tf_talk | continued Thatfucker discussion

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continued Thatfucker discussion

Since we've been kicked off FFA for the week, please feel free to continue the anon discussion here. Apologies if this is a big flop - I've never made a DW community before!

The rules are vaguely the same as they are over on FFA. Please refrain from being too much of an asshole, making personal attacks, posting identifying information or engaging in transfail.

ETA: If there's information you'd like to see archived (journal/blog posts related to Andy, etc.), please dump it here and link to it from the main post for discussing.

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So...Irish famine jokes (side note: Irish potato famine jokes?? does anyone even have an example of these??) are basically Holocaust jokes, but child abuse is hilarious and fine to joke about, especially in the context of the Holocaust!

Andy must have left his omni-compassionate persona at college that day.

NA

It's just more evidence that both his "compassion" and his SJ convictions are performative and insincere... and performed sloppily, at that.

"How many potatoes does it take to kill an Irishman?"

"No potatoes" (said in an exaggerated Irish accent)

Admittedly, pretty tacky.

The differences between this and the Holocaust jokes, which Andy fails to grasp, are:

1. There is no settled consensus (even in Ireland) that the famine constitutes a genocide, or that the "goal" of the famine was to completely exterminate the Irish people.

2. There are no survivors of the Irish Great Famine alive today to potentially hear the jokes and be hurt by them.

3. Even the highest estimates of the death toll in Ireland are dwarfed by the Holocaust and further dwarfed by the total number of people who died in German concentration camps under similar circumstances, many of whom suffered systematic torture, rape and other human rights abuses before their deaths. There is absolutely no question that these crimes were planned and intentional.

It's worth mentioning that Poland's WWII casualty toll is over or around 6 million, including 3 million Jews and 3 million other Polish citizens. And, unlike the Irish Great Famine, many people who lived through those years are still alive and well.

It's also might be worth mentioning that Russia wasn't the agressor in WWII and USSR (we weren't Russia then, actually) lost over 24 million people while fighting against Germany (66% of them or 14 million of Russians, according to wikipedia). My grandpa is still alive, and he was imprisoned in German labor camp for 5 years.
Actually, any jokes about WWII in Russia might lead to serious consequences. It's one of the most sensitive topics here. For some reason, bringing down Russia is a popular thing in US internet, so I'm not surprised. But doesn't being a SJW mean you can't talk shit about any nation?
(Sorry for off-topic, it just bugs me so much)

The USSR did, however, strike a deal with Germany to divide Poland after a mutual invasion.

Also, one of the reasons so many USSR citizens died is that their army was made up of poorly trained conscripts, who were drafted under pain of death. It was standard practice for any soldier caught retreating to be shot by his own peers stationed behind him. Military leaders were also terrified of Stalin's zero tolerance of "insubordination", which resulted in crazy shit like soldiers who couldn't swim being ordered at gun point to march through fast flowing rivers, only to drown in the attempt.

That's not to shit upon the almost inhuman efforts of the Soviet people to halt Germany's invasion eastward, but many of them were victims of Germany and their own government. It's very sad.

But doesn't being a SJW mean you can't talk shit about any nation?

"Talking shit" about the USA (in an echo-box way devoid of any meaningful criticism) is a standard SJW passtime, so no.

I also saw a post complaining about Finland's "history of white colonialism" the other day. LOL.

Well, define "talking shit". I have zero problem criticizing the Russian Federation -- or any other country -- including my own. What's unfair is painting every citizen of that country with the same brush.

For example, the fact that Red Army forces raped 100,000 women and children in Berlin is awful, and is not excused by the fact that similar crimes committed by German forces in Eastern Europe. That fact doesn't entitle me to say, "Soviets were all rapists!"

Honestly, the more you look at WWII, the more you will find it was less of a struggle between good and evil and more of a struggle between greater evils and lesser evils.

hahahahahahahahaaaaaaa omg spoken like a true holocaust apologist

NA

Lmao, it's not holocaust apologism to say that Soviets committed war crimes during WWII (which, you know, is a documented fact). You don't have to deny holocaust in order to acknowledge that the allies did shitty stuff too. Or is talking about Hiroshima holocaust apologism as well?

NA Fuck off back to tumblr with your black and white thinking.

While the Holocaust was a horrific part of WWII, the war itself was never fought because of the Holocaust. More specifically, the Allies did not fight with stopping the Holocaust as their motivation, and in fact are often criticized for failing to take basic measures that would have made the Holocaust more difficult to carry out.

I am not an apologist for the Axis powers or the Nazis. That said, it's important to acknowledge that "our side" -- "the good guys" -- did things that would absolutely be considered war crimes today, like intentionally fire bombing civilians in Germany and Japan. Germany did this too, to be clear, but the Americans and British killed more than 10 times the number of people this way. Then there's Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as another poster mentioned. And, of course, the hundreds of thousands of rapes carried out by Soviet forces, with women and children as the primary victims.

War is ugly. We have a tendency to valorize what went on in WWII, or to hyperfocus on the positive elements of it, to the degree that many people don't even know the true extent of what went on.

I'm glad the Allies won the war. That does not mean I am willing to stick my head in the sand and pretend Allied war crimes never occurred.

In retrospect, this subject isn't related the purpose of this community - mods, maybe freeze it?

Agreed, anon - sorry I didn't freeze this sooner folks, for some reason I thought this thread was in Gloves Off to begin with!

This relevant subthread has been frozen; if anyone feels really passionate about discussing WWII/the Holocaust in this community please go here: http://tf-talk.dreamwidth.org/1245.html?thread=740317#cmt740317

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