Disney blocks next Michael Moore film

[DGMacphee]

except he is doing a very poor job of that

If he's doing a poor job, then why are most Republican groups shitting their pants?

but he is the best candidate and he is a strong leader who stands by his words and is not afraid to take action.

but only if Rumsfeld, Cheney and Wolfowitz say so.

You may aruge, "Oh, but Steve! He won an award in France for the film!" The only thing that brings the French together is Anti-American sentiments, so of course they would give Moore an award that bashes America

My Bullshit Detector is going through the roof now. Roger Ebert said this in one of his Move Answer Man articles:

"Don't make the mistake of thinking the "French" honored "Fahrenheit 9/11." The jury did, and only one of its nine members was French. There were four American members, and the others were from Finland, Hong Kong, Belgium and the United Kingdom."

See the article here: http://www.suntimes.com/output/answ-man/sho-sunday-ebert13.html

Ebert also said this: "I attended the jury's press conference, heard all nine jurors praise the award, and got the unmistakable impression that Tarantino personally would have been equally content if the Korean revenge epic "Old Boy" had won."

See here: http://www.suntimes.com/output/answ-man/sho-sunday-ebert30.html

In conclusion, your research sucks balls.

[Nacho]

Fortunately, the U.S. hadn't that attitude in 1944, if so, the French would greet us saying "Hallo, mein Name is Remy, wie heiBen Sie? Ich bin gut, Danke!"Ã, 

I'm getting sick of people going "If America hadn't stepped in everybody would've spoken German".

The Americans were happily providing weapons to both causes, and it took them 4 damn years to finally step in. WW2 wasn't won by America. It was won by America, Canada, Britain, and on the other side the Russians, who were the ones who actually invaded Germany and hit the Germans at their own game - in their own country.

Bah.

a) Can you quote the source which says that the US provided weapons o the Axis, please?
b) I thought that the US step into the war in 1941, 2 years after the start... maybe you're talking to stepping into the continental Europe. A possible explanation can be that the Yankies didn't want to piss it of there, like Monty did with "Market Garden".
d) I don't think that things were going very well for the brits in 1941 before the Yankies entered in the War.
Canada??? Canada???
c) Let me express my prefferences to a American invassion than a Russian one, please... 

[shbaz]

Farlander, yes, Canada. The Canadians were a major component of the D-day invasion and many lost their lives with the rest. Give credit where credit is due..

While you may disagree with Stalin's ethics (and I don't dispute that) the Russians lost more lives than any other country in the war, and civilians were fighting and dying in the streets.

Interesting fact:
After the Pearl Harbor bombing Canada officially declared war (on the same day). America followed up the day after.

[Las Naranjas]

If you're objective, it was clear to everyone except Hitler that the war was lost by 1943 and the war on the Eastern front is what did it.

D-Day, Dresden (and Nuclear Weapons in the other war) were more about the Soviets than they were about their targets.

Still, D Day facilitated the race to Berlin, and you can easily point out that it prevented all of Germany [and much of West Europe] becoming what East Germany and the Soviet Bloc became, so I'm not botherisng to argue on the justification.

I'm not volunteering any opinion on the US' involvement

But overwhelmingly, the victory against Nazi Germany was the Soviets', and it's only the legacy of Cold War Historiography that prevents that being seen.

[shbaz]

I'm not volunteering any opinion on the US' involvement

But overwhelmingly, the victory against Nazi Germany was the Soviets', and it's only the legacy of Cold War Historiography that prevents that being seen.

Why not?

I was actually taught a lot about the Soviet involvement, despite many other faults I can find in my education.

[Las Naranjas]

Because war and the causes of war are far too complex for me to gather any genuine conviction as to moral validities in war, except where you can find those in the wrong.

The nature of war has always been, to the vastly greater extent been about power and economics, and moral considerations are usually just icing.

Which isn't to say that the moral case against Nazi Germany wasn't overwhelming, the record speaks to itself.

But I struggle to find a country that goes to war on moral considerations rather than power and economical ones, so discussing moral cases for war is often fruitless, and often retrospective.

