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That's a steal, last time Germany paid over $37 billion. Although they thought it was a buy one get one (France & Belgium).

It wasn't that expert. AC should have mentioned the Sturm Abteilung rather than the mostly non-Nazi Wehrmacht.

"In the early months of 1811 the first threatening letters from General Ned Ludd and the Army of Redressers, were sent to employers in Nottingham. Workers, upset by wage reductions and the use of unapprenticed workmen, began to break into factories at night to destroy the new machines that the employers were using." - The Luddites, http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/PRluddites.htm "I say Edward, if it wasn't for these 'paper and quill' contraptions these Luddites would not be able to organise such thugery. They should close those so called 'stationary shops' before it is too late!"

Fighting against Fascism in Spain meant fighting FOR Stalinism in Spain. Let's not fap too hard to romantic visions of the Abraham Lincoln brigade.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/SPrussia.htm

Franco kept Spain stable for decades, dealt with old-school Communists in the most effective way, and was a reasonably good steward of his country, which he kept out of WWII.

A terrorist attacks people that have nothing to do with the military or government in an attempt to cause terror in the public.

Such as those who engaged in the bombing of Dresden. A couple of shock-and-awe questions for you:

(1) Can you name one group in the last century which has declared war but which has restricted itself to military and government targets?

(2) Which residents in a country have nothing to do with the military or government?

But the distinction between civilian and soldier is overrated, an artificial construct to dehumanise soldiers and make war seem somehow civilised.

"Terrorist" is a god-disguising synonym for "infidel", holding a similar status in political language as "patriot" and "security". See also USA PATRIOT Act in the US and the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act in the UK.

Had the bombing campaign been allowed to continue and not been limited (again, due to liberal protests), we bet your ass we could have won that war.

Oh yes. Unfortunately, the famous liberal dove Robert McNamara doesn't agree with you if you read between the lines of "Fog of War".

One of the main reasons the bombing was less effective that you make out was the C Chi tunnels which IIRC were far more extensive than bomber-command wished to believe.

From Operation Thunder

B-52 bombers, that could fly at heights that prevented them being seen or heard, dropped 8 million tons of bombs on Vietnam between 1965 and 1973. This was over three times the amount of bombs dropped throughout the whole of the Second World War and worked out at approximately 300 tons for every man, woman and child living in Vietnam.

So, how many million tons did we fall short of achieving an easy victory? Another 700 tons per man, woman and child?

Thanks for playing.

maybe +1 inightfull, maybe -1 overrated

But it doesn't change the fact that there still is only one country who used nuclear weapons against another country in a war.

And what does that mean other than as a pointless exercise in U.S. bashing? We haven't since, other countries have nukes and haven't used them (largely because they know what our response will be.) The atom bomb is an horrific weapon, yes, but so are many others that both sides used in World War II. Do you think we just said "surrender or we nuke your little yellow asses?" No. In fact, we firebombed Japan for months prior to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Do you know what that means? Napalm and thermite dropped by the kiloton on a nation whose buildings were largely composed of paper and bamboo. Focusing on the fact that we dropped a couple of low-yield fission weapons and forgetting all the other atrocities committed by both sides in that conflict makes you appear unreasoning. That's especially true considering that far more damage was caused by the conventional weapons, and still did not result in an unconditional surrender.

Come back to this conversation when you have more to contribute than "there is still only one country blah blah nuclear blah blah blah." Germany, for example, used Yperite (aka mustard gas) in World War I. A truly vicious weapon that has since been outlawed by international accord. After all this time, is Germany still "evil", or does the U.S. have a few more decades to go before the veneer of evil wears off?

In the end, war often boils down to who has the ability to kill more of the other. And if you need to do that, you have basically two options: send in a lot of your troops to get killed trying, or send in something even deadlier to take their place. So, if you're going to start a war, be absolutely sure that your enemy isn't a. as technically capable as you are and b. less scrupulous. The Japanese and the Germans both assumed that the United States had too many scruples (or was just too self-absorbed) to become a "real" enemy. Well, they were wrong, and the only reason you're bitching about it having been the U.S. that dropped those two bombs is because we got there first.

You don't think that Nazi Germany, had it finished it's weapons program, or Imperial Japan, who was far closer to a working bomb than anyone realized, wouldn't have used them? You should count yourself lucky that we stopped them both: the world today would be a very different place if the Axis had won, a place I'm sure many of us would rather never existed.

"Never, ever do citizens of a country deserved to be wiped out for the sins of politicians."

The "politicians" didn't lead Japan to conquest, the entire Japanese culture did. The Japanese people were delighted to participate at any available level. "Banzai!" wasn't a cliche back then.

It is popular to distinguish the noble peasant from his leaders so we may conveniently blame-then-sacrifice those leaders (a fact Hideki Tojo certainly understood, and note that NONE of the executed Jap war criminals tried to throw Hirohito under the bus despite his complete responsibility for ordering their conquests).

The Japanese people had for decades eagerly embraced violence throughout areas their country conquered. Not just standard wartime brutality, but protracted, perverted recreational sadism and mass murder like the Rape of Nanking.

"That is an incredibly simplistic view of WWII. "

It describes perfectly what the Japanese did. They certainly did try to enslave Asia and killed millions of Asians in the attempt. Millions of Japanese served in the forces that did this, and countless civilians worked to make it happen. Japan as a nation was vicious until it was beaten, at which point benevolent US management and diplomatic handling of the Emperor saved the day:

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAmacarthur.htm

"(8) List of reforms that General Douglas MacArthur submitted to Emperor Hirohito and his Japanese government in October 1945.

