this post was submitted on 14 Nov 2023
113 points (100.0% liked)

the_dunk_tank

15988 readers
1 users here now

It's the dunk tank.

This is where you come to post big-brained hot takes by chuds, libs, or even fellow leftists, and tear them to itty-bitty pieces with precision dunkstrikes.

Rule 1: All posts must include links to the subject matter, and no identifying information should be redacted.

Rule 2: If your source is a reactionary website, please use archive.is instead of linking directly.

Rule 3: No sectarianism.

Rule 4: TERF/SWERFs Not Welcome

Rule 5: No ableism of any kind (that includes stuff like libt*rd)

Rule 6: Do not post fellow hexbears.

Rule 7: Do not individually target other instances' admins or moderators.

Rule 8: The subject of a post cannot be low hanging fruit, that is comments/posts made by a private person that have low amount of upvotes/likes/views. Comments/Posts made on other instances that are accessible from hexbear are an exception to this. Posts that do not meet this requirement can be posted to [email protected]

Rule 9: if you post ironic rage bait im going to make a personal visit to your house to make sure you never make this mistake again

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 60 points 2 years ago (1 children)

one of america's bad wars

So, all of them except when we swooped in at the end of WWII to take credit?

[–] [email protected] 47 points 2 years ago (4 children)

Honestly, at this point, we should also stop giving the US any credit for WW2. Fuckers almost entered on the side of the Nazis, funded them while they gained power etc. They only entered the European stage because they know the USSR would steamroll from Berlin to London and create a continent-wide communist revolution and wanted to stop them.

Fuck the USA, 100%, no exceptions.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 2 years ago (2 children)

The only thing the US did right in WW2 was storm Normandy so we get a really cool beach map in video games. Operation Market Garden too since that's a parachute map with bridges.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Dude if the US had never entered WW2, we’d have a bunch of commie games focused on the soviet campaigns of liberation of Western Europe and the building of the socialist European states.

So like, double fuck the US.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Imagine Call of Solidarity 4 set in like 1959. After years of struggle you finally storm 10 Downing Street and drag Churchill (he's been the war-time leader for the duration of European Liberation Wars, fighting against the USSR through reactionary proxies throughout Europe) out of there kicking and screaming. He asks for his cigars. You hand him a Cuban. He tries to give a rousing speech to cement his final moments in the history books, but everyone just laughs at him until he has a stroke and dies.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 years ago

Y’know what, what’s stopping us from doing this now? And honestly, the game should even be called Call of Solidarity (Comradeship?) 4. Make it out to be like an alternative-reality game. As in it came out of a portal to an alternative-reality, not that it’s set in an alternative reality.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago

The alternate history tales we deserve

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Not happy about the trolldier though

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago

But you get Wolfenstein.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 years ago (2 children)

almost entered on the side of the Nazis

Source? My understanding is that there was a vocal minority of businessmen and isolationists in congress, but saying the US “almost” joined the Axis seems a stretch.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

The Dulles brothers fought for years for a one-sided peace with the Nazis. One of them was an influential politician and the other one of the founders of the CIA. They, and the first director of the OSS (the precursor to the CIA), wanted to peace out the Nazis and join them against the Soviets. Many of the first OSS operations were basically helping the Nazis against the Soviets secretly, and helping develop connections with crime-rings for illicit funding.

There’s a channel on YouTube called EyesWideOpen that has a series on the origins of the CIA, and many episodes cover this.

Like this is just ONE example. But the literal founders of the CIA were explicitly trying to help the Nazis and join them.

But it’s important to understand that a “country” is a fiction. The “USA” is just some words, an idea. The people in it have nothing to hold them together, other than this. When I say the US wanted to join the Nazis, I ofc mean very powerful and influential people very nearly got exactly that to happen. Just because of the efforts of people like FDR that it didn’t happen. There are always factions, individuals etc.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I’m ambivalent about this portrayal.

On one hand, anticommunism was absolutely a motive force for the US before, during, and after the war. By “the US” I mean the government as such, its official actions and policies.

But on the other hand, hyping up a nascent version of what would become a paramilitary organization (the CIA) as the de facto state is itself an exaggeration. For whatever meddling the OSS got up to, that isn’t the same kind of power as the ability to command the military, as FDR had. Unless there is some secret dealings between FDR and the Nazis, or a substantive possibility that FDR would be couped by Nazi sympathizers, it’s really hard to imagine the US proper siding with the Nazis around 1940 when the US was already heavily backing Britain in terms of both word and direct material aid.

But it’s important to understand that a “country” is a fiction. The “USA” is just some words, an idea. The people in it have nothing to hold them together, other than this.

This kinda sounds like saying money is imaginary. It is only true in the most trivial sense. Countries do exist in the sense that power exists and social relations are real.

