Conquer Club

everywhere116 wrote:

got tonkaed wrote:i think his argument is that if your going to support an organization who basically operates at the "pleasure of the united states" to paraphrase, then you really arent going to get a very unbiased report, hes speaking out for independence.

Who is independent in your eyes?

I personally think the ICC does a rather good job of remaining judicially independent when cases are brought before it (not sure if I disagree with GT here) the thing is, it is constrained by the cases people brought before it, which are generally NOT against the power people, as it is in most cases. While I feel the US could be charged for myriad violations of international law, whose dumb enough to bring suit against the US, even if they're actually in the right?

got tonkaed wrote:although i dont disagree it certainly bears just as much mentioning that we were bent on destroying them, and didnt really have very many notions of peacefully coexisting, i think the Mccarthys witchhunts prove that just as much as anything else. Im happier the world wasnt blown up more than that any side won over one another.

I dont really recall us taking the offensive, though. Korean and Vietnam Wars anyone?

spurgistan wrote:

everywhere116 wrote:

got tonkaed wrote:i think his argument is that if your going to support an organization who basically operates at the "pleasure of the united states" to paraphrase, then you really arent going to get a very unbiased report, hes speaking out for independence.

Who is independent in your eyes?

I personally think the ICC does a rather good job of remaining judicially independent when cases are brought before it (not sure if I disagree with GT here) the thing is, it is constrained by the cases people brought before it, which are generally NOT against the power people, as it is in most cases. While I feel the US could be charged for myriad violations of international law, whose dumb enough to bring suit against the US, even if they're actually in the right?

Then how did it get to the World Court?

Perhaps im in the wrong here, but i would say its the rigidity of our domino theory policy that forces us to get involved in areas that really we have no reason to be involved in, especially in the case of vietnam. I think it shows if the US had any motivation at not to wipe out communism they wouldnt have spent decades and millions of dollars in resources and the cost of so many american lives in an area that had little practical interest.

I am speaking as someone who just received a degree in business... I believe in socialism... I think that government control of the utilities and health care are important for the public good. But fundamentally I believe in the free market. I think that built into the free market are inherent efficiencies that cannot be duplicated in a command economy. Now something like health care is more efficient in a single payer system... i.e. hospitals don't have to advertise. Advertising money would go to better treatments and equipment.

In many other industries though, the free market runs things way better then a command economy could. The ideas of kaisen and 6-sigma flourish under a free market and I doubt that the just-in-time inventory systems would be developed in anything other than a free market.

kaisen, 6-sigma, and JIT all create a more efficient economic system that eliminates waste and benefits the consumer in the end.

everywhere116 wrote:

beezer wrote:

foolish_yeti wrote:The actual wording is "unlawful use of force"- but the actions fall under what your country itself defines as terrorism.

Ps- anyone else surprised that very few in the States actually know of this?

Thanks for providing the link.

No, I remember it. But Nicaragua was allying itself with Cuba, Algeria, and the Soviet Union against the US. Were we seriously not supposed to support a regime (the Contras) that would have overthrown the Sandinistas? And why would we adhere to a decision that declares us guilty of trying to destroy those who would harm us.

Does anybody seriously think that Cuba, Nicaragua, Algeria, and the Soviet Union wanted to "peacefully" co-exist with the United States. The whole communist empire was bent on eliminating us because they saw us as an imperialistic threat. I'm glad we stood up to them.

Posted better than I could.

Well, they opposed us because we were bent on they're destruction too. There's a school of thought that explains all the foreign policy of the USSR as being to secure itself against capitalist intervention, and I'm not sure I see what's wrong with that theory. ANyways, the monolithic theory of communism has by and large been laid to rest, I believe, as many of the countries that were supposedly acting with marching orders from Moscow were in reality more or less doing their own thing (for proof you could look at China, who came oh-so-close to invading Russia during onw of their spats)

beezer wrote:No, I remember it. But Nicaragua was allying itself with Cuba, Algeria, and the Soviet Union against the US. Were we seriously not supposed to support a regime (the Contras) that would have overthrown the Sandinistas? And why would we adhere to a decision that declares us guilty of trying to destroy those who would harm us.

Does anybody seriously think that Cuba, Nicaragua, Algeria, and the Soviet Union wanted to "peacefully" co-exist with the United States. The whole communist empire was bent on eliminating us because they saw us as an imperialistic threat. I'm glad we stood up to them.

Well here we'd get into a whole debate on the "communist threat" of the Cold War era- these actions in question actually occured post cold war.

