MilHist Thread: Technically the Yamato did help defeat fascism

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > MilHist Thread: Technically the Yamato did help defeat fascism

BalloonFish: Jun 30, 2013; Fun Shoe

Squalid posted:

This subject reminds me of a book I read on the Mongol empire back in high school:

I don't really remember a lot of specifics anymore, but my take away was that it was a revisionist history of the Mongols, which instead of emphasizing the destructiveness of the Mongol conquests instead focused on the way the Mongols helped build a highly interconnected world that allowed people like Marco Polo to cross continents in relative speed an safety, and helped trade and ideas flourish. But if doing those things was good, is that a justification for turning whole cities into pyramids of skulls? Obviously not. But we have to be able to talk about both the benefits of trade and the negatives of skull piles, without always conflating the two.

One of my motivations for making this argument is I've seen a lot of the same arguments people used in places like Argentina in the fifties and sixties trotted out again and used against China's Belt and Road Initiative recently. They have not aged well. When you look at publications from the World Bank or similar orgs on the subject they tend to say western countries concerned with the implications with growing Chinese influence should simply seek to offer better deals, rather than criticize the fact of the investments themselves.

I also read a contrarian essay which was critical of some of the common narratives regarding the effects of British textile exports on the Indian economy. Unfortunately I have lost it and don't feel confident paraphrasing, but there are controversial elements to this story.

One final point, looking at the railroad map I noticed rail in Ethiopia, famously uncolonized, followed the same pattern as the rest of subsaharan Africa. Googling a bit and that big line from the coast to the interior was apparently built in 1917 by a Franco-British consortium for the Ethiopian King. This suggests to me that the pattern of rail lines is at least to some extent simply a practical matter of economics, and we may have seen a similar spread of infrastructure from entrepots to the hinterlands across the continent regardless of if it was directed by locals or colonial authorities.

The same went for Siam, which was an independent country and had its railways under state control almost from the start. In reality the individual lines were built and operated by foreign concessions. Most of them were funded by German capital, run by German managers and using German equipment. Others were financed and run by French, British, Dutch and Danish operations.

Although State Railways of Siam did have the power to plan and authorised routes, it was not immune to Great Power influence; for instance one of the earliest plans was for a railway across the Malay Peninsula, cutting a huge amount of shipping time and distance, but the British never allowed it because it threatened the position of Singapore. Meanwhile the French were really keen to connect Saigon to Bangkok, and the Brits wanted to link Bangkok and Rangoon.

# ? Mar 8, 2020 23:43

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Apr 27, 2024 06:41

feedmegin: Jul 30, 2008

Squalid posted:

One final point, looking at the railroad map I noticed rail in Ethiopia, famously uncolonized,

It was an Italian colony in the 1930s.

# ? Mar 9, 2020 00:15

HEY GUNS: Oct 11, 2012; FOPTIMUS PRIME

Schadenboner posted:

was supremely cynical in his use of socialist rhetoric and was funded from day one by the German Army and then by German Capitalists, he was never going to implement pro-worker policies

but they did, though. Aryan workers were housed in the apartments of the dead, clothed with their clothing, and fed with Contributions. The Nazis had a safety net and a welfare state...for members of the Aryan race, powered by conquest.
https://www.amazon.de/Hitlers-Beneficiaries-Plunder-Racial-Welfare/dp/0805087265

Saying they were something like modern libertarians is a swing of the pendulum away from the "you mean national socialism" argument and it too is false.

# ? Mar 9, 2020 00:29

HEY GUNS: Oct 11, 2012; FOPTIMUS PRIME

Schadenboner posted:

*: Even in a farrago of bullshit I feel it's necessary to point out that this was manifestly untrue: the "Jewish Census" commissioned by rightist elements in the Imperial German Army (and talk about a set within a set) in 1916 found that Jews were wildly over-represented in combat arms. Of course the rightist elements were men of honor and publicly announced the findings, expressed shame for the biases which had led to the study's commission, renouncing those same biases, ensured every paper in Germany of every political stripe documented the results of the study on the front page, and undertook good-faith efforts to reform the deeply-rooted antisemitism of the Wilhelmine German state's institutions prevented release of this study.

