Waiting for Fitzgerald

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by bilmore
If the "average" Russian supported, empowered, and enabled Stalin, wouldn't that be okay?

Would YOU kill Hitler?

(a) I'm not sure it would be right to have killed millions of Russians in 1945 just to get Stalin. (The necessary implication of Spanky's "flood of A-bombs" approach.) from a UMC approach -- He'd done a majority of his murdering by then.

You know we'd have had to do it too -- the threat alone would have been almost meaningless to Stalin.

Seems likely that it would have also led to some severe adverse consequences for millions of others (many innocent) in Europe and the Far East as the armed struggle continued between the USSR and the U.S.

Perhaps, if we won, we could have driven in over the radiactive remains and built a democracy in the former Soviet Union, but I'd bet not.

Seems that the Cold War was a preferable course -- and succeeded in the long run.

(b) Hitler -- of course. But probably not by dropping atomic bombs wherever in Germany (or elsewhere in occupied Europe) I thought he might be hiding until I was pretty sure he was dead. That death of innocents thing again.

Also, all of these counterfactuals assume perfect knowledge of the then-present and resulting future events -- and ignore the probability of unintended consequences (which might well make things even worse in the long run).

S_A_M

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by Spanky
You can't be serious. What is your definition of Totalitarian. Are you trying to tell me that the Taliban was not running pretty much every aspect of the Afghani's lives? The Taliban were probably in the top five of the most totalitarian regimes of all time. Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Taliban....

They tried, but weren't that good at it. Didn't have the technology.

S_A_M

[Penske_Account]

Originally posted by notcasesensitive
I don't think her vagina is really that big. 3 or 4 terrorists could be hiding there at any time. Max.

.

I assume this is a Max Hardcore reference. I didn't know you were a fan too! Nice, although I think the most whole people ever fit up a vagina in one of his movies was two, plus a midget. Although 3 or 4 is something to shoot for. NPI.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Secret_Agent_Man
They tried, but weren't that good at it. Didn't have the technology.

S_A_M

OK - I will give you that. But you have to give them Kudos for the effort.

[Penske_Account]

Originally posted by bilmore
Um, what if she's praying, too, and that's her only qualification?

Do you think my socks are not prayjing too? there is strength in numbers Billmoure.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Secret_Agent_Man
He'd done a majority of his murdering by then.

Seems that the Cold War was a preferable course -- and succeeded in the long run.


S_A_M

I think he did a lot of murdeing between 1945 and his death. Not only executing all the German sympathizers, but moving all those people around. After 45 there may not have been as many deaths from the purges, but the general population and the nonrussians really got it.

In addition, if we had taken out the communist regime in Russia, I think we could have prevented China falling to the communists. That would have saved at least 100 million deaths. We could also have stopped North Korea, Vietnam and Pol Pot. I don't believe communists ever took over with popular support. Sometimes they had some but never a majority. They always had to take over with force of arms. In China many of the peasants may have supported them at first, but they never had support in the cities.

If we took out Stalin, we could have nipped communism in the bud and prevented hundreds of millions of deaths.

In hindsigh we should have treated communsim like Nazism. Competely unacceptible. We should have stamped it out before it got really bad.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by notcasesensitive
Just back for tonight or just back starting tonight? You should come by once Spanky has read Collapse, for our discussion of it.

I liked Collapse better than GG&S, but I think it was partially because Diamond's writing style was improved (imo) in Collapse. GG&S was a bit of a beat over the head with the premise and major determinative factors over and over again, leading me to feel like he didn't trust his audience to get it. I think his theories in GG&S were brilliant and well-thought out, but that the flow of the book kind of dumbed it down for the anticipated audience or something.

I found his discussion style in Collapse to be more engaging and, with the exception of the Greenland Norse discussion, not so bogged down in beating people over the head with things that it lost parts of the message. I liked the "case study" organization of the first chapters, followed by modern lessons and the like.

I keep meaning to make it over to the Collapse exhibit at the LA Natural History Museum. I think it goes on until February and I promise I'll go and report back. The GG&S series on PBS was quite good, though, as Spanky points out, his verbal affectation is a bit distracting.

this reads like something you meant to post under the Ty@50 moniker?