1. The emancipation of the women of Japan through their enfranchisement - that, being members of the body politic, they may bring to Japan a new concept of government directly subservient to the well-being of the home.

2. The encouragement of the unionization of labor-that it may have an influential voice in safeguarding the working man from exploitation and abuse, and raising his living standard to a higher level.

3. The institution of such measures as may be necessary to correct the evils which exist in the child labor practices.

4. The opening of the schools to more liberal education-that the people may shape their future progress from factual knowledge and benefit from an understanding of a system under which government becomes the servant rather than the master of the people.

5. The abolition of systems which through secret inquisition and abuse have held the people in constant fear-substituting therefor a system of justice designed to afford the people protection against despotic, arbitrary and unjust methods. Freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom of religion must be maintained. Regimentation of the masses under the guise or claim of efficiency, under whatever name of government it may be made, must cease.

6. The democratization of Japanese economic institutions to the end that monopolistic industrial controls be revised through the development of methods which tend to insure a wide distribution of income and ownership of the means of production and trade.

7. In the immediate administrative field take vigorous and prompt action by the government with reference to housing, feeding and clothing the population in order to prevent pestilence, disease, starvation or other major social catastrophe. The coming winter will be critical and the only way to meet its difficulties is by the full employment in useful work of everyone."

So McArthur, apparently quite a bit smarter than you, was able to realize that the women, children and workers (items 1,2 and 3) were being exploited by the government and in your words, by "the entire Japanese culture", correct? Who do you think was in Nagasaki and Hiroshima, men and soldiers only?

So once we nuked them, then we set them free, but first they needed to be punished for being born into the Japanese culture. I got you. Makes perfect sense.

"Never, ever do citizens of a country deserved to be wiped out for the sins of politicians."

The "politicians" didn't lead Japan to conquest, the entire Japanese culture did. The Japanese people were delighted to participate at any available level. "Banzai!" wasn't a cliche back then.

It is popular to distinguish the noble peasant from his leaders so we may conveniently blame-then-sacrifice those leaders (a fact Hideki Tojo certainly understood, and note that NONE of the executed Jap war criminals tried to throw Hirohito under the bus despite his complete responsibility for ordering their conquests).

The Japanese people had for decades eagerly embraced violence throughout areas their country conquered. Not just standard wartime brutality, but protracted, perverted recreational sadism and mass murder like the Rape of Nanking.

"That is an incredibly simplistic view of WWII. "

It describes perfectly what the Japanese did. They certainly did try to enslave Asia and killed millions of Asians in the attempt. Millions of Japanese served in the forces that did this, and countless civilians worked to make it happen. Japan as a nation was vicious until it was beaten, at which point benevolent US management and diplomatic handling of the Emperor saved the day:

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAmacarthur.htm

"(8) List of reforms that General Douglas MacArthur submitted to Emperor Hirohito and his Japanese government in October 1945.

1. The emancipation of the women of Japan through their enfranchisement - that, being members of the body politic, they may bring to Japan a new concept of government directly subservient to the well-being of the home.

2. The encouragement of the unionization of labor-that it may have an influential voice in safeguarding the working man from exploitation and abuse, and raising his living standard to a higher level.

3. The institution of such measures as may be necessary to correct the evils which exist in the child labor practices.

4. The opening of the schools to more liberal education-that the people may shape their future progress from factual knowledge and benefit from an understanding of a system under which government becomes the servant rather than the master of the people.

5. The abolition of systems which through secret inquisition and abuse have held the people in constant fear-substituting therefor a system of justice designed to afford the people protection against despotic, arbitrary and unjust methods. Freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom of religion must be maintained. Regimentation of the masses under the guise or claim of efficiency, under whatever name of government it may be made, must cease.

6. The democratization of Japanese economic institutions to the end that monopolistic industrial controls be revised through the development of methods which tend to insure a wide distribution of income and ownership of the means of production and trade.

7. In the immediate administrative field take vigorous and prompt action by the government with reference to housing, feeding and clothing the population in order to prevent pestilence, disease, starvation or other major social catastrophe. The coming winter will be critical and the only way to meet its difficulties is by
the full employment in useful work of everyone."

A lawyer who takes jobs on both sides of an ethical issue has either compromised their ethics for one client or the other, or they have no ethics at all.

I said he offered. Of course he didn't represent both sides!

Lincoln destroyed states rights and set the stage for the all encompassing federal government we have today. He should have just let the South go.

Oh of course, states rights are so much more important than human rights. Ideas like "liberty is an inalienable right" is just a passing fad. Besides, slaves had it pretty good, right?

If the southern states had been allowed to go their own way, they would have been followed by every other region with a real or imagined grievance. Think they would have held on the the west coast? Not likely, since they had only recently settled territorial disputes with the British empire and Mexico (the latter by occupying their capital city), with the Russian Empire showing more than a little interest. Maybe they would have held on to the prairie states.

That "all encompassing federal government" is the right's favorite straw man — though conservatives always seem to increase government power and spending when they're in charge. Whatever its faults, a strong central government is not something you can live without if you want your nation to be a leading economic power. Which leads to many other kinds of power — recall that the CSA disappeared because they didn't have the industrial capacity to wage a modern war.

If you want to live in a country where government power localized and limited, I suggest Central America.

But in the end the decision was arbitrary. There were 3 gauges in England (where the railway was invented) and a committee decided on the standard gauge.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RAgauge.htm
http://www.greatwestern.org.uk/m_in_gwr.htm
http://www.narrow-gauge.co.uk/

Yeah, lazy http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/IRdeformities.htm/complainers!