Were I to discuss the power/economical ones, people may misinterpret me as claiming that a state that goes to war for those reasons is in the wrong, or immoral. You can get away with explaining in frank terms the motivations of 19th century powers, and their predecessors, but 20th century history is far more muddied by emotion, and I don't want to stir passions unnecessarily, it's not worth it since it results in sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Point being states fight. Big states are arseholes. There has never been a state that has become a power that has not acted like an arsehole, and any country that could become one would be one too. It's the natural state of states. Which shouldn't imply that it's right. It would be natural to allow cripples and other invalids to die off, but we've developed a system where we can prevent an amoral competition that leads to that. The hope being we could do the same for states.

If you're familiar with his work [and if you study the 2nd world war] you'd probably not be surprised that I respect AJP Taylor, despite all the flaws of his work, for what he attempted to do.

[Nacho]

D-Day was a great failure, is spite of all the propaganda... The goal (putting the foot in Europe) was archieved, but, at which cost? Omaha beach was a total disaster, I mean... I could be also a good general, sending men and men till the enemy ran out of bullets (A german soldier told he shoot like 10,000 bullets in that day). Canada was involved? Ok, it was in one of the bloody battles in the war, how many canadian lifes were lost that day? 800, 1,000? A terrible waste of lives, but you can't seriously say their participation "decided" the war, wheres the American did, or at least, it worked for keeping UK alive, having a second front opened, involving from 40 to 60 % of the resources of the Nazi army.

So, could have Russia defeated the Germans alone? With just one front opened, it could, maybe in 1957 or 48, and I wouldn't like the result by any mean. A soviet european continent? wow! Please, allow me to keep my grateful to the Yankies for coming to our aid.

[Privateer Puddin']

My guess is, if Germany had won WW2, more people would have died than the numbers of the d day landings

[Nacho]

The fact that the d-day was NECESSARY does not imply that it was made CORRECTLY.

[shbaz]

The fact that the d-day was NECESSARY does not imply that it was made CORRECTLY.

Farl, they lost fewer lives than they projected, despite the failures in the paratrooping equipment and landings and other things that went wrong at the beaches. D-day was not a failure by any means, it was a calculated move and there were expected losses. There was no other way at the time besides a massive move like that, and the circumstances worked for them in other ways. The Germans really did not expect an attack in the middle of a storm that they projected would last an additional day. Their leader was away to see his wife for her birthday, because he thought there was no chance the Allies would invade that day.

The Canadians alone liberated dozens of towns, and there are statues of Canadian soldiers in some of those.. from a quick google, here is a caption, "... In total, the Allies lost 2,500 troops on D-Day, but the mission was a ... was to last
almost three months, a campaign that left 20,000 Canadians dead or wounded. ..."

[voh]

So, could have Russia defeated the Germans alone? With just one front opened, it could, maybe in 1957 or 48, and I wouldn't like the result by any mean. A soviet european continent? wow! Please, allow me to keep my grateful to the Yankies for coming to our aid.

I believe that to be incorrect. As somebody already said, the war was basically downhill for the Germans from 1943 and onwards. The economy was breaking apart and they were running out of resources. They didn't have enough factories, not enough food. Without any non-forced importing, it's only logical that you're going to run out of that stuff at some point. Germany would have fallen anyway. Of course, the D-day invasion took back the countries on the west of Germany, but even if Hitler had wanted it, he couldn't have gotten all those soldiers back in Germany From France in time to stop the Russians. And the amount of soldiers in Belgium and the Netherlands was laughable compared to the Russian Force.

To be exact, if the USA hadn't stepped in in the second world war, we'd all be speaking Russian, not German.

[Barcik]

Err... mate, that's exactly what he said.


I also almost fully agree with what Las Naranjas said. Wars aren't made because of ethics but because of political or economical reasons. However, I do think there are such political and economical reasons which can justify a war.

[voh]

Well, yeah, which means that I agree with his soviet-european thing. I just don't agree on that it would've taken until the late fifties

[Andail]

We can't tell anything of how europe would have looked with another outcome of ww2.

