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Now that we have a new thread, 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 complete and thorough read before posting! NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source.If you have any questions, comments, concern, or feedback regarding the USPMT, then please use this thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/website-feedback/510156-us-politics-thread |
There has been no scientific evidence that WFH decreased worker's performance in germany.
The measured benefits:
- less stress
- more free time
- less costs for the employer
- better time/wage ratio if you count in commutes
- far less polution
- far less unhealthy consumption of convinience food and drinks, more time for cooking
- better physical fittness, due to 1-2 hours gained PER DAY to work out or just walk somewhere.. which is workout in industrialized world.
- Less cost for transportation..
- Less public cost for transportation
A happy worker, is a bad consumer.
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United States42803 Posts
On January 22 2025 10:58 Magic Powers wrote:Show nested quote +On January 22 2025 09:47 KwarK wrote:On January 22 2025 09:30 Magic Powers wrote:On January 22 2025 07:59 KwarK wrote:On January 22 2025 02:55 Magic Powers wrote:
Historians aren't sure why exactly Stalin misread Hitler, but they're in agreement that he expected an invasion. They were not "friends" or "allies", it was entirely temporary and circumstantial. Stalin hated the fact that he had to share Poland with Hitler. He had planned a full invasion to claim everything.
He was surprised because he believed Hitler's invasion would happen later rather than sooner, even though his advisors kept warning him of an imminent threat and asking for a quick defensive military build-up. Operation Barbarossa was right around the corner while Stalin was still in denial, and he was caught off-guard.
Both Hitler and Stalin were planning to attack each other the whole time, they just didn't have a precise date in mind. Stalin couldn't attack first because his military was poor. Hitler's Wehrmacht was ready. They weren't allies except in the sense that they wrote a treaty detailing their shared territorial ambitions and how they would assist each other militarily to achieve those territorial ambitions and then they signed that treaty and then they provided each other material military assistance and then they went to war together in alliance against their common enemies that were detailed in the treaty that they'd agreed. But if you set that to one side then sure, they were not allies. It's like how Italy was also not allied with Hitler, only they provided fewer troops in support of the German war effort in North Africa than Stalin did in support of the invasion of Poland, so I guess they were even less allied. The Soviets had promised a lot of things, including Poland that it would not be attacked - and then they invaded it and took the other half. They ran the same deception that Hitler did. Stalin was a snake. "The USSR had signed a non-aggression pact with Poland in 1932, but that would turn out to be a useless bit of paper, too." Furthermore: "Even though France and the USSR had signed a treaty in 1935 promising to protect Czechoslovakia from outside aggression, neither was willing to go to war when it came to the crunch." Stalin's words demonstrably meant nothing. The USSR's promises were empty. Stalin was a ruthless liar and constantly scheming to grab more land and discarding allies on a whim. But he lacked the military strength for grander plans, unlike Nazi Germany. He also saw Germany's army diversifying across his own border, but he refused to believe Hitler would be mad enough to invade. His advisors, as well as British informants, kept warning him it would happen. And then it did happen. The pact between Hitler and Stalin didn't mean that they were allies. They were circumstantial allies in name only - as was later proven more concretley when Nazi Germany attacked the Soviets. A plan that Hitler had formulated at least a year prior. Actions speak louder than words. Hitler was a liar, and so was Stalin. They were snakes hoping (and often succeeding) to conquer large swaths of land. This was known long before Hitler's invasion of Poland. Churchill - all the way back to at least 1930 - said that Hitler can't be trusted, and he was proven right over and over again in the years before WW2. He was reading Hitler like a book from the start. To argue that Hitler and Stalin were allies is to misunderstand who these individuals were and how they operated. They were never allies, they were just hoping to keep up pretenses in front of each other to later gain strategic advantages. They were playing their usual games. In the case of Hitler this led to various invasions and annexations starting already in 1935. He was well-known for this kind of scheming, which is why the invasion of Poland should've come to nobody's surprise. Churchill certainly wasn't surprised. Stalin underestimated Hitler's capacity to pull crazy stunts. It wasn't because he thought Hitler was actually peaceful towards the Soviets, it's because he thought Hitler wouldn't take such a huge gamble. Or it's because Stalin thought Churchill was trying to mess with him and hoping to provoke a military response by Hitler (because Britain was in a big mess of a war with Germany at the time). Churchill tried to warn Stalin in 1940 but he fell on deaf ears probably for those reasons. Stalin forgot to consider that, while Hitler had a long history of lying, Churchill did not. But he also ignored the German military build-up on the border. Does that perhaps remind you of a modern liar who then invaded a neighboring country? Does the breaking of the Minsk agreement ring a bell? Lies are the foundation of fascism and other oppressive ideologies. They always create a fantasy world in people's heads until they have everything. That's how they win. The more we believe their words, and the less we look at their concrete actions, the faster we lose the race against them. Even Stalin fell for Hitler's lies. And Poland fell for Stalin's lies (not saying they could've done much about that). Sure, you can choose to believe Hitler. You can choose to believe Stalin. It'll only mean that you'll be again and again surprised by their present versions. The next Hitler, the next Stalin, they all do the same thing. They all lie and make people's heads spin. And then people are surprised that they fell for these snakes. https://www.worldhistory.org/article/2559/the-invasion-of-poland-in-1939/https://www.warhistoryonline.com/world-war-ii/russia-ignored-british-warnings-german-invasion-xb.html That’s a lot of words spent to say nothing. They signed an alliance. They fought on the same side in a war per the requirements of the alliance they signed. They were allies. Or you could just admit that I'm right and you missed my point completely, as you always do. My point is correct, you just hate not being the only person in the room who has an understanding of the subject matter. You want to claim the truth is binary - which it isn't - and you happen to be the only person who knows the truth - which you aren't. Consider, for just a minute, that both your and my understanding are correct. Maybe I'm right that they were only allies on paper, and maybe you're right that they were, in fact, allied on paper.
