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Document the Atrocities! The American Political Media

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Posts

  • Geese_PantsGeese_Pants Registered User regular
    edited February 2012
    Frankly silencing voices rather than defeating them in honest debate just speaks to weakness of logic and a lack of confidence on those who would do the silencing. And weakness and cowardice aren't respectable qualities, in fact, they are by far the most despicable traits a person can have.

    Geese_Pants on
  • iTunesIsEviliTunesIsEvil Cornfield? Cornfield.Registered User regular
    So, regardless of the image MSNBC wants to put forth, and regardless of what they personally (corporately?) find appropriate they should be forced to hire, and indefinitely keep on their payroll, people who have the opinions of Pat Buchanan?

    I find it odd that you don't think they should be allowed to hire and fire people however they please, as long as they do so within the framework of the law.

  • Nova_CNova_C I have the need The need for speedRegistered User regular
    No one is obligated to provide a soap box for other people. Buchanan is perfectly able to continue to voice his opinions, MSNBC is just saying they are no longer willing to pay to provide him with an audience. They're not silencing anyone.

  • Harry DresdenHarry Dresden Registered User regular
    edited February 2012
    Maybe they could have kept him on as an opinion then? One of the reasons I respected MSNBC over Fox was that they had the balls to actually staff prominent conservatives who could argue their views and weren't afraid to do so and were thinkers.

    Pat's not a thinker, he's a well connected fascist. Ron Christie's a thinker.
    Compared to the sort of chicken shit liberal for Hannity to bully or Bill "I just scream and yell and nobody gets in a word edgweise" configurations Fox has. And they replaced Pat with Steele, who is pretty much as close to Palin for being stupid as you can get.

    I'd take Steele over Pat any day. Despite Steele being an idiot he's very polite and doesn't have racism tinting every opinion he has. Pat's an old dinosaur who should have been let go years ago.
    Pat wasn't an idiot and he was a thinker. He didn't flop all over the place and offered up firm arguments for what he thought and was willing to debate people. Now granted, he went to some really odd places with them and a lot of what he said was horrible, but it was honest and he was willing to debate and it was interesting to hear it and to hear the counter arguments, many of which were better stated than anything I could make.

    When a guest commentator says stuff that goes to "odd places" & comes off horribly it's time they went off the air.
    And he was less of an idiotic hack than say Matthews.

    I disagree. Matthews is slightly better. Still a shit anchor, though.
    I always found him interesting and I'm hoping he gets another chance to speak somewhere else as a guest.

    The only thing interesting about Pat was watching him flail around defending his outdated, offensive opinions. It's like watching a trainwreck.
    Him having a show was silly, but him being in round tablet discussions was great. It's another reason for me to avoid MSNBC now other than the rare show

    What are the other reasons?
    Views and opinions should be made public and judged accordingly and debated vigorously. Not silenced and shit canned because they make people uncomfortable. As someone that's met Pat before (my father worked for Nixon as well, though in the energy department) he's not a vicious person. I think that was where Sully was coming from as well with his personal story.

    Not all views or opinions are equal. You don't take racists opinions seriously while discussing racial issues, for example. Or Santorum whenever he opens his mouth.

    Btw, Pat wants to silence and smear his critics. Nice guy, huh?
    "There are elements within our society and they are predominantly on the hard left that say it's no longer enough to challenge and contradict or defeat or fight these fellas in arguments," Buchanan said. "We've got to smear them, stigmatize them as racists or homophobic and then we've got to silence them and censor them and the way we do it is go after the media outlets that put them on air...this is unAmerican what is going on right now."

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/18/pat-buchanan-msnbc-hannity-blacklist_n_1286303.html

    That same link also reveals that he's been shilling his book on a white nationalist radio show.

    His racism actually Godwin's itself. This is how disgusting he really is. I hope you didn't bring up the fact the Allies were the good guys during WW II when you spoke to him.

    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/09/02/775741/-Pat-Buchanan,-Hitler-apologist

    Harry Dresden on
  • MentalExerciseMentalExercise Indefenestrable Registered User regular
    I see racist/Godwin esque comments about Pat Buchanen a lot. I can't say I've read a whole lot of what he's written, mostly just seen him on theMcLaughlin group, but I've never quite been able to figure out where this comes from. Is it his stance on illegal immigration? Is there other stuff?

    "More fish for Kunta!"

    --LeVar Burton
  • BagginsesBagginses __BANNED USERS regular
    I see racist/Godwin esque comments about Pat Buchanen a lot. I can't say I've read a whole lot of what he's written, mostly just seen him on theMcLaughlin group, but I've never quite been able to figure out where this comes from. Is it his stance on illegal immigration? Is there other stuff?

    He's said chattel slavery was a kindness because it brought black people Christianity.

