The one thing you hear about with Mandela is forgiving his enemies. Yet the media and government never tell us we should forgive our enemies. Is it a good thing or bad thing to forgive our enemies?
American food policies in occupied Germany post-WWII
- Thread starter rainforests1
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Should the media and government also tell us to not cheat on our significant others, to not lie, to follow the golden rule, etc.? Is that their role as you envision it?
Indeed, it is the one thing they say about Mandela in the media. Everything else is pure imagination.
Never, huh? That's pretty sweeping. You gonna ask for references? How about reparations from countries after wars? Ever heard of the Marshall Plan? Don't many western countries work wit and do trade with eastern countries who they used to avoid/war with? Et cetera?
But how often do they actually tell us, in so many words, "Forgive your enemies!" Huh? It should be put on license plates and highway signs and be a crawler on nightly news broadcasts. At the very least.
We certainly weren't taught to forgive bin Laden after his alleged involvement in 9/11. We did just the opposite;we bombed the country that was harboring him.
I'm not sure what the Marshall Plan has to do with anything. We destroyed Germany's economy, ethnically cleansed maybe 15 million Germans from Eastern Europe(supported by the United States), and starved their citizens for years after the war(Germans were fed on average around 1,100 calories in 1947). It sure sounds like we forgave them.
Have you ever talked to an actual German about this? I know many Germans, including many Fluechtling (refugees from the East), and the Fluechtling left to escape the Russians. They weren't "ethnically cleansed", not by their own lights. There also was no starvation going on after WWII. After WWI, it was a different matter; inflation was so rampant that people couldn't afford food, and they would come from the cities to beg food directly from the farmers.
Let's see what your trustable Wikipedia has to say:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgenthau_Plan#Food_policy
In Germany shortage of food was an acute problem, according to Alan S. Milward in 1946–47 the average kilocalorie intake per day was only 1,080, an amount insufficient for long-term health.[76][page needed] Other sources state that the kilocalorie intake in those years varied between as low as 1,000 and 1,500. William Clayton reported to Washington that "millions of people are slowly starving."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_and_expulsion_of_Germans_(1944–50)
Call it what you want, but it was brutal and a lot of people suffered. There's never been a single instance that I can recall where the government or media has endorsed us to "forgive our enemies". It seems very hypocritical to me that we would constantly praise Mandela for forgiving the enemy but not do it ourselves. What else is new?
When a person completely re-writes history, I will say something. Otherwise, I have little to add to this thread at this point.
You haven't really added anything to it yet, have you? You're illustrating that you like to be angry and objectionable, in a memorial thread of all places. The little snippets that you randomly find on the internet are incongruent in the setting and even among each other - more like confetti than discussion. You must understand why others get so puzzled, don't you?
You obviously can't tell a person's emotions based off of some posts on a message board. If you actually knew me, you'd be surprised at how calm I am in real life. There are two people I generally argue with on this board:Mischief and Nigel. As far as these others that are puzzled, I have no idea what you're talking about. For the time being, I'll just have to wait for Mischief to show these good sources that claim Germans were fed even close to 2,000 calories per day in 1947. My gut feeling is it will never come.
Oh, for crying out loud. I had several dozen family members who lived through WWII and its aftermath in Germany, we were a poor family, and no one starved after WWII. I apologize that I didn't get affidavits from them about how many calories they ate per day, but then, they didn't have the foresight to keep calorie logs for you either, I suspect. That's why I asked you whether you had ever talked to any actual Germans.
Germans have never had to be "fed" anything. Like most of us who are adults, we feed ourselves.
BTW, the reason there are only a couple of people who argue with you is that most people just ignore your posts.
Germans have never had to be "fed" anything. Like most of us who are adults, we feed ourselves.
BTW, the reason there are only a couple of people who argue with you is that most people just ignore your posts.
A few dozen people represents an entire nation. Seems logical. Germany's economy was in ruins. They depended on the Allies for their food. You can actually keep track of how many calories they were being fed. As expected you have no source.
Personally I do a lot of reading. I read all sides to a story and draw my own conclusion. For basically every argument I've had on Veggieboards or Veggieviews, I know I'm right. Even if you're correct about others ignoring me, all that matters is I know I'm right(and I do). I never came here for any popularity contest.
Another question:are you male or female? It's always been males I've had big problems with on message boards. I'd like to know if this trend is continuing. Nigel sounds like they would be a male.
Personally I do a lot of reading. I read all sides to a story and draw my own conclusion. For basically every argument I've had on Veggieboards or Veggieviews, I know I'm right. Even if you're correct about others ignoring me, all that matters is I know I'm right(and I do). I never came here for any popularity contest.
