From: cmort@NCoast.ORG (Christopher Morton)
Subject: Re: Why we go for non-black women
Reply-To: cmort@ncoast.org (Christopher Morton)
Organization: North Coast Public Access *NIX, Cleveland, OH
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 16:35:35 GMT
Followup-To: soc.culture.african.american

As quoted from <1idu69INNn4i@news.aero.org> by helfman@aero.org (Robert S. Helfman):

> In article <1993Jan6.022217.19346@csus.edu> chaneysa@nextnet.csus.edu (Stephen A Chaney) writes:
> >(as some nuts like to call it - as if the USSR's 40 million dead and
> >still counting, makes them a better place)....
> 
> Mr. Chaney, you, in your great conservative wisdom, may feel that 
> nothing the late USSR ever did is worthy of merit, but I suggest 
> you carefully read the history of World War II.
> 
Hey, I thought this was the don't.date.(pick a race) group! :)

Wow, something actually intelligent to discuss.  The mind boggles.... :)

> The United States sent guns, tanks, ammo, and supplies to the USSR
> to fight the Nazis on the Eastern Front. The USSR sent the bodies to
> fight and die there, on the battlefields and in the cities. When
> the Nazis besieged Leningrad for 900 days (yes, 900 days), 300,000
> people starved to death but the city never fell. 
> 
Nice that you take notice of Lend Lease.  I've recently talked to people
who tried to deny it.  The Soviets made do pretty well with stuff that we
didn't want, such as the Bell P-39.

> They lost 20,000,000 people fighting that war to give us enough time to
> get prepared to invade at Normandie. Long before you were born, Mr. Chaney,
> they were our Allies in a holy war of survival. Admittedly, it was

Let's not get sucked in by questionable figures.  You ou give a bit of
consideration to the source of that figure and the data used to compile it.
Keep in mind that the Gulag was still going strong all through WWII (including
Soviet POWs who escaped from the Germans).  I have always been strongly
suspicious that that figure was a convenient way to camouflage self-inflicted
casualties.  I believe I've seen evidence of this too.  Try Conquest's "Stalin
and the Great Terror" and Tolstoy's "Stalin's Secret War".  What this amounts
to is the Germans trying to claim holocaust victims as war casualties.

Two other points:

1. The Soviets and Stalin in particular made the German attack possible by
their extensive support for and cooperation with the Nazis prior to the German
attack.  A bustling trade in strategic materials was conducted with the 
Germans prior to the surprise attack, as a matter of fact up to the DAY of the
German invasion!

Also NEVER forget that Poland was invaded by TWO superpowers.  The Soviets
HELPED the Germans destroy Poland, and engaged in similar activity in their
zone of occupation.  The Soviets/Russians have admitted that the Katyn Massacre
had nothing to do with the Germans.  Also they engaged in numerous massacres
of political prisoners to prevent them from falling into German hands, during
the early stages of the German invasion.  A particularly grisly example taking
place in Lvov(?) is given in Tolstoy's book.

2. The incompetance of Stalin and Voroshilov was a primary factor in the 
destruction of what had been one of the most powerful military organizations
in the world.  The Red Army had already been largely destroyed without a single
foreign shot being fired.  The purge of the military virtually destroyed the
military effectiveness of the Soviet Union.  Combined with Stalin's idiotic
orders at the start of the Barbarossa, this "pre-destruction" was a principle
cause of the near defeat and the horrific casualties.

> Both countries owe each other, big time. It's nice that we can be
> friends again, even if it took most of my lifetime for it finally
> happen.
> 
> 
The difference is that now there is a reasonable basis for that friendship.
I think that the two space programs ought to be combined.  We could drive
everybody else out of the launch business if we wanted to.  We could even
undercut the Chinese.  Makes too much sense of course....



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