  • Harry DresdenHarry Dresden Registered User regular
    I see racist/Godwin esque comments about Pat Buchanen a lot. I can't say I've read a whole lot of what he's written, mostly just seen him on theMcLaughlin group, but I've never quite been able to figure out where this comes from. Is it his stance on illegal immigration? Is there other stuff?

    He wrote a long article about whether Hitler really wanted war. Do you want a link?

  • PhillisherePhillishere Registered User regular
    Google Pat Buchanan and racism. Then Google Pat Buchanan and Hitler.

  • MentalExerciseMentalExercise Indefenestrable Registered User regular
    edited February 2012
    I see racist/Godwin esque comments about Pat Buchanen a lot. I can't say I've read a whole lot of what he's written, mostly just seen him on theMcLaughlin group, but I've never quite been able to figure out where this comes from. Is it his stance on illegal immigration? Is there other stuff?

    He wrote a long article about whether Hitler really wanted war. Do you want a link?

    Yeah, that's be nice.
    Bagginses wrote:
    I see racist/Godwin esque comments about Pat Buchanen a lot. I can't say I've read a whole lot of what he's written, mostly just seen him on theMcLaughlin group, but I've never quite been able to figure out where this comes from. Is it his stance on illegal immigration? Is there other stuff?

    He's said chattel slavery was a kindness because it brought black people Christianity.

    Yeah, that's pretty rough.

    MentalExercise on
    "More fish for Kunta!"

    --LeVar Burton
  • LawndartLawndart Registered User regular
    edited February 2012
    He wrote a long article about whether Hitler really wanted war. Do you want a link?

    Yeah, that's be nice.

    Here you go.

    Hitler just wanted peace, man, and going to war with him "may yet prove the mortal blow to our civilization"

    Also, the article where Buchanan talks about how America did black Africans a huge favor by enslaving them, and now those uppity blacks aren't properly thankful to white Americans for all the good thinks whites have done over the years.

    Lawndart on
  • Harry DresdenHarry Dresden Registered User regular
    Yeah, that's be nice.

    Here you go.

    http://buchanan.org/blog/did-hitler-want-war-2068

  • SynthesisSynthesis Honda Today! Registered User regular
    edited February 2012
    Yeah, that's be nice.

    Here you go.

    http://buchanan.org/blog/did-hitler-want-war-2068

    Buchanan was basically just preaching what was gospel among many in the West for a few decades or more: that the USSR was the real reason there was a Second World War.

    The fact that Germany killed +20 million Soviet citizens alone is justified because, you know, Stalin, and because, you know, communism. 20 years earlier, they would have cited the fact that Slavs and Central Asians are subhuman people anyway, so who gives a shit?

    Not a unique opinion. Coming off as Hitler apologists, or having to confront the fact that some of those six million annihilated Jews were also the most Slavic and communisty of the dirty communist Slavs exterminated (see the Commissar Order or Vefim Fomin), but the Jews are the good guys unlike the Reds is just an awkward part of their narrative they skirt around.

    Synthesis on
  • Captain CarrotCaptain Carrot Alexandria, VARegistered User regular
    It's pretty damn unusual these days, though, which are the standards he gets to be judged by since he hasn't changed in fifty years.

  • Harry DresdenHarry Dresden Registered User regular
    It's pretty damn unusual these days, though, which are the standards he gets to be judged by since he hasn't changed in fifty years.

    That's Pat Buchanan for you. He's never evolved to the current political atmosphere.

  • AManFromEarthAManFromEarth Let's get to twerk! The King in the SwampRegistered User regular
    Synthesis wrote:
    Yeah, that's be nice.

    Here you go.

    http://buchanan.org/blog/did-hitler-want-war-2068

    Buchanan was basically just preaching what was gospel among many in the West for a few decades or more: that the USSR was the real reason there was a Second World War.

    The fact that Germany killed +20 million Soviet citizens alone is justified because, you know, Stalin, and because, you know, communism. 20 years earlier, they would have cited the fact that Slavs and Central Asians are subhuman people anyway, so who gives a shit?

    Not a unique opinion.

    What.

    That is the largest bag of bollocks I've ever heard of.

    And it's non-uniqueness has no bearing on whether it's an awful, stupid thing to say and believe.

    Lh96QHG.png
  • Nova_CNova_C I have the need The need for speedRegistered User regular
    Buchanan's statistic of 50 million Christians and Jews is a pretty blatant lie. Like, two minutes to disprove it lie.

    The total dead from ww2 is estimated between 60-70 million with up to 20 million being in China alone.

    Revisionists need to get fucked.

  • LawndartLawndart Registered User regular
    Honestly, if Pat Buchanan is the most articulate and relevant thinker the modern conservative movement has, and is thus deserving of a national media platform, then modern conservatism ate far too many lead paint chips as a baby.

  • SynthesisSynthesis Honda Today! Registered User regular
    edited February 2012
    Synthesis wrote:
    Yeah, that's be nice.