I don't think I'd care for the kind of revolution a depression might bring on. And now we got an American doing the same kind of rabble rousing.

I find it ironic that your unelected upper house is the voice of sanity in the UK. Perhaps you made a mistake when you stripped them of all their power?

It is indeed ironic, but I think you'll find that most of that work was done in the 1911 parliament act. Can't blame the Dear Leader (aka Tony Blair) for that one. They have got plans to get rid of hereditary peers, but nothing's happened as yet.

According to Gary Mack and Dave Perry, there are a lot of things wrong with her story. Among the most significant, she claimed that she was at a party in Dallas the night before the assassination, a party attended by Richard Nixon, Lyndon Johnson, and J. Edgar Hoover. The problem with that claim is that Johnson was in Houston that night with Kennedy. Photographs prove it. He didn't arrive in Dallas until late that night, where Johnson was again photographed at the hotel around midnight. Nixon was in Dallas, but was escorting Joan Crawford at the Statler-Hilton hotel -- and was photographed there.

That's not the only mismatch or logical inconsistency. And there are lots of people who are bad with dates, but that's where she allegedly first heard hints about a murder plot, and the day before the assassination. Those aren't things one is likely to get mixed up.

So first they came for the communists, right?

Who opposed the 1964 Civil Rights act?

Because that is more important than who wrote it ?

Or more important than Mike Mansfield and Hubert Humphrey

But again, the President is the one who introduced the bill, based on promises that were made during the campaign. When the bill got passed, it was after deliberations in both the house and senate, where 20% of the republicans in the house voted against it. Why did you feel it was needed to list 3 Democrats who voted against it, instead of listing the 46 that voted for it?

It has been discussed that the main reason that the Republican party voted 'yea' in such high numbers was purely for political advantage. The perceptions of the constituents at the time, were much more closely tied into how their representative worked with the President, and not against.[1] And my personal opinion, is that the distinction is not between 'D' and 'R', but between 'The South' and the rest of the U.S. Attaching political distrinction will wind up giving you a hodge podge of data points that looks random with both republicans, and democrats, both opposing the Civil Rights Act. When the distinction is made using the geographical area represented, the connection becomes much more relevant. Where were all of your examples from again? I suppose it doesnt help too much if one of your examples 'opposed' the civil rights act because he already believed the constitution guaranteed these rights to ALL. Or that the other one of your examples admitted his opposition to be the 'biggest mistake in his career' when he supported the 1965 Voting Rights Act?

Trying to point out that a few racists were also in the democratic party does not accomplish anything. "But mommy, he did it too" stopped being a valid point of argument for most people when their age rolled over to double digits. Since 100% of the Republican party didnt support the Civil Rights Act either, it would be a trivial exercise to pull out a handful of names with an 'R' next to their names. Neither of those things would change the fact that John F. Kennedy, a Democrat, was the one who brought the legislation to both the house and senate. The Civil Rights Act was introduced by a Democrat, supported by a majority of Republicans, and was pushed through a filibuster(by other southern democrats) with the help of the above linked Democrats that wanted to see the presidents ideals codified into law. It was a GREAT example of what can be accomplished when two political sides work together, and overcome two geographic sides that wont.

Being blatantly partisan helps nobody, except those in politics. Are you in politics? Drone indeed

Who opposed the 1964 Civil Rights act?

Because that is more important than who wrote it ?

Or more important than Mike Mansfield and Hubert Humphrey

But again, the President is the one who introduced the bill, based on promises that were made during the campaign. When the bill got passed, it was after deliberations in both the house and senate, where 20% of the republicans in the house voted against it. Why did you feel it was needed to list 3 Democrats who voted against it, instead of listing the 46 that voted for it?

It has been discussed that the main reason that the Republican party voted 'yea' in such high numbers was purely for political advantage. The perceptions of the constituents at the time, were much more closely tied into how their representative worked with the President, and not against.[1] And my personal opinion, is that the distinction is not between 'D' and 'R', but between 'The South' and the rest of the U.S. Attaching political distrinction will wind up giving you a hodge podge of data points that looks random with both republicans, and democrats, both opposing the Civil Rights Act. When the distinction is made using the geographical area represented, the connection becomes much more relevant. Where were all of your examples from again? I suppose it doesnt help too much if one of your examples 'opposed' the civil rights act because he already believed the constitution guaranteed these rights to ALL. Or that the other one of your examples admitted his opposition to be the 'biggest mistake in his career' when he supported the 1965 Voting Rights Act?

Trying to point out that a few racists were also in the democratic party does not accomplish anything. "But mommy, he did it too" stopped being a valid point of argument for most people when their age rolled over to double digits. Since 100% of the Republican party didnt support the Civil Rights Act either, it would be a trivial exercise to pull out a handful of names with an 'R' next to their names. Neither of those things would change the fact that John F. Kennedy, a Democrat, was the one who brought the legislation to both the house and senate. The Civil Rights Act was introduced by a Democrat, supported by a majority of Republicans, and was pushed through a filibuster(by other southern democrats) with the help of the above linked Democrats that wanted to see the presidents ideals codified into law. It was a GREAT example of what can be accomplished when two political sides work together, and overcome two geographic sides that wont.

