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Thread: Brexit
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1st July 2016, 05:39 #101
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Yeah, like the adages actually teach anybody anything. Especially effectively they deter bad guys from doing bad things.
You are also wrong on the rest of your points. From 1945 to 1991 Europe had no major wars simply because it was divided between the Western and Eastern blocs. Everybody knew that a wrong step would lead to a global war. That is why both sides tolerated the other side crushing dissent in their own ranks. Starting 1970s they used OSCE for easing tensions. When the Eastern bloc collapsed and EU had a chance to become a benevolent hegemon of Europe, it failed. It didn't do much to handle the Yugoslavian crisis. In fact, some EU members fanned the war by taking sides. The handling of the current refugee crisis was downright disastrous.Llibertat
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1st July 2016, 07:06 #102
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OK but just one point should be stressed.Not apologizing for the Soviet system especially after Stalin and the Bureaucrats triumphed after Lenin's death.
But you say "a) they forced an economic system, which was inefficient; b) they forced it with violence; c) they brought the overall living levels down."
Inefficient compared to what? We can't measure other country except by their own local conditions, and so the only thing to compare the Soviet system is to what it grew out of: Czarist Russia.
So inefficient compared to what they had previously?
Soviet system was unimaginably brutal..So was its immediate predecessors... It was exploitative. But less than its immediate predecessors.
I am not apologizing for it.. And as a lifetime anti-imperialist of course I am aware of the fate that the Estii and Letts and Lituanians and later the rest of the so called "East Bloc" suffered.. I worked with so many people from the old "East Bloc" who had left and were like me working in heavy industry in Sweden...Painfully aware that I could go "home" (where ever that was) and that they could not--for what seemed like forever (who could see 20 years ahead?)
So no apology for the methods the gangsters in the Politburo used..
But hard to buy everything was all bad and inefficient*, after all it is a rule of nature that is a situation is intolerable to a certain number of a population they will rise up and overthrow the system---exactly as finally began in Gdansk and spread all over.
* a look at literacy, life span, general health, education, etc shows--compared to previously.John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle WA, USA
Vive le Prole-le-ralliat
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2nd July 2016, 00:51 #103
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You haven't studied history have you?
None of those wars that I listed really involved Western and Eastern against each other. They were all about Western European powers fighting other Western European powers. Starting with the European Coal and Steel Union, it was about tying up Western Europe.
If the EU wasn't about that, then where is the war between West Germany and France in 1973? History never ran down that path.The Old Republic was a stupidly run organisation which deserved to be taken over. All Hail Palpatine!
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2nd July 2016, 07:28 #104
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Sorry guys, I admit from the start I'm bad at history and politics, not to mention that I'm natural born dumb. Reading the threads above I understand that EU was created to prevent possible wars and assure stability in the area. But aren't these states NATO members? Doesn't this exclude a possible war between them?
PS. Please, don't jump down my throat. I already know I'm dumb.
- Likes: steveaki13 (2nd July 2016)
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2nd July 2016, 08:20 #105
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I don't know what Jens means but I'd like to share my views on the inefficient socialist economy we had in my own country. I won't use comparisons, esp. in the last century things evolved too fast and it's difficult to predict what would have happened if the regime hadn't been changed.
It's more about how the economy went. First of all, it wasn't a market economy and supply and demand or free competition weren't its rules. It developed on plans on different periods of time, plans that were completely unrealistic and pointless. The results were also a bit swelled and only on the paper. The technologies were old, the costs high ( but with a very low level of salaries that didn't stimulate work, because everybody was guaranteed a working place), a lot of products weren't demanded but we continued to produce them ( they were in the plan! ), branches of industry were developed although we hadn't resources to sustain them. The slogans that governed that period were "we work at the Working in Vain Cooperative' and " we pretend to work, they pretend to pay us". Add to all these the Communist Party involvment in the economy - you don't do the plan, you're contrarevolutionary, you have to overpass the plan, etc.
If I look back, I admit we still built a lot of things in that period, much more than we achieve today. But it was more because the state ( the only ownership form ) used a cheap working mass that was forced to work, sometimes in the condition of industrial revolution stage. However I shall always claim that that type of economy was meant to fail because of its inefficiency.
But hard to buy everything was all bad and inefficient*, after all it is a rule of nature that is a situation is intolerable to a certain number of a population they will rise up and overthrow the system---exactly as finally began in Gdansk and spread all over.Last edited by gadjo_dilo; 2nd July 2016 at 08:36.
- Likes: janvanvurpa (3rd July 2016),jens (2nd July 2016)
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2nd July 2016, 08:37 #106
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Heh.
The explanation I'd give to it is that to go into war, you need to gear economy ready into 'war' mode as well. However, if economies are closely tied, there is less incentive and less opportunity to prepare yourself for "war economy". The heavy industry areas, i.e Ruhr in Germany, are busy working on other projects.
I remember this was the argument right after WWII. Top politicians said "let's unite the economies of France and Germany, so that it would be impossible for them to have a go at each other again."
NATO helps, but together with a unified economy system it gives sort of a 'double protection'.
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2nd July 2016, 08:43 #107
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I always saw only the economic reasons behind the EU. ....
When we joined I never thought that Hungary will stop to dream about a certain part of us.....
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2nd July 2016, 08:54 #108
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Economy actually is the main reason.
Hungary - or at least some people there - may dream, but will they actually do it? Or they'd see that "this part of Romania" is completely open in everyday life anyway - you can go freely there, do business, whatever, you don't need to 'occupy' it.
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3rd July 2016, 09:44 #109
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Never been strong at history, so the rest of the post is just my speculation. Let's go back to 1973 and imagine what might have happened. The u.s. is stuck up to its neck in Vietnam. India and Pakistan fight over Bangladesh. Arabs try to pay Israel back for 1967. And all of a sudden Germany raises the issue of Alsace. Hmm, says Politburo, what a nice chance! All types of leftist activists on the Soviet payroll both in Germany and France start vocally protesting the revanchist plans of disguised Nazis. In the worst case scenario, the Soviet Union gets a good opportunity to invade Germany, in the best case scenario, the governments of involved Western countries fall like flies. That's why another war between France and Germany did not happen. Maybe EU had something to do with it, but before 1989 everything else was just a side show to the Soviet - American rivalry.
Speaking of earlier times, the situation in Europe was the result of the balance of power between a few leading countries at least since the treaty of Westphalia. Some dropped out of the club like Denmark, Sweden and Poland, some joined it later like Prussia. Everything depended on whether they could peacefully figure out their differences or not. In the process they fought their battles from Lisbon to Moscow. For instance we in Belarus have as many battlefields of the Napoleonic wars and WWI as they have in Flanders.
I can understand though that from your island it is difficult to see anything farther than Rhine. It gets misty 'round Lorelei, doesn't it?
Sent from my Lenovo P70-A using TapatalkLlibertat
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5th July 2016, 00:59 #110
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From the island that I live on, I can see that my country has gone to all sorts of crazy wars that it didn't need to; which is really dumb because it takes forever to get anywhere.
In the election that we had on Saturday, just the Federal Division of Durack if it was a country, would be the 17th biggest country in the world.The Old Republic was a stupidly run organisation which deserved to be taken over. All Hail Palpatine!
Hyundai also has Sordo signed on, don't they?
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