Before d-day, USA had plans to claim France and submit it to a military council after the war. This didn't happen, since the partisan movement was too strong, and much of the old government was intact.

To believe that all of europe would have spoken russian-or german- now if it weren't for the americans, is just another attempt to magnify the american importance.

[Barcik]

And what you are doing Petter is exactly the same, just the other way. The Americans didn't submit France to a military council, just like Europe doesn't speak Russian. This is a speculation just as well. If you ask me, they had plenty of plans, and this was just one of them.

[Sutebi]

First, the US did not give materials to the Germans and the "bad guys" of the war. This was FDR's way of getting involved in the war while still pretending to be neutral. It was also the method the US used to get their factories working on military materials so that when they did enter the war (most people knew that America would have to enter the war, because Europe was doing a very poor job of it) they would be ready.

I'll admit that there were some good Ally fighters in the war, but I think that you can make a VERY good argument that the war might have been lost without the American troops.

For a nice little story to backup my point, let's look at the Battle of the Bulge. This battle was the last German advance into the Western front, and the Germans were winning it for a while. They actually sent a note demanding that the Americans surrender. General MaAuliffe read the note, and sent his own back that simple said, "Nuts!" From what I've heard, the Germans and the Allies both had to have what that note meant explained to them. So the Americans kept fighting, and because of all the loss the Germans suffered in this battle, the war was shortened a great deal.

But what does this have to do with Michael Moore?

Oh, and DG, I didn't research for that post at all. My points in it were based on generalizations, and because I am such a genius, they were correct. Smile.

[Darth Mandarb]

I don't think it was the 'Great Yanks' that came to the rescue ... I think it was more the addition of 1 million bodies to the greater cause.Ã,  I mean, if ANY country had supplied the ammount of soldiers and supplies that the USA did it would have tipped the scales.

Now I'm not taking anything from our 'Greatest Generation' ... the sacrifices they made and the bravery they displayed is nothing but heroic.Ã,  I'm just saying that I believe it was more a matter of numbers rather than having better soldiers.

The USA was producing inferrior battle tanks (Shermans) than the Germans superrior tanks (Panzer and Tiger).Ã,  But we were producing so many so quickly that the Germans couldn't destroy them fast enough.Ã,  Again, to me this is NOT a matter of being better soldiers with better weapons, it's a matter of greater numbers.

So yes, I think it was the USA that caused the victory of WWII, but not because we're better.Ã,  We just gave the cause the numbers/resources it needed for victory.

Just my thoughts ...

[Sutebi]

Which, Darth, is the entire idea of modern warfare. It was stared by U.S. Grant (my personal hero) during the Civil War. Stronger number are always an advantage, and the fact that America had these stronger numbers and were much better prepared to fight in a war is why they helped win the war.

Plus, we had Captain America, and frankly no other country in the world could compete with that.

[DGMacphee]

Oh, and DG, I didn't research for that post at all. My points in it were based on generalizations, and because I am such a genius, they were correct. Smile.

Basing a point on broad, sweeping generalisations and calling it correct! Well, holy crap! I think I just heard the entire universe bending due to the sheer implausibility of what you just said! I'm fact, I fed your post into the Batcomputer and the damn thingÃ,  started shooting sparks before it exploded! You owe Batman a new Athlon!

I guess what I'm trying to say is no matter how many generalisations you make, nor how much of a genius you think you are, no one here is going to take even the slightest thing you say seriously if you keep it up. I mean, you condemn Moore for using biased statistics, but you're just making shit up now without any basis.

Hugs and kisses,
DG

P.S. PWND, sucker!

[Nacho]

Thanks! Recognising that without the Americans we would be talking Russian is enough for me! 

But... Has anyone tought that without the americans Japan could have attacked the URSS?

Or even... Should had Hitler the need to attack Russia without America? The "Western" thread should have just been the brits, and without Hitler turning aside armies to the East, he could have defeated the brits in a final struggle, or, at least, reaching to the Petrol in Saudi Arabia, Iraq...

Oh shit! Iraq again!