Being blatantly partisan helps nobody, except those in politics. Are you in politics? Drone indeed

Napalm bombs on Japan killed even more civilians than atomic weapons in Japan.
From globalsecurity.org:

"On 21 March 2000, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea issued a memorandum detailing records of "criminal acts against humanity" committed by United States troops during the three-year Korean War (1950-1953). The DPRK report stated that the United States killed peaceful citizens by indiscriminate bombing and naval bombardment against urban and rural areas in the North. According to the DPRK, from 11 July to 20 August 1951, more than 10,000 United States planes had conducted over 250 air raids on Pyongyang, dropping as many as 4,000 bombs, killing 4,000 civilians and wounding 2,500 more. From 11 to 12 July 1952, 400 United States planes dropped more than 6,000 napalm bombs and time-bombs, killing 8,000 civilians, including women and children. "Town and country were reduced to ashes and several million peaceable inhabitants killed", the Permanent Representative of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Li Hyong Chol, said. According to the DPRK report, Napalm and other bombs dropped by United States war planes totaled more than 600,000 tons, which was 3.7 times the 161,425 tons dropped over Japan during the Pacific War."

Also

"A single firebomb dropped from an airplane at low-altitude was capable of producing damage to a 2500-yd2 area. In targeted Japanese cities, napalm bombs burned out 40% of the land area. In a Japanese residential neighborhoods with wood and paper houses, there was no way to fight the fires. On March 9 and 10, 1945, US forces dropped more than 1,500 tons of napalm bombs, all produced at Rocky Mountain Arsenal, on Tokyo. The resulting firestorm destroyed enormous sections of the city."

See also http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/tokyo.htm where it states:

"Estimates of the number killed range between 80,000 and 200,000, a higher death toll than that produced by the dropping of the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima or Nagasaki six months later."

It took not one but two atomic bombs to convince the Japanese to surrender, and this was AFTER the horrendous firebombing.

Firebombing cities accomplished its purpose. From http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWfirestorm.htm :
"A wave of terror radiated from the suffering city and spread through Germany. Appalling details of the great fire was recounted. A stream of haggard, terrified refugees flowed into the neighbouring provinces. In every large town people said: "What happened to Hamburg yesterday can happen to us tomorrow". After Hamburg in the wide circle of the political and the military command could be heard the words: "The war is lost"."

So I ask, who are the terrorists?

The expansionistic prisoner of war torturing invaders, the ones dropping the napalm bombs on the invaders' civilian population, the ones ordering the dropping of napalm bombs, or the ones that voted into power the people that ordered the dropping of napalm bombs?

At some point citizens ARE responsible for the actions of their leaders. And yes, War is Hell.

William Pitt


  On the 31st March, 1783, Pitt resigned and declared that he was "unconnected with any party whatever". Now out of power, Pitt turned his attention once more to parliamentary reform. On 7th May he proposed a plan that included: (1) checking bribery at elections; (2) disfranchising corrupt constituencies; (3) adding to the number of members for London. His proposals were defeated by 293 to 149. Another bill that he introduced on 2nd June for restricting abuses in public office was passed by the House of Commons but rejected by the House of Lords.


After I googled for it. Lucky /. puts the year of the quote in too. There are a lot of William Pitt's in history :)

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/PRpitt.htm

You are full of shit. Period.

Nothing in his congressional record, personal life, nor his medical practice leads one iota of credence to the newsletters. In fact, it's just the opposite.

Would the president of the NAACP back someone like you just described? Of course not.

Would someone that you just described deliver babies for free to African American and Hispanic families that were too poor to afford it? No.

He was running a full time medical practice and left the newsletters in care of people he thought he could trust. That was a mistake, as there were those who had a different agenda. At least he admitted he had been careless, unlike MOST of our elected officials (Iraq War).

His actions speak a lot louder than the words written by some assholes who had a vendetta. Here's a challenge for you. I want you to find one, just one instance where an action in his personal, medical, or political life shows paranoid racism. You won't find one.

But I'll bite. Ron Paul has extensive ties to the League of the South, a neo-Confederate group that advocates secession, a "return" to Christian law and racial violence.

Or his association with the John Birch Society, a far right wing society with both racist and conspiracy theory views.

He's not a libertarian. He's a constitutionalist. There is a difference.

"I guess you didn't read my post or any of the information I linked."

No, I didn't read Woolf's book or listen to her speech. I've heard the arguments a dozen times before. You pick a few conditions leading up to Nazi Germany, then compare them to the current administration's policies. It's sloppily researched propaganda. See here:
http://www.amazon.com/review/product/1933392797/ref=cm_cr_dp_synop?_encoding=UTF8&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending#R28W0R1KUAZR0H
And here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_sharpshooter_fallacy

"Germany was a parliamentary democracy, fairly liberal and very similar to the U.S. today."

No, it was pretty friggin far from the current state of the US. For one, unemployment in Germany was at a staggeringly high 30% in 1932. It's at about 4.5% in the US currently, trending down in the last four years. I bet if you do a little more research, you could find other, rather significant, ways 1930 Germany != 2000 USA. Unless, of course, you are only looking for similarities.
http://data.bls.gov/PDQ/servlet/SurveyOutputServlet?request_action=wh&graph_name=LN_cpsbref3
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/GERunemployment.htm

"Since you mention the Constitution, there are laws being passed as we speak (already passed this year and proposed right now) that dismantle and subvert the constitution."

Laws cannot dismantle the constitution, only constitutional amendments can. Stupid laws get passed all the time, mainly to increase the power of the state over it's citizens. Welcome to 20th/21st century USA.

"But as a matter of fact, there are direct links between Hitler, Hitler's financier and Prescott Bush, our current president's grandfather."

That's nice, what does it have to do with anything?
http://www.fallacyfiles.org/genefall.html
More or less.

"Within a year you will hear this happen to an American blogger and many people will defend the action."