They were not allies on paper, they were allies in fact, due to the fact that they divided up eastern europe between themselves and fought alongside each other per the terms of their alliance.
We're not both right. You're arguing that there was no Nazi Soviet pact. I'm arguing that there was. It is binary. A temporary alliance is an alliance. An alliance of convenience is an alliance. A paper alliance would need to be an alliance that existed only on paper and not involve a joint invasion of Poland but even then it’d still be an alliance. If we rule out alliances that include substantive joint actions between parties that aren’t ideologically aligned then the Allies in world war 2 weren’t allied.
This shouldn’t be an argument and I didn’t post it looking for an argument. It was a simple statement of historical fact, the Stalinists allied with Hitler while the classical liberals of Britain declared war. It’s just what happened.
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Don't know how well your german or russian is but here are the documents.
https://www.1000dokumente.de/Dokumente/Nichtangriffsvertrag_zwischen_Deutschland_und_der_Sowjetunion
The treaty reads "non agression"
The adendum says "In the *totally unrealistic' event of *restructuring borders*.. uhm ... Let's split Baltics and Poland exactly like this *WINK WINK*"
So in my book, they were fucking allies, right until they weren't anymore.
USA and USSR also.. allies. to wipe nazi germany off the map.
NATO, allies to fend off communism. It even says in the damn agenda, you need to be capitalist to be a member
So what do words of megalomaniac liars mean?
Not much!
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Norway28675 Posts
Tbh on the whole 'who opposed Hitler' I think there's a big difference in terms of 'states' and 'individuals'. The Soviet Union was initially allied - don't really see how you can disagree with that - and it seems obvious to me that Stalin wasn't inherently opposed to Hitler's totalitarianism or using terror against his own citizens or using military force to expand his territory. Stalin was on board with all of those.
Meanwhile the countries that did oppose Nazi-Germany were at least nominally liberal democracies, as far as the UK goes it still had a colonial empire but even then it's pretty clear that it was a lesser evil than Nazi-Germany. I've seen Indians disagree but honestly if Gandhi found himself non-violently opposing Nazi-Germany I think we'd most likely never have learned his name.
As far as individuals go, it's a different story, though. Communists were definitely on the fore-front of various resistance movements, and liberal capitalists were reasonably likely to collaborate with various nazi occupations. Kwark was precise enough to use 'Stalinists' rather than 'communists' in his initial argument so I can't really disagree with him.
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Painting Trump as hitler really didn't work as much as painting universal healthcare as communism.
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United States24690 Posts
On January 22 2025 15:37 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:Show nested quote +On January 22 2025 11:41 micronesia wrote:Just to make sure I'm interpreting this correctly... Heads of all departments and agencies in the executive branch of Government shall, as soon as practicable, take all necessary steps to terminate remote work arrangements and require employees to return to work in-person at their respective duty stations on a full-time basis, provided that the department and agency heads shall make exemptions they deem necessary. So this means, if I get a call on Saturday "Can you please review this urgent draft press statement real quick for accuracy?" I have to go into the office to read and provide a few edits? Even though my work laptop or even phone has that capability? Same for a call at 11pm tomorrow night? I have to go back into work with a 1-2 hour round trip, rendering me too exhaust to work at the normal time on Thursday? That is what it says, right? This is efficiency?  On a full time basis just means you spend your normal workweek at your job. Overtime on a saturday and how that is handled should be clear in your contract, right? If you have a job that requires you to be avalible at all times for minor stuff of course you are going to be able to do things from home, and likely your scheduled hours that you have to work for it to be full time would be reduced as well. People are so damn dramatic about work from home on the internet. Yes, it was great for workers. Some parts were also good for employees. But it had some huge issues as well. It's not strange it is being reduced. It's not the end of the world either, we survived at our work places pre covid to. In general most of the day 1 Trump things seem way overblown.
