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    JedocJedoc In the scuppers with the staggers and jagsRegistered User regular
    Juggernut wrote: »
    I'm watching Ken Burns Vietnam.

    Hoo boy just from the very begging that whole thing was a godawful, unnecessary shitshow 100% orchestrated by a bunch of old white men and their egos who couldn't leave well enough alone.

    Also we just completely ignored all the parallels there with the second Gulf War and just went right at, didn't we?

    I feel like I always knew it was a shitshow, but I think I underestimated the sheer number of times where people in power could have stopped the whole thing and just didn't. It felt like every episode ended with "About fifteen minutes ago you were pretty sure that this was as bad as it got and the grownups in the room were making progress toward peace, but then Nixon decided to just drop several megatons of high explosive on random bits of countryside for no good reason. Join us next time, when things get way fucking worse than that."

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    GundiGundi Serious Bismuth Registered User regular
    Yeah Vietnam was a trainwreck and a black mark on literally every administration all the way from Eisenhower's to Nixon's. The US learned all the wrong lessons from the Chinese civil war.

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    JuggernutJuggernut Registered User regular
    Yeah so far it has basically been highlighting how we had all these chances to not start a stupid stupid war and how we just kept on shooting ourselves in the foot over and over again.

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    BlackDragon480BlackDragon480 Bluster Kerfuffle Master of Windy ImportRegistered User regular
    Gundi wrote: »
    Yeah Vietnam was a trainwreck and a black mark on literally every administration all the way from Eisenhower's to Nixon's. The US learned all the wrong lessons from the Chinese civil war.

    It was a perfect storm of bullshit. You had the French getting slowly depants over 8 years during the First Indochina War, then the USSR and US doing proxy crap in the UN and eventually not letting elections/unification happen as worked out during the Geneva process in 54-56 with Eisenhower and Dulles going all-in on George Kennan's Containment idea and starting the dumbass reliance on the Domino Theory, and by the time Kennedy and McNamara were orchestrating the Sunk Cost Fallacy started getting in everyone's head, etc...

    No matter where you go...there you are.
    ~ Buckaroo Banzai
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    MayabirdMayabird Pecking at the keyboardRegistered User regular
    Crossposted from D&D

    An article about the arrival of the Black Death to Florence in 1629 and the 40 day quarantine established to try to control the plague. Empty streets and churches, people breaking quarantine for reasons of survival or sometimes just petty rules flouting, and all this on a background of crisis already in the city. There had already been people who wandered the countryside during the spring looking for anything edible to try to fend off starvation, and poor in the cities who lived off discarded scraps tossed in the streets.
    The Sanità arranged the delivery of food, wine and firewood to the homes of the quarantined (30,452 of them). Each quarantined person received a daily allowance of two loaves of bread and half a boccale (around a pint) of wine. On Sundays, Mondays and Thursdays, they were given meat. On Tuesdays, they got a sausage seasoned with pepper, fennel and rosemary. On Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays, rice and cheese were delivered; on Friday, a salad of sweet and bitter herbs. The Sanità spent an enormous amount of money on food because they thought that the diet of the poor made them especially vulnerable to infection, but not everyone thought it was a good idea. Rondinelli recorded that some elite Florentines worried that quarantine ‘would give [the poor] the opportunity to be lazy and lose the desire to work, having for forty days been provided abundantly for all their needs’.

    Some opinions never change, but the ruling class of Florence did put in efforts to keep people fed as they were locked in their homes. It was primitive, but even this measure (and their strict lockdown efforts) had a major effect:
    When the epidemic finally ended, about 12 per cent of the population of Florence had died. This was a considerably lower mortality rate than other Italian cities: in Venice 33 per cent of the population; in Milan 46 per cent; while the mortality rate in Verona was 61 per cent.

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    JedocJedoc In the scuppers with the staggers and jagsRegistered User regular
    Please enjoy this Twitter account by an expert in Regency-era clothing about whether or not period films live up to the surprisingly high costuming bar set by Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure.

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    PeasPeas Registered User regular
    The dark history of IQ tests - Stefan C. Dombrowski 6:09
    https://youtu.be/W2bKaw2AJxs
    Explore the history of IQ tests; how they measure a person’s intelligence and the ways they have been used to justify scientifically baseless ideologies.

