utemia

Reply to US DRONE ATTACKS ON CIVILIAN TARGETS in Current Events JoeUser Forums

And "every frenchmen was in the resistance" (a favoured french belief) is just a baldfaced lie. The vichy regime did more than it had to and out of its own accord to collaborate with the nazis. French (police - don't know for sure how that was organized) rounded up the jews and then handed them over to the nazis. The only country that actively did something to protect its jewish citizens was Denmark. They helped all of them (or almost all) to escape. Interesting in regards to the over

Reply to US DRONE ATTACKS ON CIVILIAN TARGETS in Current Events JoeUser Forums

Yeah. I don't have a good answer to that and I do argue that point with many that claim "they didn't know". How could they claim to have no knowledge when there was so overwhelming proof of what went on? It sounds unbelievable at best. Buchenwald wasn't a secluded highsecurity compound after all. I wish I could have a good explanation, it would be better than the knowledge that many of my ancestors were heartless, careless racist murderes through the bench because inaction equaled to complici

Reply to My Son. My Felon? Part 2. in Current Events JoeUser Forums

I just read this little story on CNN - can I just say that I am really glad not to have kids in american schools.. no wonder many consider homeschooling a better alternative. A 12 year old girl was arrested and handcuffed for doodling on her desk. While I don't think that it should go without somesort of punishment like staying behind and helping the janitor or something like that, scaring the beejezus into a little prepuscent girl like that is the true crime. She was treated like a h

Reply to The Lie About Arab Refugees in War on Terror JoeUser Forums

Or it is an example that there is no such thing as a historic fact because all you need are enough people to believe and repeat the story you tell and then it becomes a fact. As fas as I remember propaganda is not really based on a truth. It also shows that if a rumor is repeated often enough it can become a fact. Another example (out of context to this) is the massacre of polish army officers in Katyn by the russian military. It was a "fact" for many decades that it had been done by the nazi

Reply to US DRONE ATTACKS ON CIVILIAN TARGETS in Current Events JoeUser Forums

Bahu, sorry for Hijacking your thread.. it wasn't planned or anything. I think the new strategy in Afghanistan is pretty solid because it aims not only to root out the taleban but also to stay afterwards to make sure the transition into a talebanfree time remains permanent. Also, according to what I have read and saw in the news, everything is done to avoid civilian casualties. But of course time will tell and it is way too early to make predictions on the outcome. A new phenomenon of

Reply to US DRONE ATTACKS ON CIVILIAN TARGETS in Current Events JoeUser Forums

A historic theory is based on "facts" or documents and not solely on the oppinion of the author. And if I remember correctly I was just referring to what is out there theorywise because there are many different interpretations from historians all over the world of how the 3rd Reich worked, what german society was like etc. - a very crude attempt at an overview if you will. I never said that it was my oppinion, though. All I said is that nazi germany's history (and all history) isn't s

Reply to US DRONE ATTACKS ON CIVILIAN TARGETS in Current Events JoeUser Forums

Taltamir, I suggest you pick up a history book before calling me an evil person for citing the weak dictator theory. Had you read and thus known what this theory is all about (a functionalist analysis of how the 3rd Reich administration and bureaucracy worked) you would know that it does not make excuses for what happened and is not revisionist. If anything it blamed more people for what happened and not just Hitler as the

Reply to US DRONE ATTACKS ON CIVILIAN TARGETS in Current Events JoeUser Forums

[quote]It DOESN'T MATTER who filmed it. What the video shows is either true or false regardless of the nationality, religion, or profession of the cameraman. And it also doesn't matter why it was presented to the media (obviously so it be made known to the public, duh). Your "serious historian" does the same as the sensational media would: he looks at the who and the why but not the what. He would analyse everything and everyone except the simple fact that exp

Reply to US DRONE ATTACKS ON CIVILIAN TARGETS in Current Events JoeUser Forums

Double post

Reply to US DRONE ATTACKS ON CIVILIAN TARGETS in Current Events JoeUser Forums

my internet connection sucks sometimes - sorry for this

Reply to US DRONE ATTACKS ON CIVILIAN TARGETS in Current Events JoeUser Forums

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Reply to US DRONE ATTACKS ON CIVILIAN TARGETS in Current Events JoeUser Forums

You assume that the population couldd have ended the war if they had only wanted it enough. You completely disregard the dynamics that evolve in the course of a war - any war - and insist instead that the people didn't WANT to do anything. I think the majority were just trying to survive, especially the refugees and bombed out populace all over germany. The majority didn't do anything to actively prolong the war and surrendered as soon as they could. Those that did actively or surrept

Reply to US DRONE ATTACKS ON CIVILIAN TARGETS in Current Events JoeUser Forums

Please don't mix respectable historians together with sensational media. The media presents the facts according to the story they want to tell. After all, a jourmalist wants to make a profit from his/her work. A serious historian looks at a fact or source of information (like the videoclip) and the first thing he would do is to analyze who filmed it, what the circumstances of the war in Lebanon were and who might have had an interest in presenting the video the way it had been

Reply to US DRONE ATTACKS ON CIVILIAN TARGETS in Current Events JoeUser Forums

You know, you're right with the claim that maybe I complicate the issue. But Bahu has a valid point in mentioning the problematics surrounding "historic" facts. What is a fact.. there is a whole section of historiographic science dedicated to this issue. History and its facts are never not complicated. Dreseden on its own seems easy enough, I suppose. The ctiy was bombed in war that the country where the city is in started - the end. Bu

Reply to The politics of energy in Politics JoeUser Forums

I just read that Obama greenlighted a 8billion government loan guarantee to build 2 new reactors in Georgia. For the first time since 30 years the US will build a new reactor. I guess we'll see if they're really that much safer and better in practice.