It happens all the time in all types of media. It doesn't matter as long as it's not the government suppressing speech. I can easily visit anarchist, communist, fascist, racist, theocratic, liberal, conservative, and UFO cult religion websites with impunity - where is the organized suppression of thought here? Then again, a lot of media outlets are making a heap of money skewering the Bush regime, maybe it's a conspiracy! :)

"Furthermore, the movement within the U.S. government has directly used tactics, imagery, phrases and ideas from fascist Germany in current times and it's directly related to the things that I'm talking about."

I'm not sure what "Movement" you are talking about, but the political tactics used by Germany have been around before Nietzsche and Machiavelli. I'm not saying it's right, but it certainly isn't a new development, or something indicating a swing toward fascism.
http://www.fallacyfiles.org/genefall.html
(Again)

"I call Bullshit on your pompous invocation of Godwin's law and ask that you at least dig around a bit before responding."

I did dig around and found that you are even more wrong than I originally thought. I suggest you link to websites that provide data to back your arguments, not to other people making the same argument as you.

http://www.fallacyfiles.org/authorit.html

I suggest you read Chomsky, he does some halfway decent research and uses citations, even if his conclusions are utterly wrong.

You're too kind. The Supreme Court isn't applying the any kind of possible reasonable interpretation. If you knew nothing about this country and read the Constitution as an outsider and then were told that the U.S. Federal Government was using that commerce clause to spy on all communications in the country you would instantly know that willful corruption or Nihilsm and decadance was in play. No person who actually applies reason free of major cognitive dissonance can come up with the judgements the Supreme Court has. What really happened is that the Supreme Court began striking down the New Deal legislation, so Theodore Roosevelt gave the Supreme Court a little ultamatum. It amounted to telling them to do what I say or be destroyed. Since then the Supreme Court ceased to be a real check on Executive or Legislative power, and has been more or less co-opted into helping to destroy the freedoms of the country.

Those with badges *are* my neighbours with bigger muscles.

The reason we can't leave our doors unlocked is because there is stuff inside worth having. 100 years ago all we had was dirt and fleas. Now we have the shiny it has made us unsafe.

It took a lot of murders of the people by the police for us to unarm our cops. Now they're trying to scare us into our homes with burglars, paedophiles and terrorists and demanding to be armed with weapons and more powers again.

Fuck that.

Here's an idea, stop dropping bombs on people from the sky and they might stop blowing themselves up at the checkpoint.

If the British had repeated the air raid which destroyed Hamburg several more times (e.g. on Berlin, Leipzig, Munich, etc.), the war might have ended sooner.

(7) Albert Speer discussed the bombing of Hamburg when he was interrogated in July 1945.
We were of the opinion that a rapid repetition of this type of attack upon another six German towns would inevitably cripple the will to sustain armament manufacture and war production. It was I who first verbally reported to the Fuehrer at that time that a continuation of these attacks might bring about a rapid end to the war."
link

It is likely that the a-bomb was to sole cause of the decision by Japan to surrender. Of course, the general situation in 1945 played a huge role but the Japanese military officials were prepared to use the entire Japanese population to defeat the Allies. Other factors considered by some to be important:
1. Russian attacks - a great deal of the news of the Russian success arrived in Tokyo after they agreed to surrender and the Japanese were prepared to fight the Russians. The Japanese military wanted a negotiated peace which left them in power.
2. Lack of fuel and supplies - The Japanese military was prepared to fight on. They had 10,000 planes (5000+ for kamikaze attacks on shipping, landing sites, etc. and 5000 for normal activity), multiple (thousands) fast boats for kamikaze attacks on shipping, at least a million men ready to defend the south coast of Japan, etc.

Eventually a naval blockade, bombing attacks on infrastructure, etc. over several years might have led to the defeat of Japan. Alternatively attacks which yielded huge numbers of American casualties (well over 2,000,000 if the entire country had to be taken) could have ended the war in a year or two. The Japanese considered it honorable to fight for their country. When the A-bomb removed their ability to fight against soldiers, they agreed to surrender because there was no point to fighting on and it was not honorable to die pointlessly with no ability to hurt the enemy.

Here is a much better picture.
On the right you can clearly see Lovelady's shirt as was seen on the day of JFK's assassination, on the left is a much clearer picture of "the man in the doorway" and you can clearly make out the plaid print of his shirt sleeve.

Hundreds of people were arrested for simply belonging to the communist party or attending meetings. Much of the evidence was from people scared of the blacklist or jail who would fabricate testimony to satisfy their prosecutors.

Here is a good overview of the McCarthy era.

Possibly worse than prison was the blacklisting, which ruined many lives.

Yet it was another Republican president that started the fighting in Viet Nam, Eisenhower.

Totally wrong. The fighting started against the French colonial domain, in 1946, and lasted until 1954, when the French suffered total defeat at Dien Bien Phu. The war between North and South started gradually, as a guerilla war, shortly after the country gained independence. The USA sent some military personnel to the South during the Eisenhower government, but they were training the South Vietnam military and weren't directly involved in combat.

Yes, the fighting between the French and Viet Namese started years before EIsenhower was president but he sent the first military personel to Viet Nam. By that tyme there were ongoing peace talks. An agreement, the Genevas Peace Accord or Geneva Conference I believe, was made in which the people of North and South Vietnam would vote to decide if the north and south would reunite. Eisenhower was against this, so he sent in a team of military advisors led by Colonel Edward Lansdale to arm, gather, and train those from the south who were also against the vote for or against reunification. As tyme went on Kennedy sent in more and more advisors. Then as president Johnson used the falsified Gulf of Tonkin Incident as justification to send regular troops to Vietnam.