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    JuggernutJuggernut Registered User regular
    I'm wrapping up Ken Burns Vietnam.

    Man, I'm not sure how but I somehow never heard about Vietnam's post Vietnam Vietnam. Apparently they invaded Cambodia after some border skirmishes and in 10 years lost another 50,000 soldiers. Then North Vietnam was invaded by China as retaliation for invading Cambodia.

    I guess after America pulled out we all just collectively agreed to never talk about Vietnam in any capacity whatsoever again.

    It's also astronomically, I guess impressive, that a country can absorb so many deaths and just... keep on fighting.

    Also, wow, what a terrible point in our history. I can see the starting point of a lot of the polarization that continues to this day.

    Hmm.

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    PiptheFairPiptheFair Frequently not in boats. Registered User regular
    the vietcong supported the khmer rouge, which is a thing a whole lot of people like to gloss over

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    SolarSolar Registered User regular
    edited April 2020
    Although they also eventually were the guys that got the Khmer Rouge out. Strange how these things turn out.

    The Khmer Rouge were just bizarre in a way that was so hideous as to be beyond comprehension, really. Like they invaded Vietnam to murder 3000 civilians at one point because...? (well, because they hated the Vietnamese, being nationalists, but like, for no actual strategic reason. And then Vietnam smashed em in like a week)

    Solar on
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    V1mV1m Registered User regular
    edited April 2020
    Well I guess the Viets had the whole fighting thing down pretty cold by then, and were oh so very done fucking around.

    Edit: Which kinda makes me wonder about how things were by the end of the Hundred Years War.

    V1m on
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    SolarSolar Registered User regular
    edited April 2020
    The PAVN in the 70s was a legitimately excellent military and the pre-eminent power in the region outside of China. Years of combat experience plus good quality Soviet gear meant they thrashed the Cambodians and Thailand were pretty concerned they'd do the same. When China invaded they were pretty certain they'd walk all over the Vietnamese, and the PAVN disarmed them of that idea pretty quickly. (edit: it didn't help that the Cambodian leadership thought that 1 Cambodian Soldier was worth something like 20-30 Vietnamese soldiers in their calculations, ergo we can win a war against over half a million men with less than a hundred thousand and still have loads let over. Turns out that even 1 for 1 the Cambodian military was just pretty poor, it had been starved, it's conscripts were illiterate and malnourished, and it had barely any working gear or trained troops).

    It's a oft-repeated trend in history, although the 100 Years War was rather on and off, and these days is considered more of a period of Anglo-French history which includes three wars (the Edwardian War and then a couple of others, which I forget now, plus arguably a French Civil War between Burgundy and the Crown). It did end with the establishment of a professional French military though, and both sides came out of it with some pretty hardened expert soldiers.

    Solar on
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    V1mV1m Registered User regular
    >edit: it didn't help that the Cambodian leadership thought that 1 Cambodian Soldier was worth something like 20-30 Vietnamese soldiers in their calculations...

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    ShortyShorty touching the meat Intergalactic Cool CourtRegistered User regular
    shit like that is a necessary consequence of their brand of nationalism

    the khmer rouge were exactly as racist as the nazis, so of course they underestimated all their enemies

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    SolarSolar Registered User regular
    edited April 2020
    Yeah they very much played up that they were like, a reinstatement of the Khmer Kingdom/Empire/whatever from way back when and the Marxist/Maoist ideology was essentially an internal party ideology, they deliberately sold it that way because they knew they weren't going to get anywhere otherwise.

    Of course the Vietnamese had historically messed around in Cambodia leading to widespread anti-Vietnamese sentiment and the Khmer Rouge Party Leadership hated them blindly, a combination of ignorance, nationalist xenophobia etc. What's pretty rough is that Vietnam stopped the Cambodian Genocide, essentially, and they went in thinking "I mean there is no way that we can get internationally hammered for this, right? These guys?" and they were totally dragged through the mud by everyone short of the Soviets and Czechoslovakia.

