So how are y'all preparing for the Apocalypse?

[Av Demeisen]

 

[Fish Owl]

I see you are shifting the argument away from the data to something more personal. I'm not interested.

1) You claimed that Russia is somehow "mine" version of imperialism. I don't have anything to do with it.
2) What you fail to understand - Russian Empire, USSR and modern Russian Federation is 3 entirely different countries with different borders, government, population, economy and values. The only thing they really share is Russian language and history. To say that Russian Federation is accountable for crimes committed by USSR or Russian Empire is equal to say that USA is responsible of the crimes committed by British Empire.
3)Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, Poland and other Eastern European countries aside from Ukraine, Belarus and Baltic states were never part of USSR. They had semicommunist government but all of them never implemented same economic policy or level of government control USSR had. Even more, Yugoslavia was a rival nation to USSR. To say that all those countries were occupied by USSR and were ruled directly from Moscow is oversimplifying and similar to calling South Korea puppet state of USA.
4) About “shifting the argument away from the data” – you claimed that “Russia shot down 7 civilian airplanes”. I corrected it. Russia never shot even one. Three were downed by USSR, 1 by Bulgaria, one by Ukraine, 2 by pro-Russian separatists in Georgia, 1 is either by pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine or by Ukrainian military, it is still under the question.

Don’t know where you find personal sentiments in this simple list of facts.

 

[RX-79G]

1) You claimed that Russia is somehow "mine" version of imperialism. I don't have anything to do with it.
2) What you fail to understand - Russian Empire, USSR and modern Russian Federation is 3 entirely different countries with different borders, government, population, economy and values. The only thing they really share is Russian language and history. To say that Russian Federation is accountable for crimes committed by USSR or Russian Empire is equal to say that USA is responsible of the crimes committed by British Empire.
3)Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, Poland and other Eastern European countries aside from Ukraine, Belarus and Baltic states were never part of USSR. They had semicommunist government but all of them never implemented same economic policy or level of government control USSR had. Even more, Yugoslavia was a rival nation to USSR. To say that all those countries were occupied by USSR and were ruled directly from Moscow is oversimplifying and similar to calling South Korea puppet state of USA.
4) About “shifting the argument away from the data” – you claimed that “Russia shot down 7 civilian airplanes”. I corrected it. Russia never shot even one. Three were downed by USSR, 1 by Bulgaria, one by Ukraine, 2 by pro-Russian separatists in Georgia, 1 is either by pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine or by Ukrainian military, it is still under the question.

Don’t know where you find personal sentiments in this simple list of facts.

The essential problem is that the USSR and its closest satellites (like East Germany or Bulgaria) were always controlled by Russians. You are entirely correct that all these different states and power structures are not indebted to each other, but the fact of their control coming from Moscow shouldn't be something of great dispute. Bulgarians would not have shot down a Malaysian airline without the explicit ascent of Moscow, or without a Moscow policy in place.

The US has been in a similar situation when we directly controlled Japan, S. Korea or West Germany after WWII. However, none of those countries invaded anything, shot down airliners or anything else. The US is also the largest part of NATO, but it does not control any NATO country. The US has never had colonies (unlike most of Europe).

You can try to make it sound like all of these different countries and organizations are all morally equivalent because they fight wars or take sides. But when you actually compare what Russian/Moscow controlled assets do to what the US does, the difference in philosophy, control, individual rights and death toll simply are not comparable. Russian leaders have never viewed human life, in general, as something valuable in and of itself, and this can be easily measured. And when totalitarian Russian Tsars are replaced by totalitarian Russian Premiers and then totalitarian Russian Presidents, the same deadly patterns come up again and again. The Russian Federation didn't have to apply for its place on the UN Security Council - everyone seemed to understand that the Ukraine wasn't the heir to the USSR. Russia is and always has been the heart of that empire, and Russians don't stop being Russians because the flag changed.

 

[Fish Owl]

that the USSR and its closest satelites (like East Germany or Bulgaria) were always controlled by Russians

So, Stalin was Russian? Khrustchev was Russian? Man, every day I learn something new from Americans.