As I remember, Jews participated in the armed forces proportional to their number in the country. Where are you getting "wildly overrepresented"?

# ? Mar 9, 2020 00:31

feedmegin: Jul 30, 2008

Libluini posted:

Scroll back up and read again. The discussion was about what actual real communists said and that stuff sounds exactly like what actual Nazis said, you can scream Horsehoe theory until you drop dead from asphyxiation, that fact doesn't change.

And you can scream 'Nazis and Stalinists treated gay people and the disabled exactly the same' until you drop dead and it won't make it true. Understand I am by no means stanning for Stalin here but there was no Soviet Final Solution and no Soviet Aktion T4.

# ? Mar 9, 2020 00:31

HEY GUNS: Oct 11, 2012; FOPTIMUS PRIME

feedmegin posted:

And you can scream 'Nazis and Stalinists treated gay people and the disabled exactly the same' until you drop dead and it won't make it true. Understand I am by no means stanning for Stalin here but there was no Soviet Final Solution and no Soviet Aktion T4.

there was for disabled veterans after world war 2. stalin got the idea nobody would like seeing them on the street and into the gulags they went. there was no Aktion T4 because the nazis were obsessed with "heredity" and cleansing the gene pool, not because the USSR was nice to the disabled.

both are trying to create a "new man" out of the raw material of the old. both are hysterically terrified of heterogeneity, weakness, imperfection, and messiness. that they don't do what they do identically doesn't vitiate the point since that wasn't the claim to begin with.

HEY GUNS fucked around with this message at 00:39 on Mar 9, 2020

# ? Mar 9, 2020 00:36

SeanBeansShako: Nov 20, 2009; Now the Drums beat up again,
For all true Soldier Gentlemen.

I feel like Stalin purged more or less everyone and everything, including his own brain due to that stroke he had.

# ? Mar 9, 2020 00:37

HEY GUNS: Oct 11, 2012; FOPTIMUS PRIME

I mean what is the difference between sending gay people into gulags and sending them into concentration camps? For sure I will be comforted when I know the people sending me to a gulag meant well.

# ? Mar 9, 2020 00:40

SeanBeansShako: Nov 20, 2009; Now the Drums beat up again,
For all true Soldier Gentlemen.

Also, how is that movie about the Dreyfus affair?

# ? Mar 9, 2020 00:41

feedmegin: Jul 30, 2008

HEY GUNS posted:

but they did, though. Aryan workers were housed in the apartments of the dead, clothed with their clothing, and fed with Contributions. The Nazis had a safety net and a welfare state...for members of the Aryan race, powered by conquest. way from the "you mean national socialism" argument and it too is false.

This is totally true. Check out Kraft durch Freude. If you were working class and a) Aryan and b) compliant the Nazis would take care of you as long as that was also compliant with the needs of the State. This is why they were fascists and not just regular conservatives. Regular socialism isn't down with the 'you must be this skin colour to benefit' caveat.

# ? Mar 9, 2020 00:41

feedmegin: Jul 30, 2008

HEY GUNS posted:

I mean what is the difference between sending gay people into gulags and sending them into concentration camps? For sure I will be comforted when I know the people sending me to a gulag meant well.

There is a difference between being sent to the place where you are intentionally and industrially murdered on arrival to the one where you may or may not die at some point during your sentence and noone gives a poo poo, yes. Not much of one but it does matter. Particularly if you're the one getting off the train.

feedmegin fucked around with this message at 00:55 on Mar 9, 2020

# ? Mar 9, 2020 00:46

Squalid: Nov 4, 2008

feedmegin posted:

It was an Italian colony in the 1930s.

i mean it only lasted 5 years, it was really more of an occupation. It's pretty irrelevant in regards to the effect of colonialism on economic development. Except to emphasize that brutally conquering and gassing people to death is bad and tends to have a downwards effect on GDP.