It says terminate remote work arrangements. I am not allowed to do any work remote (e.g., bring my laptop home and work on it) unless on an approved telework agreement, which is apparently null now.
What you are saying could have been written sanely into the EO but it wasn't. I agree the EO and other guidance can be revised to not be ineffective, but it hasn't been yet.
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Northern Ireland25497 Posts
On January 22 2025 15:37 CuddlyCuteKitten wrote:Show nested quote +On January 22 2025 11:41 micronesia wrote:Just to make sure I'm interpreting this correctly... Heads of all departments and agencies in the executive branch of Government shall, as soon as practicable, take all necessary steps to terminate remote work arrangements and require employees to return to work in-person at their respective duty stations on a full-time basis, provided that the department and agency heads shall make exemptions they deem necessary. So this means, if I get a call on Saturday "Can you please review this urgent draft press statement real quick for accuracy?" I have to go into the office to read and provide a few edits? Even though my work laptop or even phone has that capability? Same for a call at 11pm tomorrow night? I have to go back into work with a 1-2 hour round trip, rendering me too exhaust to work at the normal time on Thursday? That is what it says, right? This is efficiency? On a full time basis just means you spend your normal workweek at your job. Overtime on a saturday and how that is handled should be clear in your contract, right? If you have a job that requires you to be avalible at all times for minor stuff of course you are going to be able to do things from home, and likely your scheduled hours that you have to work for it to be full time would be reduced as well. People are so damn dramatic about work from home on the internet. Yes, it was great for workers. Some parts were also good for employees. But it had some huge issues as well. It's not strange it is being reduced. It's not the end of the world either, we survived at our work places pre covid to. In general most of the day 1 Trump things seem way overblown.
I probably prefer the office on balance, but I deeply resent being forced to by a combination of jealousy or an inability to countenance people being self-motivated that is a big political driver of pushing people back into offices.
It’s one of the most meaningful quality of life change afforded to a large number of workers in decades, but Trumpers don’t like people who aren’t them having nice things. It’s that petty vindictiveness that pisses people off, and why there’s such a backlash.
If your company goes ‘look folks, we know it was necessary at the time and we got accustomed to it, but our productivity is in the shit, we need you back in the office to see if that can pull it back and if that’s the factor.’ Well people may not like it, but find it palatable given some data showing a drop off.
But that’s not what drives this backlash to remote working.
It’s being stuck back into the office, and generally people don’t even mind that, it’s the removal of the commute that is the real bonus of working remotely l, because Jenny from Ohio and Joe from Alabama don’t like it.
What day 1 Trump things are being overblown here? I think the responses are pretty proportionate.
If you are trans, well here’s an EO to erase your legitimacy. Climate change well that’s gone backwards. If you value international cooperation in important areas, they’re gone from the WHO again. Rule of law and political stability? Well here’s some January 6th mass pardons.
There’s a smattering of stuff that is pretty inconsequential, but utterly laughable and indicative of the poison at the heart of this political movement. Gulf of America lmao.
Etc etc. If one doesn’t care about any of that and more besides then yeah day 1 was fine.
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On January 22 2025 19:35 KT_Elwood wrote:
Painting Trump as hitler really didn't work as much as painting universal healthcare as communism.
Well the assumption was that people wouldn't be ok with Nazi's, which was a fairly safe assumption.
Turns out America LOVES Nazi's now.
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Norway28675 Posts
In my opinion we should use fascism rather than nazism because the nazi allegation is pretty easy to deflect through 'where are the concentration camps' or 'dude's been way more pro Israel than democrats are' or 'he was the first president in forever to not get involved in a new military conflict' whereas the potential 'where's the extreme nationalism' or 'where's the focus on a strong leader supposed to fix everything' or 'where's the autoritarian and anti-democratic tendencies' are pretty easy to answer.
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On January 22 2025 17:35 KwarK wrote:Show nested quote +On January 22 2025 10:58 Magic Powers wrote:On January 22 2025 09:47 KwarK wrote:On January 22 2025 09:30 Magic Powers wrote:On January 22 2025 07:59 KwarK wrote:On January 22 2025 02:55 Magic Powers wrote:
Historians aren't sure why exactly Stalin misread Hitler, but they're in agreement that he expected an invasion. They were not "friends" or "allies", it was entirely temporary and circumstantial. Stalin hated the fact that he had to share Poland with Hitler. He had planned a full invasion to claim everything.
