Chaos in USA

[Undried Plum]

there is little doubt that without US aid you would be paying taxes to Berlin.

We are paying taxes to Berlin! They run the EU and we pay them for doing so.

You are quite right though that the US's colossal industrial capacity was immensely important in determining the outcome of the war.

The BEF was a ****. Tobruk was a ****. Malaya/Singapore was a ****. The Battle of Britain was a draw. Bomber Command's Battle of Berlin was a failure. In March '44 they had to call it Quits when the loss rate reached a totally unsustainable 12% per night.

The Septics, gawd bless their cotton socks, really did make a difference. Operation Overlord would/could never happen without them.

Churchill's "soft underbelly" idea was bonkers. Pissing around in Greece was bonkers too. He was obsessed with keeping the British Empire going despite the fact that it was **** with the fall of Singapore. Suez was the British Empire's carotid artery and he was desperate to protect it at all costs.

He persuaded FDR to invade North Africa, fully in the knowledge that Libya would be lost to the US fascist Empire. Actually, unexpectedly, the Septics got their arses well and truly kicked at Kasserene by wee Rommel. They got their arses kicked by the Libyan people too, years later. The fascist Septic Empire's biggest airbase in the whole of Africa was Wheelus. They've never forgiven the Libyan people for that. They never will.

[John Hill]

Without the vast quantities of arms and critical supplies provided by the US victory for both the UK and Russia would have been very unlikely. Not only did the US supply finished armaments they provided the machinery and raw materials for the UK to produce their own arms, a capability which otherwise would have been totally unavailable. Even at its pre-war peak and not subject to German attack the existing UK industrial base and raw materials were simply not large enough to produce enough armaments to fight a prolonged war.

Now let us look at UK oil supplies compared with the US.

Iran: 10,359,000 t (1938) rising to 19,189,000 t by 1945
Iraq: 4,272,000 (1938) and 4,476,000 (1945)
USA: 172,866,000 tonnes (1938).

The 1938 figures show that the US had over ten times as much oil available in 1938 than the UK had available from their own sources and US oil supplies subsequently allowed much of the Middle Eastern oil to be used in the North Africa confrontations thus not requiring the very dangerous operation of getting that oil to the UK by sea. The oil output from the Middle East increased only moderately throughout the war.

You can make as many sarcastic remarks about US military ability as you like but there is little doubt that without US aid you would be paying taxes to Berlin. If you are the hub of an Empire, at peace, and you control the flow of World resources as Britain did you can take time to develop your military, if you are under attack and the needed resources are being choked off, as an Island nation, you are in big trouble. You only have to imagine how Britain would have fared without the US convoys to see resistance would have been perhaps glorious but ultimately futile unless you plan to fight Panzers with pitchforks.

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All very interesting boing but I am sure you will agree this is all ancient history....

[boing]

John,

I suppose you could say that anything that happened over a fraction of a second ago is ancient history, it has happened, you cannot change it and it is only a memory. What we call "history" is that which has been recorded and remembered which, to the real history if we could see it, is only a drop in a hundred oceans. You are history John, I am history. The only difference between us and Caesar is that Caesar no longer creates history but for a short time longer we have the potential to do so. Have you noticed than in the history of even a very famous individual only a very, very, tiny part of his or her story is remembered and only this small part is considered significant?

The social horrors that you dredge up with such import and intensity may seem to you to be civilisation shattering but they are actually as significant as the unrecorded farts of Alexander the Great and although they seem so important to your belief system they will soon be forgotten "like tears in rain" or a shadow on the grass.

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[ExSp33db1rd]

..........unless you plan to fight Panzers with pitchforks.

not disagreeing with you, but remember ....................

"We shall fight them on the beaches .......... etc. We shall never surrender " W.S.Churchill.

I wouldn't be paying taxes to Berlin, I'd be dead.

