And now for something completely different: WAR!

Well, ya know that stuff about mapping the human genome that's big right now? Or the moral issues of cloning, or all that genetically engineered fruit ya buy at the market (well, in the US anyway)..that is the legacy of the Reich, as disturbing as that may be (less disturbing to most than the French sending French Jews to the camps willingly). Other War legacies include rocketry (so thank germany for the space program and jets, folks), Sarin and other wonderful gases, missile guidance systems, and so on.

Apparently, the end justified the means?!?!

Anyhow, read a book called Ominous Paralells, written in the late 80's IIRC. Pretty much outlines the parallels between Nazi Germany and Todays New World Order in the US. Scary stuff.

Didja know that Planned Parenthood was started by a pseudo-racist white lady who wanted to control birth-rates of non-whites in the US?

Kinda poses the question: Can man make good with ill-begotten tools?

Keith
 
We basically isolate Cuba but China who is much more of a military AND economic threat we suck up to.

Cuba was once a major economic threat in its own way. It had excellent world scale sugar and tobacco industries, a strong citrus industry, and was a major and growing tourist mecca (think about a Hawaii like geography, only 90 miles from the mainland, with a landmass the size of Florida, and plenty of significant history). The real political force for its economic isolaton came from US sugar and tobacco interests. The exiles would like to see the Castro government fall (actually they would like to see Castro prosecuted for murdering their relatives and stealing their property), and support the sanctions as a way to pressure the regime; but, given a choice they would have preferred something more direct then 40 years of leaky economic sanctions. If the exiles had half of the political muscle that we attribute to them we would have invaded and removed Fidel's regime decades ago.

n2s
 
Ferrous Wheel said:
...Other War legacies include rocketry (so thank germany for the space program and jets, folks),...missile guidance systems, and so on...
Click to expand...

Not quite accurate Keith. Modern rocketry was invented in my home town of Worcester, MA, by Dr. Robert Goddard, who believed that the rocket could be used for space travel. He noticed that the Germans seemed unusually interested in his project, so he contacted the US military and offered to develop a guided missile with military applications. They dismissed him as kook.The Germans however got the plans from the US patent office and developed the infamous V-2, which is a direct copy of Goddard's rocket.

Of course Dr. Goddard's work was eventually recognized and the NASA Goddard Space Center was named in his honor.

Here's the full story.
http://www.time.com/time/time100/scientist/profile/goddard.html
 
When Castro took over, my family lost a lot of money we had in Sugar and flour mills in Cuba.

(cargill/burris mills)

I could have been a rich ninja, damnit.
 
They dismissed him as kook.The Germans however got the plans from the US patent office and developed the infamous V-2, which is a direct copy of Goddard's rocket.

Of course Dr. Goddard's work was eventually recognized and the NASA Goddard Space Center was named >>>>>>>>>>> Ben


How do you detect genius? All the dunces are allied against it.

Supports the idea that if Jesus came back we wouldn't know him. (there was an underground comicbook about just that, "Jesus Joins the Academic Community" )

munk
 
The whole rural poverty thing isn't that odd , it seems to me
to be just a larger paradigm of the old south in the early
20th century, Corupt officials and lot of poverty. I think opportunity will
make itself avaiblable in time. There are still communities here in the south
that have the same basic problem as the rural chinese ( not on the same scale, admitted) . The economic equalization , will take many years to come, yet even the article mentioned above stated that the peasants were better off than they had been in the past. In some cases it will never come, heck some rural commnuties will always be a bit backward, even the people there
perfer things that way( these become "quaint" tourist spots as time goes by, went to Europe this summer). Not saying they don't want money, but they don't want to go to the trouble of moving to find the opportunity. Ya know , Them cities is "evil" , sodomn and gomoria all of it, criminal running everywhere and I like it here, never mind there is no jobs or anything like that.
This becomes a question of lifestyle preference as the cash flow balances out.

I certainly hope it is just saber ratteling, It would be
a true tradigy for anything else to come of it. War is a losing prospect, even if ya win.

