^that guy (stalin) makes hitler look like a
boy scout. funny, we never heard much about him and still don't. now just why is that?

of course tom hanks is a racist, why do you think he used a white ball as wilson in castaway? he refused to use a black ball, he doesn't even eat black jelly beans! or yellow ones i guess! it makes me freakin sick.

I have very little interest in what any "celebrity" has to say. Why should we take their 0.2 to hear over that of Mr. and Mrs. Joe Regular? Because they've starred in Hollywood movies?

No thanks.

weird
why is he being attacked for just talking about the culture of the time?

well not that conservatives or any political pundits have anything better to do then gossip so im not surprised. I mean all of these political people need to whine about something its money in the bank to them.

every war we dehumanize the enemy its basic war techniques.

Originally posted by AshleyD
It's absurd to say America was inspired to join the war due to racism. Not to mention, extremely insulting to the heroes who fought. Typical Hollywood soap boxing.

But isn't what is bolded worse than soap boxing?
That's demagoguery, which is ten times worse than soap boxnig.

You are trying to pull people's ears by pushing them to have an emotional response, that is very much demagoguery and very much worse than soap boxing.

You know people on both sides of the fence can say what you just said that I bolded, neither side should call them heroes if it's a draft though, that just makes no sense, why call forced heroism heroism?

But anyhow my only point is that demagoguery should never be used in debates, it's basically a poor man's(woman's) last resort in perhaps a losing debate.

just my two cents

When people try to explain the viewpoint of the populous when this was all going on they are instantly being called racist.

What no one gets is that you absolutely cannot look at the phrases with a 21st Century standpoint or eyes as you must see it from the viewpoint of the era of which this was prevelant.

Political correctness dictates that Negros are now called African Americans. But if you try to describe the way things were in say, the 1930's or 1940's you would use the term Negro in an attempt to describe how people thought and viewed others back then. You must look at a situation like that with 20th or 19th Century eyes and viewpoint to fully understand it. What we consider wrong or hateful nowadays was considered the norm and was in fact accepted practice way back when. By calling or insincuating that someone is a racist just because they used period specific language on that alone is wrong.

Japanese, Chinese and Vietnamese people were all called Gooks, Kikes, Chinks and just about everything under the sun. We no longer subscribe to that way of thinking nowadays.


[edit on 18-3-2010 by TheImmaculateD1]

[edit on 18-3-2010 by TheImmaculateD1]

I don't see any problem with his statement. Political correctness will be our downfall. If we are not allowed to be truthful and think clearly without having to "worry" about offending others then we work and exist in a lie. Someone can take it? Tell them to grow up and get over it! Things happen for different reasons there is no point to denying the reason itself. We understand our mistake and move on.

If only Tom Hanks had spent some serious time over the last decade researching the people the fought WWII and knew what he was talking about. If only he had spent lots of time and money making several films and documentaries about the people he repeatedly calls brave heroes. If only he had spent lots of time really learning about the people and spent lots of time talking about how highly he regards them, then maybe he would have room to talk.

Oh...wait...

Originally posted by kinda kurious
Regardless of how WWII began with the Japanese (they attacked a military target in broad daylight.), I'd say we nuked 'em pretty good.

And you're point is what??? The Japanese started the war, the allies finished it. And yes, I know. There were a lot of civilians killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But, more were killed when the US firebombed Tokyo.

And I'm certain you shed the same tears for the Chinese civilians in the Rape of Nanking, don't you?

Originally posted by kinda kurious
I am anti war. Can you tell?

And??

Originally posted by kinda kurious
Today, such acts deem you a terrorist or insurgent.

Really? It was a uniformed military force attacking a legit target. Just like the US, British and Russians attacking German cities, the Germans attacking British, French, Dutch, Russian, etc cities.....

Originally posted by kinda kurious
So all that is required is a uniform to make dropping an atomic bomb from 30,000 feet onto an unsuspecting civilian population legit?

Sorry, comparing actions of an official, uniformed military force to terrorists or insurgents is incorrect. Geneva Conventions and LOAC cover this.

And whether it was an Atomic bomb, or a general purpose munition, what's the diff? You still have dead civilians, like the ones in Berlin, London, Moscow, Rotterdam, Tokyo......

Originally posted by kinda kurious
The blast radius extend over a square mile. Oh yea, just collateral damage killing over 140,000 initially followed by tens of thousands more.

70,000 were initially killed in Hiroshima. 90-140,000 were dead by the end of 1945.

40-75,000 initially killed in Nagasaki. About 80,000 dead by the end of 1945.

Originally posted by kinda kurious
Claiming it altruistically expedited ending the war is like a rooster taking credit for the sunrise.

Well, that's your opinion. No one will ever know. They figured about 1.6 million US casualities in Operation Downfall, with about 370,000 dead. Japanese military and civilian dead would range into the millions.

Originally posted by kinda kurious
It was an unprecedented act of brutal annihilation.

Iris Chang's "Rape of Nanking" claims about 300,000 Chinese were killed by the Imperial Japanese Army, about 20,000 women raped.

Contrary to your opinion, the US didn't hold the corner market on brutality.

well since it has come out that stalin and hitler were in kahoots with each other, it wouldn't surprise me if all the big wigs had pow wows about this kinda thing in advance of any formal action. leaders of nations are not wired like the rest of us. they look at huge groups of civilians as statistics, people without value.

after watching a few documentaries on stalin, it suddenly dawned on me that the reason he didn't respond to the threat when hitler broke their agreement and invaded, was because that was an agreement they had in advance of the invasion. hitler invades (with stalin's agreement), advances to the jewish towns between their advance and moscow, kills and/or imprisons the jews there, accounting for most of the 26 million civilian casualities the soviets endured during the war. (which if true, would completely dwarf hitler's jewish exterminations by some 20 million! and make stalin complicit in WWII genocide of the jewish people in a very big way).

then mysteriously, the german army is stopped by a snowfall. we're talking germans here. they knew how to fight in snow. germany gets lots of big snow falls. right after that, stalin starts arresting jews and exterminating them as well, providing the best clue of all. these guys were into some hefty ethnic cleansing for some mysterious reason unbeknownst to the rest of us, who see such atrocity as incomprehensible.

whole thing was rigged from the get go. entirely possible every war has been like that and that the us pres and japanese leader, were in agreement behind the scenes. i mean, if you're gonna invade an enemy and drop the biggest bomb in history on them, why choose civilian populations? and if you're gonna go civilian targets, why not the big targets like Tokyo, the leader's ruling city, or big juicy military target? something's always rather fishy about these war scenarios, anyway. so to say we did that because of racism, is, in my view, unlikely. i think the leaders of the world's nations, are all buddies. and they take turns fixing each other's populations.



[edit on 18-3-2010 by undo]

Originally posted by undo
then mysteriously, the german army is stopped by a snowfall. we're talking germans here. they knew how to fight in snow. germany gets lots of big snow falls.

Really? And where did the German Army of the 1940's get all this training and experience in fighting in the snow?

Originally posted by undo
in germany.

Sorry, dude, the German Army of WW2 didn't have any special Snow Ninja winter training. They didn't have anything more than what most armies received.

The Russians themselves sucked in the winter. The Finns handed them their ass in a hubcap when they were fighting The Winter War. The Russians had the Mongolian troops that did well when fighting in the winter.