SuprstitionAintthWay
SuprstitionAintthWay's JournalAdding that, it's not like the people who were suffering over there didn't know we were stalling.
Churchill implored us for over a year to enter the war and rescue England. That was an existential plea from the Mother Country itself, but Roosevelt's answer pre-Pearl Harbor had to be, Sorry, politically, I just can't do it. We can supply you, but I can't send American soldiers. We're all rooting for your RAF against the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain, though!
After Hitler decided he wanted more than Poland in the East and flipped on his "ally' the Soviet Union, Stalin, suddenly OUR ally instead, implored FDR for years, plural, to open a Western front and save Russia from the decimation it was suffering at the hands of what was clearly the best military to ever exist. Suffering that Russia was doing all alone. No nation in history has ever lost as high a proportion of its population in a war as Russia did in WWII. (Well, maybe North Korea 1951-1953 when Curtis LeMay leveled every city in the country. We'll say no major nation has.)
Roosevelt replied, Sorry Joe. Later... I promise! For now, we can help you with war materiel. Keep killing those krauts!
American Jews, aware of the Holocast that was going on, strived mightily to educate FDR about it and get America heavily into the fight against Germany from the West. Roosevelt wasn't particularly Jew-friendly and largely ignored them. Later we'd claim we had no idea what was going on in the camps.
America was vitally important in achieving Victory In Europe, obviously. But for domestic consumption we've always spiffed up our roles a bit... as any nation does. War is the ugliest business on earth, and going about it with a certain ruthlessness usually does work better for one's side than does nobility. My own father was in that war but managed to not die in it. I got to be conceived a decade afterwards as a result and I now selfishly regard that as a good thing. Like Patton said, in war the idea is to get the OTHER GUY to die for HIS country. This America not infrequently has done. And I don't feel in a position to complain about it.
Correct. And the Saudi military is 1 of the 2 significant counterweights to the expansion of Iranian
military power in the Persian Gulf region.
The other one being Israel.
Iraq was a 3rd and the most effective of the three but of course Dubya screwed that pooch by (calamitously) replacing its Sunni regime with an Iranian-aligned Shiite one.
Saudis make interesting pilot trainees. They are Western-educated and bi-lingual, so all that's good. But yes many are royalty-linked, too, and that's a mixed bag. Many arrive with their own needs for kid-glove handling. As well as lots of money for all kinds of off-hours fun here where it's very available for purchase. (And if their fun gets them into serious trouble here, they rarely pay consequences beyond monetary ones. All part of America's longstanding special relationship with their country.)
Generally speaking Saudi male children, royals and not, are raised as very privileged. In their families their sisters and mothers cater to them. All the world's women really should be subservient to men, is the culture.
They tend to have negligible experience with hard physical work. Saudi Arabia imports foreign guest workers to do nearly all work that entails a man getting his hands dirty; it is seen as beneath the native born Wahhibi sons. Lots of flowing, immaculately clean white men's robes worn there signal, "I never get dirty."
Most arrive here not well accustomed to receiving criticism.
They can be sophisticated and worldly young men, especially compared to many from other Arab countries (Kuwait and the Emirates excepted). But prima donnas can be sophisticated too.
All generalizations, of course. Everybody's different.
But, learning to fly a military jet has over-inflated many a young man's self-regard, even those from a middle class background and not already raised to regard himself as some kind of prince.
Of course it was higher. Had we entered early we could have cut probably a couple
of years off WWII. A shorter global war would have meant fewer people would have died worldwide.
But more AMERICANS surely would have died under that scenario. And that's why we didn't, why isolationism was our choice for a good spell.
Our most self-interested delay of all was, after entering the war, not attempting to liberate France for years... not opening a Western front against against Hitler.
Dec 1941 we were in the war. We held off on Normandy until June 1944... that's a long time.
But during that long span Britain at least was safe. Meanwhile we were heavily committed in the Pacific.
And most fortuitously of all, Germany and Russia were beating the holy hell out of each other on the opposite side of Europe. The battles of Moscow and Stalingrad were the two bloodiest battles Planet Earth has ever seen. The German-Russian part of WWII was the single biggest conflict in human history. Over 50 million people died in WWII, and Russians alone made up more than 20 million of them.
It was the Russians who reversed the tide of WWII in Europe. Not us. We held off on our big push against Hitler from the West until after Russia suffered their unimaginable losses and in doing so first put the Nazis on the run.
Stalin was as bad a fucking monster as Hitler, I'm no admirer of the former Soviet Union. But we absolutely could have saved several million Russian lives (and at least 2 or 3 million Jewish lives from death camps in Germany and Poland), and thereby significantly reduced the total tally of dead from WWII, had we not delayed like we did, both in first entering the war, and then in opening a Western front in Europe.
Thing was, tho, those were Russians dying to reverse the course of the war in Europe. So, to spare American lives, we weren't in a big hurry. Those were self-interested decisions. But I don't feel in a position to significantly question them; I'll leave it at just understanding them.
