4 ms·

I'm not going to spend my time investigating and debating the relative awfulness each of those atrocities, but I think if you spent the time to dig in, you woul

I'm not going to spend my time investigating and debating the relative awfulness each of those atrocities, but I think if you spent the time to dig in, you would see that there are pretty clear differences between the events you mention and the ones I did. It's simply untrue to say there isn't a difference between supporting horrible people and actively planning and executing a genocide. I grew up somewhere that was a victim of both European and American imperialism and they really aren't comparable. Even in some of the Latin American countries worst hurt by American capitalist imperialism, I think it would probably be unfair to say that it was equal to or worse than what European colonialism did.

tsimionescu 6y ago
Oen thing is clear - Stalin was an unspeakably disgusting human, and his regime committed atrocities that few have equaled (Hitler beeing among those select few). I am not arguing against that. However, what the USSR did after Stalin is usually much milder than what the US did to their client states. It's true also that at least some, but most likely all, of the European colonial empires were atrocious as well. Discussing the relative merits of each disgusting atrocity is hard. Still, the things that the US did in Latin America and Asia are absolutely on that level of human misery. Tortured children, imposed famines, indiscriminate killing, use of systematic rape as a form of punishment/deterrence, forced labor, ethnically motivated power structures, deliberate destruction of democracy and of the industrial power of some of these countries, the whole shebang. So perhaps it would be unfair to say that it was worse than European colonialism, but it was certainly equal (though I fully admit, not as bad as Stalin: Probably worse than any later USSR leader)

4 ms·

I'm not going to spend my time investigating and debating the relative awfulness each of those atrocities, but I think if you spent the time to dig in, you woul

by solidasparagus 6y ago

tsimionescu 6y ago
Oen thing is clear - Stalin was an unspeakably disgusting human, and his regime committed atrocities that few have equaled (Hitler beeing among those select few). I am not arguing against that. However, what the USSR did after Stalin is usually much milder than what the US did to their client states. It's true also that at least some, but most likely all, of the European colonial empires were atrocious as well. Discussing the relative merits of each disgusting atrocity is hard. Still, the things that the US did in Latin America and Asia are absolutely on that level of human misery. Tortured children, imposed famines, indiscriminate killing, use of systematic rape as a form of punishment/deterrence, forced labor, ethnically motivated power structures, deliberate destruction of democracy and of the industrial power of some of these countries, the whole shebang. So perhaps it would be unfair to say that it was worse than European colonialism, but it was certainly equal (though I fully admit, not as bad as Stalin: Probably worse than any later USSR leader)