A lame Australian response to a Donald brush off

Discussion in 'Latest US & World News' started by Bush Lawyer, Nov 29, 2018.

  1. EarthSky

    EarthSky Well-Known Member

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    What you fail to realize is that many of these developing countries have the terrible political systems they do because of the power structures and compradore(sp) elites put into place to manage the country for the colonizer.

    Rwanda is a perfect example and that was France not US. Empower a small minority to supress resistance to occupation and then expect good results when you pull out after the cost of occupation outweighs the plunder....

    Yes, that is what the developing world needs, more paternalistic interference by the US:rolleyes:
     
  2. EarthSky

    EarthSky Well-Known Member

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    The only person your current president puts first is himself. You haven't seen through the con yet but it is glaringly obvious so I'm sure you will once the consequences of having a narcisistic, criminal con-man running a modern nation keep piling up.
     
  3. LangleyMan

    LangleyMan Well-Known Member

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    Okay. Why would you think I would be offended by someone making idiotic comments?
     
  4. Fred C Dobbs

    Fred C Dobbs Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    The most successful nations today were colonized by the British and are the consequence of British laws, customs, rights, etc. The Dutch, Belgians and Spanish were among the worst.

    It was the US who introduced Japan to the modern world and, through the Marshall Plan, helped Europe recover from WWII. And of course. despite much criticism from Leftists, the US was the main resistance against communism.

    The US would seem well qualified to help these third world countries become more independent and free.
     
  5. Fred C Dobbs

    Fred C Dobbs Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Perhaps you have the sensitive soul of a poet.
     
  6. EarthSky

    EarthSky Well-Known Member

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    I am certainly not trying to belittle the US effort at reconstruction after the war. But it was part and parcel of creating markets for it's surplus production which had skyrocketed during the war and creating economic conditions hostile to the Soviet Union with the pillars of post-war economic Empire being Japan in the west and W. Germany in the east. There is a whole discussion here about the motivations and ideological drive behind the Marshall Plan and reconstruction but I am not going to sit here and say that the results were ultimately very, very successful even historically successful as a post-war policy.

    Also, I agree that Britain has been far more successful in disengaging from her colonial subjects than other empires have been largely due to the creation of commonwealth and fairly astute political inclusion.

    There did not need to be such "resistance" to communism. The greatest mistake of the post-war reconstruction was the very deliberate construct of Russia as an existential threat to not just the American but the British elite corporate power structure.

    The world would have been much different if the US position was cooperation with the Soviet Union rather than creating an deadly enemy. This posture began even before the end of the war when Russia as an ally that had borne the greatest burden of defeating the Nazi death machine.
     
  7. Fred C Dobbs

    Fred C Dobbs Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    [
    So no matter what the US does to promote freedom and prosperity you, and many others, are going to apply nefarious motives to their generosity. I've heard this before, of course.
    Certainly there had to be resistance. They killed over 100 million people, far more than any other religious or political movement. They were the worst, and yet their propaganda was first class. So good in fact that many still buy into it.
    The only reason Russia bore the greatest burden is because their German allies attacked them. Had Hitler concentrated on Western Europe Russia would never have been involved. But Hitler, like Patton, knew all about Stalin and his ambitions..
     
    Last edited: Dec 2, 2018
  8. EarthSky

    EarthSky Well-Known Member

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    Wow, and here I thought I was being complimentary about the American reconstruction. I can"t win for trying. I was only trying to point out that there was some economic and strategic self interest involved in US involvment in post-war Europe and Japan. Do think it was all just benevolent kindness and good-will to man?

    Actually, before Stalin signed a pact with Hitler he desperately tried to get the western powers to join an alliance for mutual protection but was continually rebuffed because of elites reflexive hatred of communism.

    Not to make Stalin out to be anything but the brutal paranoid thug he was but he was a pragmatist and was willing to negotiate but recognized the writing on the wall long before the war ended.

    America's reconstruction in Europe and Asia was very successful and created the potential for a prosperous and peaceful world order after years of fighting!!!! Happy?

