this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2024
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Memes

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[–] [email protected] 124 points 4 months ago (3 children)

This period of peace in Western Europe is pretty special and I would like to keep it that way, thx

[–] Barbarian 54 points 4 months ago (4 children)

This period of war in Eastern Europe is pretty shit and I would like Western Europe to take it more seriously, thx

[–] [email protected] 17 points 4 months ago (1 children)

So you're saying we should invade Poland?

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

I mean there was a meme about the German Army was sending troops to Poland.

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 4 months ago (1 children)

That's because the EU was created with the purpose of making an interconnected market where going to war is simply way too costly.

As the other commenter said, there is a war in Europe though.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Ah but don't forget, we in the UK left the EU. Bo Jo already considered invading the Netherlands once.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

Oh man, that'd go over well. I wanna see those battleplans.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 4 months ago (1 children)

This period of peace in Western Europe

France: "We haven't gone to war with Germany in decades!"

Me: "What about Libya?"

France: ...

Me: "Algeria? Argentina? Rwanda? The Ivory Coast? Somalia? Chad? Basque Country? Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia?"

France: sound of FAMAS F1 cocking

[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Achtually the french army doesn't use FAMAS anymore and they replaced them with german made HK416.

Not gonna argue about the rest though

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

First Elsass-Lothringen, now Heckler & Koch... when are they going to stop taking our stuff?

(Yes, I know the actual history is more complex. I'm just memeing.)

[–] [email protected] 48 points 4 months ago (2 children)

American students every couple weeks

[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 months ago (1 children)

American Economics Professor: "We pulled ourselves out of the Great Depression by entering WW2"

American Economics Student: "I can't afford my car payment and my rent just doubled. When can we re-invade the South Pacific?"

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago (1 children)

And nothing to do with those pesky socialist reforms of the new deal. No this social reforms ruined everything! Must kill for equity!

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

In fairness, if you get under the hood of the New Deal benefits, they relieved a lot of immediate suffering and mobilized a workforce that had been functionally abandoned by the private sector.

But they didn't "grow the economy" in the same way as the enormous investment in the Military Industrial Complex achieved. The Citizens Conservation Corps and the Social Security Administration didn't create the kind of high paying engineering and manufacturing jobs that state demand for thousands of new tanks and ships achieved.

WW2 full mobilization of the economy wasn't just taking in the slack of a depressed market. It was a command economy in all but name, dictating every aspect of the industrial chain, from extraction to expenditure to recovery and recycling.

The tragedy of WW2 is that we could only permit this kind of logistical achievement for the purpose of joining a bloodbath in Europe, North Africa, and East Asia. As soon as Roosevelt passed, Truman began reprivatizing the economy as quickly as possible.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Yeah that's fair. But the works and practice in mobilizing the workforce in the new deal played a big part in the US having industrial capability prior to WWII. Not mentioning other logistics, the power grid improvement alone may have made the difference in the war effort even being possible for the US. After the war private industry continued to benefit from cheap energy coming from those same projects. Hell if there's a miuntain range in your state you're almost certainly getting some of your power from a hydro plant made in the 30's.

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

But the works and practice in mobilizing the workforce in the new deal played a big part in the US having industrial capability prior to WWII.

Hard to power the 1940s industrial economy without coal. And hard to generate coal without an electrification of the Tennessee Valley. Without a doubt.

Hell if there’s a miuntain range in your state you’re almost certainly getting some of your power from a hydro plant made in the 30’s.

Given his attitude towards public works, it's very funny that Hoover has the nation's largest dam named after him.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

There's also the west coast. The damming of the Columbia, while a natural disaster, made the region viable for manufacture and ship building. In some ways it lead to the possibility for the tech industry as well for better or worse.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

I wish. Our students are kittens compared to European students. The police are going to riot anyways, stop bringing the kid's gloves.

[–] [email protected] 46 points 4 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago

Yes, we have decades between (direct involvement in) wars!!
We didn't even spend actual money on war stuff the last few decades.

But we sure are gonna do it now, we need to protect our drinking water (for the coming water wars) and update our firewalls (for the coming Skynet wars).

[–] [email protected] 27 points 4 months ago

in the US we call that 9th grade

[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 months ago

Humanity every few months

[–] ShareMySims 8 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 33 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

Everyone in Europe killing each other every generation predates capitalism. Capitalism did increase the scale though; after the fall of the western roman empire, we didn't see armies of that size until Napoleon managed to draft a million men in a country of 30 million.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 4 months ago

Perhaps you would prefer "the ruling class"?

[–] ShareMySims 9 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Lmfao, sorry (not sorry), I should have included feudalists too I guess, to avoid bootlicking pedants.. 🙄

The point stands - war is waged for profit by profiteers, not by random civilians trying to live their lives, always was, always will be.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

One exception to it : fascists managed to convince people who can only lose stuff to a war that it's good for them too.

[–] ShareMySims 7 points 4 months ago (1 children)

One exception to it : ~~fascists~~ capitalists managed to convince people who can only lose stuff to a war that it’s good for them too.

Fascism is capitalism in decay, there is no exception.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

I'd say facsism is just capitalism when you try to say no.

As in literally, people tried to say no via socialism and then fascism was invented.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 months ago (7 children)

don't worry, the soviets joined ww2 as well

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago

Yep, and beat the Nazis.

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

He already said capitalists, state capitalism is still capitalism, no matter if you call it communism.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago (4 children)

The USSR was Socialist, what on Earth are you talking about?

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago (8 children)

Calling something state capitalist when capitalism heavily relies on the state by default shows you need to hit the books on how capitalism actually functions.

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

Yeah but at least we limit ours to small scale atrocities committed by civilians, and not all-out civil war. And proxy wars. And not-a-war-wars. And helping others with their own ~~wars~~ genocides.

Fuck. Nevermind I guess.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago
[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

That's how you keep practice

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