    A lot of this shit was just an abject failure of the post-war decolonisation process. De Gaulle wanted to hold Indo-China. So instead of a controlled process, you got a war in the region, and of course in a war the group who effectively managed to lead the resistance and kick the colonisers out then takes the post-war reigns, which in Cambodia was the forerunners of the Khmer Rouge. So nobody really picked these guys, nobody really voted for them or anything and then it went south, they won their war and afterwards had all the guns and stuff, had wiped out other armed groups etc, and just walked into power. If there had been a proper de-colonisation without a war then it's unlikely that the post colonial power structure would have been held by them.

    Solar on
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    V1mV1m Registered User regular
    The whole Khmer Rouge thing was incredibly depressing and horrible and just an amazing investigation on how people in a terrible situation can always amplify the terribleness of their situation another order of magnitude as long as there are still some people left.

    Side note: Hey, you know what's great when you're ten years old and you finally get the old TV when your parents upgrade to a new TV?

    Watching The Year Zero.

    Oh yeah and stuff on the 6PM news right after the Childrens' TV "hope you enjoyed that cartoon, now for a pieces on how the world could end with literally 3 minutes warning. Also, don't do heroin."

    I just remembered all this from being in this thread. Shit's bad now but a lot is better than it used to be.

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    SolarSolar Registered User regular
    edited April 2020
    I think that, like, things are different. The media awareness of something like the Cambodian genocide would be different now. That said, how many people died in the Rohingya Genocide? Tens of thousands, possibly a lot more, and that's in the last 2-3 years. And we don't really know what's going on in parts of China. Plus then you have Syria... like things are often a lot better now because there is a more integrated information economy where you can't just do these things without it being noticed and getting an international response. But also pretty awful things happen at the moment that people don't know about. Like, how many people die in the CARr as a result of violence from armed groups? Thousands, and it just doesn't get reported.

    Solar on
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    GundiGundi Serious Bismuth Registered User regular
    edited April 2020
    Prior to european imperialism, the region of Cambodia had been a battle ground for control and influence between Vietnamese and Thai rulers, so it's not that surprising that after that, and after the roughly 70-80ish years of French colonialism that a nationalist reactionary movement would spring up.

    Gundi on
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    JusticeforPlutoJusticeforPluto Registered User regular
    The precolonial history of South East Asia is pretty cool. The Khmer, Burmese and Thai all built kingdoms covering almost the whole peninsula at some point or another. The Thai were the last, and lost a lot of land to the British and French. Wonder if a unified South East Asia was ever possible.

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    JedocJedoc In the scuppers with the staggers and jagsRegistered User regular
    edited April 2020
    Not unless the Thai were in charge. I have a Thai friend and occasional roommate who is perfectly liberal by American standards, but who is terrifyingly nationalist on the subject of Southeast Asia.

    Did you know that Thailand is the only Asian country that has never been conquered from outside? I have no idea whether or not that's true or how you'd even quantify that, but I do know that she's ready to beat the shit out of you over it after like two beers!

    Jedoc on
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    JusticeforPlutoJusticeforPluto Registered User regular
    edited April 2020
    It's true, but not because of Thai strenght of arms but because they made a nice buffer state between French Indo China and British India was my understanding.

    JusticeforPluto on
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    GundiGundi Serious Bismuth Registered User regular
    Thailand, much like the Belgian Congo, or the Dutch East Indies, was a thing allowed to exist because Britain and France would absolutely not allow the other to have those lands.

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    JusticeforPlutoJusticeforPluto Registered User regular
    Not like Ethiopia. They sent the Italians packing.

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    GundiGundi Serious Bismuth Registered User regular
    That was a combination of Europeans being very racist and Menelik the third being very smart about trading and using its cultural significance as being the "only christian african kingdom" to secure decent arms.

    Racist suicidal overconfidence, plus decent arms (still not actually as good as the Italians mind you but decently modern), plus clever use of defensive terrain led to an almost complete annihilation of the Italian invading force during the first invasion. It was the Dien Bien Phu of the Kingdom of Italy.