He was surprised because he believed Hitler's invasion would happen later rather than sooner, even though his advisors kept warning him of an imminent threat and asking for a quick defensive military build-up. Operation Barbarossa was right around the corner while Stalin was still in denial, and he was caught off-guard.
Both Hitler and Stalin were planning to attack each other the whole time, they just didn't have a precise date in mind. Stalin couldn't attack first because his military was poor. Hitler's Wehrmacht was ready. They weren't allies except in the sense that they wrote a treaty detailing their shared territorial ambitions and how they would assist each other militarily to achieve those territorial ambitions and then they signed that treaty and then they provided each other material military assistance and then they went to war together in alliance against their common enemies that were detailed in the treaty that they'd agreed. But if you set that to one side then sure, they were not allies. It's like how Italy was also not allied with Hitler, only they provided fewer troops in support of the German war effort in North Africa than Stalin did in support of the invasion of Poland, so I guess they were even less allied. The Soviets had promised a lot of things, including Poland that it would not be attacked - and then they invaded it and took the other half. They ran the same deception that Hitler did. Stalin was a snake. "The USSR had signed a non-aggression pact with Poland in 1932, but that would turn out to be a useless bit of paper, too." Furthermore: "Even though France and the USSR had signed a treaty in 1935 promising to protect Czechoslovakia from outside aggression, neither was willing to go to war when it came to the crunch." Stalin's words demonstrably meant nothing. The USSR's promises were empty. Stalin was a ruthless liar and constantly scheming to grab more land and discarding allies on a whim. But he lacked the military strength for grander plans, unlike Nazi Germany. He also saw Germany's army diversifying across his own border, but he refused to believe Hitler would be mad enough to invade. His advisors, as well as British informants, kept warning him it would happen. And then it did happen. The pact between Hitler and Stalin didn't mean that they were allies. They were circumstantial allies in name only - as was later proven more concretley when Nazi Germany attacked the Soviets. A plan that Hitler had formulated at least a year prior. Actions speak louder than words. Hitler was a liar, and so was Stalin. They were snakes hoping (and often succeeding) to conquer large swaths of land. This was known long before Hitler's invasion of Poland. Churchill - all the way back to at least 1930 - said that Hitler can't be trusted, and he was proven right over and over again in the years before WW2. He was reading Hitler like a book from the start. To argue that Hitler and Stalin were allies is to misunderstand who these individuals were and how they operated. They were never allies, they were just hoping to keep up pretenses in front of each other to later gain strategic advantages. They were playing their usual games. In the case of Hitler this led to various invasions and annexations starting already in 1935. He was well-known for this kind of scheming, which is why the invasion of Poland should've come to nobody's surprise. Churchill certainly wasn't surprised. Stalin underestimated Hitler's capacity to pull crazy stunts. It wasn't because he thought Hitler was actually peaceful towards the Soviets, it's because he thought Hitler wouldn't take such a huge gamble. Or it's because Stalin thought Churchill was trying to mess with him and hoping to provoke a military response by Hitler (because Britain was in a big mess of a war with Germany at the time). Churchill tried to warn Stalin in 1940 but he fell on deaf ears probably for those reasons. Stalin forgot to consider that, while Hitler had a long history of lying, Churchill did not. But he also ignored the German military build-up on the border. Does that perhaps remind you of a modern liar who then invaded a neighboring country? Does the breaking of the Minsk agreement ring a bell? Lies are the foundation of fascism and other oppressive ideologies. They always create a fantasy world in people's heads until they have everything. That's how they win. The more we believe their words, and the less we look at their concrete actions, the faster we lose the race against them. Even Stalin fell for Hitler's lies. And Poland fell for Stalin's lies (not saying they could've done much about that). Sure, you can choose to believe Hitler. You can choose to believe Stalin. It'll only mean that you'll be again and again surprised by their present versions. The next Hitler, the next Stalin, they all do the same thing. They all lie and make people's heads spin. And then people are surprised that they fell for these snakes. https://www.worldhistory.org/article/2559/the-invasion-of-poland-in-1939/https://www.warhistoryonline.com/world-war-ii/russia-ignored-british-warnings-german-invasion-xb.html That’s a lot of words spent to say nothing. They signed an alliance. They fought on the same side in a war per the requirements of the alliance they signed. They were allies. Or you could just admit that I'm right and you missed my point completely, as you always do. My point is correct, you just hate not being the only person in the room who has an understanding of the subject matter. You want to claim the truth is binary - which it isn't - and you happen to be the only person who knows the truth - which you aren't. Consider, for just a minute, that both your and my understanding are correct. Maybe I'm right that they were only allies on paper, and maybe you're right that they were, in fact, allied on paper. They were not allies on paper, they were allies in fact, due to the fact that they divided up eastern europe between themselves and fought alongside each other per the terms of their alliance. We're not both right. You're arguing that there was no Nazi Soviet pact. I'm arguing that there was. It is binary. A temporary alliance is an alliance. An alliance of convenience is an alliance. A paper alliance would need to be an alliance that existed only on paper and not involve a joint invasion of Poland but even then it’d still be an alliance. If we rule out alliances that include substantive joint actions between parties that aren’t ideologically aligned then the Allies in world war 2 weren’t allied. This shouldn’t be an argument and I didn’t post it looking for sb argument. It was a simple statement of historical fact, the Stalinists allied with Hitler while the classical liberals of Britain declared war. It’s just what happened.