# ? Mar 9, 2020 00:46

feedmegin: Jul 30, 2008

# ? Mar 9, 2020 00:53

feedmegin: Jul 30, 2008

Squalid posted:

i mean it only lasted 5 years, it was really more of an occupation. It's pretty irrelevant in regards to the effect of colonialism on economic development. Except to emphasize that brutally conquering and gassing people to death is bad and tends to have a downwards effect on GDP.

I mean, ok? But it was a colony. 5 years is long enough to build some railways. If you have documentation about Ethiopian railway development in the 20s I would be interested to hear it.

# ? Mar 9, 2020 01:00

HEY GUNS: Oct 11, 2012; FOPTIMUS PRIME

Schadenboner posted:

they emerge from a cultural context where the popular understanding of nonstandard sexual behaviors was probably of them as a form of decadent upper-class leisure-consumption, one closely tied to criminality, exploitation, and harm suffered by the lower-class recipients of these affections.

no they do not.
https://www.amazon.com/Masculinity-Same-Sex-Industrial-1895-1957-Sexualities/dp/1137470984

books like this suggest that at least in some areas the sexual activity you call nonstandard was so normal among working class men there was no "identity" associated with it and nobody from that milieu bothered either to blame or praise it.

you're seriously suggesting the only experience of gay sex working class Europeans had is that aristocrats raped children? i want a peer reviewed source backing this up.

# ? Mar 9, 2020 01:35

Grenrow: Apr 11, 2016

Schadenboner posted:

Einstein said something like "We should only prohibit homosexuality in cases where it endangers children" which is a fascinating statement because it meant that these two practices were commonly understood to be linked to an extent that while expressing tolerance for the activity involving consenting adults he felt he had to specify "no, I'm not cool with prostitots".

From this (and other similar expressions) I suspect in a lot of cases the primary experiences of a lot of non-upper class people involving nonstandard sexualities may well have been slumming nobs trying to hire prostitutes or just abducting and raping (counting on the illicit nature of the acts themselves to prevent the victim from speaking out, beyond the already large taboos against victims of sexual violence doing so). That doesn't excuse these attitudes (indeed, it's not our place to "excuse" historical actors, even if we had the power to do so, which we don't) but they emerge from a cultural context where the popular understanding of nonstandard sexual behaviors was probably of them as a form of decadent upper-class leisure-consumption, one closely tied to criminality, exploitation, and harm suffered by the lower-class recipients of these affections.

What the gently caress is this entire post? Poor people are just as frequently queer as any other group in the population. Are you really arguing that homophobia in the USSR comes from a righteous backlash against "the decadent upper class" committing sexual assault? The proletariat experience with "nonstandard sexual behavior" probably was more from, you know, the people who did this kind of thing that they knew and interacted with in their own communities. Dudes who want to gently caress other dudes have existed forever in every society, even if they identify themselves or categorize their behavior completely differently across cultures and time periods.

# ? Mar 9, 2020 01:35

Squalid: Nov 4, 2008

feedmegin posted:

I mean, ok? But it was a colony. 5 years is long enough to build some railways. If you have documentation about Ethiopian railway development in the 20s I would be interested to hear it.

afraid i've only seen what was in that wikipedia link which i found after seeing cyrano's map.

# ? Mar 9, 2020 01:36

HEY GUNS: Oct 11, 2012; FOPTIMUS PRIME

Grenrow posted:

What the gently caress is this entire post? Poor people are just as frequently queer as any other group in the population. Are you really arguing that homophobia in the USSR comes from a righteous backlash against "the decadent upper class" committing sexual assault? The proletariat experience with "nonstandard sexual behavior" probably was more from, you know, the people who did this kind of thing that they knew and interacted with in their own communities. Dudes who want to gently caress other dudes have existed forever in every society, even if they identify themselves or categorize their behavior completely differently across cultures and time periods.

they're less likely to call themselves "homosexual" too, since that idea (in my opinion) is late 19c, german, and intellectual, so it's going to reach people who re not exposed to german intellectuals more slowly

# ? Mar 9, 2020 01:36

HEY GUNS: Oct 11, 2012; FOPTIMUS PRIME

feedmegin posted:

There is a difference between being sent to the place where you are intentionally and industrially murdered on arrival to the one where you may or may not die at some point during your sentence and noone gives a poo poo, yes. Not much of one but it does matter. Particularly if you're the one getting off the train.

i said concentration camp for a reason, not death camp

# ? Mar 9, 2020 01:38

HEY GUNS: Oct 11, 2012; FOPTIMUS PRIME

feedmegin posted:

This is why they were fascists and not just regular conservatives.

exactly, which is also different from american conservatives.

