Comments

1

I will financially support any socialist running for this seat. DSA, Socialist Alternative, Debsian, Trotskyite or all of the above, I will be your first and largest donor.

2

Good riddance, hopefully the replacement will not be a centrist who compromises with fascists.

3

What @1 and @2 said, even though I know the guy.

5

Yes he's a contemptible monster. Either that or with precise irony these comments so far have made his exact point for him.

6

Denny Heck is a good man, it’s just that the times have changed and we must change with them. The days when centrist liberalism and the spirit of compromise ruled the day, when decorum was more important than outcome, are over. Too much compromising is why the Overton Window has shifted so far to the extreme right. Conceding our values even when we got nothing in return has made the political far right the center-right. Not since the Wilson administration have we seen a POTUS react to an event such as Charlottesville with the suggestion that fascists were among the good guys.

The thing that has stopped Nazis in their tracks has never been the Neville Chamberlains of this world, it has been the Georgy Zhukovs who have run them down all the way from Stalingrad to Berlin. It has always been this way. People though Sherman crude and even insane in his methodology, but he saw clearly that there is no room for compromise with fascism. Either you fight it with the intention of breaking it, or they will break you.

If modern Nazis scare you, remember this: Stalingrad won. Now get the job done.

7

He was the worst Democrat in the House Intelligence impeachment hearings. An unserious, self-righteous grand-stander.

8

@4: And when you talk about Denny Heck, the first thing that comes to your mind is French-language advertisements for plant-based anti-herpes potions developed by the internationally renowned "le docteur Ahmed Usman".

9

Gee...what happened to the French-language ad for plant-based anti-herpes potions? That was the best comment in the whole thread?

11

@9 And so aptly penned!

12

10,

Point of order, I cited General Zhukov, and neither Stalin nor the country he led. My expressed admiration is for the General himself, not for the administration he served.

13

10, further, Franco was much more pernicious than the other fascist leaders. In Spain, I stand only for the Second Republic during the war, and the government thereof for the period prior to Franco’s death. In modern Spain, my allegiance is with Podemos.

I look forward to a Third Republic.

15

Denny Heck was the D in congress farthest to the left of his district (Fort Lewis means WA-10 has a lot of conservative people in it, especially all the retirees it throws off). So don't call him a spineless moderate.

I would expect Beth Doglio to take his place, she has support, and she can tack a bit to the right to meet the district where it is.

16

14,

I like him because he killed Nazis. And a lot of them. And, he arrested Beria.

Since you identify so closely with the German regime, perhaps you could help me re-enact the Battle of Berlin. My favorite part is the ending, when your Fuhrer showed his girlfriend what great aim he had.

Follow your leader.

17

And just to clarify, in case KM or any other poster should feel any confusion, I believe the road to heaven is paved with the bodies of dead fascists.

Now, do you have any more questions, or have I made my position clear?

19

18,

No.

21

@6 -- Wouldn't Ulysses S. Grant be a better analogy? "Then, indeed, I gave up all idea of saving the Union except by complete conquest."

22

20,

Yes.

21,

I prefer Sherman. His strategy was one of total demoralization of the south. He would take train tracks and ties them into pretzel knots, then put them back. That way when supply trains reached the end of usable track, they’d see the twisted metal. They say Sherman burned a path from Atlanta to the sea, and only because he didn’t know how to set the ocean on fire.

Grant was a drunk. Sherman was a genius who never lost self control.

24

23,

I imagine I probably do strike anyone whose handle is the name of the former RNC chair and lifelong closet case. Your namesake was an admirer of Levi Strauss, the philosopher of semiotics who suggested that we would all be better off if the majority of Americans saw the world in black and white terms. He was especially fond of the TV show Gunsmoke, because it clearly identified who the audience was supposed to root for. The hero lays had a white hat, the villain always wore a black hat.

And here I come and suggest that there is such as thing as nuance, gray areas, and a way of thinking that cannot be so easily manipulated as the one Strauss wanted society to adopt.

Fuck you. I’m not a robot, and you cannot program me. I will think for myself first, and I owe you zero explanations. I absolutely do not need your permission to admire whom I admire, think however I think, or to a define who the enemy is for myself.

26

Stalin bad, Trotsky good.

27

26,

I agree completely.

25,

The first few times a mosquito buzzes my ear, I merely wave it away. After that, I swat the thing to put an end to my irritation.

Your initial inquiries elicited one word responses. Your persistence is now something deserving of a more comprehensive swat.

28

@27 This is the internet, you look like a fool when you declare yourself victorious here.

By all means, keep congratulating yourself for "swatting" your imaginary internet enemies. It does tell people a lot about you, after all, if not precisely in the way you might have intended. But in the future, you might want to avoid that particular word in an online-arguments context, you know?

30

This is a very civil discussion of Stalin vs Trotsky vs Zhukov, I don't know what Denny Heck was talking about.

31

@22,

I don't want to go too far off tangent here, but I'd argue BOTH Grant and Sherman were pretty good generals. Grant had the more difficult job of confronting the entire Army of Northern Virginia whereas Sherman was up against a smaller regular army force reinforced by lots of militia because the bulk of the regular military was up fighting Grant. Sherman's march was really planned by both Grant and Sherman so both deserve credit. Sherman was able to forego supply lines and communication, Grant was not. Admittedly, Sherman was ahead of his time in waging total war against civilians... not sure if Grant would have done the same had their roles been reversed. In any case, Grant wasn't a superb general, but he was a pretty decent one. Sherman was maybe a better general than Grant but only because he was more modern thinking.

One definite point of contention though, your comment @6 seemed to suggest the Southern Confederacy was fascist? I couldn't disagree more. The states completely distrusted each other and much of the reason the South lost was because the states refused to help each other. There was zero sense of nationalism at all... they felt the opposite, in fact. Maybe I'd agree the individual states themselves were little fascist nations on themselves, but even then, the states of the Confederacy (and the Union) were really divided over Civil War. This was not a unified Germany in WWII, the feelings and loyalties of the citizens of the US and CS were all over the place.

32

All Sherman, Grant, and Zhukov did was throw overwhelming forces at the enemy and wear them down.

33

@29: Agreed that Stalin was a monster. But, had he not broken with the Pact and crushed the Nazi invasion of the USSR, Hitler would have won the war. It was never going to be possible for the US, Britain, France and Canada to beat the Nazis without the Soviets making it a two-front war.

Is there a reason we shouldn't admit that we owe it to the USSR that Hitler was defeated? Given that the USSR doesn't even exist anymore and will never be recreated, what's the harm?

It's entirely possible that a lot of the horrible things Stalin did between VE Day and his death might have been prevented or at least lessened had it not been for the rest of the Allies denying him, or at the very least the Red Army, their fair share of the credit for the fact that the Third Reich ended up in the boneyard. Don't have to like the guy-I hate him as much as you do, Mr. Mehlman-if for different reasons, as I regard Stalin as the greatest betrayer of the socialist cause the world has ever known-but it's simply historical honesty to admit that the what happened in that horrific Russian winter mattered at least as much as, if not more than, anything else in the Allied war effort.

35

@34 And I'm not good mouthing Stalin, for that matter. I'm just saying we need to admit that we owe the defeat of the Third Reich to the valour and courage of the Red Army. The West has nothing to lose from acknowledging that.


Please wait...

Comments are closed.

Commenting on this item is available only to members of the site. You can sign in here or create an account here.


Add a comment
Preview

By posting this comment, you are agreeing to our Terms of Use.