Correct me and I am wrong, but the witness protection program is for people who stood up and taken responsibility for what they are saying. Those who try to hide from what have done/said don't need the witness protection program, because we don't know who they are. Aside from that point, I think most people, as I surely do, that you have a right to stand up to accuser. Those that hide behind reporters deny the accussed that fundemental right.

Japan was attempting to destroy the US as well. No doubt there were Japanese infultrators amongst the citizens of the US... some must have have been in positions of power in their communities.

But that doesn't justify taking the lives and families of Japanese Citizens of the US and throwing them in concentration camps. That does not justify locking my grandparents up like criminals for years, kept away from their kids.

McCarthy didn't just go after traitors. He went after communists, people with alternative sexualities, liberals, those that believed in social support, those that felt capitalism needed work, and anyone that anyone was willing to name to get themselves out of trouble. Just like being ethnically japanese made people potential traitors in WW2, being of the opinion that pure capitalism is broken was enough to get you thrown in jail. Even agreeing with Adam Smith that the pure capitalist system eventually breaks down was enough to get people blacklisted, thrown out of work and schools, careers and futures taken away from them. And remember, Social Security was considered a liberal, communist thought. There is a lot of ugly, pointless history there.

And its happening again. Now we're throwing people in Guantanamo if we suspect them of being a terrorist. And a terrorist is anyone who disagrees with the war on terrorism. Being a darkie, of course, doesn't hurt, just like racism played into our concentration camps in WW2 and our ideological purge by McCarthy.

You're a history teacher. You should know better. If you can't see the connection, history is most assuredly doomed to repeat itself. And who knows who it will be next time: lots of countries have purged their intellectuals.

Yes and no. The lords will almost certainly strike down any crazy legislation that the government tries to put through, however, as Tony Blair proved with the Fox Hunting Ban, if the Lords block him repeatedly he'll just force the legislation through under the Parliament Act.

I didn't say I take Bush's and Gonzalez's word as gospel; I said that I'll personally take a wait and see approach.

I assumed an ardent ACLU supporter would be more familiar with the organizations roots and their political stances. Heck! The ACLU even sided with Rush Limbaugh if you can believe that.

Agreed, today's ACLU is very different from when it was founded; but at the same time many of the political fights the ACLU jumps into they tend to side on the more liberal / socialist side of the argument. But again, not that that is always a bad thing. (On a side note, I find it humorous that many liberals compare Republicans to NAZIs. The NAZI were a socialist party who built support after WWI by providing jobs to its members (HAMAS anyone?) However, the NAZI party of Germany was a socialist party that espoused right-wing ideology. Socially, they stood for liberal thinking (socialism), but only for those of German blood. (Nationalism) thus their name.)

My point being, just as one can go too far to the right; so they can also go too far to the left.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/GERnazi.htm

But, to site the quote:

The ACLU's founder, Roger Baldwin, stated: "We are for SOCIALISM, disarmament, and ultimately for abolishing the state itself... We seek the social ownership of property, the abolition of the propertied class, and the SOLE CONTROL of those who produce wealth. COMMUNISM is the goal." (Source: Trial and Error, by Geo. Grant)

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie =UTF-8&rls=GGLG,GGLG:2005-47,GGLG:en&q=aclu+%22COM MUNISM+is+the+goal%22+%22Roger+Baldwin%22

Not that the ACLU has not done anything good, America is big enough for many viewpoints; and in fact, I would argue, is my country's greatest strength. The ability to cherry pick the best of philosophies to form a amalgam of ideas that is this great experiment.

I think we agree on the NYT. However, I do believe they are left leaning and tend to slant their coverage and stories to favor a leftist viewpoint. It's actually difficult, IMHO, to find a non-partisan source of information on current events today. Sheer volume of sources has made it so that to maintain relevance and circulation, most traditinal information / news outlets have migrated more to sensationalism and away from substance.

In regards to the precedent being bunk, I'll hold judgement on that because IANA "constitutional" L. The two sites you link two are both heavily democrat party / liberal leaning sites. I don't know whose legal opinion they're handing out; which is why I think the whole debate is as hyped as it is because of the upcoming elections. Only time will tell (hopefully).

But to provide perhaps a more authoritive source to compare to the two you provided:
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.ht ml?id=110007703
The Wall Street Journal:

--- Begin WSJ quote ---

The allegation of Presidential law-breaking rests solely on the fact that Mr. Bush authorized wiretaps without first getting the approval of the court established under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. But no Administration then or since has ever conceded that that Act trumped a President's power to make exceptions to FISA if national security required it. FISA established a process by which certain wiretaps in the context of the Cold War could be approved, not a limit on what wiretaps could ever be allowed.

The courts have been explicit on this point, most recently in In Re: Sealed Case, the 2002 opinion by the special panel of appellate judges established to hear FISA appeals. In its per curiam opinion, the c

does this count?

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAkingML.htm

Wilkins was right to be concerned about a possible smear campaign against Rustin. Edgar Hoover, head of the Federal Bureau of Investigations, had been keeping a file on Bayard Rustin for many years. An FBI undercover agent managed to take a photograph of Rustin talking to King while he was having a bath. This photograph was then used to support false stories being circulated that Rustin was having a homosexual relationship with King.

  This information was now passed on to white politicians in the Deep South who feared that a successful march on Washington would persuade President Lyndon B. Johnson to sponsor a proposed new civil rights act. Strom Thurmond led the campaign against Rustin making several speeches where he described him as a "communist, draft dodger and homosexual".

...
J. Edgar Hoover became concerned about King's political development, especially when in 1966 he became a strong opponent of the Vietnam War. Hoover arranged for Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents to bug the telephones and hotel rooms where King stayed. Details of his private life was leaked to the press and the FBI sent King an anonymous blackmail letter in an attempt to force him to retire from political life.

