Sweden: Paradise on Earth?

[Kropotkin]

Originally posted by Berzerker
Was that supposed to be a convincing rebuttal? I didn't start this thread (complaining about "rage" and mentioning only me ) , and I'm relying on the information in the article so complain to the author.

I don't think I would have to make a rebuttal as you're explicitly saying that you don't really know what you're talking about.

[Berzerker]

Um... actually for Scandinavia, the choices were Nazi Germany OR the USSR. The morality of resistance isn't so obvious there.

The morality isn't ambiguous, the wisdom of outright resistance would be since it might have been little more than suicide. I agree to an extent, If I was a Swede and faced with invasion from either country, I'd wait until help arrived before making my resistance more obvious.
But I wouldn't pretend the US provided no security over the years either because I was "neutral", that neutrality only helps when there are other bigger and badder people around to inhibit the ambitions of a Hitler... Sweden is like Canada, they survive by being a stealth country.

Krop

I don't think I would have to make a rebuttal as you're explicitly saying that you don't really know what you're talking about.

Gee, had I said that I wouldn't be asking you to prove me right. You and Che doing a Fez imitation?

[Pekka]

Right. But Sweden's only powerplay, just like any smaller nations would be to stay neutral. If they make a move for or against, they become pawns of the bigger ones.

[Berzerker]

They were pawns, they sold iron ore and their souls to the Nazis. Its kinda like a Pope whitewashing Nazi atrocities. But this is not a debate about the efficacy of resistance, its about why Sweden could afford an expensive welfare state and if that system is having trouble because of competition. The article is pretty clear on that, but some here refuse to recognise the limitations on welfare states.

[David Floyd]

yea, Germany declared war on the US, after we declared war on Japan.

Of course, we were already conducting an illegal, undeclared war on Germany to begin with.

Berzerker,

They were pawns, they sold iron ore and their souls to the Nazis.

If they had refused to sell iron ore, they would simply have been invaded and Germany would have just taken it all. The Western Allies could not do ANYTHING to help Sweden, especially once Norway fell. The only sea access to Sweden is in the Baltic, which was basically a German lake, and the only overland routes were through German quasi-ally Finland, and German-occupied Norway.

But by the way, speaking of selling souls, the US and Britain gave billions of dollars worth of war material and economic assistance to the Soviet Union, which in the long run was responsible for the murder of more innocents than the Nazis

If it were up to me we would have just let the Nazis and Soviets destroy each other, and stay out of the war, saving US lives, until we could end the whole thing with an atomic bomb

[Agathon]

They were pawns, they sold iron ore and their souls to the Nazis.

Come on, Berz. Given Sweden's position they would have ended up like Norway or even worse, Poland.

It was better for all concerned that they stay neutral. It certainly didn't harm them, and in the end it didn't harm us very much.

[Imran Siddiqui]

The morality isn't ambiguous, the wisdom of outright resistance would be since it might have been little more than suicide.

Well, I'd say if you were Sweden, you'd probably view the war as Germany v. USSR. In that case, both are a bunch of arseholes who deserve no support, morally or physically The US and UK being on the side of the USSR probably made little difference as both were genocidal regimes. I guess it depends on perspective.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by David Floyd
But by the way, speaking of selling souls, the US and Britain gave billions of dollars worth of war material and economic assistance to the Soviet Union, which in the long run was responsible for the murder of more innocents than the Nazis

That's debatable, unless one lays the war deaths from WWII at Germany's feet, at which point it becomes no contest. The amount of innocent people killed by the Soviet government depends entirely upon which partisan hack you believe, since there are NO reliable sources on that subject.

[David Floyd]

The amount of innocent people killed by the Soviet government depends entirely upon which partisan hack you believe, since there are NO reliable sources on that subject.

But then again, I wouldn't condone giving Lend Lease-type aid to ANY government that murdered people on the scale that Stalin's government did, regardless of numbers. **** 'em.

[chequita guevara]

If the Soviets collapsed, we'd have lost the war.

[David Floyd]

Bull****. The atomic bomb would have won it, no questions asked. The US needed NO allies to win the war, in the long run.

[Jaakko]

So, Berzie, if Sweden only got where it is by being socialists schmoozing off the manly capitalist USA during the cold war, then how do you explain Finland?

Finland is just as "socialist" as Sweden, with similar success, but had none of these (unfair?) advantages you claim were the only reason Sweden could succeed.

Funny isn't it?

[Agathon]

Bull****. The atomic bomb would have won it, no questions asked.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. They weren't even sure that the damn thing would work.

It makes no sense to bet the war on that.

[David Floyd]

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. They weren't even sure that the damn thing would work.

It makes no sense to bet the war on that.

Well, in that case, saying that the war was justified because of the Holocaust is another case of hindsight. Not that you've made that claim yet, of course

My point, of course, is we should have stayed out of the war to begin with, which we could easily have done if we hadn't been attacking German U-boats and ****ing with Japan's economy.

If, eventually, Germany made a bid for world domination and went after the US, we'd have the atomic bomb - which we began developing BEFORE we entered the war, by the way - and the Germans wouldn't, because German scientists had already decided it was impossible to build, and Hitler wasn't interested in it anyway.

[chequita guevara]

That assumes that the U.S. could have gotten one operational before the Nazis took Britain, which would have been a lot easier for them once the USSR was out of the way. Where would the U.S. base it's bombers to hit Germany, Iceland?