    (Course they squandered that order by making Russia an existential threat and permanent enemy):hiding:
     
  9. Fred C Dobbs

    Fred C Dobbs Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    US leaders naturally realized that rebuilding Europe was in everyone's interest. Why would it not be and why make a point of it? There were also many thousands of dead Americans following the two world wars which began in Europe so of course they wanted to avoid a third. You seem to be 'damning with faint praise'.

    The US is the most charitable country on earth so yes, I believe in their innate kindness and good will toward men. The evidence is there.
    Would you trust Stalin? And everyone shoulld hate communism, not just the 'elites'. This is also true of Nazism, Racism, and Fascism to name a few.
    Yes, he was a brutal paranoid thug and we can leave it at that.
    Yep! Just as we all should be.
    I don't know that Russia has that many friends.
     
  10. EarthSky

    EarthSky Well-Known Member

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    Not at all I am only pointing out that as with all nations, the US acts in it's own self-interest. Look, historians generally agree that the implementation of the Marshall Plan was key in driving Stalin to consolidate it's hold on Eastern Europe and that before this he was trying to find a way to cooperate with the west. I know you want to demonize Stalin as a monster and in many ways he was but he was also seeking cooperation with the west both before and after:

    "Key to reviving Western Europe was to allow Germany’s industrial areas to be reactivated, a prospect that frightened many Europeans (especially the French and the Soviets) who had suffered severely from the Nazi war machine. To reassure them, the United States had to commit to maintaining its presence in Europe, but that U.S. presence was a source of great concern to the Soviets. Steil adopts the argument made by the historians Scott Parrish and Mikhail Narinsky in 1994 that the Soviets viewed the Marshall Plan as an aggressive move by the United States aimed at shoring up its own economic, political and military power in Europe; the U.S. goal, the Soviets thought, was to create a Western bloc in opposition to the Soviet Union that would include the western zones of Germany. Stalin had spies in Britain and America who corroborated the Soviet belief. Steil contends that Stalin had not fully ruled out cooperation with the United States until he became convinced of the goals of the Marshall Plan. He then responded by solidifying his own sphere of influence in Eastern Europe, fueling the Cold War."

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/outl...72e2047c935_story.html?utm_term=.6df1552ecd38

    I'm not saying that it wasn't good strategy just that there was an element of self-interest in projecting American power and economic influence into both Europe and Japan as well as the Philippines


    Not according to the World Giving Index. You're actually 5th this year behind Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand. But even so, America extracts 42% of the world's wealth so perhaps it is self interest to give some especially in tax breaks for charity. The orange blowhard is busy dropping many of the poorest most dispossessed people on Earth from American charitable donations if they do not kowtow to American demands and interests so you should be falling even further by next year.

    I'm not even going to go into your long history of foreign interventions and convert operations to topple democratically elected leaders who threaten to nationalize resources for the good of their people but who are overthrown for American corporate interests. You don't even seem to know about this part of your history and along with the guy who got so angry with me on the GHW Bush thread, I don't think you are particularly interested about learning your history or seeing your nation as it really is beyond that patriotic garbble you learn in your schools and the mistruths and omissions of your corporate media.

    I think if I were to delve into this you would just resent me more for trying to show you the truth. Not saying anything about the general American people many of whom I like and still have friends among but if you believe that your government has innate kindness and good will, you are living in a world of illusion

    You don't understand what communism is or why what happened in the former SU was state capitalism not communism just as it is in China today - a country that has lifted more people out of poverty in a shorter time that any other, BTW - and that is under what you would call communism but which is only in name.

    It is not that Russia has so many friends. No one wants to go back to the Soviet occupation but that occupation was at least in part an overreaction to American cold war policy.

    It is that not everyone hates and despises Russia the way your government want them to. They are a nation with self-interests and national security fears just like your own.

    Demonizing enemies as evil and not being able to see your own history in places like Central America, Vietnam, Iran, etc.,etc., is a very American response to global tension.
     
    Last edited: Dec 2, 2018
  11. LangleyMan

    LangleyMan Well-Known Member

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    Ya think so?
     