"This black list was nothing to joke about. People lost their lives, lost their businesses, lost their homes, and were falsely jailed."

"Give one example?"

Only one?

Suicide:
"On Feb. 9, 1950, in Wheeling, W.Va., McCarthy claimed that there were 205 known communists in the State Department. Later on the Senate floor, he reduced this number to 57. That led to the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings and McCarthy's continued attacks.
In 1951, Hunt noted that "there have been many suicides due to the smearing received either in Committee hearings or from remarks made in the United States Congress." He introduced a bill providing for lawsuits against the United States for those who were defamed by members of Congress. The bill did not receive enough support."
http://www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2004/11/ 01/news/wyoming/8cf263f85d4be99387256f3e0020f92f.t xt [casperstartribune.net]

Lost Jobs:
"Yale Law School professor Ralph Brown, who conducted the most systematic survey of the economic damage of the McCarthy era, estimated that roughly ten thousand people lost their jobs. Such a figure may be low, as even Brown admits, for it does not include rejected applicants, people who resigned under duress, and the men and women who were ostensibly dismissed for other reasons. Still, it does suggest the scope of the economic sanctions."
http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/schreck er-blacklist.html [upenn.edu]

Frightened Students:
"In the late 1950s a group of graduate students at the University of Chicago wanted to have a coffee vending machine installed outside the Physics Department for the convenience of people who worked there late at night. They started to circulate a petition to the Buildings and Grounds Department, but their colleagues refused to sign. They did not want to be associated with the allegedly radical students whose names were already on the document."
http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/mccarthy/schrecke r6.htm [uiuc.edu]

More:
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAmccarthyis m.htm [schoolnet.co.uk]

Not convinced?
Do a google search on McCarthism + Blacklist

Do some research we weren't nearly as "free" then as you seem to think. Of course this was mainly abit later.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAhooverE.ht m
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAhuac.htm

The Un-American Activities Committee didn't kill people, but that is about the best thing that can be said for the organization and the org that became the FBI of that time. Hoover was the US Hilter. He didn't go in for death camps. IF Hoover didn't like you, or your group or politics, he'd blacklist you so that you couldn't get a job, have FBI agents tail you everywhere, and try to get you deported to Russia at the drop of the hat. IF Hoover was alive and running the FBI today, all Greens, Libertains, any political group "left" of center and politics groups in the "far right", and most of Hollywood would be under FBI watch with files ready for a witch hunt and for them to deported out of the US.

Hoover was the most Un-American US citizen to ever be in the Federal government. Almost anything that Bush & Ashcroft have done now a days is almost small potatoes to what Hoover did then. I'm only grateful that we live a somewhat more free life now. With the internet, I can throw up a website and build a global community/political party; The internet doesn't mean that any one else would follow my B.S. unless they believed in it themselves. Hoover was against freedom of political thought. He railroaded the Socialist and Communists political parties out of the US, which if is really un_American. (I don't really care for either of the 2 platforms, but having a US government agency push any political party out should be very against our laws on so many levels.) If I want follow or spread the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Mons terism as a religion or political party, the FBI or other US governments shouldn't have the right to pick up anyone else that follows the FSM asks for all of our members and tries to get us fired from our jobs and removed from the country. Look at the US history; we weren't that much better than the Germans. We had camps of Japanese-Americans. Ours just weren't "death" camps. They could have easily turned that way though.

Do some research we weren't nearly as "free" then as you seem to think. Of course this was mainly abit later.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAhooverE.ht m
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAhuac.htm

The Un-American Activities Committee didn't kill people, but that is about the best thing that can be said for the organization and the org that became the FBI of that time. Hoover was the US Hilter. He didn't go in for death camps. IF Hoover didn't like you, or your group or politics, he'd blacklist you so that you couldn't get a job, have FBI agents tail you everywhere, and try to get you deported to Russia at the drop of the hat. IF Hoover was alive and running the FBI today, all Greens, Libertains, any political group "left" of center and politics groups in the "far right", and most of Hollywood would be under FBI watch with files ready for a witch hunt and for them to deported out of the US.

Hoover was the most Un-American US citizen to ever be in the Federal government. Almost anything that Bush & Ashcroft have done now a days is almost small potatoes to what Hoover did then. I'm only grateful that we live a somewhat more free life now. With the internet, I can throw up a website and build a global community/political party; The internet doesn't mean that any one else would follow my B.S. unless they believed in it themselves. Hoover was against freedom of political thought. He railroaded the Socialist and Communists political parties out of the US, which if is really un_American. (I don't really care for either of the 2 platforms, but having a US government agency push any political party out should be very against our laws on so many levels.) If I want follow or spread the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Mons terism as a religion or political party, the FBI or other US governments shouldn't have the right to pick up anyone else that follows the FSM asks for all of our members and tries to get us fired from our jobs and removed from the country. Look at the US history; we weren't that much better than the Germans. We had camps of Japanese-Americans. Ours just weren't "death" camps. They could have easily turned that way though.

Second, why should we expect another Einstein, or Newton? Given that anyone's accomplishments must be measured relative to the common populace, we would expect people of such stature to be rare.

There are many factors that go into what makes someone great. Part of it is certainly being in the right time and place. Another is the social climate. Is Einstein the equal of Newton, or vice versa? That is difficult to say. They lived in completely different times. Could one do the same accomplishments as the other? One common element that appears between the two is that they were both fairly prolific (Newton did calculus, physics, and ironically enough, why light is a wave). I'd be curious if other people could come up with other historical science figure that also had several major findings. Feynman? Turing?