Russian leaders have never viewed human life,

Nicolas the Second was first leader of the world who talked about reducing armies and make peace conference.

 

[RX-79G]

So, Stalin was Russian? Khrustchev was Russian? Man, every day I learn something new from Americans.

Neither was Catherine the Great. But all of those people became part of a Russian power structure. I'm not making a genetic argument, but a cultural one. Stalin didn't more the power structure of the USSR to Georgia, he was simply adopted by the Russian power structure.

It is no different than saying that England stopped being English when it had German born kings.

 

[Fish Owl]

genetic argument,

You do it constantly. By using word Russian to describe everything you like. It is very similar with people who find Jews everywhere. USSR was far more complex than simple renamed Russian Empire. It's power structure and ideology was entirely different.

 

[RX-79G]

You do it constantly. By using word Russian to describe everything you like. It is very similar with people who find Jews everywhere. USSR was far more complex than simple renamed Russian Empire. It's power structure and ideology was entirely different.

Sure, just like the Germany changed governments between the wars, yet German aggression and destruction was very similar in WWI and WWII.

Governments come and go, attitudes don't. Especially in dictatorships.

 

[Matthew Hughes]

The US has never had colonies (unlike most of Europe).

I don't want to get between you and Fish Owl, but what would you call the Philippines or Cuba after the Spanish-American war? Or Hawaii after its annexation? Or Puerto Rico and American Samoa today? If those aren't colonies, they're a very convincing imitation.

 

[RX-79G]

I don't want to get between you and Fish Owl, but what would you call the Philippines or Cuba after the Spanish-American war? Or Hawaii after its annexation? Or Puerto Rico and American Samoa today? If those aren't colonies, they're a very convincing imitation.

If the purpose of a colonization is the extract wealth from foreign lands and people, the US has never really done that.

The people of American Samoa, PR, Guam and pre-state Hawaii are full US citizens with status that is similar to citizens of Washington DC. That is not comparable to the subjects of the Belgian Congo or British India. If PR wanted to be a state, it would be.

 

[Matthew Hughes]

If the purpose of a colonization is the extract wealth from foreign lands and people, the US has never really done that.

That's not the only purpose of colonization, though, is it? By that definition, Gibraltar and the Falkland Islands would not be British colonies. But in reality, one of the prime reasons for colonization is to establish territories from which power can be projected. That's been American policy for over a century.

 

[RX-79G]

That's not the only purpose of colonization, though, is it? By that definition, Gibraltar and the Falkland Islands would not be British colonies. But in reality, one of the prime reasons for colonization is to establish territories from which power can be projected. That's been American policy for over a century.

Then every new land purchased, anexed or captured is a "colonial projection of power". All of the US, all of Canada, etc. The US "colonized" Alaska by purchasing it from Russia. The US itself was a colony.

But if we are talking "colonialism", with all the nastiness implied, US protectorates have not followed that pattern. Those lands either join the Union as full citizens, or they are put on track for independence, like the Philippines were from the beginning.

No, I'm not claiming some sort of absolute righteous benevolence. We started the 2003 Iraq War for no reason. We killed off our Native American population and left corrupt dictators in power. But nearly every time the US does something crummy overseas it keeps coming back to allegiances to European powers and their colonial problems - Iran/UK, Vietnam/France, Belgium/Congo, etc. And this happened in large part because the colonial powers of Europe weren't the ones destroying Europe with invasions, so we sided with them.

Take the world wars out of the picture and US involvement in most of the world would be much, much smaller. But the military aspirations and colonial control in places like the UK, Japan, Russia, France, Belgium, Spain, Germany, Italy made that impossible. Now all the European countries just want to be left alone and act like they don't get why the US, China and Russia have their noses in everything. We just filled the vacuum that European colonial powers created, even if we don't want to be like Europe was.

Tip of the hat to the modern Swiss, Scandinavians and everybody else that haven't had any tendency to take land from anyone or murder their own citizens.

