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See the movie "The Mouse That Roared". Having seen the results of Germany and Japan being bombed and rebuilt by the US, a small fictional country comes up with
by KMag 3y ago
See the movie "The Mouse That Roared". Having seen the results of Germany and Japan being bombed and rebuilt by the US, a small fictional country comes up with the brilliant development plan of intentionally starting and losing a war with the US. Spoiler alert: they end up having to deal with the tragedy of accidentally winning the war. As I recall, part of it was they just assumed their generals would lose, so the generals weren't in on the plan.
- l33t7332273 3y agoA small country winning the war against post WW2 USA seems like it would be a bit of a plot hole.
- loloquwowndueo 3y agoVietnam.
- l33t7332273 3y agoVietnam did not invade and occupy USA. What are we even talking about here?
- ben_w 3y agoIt's a comedy, one I feel I ought to watch at some point. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mouse_That_Roared_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mouse_That_Roared_(film)
- morkalork 3y agoPeter Sellers playing 3 different roles. Poor guy really did get type cast in the weirdest way.
- robertlagrant 3y ago"Comedies involving diamonds and/or nuclear weapons"
- vanderZwan 3y agoAlso one movie with him in brownface that oddly enough is actually extremely popular in India and Pakistan (to the point where I was introduced to it on a New Year's Eve party hosted by a friend from Pakistan). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Party_(1968_film)#Racial_criticism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Party_(1968_film)#Racial_c...
- selimthegrim 3y agoI have never understood why all my Desi relations were gaga for this movie. All the American born ones roll their eyes without fail.
- lmm 3y agoThe idea that it's haram (I can't quite think of the right word; not merely wrong but disgusting) for someone to make themselves up as a different skin tone is a distinctly American cultural quirk.
- vanderZwan 3y agoI think it actually makes sense in the context of US history though. As always it starts with the uniquely explicitly race-based slavery, and from there you can draw a direct line to non-white people being systemically "othered" and denied basic human decency one way or another (to put it mildly). In this particular case, the history of Hollywood to deny non-white actors leading roles, but giving white actors roles where they play racist stereotypes of everyone else. Aside from the issues on an individual level that also means "non-white" cultures don't get properly represented, but depicted according to whatever racist stereotype the white actors/writers have about a culture they usually don't actually know much about. So yeah, I am not from the US but I get it. Which again makes the fact that Peter Sellers' apparently hit a positive chord an interesting exception.
- sjfjsjdjwvwvc 3y agoWhich war did the US win post WW2? Afaict they all ended in stalemates and eventual retreat (Korea,Iraq,Vietnam,Afghanistan,..)
- delecti 3y agoThat's mostly because we keep going into situations with political goals, and military means (when all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail). If a small country declared war on us, we could easily bomb them back into the iron age. Though in 20 years, the young adults there would probably provoke us into another dumb situation like the above.
- Beijinger 3y ago"with political goals, and military means" True "If a small country declared war on us, we could easily bomb them back into the iron age." Putin probably thought the same about Ukraine. Military objectives were achieved in Afghanistan, but not in Korea and Vietnam. And based on Clausewitz: "War is politics by other means" And our politics changed....
- nostrademons 3y agoMilitary objectives were achieved in Korea and Vietnam in the sense that we killed lots of people. What we learned (and really, already knew from WW2, where we very intentionally did not invade the Japanese home islands) is that killing lots of people on an enemy's home soil just turns a lot more people against you.
- fodkodrasz 3y ago> "If a small country declared war on us, we could easily bomb them back into the iron age." > Putin probably thought the same about Ukraine. I doubt, as Ukraine is far from being a small country. It is the second largest European country (counting Russia as an European country, as is common in geography). (he most likely had other miscalculations leading to the current situation)
- 3y ago
- achates 3y agoThe diplomat in charge of central Europe thinks their declaration of war is a practical joke from another department, so nobody notices when their army (of about 10 crossbowmen) shows up in New York and grabs a fictional doomsday device out of a secret lab.
- euroderf 3y agoOf course, it helps that the streets of NY are deserted when they disembark.
- CrazyStat 3y agoThey "win" the war by accidentally kidnapping a scientist with a powerful new nuclear weapon. No actual fighting happens. It's an excellent movie though.
- vanderZwan 3y agoA satirical movie involving nuclear weapons and Peter Sellers plays three roles? Where have I heard that one before? (actually, it looks like it is five years older than Dr. Strangelove? This looks like it could be turned into a very mean pubquiz trivia question, hahaha)
- selimthegrim 3y agoIt’s based on an older book.
- lisper 3y agoReminds me of "The Producers."
- fosk 3y agoMaybe someone can clarify this to me: wasn’t US help essentially given as a loan that would carry interest and repayments? Or was it given for free with the agreement that they would follow a US-inspired democratic system and be allies (and in exchange of trade agreements)? Were military bases in those countries given as a repayment, perhaps in addition to repaying the loans? But even then, isn’t the US paying rent for those bases?
- voidfunc 3y agoThe repayment is that we took over the defense of Europe and basically eliminated the pre-war European powers as global competitors. This gives us tremendous leverage to do whatever the fuck we want either unilaterally or by coercing our European client-states to act on our behalf. Europe deciding to light itself on fire twice in the last century is the best thing that ever happened to America.
- ponector 3y agoThere were reparations payed to the USA and then there were repayment of the loans provided as aid within Marshall plan.
- AnthonyMouse 3y agoLoans to a bombed out country in the aftermath of losing a major war can be hard to come by, for the same reasons as they are for a third world country with an unstable government. It's not uncommon for a country to get stuck in a situation where they have no infrastructure that could attract investment so they have no industry so they have no economic base to build infrastructure. "Get the US to loan us money" is nominally a way out of this. The US noticed this too and makes loans to such countries de facto through the World Bank, providing them with an opening through which they can crawl up inside those countries and lay eggs.
- black_13 3y ago[dead]