    Here you go.

    http://buchanan.org/blog/did-hitler-want-war-2068

    Buchanan was basically just preaching what was gospel among many in the West for a few decades or more: that the USSR was the real reason there was a Second World War.

    The fact that Germany killed +20 million Soviet citizens alone is justified because, you know, Stalin, and because, you know, communism. 20 years earlier, they would have cited the fact that Slavs and Central Asians are subhuman people anyway, so who gives a shit?

    Not a unique opinion.

    What.

    That is the largest bag of bollocks I've ever heard of.

    And it's non-uniqueness has no bearing on whether it's an awful, stupid thing to say and believe.

    It was gospel, though, and that's the dangerous part (gospel being the opposite of unique and rare in this case). Blame the German generals NATO asked to compile a history of the Eastern Front of the war who coincidentally wanted to cover their asses for crimes against humanity. Or blame American generals who found it terrifically inconvenient that the whole of the Soviet Union didn't vanish in a cloud of smoke like they had hoped it would in 1941. Or blame crazies like Curtis LeMay who wanted to shape Moscow's policies with nuclear weapons. In any case, there was a school of thought in which Buchanan is repeating something tantamount to the theory of gravity.

    It's pretty goddamn scary, and I say this as an East Asian, because the same discourse, sure enough, inked through the Soviet papers and onto "What to do about Red China" in the nuclear age. But it's not new in the least. On the contrary, it used to be the orthodox mindset, and the revisionists were the ones saying, "Hey, you know, we're not saying the Terror or the Ukrainian Famine weren't horrific, but maybe, just maybe, Belarus deserved to not be occupied by Poland, and maybe, just maybe, the Soviets fighting 80% of the German Army and stopping the genocide of the Slavs was a good thing in the long run." and being called crazy.
    It's pretty damn unusual these days, though, which are the standards he gets to be judged by since he hasn't changed in fifty years.

    That's certainly his understanding of the Second World War.
    Nova_C wrote:
    Buchanan's statistic of 50 million Christians and Jews is a pretty blatant lie. Like, two minutes to disprove it lie.

    The total dead from ww2 is estimated between 60-70 million with up to 20 million being in China alone.

    Revisionists need to get fucked.

    Doing Buchanan's math would make me want to stick a pen in my eye socket and twist, but it's entirely possible he's just ignoring China, Japan, and the Pacific War as a whole. He wouldn't be the first. Plus, you know, not that many Christians.

    Synthesis on
  • AManFromEarthAManFromEarth Let's get to twerk! The King in the SwampRegistered User regular
    Synthesis wrote:
    Synthesis wrote:
    Yeah, that's be nice.

    Here you go.

    http://buchanan.org/blog/did-hitler-want-war-2068

    Buchanan was basically just preaching what was gospel among many in the West for a few decades or more: that the USSR was the real reason there was a Second World War.

    The fact that Germany killed +20 million Soviet citizens alone is justified because, you know, Stalin, and because, you know, communism. 20 years earlier, they would have cited the fact that Slavs and Central Asians are subhuman people anyway, so who gives a shit?

    Not a unique opinion.

    What.

    That is the largest bag of bollocks I've ever heard of.

    And it's non-uniqueness has no bearing on whether it's an awful, stupid thing to say and believe.

    It was gospel, though, and that's the dangerous part (gospel being the opposite of unique and rare in this case). Blame the German generals NATO asked to compile a history of the Eastern Front of the war who coincidentally wanted to cover their asses for crimes against humanity. Or blame American generals who found it terrifically inconvenient that the whole of the Soviet Union didn't vanish in a cloud of smoke like they had hoped it would in 1941. Or blame crazies like Curtis LeMay who wanted to shape Moscow's policies with nuclear weapons. In any case, there was a school of thought in which Buchanan is repeating something tantamount to the theory of gravity.

    It's pretty goddamn scary, and I say this as an East Asian, because the same discourse, sure enough, inked through the Soviet papers and onto "What to do about Red China" in the nuclear age. But it's not new in the least. On the contrary, it used to be the orthodox mindset, and the revisionists were the ones saying, "Hey, you know, we're not saying the Terror or the Ukrainian Famine weren't horrific, but maybe, just maybe, Belarus deserved to not be occupied by Poland, and maybe, just maybe, the Soviets fighting 80% of the German Army and stopping the genocide of the Slavs was a good thing in the long run." and being called crazy.

    When was this gospel? It makes no sense.

    But still, that doesn't justify Buchanan. It was gospel that black people only wanted to not be slaves because of a psychological problem. That doesn't mean you'd be ok to say it now.

    I've literally never heard of this 20 year gospel of "blame the russians" before today.

    Lh96QHG.png
  • Harry DresdenHarry Dresden Registered User regular
    Lawndart wrote:
    Honestly, if Pat Buchanan is the most articulate and relevant thinker the modern conservative movement has, and is thus deserving of a national media platform, then modern conservatism ate far too many lead paint chips as a baby.

