed the longest era of peace Europe has ever known. Its like complaining about poor conditions in the Iphone factory while owning a shit load of Apple stock.
To be honest I can't imagine what's it must be like to be Russian, or more accurately been Russian back in the day, and get no credit for the 10-20 million people who died either (depending on how you count it).
I don’t think it’s a better or worse thing. Both nations fought a pretty heartless proxy war and neither side decided to clean up afterwards. We are experiencing the rewards of doing that right now in the Middle East. But bitching to people in this thread about the conduct of the US in the 1950-60-70 and 80s gets old fast. None of us were alive or able to impact those decisions. And there are no easy solutions for most of the problems left behind.
On Friday, the Washington Post published a story that began:
"The Trump administration is prohibiting officials at the nation’s top public health agency from using a list of seven words or phrases — including “fetus” and “transgender” — in official documents being prepared for next year’s budget." The story goes on to complicate this claim a little bit, noting, for instance, some distinctions between terms that were supposedly flagged as prohibited in draft budget documents and others regarding which a prohibition “had been conveyed verbally” in a meeting among career officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But the basic claim of the story is that HHS is telling its employees they’re not allowed to use seven words or terms—“vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “transgender,” “fetus,” “evidence-based” and “science-based.”
Naturally, this assertion has caused a big stir, setting loose everything from charges of censorship to worries that the CDC won’t be able to help victims of terrible diseases if they can’t communicate openly about their work. I was pretty startled by the story myself, and it sent me reaching out to a number of officials at HHS and its sub-agencies for an explanation. These conversations have left me persuaded that the impression created by the Post’s story is not accurate. What seems to have happened here involves two sets of circumstances. First, the budget office at HHS sent the various divisions of the department a style guide to use in their budget-proposal language and “congressional justification” documents for the coming year. That style guide, which sets out a standard style for everything from capitalization of the titles of key offices to some commonly disputed points of grammar and punctuation, also sets out some words to be avoided. These, I am told, are avoided because they are frequently misused or regularly overused in departmental documents (make of that what you will) and they include three terms on the Post’s list: “vulnerable,” “diversity,” and “entitlement.” The style guide does not prohibit the use of these terms, but it says they should be used only when alternatives (which it proposes in some cases) cannot be.
I don’t remember there being a style guide for budget documents when I worked at HHS and at the White House in the Bush years, but one person I spoke with suggested there was one and that the Obama administration also used a style guide. Either way, many organizations in and out of government do the same, of course, as indeed the Washington Post does. No one denied, however, that these three terms were added to the budget-proposal style guide in this administration.
On December 20 2017 05:48 Logo wrote: To be honest I can't imagine what's it must be like to be Russian, or more accurately been Russian back in the day, and get no credit for the 10-20 million people who died either (depending on how you count it).
On December 20 2017 05:48 Logo wrote: To be honest I can't imagine what's it must be like to be Russian, or more accurately been Russian back in the day, and get no credit for the 10-20 million people who died either (depending on how you count it).
???
Is it baffling I can't imagine what it's like for your country to lose 13% of its population, and that the US' portrayal of that doesn't seem to paint a detailed portrayal of what that's like?
On December 20 2017 05:33 Sermokala wrote: Man the cold war was the USA's fault and the soviet union didn't actually support global revolution or a completely different form of society that they wanted the world to follow. The soviet union was actually just a misunderstood republic of prosperous people that didn't suffer from constant suffering or threat of famine. Let me go tell the Polish and the Ukrainians that they just misunderstood their oppressors.
You know there doesn't have to be one right side and one wrong side right? It's not a zero sum game.
Theres one side that has Costco, aldi, and sams club while the other side has you waiting in line for a loaf of bread. One side advocating for famine and the other side advocating for plenty. Its not a 100% good 100% evil scoreboard but anyone whos up their own ass to say that the US wasn't clearly the better option for world domination is a sad joke.
Well I guess that's that debate settled fellas burn the literature and dismantle the historiographotrons it's over.