 

[Matthew Hughes]

Those lands either join the Union as full citizens, or they are put on track for independence, like the Philippines were from the beginning.

Seriously? The beginning? When tens of thousands of Filipinos died resisting US annexation?

We just filled the vacuum that European colonial powers created, even if we don't want to be like Europe was.

Exactly. The European empires waned and America's waxed. I don't blame the US for becoming an empire. Power and wealth are attractive, especially for the economic elite. It's what countries do when they can, even the Danes for goodness sake.

But let's not pretend it was all some sort of march to freedom for the people who were colonized. That's not how Thoreau saw the taking of large parts of Mexico, nor how Mark Twain saw the seizure of the Philippines.

 

[Av Demeisen]

 

[RX-79G]

Seriously? The beginning? When tens of thousands of Filipinos died resisting US annexation?

It was generally believed (right or wrong) that the Filipinos weren't militarily strong enough to keep the Spanish out if the US wasn't there. But the US always had the intention of making the Phillipines sovereign, and successfully worked toward improvements in health care, sanitation, government, etc. Just a few years down the road the life expectancy in the Phillipines was similar to the US.

The group that fought the US initially was neither representative of all of the Phillipines, nor would it have had the capital to undue what the Spanish had done to Filipinos. Just because someone is willing to fight doesn't mean that they represent the best option. Filipinos didn't lose their liberty to the US, they gained it from the Spanish. Again, the US un-doing European colonialism.

Exactly. The European empires waned and America's waxed. I don't blame the US for becoming an empire. Power and wealth are attractive, especially for the economic elite. It's what countries do when they can, even the Danes for goodness sake.

The US didn't extract its wealth from foreign lands. It has pumped the wealth it made in a large, fertile and mineral rich country into the world, acting as volunteer policemen. There was never a time when the US has faced the loss of its own land or people. We have never needed anyone else's resources. It has largely been the US misfortune to feel that self governing people end up with the longest lives, the most peace and the highest quality of life. And the lands we have been most hands on with have done incredibly well for themselves, while the places left after European colonialism are typically left as disasters.

Fish Owl previously suggested that the US "created" the Taliban. The USSR created the Taliban, by invading their neighbor. Pakistan and India threatening to nuke each other is the Brits fault. The creation of Israel - Brits and Germans. The creation of modern anti-Western fundamentalism in the Middle East - the US doing a favor for the Brits in Iran. The list goes on and on.

But let's not pretend it was all some sort of march to freedom for the people who were colonized. That's not how Thoreau saw the taking of large parts of Mexico, nor how Mark Twain saw the seizure of the Philippines.

Then what was it? What was the gold, or forced labor, or forward war base or oil reserve that the US benefited so very much from?

Was the 1836 California revolt from Mexico due in large part to British and American settlers?

Everyone hates the policeman, forgetting what a Japanese, Nazi, Soviet, Maoist world would actually look like, how many billions dead, how many slaves to the state. We have a largely peaceful world by most any measure compared to previous eras, and the worst abuse of human populations are done to a couple of isolated pockets. That did not happen by force of destiny.

The problem isn't that the US isn't peaceful, egalitarian and just. It is that we do too much to ever be perfectly peaceful, egalitarian and just in anyone's eyes, including our own.

 

[Matthew Hughes]

What was the gold, or forced labor, or forward war base or oil reserve that the US benefited so very much from?

In the case of the Philippines, it was rubber. A strategic commodity at the beginning of the 20th century. No rubber trees grew in the US.

The annexation of New Mexico, Arizona, and California, and the dispossession of the Mexicans and Californians who had lived there for generations put vast mineral and agricultural resources at the disposal of American carpetbaggers. Fortunes were made.

The US didn't extract its wealth from foreign lands.

Read up on the history of US investments in Central America. Or the US oil industry's role in the Middle East.

