US Politics: Confederacy vs Nazis vs USSR

[Inigima]

Yo can we move the civil war shit to a different thread if it's gonna keep going? There's a TON of it and scrolling past it all is getting real old.

[sologdin]

but ini, the thread is titled USSR v. NSDAP v. CSA. it's the greatest europa universalis mod ever.

[SkynJay]

Yo can we move the civil war shit to a different thread if it's gonna keep going? There's a TON of it and scrolling past it all is getting real old.

Or drop US politics from the title and start over. This tread is 8 pages hyjacked now, no going back!

[The Marquis de Leech]

Is it hijacking a thread if the hijacking subject is featured in the title? Or are the people trying to discuss contemporary US politics the ones doing the hijacking?

[Glaurung]

Some positive things about the USSR:

- Universal compulsory education. Millions of illiterates learnt to read.

- Suppression of diseases via universal access to healthcare

- In WWI, Russian soldiers were fighting machine guns with pitch-forks. In WWII, they beat back the largest invasion in human history.

- Related to the above, the crash-industrialisation took the country out of the middle ages, and into something resembling modernity wiithin a very short space of time.

- Electrification of the railways

- Women in the military.

- Funded liberation movements in Africa, including the ANC, at a time when the ANC had zero chance of success.

- Guaranteed jobs.

- As of the 1970s, a lower prison population per capita than the US.

Perhaps its most important legacy (apart from defeating the Nazis) was to guarantee the political security of social services in the West: it represented an ever-present threat in the event of the dismantling of the Welfare State.

So, yes, there was good in that regime, as well as the bad.

They became literate, but were limited on what they were allowed to read. And with a nation that scolded anybody who pursued self interests in an attempt to get ahead, there was little motivation for a student to try to distance himself/herself from the rest of the pack with regards to education, unless they just had a genuine passion for the education. More often than not they had little choice in post education career no matter their performance. So while there were less uneducated people, there were fewer bright minds & scholars.

Suppression of diseases? I don't know if you read upthread where I stated my best friend escaped eastern europe under soviet control.. The very reason they escaped was because he had a heart condition and wasn't expected to live, and they denied him the heart surgery he needed to live. They escaped to America, he got his surgery, and rather than dying at age 6, he's now happy and alive and rather well off. He still has heart issues, but at least he wasn't put down as a waste of resources. Another sad thing is that his father was a traveling surgeon in the USSR(unfortunately not a heart surgeon) and they were struggling to live. Now his father is set to retire with a big house, pool, etc. I do think that doctors are a bit overpaid in the US, but the idea that a surgeon could barely feed his family is a bit sad. I know this was later in the USSR and they were struggling with potential economic collapse...but still...that's crazy.

They did have an impressive improvement in military after WWI, I'll give them that. They did take the country out of the middle ages, though it took time and huge losses of life and many atrocities to get there. And the end result wasn't exactly a paradise, with a low standard of living(even if higher than before) and few personal liberties.

Electrification of railways and women in the military. While these are good things, other countries were doing this as well. This just sounds like the natural progression of any nation. I'd hardly credit the USSR for that.

I'll give them the ANC. Although the USSR's intentions weren't out of the good of their own hearts, they did some good in helping the ANC against the apartheid.

Guaranteed jobs....or force jobs in many instances. People were given little opportunity or choice in the matter. Even when given the choice of careers, the options were limited and often made for them. If they refused to work they were put into labor camps.

Prison population in the 70s... This is hardly a "good deed" by the USSR as the US prison system is one of the black eyes of our nation. However, prior th the 70s, the GULAG system was far worse than anything the US has ever had. The GULAS was comparable only to Nazi concentration camps and was used as a population control device rather than a system of punishment. Half of this prison population(or labor camps) consisted of crimes that would not be considered crimes(or would be minor crimes) in most countries. Such as unexcused absences from work, not meeting work quotas, lack of productivity, or petty theft. If you decide to be lazy and take a day off of work, perhaps a 10 year sentence of hard labor is a just ruling? Part of the problem with communism is a lack of incentive for workers to be more productive, so they tried to reign this in by punishing those who were not productive.

