Ukraine (29 Viewers)

[Saintman2884]

The thing is, we have not been threatened with invasion since the Revolutionary War. Yes, there were those that did not want to go off and die in wars that didn’t directly affect us like Vietnam and Korea. I wonder how many here would run to Canada or Mexico if Russia came across the Bering Strait? It’s a scary thought.

Technically, the last time the U.S. was faced with the very real prospect of foreign invasion was the War of 1812 where British forces invaded and captured Washington D.C. and burned the Presidential Palace to the ground. Then-President James Madison and his wife, family barely escaped armed with a pair of dueling pistols in case of danger or trouble.

The Treaty of Ghent sort of ended the War of 1812 plus General Andrew Jackson's absolute destruction of the British at the Battle of New Orleans was the exclamation point that ended hostilities. After Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo and banishment to St. Helena, the Coalition forces didnt really feel they had a complete, moral justification to continue a longer, protracted, bloodier conflict in North America, plus British merchant interests via Liverpool valued trade with US, applied pressure to Duke of Wellington, plus British cabinet to end what essentially had been a 23-year long war against French Revolution, anarchy, chaos that had spread to Italy, Spain, Portugal, parts of Germany and morphed into wars of conquest after Napoleon's seizure and consolidation of power in 1804.

The War of 1812 has been called "The Second Invasion" or "Second War of Independence" by American historians. Its also the last conflict we would have with any foreign, European nation until the 1898 Spanish-American War.

 

[SamAndreas]

Thanks for the info. I’m wondering if it’s a case of old songs that once had meaning but they are so traditional the meaning of the original gets a bit lost, people just don’t think about it. Kinda like Yankee Doodle or The Yellow Rose of Texas. And it’s only relatively recently have certain songs like Dixie have become verboten

Plus this Russia

I didn't mention that it is a square dance tune which is usually played more on an accordion than a violin. It's an accordion song with hundreds of set of lyrics which differ much. From attempting to be about christian values to drunken debauchery.

Onward christian soldiers is one of our tunes that has picked up many sets of lyrics. I remember singing House of the Rising Sun at a prom dance in 1977, singing it to the music of Onward Christian Soldiers.

Our band usually played it to the music the Animals used when they recorded it. We performed it the traditional way that night, to the traditional music it was supposed to be played with, upon a request from the floor.

This is the same band, different name, years later, someone else singing. I think I was in Alaska when they recorded it.

 

[Saintman2884]

It's good topic to discuss. Our views seem similar enough to begin. If they weren't that similar we probably would encounter that problem which comes up so often, that of not having enough of a common reality to discuss something.

One of my hundred or so cousins too off to Canada in 1969. It may be he avoided death by doing so but the cost was very high. Almost high enough that he probably should have gone and faced possible death.

Our country did about what the Ukrainians are talking about doing except that it seemed to me that the Ukranians arn't going nearly as far with it.

What he faced was many years of living on another cousin's farm in Canada such that it was like an open air prison. My cousin didn't have a passport and once he left he couldn't get one. He had to stay on that farm 24/7/365 for about 15 years.

Eventually they gave him aminsity and he returned home and hasn't much left his parents home since. He was never the same as he was before after he returned.

The few times he did go to town after coming back he would get in trouble. He's been in and out of the state hospital for the mentally insane. In another word, more prison. 55 years it's been, he's been in a prison of his own making.

You do know he couldve returned in late 70's ca. 1977 when Carter granted a general amnesty to all Vietnam War-era draft dodgers, protesters who fled to Canada, UK, France, Holland, West Germany or Scandivinavia. In fact, a couple of members of the band Heart actually met and formed while absconding from the war in British Columbia and their nationality/passport status remained ambivalent even though the band had success in mid-70's with "Crazy on You" and "Magic Man", they couldn't successfully tour the States fully until Carter's amnesty was granted in January 1977 in one of his first acts in office.

 

[Sailorsaint]

Technically, the last time the U.S. was faced with the very real prospect of foreign invasion was the War of 1812 where British forces invaded and captured Washington D.C. and burned the Presidential Palace to the ground. Then-President James Madison and his wife, family barely escaped armed with a pair of dueling pistols in case of danger or trouble.

