Oops! Russian Military In Nato Country

Languages change quickly, and every nation at its formation had to choose a dialect and make it standard. The US has no official language, and until WWI much of the country spoke and conducted their business in German. There were also pockets that spoke French, Dutch, Spanish and Creole. Of course this affected the English language. I read that when Ava Gardner who was from the deep South went to Hollywood, no one was able to understand her.

Of course that all changed with the movies, radio and TV, so I tend to disagree with you. I believe the English spoken in all the anglosphere including the US, will become more similar rather than less.

 

Germany was over populated, so it's raison d'etre for WWII was to grab land to feed its people. What they wanted was Eastern Ukraine and Western Russia, since their black soil was considered the richest in the world. Hitler's intent was to push the Russians to the Urals. Most of the 20 million Russian deaths were civilians who had probably died from famine since the Germans were sending the food back home during their advances into Russia.

The other European nations were of minimal concern to Germany, and if they entered the war, it was probably because of the alliances they had formed before the war. There were exceptions such as Germany's attack on Greece to cover up Mussolini's defeat, and it caused Hitler to delay his invasion of Russia. To get there though, they had to go through Serbia, and once they took over Greece and Crete, they became a threat to Britain's life line.

Anyway the point is that the Russians were fighting for their survival. Japan was really of no concern to them at the time.

 

Correct!

I just wanted to confirm the U.S. did its part in the war. Defeating Japan was no easy task with half of our forces in Europe.

 

Your claim of "Anyway what you said about the British leaving the people ignorant is a lie. They were the only colonial power that did educate people so that they were able to run the country when freed."... is just totally crap. I debunked that so hard with my source saying people hardly went to school with 0.88 year a person.

I proved the had to drag themselves out of a massive hole the British dug for them first.
The British would be bankrupt 10 times over if they had to repay the taxes they leached from them.
You're just talking total nonsense. Nothing you claim comes with a source.

 

Makes you wonder how China got so rich, so quickly. Wasn't China leached dry too?
And what happened to Nepal, Bhutan, Afghanistan and Ethiopia - they weren't colonized.
They look pretty dried out, to be honest.
You okay with the Indian caste system? How about burning widows? How about a motley
assortment of states all fighting each other? India doesn't want to go back to the pre-British
era. Gandhi tried that and killed millions.

 

I had that thought when I came to France - that the language was uniform. It isn't, there are variations of French. Just as there are variations of English. Just go to the French Canadian part of Canada. It is a different French that is spoken/written - another variation. Like in Algeria as well.

We Yanks think we speak "English" when we go to GB. The Brits think we speak a dialect of English.

The difference is subtle but for the Brits not unimportant. (Methinks ... ;^)

 

Japan took nothing from Russians. And they could have.

What happened to Stalin after the Germans attacked. He had his hands full defending just Moscow. Most of Russian production was centered in the eastern-part of the country. Which Germany had attacked and almost conquered. So, Stalin moved his production facilities to the east of Moscow and there was able to build the tanks, trucks, planes and arms that would finally help him defeat Russia.

You can dump all you want on the Russkies, from your Texan Blindness of the facts. But that does not change historical fact.

Yes, the Russians were correct in rejecting Communism. But what has followed with this ex-KGB Colonel has been a rush by him and his top-friends to control the Wealth that the ex-Communist state left them. They should be shot for the massive stealing of Russian industrial-assets and their sale publicly. That is why we see all these Russkie billionaires in the Western Europe. And they practically "own" the island of Cyprus.

And the Russian people can complain all they want. They are no-where even near a semblance of a "truly democratic" political system. (And Putin now wants to be President-for-life? In a democracy? What next? The country is doomed to economic mediocrity. Which is a shame.

Tis a pit, otherwise.They are nice people - that is, the ones who got out and with whom I met here in Western Europe. They blended right into the Western Social Democratic structure and its capitalist-economic system. No problems at all ...

 

INFORMATION AGE

[QUOTE="Poohbear, post: 1071609177, member: 78497]Makes you wonder how China got so rich, so quickly. Wasn't China leached dry too?[/QUOTE]

You can thank Uncle Sam for that economic miracle. Maybe you weren't around in the early 1990s when China opened its doors and allowed foreign industrial groups to enter. The Japanese showed them how to build high-tech products, and the Chinese put their hearts-and-minds to improving their manufacturing. Which they did practically overnight with dirt-cheap labor where necessary on a product-line.

