Paragraphs please. I can barely find the next line down. I'm old ya know. I can't hold my breath that long.

This is all I see:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.

Karl Popper from The Open Society and Its Enemies [1945]


I will not tolerate this.

Go back to your desk and bring it back when you're done and then I'll read it.

Less well known [than other paradoxes] is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them.—In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.

- Karl Popper from The Open Society and Its Enemies [1945]

"It can't happen here."
Europe
1914 - 1945

I long for the good ol' days, like April 28, 1945.

Thanks geo. It's from the 1945 movie The Body Snatcher.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJO0BImGChY

It's what I do. I see and pick up dead people.

What killed a federal job guarantee in 1945? Jim Crow.

Check out page 7.

"The Full Employment Bill had potential to change the prevailing system of racial and labor relations premised on the subordination of African Americans. Consequently, the bill faced opposition from business and farm lobbies, who sought to replace the bill with one that was less threatening."

Also, get a load of its details:

“all Americans able to work and seeking work have the right to useful, remunerative, regular and full-time employment. And it is the policy of the United States to assure the existence at all times of sufficient employment opportunities to enable all Americans [...] to freely exercise this right.”

That's part of what I mean when I laugh at the notion that policy proposals by Sanders/Corbyn are "radical". A federal job guarantee was accepted mainstream in 1945, yet a living wage is considered pie-in-the-sky utopian madness in 2017.

I agree, hard to get past "nuke-yoo-lar".

But also, I think more information is necessary to justify their claims about results of a hypothetical India vs Pakistan nuclear war with 100 warheads dropped "in anger" so to speak.

Google search suggests that there have been more than 2000 nuclear tests, 520 atmospheric, from 1945 to today. Would the increased particulate dust and debris from being fired on generally populated areas really be enough to make 100 of those warheads have a drastically greater effect than the 520 atmospheric tests that have already happened?

Seems possible, but I dunno. Expanding on that further would be interesting.

Agreed, that was an exercise doomed to failure at the outset. Good call.
Well, only a death sentence for about 6 years of that, to pick a nit...but point taken. I don't have a good answer to that, perhaps Russia? I don't think they should have just waited to be killed, which was likely for those that stayed in Germany, and later most of Europe. That only goes for until 1945 though, after the war, they had little to flee from, and many good reasons to stay in Europe, specifically Germany, where they had a great case to make for a large industrialized territory in Europe as reparations. That's what I wish had been the outcome, and where I believe Israel belongs. IMO, it would probably have been better for everyone in both the short and long term.
I admit that perhaps invading Palestine slowly was their best viable option before the war ended.....I just think it's helpful to be perfectly honest that that's what happened and not play some game about it and pretend they hold the moral high ground on that part of the issue. There's plenty of atrocities to blame on the Palestinian response, but also empathy for a displaced and, today, a decimated people still suffering horrifically, mostly for 'sins' of their grandfather's, namely the sin of fighting invaders stubbornly.

One view emphasizes events occurring during and after the Allied occupation of Japan (1945–1952), and stresses that manga was strongly shaped by United States cultural influences, including US comics brought to Japan by the GIs and by images and themes from US television, film, and cartoons (especially Disney).

There are two schools of thought on this theory; the link you provided is from someone who believes in the other school of thought, which is fine, but it is not the end all definition. Additionally, I never said the characters weren't Asian in the manga or anime, I said jokingly that they are drawn with western characteristics like the rounder Occidental eyes.

Clearly the original character is meant to be Japanese, and the studio certainly could replace a known actress with lots of draw power with a lesser known actress, but realistically this is meant to make money. Just like "All you need is kill" was redone and cast with money making actors as Edge of Tomorrow. In the end, the studio is selling a product and is going to want to make the most money possible, so casting will almost always go to an actor that pulls a fan base.

@newtboy I wasn't attempting to say that the character was meant to be western, I was merely joking about the art style. Sorry for any confusion I may have put forth.

Historically Islam didn't really engage in forced conversions, partly because under both the Caliphate and the Ottoman empire the tax break given to Muslims would've been problematic if given to the entire population (this tax break is the flip side of the "extort money" that you refer to).

Also speaking historically, Jews were much safer in Muslim lands than Christian since Christians tended to massacre them on a fairly regular basis until 1945 and despite what you've heard most Muslims are fairly tolerant. The same applies to minority Christian sects, the Nestorians for instance had to flee to Persia in 489 AD, and I seem to recall another minority group who fled England to Holland and then to the Americas (perhaps you've heard of them?).

I used to think that Buddhists and Hindus were more tolerant than the Abrahamic religions, but unfortunately I've since learned that I only thought so due to ignorance.

That's not true.

Despite what politicians may say, America has no trouble financing its debt. The US bond market is at the highest demand level (lowest yield) it has ever been because the US is perceived as the best house in a bad neighbourhood.