Everyone hates the policeman, forgetting what a Japanese, Nazi, Soviet, Maoist world would actually look like,

America is not the world's policeman. America acts in its own best interests, as it sees them. If it had been up to most Americans in the 1940s, the Nazis would have won the war while America remained neutral. If the Japanese had attacked only the British and Dutch possessions in east Asia, it's a toss-up whether Roosevelt could have talked the Congress into declaring war. Lindbergh might have carried the day.

Many Americans have a commendable sense that we all ought to be acting to create a peaceful, stable, forward-moving world. But governments tend to be motivated by the economic elites, even more so these days than in the past.

We have a largely peaceful world by most any measure compared to previous eras, and the worst abuse of human populations are done to a couple of isolated pockets. That did not happen by force of destiny.

No, a lot of it happened because the Europeans realized they couldn't go on killing each other over nationalism. And because America realized that the next big war would not be fought solely on somebody else's territory. Nuclear weapons changed the dynamic for everyone.

 

[RX-79G]

No, a lot of it happened because the Europeans realized they couldn't go on killing each other over nationalism. And because America realized that the next big war would not be fought solely on somebody else's territory. Nuclear weapons changed the dynamic for everyone.

As if Europeans had any money or infrastructure to go to war again. It is well and good to say "I quit" when you're already too weak to keep going.

The US was never in danger of being invaded. The Japanese new very well that the US is the world's largest unorganized militia force, and every other country would have figured that out as well.

It is all fine and good that no one wants a policeman, or that you think pre-WWII Americans were all closet Nazi fans, but the amount of "volunteer work" the US has provided to the screwed up world Europe created has been much greater than the profits gained from leaving home. We never planned to keep the Philippines or any other large country, and we haven't.

 

[Matthew Hughes]

you think pre-WWII Americans were all closet Nazi fans,

Now you're being silly. The German-American Bundt were Nazis, but most Americans knew little about the rest of the world and cared less. Much like the times we're in now.

but the amount of "volunteer work" the US has provided to the screwed up world Europe created has been much greater than the profits gained from leaving home.

The Japanese were as blinded by pride and prejudice as any other rising imperial power. If they'd just thought about the size differences in US population and industrial development versus Japanese equivalents, they would never have gone to war. In fact, they thought a quick strike at Pearl Harbor would demoralize Americans and there would be a negotiated peace. Complete misreading of the reality.
http://www.sffworld.com/forum/threa...g-for-the-apocalypse.50748/reply?quote=811536
That's also silly. America came out of the war with the largest industrial infrastructure in the world (most of its competitors having been bombed or fought over for years). The US argued for a more open, free-trading world (at least for the "first world") because that meant vast opportunities for that infrastructure. For a long time, America was the world's factory. America became richer than ever.

The Japanese new very well that the US is the world's largest unorganized militia force

 

[Fish Owl]

yet German aggression and destruction was very similar in WWI and WWII.

There is huge difference in literally every aspect. Jews, Gypsies, Slavs will confirm this.

The US has never had colonies (unlike most of Europe).

US colonized Wild West in the same manner Russia colonized Siberia. By annexing territories that belonged to local tribes. But unlike American natives people of Siberia and Far North are still present at the same number as in 18-19’s century. They retained their culture and identity while ingenious Americans was slaughtered, starved out or assimilated. Yet you say that Russia has no value of human life compared to USA.

Japanese, Nazi, Soviet, Maoist world would actually look like, how many billions dead,

Billions of death was not executed directly by Stalin or Mao orders. They died because of the failure of economic policy. And in 90’s same happened in Russia when liberal reforms failed. No communism, no dictatorship but millions of death out of starvation, diseases, civil war and other reasons. You have no idea how bad Russia and former USSR suffered in 90’s. It was no better than failed communist policy of 1930’s. People remember about it and blame liberal capitalism the same way you blame communism.

If they'd just thought about the size differences in US population and industrial development versus Japanese equivalents, they would never have gone to war. In fact, they thought a quick strike at Pearl Harbor would demoralize Americans and there would be a negotiated peace.

Remember that Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in december of 1941. When Hitler was an inch close to winning WW2 in Europe. Japanese was not fools. They hoped USA would be busy trying to save Britain from inevitable Nazi invasion after the fall of USSR.