Demand from the US was strong for the rudimentary articles/things that the middle-class Americans were producing in the 1970s/80s. Once upon a time then more than 70% of manufacturing was centered in New England. All those plastics factories that were once there are now parking-lots. (For mostly electronics companies that are spin-offs from the technologies their founders learned in nearby Boston universities.)

Life goes on, and it takes decades not years to see the fundamental changes. Like the present one from the Industrial into the Information Ages that is occurring in the US. And unless we want our kids to be left behind, we must pass Hillary's and Bernie's desire for free or nearly-free Post-secondary Instruction/Education. We will desperately need their talent to keep up with the Chinese.

We are entering the Information Age and it-aint-nuthin like the Industrial Age that has long since left the US for Mexico, Asia and Southeast Asia. Either that or we spin-our-wheels for another decade developing Our Information Age the hard-way - bit by tiny-bit, by tiny-bit ...

 

INFORMATION AGE

[QUOTE="Poohbear, post: 1071609177, member: 78497]
Makes you wonder how China got so rich, so quickly. Wasn't China leached dry too?"
[/QUOTE]

You can thank Uncle Sam for that economic miracle. Maybe you weren't around in the early 1990s when China opened its doors and allowed foreign industrial groups to enter. The Japanese showed them how to build high-tech products, and the Chinese put their hearts-and-minds to improving their manufacturing. Which they did practically overnight with dirt-cheap labor where necessary on a product-line.

Demand from the US was strong for the rudimentary articles/things that the middle-class Americans were producing in the 1970s/80s. Once upon a time then more than 70% of manufacturing was centered in New England. All those plastics factories that were once there are now parking-lots. (For mostly electronics companies that are spin-offs from the technologies their founders learned in nearby Boston universities.)

Life goes on, and it takes decades not years to see the fundamental changes. Like the present one from the Industrial into the Information Ages that is occurring in the US. And unless we want our kids to be left behind, we must pass Hillary's and Bernie's desire for free or nearly-free Post-secondary Instruction/Education. We will desperatly need their talent to keep up with the Chinese.

We are entering the Information Age and it-aint-nuthin like the Industrial Age that has long since left the US for Mexico, Asia and Southeast Asia. Either that or we spin-our-wheels for another decade developing Our Information Age the hard-way - bit by tiny-bit, by tiny-bit ...

 

I certainly hope not. The English I hear spoken by the non-English (meaning learned in French, German, etc. schools) is Much Better than that of American English. It is far richer in quality-of-word content. The US is being far too influenced from the razzmatazz being heard on its television programs.

I don't think you understand how much Europeans "care" about the languages they speak.

And you can take that from a Yank who's seen and lived both language formats (English and non-English) spoken and written ...

 

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/English_language
British vs. American English

• It is a misfortune for Anglo-American friendship that the two countries are supposed to have a common language. A Frenchman in America is not expected to talk like an American, but an Englishman speaking his mother tongue is thought to be affected and giving himself airs. Or else he is taken for a German or a Dutchman, and is complimented on his grammatical mastery of the language of another nation.
  • Bertrand Russell, "Can Americans and Britons Be Friends?", Saturday Evening Post, 3 June 1944.

• The United States and Great Britain are two countries separated by a common language.
  • George Bernard Shaw, widely attributed beginning in the 1940s, e.g. Reader’s Digest (November 1942). Not found in his published works.
  • Variant: The English and the Americans are two peoples divided by a common language.

• We have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, language.
  • Oscar Wilde, The Canterville Ghost (1887).

 

India's great-weight that it drags from generation to generation is its massive population.

It doesn't have a chance to reach the economic output of lesser populated countries. It is currently carrying the burden of 1.35B people. The European Union has around 540M and the US 325M.

But I am sure the stats would show the average salaries in India are greatly lower than either Europe or the US. Which is a drag on any economic development.

If it could find a way to put that differential of 100% more population to work at a higher level of income , then, yes, it could reach European and American economic-levels of output. But, at the moment, its best people are skedaddling to a job in the US because the level of income is much higher. Just as they did since a long, long time by going to England ...

PS: And why I was born in the US. All populations move in that same direction when it is a matter of upgrading lifestyles.

 

As with any group of people, it’s a mixed bag. We have the “Russian Mafia” here involved in organized crime.

 

Ah. You're just dumping your claims all together that India leached dry by the British, and want me to prove it too about 5 new countries. Sounds you had to admit that you're unable to dispute that the British leached India dry and made them ignorant with a failing school system.

Are you okay with the Jim Crow laws and the institutionalized racism that is still present today in the US culture?

How about the gassing of Jews and the lynching of black people?

like in WWII?

Says who?

Says who?