Literally, US bonds have not been more in demand since the US was founded.

Chart is a bit old, it's now solidly below 1945 levels:

http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user3303/imageroot/2013/12/20131220_bonds.jpg

I would highly advise you to stop listening to politicians, political pundits or partisans if you want truthful information about the economy.

Because of a lack of real pressure to cut the debt beyond the politics of it, Republicans or Democrats have no real incentive and thereby no genuine interest to actually reduce the debt rather than kicking the can down the road.

So adding what is a marginal amount of debt on top of that shouldn't make a difference to them.

1945 and 1695 are classic

@Lawdeedaw

There's so much factually wrong here, I don't know where to begin. Let's start with this:

"That rape and mutilation has been going on for centuries but was significant in the Second Sino-Japanese War, a distinct war in and of itself."

Japan was in a state of almost complete isolation from the rest of the world between the years of 1633 and 1853. Even after the period of isolation ended, Japan was too busy for decades industrializing to be rampaging through China, as you suggest.

Japan DID eventually get involved in Chinese politics and in fact went to war with them in the First Sino-Japanese War... in 1894. There are no reports of atrocities committed by the Japanese military during this conflict. In fact, quite the opposite, Japan would release Chinese prisoners of war once they promised not to take up arms against Japan again.

The subjugation of Taiwan (which was ceded to Japan at the end of the first Sino-Japanese War but resisted Japanese rule) is a different story. However, accounts of what exactly happened are sketchy and most of the information we have is anecdotal. What can be gleaned from these anecdotes is that the Formasians put up a fierce guerrilla resistance campaign and that the Japanese tortured and killed anyone suspected of aiding the resistance. Still, it doesn't appear to have been on the same scale as the massacres which occurred during the Rape of Nanking.

As you mentioned, some of the most awful abuses were done during the Second Sino-Japanese War between 1937 and 1945 (the Rape of nanking occurred during this war). The abuse ended Japan's defeat in WWII.

What you can see here by doing the math, is that Japan's military abuses in China lasted a grand total of 50 years--from the subjugation of Formosa (Taiwan) to the end of World War 2--not "centuries."

Next, let's talk about misrepresentation. You seem to be implying that Japanese textbooks don't say that Japan is the aggressor in WW2 (or previous conflicts). As I pointed out in my last post, that is flat-out wrong. There is ONE textbook that was approved for use that whitewashes the history but that book has been ignored an not used by the vast majority of schools in Japan.

If you want to criticize Japanese textbooks, you could criticize them on the grounds that though they mention the terrible things that Japanese forces did, they don't go into a whole lot of detail. See this article for more information.

As far as Abe goes, what exactly has he said that is so terrible? Yes, he hangs out with revisionists. Yes, he has expressed his opinion that Japan should stop apologizing for WWII and start looking to the future instead of the past. Yes, he has said that the issue of "comfort women" should be re-examined in light of claims that some of evidence of their existence was fabricated. But these are not really radical statements by any means. And many people and newspapers do strongly and openly disagree with his statements, so this idea that Japanese people don't challenge him is completely wrong as well.

Yasukuni is a total clusterfuck of a situation. It is a shrine to ALL of Japan's war dead. This includes war criminals, but it also includes regular soldiers just doing their duty. In terms of Shinto beliefs, all of their souls now reside there. Basically, if you want to pay your respects to someone who died in military service in Japan, you have to go there to "see them."

Abe is a total dumbass (and the press let him know it) for going there because he knows already how China and Korea will perceive it, but on the other hand his going there does not mean in any way that he reveres the war criminals who are interred there. I have no idea what his personal views are but publically he has stated that he and his wife go there to remind themselves about the terrible toll war had on Japan the last time Japan engaged in it.

Finally, as for the link you provided, it was to a year-old opinion piece that lacks context. Abe made that statement at a time when it was revealed that some of the evidence of the existence of comfort women in Japan had been faked. It was later decided that the apology would not be changed. In fact, The Japan Times is reporting that it is likely that Abe will mention that "comfort women" had their human rights violated by Japan in his upcoming address on the end of WWII, so the comparison of him to Ahmadinejad is a bit far-fetched.

@MilkmanDan

I am an outspoken critic of my country (and my government in particular) in a million different ways, but the way our educational system deals with the years of 1933-1945 (by extension, 1914-1945) is praiseworthy when compared to how other nations deal with the atrocities they committed. Sure enough, it still leaves room for improvement, but overall, it's nothing to be ashamed of.

One positive aspect of it can be seen these days in the public reaction to what has been going on in Ukraine. The west is supporting marauding Nazi militias, which should be an absolute no-go under any circumstances, especially for us. So I was quite happy to see some public outrage against it, even though it should have been a lot more.

Very interesting videos, both the 1900 and 1945.