# ? Mar 9, 2020 01:39

Radio Free Kobold: Aug 11, 2012; "Federal regulations mandate that at least 30% of our content must promote Reptilian or Draconic culture. This is DJ Scratch N' Sniff with the latest mermaid screeching on KBLD..."

three seperate posts inside of three minutes. jesus dude, slow down, take a breather.

# ? Mar 9, 2020 01:51

xthetenth: Dec 30, 2012; Mario wasn't sure if this Jeb guy was a good influence on Yoshi.

Schadenboner posted:

Einstein said something like "We should only prohibit homosexuality in cases where it endangers children" which is a fascinating statement because it meant that these two practices were commonly understood to be linked to an extent that while expressing tolerance for the activity involving consenting adults he felt he had to specify "no, I'm not cool with prostitots".

From this (and other similar expressions) I suspect in a lot of cases the primary experiences of a lot of non-upper class people involving nonstandard sexualities may well have been slumming nobs trying to hire prostitutes or just abducting and raping (counting on the illicit nature of the acts themselves to prevent the victim from speaking out, beyond the already large taboos against victims of sexual violence doing so). That doesn't excuse these attitudes (indeed, it's not our place to "excuse" historical actors, even if we had the power to do so, which we don't) but they emerge from a cultural context where the popular understanding of nonstandard sexual behaviors was probably of them as a form of decadent upper-class leisure-consumption, one closely tied to criminality, exploitation, and harm suffered by the lower-class recipients of these affections.

What are you basing this off of? Because it feels very much like you're trying to explain something rather than speaking from a position of knowledge, and that's unhelpful and frankly not what I'd expect in this thread. (Also, it feels like you're drawing a parallel to current events from a concerning direction regarding your outlook on them).

# ? Mar 9, 2020 01:53

HEY GUNS: Oct 11, 2012; FOPTIMUS PRIME

Radio Free Kobold posted:

three seperate posts inside of three minutes. jesus dude, slow down, take a breather.

i let posts build up, then respond to them individually.

# ? Mar 9, 2020 01:55

Polyakov: Mar 22, 2012

Schadenboner posted:

From this (and other similar expressions) I suspect in a lot of cases the primary experiences of a lot of non-upper class people involving nonstandard sexualities may well have been slumming nobs trying to hire prostitutes or just abducting and raping (counting on the illicit nature of the acts themselves to prevent the victim from speaking out, beyond the already large taboos against victims of sexual violence doing so). That doesn't excuse these attitudes (indeed, it's not our place to "excuse" historical actors, even if we had the power to do so, which we don't) but they emerge from a cultural context where the popular understanding of nonstandard sexual behaviors was probably of them as a form of decadent upper-class leisure-consumption, one closely tied to criminality, exploitation, and harm suffered by the lower-class recipients of these affections.

Pardon?

You do realise this reads like an anti-homosexual scare piece right? Like the actual interpretation you are putting forward, that somehow its only the dastardly Homosexual aristocrats who are doing this? Not the straight ones who would be far more common (but somehow the reputation of hetero sex managed to survive). Just the dastardly queer ones who are snatching the heteros and having their way with them.

And presupposing (not neccesary, they existed, in quite significant numbers no less) the existence of a cadre of homosexual working class prostitutes, there are no gay working/middle class persons who would make up the majority of their clientelle? Sexual orientation isnt a product of wealth, or spare time, or bourgeois decadence, its just how you are, surely those people would be far more well known in the very communities that they LIVE in. This whole post just boggles my loving mind.

