The Santa Claus Machine -robot taxation -money growing on trees -freeriders

Walter Bushell wrote:
In article m,
Les Cargill wrote:

Walter Bushell wrote:
In article ,
"Rod Speed" wrote:

Walter Bushell wrote
Uncle Al wrote
Name one centrally managed enterprise that works.
The Apollo project. The Manhattan project. The Vietnamese resistance
to Western colonialism. The Russian resistance to the German invasion.
WW2 in spades.
In Europe, the Communist power did the heavy lifting. If that isn't
centrally controlled, I don't know what is.

They didn't do it alone.


For a good part of the war they did. OK, Britain absorbed some resources
in the form of bombs and aircraft, but for aggressive action raids.
Stalin was complaining about the lack of support on the Western front.

While the Lend-Lease he was receiving was keeping his economy running so
he could keep fighting.

--
Things I learned from MythBusters #57: Never leave a loaded gun in an
exploding room.

Dimensional Traveler wrote:
Walter Bushell wrote:
In article m,
Les Cargill wrote:

Walter Bushell wrote:
In article ,
"Rod Speed" wrote:

Walter Bushell wrote
Uncle Al wrote
Name one centrally managed enterprise that works.
The Apollo project. The Manhattan project. The Vietnamese
resistance to Western colonialism. The Russian resistance to the
German invasion.
WW2 in spades.
In Europe, the Communist power did the heavy lifting. If that isn't
centrally controlled, I don't know what is.

They didn't do it alone.


For a good part of the war they did. OK, Britain absorbed some
resources in the form of bombs and aircraft, but for aggressive
action raids. Stalin was complaining about the lack of support on
the Western front.

While the Lend-Lease he was receiving was keeping his economy running
so he could keep fighting.

Lend Lease had nothing to do with his economy.

In article ,
Dimensional Traveler wrote:

Walter Bushell wrote:
In article m,
Les Cargill wrote:

Walter Bushell wrote:
In article ,
"Rod Speed" wrote:

Walter Bushell wrote
Uncle Al wrote
Name one centrally managed enterprise that works.
The Apollo project. The Manhattan project. The Vietnamese resistance
to Western colonialism. The Russian resistance to the German invasion.
WW2 in spades.
In Europe, the Communist power did the heavy lifting. If that isn't
centrally controlled, I don't know what is.

They didn't do it alone.


For a good part of the war they did. OK, Britain absorbed some resources
in the form of bombs and aircraft, but for aggressive action raids.
Stalin was complaining about the lack of support on the Western front.

While the Lend-Lease he was receiving was keeping his economy running so
he could keep fighting.

We were sending stuff and they were dying, standing siege and having
their property destroyed. It's clear who was doing the heavy lifting.

I'm sure the US and Britain did a lot to take the pressure off. This was
good from our viewpoint later, because if the Russian army had taken
France, history would have been a lot different.

In article ,
Sean O'Hara wrote:

In the Year of the Earth Ox, the Great and Powerful Dimensional
Traveler declared:
Walter Bushell wrote:

For a good part of the war they did. OK, Britain absorbed some
resources in the form of bombs and aircraft, but for aggressive action
raids. Stalin was complaining about the lack of support on the Western
front.

While the Lend-Lease he was receiving was keeping his economy running so
he could keep fighting.


Lend-lease had a minimal effect, nowhere near decisive. I suggest
you pick up No Simple Victory by Norman Davis, which lays out in
great detail the argument that the Western Front was a sideshow.
Davis isn't an apologist for Stalin -- he quotes Robert Conquest
repeatedly and argues that Stalin and Hitler were equally evil.

The African campaign, as I understand was important, however, IIUC.

And the Western front was very much necessary for the future of Europe.

"Walter Bushell" wrote in message
news
In article ,
Sean O'Hara wrote:

Lend-lease had a minimal effect, nowhere near decisive. I suggest
you pick up No Simple Victory by Norman Davis, which lays out in
great detail the argument that the Western Front was a sideshow.
Davis isn't an apologist for Stalin -- he quotes Robert Conquest
repeatedly and argues that Stalin and Hitler were equally evil.

The African campaign, as I understand was important, however, IIUC.

And the Western front was very much necessary for the future of Europe.

Are you suggesting that absent a western front and assuming a Soviet
occupation all the way to the Atlantic that Europe would cease to exist?

[insert smiley here]

At least that makes the discussion SFnal.

In article , "aaron"
wrote:

"Walter Bushell" wrote in message
news
In article ,
Sean O'Hara wrote:

Lend-lease had a minimal effect, nowhere near decisive. I suggest
you pick up No Simple Victory by Norman Davis, which lays out in
great detail the argument that the Western Front was a sideshow.
Davis isn't an apologist for Stalin -- he quotes Robert Conquest
repeatedly and argues that Stalin and Hitler were equally evil.