    He isn't. Ron Christie runs circles around him.

  • Nova_CNova_C I have the need The need for speedRegistered User regular
    Synthesis wrote:
    Doing Buchanan's math would make me want to stick a pen in my eye socket and twist, but it's entirely possible he's just ignoring China, Japan, and the Pacific War as a whole. He wouldn't be the first. Plus, you know, not that many Christians.

    Ignoring the Pacific war would reduce the war dead to significantly less than 50 million.

    The Japanese weren't exactly bringing sunshine and lollipops to Pacific rim nations.

  • SynthesisSynthesis Honda Today! Registered User regular
    edited February 2012
    Nova_C wrote:
    Synthesis wrote:
    Doing Buchanan's math would make me want to stick a pen in my eye socket and twist, but it's entirely possible he's just ignoring China, Japan, and the Pacific War as a whole. He wouldn't be the first. Plus, you know, not that many Christians.

    Ignoring the Pacific war would reduce the war dead to significantly less than 50 million.

    The Japanese weren't exactly bringing sunshine and lollipops to Pacific rim nations.

    That's what I get for taking him literally at his words. 'Course, I say this as a Taiwanese person (Team Axis, yo), but on the whole the Pacific War is widely ignored in the West (and, to be fair, people aware of their own history in China and Taiwan often ignore things like D-Day or Normandy Beach, due to scope, seeming irrelevance and disinterest). In American social studies academics, from what I've seen, it seems to be folded into the topic of the Chinese Civil War and the US occupation of Japan.
    Synthesis wrote:
    Synthesis wrote:
    Yeah, that's be nice.

    Here you go.

    http://buchanan.org/blog/did-hitler-want-war-2068

    Buchanan was basically just preaching what was gospel among many in the West for a few decades or more: that the USSR was the real reason there was a Second World War.

    The fact that Germany killed +20 million Soviet citizens alone is justified because, you know, Stalin, and because, you know, communism. 20 years earlier, they would have cited the fact that Slavs and Central Asians are subhuman people anyway, so who gives a shit?

    Not a unique opinion.

    What.

    That is the largest bag of bollocks I've ever heard of.

    And it's non-uniqueness has no bearing on whether it's an awful, stupid thing to say and believe.

    It was gospel, though, and that's the dangerous part (gospel being the opposite of unique and rare in this case). Blame the German generals NATO asked to compile a history of the Eastern Front of the war who coincidentally wanted to cover their asses for crimes against humanity. Or blame American generals who found it terrifically inconvenient that the whole of the Soviet Union didn't vanish in a cloud of smoke like they had hoped it would in 1941. Or blame crazies like Curtis LeMay who wanted to shape Moscow's policies with nuclear weapons. In any case, there was a school of thought in which Buchanan is repeating something tantamount to the theory of gravity.

    It's pretty goddamn scary, and I say this as an East Asian, because the same discourse, sure enough, inked through the Soviet papers and onto "What to do about Red China" in the nuclear age. But it's not new in the least. On the contrary, it used to be the orthodox mindset, and the revisionists were the ones saying, "Hey, you know, we're not saying the Terror or the Ukrainian Famine weren't horrific, but maybe, just maybe, Belarus deserved to not be occupied by Poland, and maybe, just maybe, the Soviets fighting 80% of the German Army and stopping the genocide of the Slavs was a good thing in the long run." and being called crazy.

    When was this gospel? It makes no sense.

    But still, that doesn't justify Buchanan. It was gospel that black people only wanted to not be slaves because of a psychological problem. That doesn't mean you'd be ok to say it now.

    I've literally never heard of this 20 year gospel of "blame the russians" before today.

    Congratulations to you? It dominated the narrative in the late 1940s and 1950s (unsurprisingly), in part a response to what Churchill dubbed the fall of the Iron Curtain. It was only in the 1960s and 1970s when alternative theories were proposed. CIS archives being opened in the 1990s US archives being opened in the 2000s, with historians like Gabriel Gorodetsky (Israeli, not Russian, despite the name) actually investigating Moscow's pre-war standing supported them further. The fact is, before all this, the highest sources on the Eastern Front in western academia were written by German generals and officers who actually fought the war, because Soviet narratives were considered untrustworthy. To be fair, the reverse existed in Asia in the time period--histories were written by Zhukov and Rokossovsky, and the Germans were damned.

