BF2S Forums Pandemic thread

uziq wrote:

treating politics as entertainment is just as much of a general malaise as treating party politics as a spectator sport. you can probably thank the media for reducing politicians to the same level as celebrities.

I usually don't like to say "Americans had it too easy" because the overwhelming majority of Americans are barely hanging on whether they realize it or not. But the politics as entertainment thing is a sign of a society that never had to deal with existential political crisis in a long time.

The Chinese and Russians might have overly authoritarian political systems but they have the excuse that within living memory they had to deal with genocidal invasions and cataclysmic civil wars. What is America's excuse for our Democrat vs Republican football system?

I find it kind of funny that some people vociferously condemn the Vietnam War but then hold draft dodgers to task for weaseling out of it decades later and into the next century as well.

1977

I don't know if I'd respect Donald Trump more for having sat his ass down on a carrier bunk or shooting the Vietnamese from the comfort of a cockpit before I was born. He'd probably still be an irascible boor.

The pointlessness of the Vietnam War was really proven when the U.S. started to ally with Vietnam once they won the war.

The aircraft carrier that Trump fired the captain of visited Vietnam in March as a gesture of friendship.

Americans and our dollar is probably more welcome in Vietnam than most of the rest of Asia we bust our ass over today.

I am grateful and deeply respect the fact that Vietnam forgave us instead of acting like Iran has.

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

Maybe in some alternate universe he joined up then made a yuge deal with Ho Chi Minh, ending the war early.

After the Japanese left,  Ho Chi Minh and the communist attempted to convince the U.S. to give them independence. Instead we transferred Vietnam back to France. Amazingly wrong call back then from the "Greatest Generation".

IIRC, Castro and the communist tried to become friendly with the U.S. after their takeover but were told to fuck off. Interestingly that is another place more desperate for American visitors and dollars than Israel, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan...

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

Japanese forces did surrender to ROC and the British, though.

To my recollection of materials (and of course hindsight), I think some of it could be rested on the shoulders of Truman's relative inexperience. We went from not supporting the French reconquest of Vietnam to being sort of indifferent about it and wanting to keep France happy as an ally against the Soviet Union. "Ehh, as long as you don't use our P47s."

Disregard for the cultures of these countries probably isn't a thing that has ever helped.

Truman wasn't thought of very highly by the leadership of the rest of the world at the time. He was generally regarded as a party politician. He may in fact have been responsible for screwing up a lot of the post-World War 2 U.S.-Soviet relationship. And he left office widely disliked.

Truman was strongly opposed to communism while FDR famously got along well with Stalin. FDR's personal politics was definitely more tolerable of communism than people want to admit too. People who opposed the New Deal weren't totally wrong when they compared it to communism and fascism. And the fact that FDR aided the Soviet Union when they didn't have to was something that even the Soviets acknowledge. It was either Khrushchev or Zhukov who acknowledged that Stalin admitted privately that they couldn't have won without U.S. supplies. If FDR had lived just long enough to manage the transition from Stalin to Khrushchev, the world would be a better place. FDR also believed more strongly in decolonization and the third world might have had an easier time of it.

What a shame that man couldn't get his fifth term. It does put into perspective how some countries can genuinely love their dictatorship.

uziq wrote:

people don’t condemn conscientious objectors. they condemn draft dodgers who got out of it because they were connected or had money. it seems like a pretty simple code of ethics to me.

Like half the PhD's in the US?

Well, I suppose they're retiring now.

I am not sure if you had to be rich to be an antiwar activist or if economic opportunities were just greater back. Like back in the 60's a white kid could spend their early twenties traveling around America before settling into some job that allowed them to own a home. In our time, if a kid doesn't go straight into higher education after high school they will be behind enough that they may never recover.

uziq wrote:

the logic of finding draft dodgers contemptible is not exactly hard to grasp. i’m a little dumbfounded.

I actually missed that reply. I'm still not sure what the cause is for argument. At the end of the day, I don't really care if people dodged Vietnam because they were lazy, scared or conscientious objectors. Certainly not in 2020. Maybe even no military service is a better mark on someone's record than poor and unreliable military service.

It's funny to me that there are Trump supporters who still hate draft dodgers and "cowards."

It's funny to me that people who despise the Vietnam war use lack of service in it as an attack when there are so many juicier characteristics for them to pan.

i'm sure as someone who had to go shoot little girls in iraq for 4 years to even get near a nissen-hut classroom for a simulation of college, that offends you greatly.

Oh, I don't care. My Vietnam veteran father does.

I think it did have a net negative impact on society and higher education though. Utterly selfish, cowardly, people rose to positions of power and respectability and preached hatred for the US from their pulpits. Would've been better off with no war and the idiots dying in obscurity. They're a big reason academia in America is near 90% left wing.

Last edited by Jay (2020-05-24 15:18:23)

Mcnamara wasnt a draft dodger, I thought you watched the fog of war uzique. Basic undergraduate stuff. Half the docu is dedicated to his WW2 service.