  12. LangleyMan

    LangleyMan Well-Known Member

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    The judgment of historians is generally that Stalin was intent up spreading communism to as much of Europe as he could. The Marshall Plan made that more difficult.
    Revisionist history. Stalin wouldn't let Eastern Europe go after WW2. The West had no intention of allowing communists to take over European countries like France and Italy. The West had opposed the Bolsheviks after WW1 and witnessed Stalin's dictatorship.
    Communism will never exist. There is no dislectic that will lead to a communist society. State capitalism, if that's what the Soviet planned economy is properly called, is a political dead end.
    There's no excuse for subjugating people. That applies to the U.S., too.
    The Soviet Union, and Russia later, is not liked by its neigbors.
    Some of opposed the Vietnam War and Soviet domination of Eastern Europe.
     
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  13. Mac-7

    Mac-7 Banned

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  14. Mac-7

    Mac-7 Banned

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    How many centuries are former colonies in africa and latin America going to blame colonialism for their failures today?
     
  15. Mac-7

    Mac-7 Banned

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    Your opinion of trump does not interest me

    As an American I like him just fine
     
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  16. Fred C Dobbs

    Fred C Dobbs Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    The U|S|| did not need the approval before implementing the Marshall Plan and whatever he thought about it was beside the point. It had to move forward no matter what his paranoid concerns. That he annexed Eastern Europe, and tried to get Greece and Italy as well, strongly suggests he had little or no interest in 'cooperating with the west'. Why would he?
    So the Cold War was the natural consequence of the Marshall Plan? In fact the Marshall Plan was offered to the UU|S|S||R as well but was rejected. Stalin did not put the welfare of anyone over his own self interests so the opinion of this mass murderer is of no consequence whatsoever.
    Yes, it's all the fault of the Americans that the Cold War began. Darn that Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower and George Marshall.
    Making other countries wealthier and freer was indeed a 'good strategy'. That's why the same approach should be considered with Honduras today. Or would you feel that a free and viable Honduras (or almost any Latin |American country) would be better off without this 'strategy'.?
    Ahhh. The Orange Blowhard! The mask finally drops.

    I won't bother denying your stats because fifth is okay too, and far beyond Russia or any other third world shithole.
    You must trust me that I'm very familiar with these left wing accusations and they're always at the ready to demonize the US for their involvement in Nicaragua, |Iran, and so on. forgetting that since the US became the dominant power the number of democracies has actually grown, and the world is more prosperous.
    Oh c'mon. You think you're the only one with access to "The Truth"? Kindness and good will? Fifth place is still okay, even using your stats.
    China lifted people out of poverty gfaster than any other?? That's clearly false. Check out Japan, and Western Europe, the beneficiaries of the Marshall Plan and US assistance.
    Stalin was a paranoid mass murderer, and that was never a consequence of US foreign policy. In fact FDR was quite friendly with Stalin..
    It's American leftists who are attacking Russia over the last Presidential election, and no one else. They're trying to claim that the Russians interfered in order that the "Orange Blowhard" be elected.
    I'm in Central America as I write this so, trust me, I know a great deal more about the area, and Latin America, than you do.
     
  17. Fred C Dobbs

    Fred C Dobbs Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I reckon they'll be blaming the US, just as they did the British, until China or some other country emerges as a world power.

    Leftists will continue to support non-Democracies against the Democracies because that's the way they've been wired. They like 'Strong Men', as in the Stalinist, Castro, Mao, Noriega vein.
     
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  18. Fred C Dobbs

    Fred C Dobbs Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    And it's likely being under reported in the MSM, despite its significance. They've got 90 day truce to work things out but trade in most areas, including farm products, will recommence

    Well after the news came out Leftists were still relishing in the idea that everyone at the meeting was ignoring Trump. They clearly want their country to fail, as do foreign leftists of course.
     