If you and I are frequently visiting the pub and I convince you that I'm your friend, while at the same time I'm scheming to fuck your girlfriend and preparing gifts for her specifically to steal her from you along with your bank balance, am I your friend?
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On January 22 2025 20:50 Liquid`Drone wrote:
In my opinion we should use fascism rather than nazism because the nazi allegation is pretty easy to deflect through 'where are the concentration camps' or 'dude's been way more pro Israel than democrats are' or 'he was the first president in forever to not get involved in a new military conflict' whereas the potential 'where's the extreme nationalism' or 'where's the focus on a strong leader supposed to fix everything' or 'where's the autoritarian and anti-democratic tendencies' are pretty easy to answer. If they are openly doing nazi salutes im calling them fucking nazis
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On January 22 2025 20:53 Magic Powers wrote:Show nested quote +On January 22 2025 17:35 KwarK wrote:On January 22 2025 10:58 Magic Powers wrote:On January 22 2025 09:47 KwarK wrote:On January 22 2025 09:30 Magic Powers wrote:On January 22 2025 07:59 KwarK wrote:On January 22 2025 02:55 Magic Powers wrote:
Historians aren't sure why exactly Stalin misread Hitler, but they're in agreement that he expected an invasion. They were not "friends" or "allies", it was entirely temporary and circumstantial. Stalin hated the fact that he had to share Poland with Hitler. He had planned a full invasion to claim everything.
He was surprised because he believed Hitler's invasion would happen later rather than sooner, even though his advisors kept warning him of an imminent threat and asking for a quick defensive military build-up. Operation Barbarossa was right around the corner while Stalin was still in denial, and he was caught off-guard.
Both Hitler and Stalin were planning to attack each other the whole time, they just didn't have a precise date in mind. Stalin couldn't attack first because his military was poor. Hitler's Wehrmacht was ready. They weren't allies except in the sense that they wrote a treaty detailing their shared territorial ambitions and how they would assist each other militarily to achieve those territorial ambitions and then they signed that treaty and then they provided each other material military assistance and then they went to war together in alliance against their common enemies that were detailed in the treaty that they'd agreed. But if you set that to one side then sure, they were not allies. It's like how Italy was also not allied with Hitler, only they provided fewer troops in support of the German war effort in North Africa than Stalin did in support of the invasion of Poland, so I guess they were even less allied. The Soviets had promised a lot of things, including Poland that it would not be attacked - and then they invaded it and took the other half. They ran the same deception that Hitler did. Stalin was a snake. "The USSR had signed a non-aggression pact with Poland in 1932, but that would turn out to be a useless bit of paper, too." Furthermore: "Even though France and the USSR had signed a treaty in 1935 promising to protect Czechoslovakia from outside aggression, neither was willing to go to war when it came to the crunch." Stalin's words demonstrably meant nothing. The USSR's promises were empty. Stalin was a ruthless liar and constantly scheming to grab more land and discarding allies on a whim. But he lacked the military strength for grander plans, unlike Nazi Germany. He also saw Germany's army diversifying across his own border, but he refused to believe Hitler would be mad enough to invade. His advisors, as well as British informants, kept warning him it would happen. And then it did happen. The pact between Hitler and Stalin didn't mean that they were allies. They were circumstantial allies in name only - as was later proven more concretley when Nazi Germany attacked the Soviets. A plan that Hitler had formulated at least a year prior. Actions speak louder than words. Hitler was a liar, and so was Stalin. They were snakes hoping (and often succeeding) to conquer large swaths of land. This was known long before Hitler's invasion of Poland. Churchill - all the way back to at least 1930 - said that Hitler can't be trusted, and he was proven right over and over again in the years before WW2. He was reading Hitler like a book from the start. To argue that Hitler and Stalin were allies is to misunderstand who these individuals were and how they operated. They were never allies, they were just hoping to keep up pretenses in front of each other to later gain strategic advantages. They were playing their usual games. In the case of Hitler this led to various invasions and annexations starting already in 1935. He was well-known for this kind of scheming, which is why the invasion of Poland should've come to nobody's surprise. Churchill certainly wasn't surprised. Stalin underestimated Hitler's capacity to pull crazy stunts. It wasn't because he thought Hitler was actually peaceful towards the Soviets, it's because he thought Hitler wouldn't take such a huge gamble. Or it's because Stalin thought Churchill was trying to mess with him and