 

The India of the 1700's was a collection of warring states. What made India instantly
richer was the disbanding of these armies when Britain united them. Something like
this happened with the "Roman peace" in Europe. What happened with blacks in
America etc. has nothing to do with it.
Suddenly in India there were factories instead of armies, rail networks where once
you couldn't travel due to borders and fighting.
Look, empires aren't bad - like all things empires had good and bad. It depended
upon what you wanted for your country. Thus some Indians took offense that they
were ruled by a British Queen while others were glad to escape rural poverty and
work as tradespeople in textile factories.

 

Europe was a collection of warring states as well. You score no points.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_conflicts_in_Europe#18th_century

You're talking about discrimination as if it wasn't normal in the west, when it was.

Factories where they were slaved around. Railnetworks so the British could leach their resources faster. You score no points.

I sourced that it was. Massive amounts of famines broke out because of the British. They made those people illiterate as well. They just slaved them around. I sourced this. You lost the argument.

And I asked you to source your claims you previously claimed.
You simply did not, and parroted the same crap.
So you know, you either source it or I have to judge you're just making it all up.

 

Not really. They are still in many parts of the world insufficiently educated, and India is a prime example.

American hi-tech countries rush off to India today to either recruit for the US or even their research-centers in India the adequately educated people they need.

India has done a considerable amount of internal education of its people, and they are benefiting far more than they ever have. But that same outcome has also happened elsewhere in previously "European-owned colonies"

America being only one worth mentioning ...

 

I already sourced that at the end of the colonial era the people from India after centuries of being oppressed were going to school on average less than 1 year. That's just abysmal low and not in the same ballpark where it is now.

The point is that the British leached India dry, and caused massive amounts of deaths even.

Is it? The indigenous people of the US aren't "exactly" at the helm and their level of succes compared to say how some in India do make it big...

 

The historical impact of Britain upon India is old-hat. What happened was of a time when no European country that had benefited from the privileges of what is generally called "colonialism". The India of today has its own problems (particularly regarding population) and its own peculiar political system to attend to them.

So, do get off your high-horse regarding British Colonialism. It's way out of date - and I suspect that most "Indians" in the UK today would agree with that statement ...

And as for the above in red - the number of deaths on both sides is no particular relevance today. Most certainly, GB is not running India - and since WW2 a great many Indians have left to resettle in England. The latest reference source on the matter (noted below) put, in 1990, the percent of Indians having migrated at 7.9% of the GB-population*. Whether it has increased in the past 30-years is unfindable since the UK does not officially keep such data.

*Source: Indian Immigration to the United Kingdom

PS: And the conclusions of the above mentioned study are perhaps worth noting:

 

You stumbled into a discussion about the western democratic system being superior to others. And I put in a doubt there, pointing at that most of the financial success from the West is build upon the violently subjecting about most of the world. A country like India was simply leached dry to the bone and left illiterate behind. I proved that the British did that. If the British had to give it back, and being bled dry for it the next couple of centuries, including letting them die by the millions through starvation etc, than India would be a shining light and the UK a 3rd world hell hole. A democratic hell hole, probably worse off than communist Cuba. There is no high-horse thing going on. The end.

Since India was part of the UK, because that's what the UK demanded with their laws, it meant that when India became independent that those people were given the choice of going forth in their hell hole the British left behind or try to make it in the UK. Says a lot that so many people wanted to escape a seemingly horrible situation and move across the world for a better life. Kind of like the pilgrim fathers.

 

Are you saying that there were no famines in India before the British, and that the people were more educated before they became a British colony than they were afterwards? What about the Dalits (untouchables)? Weren't they always the majority in India?

Looks like you're holding Britain up to a much higher standard than their former Indian war lords, otherwise you wouldn't be expecting so much more from them. No country is a charity. Some nations (tribes) conquer and enslave populations and establish themselves as kings and the ruling class, (like in Europe and India), and other nations (mostly maritime), prefer to colonize and benefit themselves through trade.

I consider colonizing a boon to civilization because it brought about many of the humane laws that exist today and were adopted by the UN. It also gave a chance for enterprising people in a colony to gain from the trade. That they didn't use that benefit when they gained their freedom to better the condition of their country, is not the fault of the British, but rather the fault of their own societal shortcomings.

This doesn't mean the British were not racist and manipulative, of course they were, but so were the pre Britain ruling classes. In a few years India will be one of the wealthiest nations in the world, but what about its population? Some of the biggest billionaires are Indians, but what about the Dalits, how are they faring today?