Be Wary When Racially Divisive Stories Able To Damage Dems Suddenly Take Off
Turns out the kneeling-black-athletes protracted culture war slugfest was surreptitiously pimped to us from Moscow and St. Petersburg over our social media, at a proportion of 10 Russians or Russian bots masquerading as Americans, to every 1 real American.
Leading me to believe that the Russians have to have their big fat hand in our new blacks-don't-like-the-Democratic-gay-white-mayor storm, too.
And that, if so, our mainstream media has swallowed it all hook line and sinker, again.
Washington Post article title:
PETE BUTTIGIEG, STRUGGLING TO GAIN BLACK SUPPORT, USES N.C. CHURCH VISIT TO ISSUE 'MORAL CALL TO UNITY'
Article link:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/pete-buttigieg-struggling-to-gain-black-support-uses-nc-church-visit-to-issue-moral-call-to-unity/2019/12/01/f00ca46c-1492-11ea-a659-7d69641c6ff7_story.html
1,034 reader comments were posted: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/pete-buttigieg-struggling-to-gain-black-support-uses-nc-church-visit-to-issue-moral-call-to-unity/2019/12/01/f00ca46c-1492-11ea-a659-7d69641c6ff7_story.html?outputType=comment
To be clear, I'm not trying to claim Buttigieg isn't polling relatively poorly with black Democrats.
I'm saying the fuss we've seen in the media over that fact has almost certainly been significantly inflated and inflamed by Moscow via Zuckerberg's frankenstein monster and similar tools some now-super-wealthy Americans built and laid in Putin's lap.
My first of two comments:
Down In Va With Your Cousin Lou
[ yes, WaPo commenting name is from the R. Stones' "Dear Doctor," off Beggar's Banquet ]
Dec 2, 2019
Only recently we learned that the racially divisive Colin Kaepernick kneeling controversy was pushed through social media by Russians and Russian bots masquerading as Americans by a margin of 10 to 1 over actual Americans. The media at the time, though, reported it aggressively and even sensationalistically, obviously assuming all the hubbub was 100% of domestic origin.
In 2016 the GRU and its hirelings and bots pushed at well-targeted black voters vile lies that Hillary was supposedly racist. Those lies had a real effect in reducing black turnout in key states.
Now here we have this high-visibility eruption of Democratic candidate Pete Buttigieg's supposed inability to win support from black voters.
I strongly suspect we'll learn later that a lot or even most of the heat on this story is coming from fake "Americans," too. Race obviously being Putin's favorite fault line in American society to artificially, clandestinely pry apart wider at every opportunity.
thumbs up: 15
Hokiebabe1
Dec 2, 2019
[ her response to an idiot's question ]
No. What he is [ I was ] saying is CK’s kneeling was not a big deal to most Americans (because even if they disagree with someone, they believe it is a person’s right to voice dissent) until Russian bots TOLD them it was a big deal by creating a false narrative and creating a ‘band wagon effect’.
thumbs up: 20
John The Quiet
Dec 2, 2019
Many Americans are too lazy to question things they see on the internet, and therefore are bamboozled by Russian propaganda!
thumbs up: 14
Hokiebabe1
Dec 2, 2019
...All humans are manipulated. And they were manipulated here.
There are a lot of people who make a lot of money manipulating groups of people. And not all of them in politics. But the fundamentals are the same.
BTW people who project a lot are easier targets for manipulation.
[ she's alluding to a rightwing troll/commenter ]
itshardtobecreative
Dec 2, 2019
[In the impeachment hearings] many testified that the Russians are masters at manipulation and that they are, at this very moment, using these tactics online to sow misinformation, conflict, and distrust.
The only antidote is to call it out and demand fact based evidence.
CascadeJoe
Dec 2, 2019
Probably more like the national media was too quick to treat the bot output as real.
The usual suspects used the bot output as gospel because it agreed with their view of things.
nedstark5
Dec 2, 2019
[ My comment drew 10 replies, including this one from this guy, the Rep. Gym Jordan of Washington Post political article commentary -- essentially a rightwing troll. This was one of several attacks he made on others in this article's comments section; it is his only one on me. He accuses me of lying. Like so many conservatives he believes in just always attacking, in pressing the fight, flinging poop, and doesn't seem to care at all whether what he writes is true or false. ]
"Only recently we learned that the racially divisive Colin Kaepernick kneeling controversy was pushed through social media by Russians and Russian bots masquerading as Americans by a margin of 10 to 1 over actual Americans."
Spontaneously made up fake news.
[ his false accusation drew 0 thumbs up ]
Down In Va With Your Cousin Lou
Dec 3, 2019
[ I don't reply to malicious shit-stirrers like nedstark5 but wanted the below sourcing out there, so replied to my own original post ]
The Senate Intelligence Committee's October report on Russia's use of social media to attack our elections, political system, and national unity, can be accessed here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/senate-intelligence-committee-report-on-russian-interference-in-2020-u-s-elections/232bf09a-47ad-4695-b9b6-61f0a2894856/
Every American should read it.