 

[RX-79G]

That's also silly. America came out of the war with the largest industrial infrastructure in the world (most of its competitors having been bombed or fought over for years). The US argued for a more open, free-trading world (at least for the "first world") because that meant vast opportunities for that infrastructure. For a long time, America was the world's factory. America became richer than ever.

It only seems "silly" to you because you didn't understand what I was saying. The US did not "colonize" foreign lands to extract their natural resources and subjugate their peoples. The US grew rich by making things at home with US based labor. I'm not sure what's wrong with that.

There is huge difference in literally every aspect. Jews, Gypsies, Slavs will confirm this.

The additional element of genocide does not change the fact that Germany rampaged its way into its neighbors in two consecutive wars.

US colonized Wild West in the same manner Russia colonized Siberia. By annexing territories that belonged to local tribes. But unlike American natives people of Siberia and Far North are still present at the same number as in 18-19’s century. They retained their culture and identity while ingenious Americans was slaughtered, starved out or assimilated. Yet you say that Russia has no value of human life compared to USA.

Lack of disease resistance killed 90% of Native Americans, deaths directly at the hands of white Americans is in the tens of thousands. Russia killed upwards of 20,000 million Soviet citizens. Congratulations on the value of individual lives.

Billions of death was not executed directly by Stalin or Mao orders. They died because of the failure of economic policy. And in 90’s same happened in Russia when liberal reforms failed. No communism, no dictatorship but millions of death out of starvation, diseases, civil war and other reasons. You have no idea how bad Russia and former USSR suffered in 90’s. It was no better than failed communist policy of 1930’s. People remember about it and blame liberal capitalism the same way you blame communism.

Billions didn't die - I said billions would have died if the US hadn't become involved in world. If the tens of millions of deaths countries like the USSR, China, Japan and Germany were clearly happy with expanded it would have eventually been billions.

"Economic policy", like Holodomor, recognized today as a genocide? A state run economic system where one section of the country suffers millions more deaths than other sections? Right, probably just a goof up.

Remember that Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in december of 1941. When Hitler was an inch close to winning WW2 in Europe. Japanese was not fools. They hoped USA would be busy trying to save Britain from inevitable Nazi invasion after the fall of USSR.

The Japanese didn't understand the US. But my point was that even the Japanese recognized that invading and occupying the US was impossible.


It is very easy in the modern world to look at the excesses and mistakes of the US and equivocate them with colonization, aggression and outright genocides perpetrated by many of the worlds greatest powers. But I do not think that is an accurate view, and the alternative to US interest in the world would have been a much greater influence of the types of governments typified by Communist, Fascist and Imperial Japanese despots that valued nationalist or ideological structures over individuals. Such states have no internal compunction against mass death if it appeared to serve the long term growth and stability of the state. In much the same way as colonialism doesn't value the lives of the colonial populations compared to the individual liberty of the home state citizens. The US has not fallen into either pattern, as attractive as it is to shoehorn the US into one category or another. The US has never had an interest in subjugating large groups of foreign peoples for economic extraction and has never used famine, mass executions or "economic policy" to kill millions of its own citizens. They simply don't fit into those old paradigms.

 

[Fish Owl]

Lack of disease resistance killed 90% of Native Americans

Russia killed upwards of 20,000 million Soviet citizens.

Congratulation on value of hypocrisy. If something happens with US involved - it's always disease, unintentional natural famine, unintentional events or sad coincidence. If some other nation (and I'm not talking about Russia only) is involved in something bad – it’s always genocide, crime, corruption, moral inadequacy, etc.

Right, probably just a goof up.

The "twenty million deaths" number? It is approximately the number of all people died during 30's in USSR for various reasons ranging from famine or homicide to old age. American natives do not count as victims of USA. It is fault of the disease. But USSR, PRC, Iran, DPRK, Syria or any other nation is responsible for everything. Disease, floods, bad harvest, natural and techonological disasters. It's all their fault.

I get your logic.
No need to repeat it.