The African campaign, as I understand was important, however, IIUC.

And the Western front was very much necessary for the future of Europe.

Are you suggesting that absent a western front and assuming a Soviet
occupation all the way to the Atlantic that Europe would cease to exist?

[insert smiley here]

At least that makes the discussion SFnal.

It would have been a very different Europe. And a different England. You
doubt that Stalin would have pushed to the ocean, if given the chance?
To spread glorious revolution? "It's our right because we saved you from
the Nazis."

Sean O'Hara wrote
Dimensional Traveler wrote
Walter Bushell wrote:

For a good part of the war they did. OK, Britain absorbed some
resources in the form of bombs and aircraft, but for aggressive
action raids. Stalin was complaining about the lack of support on
the Western front.

While the Lend-Lease he was receiving was keeping his economy running so he could keep fighting.

Lend-lease had a minimal effect, nowhere near decisive.

That is very arguable. It was such a close thing in the east that its quite
possible that lend lease was in fact crucial and that without it hitler may
well have managed to end up with the oil fields in the balkans etc and
that alone may have allowed him to **** over the russians.

I suggest you pick up No Simple Victory by Norman Davis, which lays out in great detail the argument that the Western
Front was a sideshow.

Yes, but that came later, after the russians had managed
to survive the initial attack by hitler. If they had not done
that, the outcome would have been completely different.

Davis isn't an apologist for Stalin -- he quotes Robert Conquest
repeatedly and argues that Stalin and Hitler were equally evil.

Sure, but thats a separate matter to whether lend lease was crucial to the
russian survival. Without that, there would have been no stalingrad etc.

"aaron" wrote in :


"Walter Bushell" wrote in message
news
In article ,
Sean O'Hara wrote:

Lend-lease had a minimal effect, nowhere near decisive. I suggest
you pick up No Simple Victory by Norman Davis, which lays out in
great detail the argument that the Western Front was a sideshow.
Davis isn't an apologist for Stalin -- he quotes Robert Conquest
repeatedly and argues that Stalin and Hitler were equally evil.

The African campaign, as I understand was important, however, IIUC.

And the Western front was very much necessary for the future of Europe.

Are you suggesting that absent a western front and assuming a Soviet
occupation all the way to the Atlantic that Europe would cease to exist?

I'd say that would be very unlikely.

No matter how evil Stalin was, he simply didn't have the resources to
destroy the landmass west of the Urals.







[insert smiley here]

At least that makes the discussion SFnal.

Walter Bushell wrote:
In article , "aaron"
wrote:

"Walter Bushell" wrote in message
news
In article ,
Sean O'Hara wrote:

Lend-lease had a minimal effect, nowhere near decisive. I suggest
you pick up No Simple Victory by Norman Davis, which lays out in
great detail the argument that the Western Front was a sideshow.
Davis isn't an apologist for Stalin -- he quotes Robert Conquest
repeatedly and argues that Stalin and Hitler were equally evil.

The African campaign, as I understand was important, however, IIUC.

And the Western front was very much necessary for the future of
Europe.

Are you suggesting that absent a western front and assuming a Soviet
occupation all the way to the Atlantic that Europe would cease to
exist?

[insert smiley here]

At least that makes the discussion SFnal.

It would have been a very different Europe. And a different England.
You doubt that Stalin would have pushed to the ocean, if given the
chance? To spread glorious revolution? "It's our right because we
saved you from the Nazis."

He never bothered about rights.

Walter Bushell wrote:
In article ,
Dimensional Traveler wrote:

Walter Bushell wrote:
In article m,
Les Cargill wrote:

Walter Bushell wrote:
In article ,
"Rod Speed" wrote:

Walter Bushell wrote
Uncle Al wrote
Name one centrally managed enterprise that works.
The Apollo project. The Manhattan project. The Vietnamese resistance
to Western colonialism. The Russian resistance to the German invasion.
WW2 in spades.
In Europe, the Communist power did the heavy lifting. If that isn't
centrally controlled, I don't know what is.
They didn't do it alone.

For a good part of the war they did. OK, Britain absorbed some resources
in the form of bombs and aircraft, but for aggressive action raids.
Stalin was complaining about the lack of support on the Western front.
While the Lend-Lease he was receiving was keeping his economy running so
he could keep fighting.

We were sending stuff and they were dying, standing siege and having
their property destroyed. It's clear who was doing the heavy lifting.


The irony is that the "stuff" was differentially more important. Most
participants had the capacity to fight and die; materiel determined
who would win.

And with submarines, providing stuff was really participation
in advance of declaration of war.

I'm sure the US and Britain did a lot to take the pressure off. This was
good from our viewpoint later, because if the Russian army had taken
France, history would have been a lot different.

I'm skeptical of just how much area the Russians could have covered. At
least the present-day story on Stalin at Yalta is that he wasn't denied
all that much that he asked for.

--
Les Cargill