Thread: US Elections

How reassuring to find that after my 3 month break from the forum that everyone is still arguing about the same things with only a minor change of participants.

Welcome Sumatra.

There is only one party in the USA, for those that don't already know it, it is called Big Business and Big Armies. That hasn't changed since before the time of Eisenhower (who, when it didn't matter to him any more, tried to warn us about it) and it won't change with either McCain or Obama. So cheer for one side or the other but don't ever fool yourselves into thinking it really matters :( or that anyone cares what you vote for.

Whatever happened in Germany between 1912 and 1945 it turned a very marshal and war-like people into some of the most peace-loving humans on the planet. I would guess that having a large percentage of your population killed(particularly the men), raped (particularly the women) and driven from their homes in wars over that period will have that effect. Pity about all those dead people, though...

Just as a point of general interest it's very hard, if not impossible to even find a toy gun in the German stores and it's only recently that Germany has had the legal framework to even allow it to station troops outside its borders.

But the generation that experienced and remember the hardship of war on there own persons are now dieing out so I expect German peacefulness to change too.

Remember Bali?

I must have been reading the same material Thorsten has access to because he's right, in 1932 the Nazi party DID NOT HAVE any parliamentary majority and never did.

Don, I'm guessing then you don't quite understand the democratic process as practised in most of the world. A parliamentary majority is often not required but that doesn't change that fact he acquired power through the democratic process as practised in Germany at the time. That is all I said..nothing about a majority or the legitimacy of the process. You seem to be confused about this. And having read the confused and bigoted nonsense you're happy to spout Don, I'd be reluctant to use the world educated when applied to you. You are delusional and quite paranoid, but thankfully most (all) Americans I know (and there are a few) would agree with me, so I guess they don't know either, eh?

Hitler never had the majority of Germans behind him, at no time, not 1932, not 1939, not 1941 – never!

Well you know Thorsten, this is one of the most researched and written about topics in man's long history, by some of the greatest minds of our time, and I'd say that overwhelmingly they disagree with you. I'm not disgreeing with the fact that he manipulated his way to power..that's politics and it was very nastily applied but in the previous two elections to his chancellorship, they were the biggest party in the Reichstag. But in the years afterwards there is little dissent from the idea that he was overwhelmingly popular at times. And I'm not talking The History Channel, I'm talking from serious historians who've spent years researching this.

You need to take it back before Versailles to understand why that treaty was applied as it was..the infamous blank cheque, and the green light to war that made the allies so despise the Central Powers, and the trigger mechanisms that let loose; The French / Prussian tension over Alsac etc.

Best we leave it at that and agree to disagree.

SG: I still like your post here, no worries mate.

Sama, sama Thorsten..happy to discuss these things with someone like you!

Talking of bigotry and the like, this story from AP is both interesting and appalling (but hardly suprising)

The poll, conducted with Stanford University, suggests that the percentage of voters who may turn away from Obama because of his race could easily be larger than the final difference between the candidates in 2004 — about two and one-half percentage points.

Certainly, Republican John McCain has his own obstacles: He's an ally of an unpopular president and would be the nation's oldest first-term president. But Obama faces this: 40 percent of all white Americans hold at least a partly negative view toward blacks, and that includes many Democrats and independents.

Ok, here it stops.

Enough personal attacks.

I'll open a new thread again, I hope we can keep to the subject, and that's US Elections.