hoping to provoke a military response by Hitler (because Britain was in a big mess of a war with Germany at the time). Churchill tried to warn Stalin in 1940 but he fell on deaf ears probably for those reasons. Stalin forgot to consider that, while Hitler had a long history of lying, Churchill did not. But he also ignored the German military build-up on the border. Does that perhaps remind you of a modern liar who then invaded a neighboring country? Does the breaking of the Minsk agreement ring a bell? Lies are the foundation of fascism and other oppressive ideologies. They always create a fantasy world in people's heads until they have everything. That's how they win. The more we believe their words, and the less we look at their concrete actions, the faster we lose the race against them. Even Stalin fell for Hitler's lies. And Poland fell for Stalin's lies (not saying they could've done much about that). Sure, you can choose to believe Hitler. You can choose to believe Stalin. It'll only mean that you'll be again and again surprised by their present versions. The next Hitler, the next Stalin, they all do the same thing. They all lie and make people's heads spin. And then people are surprised that they fell for these snakes. https://www.worldhistory.org/article/2559/the-invasion-of-poland-in-1939/https://www.warhistoryonline.com/world-war-ii/russia-ignored-british-warnings-german-invasion-xb.html That’s a lot of words spent to say nothing. They signed an alliance. They fought on the same side in a war per the requirements of the alliance they signed. They were allies. Or you could just admit that I'm right and you missed my point completely, as you always do. My point is correct, you just hate not being the only person in the room who has an understanding of the subject matter. You want to claim the truth is binary - which it isn't - and you happen to be the only person who knows the truth - which you aren't. Consider, for just a minute, that both your and my understanding are correct. Maybe I'm right that they were only allies on paper, and maybe you're right that they were, in fact, allied on paper. They were not allies on paper, they were allies in fact, due to the fact that they divided up eastern europe between themselves and fought alongside each other per the terms of their alliance. We're not both right. You're arguing that there was no Nazi Soviet pact. I'm arguing that there was. It is binary. A temporary alliance is an alliance. An alliance of convenience is an alliance. A paper alliance would need to be an alliance that existed only on paper and not involve a joint invasion of Poland but even then it’d still be an alliance. If we rule out alliances that include substantive joint actions between parties that aren’t ideologically aligned then the Allies in world war 2 weren’t allied. This shouldn’t be an argument and I didn’t post it looking for sb argument. It was a simple statement of historical fact, the Stalinists allied with Hitler while the classical liberals of Britain declared war. It’s just what happened. If you and I are frequently visiting the pub and I convince you that I'm your friend, while at the same time I'm scheming to fuck your girlfriend and preparing gifts for her specifically to steal her from you along with your bank balance, am I your friend?
Aliance is not friendship. You dont need to like or even be friendly with Your ally. You just need to work toghter towards some goal. And yeah there are hundreds of examples of uneasy alliances in history when two parties worked toghter to bring down third party while simultaneously prepering for eventual clash with current ally.
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Norway28675 Posts
On January 22 2025 20:57 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On January 22 2025 20:50 Liquid`Drone wrote:
In my opinion we should use fascism rather than nazism because the nazi allegation is pretty easy to deflect through 'where are the concentration camps' or 'dude's been way more pro Israel than democrats are' or 'he was the first president in forever to not get involved in a new military conflict' whereas the potential 'where's the extreme nationalism' or 'where's the focus on a strong leader supposed to fix everything' or 'where's the autoritarian and anti-democratic tendencies' are pretty easy to answer. If they are openly doing nazi salutes im calling them fucking nazis
I don't think arguing about whether the angle he extends his arm is more consistent with a nazi or a fascist salute is very productive. It can be either. Fascist is bad enough.
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On January 22 2025 21:09 Silvanel wrote:Show nested quote +On January 22 2025 20:53 Magic Powers wrote:On January 22 2025 17:35 KwarK wrote:On January 22 2025 10:58 Magic Powers wrote:On January 22 2025 09:47 KwarK wrote:On January 22 2025 09:30 Magic Powers wrote:On January 22 2025 07:59 KwarK wrote:On January 22 2025 02:55 Magic Powers wrote:
Historians aren't sure why exactly Stalin misread Hitler, but they're in agreement that he expected an invasion. They were not "friends" or "allies", it was entirely temporary and circumstantial. Stalin hated the fact that he had to share Poland with Hitler. He had planned a full invasion to claim everything.