On December 20 2017 05:33 Sermokala wrote: Man the cold war was the USA's fault and the soviet union didn't actually support global revolution or a completely different form of society that they wanted the world to follow. The soviet union was actually just a misunderstood republic of prosperous people that didn't suffer from constant suffering or threat of famine. Let me go tell the Polish and the Ukrainians that they just misunderstood their oppressors.
You know there doesn't have to be one right side and one wrong side right? It's not a zero sum game.
Theres one side that has Costco, aldi, and sams club while the other side has you waiting in line for a loaf of bread. One side advocating for famine and the other side advocating for plenty. Its not a 100% good 100% evil scoreboard but anyone whos up their own ass to say that the US wasn't clearly the better option for world domination is a sad joke.
Well I guess that's that debate settled fellas burn the literature and dismantle the historiographotrons it's over.
There isn’t much of a debate that the USSR was worse. But I’m not sure that matters when reflecting on the unforeseen cost of winning the cold war.
On December 20 2017 05:48 Logo wrote: To be honest I can't imagine what's it must be like to be Russian, or more accurately been Russian back in the day, and get no credit for the 10-20 million people who died either (depending on how you count it).
???
Is it baffling I can't imagine what it's like for your country to lose 13% of its population, and that the US' portrayal of that doesn't seem to paint a detailed portrayal of what that's like?
What are you even referring to? Stalin's purges? WW2?
Nobody is erasing either from the history books. Or is that still not what I'm supposed to feel bad for?
On December 20 2017 05:33 Sermokala wrote: Man the cold war was the USA's fault and the soviet union didn't actually support global revolution or a completely different form of society that they wanted the world to follow. The soviet union was actually just a misunderstood republic of prosperous people that didn't suffer from constant suffering or threat of famine. Let me go tell the Polish and the Ukrainians that they just misunderstood their oppressors.
You know there doesn't have to be one right side and one wrong side right? It's not a zero sum game.
Theres one side that has Costco, aldi, and sams club while the other side has you waiting in line for a loaf of bread. One side advocating for famine and the other side advocating for plenty. Its not a 100% good 100% evil scoreboard but anyone whos up their own ass to say that the US wasn't clearly the better option for world domination is a sad joke.
Well I guess that's that debate settled fellas burn the literature and dismantle the historiographotrons it's over.
There isn’t much of a debate that the USSR was worse. But I’m not sure that matters when reflecting on the unforeseen cost of winning the cold war.
I don't think anyone WAS questioning whether the USSR was worse, or that they didn't 'suffer from constant suffering'.
On December 20 2017 05:48 Logo wrote: To be honest I can't imagine what's it must be like to be Russian, or more accurately been Russian back in the day, and get no credit for the 10-20 million people who died either (depending on how you count it).
???
Is it baffling I can't imagine what it's like for your country to lose 13% of its population, and that the US' portrayal of that doesn't seem to paint a detailed portrayal of what that's like?
What are you even referring to? Stalin's purges? WW2?
Nobody is erasing either from the history books. Or is that still not what I'm supposed to feel bad for?
On December 20 2017 05:33 Sermokala wrote: Man the cold war was the USA's fault and the soviet union didn't actually support global revolution or a completely different form of society that they wanted the world to follow. The soviet union was actually just a misunderstood republic of prosperous people that didn't suffer from constant suffering or threat of famine. Let me go tell the Polish and the Ukrainians that they just misunderstood their oppressors.
You know there doesn't have to be one right side and one wrong side right? It's not a zero sum game.
Theres one side that has Costco, aldi, and sams club while the other side has you waiting in line for a loaf of bread. One side advocating for famine and the other side advocating for plenty. Its not a 100% good 100% evil scoreboard but anyone whos up their own ass to say that the US wasn't clearly the better option for world domination is a sad joke.
Well I guess that's that debate settled fellas burn the literature and dismantle the historiographotrons it's over.
There isn’t much of a debate that the USSR was worse. But I’m not sure that matters when reflecting on the unforeseen cost of winning the cold war.
I don't think anyone WAS questioning whether the USSR was worse, or that they didn't 'suffer from constant suffering'.
We try not to debate it, but the discussion always gets dragged back to the classic good vs evil dynamic that makes it all easier to justify.
EPT
