General American History Thread - Finding new things to be ashamed about

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > General American History Thread - Finding new things to be ashamed about

Farecoal: Oct 15, 2011; There he go

Fojar38 posted:

I don't see why Japan would be partitioned since the Soviets never had any serious presence on the Japanese home islands. I think that there's like one or two lovely islands off the eastern coast of Siberia that were technically Japanese that they occupied but that's it.

Sakhalin is one those (large) islands, and it actually had/has a great deal of oil on and around it. It was divided before WWII, between the Soviets in the north and Japanese in the South, beofre the Soviets occupied the southern half. The Kuril Islands are the other ones you're thinking of, and they were occupied by the Soviets too, which Japan is still pissed about to this day.

# ¿ Oct 29, 2013 05:23

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# ¿ May 19, 2024 16:27

Farecoal: Oct 15, 2011; There he go

euphronius posted:

Well there was Lee Harvey Oswald for one.

He was a spy? I always thought he was (temporary) defector.

# ¿ Oct 29, 2013 20:41

Farecoal: Oct 15, 2011; There he go

Helsing posted:

I can type up something more detailed later, or maybe another poster will elaborate, but the short answer would be that in the early colonies the distinction between slaves and servants was vague and poorly defined, and slavery wasn't a racial institution. There are early examples of black Africans who owned property and slaves.

However keeping indentured servants in line was proving exceptionally costly and there were even some examples of black and white labourers organizing together and demanding better working conditions. The move toward racialized slavery was a way of dividing the colonies population of labourers and also of assuring a servile workforce.

Sorry if that's a little vague, your question is an extremely interesting and important one and definitely deserves a more fully fledged answer.

Basically this. Turning slavery into a racial institution made both white indentured servants and poor whites gain a sense of superiority over and alienation from black slaves/indentured servants, hampering any sort of cross-racial rebellion against the upper class of the colonies, which actually did happen a few times. As for a timeframe, it basically changed from non-racial to racial from the 1630s or so to the 1680s.

Farecoal fucked around with this message at 01:45 on Oct 30, 2013

# ¿ Oct 30, 2013 01:41

Farecoal: Oct 15, 2011; There he go

oldswitcheroo posted:

I seem to remember reading an article about this very subject though I've forgotten where and really wish I could remember. The aristocracy in Great Britain was inclined to support the south if they did want to get involved. But they knew that their subjects would have been livid if they'd offered support to slavers.

The value of southern cotton to Europe was greatly overestimated by the Confederates, the British had India anyway. Supporting the CSA war effort would have been very costly (financially and politically) for a very small gain.

Didn't Egypt become the replacement source of cotton for much of the world?

# ¿ Nov 3, 2013 22:46

Farecoal: Oct 15, 2011; There he go

Cool Bear posted:

So nuke them. Or lets wait a few weeks to see if they can clean up some of their massacre sites and conditionally surrender. I hate america during the cold war and am extremely liberal and I also want bloody death to our enemies in ww2.

Yes all those civilians who died from bombings in Japanese cities personally participated in Japanese war crimes :psyduck:

# ¿ Nov 4, 2013 07:47

Farecoal: Oct 15, 2011; There he go

VitalSigns posted:

Speaking of the rapes of French women, the attitude of so many US soldiers in France was so anti-Friench that the US Army produced a pamphlet answering the most common Francophobe complaints.

Some choice excerpts:

Holy crap that whole thing is one huge :iceburn:

# ¿ Nov 4, 2013 23:11

Farecoal: Oct 15, 2011; There he go

Unreal_One posted:

You claim to see the world in shades of grey, but you are depicting it as universally black. You say that you don't think the Allies were right in what they did. What would have been right? Fighting only a defensive war, leaving continental Europe to the literal, original, genocidal fascists? Let the Japanese destruction of China, which lost nearly half as many lives as every other nation except Russia put together, and forceful colonization of Korea continue unabated? The Allies committed many atrocities, absolutely, but they were not the worse side, or even the equals to the Axis nations. Ideally, war wouldn't happen. But it did. So what would have been right for the Allies to do?

Not commit atrocities.

# ¿ Nov 5, 2013 00:05

Farecoal: Oct 15, 2011; There he go

VitalSigns posted:

I especially love the answer to complaints about how much French prostitutes charge. "Hm, maybe you should blame your fellow horny GI johns for outbidding you rather than the girls?"

My favorite:

quote:

45. "The French don't bathe."

The French don't bathe often enough. They can't. They don't have real soap. They they had no soap worthy of the name since 1940. The Germans took the soap, for four years. That's a long time.

and

quote:

52. "You can drive all through Paris and never see anyone working."

It depends on where you drive and where you look.

Incidentally, where did you get the gas and time to drive "all through Paris" ?

Farecoal fucked around with this message at 00:42 on Nov 5, 2013

# ¿ Nov 5, 2013 00:39

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# ¿ May 19, 2024 16:27

Farecoal: Oct 15, 2011; There he go

So World War II war crimes obviously get a lot of attention, what about World War I? Was there any particularly nasty poo poo done by either side? The worst thing I can think of is the use of gas.

# ¿ Nov 5, 2013 03:17

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > General American History Thread - Finding new things to be ashamed about