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    PiptheFairPiptheFair Frequently not in boats. Registered User regular
    ethiopia being a christian bastion has gone a long way to securing them influence and aid from europe and a lot of ire from everywhere else

    but they were also resource rich, and it turns out money is nice to have????

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    FencingsaxFencingsax It is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understanding GNU Terry PratchettRegistered User regular
    The thing about Vietnam is that they also considered their war with China way more important than their American conflict, because they had been fighting with China for about 1000 years.

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    SolarSolar Registered User regular
    Ethiopia also had the advantage of Russian support. Orthodox Christianity has it's geopolitical benefits.

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    Dis'Dis' Registered User regular
    edited April 2020
    Ethiopia also had the advantage of being extremely defensible highlands where people coming at them had to move through deserts and near-deserts.

    Dis' on
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    SolarSolar Registered User regular
    Fencingsax wrote: »
    The thing about Vietnam is that they also considered their war with China way more important than their American conflict, because they had been fighting with China for about 1000 years.

    I think, from what I have heard anyway, within the nationalist/independence strain of ideology which fuels the government and it's political supporters the US conflict is seen much more in context of a Civil War in which the US aided one side (proof, if any were needed, of their perfidious and decadent ways etc) and the war with China is seen as more historically significant i.e victory in the case of the former was setting the country right, in the case of the latter it is very much achieving Vietnamese independence and regional dominance.

    Thailand and Cambodia both feared Vietnam essentially trying to create an indo-chinese federation dominated by itself, part of the reason why the Khmer Rouge were sheltered by Thailand when Vietnam invaded. And to be fair, they were right (about the intention, not about the feasability). Kind of like how De Gaulle feared that FDR wanted to occupy France militarily with a American and British governed zones rather than hand it over to him which, yeah...

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    RMS OceanicRMS Oceanic Registered User regular
    Hundred Years War: A summary

    Edwardian Phase (1337-1360): King of England owns Gascony (southwest France, including Bordeaux) as a vassal of the French King, while being King of England in his own right. King John II of France confiscates Gascony, Edward III counter-claims the throne of France because he's Grandson of a French King (but through a female line which Sallic Law boos at), takes a while for serious campaigning to go on, but one the most famous battle is Crecy in 1346, where Longbowmen smashed French Knights, and among things let the English take Calais for over 200 years. Then a break in the fighting because the Black Death. The climax was the Battle of Poitiers where John was captured. Treaty of Brétigny expands Edward's Gascon holdings significantly.

    Caroline Phase (1369-1389): Peace broken, Charles V of France takes back what was ceded and then some, leaving England with Bordeaux and Calais. The Prince of Wales Edward the Black Prince was one of England's best commanders, but got sick and died, meaning the throne would go to ten year old Richard II in 1377. Then eleven year old Charles VI comes to the French throne in 1380. Both nations feeling pretty tired, especially with the Peasants Revolt happening. Both Kings' advisors settle a peace in 1389. A few skirmishes over the next 20 years don't escalate things, but three important things happen: Richard II is deposed by his cousin Henry IV in 1399, Charles VI begins suffering bouts of madness, and a civil war between two cadet branches of the French Royal house breaks out, including the Duke of Burgundy.

    Henry Phase (1415-1453): Henry V wants a bunch of land, Charles VI says no, so war. Along comes Agincourt, which is like Crecy but bigger, France in complete disarray. The Dauphin (French heir to the throne) has the Duke of Burgundy assassinated, so the new Duke allies with England. Henry V negotiates the treaty of Troyes, disinheriting the Dauphin and naming Henry heir to France. He doesn't get to enjoy this, because he dies two months before Charles VI does (hurray dysentery), leaving nine month old Henry VI as King of both countries, in theory. Dauphin regroups in the south, English besiege Orleans in 1428, this is where Joan of Arc comes along. Relives siege, escorts Dauphin to Reims where he's crowned Charles VII. Henry's advisors are at loggerheads against each other, one pursuing personal claims of land in Burgundy's turf, which really sours him on the English and pushes him into reconciliation with Charles VII, leaving England with Gascony, Normandy and Calais. Henry is a pious guy, and believes peace a virtue, so when he takes the reigns he tries to negotiate peace by giving away the store. Marries niece of Charles VII in 1444 and promises a province for a truce. Charles VII demands pre-1337 lands, Henry's advisors say no, Charles takes Normandy in 1449. Final blow is 1453 where Gascony is lost forever and Henry VI has a mental breakdown. The war technically continues for 20 years, but with Charles trying to smack down unruly nobles and the War of the Roses breaking out in England, not much happens between them. England claims the French throne until 1803.