# ? Mar 9, 2020 02:04

HEY GUNS: Oct 11, 2012; FOPTIMUS PRIME

ironically, after someone asked how leftists could hate queer sexuality, we get an example of the genuine article

# ? Mar 9, 2020 02:21

Jobbo_Fett: Mar 7, 2014; Slava Ukrayini; Clapping Larry

*sighs as he unshelves his book*

# ? Mar 9, 2020 02:29

FuturePastNow: May 19, 2014

HEY GUNS posted:

exactly, which is also different from american conservatives.

"welfare state, but only for white people" is part of Steve Bannon's philosophy, so America does have at least some old fashioned European style fascists

# ? Mar 9, 2020 03:01

NovemberMike: Dec 28, 2008

feedmegin posted:

There is a difference between being sent to the place where you are intentionally and industrially murdered on arrival to the one where you may or may not die at some point during your sentence and noone gives a poo poo, yes. Not much of one but it does matter. Particularly if you're the one getting off the train.

I get what you're saying but one of the differences is that the Nazis were only able to be so extreme because they were completely unstable, which also limited how long they were able to be so extreme. The Soviets didn't have literal death camps but they were running the gulags and the purges for decades, not years like the Nazis. It's also a little hard to compare these things because sure I'd rather be forcibly sterilized like the Canadians did than straight up murdered on an industrial scale, but that's not a defense of anything.

# ? Mar 9, 2020 04:05

Cessna: Feb 20, 2013; KHABAHBLOOOM

ChubbyChecker posted:

Iirc, someone itt had a dancing role in the film's end credits.

Sorta. That was filmed on Pampanito when I was there as a curator. They closed the boat to tourists and towed it up to Suisun Bay for filming exterior shots; we stayed on the boat to keep it in decent shape and pick up after the film crew. We also filled in as background extras in a couple of scenes. In one scene you can see me throwing a line (rope), and I'm also in the formation at the end that was filmed at the Presidio.

As far as dancing, about a month after filming the movie itself the Village People filmed the video used in the credits:

https://vimeo.com/47519496

Also although most of the interiors of the fictional Stingray were filmed on a set, some of the the music video was filmed on/in Pampanito. If you watch at around 3:10 and look closely you can see that this was filmed in the real sub's aft torpedo room. There's a little Japanese flag painted on the torpedo tube door from where she sank the freighter Shinko Maru One in WWII.

I would also point out that the woman in the black shorts on the periscope at 3:23 and 3:44 threw up over the side into the Bay right after that was filmed. Did I mention that there was alcohol?

# ? Mar 9, 2020 04:05

ChubbyChecker: Mar 25, 2018

feedmegin posted:

This is totally true. Check out Kraft durch Freude. If you were working class and a) Aryan and b) compliant the Nazis would take care of you as long as that was also compliant with the needs of the State. This is why they were fascists and not just regular conservatives. Regular socialism isn't down with the 'you must be this skin colour to benefit' caveat.

Soviet Union genocided racial minorities and sent them in to camps in greater proportions than ethnic Russians so they did in fact have a racial hierarchy.

# ? Mar 9, 2020 09:25

ChubbyChecker: Mar 25, 2018

Cessna posted:

Sorta. That was filmed on Pampanito when I was there as a curator. They closed the boat to tourists and towed it up to Suisun Bay for filming exterior shots; we stayed on the boat to keep it in decent shape and pick up after the film crew. We also filled in as background extras in a couple of scenes. In one scene you can see me throwing a line (rope), and I'm also in the formation at the end that was filmed at the Presidio.

As far as dancing, about a month after filming the movie itself the Village People filmed the video used in the credits:

https://vimeo.com/47519496

Also although most of the interiors of the fictional Stingray were filmed on a set, some of the the music video was filmed on/in Pampanito. If you watch at around 3:10 and look closely you can see that this was filmed in the real sub's aft torpedo room. There's a little Japanese flag painted on the torpedo tube door from where she sank the freighter Shinko Maru One in WWII.

I would also point out that the woman in the black shorts on the periscope at 3:23 and 3:44 threw up over the side into the Bay right after that was filmed. Did I mention that there was alcohol?

Thanks!