Paying taxes to Berlin couldn't be a worse fate than that experienced by my American wife, now living out of the USA, when she attempts to deal with the IRS. ( or even with USA banks ) Do Americans not realise that there is a Big Wide World beyond the shores of New York and California, and she can't "just pop into your nearest branch and they'll sort it out for you". and if the IRS can't be bothered dealing with her, and find it so difficult, why don't they just let her go, as she currently pays tax to her present domain as well ? Fat chance ( FATCA actually, the cause of most of the trouble )

Don't start me.

[barkingmad]

In addition to paying taxes to Berlin until long after 2300GMT 31/12/2020 we have been shovelling vast quantities of dosh to our ‘Murricane allies’ for a very long time until this event;

https://www.warhistoryonline.com/instan ... debts.html

But that ended 14 years ago so it’s ancient history and not worth bothering about.

Not a lot is mentioned about the U-boats operating off the US East Coast during WW2 so it’s convenient to taunt the Europeans as if they were the only targets of that nice Mr Hilter (!) and that the US would have been next in line if Europe had not stood fast against him.

Don’t forget your space race efforts were considerably assisted and made possible by sheltering some very dubious characters shipped west in a hurry at the end of hostilities!

WTF are you people teaching in your history faculties ‘cos it sure isn’t history?!

[boing]

I am unfortunately not in charge of our schools and universities otherwise boys less than 10 years old would still be wearing short trousers with a cap and long socks and the university curricula would be somewhat restricted from the present "create a degree" garbage.

Neither am I responsible for the morality of war, battles where no prisoners were taken, punitive sacking of towns, mercenaries, fabricated justification of war, incompetence of military leadership and as you mention a convenient changing of sides as in "my life traded for my knowledge". All of these actions that were practiced pretty much uniformly by all nations and tribes which seemed necessary as a matter of survival at the time but now we reject, in hindsight, as immoral. You could say that the Von Braun (and other) cases were rather like hiring a mercenary adviser who you consider despicable but who provides you with the legal or tax expertise you so badly need.

And as for what is being taught in history, who knows. I know that what I was taught seemed to start at the Roman Invasion and end at the beginning of WW1. Geopolitics from 1900 to date was never even mentioned which leads me to think that history has always been taught as a load of nice but irrelevant facts when it could or should have been taught as the introduction to modern geopolitics. Perhaps the school I attended was rather too conservative.

History is history as soon as it is created. The actions taken a second ago could affect lives for a hundred years but they are still history. The division of history into ancient or modern is merely an academic convenience, all of history is relevant, we learn as much from Plato as we do from Mao, the flavour does not matter, the wisdom gained does. The question becomes do we learn from that history and as a result change our futures or do we use that history as justification to make the same mistakes again.

There is absolutely no sense in using historical mistakes and grudges as the primary guidance for our future actions because the baggage associated with the past events clouds our judgement in planning our future. This, I think, is the great fault of movements such as BLM. We need to be able to say that what happened in the past we now consider wrong but acknowledge that it was a mistake of its time and place and the bitterness should not effect our future actions. Now we use the old story about giving a man a fish or teaching him to fish. I see granting artificial equality or paying reparations as giving a man a fish. Nice but not a long term solution. Our aim should be to ensure true equality of opportunity and to mainstream minorities but we have to admit that this will require work and patience by both sides involved.

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[Boac]

Florida leading the tables by a mile for new infections and deaths. Now, why would that be.............?

[barkingmad]

Florida leading the tables by a mile for new infections and deaths. Now, why would that be.............?

Far too many red-blooded young men cramming into the ”Hooters” eating/drinking establishments.

After all, following an extended period of lockdown, it’s only fair that they can get out and study practical anthropology?

In case anyone hasn’t done the course;

https://www.hooters.com/

[Dushan]

that nice Mr Hilter (!)

[barkingmad]

Normally one would say about the USA “It can’t get any worse”, but it just has!

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... nside.html

No apologies for the source, it was RT news which alerted me as UK MSM was navel-gazing on Covid-1984 ‘cases’ and EUSSR total bollocks.