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by notcasesensitive
"Environmental determinism"? I thought you were opposed to many recent environmental impact studies, but maybe I misremember your position. (This is entirely possible, as I've only even attempted half-heartedly to follow the PB for the last 3 months or so.)

Excellent. The demands of business may keep me away some for a while, so ncs has my proxy.

[Penske_Account]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Excellent. The demands of business may keep me away some for a while, so ncs has my proxy.

I hope and pray that this does not mean any (more) deletions or censored posts (assuming there are no violations of law occuring.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Excellent. The demands of business may keep me away some for a while, so ncs has my proxy.

Does she understand when you would/(would not) delete posts?

(sigh!)

[Penske_Account]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Does she understand when you would/(would not) delete posts?

Good point Hank. I had similar concerns, but you beat me to the articulation of the same. Perhaps the management should appoint Ty@51 to hold Ty's proxy? RT?

[Ty@50]

Originally posted by Penske_Account
Good point Hank. I had similar concerns, but you beat me to the articulation of the same. Perhaps the management should appoint Ty@51 to hold Ty's proxy? RT?

Management? Management should rein my ass in. President Bush got permission from Ted Kennedy and them for the Iraq war, and he was ELECTED by about 30 states. I had no mandate.

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by Spanky
I think he did a lot of murdeing between 1945 and his death. Not only executing all the German sympathizers, but moving all those people around. After 45 there may not have been as many deaths from the purges, but the general population and the nonrussians really got it.

In addition, if we had taken out the communist regime in Russia, I think we could have prevented China falling to the communists. That would have saved at least 100 million deaths. We could also have stopped North Korea, Vietnam and Pol Pot. I don't believe communists ever took over with popular support. Sometimes they had some but never a majority. They always had to take over with force of arms. In China many of the peasants may have supported them at first, but they never had support in the cities.

If we took out Stalin, we could have nipped communism in the bud and prevented hundreds of millions of deaths.

In hindsigh we should have treated communsim like Nazism. Competely unacceptible. We should have stamped it out before it got really bad.

Remember-- the point I was answering was NOT whether we should have killed Stalin (if possible) after WWII.

I agree that would have been good -- although his successor might not have been much better right away (in the mid to late 1940s, it might well have been Beria). I think it took the post-WWII purges and internal puschts, inclduing the "Jewish doctors" thing to convince some substantial portions of the surviving Communist elite that Stalin had gone nuts by the end and that they had to go in a different direction.

The very specific point I was addressing was whether the U.S. should have threatened (and then presumably followed through with) nuking every location where we thought Stalin might be hiding until the USSR withdrew from the nations it occupied. I think not.

Also as to China -- killing Stalin and taking out the communist regime in Russia are two different things. In my view, the U.S. had neither the ability nor the will to do the latter immediately after WWII (would have taken another war of the magnitude of that just completed). Might have enabled us to defeat the Communist Chinese, but I'm not at all sure of that. Chiang Kai-Shek and the Kuomintang were corrupt, oppressive, and not exactly popular. The Communists were damn popular among the peasantry --as you noted -- which was 90%+ of the Chinese population then.

Killing Stalin in 1945 could not have saved China from Mao.
The Vietnamese Communists had significant popular support -- that truly was a civil war in many ways.

S_A_M

[bilmore]

Is Al Gore coming back? If allies we talked to have their way, the former veep will be the next president. "It's Gore Time," says a political strategist and fundraiser who is opening a bid to get Gore into the race. Gore friends see his recent political and business moves as proof he's preparing to run. Allies say that in speeches, Gore has found his voice to address domestic and world issues. And in raising money for his Current TV network, which targets the critical youth market, Big Al has built an issue base and donor network that's competitive with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton 's. Our source--a top aide in the previous Bush administration--is planning meetings with Gore's team to push an early entry while Clinton runs for re-election in New York. It doesn't end there: The Gorebots want him to pick Sen. Barack Obama, the youthful Illinois African-American, as his No. 2.

(From here )

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Does she understand when you would/(would not) delete posts?

Posts have been deleted?