    I'm not happy at it. On the contrary, as a student of history, it makes me a little ill thinking about it, but that's how it was. We've only recently (on a academic scale) started to realize just how full of crap a lot of this preconceived notions were. That's why revisionism has its place--back then, the people screaming, "Hey, maybe Soviet lives are worth a comparable amount to Jewish lives or Western European lives. Or even Soviet Jewish lives..." were the revisionists in the UK and US. Academic revisionism isn't really something that's thought about hugely outside of academia itself, and arm chair military historians chose to believe whatever they want to believe (hence the success of guys like Vladimir Rezun/"Viktor Suvorov" in America and Russia) anyway. Grade schools largely skipped the topic when it became obvious it was being politicized, which is why most US history textbooks I've looked at mention it in about three sentences (after all, it's not a part of American history, I guess). It doesn't surprise me you haven't heard of this.

    tl;dr--Buchanan's a lot of things, but original ain't one of them.

    (the new quote minimizing system is pretty nifty--I was about to edit the quote for space when I remembered that)

    Synthesis on
  • AManFromEarthAManFromEarth Let's get to twerk! The King in the SwampRegistered User regular
    Synthesis wrote:
    Nova_C wrote:
    Synthesis wrote:
    Doing Buchanan's math would make me want to stick a pen in my eye socket and twist, but it's entirely possible he's just ignoring China, Japan, and the Pacific War as a whole. He wouldn't be the first. Plus, you know, not that many Christians.

    Ignoring the Pacific war would reduce the war dead to significantly less than 50 million.

    The Japanese weren't exactly bringing sunshine and lollipops to Pacific rim nations.

    That's what I get for taking him literally at his words.
    Synthesis wrote:
    Synthesis wrote:
    Yeah, that's be nice.

    Here you go.

    http://buchanan.org/blog/did-hitler-want-war-2068

    Buchanan was basically just preaching what was gospel among many in the West for a few decades or more: that the USSR was the real reason there was a Second World War.

    The fact that Germany killed +20 million Soviet citizens alone is justified because, you know, Stalin, and because, you know, communism. 20 years earlier, they would have cited the fact that Slavs and Central Asians are subhuman people anyway, so who gives a shit?

    Not a unique opinion.

    What.

    That is the largest bag of bollocks I've ever heard of.

    And it's non-uniqueness has no bearing on whether it's an awful, stupid thing to say and believe.

    It was gospel, though, and that's the dangerous part (gospel being the opposite of unique and rare in this case). Blame the German generals NATO asked to compile a history of the Eastern Front of the war who coincidentally wanted to cover their asses for crimes against humanity. Or blame American generals who found it terrifically inconvenient that the whole of the Soviet Union didn't vanish in a cloud of smoke like they had hoped it would in 1941. Or blame crazies like Curtis LeMay who wanted to shape Moscow's policies with nuclear weapons. In any case, there was a school of thought in which Buchanan is repeating something tantamount to the theory of gravity.

    It's pretty goddamn scary, and I say this as an East Asian, because the same discourse, sure enough, inked through the Soviet papers and onto "What to do about Red China" in the nuclear age. But it's not new in the least. On the contrary, it used to be the orthodox mindset, and the revisionists were the ones saying, "Hey, you know, we're not saying the Terror or the Ukrainian Famine weren't horrific, but maybe, just maybe, Belarus deserved to not be occupied by Poland, and maybe, just maybe, the Soviets fighting 80% of the German Army and stopping the genocide of the Slavs was a good thing in the long run." and being called crazy.

    When was this gospel? It makes no sense.

    But still, that doesn't justify Buchanan. It was gospel that black people only wanted to not be slaves because of a psychological problem. That doesn't mean you'd be ok to say it now.

    I've literally never heard of this 20 year gospel of "blame the russians" before today.

    Congratulations to you? It dominated the narrative in the late 1940s and 1950s (unsurprisingly), in part a response to what Churchill dubbed the fall of the Iron Curtain. It was only in the 1960s and 1970s when alternative theories were proposed. CIS archives being opened in the 1990s US archives being opened in the 2000s, with historians like Gabriel Gorodetsky (Israeli, not Russian, despite the name) actually investigating Moscow's pre-war standing supported them further. The fact is, before all this, the highest sources on the Eastern Front in western academia were written by German generals and officers who actually fought the war, because Soviet narratives were considered untrustworthy. To be fair, the reverse existed in Asia in the time period--histories were written by Zhukov and Rokossovsky, and the Germans were damned.

    I'm not happy at it. On the contrary, as a student of history, it makes me a little ill thinking about it, but that's how it was. We've only recently (on a academic scale) started to realize just how full of crap a lot of this preconceived notions were. That's why revisionism has its place--back then, the people screaming, "Hey, maybe Soviet lives are worth a comparable amount to Jewish lives or Western European lives. Or even Soviet Jewish lives..." were the revisionists in the UK and US. Academic revisionism isn't really something that's thought about hugely outside of academia itself, and arm chair military historians chose to believe whatever they want to believe (hence the success of guys like Vladimir Rezun/"Viktor Suvorov" in America and Russia) anyway. Grade schools largely skipped the topic when it became obvious it was being politicized, which is why most US history textbooks I've looked at mention it in about three sentences (after all, it's not a part of American history, I guess). It doesn't surprise me you haven't heard of this.

    tl;dr--Buchanan's a lot of things, but original ain't one of them.