# ? Mar 9, 2020 09:25

Tias: May 25, 2008; Pictured: the patron saint of internet political arguments (probably)

This avatar made possible by a gift from the Religionthread Posters Relief Fund

Ensign Expendable posted:

It seems like just yesterday that I was shilling my tank book in this thread. Now I have another tank book to shill: https://www.amazon.com/Sherman-Tanks-Army-Peter-Samsonov/dp/1911658476/

This time I decided to look at the Sherman tank and its service in the Red Army. I mostly talk about the M4A2, but there are also details of the trials of two M4A4 tanks that were sent to the USSR as well. The first two chapters are the development of the M4A2 and its use by the British, but I might drop them (I haven't finished writing it yet).

Would it be possible to get a shipping option that isn't literally one of the worst companies to ever exist? I really want to support you and get the book, but not if it involves amazon.

ChubbyChecker posted:

Soviet Union genocided racial minorities and sent them in to camps in greater proportions than ethnic Russians so they did in fact have a racial hierarchy.

If we ignore for a second that a lot of things about the USSR wasn't socialist (and most of it's practices were in fact anti-socialist), sure.

Tias fucked around with this message at 09:55 on Mar 9, 2020

# ? Mar 9, 2020 09:51

Nessus: Dec 22, 2003; After a Speaker vote, you may be entitled to a valuable coupon or voucher!

I think the real challenge would be to think of a modern state with a history going back more than a few decades that does not have some sort of genocide or genocide-adjacent activity in its documented history. (At a certain point one wonders if this means that a finer grain of terminology is needed.)

I guess New Zealand comes closest?? And even that is mostly me thinking that the relative simpatico with the Maori is remarkably even-handed compared to just about everything else I can think of.

# ? Mar 9, 2020 10:07

HEY GUNS: Oct 11, 2012; FOPTIMUS PRIME

FuturePastNow posted:

"welfare state, but only for white people" is part of Steve Bannon's philosophy, so America does have at least some old fashioned European style fascists

he's in contact quite a lot with the European kind, and if Trump were smart this may have been what would have happened. He is,,not.

# ? Mar 9, 2020 12:35

Xiahou Dun: Jul 16, 2009; We shall dive down through black abysses... and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory forever.

Nessus posted:

I think the real challenge would be to think of a modern state with a history going back more than a few decades that does not have some sort of genocide or genocide-adjacent activity in its documented history. (At a certain point one wonders if this means that a finer grain of terminology is needed.)

I guess New Zealand comes closest?? And even that is mostly me thinking that the relative simpatico with the Maori is remarkably even-handed compared to just about everything else I can think of.

Shee-it. This is actually a good little puzzle. Or well, depressing as hell but it's still a good brain teaser.

Of the cuff proposals that may or may not (they will) require legalistic semantics bullshit to possibly pass the sniff test :

1) Taiwan, assuming we magically declare the ROC distinct from Taiwan, which, you know, considering they still don't is a stretch.

2) By a similar note, if we're willing to call the regime change post-WWII enough of a difference, Japan ain't too too terrible (unless you're Ainu or Korean).

3) I don't think Lichtenstein has done much of anything, like, ever except generally being rich and capitalist as gently caress. Mostly cause it's 5 rich dudes in the space of a Wyoming household smoking cigars and getting gout. I'm sure if they got the chance they'd do a colonialism. (And possibly did and I'm just being dumb.)

4) Piggy-backing off of that : probably the best way to find such a country is not by looking for some magically peaceful population, but rather just by finding itty bitty countries that never got the chance to cause they're 4 people with a bicycle on a rock in the Atlantic. So like, Sark if you'll count that as a country? Or Rodanda? Sealand?

So from staring into space for 5 minutes, I think the only way to make sure a country never does genocide is if the country consists only of the president and then like some sheep. And even then we might want to make sure the sheep aren't doing anything shifty.

# ? Mar 9, 2020 13:18

Dance Officer: May 4, 2017; It would be awesome if we could dance!

Tias posted:

If we ignore for a second that a lot of things about the USSR wasn't socialist (and most of it's practices were in fact anti-socialist), sure.