[Horza]

but ini, the thread is titled USSR v. NSDAP v. CSA. it's the greatest europa universalis mod ever.

what is it with Paradox gamers and lost causes he said having spent hours resurrecting Alt Clud in CK2

But srsly, thread title guaranteed this was going to be Genocide Olympiad MCCLXVIII from start to finish so might as well start a new thread for those as want to talk about Gov. Benjamin Ghazi's primary hopes, Cliven Burpo etc.,

[sToNED_CAT]

They became literate, but were limited on what they were allowed to read. And with a nation that scolded anybody who pursued self interests in an attempt to get ahead, there was little motivation for a student to try to distance himself/herself from the rest of the pack with regards to education, unless they just had a genuine passion for the education. More often than not they had little choice in post education career no matter their performance. So while there were less uneducated people, there were fewer bright minds & scholars.

Not true. There were some exceptions like ideological opposition of genetics, but otherwise government did not care what you want to study. Of course "bourgeois elements", dissidents and their family relatives were often banned from universities.

but ini, the thread is titled USSR v. NSDAP v. CSA. it's the greatest europa universalis mod ever.

If you play Victoria 2, you need no mods to achieve such scenario :).

[sologdin]

part of the problem with communism is lack of incentive for workers to be more productive

this criticism has never made any sense. why would there not be a wage & benefit entitlement?

I doubt that the carceral system can be charged directly to communism as an economics, anyway.

I appreciate your anecdote regarding escape from iron curtain--but there are of course anecdotes going the other way.

regarding soviet industrialization taking time--yeah, it did. but it took less time than the prior industrializers. the atrocities committed seem comparable to me, just compressed in time in the soviet system.

I can't tell if you're trying to defeat or deflect each and every progressive development under the soviet state. no one is claiming that the soviet union is workers' paradise and the end of history. far from it.

[sologdin]

horza--

can you imagine that WW3 mod? CSA wins US civil war and then engages in apocalyptic battle royale with USSR and NSDAP for the world championship.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Inigima,

Yeah, given the thread title these historical discussions are topical.

[sToNED_CAT]

part of the problem with communism is lack of incentive for workers to be more productive

There were some incentives, just not financial. Workers and collectives who exceeded quotas were treated as mini celebrities in local media. :) It often led to stupid situations, like overproducing TVs, that were immediately destroyed, because they were obsolete. But factories exceeded their quotas, so they were heroes.

[DanteGabriel]

Umm, I think I was trying to ever so obliquely mock the notion that the Confederacy might have done lots of good had it only survived the Civil War. I don't really think any form of slavery is more progressive than any other.

Actually I'd say that Southern elites consciously popularized the notion of white supremacy to rationalize institutionalized slavery. Not that different from the Nazi MO. And that by making racism a foundational principle of the United States, the Southern slave lords continue to fuck us over to this day.

[sologdin]

stupid situations, like overproducing TVs, that were immediately destroyed

that's damned interesting. wouldn't we regard that however as an incidental deviation, rather than as an intrinsic defect (such as the intrinsic overproduction of luxury goods in a capitalist economy)?

[Inigima]

Inigima,

Yeah, given the thread title these historical discussions are topical.

Then drop US Politics from the title and make a new thread. This isn't what most people come to the modern politics threads for.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Inigima,

I didn't create the thread and I'm not a mod. How do you propose I do what you suggest? Why not make another US poliics thread and talk discuss wha you want there?

[TrackerNeil]

Actually I'd say that Southern elites consciously popularized the notion of white supremacy to rationalize institutionalized slavery. Not that different from the Nazi MO. And that by making racism a foundational principle of the United States, the Southern slave lords continue to fuck us over to this day.

I can't disagree with this, but then I guess that depends on how all-pervasive an influence one thinks race is. Personally, I suspect that at least 40% of every policy difference between liberals and conservatives is linked in some way to race.

[Commodore]

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/377577/republicans-move-benghazi-charles-krauthammer

The areas of inquiry are obvious. They are three: before, during, and after.