    (the new quote minimizing system is pretty nifty--I was about to edit the quote for space when I remembered that)

    No need to be dick about it, just saying I hadn't heard of this before. With the amount of reading I do about the war it surprises me that I've missed it, that's all.

    But original or not, he can still bugger off.

    Lh96QHG.png
  • SynthesisSynthesis Honda Today! Registered User regular
    Synthesis wrote:
    Nova_C wrote:
    Synthesis wrote:
    Doing Buchanan's math would make me want to stick a pen in my eye socket and twist, but it's entirely possible he's just ignoring China, Japan, and the Pacific War as a whole. He wouldn't be the first. Plus, you know, not that many Christians.

    Ignoring the Pacific war would reduce the war dead to significantly less than 50 million.

    The Japanese weren't exactly bringing sunshine and lollipops to Pacific rim nations.

    That's what I get for taking him literally at his words.
    Synthesis wrote:
    Synthesis wrote:
    Yeah, that's be nice.

    Here you go.

    http://buchanan.org/blog/did-hitler-want-war-2068

    Buchanan was basically just preaching what was gospel among many in the West for a few decades or more: that the USSR was the real reason there was a Second World War.

    The fact that Germany killed +20 million Soviet citizens alone is justified because, you know, Stalin, and because, you know, communism. 20 years earlier, they would have cited the fact that Slavs and Central Asians are subhuman people anyway, so who gives a shit?

    Not a unique opinion.

    What.

    That is the largest bag of bollocks I've ever heard of.

    And it's non-uniqueness has no bearing on whether it's an awful, stupid thing to say and believe.

    It was gospel, though, and that's the dangerous part (gospel being the opposite of unique and rare in this case). Blame the German generals NATO asked to compile a history of the Eastern Front of the war who coincidentally wanted to cover their asses for crimes against humanity. Or blame American generals who found it terrifically inconvenient that the whole of the Soviet Union didn't vanish in a cloud of smoke like they had hoped it would in 1941. Or blame crazies like Curtis LeMay who wanted to shape Moscow's policies with nuclear weapons. In any case, there was a school of thought in which Buchanan is repeating something tantamount to the theory of gravity.

    It's pretty goddamn scary, and I say this as an East Asian, because the same discourse, sure enough, inked through the Soviet papers and onto "What to do about Red China" in the nuclear age. But it's not new in the least. On the contrary, it used to be the orthodox mindset, and the revisionists were the ones saying, "Hey, you know, we're not saying the Terror or the Ukrainian Famine weren't horrific, but maybe, just maybe, Belarus deserved to not be occupied by Poland, and maybe, just maybe, the Soviets fighting 80% of the German Army and stopping the genocide of the Slavs was a good thing in the long run." and being called crazy.

    When was this gospel? It makes no sense.

    But still, that doesn't justify Buchanan. It was gospel that black people only wanted to not be slaves because of a psychological problem. That doesn't mean you'd be ok to say it now.

    I've literally never heard of this 20 year gospel of "blame the russians" before today.

    Congratulations to you? It dominated the narrative in the late 1940s and 1950s (unsurprisingly), in part a response to what Churchill dubbed the fall of the Iron Curtain. It was only in the 1960s and 1970s when alternative theories were proposed. CIS archives being opened in the 1990s US archives being opened in the 2000s, with historians like Gabriel Gorodetsky (Israeli, not Russian, despite the name) actually investigating Moscow's pre-war standing supported them further. The fact is, before all this, the highest sources on the Eastern Front in western academia were written by German generals and officers who actually fought the war, because Soviet narratives were considered untrustworthy. To be fair, the reverse existed in Asia in the time period--histories were written by Zhukov and Rokossovsky, and the Germans were damned.

    I'm not happy at it. On the contrary, as a student of history, it makes me a little ill thinking about it, but that's how it was. We've only recently (on a academic scale) started to realize just how full of crap a lot of this preconceived notions were. That's why revisionism has its place--back then, the people screaming, "Hey, maybe Soviet lives are worth a comparable amount to Jewish lives or Western European lives. Or even Soviet Jewish lives..." were the revisionists in the UK and US. Academic revisionism isn't really something that's thought about hugely outside of academia itself, and arm chair military historians chose to believe whatever they want to believe (hence the success of guys like Vladimir Rezun/"Viktor Suvorov" in America and Russia) anyway. Grade schools largely skipped the topic when it became obvious it was being politicized, which is why most US history textbooks I've looked at mention it in about three sentences (after all, it's not a part of American history, I guess). It doesn't surprise me you haven't heard of this.

    tl;dr--Buchanan's a lot of things, but original ain't one of them.