    Last edited: Dec 3, 2018
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  19. EarthSky

    EarthSky Well-Known Member

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    It's not that simple. The division of post war Europe was undertaken at Potsdam and Yalta where Stalin negotiated a clear region of occupation and influence after the war. Communist parties were actually very strong in Western Europe especially France and Spain and the US was very worried that Communism would take hold in these areas. For the Russians, idealists in Stalin's government actually thought that the revolution would follow a natural and popular course and all of Europe would become a Communist paradise. There were even elections held in Eastern Europe because the Communists thought they would easily win popular support. When they didn't and started losing elections is when Stalin who was never an idealist in any way, started getting very worried about losing influence in his sphere of influence.

    Then comes a US plan to pump 13 billion into Europe including Germany, a country Russia had just lost 20 million people fighting in a war to the death. Part of the Marshall plan was definitely to stabilize Europe economically but part of it also was strategic to fight popular support for Communism and very powerful and influential Communist parties in Western Europe. Don't forget that even the US had powerful Socialist and Communist parties in the 40,s

    But the Communist parties in France and Italy were democratically supported and carried large parts of the popular vote. Yes, reflexive hostile response to the Russian revolution and the thought that workers could own production by western corporate elites has shaped much of modern 20th and 21 centuries.

    There were all kinds of brutal authoritarian leaders running around the world in the post-war era. Lenin descended into terrible authoritarianism especially as resistance from within and counterrevolutionary forces from outside began to threaten the revolution. His over response was tragic. Stalin was as bad has Hitler in many ways. On the other hand he modernized the Russian industry and military almost overnight in order to beat the Nazi's and become a superpower. And he was pragmatic and willing to negotiate with the western powers on post-war divisions but felt the writing was on the wall with the hostility and distrust that started to arise on both sides.

    There is no attempt to revise history. History is never as simple as it is written. There were national interests on both sides and Russia had just lost 20 million people to a country that had invaded and the US was going to pump billions of dollars into on it's own terms - money Russia could not compete with.

    And yet a country that is almost the perfect example of centrally run state capitalist system as I described with a smattering of private industry and ownership thrown in has brought more people out of poverty than any other at any time in the past and owns almost a cool 2 trillion of your debt. And China is set to surpass you as the worlds most powerful economy if it has not already

    Not bad for a system that is a political dead end.

    You like many others are labouring under the notion that the fall of the Soviet Union meant the supremacy of unfettered capitalism and rule of the Washington consensus economic system of tax cuts and austerity along with supply economics were the natural order of things. Not true. History does not support this and I think that when this bull run we have been on for a bout a decade falters that capitalism contradictions and problems have not gone away and there will need to be a re-thinking if the coming crisis is as big as many, even right wing, economists think is just around the corner.

    Agree completely. Democratic principles and free elections should be the heart of any system. Hardy to put into practice than theory even in your country.

    Nor is the US in many instances.

    True!
     
  20. ThirdTerm

    ThirdTerm Well-Known Member

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    The truth is that Australia is not that important for America, compared to other great powers like Russia and China, with which Trump negotiated deals. Angela Merkel used a cheat sheet about the new Australian PM at G20.

     
    Last edited: Dec 3, 2018
  21. EarthSky

    EarthSky Well-Known Member

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    Because it was in his own best interest to try. Have to be short on the answers today but I'll try.


    So the Cold War was the natural consequence of the Marshall Plan? In fact the Marshall Plan was offered to the UU|S|S||R as well but was rejected. Stalin did not put the welfare of anyone over his own self interests so the opinion of this mass murderer is of no consequence whatsoever.[/quote]

    Actually the idea was to offer relief but in terms that they new Russia would have to refuse if it did not want to lose strategic interests. I can pull up documentation on this when I have time. Yes Stalin was a mass murderer. There were lots of them running around the leadership of the world in those days - just like there are today.

    Didn't say it was all the Americans fault. I said part of Americas motivation for the Marshall plan was political and strategic self interest. I also said it was very successful in creating the American empire from Germany to the Philippines and beyond. What I did say is that it forced a response in someone as paranoid and dangerous as Stalin. Don't forget, there were free elections in eastern Europe after the war and very powerful Communist parties in western Europe.