 

I am saying that the British caused plenty of famines. That's different from that there is a famine due natural things like a lack of rain or something. I am also proved that when the British left India with people who on average had less than 1 year of education. That would be at the end of the 1940's. That is abysmally low compared to how the British arranged it for their own white people. That is deliberately making those people illiterate. And the Indians are in a very VERY much better shape now them leaching oppressors have left.

I'm holding the UK up to their own standards. And when the British took over, the Europeans were also nothing but a bunch of war lords themselves in the 17th century. You're the one with the double standards.

Indeed. I'm talking about the British conquering, oppressing and leaching the people from India dry to the bone. And while you admit this now, you previously seemed to have a problem with this picture.

I don't see how they altered the civilization in India. The UN was also made after WWII, not during the 17th century colonial era where Europeans violently oppressed about the entire world to slave them around and than some centuries. You claiming they were given change for
enterprising is a joke. How on earth can they do that, when the British in India made sure the people were uneducated?

Manipulative? That's a rather shallow qualification for causing famines where millions of people died. And India has the oldest and most far reaching affirmative action rules, and is part of their constitution since 1950... going beyond making opportunities happen, but giving guarantees to the lowest classes in schools, universities, governmental jobs and the government itself. So there are 1000's of millionaires around from the Dalit class. And they hardly got more than a 100 billionaires. But the Dalit are among there as well. How about you go look it up for change instead of wondering, semi accusing around. They take care of the Dalit far better than the US takes care of their African Americans.

 

Yes, and so what? That was mostly from the 19th century.

You want me to believe that the backwardness in Africa of the oil-rich countries is due to European countries?

Do you want me to believe because the Africans cannot seem to elect and keep in place competent leaders that don't take mineral riches to be their own?

Do you think that just because most of Africa today is badly managed by its won people it's the West to blame?

The Africans have to at themselves in the mirror and educate their people. That is not sufficiently adequate which is why a small group who DO GET EDUCATED inevitably connive with those who lead the military and take over governments. And just what should the rest of the world do?

Intervene? It's none of our business. Have the UN intervene? It's none of the UN's business either, unless one country is invading another. (Which is not the case of most of black Africa - but is the case in Libya because of the oil-reserves.)

The problem is that a cast-system of Well Educated and Insufficiently Educated exists. And it will continue to exist because it suits an intelligent group of well-educated people in each country to take power and milk the country of its natural assets. Yes, they are bunch of crooks. But there is no international law of jurisdiction in the matter. All nations are independent and not by law but by fact.

Not until the UN is asked by its nations to do just that. And that aint-gonna-happin any time soon ...

 

I could say the same for the US, which at its origins was a very large place with a great number of Indian tribes.

The main European nations all wanted a piece of that pie - and they could not have given a damn about the Indians who occupied the land at the time they arrived. They treated them in exactly the same way that they had been treating the indigenous Africans long before.

And what has happened to the indigenous American Indians since? They have been "absorbed" to the extent that they have their own land and on that land they run their local economies. But, that does not allow them to exit from a comparatively poorer economic-existence than the non-Indian with whom they share the land. All they have is a "semblance of autonomy".

 

So what? So THERE! And that includes all the way up till the late 1940's.

Uh, yeah. you're pushing goalpost tremendously by wanting me to make the same comparison on AN ENTIRE CONTINENT. What the hell dude? And yeah. Europeans are very much to blame how it goes on there. They drew the lines for those countries. Making people who got little to nothing in common with each other live in 1 country to squabble over the few resources. The entire violent culture comes out of the absolute brutal way the European powers behaved in Africa. They slashed the feet and hands of children if their enslaved didn't work hard enough. Not all that long ago... there are pictures of it! Heck, UK, France, Belgium, Italy and Germany all committed genocide there... some even after WWII. The British were the inventors of concentration camps, applied in Africa... same century as the Nazi's. Italy used mustard gas on civilians and the red cross, and castrated captured men by the 100's before they executed them. Heck, France is even complicit to the genocide in Rwanda in the 1990's for providing the weapons and training of 2 armies of the same side who both went on a genocidal rampage.

The west is totally exploiting their veto power at the UN. Albright found it totally worth it that child mortality sky rockets due to her oil for food program. Let's not sell chlorine to Iraq to sanitize their water. To than invade that country with a tremendous hoax about WMD's.

Is this about India again? India got an exceptionally far reaching affirmative action idea's. It does not only give the dalit class opportunities.... but guarantees about their % at universities, jobs of the government etc. Your right wing white conservative would be going on a killing spree over it, if they pulled that off for the black community who suffered greatly under apartheid rule till the 1960's.