    (the new quote minimizing system is pretty nifty--I was about to edit the quote for space when I remembered that)

    No need to be dick about it, just saying I hadn't heard of this before. With the amount of reading I do about the war it surprises me that I've missed it, that's all.

    But original or not, he can still bugger off.

    Wasn't my intention to be a dick about it (like I said, it's something that gives me a headache), but it was an extremely common mindset for several decades, and accepted as gospel.

  • AManFromEarthAManFromEarth Let's get to twerk! The King in the SwampRegistered User regular
    Synthesis wrote:
    Synthesis wrote:
    Nova_C wrote:
    Synthesis wrote:
    Doing Buchanan's math would make me want to stick a pen in my eye socket and twist, but it's entirely possible he's just ignoring China, Japan, and the Pacific War as a whole. He wouldn't be the first. Plus, you know, not that many Christians.

    Ignoring the Pacific war would reduce the war dead to significantly less than 50 million.

    The Japanese weren't exactly bringing sunshine and lollipops to Pacific rim nations.

    That's what I get for taking him literally at his words.
    Synthesis wrote:
    Synthesis wrote:
    Yeah, that's be nice.

    Here you go.

    http://buchanan.org/blog/did-hitler-want-war-2068

    Buchanan was basically just preaching what was gospel among many in the West for a few decades or more: that the USSR was the real reason there was a Second World War.

    The fact that Germany killed +20 million Soviet citizens alone is justified because, you know, Stalin, and because, you know, communism. 20 years earlier, they would have cited the fact that Slavs and Central Asians are subhuman people anyway, so who gives a shit?

    Not a unique opinion.

    What.

    That is the largest bag of bollocks I've ever heard of.

    And it's non-uniqueness has no bearing on whether it's an awful, stupid thing to say and believe.

    It was gospel, though, and that's the dangerous part (gospel being the opposite of unique and rare in this case). Blame the German generals NATO asked to compile a history of the Eastern Front of the war who coincidentally wanted to cover their asses for crimes against humanity. Or blame American generals who found it terrifically inconvenient that the whole of the Soviet Union didn't vanish in a cloud of smoke like they had hoped it would in 1941. Or blame crazies like Curtis LeMay who wanted to shape Moscow's policies with nuclear weapons. In any case, there was a school of thought in which Buchanan is repeating something tantamount to the theory of gravity.

    It's pretty goddamn scary, and I say this as an East Asian, because the same discourse, sure enough, inked through the Soviet papers and onto "What to do about Red China" in the nuclear age. But it's not new in the least. On the contrary, it used to be the orthodox mindset, and the revisionists were the ones saying, "Hey, you know, we're not saying the Terror or the Ukrainian Famine weren't horrific, but maybe, just maybe, Belarus deserved to not be occupied by Poland, and maybe, just maybe, the Soviets fighting 80% of the German Army and stopping the genocide of the Slavs was a good thing in the long run." and being called crazy.

    When was this gospel? It makes no sense.

    But still, that doesn't justify Buchanan. It was gospel that black people only wanted to not be slaves because of a psychological problem. That doesn't mean you'd be ok to say it now.

    I've literally never heard of this 20 year gospel of "blame the russians" before today.

    Congratulations to you? It dominated the narrative in the late 1940s and 1950s (unsurprisingly), in part a response to what Churchill dubbed the fall of the Iron Curtain. It was only in the 1960s and 1970s when alternative theories were proposed. CIS archives being opened in the 1990s US archives being opened in the 2000s, with historians like Gabriel Gorodetsky (Israeli, not Russian, despite the name) actually investigating Moscow's pre-war standing supported them further. The fact is, before all this, the highest sources on the Eastern Front in western academia were written by German generals and officers who actually fought the war, because Soviet narratives were considered untrustworthy. To be fair, the reverse existed in Asia in the time period--histories were written by Zhukov and Rokossovsky, and the Germans were damned.

    I'm not happy at it. On the contrary, as a student of history, it makes me a little ill thinking about it, but that's how it was. We've only recently (on a academic scale) started to realize just how full of crap a lot of this preconceived notions were. That's why revisionism has its place--back then, the people screaming, "Hey, maybe Soviet lives are worth a comparable amount to Jewish lives or Western European lives. Or even Soviet Jewish lives..." were the revisionists in the UK and US. Academic revisionism isn't really something that's thought about hugely outside of academia itself, and arm chair military historians chose to believe whatever they want to believe (hence the success of guys like Vladimir Rezun/"Viktor Suvorov" in America and Russia) anyway. Grade schools largely skipped the topic when it became obvious it was being politicized, which is why most US history textbooks I've looked at mention it in about three sentences (after all, it's not a part of American history, I guess). It doesn't surprise me you haven't heard of this.

    tl;dr--Buchanan's a lot of things, but original ain't one of them.

    (the new quote minimizing system is pretty nifty--I was about to edit the quote for space when I remembered that)

    No need to be dick about it, just saying I hadn't heard of this before. With the amount of reading I do about the war it surprises me that I've missed it, that's all.