I will point out another thing which a lot of people seem to forget, military
power cost money and a lot of it. Could we handle the chinese with our
stuff, probably handle a lot of other people too, but what about our economie and the long term effects of extended use of military power ?
It's one thing to buy a 1 millon dollar cruse missle and set it on the shelf, quite another to use 10 or 15 a day.

That's an entirely different question. I think the econmie would collapes before the war hardware would, Clauswitz acutally agrees with this one too and is in fact how we "won" the last two world wars. Also remember that recession/depression classically follows war as govenement spending is cut, we have yet to see the full economic impacts
of the Govenment debts and then spending cuts. It does artifically inflate the economie as any deficit spending will.

German tanks would routinely kick the heck out of our tanks in WWII, but
they wouldn't work without gas, ammo and food for the troops. if we were to look at america in strategic terms ,I think our "weak spot" is first of all
foregien fuel dependance and secondly national and personal debt.

rant out for the day, I'll try really hard to behave now :rolleyes:
 
Poverty in China was also excerbated by Mao's mis-management of the country during the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution. There is debate how much personal responsibility Mao had in creating these phenomena, but it is just horrifying how far back the policies associated with him drew the country back. One little tid-bit, that not everyone knows, China's current 1 billion population is directly due to Mao's policy. By his reckoning, he wanted to have enough people in China, that even with nukes the US could never fully eradicate the Chinese people. Of course the great burden feeding and employing this many people never entered his calculations. :(
 
IMO, the real threat from China comes once they not only control the vast majority of manufacturing of products, but also when they control an increased amount of the intellectual prowess of the world due to outsourcing.

There's actually little to nothing that can be done if the Chinese opt to suddenly declare that the State owns all assets in the country. Then you're out a lot of manufacturing and IP. Lots of American interests (as well as those of other world powers) would be significantly impacted (particularly from the financial perspective), and it would cause significant global financial instability.

I wouldn't put it passed the world's oldest isolationist country. They know they carry a lot of weight--they're just subtle about how they use it. That will not always be the case.

--Rip
 
DannyinJapan said:
When Castro took over, my family lost a lot of money we had in Sugar and flour mills in Cuba.

(cargill/burris mills)

I could have been a rich ninja, damnit.
Click to expand...

I met the father of a guy I went to grad school with.

When Castro took over he barely escaped with his life and his law degree hidden in his shoe. It was framed in his house and had creases all over it.

We drove a car back to school from conference in Miami to deliver to a distant relative to save on return air fare.

He said to be very careful, that there could be some coke hidden somewhere in the car.

We both drove very carefully.
 
I dunno. During WWII, many men were at war, and women were working factory jobs in their place. With such a strong work ethic, one can accomplish much, even throwing over the next Caesar or Napoleon.

Keith
 
DannyinJapan said:
geeze!
I think I would have walked.

"No sir, that's , powdered sugar in the spare tire.."
Click to expand...

Just to be clear, his father lived near the school, not Miami.

My friend had no idea about the car until he picked up on something when we went to collect it. By then, too late. He didn't think it was a good idea to suddenly refuse the arrangement. I found out about this when it was my first turn to drive.

The neighborhood had Vou-don shrines in some of the yards. That wasn't what tipped him off.

My friend told me he once drank some water out of a glass in front of some statues and what-not as a kid while visting a relative. He caught major hell. The glass of water was supposed to be collecting evil spirits to be later disposed of.

Seems kind of irresponsible to me to keep evil spirit traps within reach of children, but what do I know?

Oh yeah, it would have been a LONG walk, halfway across the country. We were both a little nervous.
 
The China of today is quite different from the China of 50 years ago. I seriously doubt they want to go to war over an island which they know will eventually "return to the fold".

Why risk all the economic development and wealth, not forgetting peace and stability, for some small plot of land that does not feature greatly in its future.

Pride is one thing, practical considerations from various perspectives are quite another.
 
Golok, in the eighties alot of people said the China of today now that Deng is in power is not like China under Mao. And then Tianamen Square happened. There are enough old guards left in the party there, that irrationality is bound to pop up every now and then. Not saying they are about to jump ship and attack Taiwan, for all the reasons everyone else has mentioned. But they are always highly un-predictable, and are also highly concerned about saving face.
 
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