Before:

Where and to what extent was there dereliction of duty as memos, urgent pleas, and mounting evidence of danger were ignored and the U.S. ambassador allowed to enter a deathtrap?

During:

What happened during the eight hours of the Benghazi attack, at the end of which the last two Americans (of four) were killed by mortar fire? Where was the commander-in-chief and where was the responsible Cabinet secretary, Hillary Clinton? What did they do?

The White House acts as if these are, alternatively, either state secrets or of no importance.

For President Obama, we have three data points. At 5 p.m. EDT, he is briefed on the attack by the secretary of defense and chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

At around 8 p.m., Obama spends an hour on the phone with Benjamin Netanyahu to tamp down a breaking, politically injurious story that Obama had snubbed the Israeli prime minister. The White House then issues a readout saying the two leaders had agreed there had been no snub.

So the White House is engaged in campaign damage control quite literally in the middle of the Benghazi events — at a time when Ambassador Chris Stevens is still missing and the final firefight that killed two other Americans is still three hours away. We’ve just learned that Obama was not in the Situation Room that night. Then where, doing what?

We know, finally, that at 10 p.m. Obama called Clinton to get an update. What did they discuss, decide, order?

As former prosecutor Andrew McCarthy has pointed out, a half-hour later, State issued a statement deploring the video, setting the premise for the video excuse. Were Obama and Clinton working on a cover story — even before Glen Doherty had joined Tyrone Woods on the roof of the CIA annex where they were to die minutes later?

Yes, that’s speculation. Well, then, give us facts. After all, the White House provided a cascade of hagiographic facts about Obama’s involvement in the Osama bin Laden raid. Yet regarding Benghazi — the most serious operational challenge of his presidency — he is nowhere to be seen.

One problem is that even if Gowdy issues subpoenas, the administration just ignores them. They know the Justice Dept. won't do anything, and they know the media won't do anything. Congress would be forced to arrest those that did not comply, and we know how that will go (not like House of Cards).

It shows you how tenuous our system of rule of law truly is.

[DanteGabriel]

Inigima,

I didn't create the thread and I'm not a mod. How do you propose I do what you suggest? Why not make another US poliics thread and talk discuss wha you want there?

Don't worry guys. My link of Southern elites' self-serving and self-perpetuating racism regime to modern problems will square this circle.

I can't disagree with this, but then I guess that depends on how all-pervasive an influence one thinks race is. Personally, I suspect that at least 40% of every policy difference between liberals and conservatives is linked in some way to race.

I can't put a percentage point on it, but I think that there are so many policy differences that are at least influenced by this country's terrible history with institutionalized racism. It is America's "original sin" if you like.

Ta-Nehisi Coates has been on this topic for a while, and has updated it again, by saying that even the way Republicans went after Bill Clinton can be traced to the doctrine of white supremacy that taints modern politics.

[awesome possum]

You know your party is fighting a losing fight when even Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum are for a minimum wage increase

“I, for instance, as you know, part company with many of the conservatives in my party on the issue of the minimum wage," Romney said in a Friday appearance on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." “I think we ought to raise it. Because frankly, our party is all about more jobs and better pay.”
...

Santorum followed suit on May 5, telling MSNBC's Chuck Todd that "this is one I don't get," regarding Republicans' opposition.

"If the Republicans want to go out and say, 'We're against the minimum wage,' then go out and make the argument to the American public and 80-some percent of the American public believes we should have the minimum wage," Santorum said. "But they're making arguments about why we shouldn't have any increase."

Someone ought to remind the GOP of Romney's last line there.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/377577/republicans-move-benghazi-charles-krauthammer

One problem is that even if Gowdy issues subpoenas, the administration just ignores them. They know the Justice Dept. won't do anything, and they know the media won't do anything. Congress would be forced to arrest those that did not comply, and we know how that will go (not like House of Cards).

It shows you how tenuous our system of rule of law truly is.

*yawn*

Your water carrying would be noble if it weren't so slackjawed.

[Commodore]

one would hope that leaving our fellow citizens to die and not responding to their calls for aide is not met with a collective yawn, but I fear you are right

Gowdy promised the victims' families he would find out what happened, hopefully he can deliver.