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    SolarSolar Registered User regular
    I didn't know that England claimed the French throne for that long

    Interesting. Probably nothing more than an oversight/insult for a long while, but still

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    JusticeforPlutoJusticeforPluto Registered User regular
    Solar wrote: »
    Fencingsax wrote: »
    The thing about Vietnam is that they also considered their war with China way more important than their American conflict, because they had been fighting with China for about 1000 years.

    I think, from what I have heard anyway, within the nationalist/independence strain of ideology which fuels the government and it's political supporters the US conflict is seen much more in context of a Civil War in which the US aided one side (proof, if any were needed, of their perfidious and decadent ways etc) and the war with China is seen as more historically significant i.e victory in the case of the former was setting the country right, in the case of the latter it is very much achieving Vietnamese independence and regional dominance.

    Thailand and Cambodia both feared Vietnam essentially trying to create an indo-chinese federation dominated by itself, part of the reason why the Khmer Rouge were sheltered by Thailand when Vietnam invaded. And to be fair, they were right (about the intention, not about the feasability). Kind of like how De Gaulle feared that FDR wanted to occupy France militarily with a American and British governed zones rather than hand it over to him which, yeah...

    I'm sure the current tensions between the two over the Parcels and such also make the Vietnamese government want to highlight a war in which they beat the Chinese.

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    SolarSolar Registered User regular
    Vietnam has a pretty solid showing in recent military history, they kicked out all the superpowers who tried to invade them and beat the shit out of a few locals, so they're pretty high on that supply

    But yeah lots of tensions in the region. I think Vietnam is one of those examples of a regional power in the making that superpowers have had vested interests in screwing with, like Iran.

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    RMS OceanicRMS Oceanic Registered User regular
    Solar wrote: »
    I didn't know that England claimed the French throne for that long

    Interesting. Probably nothing more than an oversight/insult for a long while, but still

    Monarchs picked up all sorts of claims and titles long after their relevance has gone.

    The Spanish King is also King of Jerusalem, Cyprus, Corsica and Sardinia, going by titles.

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    JedocJedoc In the scuppers with the staggers and jagsRegistered User regular
    Queen Lizzy knows deep down in her heart that she's also the Queen of France.

    It's just considered gauche to bring it up in front of the French.

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    SolarSolar Registered User regular
    Solar wrote: »
    I didn't know that England claimed the French throne for that long

    Interesting. Probably nothing more than an oversight/insult for a long while, but still

    Monarchs picked up all sorts of claims and titles long after their relevance has gone.

    The Spanish King is also King of Jerusalem, Cyprus, Corsica and Sardinia, going by titles.

    Apparently the Jacobean pretenders carried on claiming they were Kings of France while claiming a pension at leisure at the court of... the King of France

    nobs eh? bonkers

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    PlatyPlaty Registered User regular
    It just comes with the office although I guess they would've denied holding any kind of office

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    PlatyPlaty Registered User regular
    Did you know that Shakespeare might've co-authored a play about Edward III who was the first English king to claim the French throne

    Apparently the play was so derisive of Scottish people that it was suppressed after James I took the throne and not included in the collection of Shakespeare's works because people just wanted to forget about it

    One line from the play seems to be about Scots not being able to speak English good

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    StraightziStraightzi Here we may reign secure, and in my choice, To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered User regular
    Oh yeah, Edward III is fairly widely considered to be at least partially written by Shakespeare these days. It's just not one of the folio plays, because those weren't published until James was on the throne.

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    RMS OceanicRMS Oceanic Registered User regular
    Straightzi wrote: »
    Oh yeah, Edward III is fairly widely considered to be at least partially written by Shakespeare these days. It's just not one of the folio plays, because those weren't published until James was on the throne.

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