[boing]

Another few thousand votes for Trump. I think events like this must make genuine BLM organisers cringe but the group may have been so infiltrated by Antifa they have lost control. As Douglas Murray said in an interview the troublemakers have morphed from political fanatics to cult members with examples of the younger crowd turning on their friends and family who oppose their beliefs.

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[barkingmad]

Boing, correct! As D M says, movements like BLM are a replacement religion for those seeking one but not finding it in Judao-Christian or Islamic tenets.

I think one of his most haunting quotes was the grandchild’s remark to the grandparent explaining why they couldn’t meet up ever again.

It used to be called brainwashing and seems to have been revived in a turbocharged version, probably not very long lasting but the damage done until maturity and reality kick in will be permanently damaging to families.

[boing]

You mean sort of like they want Heaven and the virgins right now without the nasty complication of dying?

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[llondel]

Apparently some of the claims that Antifa are deliberately setting fires in Oregon is because of people listening in to the radio who don't realise that BLM also stands for Bureau of Land Management.

[boing]

Sounds like a good joke but I bet that in rural Oregon if you said BLM most people would think of Bureau of Land Management first because they have so much contact with that BLM over forest management and range use.

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[PHXPhlyer]

As I stated previously, I believe that the Bureau of Land Management used the acronym first.
Could they sue?

PP

[boing]

PP

I think that you can use similar names if there can be no confusion over the roles of the two organisations. For example a "Bridge Support" could literally repair bridges but a "Bridge Support" could also provide mental health counseling.

Since the stated purpose of the Bureau of Land Management is to protect rural areas and the practical purpose of Black Lives Matter is to destroy urban areas I do not think there can be any confusion.

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[John Hill]

...the practical purpose of Black Lives Matter is to destroy urban areas............ .

I do not know who told you that but according to Black Lives Matter their stated purpose ....

Four years ago, what is now known as the Black Lives Matter Global Network began to organize. It started out as a chapter-based, member-led organization whose mission was to build local power and to intervene when violence was inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes.

In the years since, we’ve committed to struggling together and to imagining and creating a world free of anti-Blackness, where every Black person has the social, economic, and political power to thrive.

[boing]

John

I live 15 miles from Portland, Oregon so I see the BLM/Antifa rioting reported every night and I see reports that never make it without distortion into the national media.

I do not know who told you that

is a laughable comment.

You live on the other side of the World and get your "knowledge" from newspaper reports and BLM's internally generated position statements better known as propaganda.

BLM has morphed into a wannabee political party that is violently anti right, even violently mildly right, but strangely it is becoming quite dismissive of the lefty Democrats who helped create it and still support it. It is no coincidence that rioting has begun two hours south of Portland in a city called Eugene and that organisers of the Portland riots have been identified at the Eugene riots. They are simply trying to create as much urban chaos as they can. Eugene is an easy target since it is a college town with plenty of brainwashed supporters available.

For the original BLM I have a modicum of sympathy but the original BLM has been taken over by extremists both black and white. Presently the rioters are being allowed to continue their activities with moderate police intervention because that is all that is being allowed but the counter-protestors are being diverted by the police because they are easier to deal with than the rioters, that is they way the two groups are being kept apart. Both groups are now armed in a sort of crazy local arms race and if the police intervention is ever removed there will be chaos but the authorities refuse to see that far ahead.

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[boing]

Here is the sort of rubbish we are dealing with now. A Democratic deputy state attorney general in Oregon ( and just why judicial positions need to be politically associated I can't work out ) has ruled that the Republican voter statement for Oregon ( each party publishes a voter statement setting out their positions ) was filed too late to be included with the normal election paperwork normally supplied to voters. The voter statement was complete and in the hands of the correct people but the time stamp on it is 29 seconds, 29 seconds, too late for it to to be handed out to voters according to the DSAG. A court has ruled that the statement should be accepted and printed but the DSAG has only agreed to print the statement while he appeals the court ruling. 29 bloody seconds and the statement was in the hands of the right people it was simply put into the time stamping machine too slowly.

https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/202 ... luded.html

Voter suppression, no never, not the Democrats.

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