He was surprised because he believed Hitler's invasion would happen later rather than sooner, even though his advisors kept warning him of an imminent threat and asking for a quick defensive military build-up. Operation Barbarossa was right around the corner while Stalin was still in denial, and he was caught off-guard.
Both Hitler and Stalin were planning to attack each other the whole time, they just didn't have a precise date in mind. Stalin couldn't attack first because his military was poor. Hitler's Wehrmacht was ready. They weren't allies except in the sense that they wrote a treaty detailing their shared territorial ambitions and how they would assist each other militarily to achieve those territorial ambitions and then they signed that treaty and then they provided each other material military assistance and then they went to war together in alliance against their common enemies that were detailed in the treaty that they'd agreed. But if you set that to one side then sure, they were not allies. It's like how Italy was also not allied with Hitler, only they provided fewer troops in support of the German war effort in North Africa than Stalin did in support of the invasion of Poland, so I guess they were even less allied. The Soviets had promised a lot of things, including Poland that it would not be attacked - and then they invaded it and took the other half. They ran the same deception that Hitler did. Stalin was a snake. "The USSR had signed a non-aggression pact with Poland in 1932, but that would turn out to be a useless bit of paper, too." Furthermore: "Even though France and the USSR had signed a treaty in 1935 promising to protect Czechoslovakia from outside aggression, neither was willing to go to war when it came to the crunch." Stalin's words demonstrably meant nothing. The USSR's promises were empty. Stalin was a ruthless liar and constantly scheming to grab more land and discarding allies on a whim. But he lacked the military strength for grander plans, unlike Nazi Germany. He also saw Germany's army diversifying across his own border, but he refused to believe Hitler would be mad enough to invade. His advisors, as well as British informants, kept warning him it would happen. And then it did happen. The pact between Hitler and Stalin didn't mean that they were allies. They were circumstantial allies in name only - as was later proven more concretley when Nazi Germany attacked the Soviets. A plan that Hitler had formulated at least a year prior. Actions speak louder than words. Hitler was a liar, and so was Stalin. They were snakes hoping (and often succeeding) to conquer large swaths of land. This was known long before Hitler's invasion of Poland. Churchill - all the way back to at least 1930 - said that Hitler can't be trusted, and he was proven right over and over again in the years before WW2. He was reading Hitler like a book from the start. To argue that Hitler and Stalin were allies is to misunderstand who these individuals were and how they operated. They were never allies, they were just hoping to keep up pretenses in front of each other to later gain strategic advantages. They were playing their usual games. In the case of Hitler this led to various invasions and annexations starting already in 1935. He was well-known for this kind of scheming, which is why the invasion of Poland should've come to nobody's surprise. Churchill certainly wasn't surprised. Stalin underestimated Hitler's capacity to pull crazy stunts. It wasn't because he thought Hitler was actually peaceful towards the Soviets, it's because he thought Hitler wouldn't take such a huge gamble. Or it's because Stalin thought Churchill was trying to mess with him and hoping to provoke a military response by Hitler (because Britain was in a big mess of a war with Germany at the time). Churchill tried to warn Stalin in 1940 but he fell on deaf ears probably for those reasons. Stalin forgot to consider that, while Hitler had a long history of lying, Churchill did not. But he also ignored the German military build-up on the border. Does that perhaps remind you of a modern liar who then invaded a neighboring country? Does the breaking of the Minsk agreement ring a bell? Lies are the foundation of fascism and other oppressive ideologies. They always create a fantasy world in people's heads until they have everything. That's how they win. The more we believe their words, and the less we look at their concrete actions, the faster we lose the race against them. Even Stalin fell for Hitler's lies. And Poland fell for Stalin's lies (not saying they could've done much about that). Sure, you can choose to believe Hitler. You can choose to believe Stalin. It'll only mean that you'll be again and again surprised by their present versions. The next Hitler, the next Stalin, they all do the same thing. They all lie and make people's heads spin. And then people are surprised that they fell for these snakes. https://www.worldhistory.org/article/2559/the-invasion-of-poland-in-1939/https://www.warhistoryonline.com/world-war-ii/russia-ignored-british-warnings-german-invasion-xb.html That’s a lot of words spent to say nothing. They signed an alliance. They fought on the same side in a war per the requirements of the alliance they signed. They were allies. Or you could just admit that I'm right and you missed my point completely, as you always do. My point is correct, you just hate not being the only person in the room who has an understanding of the subject matter. You want to claim the truth is binary - which it isn't - and you happen to be the only person who knows the truth - which you aren't. Consider, for just a minute, that both your and my understanding are correct. Maybe I'm right that they were only allies on paper, and maybe you're right that they were, in fact, allied on paper. They were