The Treaty of Ghent sort of ended the War of 1812 plus General Andrew Jackson's absolute destruction of the British at the Battle of New Orleans was the exclamation point that ended hostilities. After Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo and banishment to St. Helena, the Coalition forces didnt really feel they had a complete, moral justification to continue a longer, protracted, bloodier conflict in North America, plus British merchant interests via Liverpool valued trade with US, applied pressure to Duke of Wellington, plus British cabinet to end what essentially had been a 23-year long war against French Revolution, anarchy, chaos that had spread to Italy, Spain, Portugal, parts of Germany and morphed into wars of conquest after Napoleon's seizure and consolidation of power in 1804.

The War of 1812 has been called "The Second Invasion" or "Second War of Independence" by American historians. Its also the last conflict we would have with any foreign, European nation until the 1898 Spanish-American War.

I always forget about the War of 1812. I guess it doesn’t get as much advertisement…

 

[SamAndreas]

At 8:35 General Hodges talks about the threat of nuclear war, how our deterrence works, he thinks the threat is low. Low because of how we are ourselves deterred by our own deterrence, which we impose on Russia.

I agree with how that functions, it's not a direct acting function. We have to appear to be deterred by the very thought of nuclear war for it to scare them. The more we're horrified by it, the more it deters them.



I've not looked this genneral up I think, I need to. There's a lot here that's beyond what I brought up. I've not digested it yet.

I posted it here before finishing it because I want to watch the rest of it here not at YouTube where there are adds. It's long there would be several adds if I watched it there. I donate here to avoid adds, but I don't want to pay them there to do the same.

 

[boutte]

Technically, the last time the U.S. was faced with the very real prospect of foreign invasion was the War of 1812 where British forces invaded and captured Washington D.C. and burned the Presidential Palace to the ground. Then-President James Madison and his wife, family barely escaped armed with a pair of dueling pistols in case of danger or trouble.

The Treaty of Ghent sort of ended the War of 1812 plus General Andrew Jackson's absolute destruction of the British at the Battle of New Orleans was the exclamation point that ended hostilities. After Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo and banishment to St. Helena, the Coalition forces didnt really feel they had a complete, moral justification to continue a longer, protracted, bloodier conflict in North America, plus British merchant interests via Liverpool valued trade with US, applied pressure to Duke of Wellington, plus British cabinet to end what essentially had been a 23-year long war against French Revolution, anarchy, chaos that had spread to Italy, Spain, Portugal, parts of Germany and morphed into wars of conquest after Napoleon's seizure and consolidation of power in 1804.

The War of 1812 has been called "The Second Invasion" or "Second War of Independence" by American historians. Its also the last conflict we would have with any foreign, European nation until the 1898 Spanish-American War.

Seems kind of odd to exclude our invasion of Mexico 1848.

 

[SamAndreas]

You do know he couldve returned in late 70's ca. 1977 when Carter granted a general amnesty to all Vietnam War-era draft dodgers, protesters who fled to Canada, UK, France, Holland, West Germany or Scandivinavia. In fact, a couple of members of the band Heart actually met and formed while absconding from the war in British Columbia and their nationality/passport status remained ambivalent even though the band had success in mid-70's with "Crazy on You" and "Magic Man", they couldn't successfully tour the States fully until Carter's amnesty was granted in January 1977 in one of his first acts in office.

Saintman you have a bad habit of leading off with "You do know ..." before you correct me over some mistake I made in a post.

1977 would be 8 years, I said it might have been 15 years that he had to stay there. That's a difference of 7 years. He might not have had to stay there after 1977, but that doesn't mean he didn't have to stay there, he might not have been able to go, had to work up courage.

By 1977 I would imagine that he was not exactly sane anymore. He's been housebound for many years, I think his destinations in town are about 5, all stores, and he only goes there every several months.

He drives his John Deere tractor with nice cab, tape deck, heat and AC to town like it's a car because he has no drivers licence. Something he's getting in town has to be farm related, but the grocery store and drug stores are real close to a tractor dealership. He'd buy something there, and then walk across the street to get groceries medicines. The cops know he's doing that but they leave him alone.

 

[nolaspe]

 

[nolaspe]

 

[SamAndreas]

A Serbian-backed assassination of Austro-Hungarian heir Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914 by Serb radical student revolutionaries called The Black Hand (allegedly, they were "anarchists") which Austria-Hungary quickly believed and blamed on Serbia's civilian leaders, and purposely drew up a list of ultimatums designed for Serbia to reject. Serbia accepted all their demands, save one which would allow Austrian troops to monitor any criminal investigation on Serbian soil. Their willingness to comply immediately turned worldwide public opinion in their favor but by then, the " July crisis " of 1914 was moving inextricably towards a European war.

Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm II gave Austro-Hungary "blank cheque" in terms of support in dealing with Serbia, Russia, not wanting to appear weak and lose its status as "protector" of all Eastern European Slavs, rallied to support its ally, Serbia. This led to the interlocking series of alliances that had put Europe into two armed camps since 1878: Triple Alliance vs. The Triple Entente. The British werent necessarily "duty-bound" to support either its French or Russian allies in case a war broke out, but they had been worried about German and economic and military influence growing and power increasing if it defeated France in a new war and had had told Germany it wouldn't stand for that in a secret 1911 meeting with Lord Haldane. The British probably wouldve joined the war anyway just like Italy did next year, but Germany gave it the perfect justification by violating Belgium's neutrality with its invasion and burning of a rare, world-famous medieval Belgian library that inflamed world opinion. Germany's response to the 1839 London Conference guaranteeing Belgian neutrality that it was just "a piece of paper" inflamed International opinion against it, too. Germany's famous pre-war invasion plan, the Schliefflen Plan, had envisioned Germany invading both Holland and Belgium in a giant leftward pincer envelopment, bypassing the heavily-defended French fortress citadels in Ardennes, and alongside Verdun where they would catch French forces out-manuevered and capture Paris before significant BEF arrived to make a tactical difference.

Unfortunately, Schliefflen's successor, Count Moltke the Younger, modified or changed his predecessor's war plans, respecting Holland's neutrality because it would be their "windpipe" for foreign trade in case of a prolonged war and instead just focused on invading Belgium in the event of general European conflict broke out. Moltke has been criticized by historians, writers and authors for his alterations to Schlefflen Plan, but IMHO, he recognized Germany's military limits pre-WWII and understood the logistical and tactical limitations of invading and occupying both Holland and Belgium particularly since the Dutch, historically have deliberately flooded areas of their own country to stop any invading armies advancing or making headway for centuries and in any potential worst-case scenario in 1914, it still wouldve had a tremendous effect on German logistical movements.

Strangely enough, Czar Nicholas II's adviser, spiritual and political mentor, Rasputin, directly warned Nicholas II that Russia wasnt ready or prepared militarily or economically for any large-scale European war and the fact that Germans completely annihilated Russian advances into East Prussia in late summer 1914 at battles at Tannenburg and Masurian Lakes and kept Russian forces on the defensive until the February 1917 Revolution proved that prognosis correct.

I like to watch things like this. They spend about two hours on a war in four 45 minute videos. On Russian TV they are one hour shows with adds.



They have a video series for lots of forgotten wars. For a war that people haven't forgotten they will spend up to ten or twenty hours of total elapsed video. The Soviet Storm series is many hours long for WWII.

Here's a search listing for videos of that type. All of them have english subtitles.

https://www.youtube.com/@StarMediaEN/search?query=cause%20of%20world%20war%20I

 

[Saintman2884]

Seems kind of odd to exclude our invasion of Mexico 1848.

That was indeed a foreign war but it wasn’t against a European, colonial power. We almost went to war with France after the Civil War over a French-supported client king in Maximillian I, king-regent of Mexico, an Austrian prince whose area of control was mainly centered in central Mexico and his kingdom fell apart by 1866, and Maximillian was executed and his young widow went insane for the rest of her life.


After the Civil War ended, U.S. kept on applying intense diplomatic and even military pressure against French-supported puppet king and we armed and trained Mexican rebels and IIRC, there were couple detachments of U.S. soldiers sent to aid and assist the rebels.


That’s why Cinco de Mayo is celebrated in both Mexico and the United States. Many Americans don’t realize that the French tried several times from the 1830’s—1860’s to try and set up a puppet client kingdom and subsequently defy the U.S Anglo-American Monroe Doctrine.

 

[SamAndreas]

That was indeed a foreign war but it wasn’t against a European, colonial power. We almost went to war with France after the Civil War over a French-supported client king in Maximillian I, king-regent of Mexico, an Austrian prince whose area of control was mainly centered in central Mexico and his kingdom fell apart by 1866, and Maximillian was executed and his young widow went insane for the rest of her life.