Whether the USSR was socialist or not is irrelevant, and is a topic of discussion that's very toxic.

# ? Mar 9, 2020 13:59

Nebakenezzer: Sep 13, 2005; The Mote in God's Eye

Schadenboner posted:

This made me wonder if you could just view the antebellum South (and, let's be honest here: the postbellum South too, even unto extremely recent times) as being essentially colonies that just happened to have grown their Imperialist overlords locally?

Here's a Monday morning piss take: I think economic development in Canada outside of Southern Ontario/Southern Quebec could be seen like that. Much of the Maritimes economic stagnation is caused because the big boys can dominate economies and political structures to an extent that they can kill any politics/business they don't approve of. Newfoundland was explictly a colony for hundreds of years, where rich people could come in and capture virtually all the cash generated from the economic activity there. The reason it had a sally into nationish-hood was to keep those dastardly Canadian merchants from competing with local and British merchants, etc, etc

No coffee, kinda bleary, come at me

# ? Mar 9, 2020 16:23

Geisladisk: Sep 15, 2007

Xiahou Dun posted:

Shee-it. This is actually a good little puzzle. Or well, depressing as hell but it's still a good brain teaser.

Of the cuff proposals that may or may not (they will) require legalistic semantics bullshit to possibly pass the sniff test :

1) Taiwan, assuming we magically declare the ROC distinct from Taiwan, which, you know, considering they still don't is a stretch.

2) By a similar note, if we're willing to call the regime change post-WWII enough of a difference, Japan ain't too too terrible (unless you're Ainu or Korean).

3) I don't think Lichtenstein has done much of anything, like, ever except generally being rich and capitalist as gently caress. Mostly cause it's 5 rich dudes in the space of a Wyoming household smoking cigars and getting gout. I'm sure if they got the chance they'd do a colonialism. (And possibly did and I'm just being dumb.)

4) Piggy-backing off of that : probably the best way to find such a country is not by looking for some magically peaceful population, but rather just by finding itty bitty countries that never got the chance to cause they're 4 people with a bicycle on a rock in the Atlantic. So like, Sark if you'll count that as a country? Or Rodanda? Sealand?

So from staring into space for 5 minutes, I think the only way to make sure a country never does genocide is if the country consists only of the president and then like some sheep. And even then we might want to make sure the sheep aren't doing anything shifty.

Iceland says hi.

How not to genocide: Colonize a island so lovely it has never had any humans living there, ever, as a tax evasion scheme

# ? Mar 9, 2020 16:41

Radio Free Kobold: Aug 11, 2012; "Federal regulations mandate that at least 30% of our content must promote Reptilian or Draconic culture. This is DJ Scratch N' Sniff with the latest mermaid screeching on KBLD..."

Nebakenezzer posted:

Here's a Monday morning piss take: I think economic development in Canada outside of Southern Ontario/Southern Quebec could be seen like that. Much of the Maritimes economic stagnation is caused because the big boys can dominate economies and political structures to an extent that they can kill any politics/business they don't approve of. Newfoundland was explictly a colony for hundreds of years, where rich people could come in and capture virtually all the cash generated from the economic activity there. The reason it had a sally into nationish-hood was to keep those dastardly Canadian merchants from competing with local and British merchants, etc, etc

No coffee, kinda bleary, come at me

No, uh, I think that's not a wholly-inaccurate take. Framing it in a colonial context certainly goes a ways to explain western alienation and the general trends of the Maritimes economy.

# ? Mar 9, 2020 16:49

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? Apr 27, 2024 06:41

Xiahou Dun: Jul 16, 2009; We shall dive down through black abysses... and in that lair of the Deep Ones we shall dwell amidst wonder and glory forever.

Geisladisk posted:

Iceland says hi.

How not to genocide: Colonize a island so lovely it has never had any humans living there, ever, as a tax evasion scheme

Oo good call. How's Greenland on the not-doing-a-genocide front while we're at it?

# ? Mar 9, 2020 17:54

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > MilHist Thread: Technically the Yamato did help defeat fascism

«‹›501 »