not allies on paper, they were allies in fact, due to the fact that they divided up eastern europe between themselves and fought alongside each other per the terms of their alliance. We're not both right. You're arguing that there was no Nazi Soviet pact. I'm arguing that there was. It is binary. A temporary alliance is an alliance. An alliance of convenience is an alliance. A paper alliance would need to be an alliance that existed only on paper and not involve a joint invasion of Poland but even then it’d still be an alliance. If we rule out alliances that include substantive joint actions between parties that aren’t ideologically aligned then the Allies in world war 2 weren’t allied. This shouldn’t be an argument and I didn’t post it looking for sb argument. It was a simple statement of historical fact, the Stalinists allied with Hitler while the classical liberals of Britain declared war. It’s just what happened. If you and I are frequently visiting the pub and I convince you that I'm your friend, while at the same time I'm scheming to fuck your girlfriend and preparing gifts for her specifically to steal her from you along with your bank balance, am I your friend? Aliance is not friendship. You dont need to like or even be friendly with Your ally. You just need to work toghter towards some goal. And yeah there are hundreds of examples of uneasy alliances in history when two parties worked toghter to bring down third party while simultaneously prepering for eventual clash with current ally.
You don't get it either. Alliances on paper happen all the time, even between enemies. This is not a new phenomenon.
It is correct to argue that they were allied, but it is equally correct to argue that they were only allied on paper. Both arguments are correct, and which of the two you want to call it is entirely a matter of phrasing. There's no official "one single correct" thing to call this kind of relationship between countries that are otherwise antagonistic towards each other.
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What does an alliance only on paper even entail? That doesn't mean anything.
If they held up the terms of the signed paper during the time they said they were going to not come at each other, they were allies de facto, no? An alliance does not have to extend indefinitely for them to be seen as allies. Call it a short term alliance if you will, would that make you happy?
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Some of the pardons are insane.
A guy who attacked a cop with a stun gun & The Silk Road guy (!?!?!) (I would imagine this one has pissed off the FBI) are probably the worst ones I saw.
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On January 22 2025 21:31 Uldridge wrote:
What does an alliance only on paper even entail? That doesn't mean anything.
If they held up the terms of the signed paper during the time they said they were going to not come at each other, they were allies de facto, no? An alliance does not have to extend indefinitely for them to be seen as allies. Call it a short term alliance if you will, would that make you happy?
Alliance on paper is pretty simple. Britain became hostile towards Germany two days after the invasion of Poland. Hitler was offering peace to Britain, to which Churchill said "no eff you, you've fooled us enough. Surrender unconditionally and also I can do this all day".
Meanwhile the USSR, which had a pact with Nazi Germany, did not go to war against Britain the whole time, while Germany was getting pummeled by Britain.
In the most common sense, allies would help each other when they're being attacked by another country. They would send troops if possible. Just like the US would fight for Israel with its own troops. Those are real allies, US and Israel. The USSR had no such relationship with Nazi Germany.
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I think that all depends on the diplomatic ties and agreements between the countries. Alliances are not a binary thing. This is a no true Scotsman fallacy. It's not a real alliance based on the criteria that I define an alliance as, because a real alliance is the following..
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United States42803 Posts
You keep pushing this paper angle. While the paper angle is irrelevant anyway because an alliance on paper, such as one that is never invoked, is still an alliance, they did the things on the paper. There was a piece of paper saying that they’d split up Eastern Europe between them and invade Poland together and then they did that. This was an alliance in fact, not just on paper, because they fought together as allies. If you were working on a group project with someone and as part of the agreed division of labour for the assignment you conquered Poland then you get to say you contributed. You were on that team.
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United States42803 Posts
On January 22 2025 21:42 Magic Powers wrote:
Just like the US would fight for Israel with its own troops. Those are real allies, US and Israel. The USSR had no such relationship with Nazi Germany.
But the US didn’t deploy its troops to Gaza when Israel declared war on Gaza. Nor did it during the Yom Kippur war. Nor the six day war. Nor the occupations of Lebanon. Nor the suez crisis. Your example of a real alliance where they come through with troops on the ground is an alliance where that literally didn’t happen. You contrast this with a paper alliance where they contributed a quarter million men and overran Poland with their ally. If we’re using the Soviet invasion of Poland as an example of no troops being deployed and the imaginary US non invasion of Egypt as an example of troops being deployed then I think we’ve given up on the meaning of words.
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