I think your point is simply to emphasize that there are factions within any state, so even if FDR wants one thing, he isn’t the state itself. But I think this is a weak argument when the US was demonstrably opposing the Nazis and aiding Britain through its foreign policy when it entered the war.

I digress though. I’m going to go down the rabbit hole and watch some of the videos about the OSS you recommended. Definitely not doubting the nefariousness of that group.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Just because of the efforts of people like FDR

yeah the most popular and powerful dude in the US with every branch of government stacked on his side, if we discount him & his allies--the pro-nazi anticommunists don't look so marginalized and uninfluential then!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

… yeah, but then the Dulles brothers literally became the most powerful men in America during the Eisenhower presidency, and ruled American foreign policy for almost a decade outright, not even from the shadows anymore.

So the efforts of FDR and his allies was not enough to keep the Nazis and anti-communists from gaining control of the USA.

And then creating NATO using former Nazi generals and officials, formed illicit organisations in Europe to kill communists, commit terrorist acts and coups, murdered millions of people in Asia and the Americas etc.

So good job FDR, you won, for what 8-10 years?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

events a decade after ww2 are not admissible for talking about what the US was going to do in ww2? i'll never contend the former nazis didn't "win the peace" and the mccarthyites became very important,

but you need to contend with where these people were at the time, and how far their ideas for the war were (not) implemented in reality.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Decades? They saved a bunch of Nazis from Nuremberg. The formation of NATO and the state apparatus of west Germany happened just a couple of years after WW2 ended. The stay behind orgs were formed DURING WW2…

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago

Hitler immediately declared war & let his fleet go open season on US shipping, there was no way in hell lmao

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 years ago

100% the US' direct involvement in WWII was really just part of the cold war

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Didn't Stalin say that the American lend lease was a major factor in the war with the Nazis? Like death to America, of course, but saying the USSR would have won without the Americans seems unlikely, at the very least it would have cost a hell of a lot more lives

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago

If the Americans hadn’t supported the Nazis before the war overtly, and secretly during it, the Soviets might’ve not needed the land lease at all.

I mean, we of course will never know. But I do believe the US’ participation at WW2 was at best neutral. The more shit is uncovered from the deep mud of covert operations etc. the more it seems it was more negative than neutral. But still I wouldn’t confidently say it was negative overall indeed.

[–] [email protected] 50 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I mean, blowing up half of a country and permanently occupying the other half seems pretty bad to me!

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 years ago

B-but that was actually good because the bombs supported freedom in the region!

[–] [email protected] 43 points 2 years ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 years ago (1 children)

They're still using the "SJW" thing? I thought it was replaced with "woke"?

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Something tells me Wilfred Riley isn't exactly on the cutting edge of conservative terminology

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I read this as Wilford Brimley

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago

"The only thing that stings more than my diabetes is the continued subjugation of the Korean people by the US puppet regime"

[–] [email protected] 35 points 2 years ago (1 children)

uncritical support for the DPRK in its heroic struggle to liberate occupied Korea from the genocidal American empire

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 years ago

more and more people are saying it

[–] [email protected] 29 points 2 years ago

Korea: "YOU'RE TEARING ME APART, AMERICA!"

[–] [email protected] 27 points 2 years ago

She thinks that America isn't fascist, but China is lol.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 2 years ago

Dammit I thought it really was Tommy for a moment, it's the sunglasses.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 years ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Poland is where Based Geraldo the Morally Grey and the Cyberpunkerinos come from! It is a based bastion of nonpolitical treats! so-true

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago

No.

Poland is a state of mind.

@[email protected]

[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 years ago

I've met Tommy a couple of times. I have no idea what to make of him, but it would still upset me to find out he was a reactionary, even if it is likely to be true.

His new movie, Big Shark, is hilariously dumb and I love it

[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 years ago

Dudes a landlord, why is anyone surprised?

[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

writer and game designer. liberal, progressive liberal, neonliberal. associate editor at liberal currents. she/her.

we're reaching levels of liberalism that shouldn't be possible

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Do I want to know what "neonliberal" means?

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 years ago (1 children)

It's when you want cyberpunk to be real

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 years ago

There are so many epic Torment Nexuses to choose from in cyberpunk dystopias! soypoint-1 no-mouth-must-scream soypoint-2

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago

I have to assume it is some rancid nerd bullshit. Like "oh I'm a liberal and also an new urbanist and I think we can do free markets but also have a strong social safety net!"

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 years ago

I got so excited about the prospect of a Tommy Wisseau directed take on the Korean zwar sadness

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago

Did the lives of people living in ex-Soviet countries improve after the fall of the Berlin Wall?

load more comments
view more: next ›