Another question:are you male or female? It's always been males I've had big problems with on message boards. I'd like to know if this trend is continuing. Nigel sounds like they would be a male.
It doesn't come as any surprise to me that you think you are absolutely right about everything. Since you are so knowledgeable and intelligent, you should have no trouble figuring out whether I'm male or female. Besides which, even if I were to tell you (and I don't know what difference it makes?), you would have no reason at all to believe me, now would you.
I've seen that. RF1 cited it.
What I said is that no German I have ever met who lived through that period, including my very extended family, experienced actual starvation after WWII, and we were poor and much more likely to be affected by such a policy than rich people.
Was food plentiful in Germany in the immediate aftermath of WWII? No, but then it was not plentiful in any of the countries where the war had been fought. During the war itself, Germany had better supplies than its neighbors, because food and other supplies were being seized and sent to Germany. Moreover, Germany was using cutting off food and other necessary supplies as a war tactic. Look up the Dutch Hunger Winter, the Great Famine of Greece, etc.
The fact is that, when a war is fought on your soil, certain hardships are going to ensue. Germany suffered no more in this regard than the countries it attacked, and in most cases, less.
Perhaps RF1 is suggesting that Germany should have been given preference over its neighbors in receiving food rations. Personally, I would find that an odd position to take.
What I said is that no German I have ever met who lived through that period, including my very extended family, experienced actual starvation after WWII, and we were poor and much more likely to be affected by such a policy than rich people.
Was food plentiful in Germany in the immediate aftermath of WWII? No, but then it was not plentiful in any of the countries where the war had been fought. During the war itself, Germany had better supplies than its neighbors, because food and other supplies were being seized and sent to Germany. Moreover, Germany was using cutting off food and other necessary supplies as a war tactic. Look up the Dutch Hunger Winter, the Great Famine of Greece, etc.
The fact is that, when a war is fought on your soil, certain hardships are going to ensue. Germany suffered no more in this regard than the countries it attacked, and in most cases, less.
Perhaps RF1 is suggesting that Germany should have been given preference over its neighbors in receiving food rations. Personally, I would find that an odd position to take.
My point is that you so desire an argument that you tend to loosely daisy-chain snippets of contradicting info in your retorts as if they somehow support a sweeping and absurd generalization you made before. Somehow we got from a dead Mandela to Raul Castro to the gov't and media conspiracy to never say forgive your enemies (when of course the only thing you hear about Mandela is that you should forgive your enemies, then onto a claim the no governments or people or planets forgive their enemies, then onto the post-war caloric intake of German interns. All of this from information that you clearly had no knowledge of before mad Googling during this thread just so you could make some point, and now you expect to be acknowledged as being in the know on every ridiculous thing you have claimed because of a single bit that you're obsessing on.
I can't wait until your next post. It'll probably be something about the Wiemar Republic's conspiracy with the media to put the second gunman on the grassy knoll. Go ahead and Google it. I'm sure you find something.
Yeah, I was trying to make it so that the debate would not start out of nowhere, even if it meant having some posts not being directly related to the subject on hand.
Anyway, I assumed that you meant that no people starved and/or died.
I must say that it's a bit of stretch to say that it's only about Germany not having been given preference, when they also actively was prevented from receiving aid that otherwise probably would not have been given anyone else. Also, is it really fair to have civilians suffer the consequences of what the military did?
Civilians always suffer from what the military does. It's the nature of war, and why war is so abhorrent.
Frankly, if Germany hadn't been confiscating food and other goods from throughout Europe all during the war, Germans, rather than the Greeks, Dutch, etc. would have been starving to death.
I have no problem with giving preference to the victims of aggressors, even when the aggressors were my own people. Aggressors should suffer consequences from their aggression.
As far as the ban on care packages to Germany (I think that's what you are referring to with your reference to "aid that otherwise probably would not have been given anyone else"?), how much of a difference do you think private aid packages would have made if the food shortage was as dire as RF1 would like to believe?
Frankly, if Germany hadn't been confiscating food and other goods from throughout Europe all during the war, Germans, rather than the Greeks, Dutch, etc. would have been starving to death.
I have no problem with giving preference to the victims of aggressors, even when the aggressors were my own people. Aggressors should suffer consequences from their aggression.
As far as the ban on care packages to Germany (I think that's what you are referring to with your reference to "aid that otherwise probably would not have been given anyone else"?), how much of a difference do you think private aid packages would have made if the food shortage was as dire as RF1 would like to believe?