As a result of which, 90% of our middle class would be being paid substinance level wages, working 12-16 hour days to be able to eat...

... could I interrupt a second here? The British, at least, were empowered to do exactly that with the Irish, after taxing all their land away. Taxes have nothing to do with man's inhumanity to man. That happens both with and without taxes, though more often with taxes.

My real problem with taxes is corruption. That is, the real purpose of taxes as we actually see it, is to create raidable nest eggs that corrupt government officials can divert to their own assets. The more taxes, the more corrupt officials are supported. The less taxes, the less they are supported.

I have yet to see a single tax-based fund that isn't usually mismanaged and often outright stolen from. That includes Social Security, road building, school construction, Government pension funds, school operating funds, NASA... the list goes on.

Okay, thank you. Please go on...

Christmas will now be known as "Crystal Night"

Kamikazes died out uh.. about 50 freakin years ago!?

How old are you, ten? Look, son, 50 years are nothing in the development of humanity. They "died out" just 25 freakin years before I was born, doesn't sound that much to me. My dad was 21 already. And I'm not even middle-aged.

Hell, 25 years before I was born my anchestors in this country had to be stopped by an onslaught of most major nations from exterminating millions of jews, gays, sinti, roma, communists, anarchists, libertarians, (I'm sure I forgot some groups) systematically in fucking factories built for the purpose.

In the decades afterwards, many of these criminals continued to lead the major organizations of state and private sector. A guy like Heinrich Gross who performed the cruelest experiments on handicapped childen in a Nazi hospital, continued to serve as an psychological expert in trials. Which in fact meant that it could happen to you (and did to a lot of people) that the police would bust you with a little marijuana or something, and if it went to trial, this Nazi killer asshole "examined" you and gave his assessment of your psychological state to the judge.

Others, who had sentenced people to death routinely every day for printing of pamphlets, etc., took high positions in the "democratic" post-war judiciary system. Walter Roemer had been the First Prosecutor at the Sondergerichtshof (Special Court) in Munich, where, among many others, he sentenced Sophie Scholl to death. He became head of the department for public law in the post-war ministry of justice.

Major industry leaders like Alfried Krupp who had built a factory right beside Auschwitz, were left with a slap on the wrist, if anything at all.

These are just examples for the sake of brevity, and it stopped only because slowly these criminals die out.

Just 50 years. Get a perspective.

...there has also been some Panthers with stripes...
...and Tigers without stripes...
yes, I know... the tiger is off topic... sorry.

> The destruction of [..] Dresden [...] might add up to about what the gulf coast is experiencing today

Oh, my god. I am almost speechless. What the gulf coast is experiencing today is a nothing compared to Dresden. Members of my familly where there and saw people hit by phosphore, burning alive (once phospore touch your skin, you can't prevent it to burn as soon as it is in contact with air. You can put your arm in water, but as soon as you get it out, the burning starts again). They saw cars flying in tornado (and of course, people). Please don't compare this to new orleans.

Temperature in the city center was 1000 degree C.

As english is not my primary language, I'll copy/paste some info for you:

"The incendiaries [bombs] started thousands of fires and, aided by a stiff wind and the early-on destruction of the telephone exchanges that might have summoned firefighters from nearby towns, these fires soon coalesced into one unimaginably huge firestorm. Now such firestorms are not natural phenomena, and are seldom created by man, so few people have any idea of their nature. Basically, what happened was this: The intense heat caused by the huge column of smoke and flame, miles high and thousands of acres in area, created a terrific updraft of air in the center of the column. This created a very low pressure at the base of the column, and surrounding fresh air rushed inward at speeds estimated to be thirty times that of an ordinary tornado. An ordinary tornado wind-force is a result of temperature differences of perhaps 20 to 30 degrees centigrade. In this firestorm the temperature differences were on the order of 600 to 1,000 degrees centigrade. This inward-rushing air further fed the flames, creating a literal tornado of fire, with winds in the surrounding area of many hundreds of miles per hour -- sweeping men, women, children, animals, vehicles and uprooted trees pell-mell into the glowing inferno."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Dresden.jpg
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWdresden2.J PG

> Heck, they don't even seem to realize how big a disaster this

I would say that you don't a a flying clue about what you are talking about.

WHY IS IT THAT A 1940's ERA war plane can KICK my Cessna's Butt?

It may have something to do with the 4 machine guns, but I'm no expert. Since your Cessna likely spends more time on the ground than in the air, the 1/2 ton of bombs may also be a factor.

-Adam

Consider this:

In 1945, Arthur Harris decided to create a firestorm in the medieval city of Dresden. He considered it a good target as it had not been attacked during the war and was virtually undefended by anti-aircraft guns.

With no intent diminish what I consider one of the most severe embarrassments for a nation proclaiming all men are created equal. The Kansas-Nebraska Act produced violent confrontation that in and of itself demonstrates that indeed, many Americans [John Brown] were opposed to slavery. Makes me feel a tad better anyway.

I mean Sudetenland. Neville Chamberlain made his "Peace in our Time" speech regarding the Munich Conference.

Correction:
First German Bombing raid on London: May 1915

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWzeppelinra ids.htm

... with the ability to work 10 times faster than they can today.

Tell me, where is this miracle office park? I'd like to pay a nighttime visit.

IANAmerican: First of all this is not the kind of issue that people go into bloody battles for, secondly, you should read some of what Lenin wrote about Stolypin reforms. Basically if people are given more opportunity for financial independence, it is [almost?] impossible to get them to participate in a revolution and overthrow the current government.