    Ah, yes, your history of intervention in Honduras:

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...y-has-roots-in-us-tacit-support-for-2009-coup

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...the-u-s/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.bdbb17362e4c

    You are proud of this?

    You thought I was trying to mask my feelings about your current president?????

    Actually it's 800 million China has lifted out of poverty.....

    https://www.business-standard.com/a...ty-is-historic-world-bank-117101300027_1.html

    https://qz.com/1082231/chinas-path-...er-be-repeated-at-scale-by-any-other-country/

    You claim to know a lot more about Latin America and maybe you do but you don't seem to know much about your own countries history there in lots of places.

    Yes, FDR was quite friendly with Stalin. So was Churchill at times. That just shows that he was someone they could talk to and negotiate with. But the military/industrial/corporate/intelligence complex and the political class in both countries was determined to try to isolate and economically overpower Soviet influence from even before the war ended.

    Yes. there were many beneficiaries of the Marshall plan. It created the American Empire and reconstructed Europe and parts of America into the modern capitalist system. No one is denying that it brought stability and prosperity to many.

    The discussion was that there was also political and economic self-interests and that elements in the western political structure were determined to defeat and isolate Russia and that they saw communism as an existential threat their own interest to be destroyed rather than a political and economic competitor with it's own interests. And these forces were determined to create an enemy in Soviet Russia from the very beginning.

    Capitalism has spawned many brutal mass-murdering regimes especially in it's early incarnations as it arose from feudalism. It is not like that was unique to the Russian revolution.
     
    Last edited: Dec 3, 2018
  22. Fred C Dobbs

    Fred C Dobbs Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    No, it would not. He'd be doing a Gorbachev.
    No need. I understand his 'strategic interests.
    No, there weren't. Only Mao, another communist, comes close. What Stalins are running around today?
    And of course that's true but seem to suggest it was a bad thing. But it was in everyone's self interest. Wouldn't you agree?
    There would have been a greater empire without the Marshall Plan and America's assistance after the war, if that was the intent.
    Yes, I realize that and Italy and Greece almost went communist. That's largely why I don't give Europeans much credit for their political ideologies.
    I think it's a mistake to send any money to these people, and Trump s coming to realize this. Obama got the Nobel Peace Prize, despite Honduras.
    I'm truly not interested in your feelings. That's not why I'm here. But it is clear your prejudices color your opinions. Why do you say he's my president?
    It depends on what you call poverty. Going from extreme poverty to poverty is good, but still nothing compared to western standards. Would it not have been much better without Communism and the millions who died as a consequence? Now they have another Great Leader for life and doubt much good can come of that.
    Actually I know a great deal about my own country.
    Perhaps the Iron Curtain and the imprisonment, murder, and starvation of many millions of people had something to do with that.
    Then you'd be surprised at how many conspiracy theories exist regarding the Plan.
    How can any rational person see Stalinism in any other light?
    Can you offer some examples?
     
    Last edited: Dec 3, 2018
  23. Fred C Dobbs

    Fred C Dobbs Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Last edited: Dec 3, 2018
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  24. LangleyMan

    LangleyMan Well-Known Member

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    There was a hope in the West that the peoples of Eastern Europe would have an opportunity to choose their form of government and some confidence they wouldn't choose Bolshevism. Of course, they didn't get to choose until a half-century later.
    Were there idealists in the Soviet Union? There were some in European countries that hadn't experienced Bolshevism.
    There was no doubt the Marshall Plan was designed to undercut Soviet influence.
    Growth in a capitalist system could have exceeded what Stalin accomplished.
    China's economy will slow as it completes industrialization. It should be larger than any other economy, at least until later in the century, because of its population base. The slowest growing part of the Chinese economy is the state-run sector.
    China is moving away from state capitalism even though there has been some backsliding lately.
     
  25. LogNDog

    LogNDog Well-Known Member

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    Looks like self inflicted hurt feelings created by self inflated expectations. There is a lot of emotional hyperbole in that article.
     

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