    But original or not, he can still bugger off.

    Wasn't my intention to be a dick about it (like I said, it's something that gives me a headache), but it was an extremely common mindset for several decades, and accepted as gospel.

    Cool, cool.

    Lh96QHG.png
  • MentalExerciseMentalExercise Indefenestrable Registered User regular
    Nova_C wrote:
    Synthesis wrote:
    Doing Buchanan's math would make me want to stick a pen in my eye socket and twist, but it's entirely possible he's just ignoring China, Japan, and the Pacific War as a whole. He wouldn't be the first. Plus, you know, not that many Christians.

    Ignoring the Pacific war would reduce the war dead to significantly less than 50 million.

    The Japanese weren't exactly bringing sunshine and lollipops to Pacific rim nations.

    What? Bullshit. These are the people that invented Hello Kitty! They would never commit mass murder against the people of China and Korea, or use them to test chemical and biological weapons.

    "More fish for Kunta!"

    --LeVar Burton
  • SynthesisSynthesis Honda Today! Registered User regular
    Nova_C wrote:
    Synthesis wrote:
    Doing Buchanan's math would make me want to stick a pen in my eye socket and twist, but it's entirely possible he's just ignoring China, Japan, and the Pacific War as a whole. He wouldn't be the first. Plus, you know, not that many Christians.

    Ignoring the Pacific war would reduce the war dead to significantly less than 50 million.

    The Japanese weren't exactly bringing sunshine and lollipops to Pacific rim nations.

    What? Bullshit. These are the people that invented Hello Kitty! They would never commit mass murder against the people of China and Korea, or use them to test chemical and biological weapons.

    Little known fact: the Indian National Army, in its war against the British, came just short of Indian independence. Hello Kitty shortage at the last moment doomed millions of Indians to British colonial rule until after the war.

  • AngelHedgieAngelHedgie Registered User regular
    All lights are green on Shirley Sherrod's legal reaming of Breitbart.
    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/02/20/1066774/-Andrew-Breitbart-s-Bad-Week-Just-Got-Badder?via=siderec

    XBL: Nox Aeternum / PSN: NoxAeternum / NN:NoxAeternum / Steam: noxaeternum
  • shrykeshryke Member of the Beast Registered User regular

    You just made my day.

  • iTunesIsEviliTunesIsEvil Cornfield? Cornfield.Registered User regular
    Andrew Breitbart died last night at UCLA Medical Center apparently. Source.

  • SyphonBlueSyphonBlue The studying beaver That beaver sure loves studying!Registered User regular
    Well, that's...something.

    I'll wait til next week to say what I'm really thinking.

    LxX6eco.jpg
    PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
  • TomantaTomanta Registered User regular
    SyphonBlue wrote: »
    Well, that's...something.

    I'll wait til next week to say what I'm really thinking.

    That's my reaction as well.

  • iTunesIsEviliTunesIsEvil Cornfield? Cornfield.Registered User regular
    Yeah, I rewrote that post about 3 times to remove ... unpleasantries. Finally just went with just the factual part.

  • galenbladegalenblade Registered User regular
    I... What? That was completely out of the blue.

    linksig.jpg
  • SyphonBlueSyphonBlue The studying beaver That beaver sure loves studying!Registered User regular
    So what happens with the Shirley Sherrod case now? Was this his way of getting out of that?

    LxX6eco.jpg
    PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
  • Xenogear_0001Xenogear_0001 Registered User regular
    Well... damn. Any more details on what might have caused that yet?

    steam_sig.png
  • gtrmpgtrmp Registered User regular
    Well... damn. Any more details on what might have caused that yet?

    "Natural causes".
    Massive organ failure from alcohol and/or cocaine abuse is natural, right?

  • KalTorakKalTorak One way or another, they all end up in the Undercity.Registered User regular
    SyphonBlue wrote: »
    So what happens with the Shirley Sherrod case now? Was this his way of getting out of that?

    Probably complicates it a bit. Theoretically (is she suing for damages?) she could go after his estate.

  • DeebaserDeebaser on my way to work in a suit and a tie Ahhhh...come on fucking guyRegistered User regular
    edited March 2012
    Here are the highlights from the first 20 posts of the "Breitbart is Dead" thread on freerepublic.
    He must have had something big on the administration.
    He announces that he has tapes of obama and he he is now dead????????
    I just saw this on Drudge. WTF?? Natural causes? What the hell does that mean? He just died and they are declaring it immediately as “natural causes”? Obamacide?
    First thing I thought. I wouldn’t put it past the POS.

    Tragic! WOW! Move on over Vince Foster!

    I smell a BIG rat here!



    Deebaser on
  • KalTorakKalTorak One way or another, they all end up in the Undercity.Registered User regular
    HE KNEW TOO MUCH!

This discussion has been closed.