I would suggest that Nicaragua was invaded because it was setting a good example of how another system other than what the States is running could function. A quote from Oxfam around that time said that "Nicaragua was...exceptional in the strength of that government's commitment...to improving the condition of the people and encouraging their active participation in the development process." Other agencies working in the area said similar things (e.g. World Bank).

And even if (and I don't think they were) they needed to deal with this "threat"- the means in which they chose to were horrendous- extreme pressure for all organizations to end programs in nicaragua (which were helping the populace), a brutal economic and military war against them (contras notoriously went after "soft targets"- lack of humanitary aid to the people, hoping to get the government to have to divert funds from social programs to military operations), and there was even political trickery to get them out of office. The US basically wanted, and it was no secret, to decimate the country....make an example out of them....and they did and the country has been trying to recover ever since.

got tonkaed wrote:i dont think weve come close enough to really seeing a communist society to really be able to judge whether or not it could bring people toward a utopia. The societies which have been famously listed as communist regimes never quite made it to the level that the people who came up with such ideas would have hoped it would.

At the same time, we probably will never get to that level of an idealistic society. But anyone who will claim that any kind of capitalist system has us any closer to utopia than any communist system is probably being just as silly.

thats why utopia is named what its named. We should always strive toward it, but realize we probably never get there.

Don't need to read the rest of the thread. This post finished it on page one.

spurgistan wrote:Well, they opposed us because we were bent on they're destruction too.

The United States was not bent on the destruction of Russia, it was the other way around. We were the only country that was basically strong enough to stand up to them and not allow them to dominate the world.

spurgistan wrote:There's a school of thought that explains all the foreign policy of the USSR as being to secure itself against capitalist intervention, and I'm not sure I see what's wrong with that theory.

I do, it was just plain paranoia and wrong on their part.

spurgistan wrote:ANyways, the monolithic theory of communism has by and large been laid to rest

Thank God. I think the communists still have sour grapes over it though. I don't feel one bit of guilt over their defeat.

spurgistan wrote:I believe, as many of the countries that were supposedly acting with marching orders from Moscow were in reality more or less doing their own thing (for proof you could look at China, who came oh-so-close to invading Russia during onw of their spats)

Don't know either way on that. I remember Romania defied them and attended the 1984 Olympics anyway. This isn't the first time I've heard that China was about to invade Russia. I would enjoy reading up more on that.

beezer wrote:The United States was not bent on the destruction of Russia, it was the other way around. We were the only country that was basically strong enough to stand up to them and not allow them to dominate the world.

Wait, wait, wait.

In that entire paragraph, didnt you stop and think "Hey, maybe, just maybe when we were fighting against the USSR, we ment to destroy them?"

You know, nukes, the Cold War, Mutually Assured Destruction, those kinds of things?

beezer wrote:I do, it was just plain paranoia and wrong on their part.

So, what yo are saying is that during the Cold War, at absolutly no point did America seek to spread Anti-Communist Propoganda.

Sssuuuurrrreeeeee

beezer wrote:Thank God. I think the communists still have sour grapes over it though. I don't feel one bit of guilt over their defeat.

Ok, ive tried to aviod personal attacks so far, but this is just small minded crap.
They were a country trying out a system of government, but they wernt the correct ones to do it. They made a mistake and did their best to correct it, but it was soon taken over by dictators. Their ideas were good, but they did it in completly the wrong place. And yet when millions died because of that mistake, you dont feel the least bit of pity for them.

You must have got a huge hit of that technically nonexistant Anti-Communist propaganda when you were younger.

beezer wrote:Don't know either way on that. I remember Romania defied them and attended the 1984 Olympics anyway. This isn't the first time I've heard that China was about to invade Russia. I would enjoy reading up more on that.

How could you not know about it? If there are two huge countries in close proximity, there is sure to be tension along the borders, even if they have similar systems of government.

Neutrino wrote:In that entire paragraph, didnt you stop and think "Hey, maybe, just maybe when we were fighting against the USSR, we ment to destroy them?"

You know, nukes, the Cold War, Mutually Assured Destruction, those kinds of things?

No, I never stopped to think about it. I was too busy thinking about the Korean Airliner they unjustly shot out of the sky over in 1983, the massive wall they built in Germany that kept people in slavery for over 20 years, their killing of the Czechoslavakians in 1968, and their sneaking missles into Cuba in 1962 to threaten us. Mutually assured destruction was the only thing that kept their lust for world domination at bay.

Neutrino wrote:So, what yo are saying is that during the Cold War, at absolutly no point did America seek to spread Anti-Communist Propoganda.