Reply to US DRONE ATTACKS ON CIVILIAN TARGETS in Current Events JoeUser Forums

The startingpoint of any analysis on this issue is the question whether the polarization in "primacy of politics" and "primacy of economy" doesn't equal a crude simplification of the complex structural interrelation between NS politics and the interests of the german industry in itself. Reducing the issue to the alternatives of politics and economy narrows the meaning "politics" down and suggests a crude dychotomy between state and society. Historical research done on Nazi economy sugge

Reply to US DRONE ATTACKS ON CIVILIAN TARGETS in Current Events JoeUser Forums

What I read didn't pin the sole blame on the big industrials. One of the mainproblems regards the question wether the reach for power of the Nazis could be deduced from the character of german capitalism and the schemes and political goals of the industrial german elite. It isn't as simple as viewing it as the primitive instrumentalisation of the nazis from the start by a power- and moneyhungry group, nor can structural connections between capitalism and the rise of power of the Nazis be deni

Reply to US DRONE ATTACKS ON CIVILIAN TARGETS in Current Events JoeUser Forums

Looking at the facts and drawing a conclusion - sounds easy enough. That is exactly what a good historian does, interpreting facts and leaving personal oppinion out of it, which leaves the reader free to make up their own oppinion of everything with the bonus of having someone qualified go to the archives and find all the evidence. What I read about Goldhagen's book was that he worked rather sloppy with the sources/documents - that is like a death sentence for a historian. Historical

Reply to US DRONE ATTACKS ON CIVILIAN TARGETS in Current Events JoeUser Forums

I didn't use quotation marks as a sign that you said it but in order to highlight a very common oppinion. I appologize if that was misleading. I also never denied support for Hitler, I said that not everybody was a supporter. And war in itself changes the attitude and oppinion of people, don't forget that. Hitler faked an attack on Poland and made it look like Germany was defending itself. How would a simple worker know that was a lie? If he supported Germany's war effort, he deserved

Reply to How to leave a soldier - or destroy him in Marriage JoeUser Forums

I don't know if you read the link - there were portions of the OP posted there. What I found cowardly was that Ms Cook thought it was a brilliant idea to do it when her husband wasn't around - no confrontation and arguing involved. I mean if you are married and the marriage didn't work anymore I would think that the least you can do is saying it face to face like adults. [quote] You'd be surprised how easy it is to leave a soldier on deployment. You can do it with a letter. (He can't

Reply to US DRONE ATTACKS ON CIVILIAN TARGETS in Current Events JoeUser Forums

You pretend that decisions and consequenes are always clear cut, and that the blame is always clear cut as well. If you were to read some of the litereature you might start to notice that it isn't. For example Stauffenberg.. he was seen as a traitor, not a hero, after the war. He betrayed his country - if you looked at what he did without context. I can't tell you the exact numbers, but I do know that there was vehement resistance against naming public places and buildings after him.

Reply to US DRONE ATTACKS ON CIVILIAN TARGETS in Current Events JoeUser Forums

It was neither just one person nor everybody that is guilty. It was a few people in the wrong powerful (or right) position, coupled with external conditions that rewarded ruthlessness, Hitler's racial hateideology spurring them on. And the implicit sharing and distributing of the blame by involving whole sections of society in the nationasocialist society and merging it all into a sort of collective identity. (most) People, societies and cultures are by definition complex. Even

Reply to US DRONE ATTACKS ON CIVILIAN TARGETS in Current Events JoeUser Forums

Leauki, you still simplify too much. While you're right on many issues, especially with the consequences regarding being a german, things are complex there as well. I researched allied war crime trials the after the end of WW2, the policies adopted by the allied forces council and why an astonishingly large group recieved clemency or had their sentence drasticalyl reduced - all in the years 45-49. I puzzled me to no end and I wanted to know why so many barbaric

Reply to US DRONE ATTACKS ON CIVILIAN TARGETS in Current Events JoeUser Forums

Yes I read about that in the news. It was a mistake, not deliberate. War is violent and innocent people die, even if everything humanely possible is done to avoid it. After all, the goal of the mission is to free that region and the city and to hold it so that the government can establish its control there - rather conventional warfare come to think of it - plus the goal of minimizing civilian losses to almost zero if at all possible. They need the population on their side and not again

Reply to Uh, yes, that IS socialism in Politics JoeUser Forums

Many criticize "Big Government" that wastes a ton of money for welfare on allegedly lazy people. Or at least I remember having read alot of comments on JU to this regard. Case in point: [quote]That is the core part of socialism – forcing people to pay for other people.[/quote] My question was how it is possible to implement a system based on social solidarity but also personal responsibilty without a "Big Government". [quote]The problem is when a majority of people don't c