After the Civil War ended, U.S. kept on applying intense diplomatic and even military pressure against French-supported puppet king and we armed and trained Mexican rebels and IIRC, there were couple detachments of U.S. soldiers sent to aid and assist the rebels.


That’s why Cinco de Mayo is celebrated in both Mexico and the United States. Many Americans don’t realize that the French tried several times from the 1830’s—1860’s to try and set up a puppet client kingdom and subsequently defy the U.S Anglo-American Monroe Doctrine.

Cinco de Mayo.

I grew up in a town named after the conqueror Cortez, in a county named after his enemy Montezuma whom he caused to be killed. About 30% of the towns population were latino with an unusual percent of Spanish heritage for that area. They had mostly been in the US for a long time. I heard Spanish being spoken from time to time but not very much. I don't think I ever heard about Cinco de Mayo being celebrated. I heard plenty about the history of the French in Mexico and a normal amount of other Mexican history.

I learned about Cinco de Mayo in 1977 when I was in Mexico City on a marching band field trip. We brought our band marching uniforms and instruments. They had the words Cortez-Montezuma-High-School written in big letters on the back of every uniform.

Oh yes, I learned all about it there. I learned a whole lot about it when we played a concert at the palace where it happened on Cinco de Mayo, The next day at a fairgrounds amusement park place where we wore the uniforms and marched our award winning half time show. And at a swimming pool/hot springs place where politicians were giving campaign speeches where we also wore our uniformes and played our instruments for the politicians.

Everywhere we wore those uniforms we heard all about it again and again. It was 2 days of embarrassing for me. I think maybe three or four of us were embarrassed, the ones who could understand some Spanish, the other 50 who didn't understand a lick of Spanish, I doubt they even noticed.

The Mexican people telling us about what was wrong with our uniforms and Cinco de Mayo were very polite. They were concerned about us, we were kids.


What I remember about it arriving in the US was about 1980 it seems like, out of the blue comes Cinco de Mayo being promoted by beer companies who were trying to get it to take off like Oktoberfest German beer gardens. Make some money.

My impression is that it is mostly a fake cultural celebration as it is done in the US. I do think there were Ginuwine celebrations somewhere during the 1800 early times. The beer companies didn't invent the Holiday, they just pulled it out of relative obscurity and made it what it is today.

It's become a huge traffic jamb snarly thing around the San Francisco halls of government.

======

I posted this song to go along with my post to show you that I did intend to say "Ginuwine" above, Both Britney Spears and Ginuwine are in it:

 

[HoustonSaint68]

It's good topic to discuss. Our views seem similar enough to begin. If they weren't that similar we probably would encounter that problem which comes up so often, that of not having enough of a common reality to discuss something.

One of my hundred or so cousins too off to Canada in 1969. It may be he avoided death by doing so but the cost was very high. Almost high enough that he probably should have gone and faced possible death.

Our country did about what the Ukrainians are talking about doing except that it seemed to me that the Ukranians arn't going nearly as far with it.

What he faced was many years of living on another cousin's farm in Canada such that it was like an open air prison. My cousin didn't have a passport and once he left he couldn't get one. He had to stay on that farm 24/7/365 for about 15 years.

Eventually they gave him aminsity and he returned home and hasn't much left his parents home since. He was never the same as he was before after he returned.

The few times he did go to town after coming back he would get in trouble. He's been in and out of the state hospital for the mentally insane. In another word, more prison. 55 years it's been, he's been in a prison of his own making.

Depends on the war, imo.

I was a young, gung-ho young firebrand when Carter first started talking about amnesty. One day, I was at the dinner table with my WWII, Bronze Star, limping Purple Heart, George Wallace voting father, and I go off on a soapbox speech about how the draft-dodging cowards should be thrown under the jail or never allowed back into the country. After I finished my diatribe, my father looked up from his paper and quietly said something to the effect of: "If you had been drafted into this war, I would have tied you up, thrown you in the trunk, and driven you to Canada myself." Then he went back to reading his paper.

I'd be lying if I said he changed my perspective at that very moment. But it's a moment I've returned to many times when I feel heated and so sure about something that involves someone sacrificing their life.

That said, some generations sadly have to earn freedom all over again, and this is one of those times for Ukranians. And I do believe that, for the vast majority of Ukranian men, fighting in this particular war is the clearly right thing to do.

 

[BigFrosty]

 

[BigFrosty]