To stand up against communism is not propoganda. Of course we spoke out against them and exposed them for who they were...the "evil" empire. After all, we are "anti-communist".

Neutrino wrote:Ok, ive tried to aviod personal attacks so far, but this is just small minded crap. They were a country trying out a system of government, but they wernt the correct ones to do it. They made a mistake and did their best to correct it, but it was soon taken over by dictators.

"Trying out" a sytem of government!!!???....tell that to the thousands of innocent people they killed to maintain power. They "made a mistake"!!!??? ...if that's what you call slaughtering people and trying to impose your will on others I can't help you. That's beyond crazy to try and gloss over their atrocities with phrases like that.

Neutrino wrote:Their ideas were good, but they did it in completly the wrong place.

Which ideas? The ones about sending people to the gulags who didn't agree with the party line? Thank goodness for Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn exposing them.

Neutrino wrote:And yet when millions died because of that mistake, you dont feel the least bit of pity for them.

For the average person yes, that's why I'm taking the time to refute what's been posted. But I feel no pity for Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Andropov, Gorbachev, or any of the other party elite.

Neutrino wrote:How could you not know about it? If there are two huge countries in close proximity, there is sure to be tension along the borders, even if they have similar systems of government.

Probably because I'm not an expert on Chinese-Russian relations. Like I said before, it's not the first time I've heard of the tensions. But to be honest, I don't know the specific details of how close they actually came to an armed conflict. I would enjoy learning more about that.

beezer wrote:No, I never stopped to think about it. I was too busy thinking about the Korean Airliner they unjustly shot out of the sky over in 1983, the massive wall they built in Germany that kept people in slavery for over 20 years, their killing of the Czechoslavakians in 1968

The point of this is not that im saying Russia was the perfect example of Communism in the 20th century and you refuting it. What is the point here is that yousaid that the US was never intending to destroy Russia, that they were all friendly to them and only wished them the best.

beezer wrote:The United States was not bent on the destruction of Russia, it was the other way around. We were the only country that was basically strong enough to stand up to them and not allow them to dominate the world.

Newsflash! You were bent on eachother's destruction!

beezer wrote:, and their sneaking missles into Cuba in 1962 to threaten us.

And what about the US' missiles? What about them?
Oh no, they wernt ment to destroy anything. They were merely a armless byproduct of our Neucular reactors. Our stationing them on the Russian borders was merely for safekeeping.

Mutually assured destruction was the only thing that kept their lust for world domination at bay.[/quote]

Lust for world domination. Hmm, I seem to remember a certain large capitalist country, residing in the continent of North America, one of the only two superpowers in the world (if you include China) that could very well be considered 'world dominating' at the moment.

beezer wrote:To stand up against communism is not propoganda. Of course we spoke out against them and exposed them for who they were...the "evil" empire. After all, we are "anti-communist".

And now you are accusing Communists of being evil.
Was it the way they gave smaller contries the equivilant of shiny beads while they exploited their resources? Or the way they are destroying the environment? Or the way they are doing practically nothing about the millions of poor that walk their own country?!

Oh wait. That was Capitalism.

beezer wrote:"Trying out" a sytem of government!!!???....tell that to the thousands of innocent people they killed to maintain power. They "made a mistake"!!!??? ...if that's what you call slaughtering people and trying to impose your will on others I can't help you. That's beyond crazy to try and gloss over their atrocities with phrases like that.



Which ideas? The ones about sending people to the gulags who didn't agree with the party line? Thank goodness for Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn exposing them.



For the average person yes, that's why I'm taking the time to refute what's been posted. But I feel no pity for Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Andropov, Gorbachev, or any of the other party elite.

beezer wrote:party elite

Those are the two key words.

Communism - Everyone is equal.

Party Elite - Small group of people that control everything.

Everyone is equal =/= Small group of people that control everything.

'Party elite' does not work with Communism

I have been saying all along that Russia is not a prime example of Communism. In fact, I consider Russia a rather large failure in trying to show the world how Communism can work.

I shall repeat: Russia was niether the time nor the place for a country to become Communist. Because of this mistake (and this is the mistake I was speaking of earlier) their citizens paid for it.

everywhere116 wrote:

got tonkaed wrote:although i dont disagree it certainly bears just as much mentioning that we were bent on destroying them, and didnt really have very many notions of peacefully coexisting, i think the Mccarthys witchhunts prove that just as much as anything else. Im happier the world wasnt blown up more than that any side won over one another.

I dont really recall us taking the offensive, though. Korean and Vietnam Wars anyone?