Pp. 53-54 report Russia's inflaming of the kneeling-black-athletes controversy.
The Chairman of Senate Intelligence is Sen. Richard Burr, Republican of North Carolina. Minority Co-Chair is Sen. Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia. The two senators have worked together closely, acted responsibly, and both are careful to not undermine their Committee's work by overstating anything. It was Sen. Warner who on (Republican) Margaret Hoover's interview show recently provided the quantification of the scale of the Russians' online intervention in the kneeling athletes controversy.
That scale being 10 "stories," posts, tweets, retweets, forwards, shares, recommends or likes by a Russian troll or Russian bot masquerading as American, for every one by an actual American.
It would be wildly out of the norm for Russia if it was NOT currently surreptitiously working very hard online to inflame Democratic candidate Pete Buttigieg's perceived problems with black voters. Using the same social media platforms as they have been to date to attack us, only with increasing sophistication and skill as they continually improve their stunningly successful operations.
A couple of yrs ago I put it at 19% voted Hillary, 18% voted Trump.
And somehow our fucked up electoral college system, further sabotaged by Putin, Assange, Repubs helping them, Zuckerberg's monster, Comey, a "both sides" media, and Repub dirty tricks and voter suppression, interpreted that vote as the con man "wins."
I keep expecting Putin to just take the western shore of the Azur Sea
to have an easy land route to Crimea, as well as make the Sea just another Russian lake.
He's all set up to do it. He's taken military control of the mouth of the Azur Sea into the Black Sea. His mercenary army in Donesk would protect the west flank of such a move. And he can use his "some russophones live there" pretense there, too. (An excuse Spain could use to invade Mexico, or France Quebec, or England America.)
Fear of more sanctions must be the only thing stopping him.
I'm sure he's very unhappy about his Oval Office stooge's failure to lift the Obama sanctions, other than those Moscow Mitch got lifted.
Ukraine will need another $400M in help in Summer 2020, too.
It's an existential need. Without it Ukraine may well become a client state of Moscow, again. Be forced to turn away from Western style liberal democracy and revert to the Belarus-style Russian-satellite autocracy Putin is trying to re-impose in Ukraine.
With those stakes, would you gamble that Trump isn't going to still be control of the needed aid 9 months from now?
Zelensky can't. He has to continue to kiss our Mobster-In-Chief's ring, for now.
I agree with your subject line, 1st pph, and 1st sentence in pph 2.
I too expect the U.S. as it currently exists will never again be able to adopt a constitutional amendment of any significance. (A token one, maybe.)
I depart from the view some have, however, that there is nothing to be gained from discussing how grossly undemocratic the EC and the Senate are.
Heavy opposition to the EC improves the chances the interstate compact someday reaches the threshhold 270 state electors. It'll be tough to do, but it's much more feasible than an amendment.
And maybe the U.S. IS going to need to break up. When a pattern establishes in which the minority party loses the national Senate vote but still "wins" control of it, loses presidential elections while still "winning" the White House, and through the first two institutions (and dishonorable actions), despite being the minority retains control of SCOTUS, the 3rd branch as well, the majority of voters at SOME point are going to have to change things in a big way.
People... the majority of American voters... need to be highly aware of how badly they're being abused by the other side for them to be moved to take steps on the scale that may become needed. And to riff slightly on a (I think) Gloria Steinem line, yes the truth will set you free, but first it NEEDS to piss you off.
People aren't children, they can handle multiple issues at the same time. They don't need to be herded down a "do this, ignore that" path when both matters are as important as these.
And Citizens United legalized the concept of 1 billionaire, 5 million votes.
Another catastrophic blow to democracy from Roberts' court.
"Money equals speech" (and hey, go ahead and make that anonymous money while we're at it) must be overturned, or it alone over time can beat down our system of government so badly it might even eventually be able to kill our grand experiment in democracy off.
Yes, Penn, Mich, and Wisc ARE the election next year.
44k, 22k, and 11k margin losses in 2016.
Unless we take back Florida, a somewhat longer shot, those 3 are the ballgame... we MUST win back all 3.
I love Elizabeth Warren -- I'm a moderate but there's nothing in her economic, tax, or even health care platforms that worries me. But if she continues to underperform in those 3 states, yes, I will definitely vote for Uncle Joe in my state's primary.
We bring out 78k voters in those 3 stares who stayed home in 2016 for whatever bad excuse they used. Or we flip 39k voters from Trump to Dem. Or some combination thereof.
Biden/Klobuchar or Biden/Buttigieg may be the best way to do that.
The electoral college is undemocratic and an abomination. It enabled America's first demagogic president to take office in direct violation of the expressed will of the American people. To me he is an electoralcolleged president. I reserve the honor of the word "elected" for presidents the American people, not 270 or more "electors," chose.
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