You've got to be kidding! Are you really that brainwashed? Ho Chi Minh was not even communist to begin with. During World War II he led the resistance against the Japanese, and they kicked the Japanese out of Viet Nam. After the war, the French come back and say "ok, we want you to be our colony again." Ho Chi Minh appealed to both Truman and Eisenhower not to interfere, but we had to support our "ally" (Viet Nam supported the war effort of the allies more than the French, who couldn't even hold their own country). So Ho Chi Minh has 2 major powers against him - what the hell was he supposed to do? We forced him into his alliance with Russia in the Cold War, and then convinced all the kool-aid drinking, flag waving, jingoistic morons that we were in Viet Nam to "fight communism". We were not the aggressors? Do you even know about the Gulf of Tonkin incident? I doubt if you've ever studied it for yourself - you simply repeat whatever they feed you.

b.k. barunt wrote:

everywhere116 wrote:

got tonkaed wrote:although i dont disagree it certainly bears just as much mentioning that we were bent on destroying them, and didnt really have very many notions of peacefully coexisting, i think the Mccarthys witchhunts prove that just as much as anything else. Im happier the world wasnt blown up more than that any side won over one another.

I dont really recall us taking the offensive, though. Korean and Vietnam Wars anyone?

You've got to be kidding! Are you really that brainwashed? Ho Chi Minh was not even communist to begin with. During World War II he led the resistance against the Japanese, and they kicked the Japanese out of Viet Nam. After the war, the French come back and say "ok, we want you to be our colony again." Ho Chi Minh appealed to both Truman and Eisenhower not to interfere, but we had to support our "ally" (Viet Nam supported the war effort of the allies more than the French, who couldn't even hold their own country). So Ho Chi Minh has 2 major powers against him - what the hell was he supposed to do? We forced him into his alliance with Russia in the Cold War, and then convinced all the kool-aid drinking, flag waving, jingoistic morons that we were in Viet Nam to "fight communism". We were not the aggressors? Do you even know about the Gulf of Tonkin incident? I doubt if you've ever studied it for yourself - you simply repeat whatever they feed you.

Right, and citing the 'domino effect' as a reason to invade. Communism was a deadly virus that would spread throughout asia and the world if it wasn't arrested in Vietnam. What a crock. People bought it though. These days the enemy is terror - another abstract noun, but one as seemingly easy to whip up patriotic paranoia about.
Mind you i am probably a communist because i recycle.

what in the hell is marksism?

alex_white101 wrote:what in the hell is marksism?

its a form of socialism

alex_white101 wrote:what in the hell is marksism?

I now pronounce you 'obviously google-able question asker of the month'

I think he was criticizing the spelling. It's Marxism. It isn't a form of socialism, it's a school of historical though.


Incidentally, for those that say that it was Stalin that ruined the communist dream in Russia keep in mind that he wasn't the first. Lenin had already set up the building blocks for Stalin's gulags. Lenin has been well documented as stating that if communism is to succeed in Russia the kulaks and poorer peasants must first starve.

beezer wrote:

spurgistan wrote:ANyways, the monolithic theory of communism has by and large been laid to rest

Thank God. I think the communists still have sour grapes over it though. I don't feel one bit of guilt over their defeat.

Correct me if I'm wrong (spurgistan), but I don't think he was referring to the defeat of communism- but to the widely held belief that all these "communist" countries were some monolithic force bent on US destruction.

what in the hell's diversity?

Yes, when you murder and starve your own people like they did in the Soviet Union. You are definintely evil. Trying to compare the United States and their policies to the Soviet Union's is stupid.

Newsflash! The United States didn't send people off to gulags.

so marxism is somewhat like communsim?

Marxism is the basis for communism. Mostly from the book by Karl Marx titled, The Communist Manifesto".

By the way, the reference to the Soviet Union starving its own people and talking about the US, is quite ignorant. It shows that you obviously don't see the difference between Marxism and communism. Communism is merely an ideal.

the way i see it, communism is a great idea, but the US has trashed it by saying "Id rather be dead than red" and such. It just isnt smart enough for real life. People would have found its loopholes eventually.

Trying to compare the United States and their policies to the Soviet Union's is stupid.

you must be kidding!! The 2 most powerful countries in the world that were competing in almost every military and technilogical way and you say its stupid to compare their policies?? I know a phrase, "Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it." Familiar with it? By not comparing, you can't make any judgement as to what either side did wrong or worse to the other one. I might add that by making your first statement (starving people) you have done the very thing which you call stupid and done it in an extremely biased way.