All Hail the Glorious People's Revolution in Vietnam!

[Imran Siddiqui]

Sure it does... ole' Karol used to be a goalkeeper in Poland and loved the game .

[pchang]

but not if the match is on a Sunday

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Nationalist pig!

I can't help it if we're better than them.

[Agathon]

Sure it does... ole' Karol used to be a goalkeeper in Poland and loved the game .

So he wasn't all bad. I wonder if he participated in hooliganism.

And DeMarcus is a cool name. I reckon that you should change your name to DeMarcus Siddiqui – chicks will love it.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Agathon

Sure it does... ole' Karol used to be a goalkeeper in Poland and loved the game .

So he wasn't all bad. I wonder if he participated in hooliganism.

And DeMarcus is a cool name. I reckon that you should change your name to DeMarcus Siddiqui – chicks will love it.

.... or not .

And I thought all these wierd African-American names were something to be made fun of, not encouraged .

[pchang]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
And I thought all these wierd African-American names were something to be made fun of, not encouraged .

This? From someone named Imran?

[Imran Siddiqui]

About Pope John Paul II:

http://www.soccerhall.org/news/2005/PopeJohnPaulII_462005.htm

Pope John Paul II, who died on Saturday, scheduled his coronation in 1978 so as not to conflict with a televised soccer game.

Born Karol Wojtyla, he was known as "Lolek the Goalie," in his hometown of Wadowice, Poland, where he played for the local soccer team.

As a boy, according to childhood friend Jerzy Kluger, Wojtyla played in pickup soccer games that pitted Jewish boys against Catholic boys, and Wojtyla would volunteer to play with the Jewish boys to create even numbers.

"There usually was not enough Jews, so somebody had to play on the Jewish team and he was always sort of ready, you know," Kluger said in a 2003 interview.

Pope John Paul II was also an honorary member several soccer clubs, including Barcelona and Schalke 04, and frequently hosted soccer teams at the Vatican.

In "The Simplest Game" by Paul Gardner, Coach Bora Milutinovic described the Mexican national team's audience with John Paul II in 1984 before a friendly against Italy:

"He gave us a blessing. He held up one hand. Five fingers. The next day the Italians scored five goals against us. We were just happy he didn't bless us with both hands."

[Ned]

Originally posted by BlackCat
What are you talking about ? Really, who cares what NYT may have claimed during wartime ? Should they have clamied that an allied was more dangerous than the current enemy ?

What NYT may have written after the war, that a totally different situation - at that point you could expect them to tell the truth as far as the knew it, and then we are back to my mystery.

You forgot to ask the primary question - what the fck had japan to do in china at all ?

Hitler was screwed seriously from the start - unfortunately he managed to get control over a country that had serious battle capacity.

Well, they took over a large province and commercial rights to Manchuria from the Germans in 1919 in the Versailles Treaty, you know the one, where Britain and France divided the world? The reaction in China was a popular revolt, that brought both Communism and democracy to an ancient empire.

I assume Japan, which supported Britain in the war, wanted the spoils for obvious reasons. What the did not count on, I suspect, was that they in effect were buying a war that would end up destroying their country.

[Ned]

As to the NYTimes, it greatly influenced American public opinion on Stalin prior to the war. While much of Europe was hostile to Stalin, we were the first country to recognize the USSR and began calling Stalin "Uncle Joe." The NYTimes never reported on the harsh conditions in the USSR caused by collectivization, nor the millions killed in the various purges. Instead they reported that Stalin was doing wonders, etc., etc.

In the end, this may have worked to our favor as we were good allies for a time. But we also let Stalin take Eastern Europe, northern China and North Korea as booty. That has lasting effects even to today.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by pchang
This? From someone named Imran?

My name is culturally interesting... the wierd African-American names are bastardizations of European names (like 'Marcus').

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by BlackCat

As someone has mentioned, there was protesters against nuclear weapons, peace demonstrations etc. but noone actually took them seriously. First of all, they were few, next, they were only opposing western weapons and last, it was obviosly to everyone that they were financed by soviet.

Dammit, the Soviets never gave me or anyone I knew money for protesting. Dammit, we was robbed.

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by Ned
Why were the Western media clamoring for war with Hitler and Japan while ignoring the travesties of Stalin, and even calling his torture and execution paradise some sort of successful experiment in socialism.

You mean before the war I presume.

Where do you get this idea that the Western media, whatever you mean by that, was clamouring for war with Hitler and Japan while siding with the Soviets?

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by Ned
Well, the NYTimes has admitted that it whitewashed Stalin's regime.

The great thing about the NYT is that it admits its mistakes, but I don't recall them claiming they whitewashed Stalin's regime. Details please.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Tingkai

You mean before the war I presume.

Where do you get this idea that the Western media, whatever you mean by that, was clamouring for war with Hitler and Japan while siding with the Soviets?

It actually was in that article written by the German diplomat Braun I quoted in another thread. But as to the NYTimes, they have raised the issue themselves, and apologized for their bad coverage of the USSR.

(Yes, this is the 1930's.)

[Tingkai]

I don't think the NYT has claimed it whitewashed Soviet crimes.

The suggestion that "western media" were pro-Soviet and anti-German is wrong. The Hearst newspapers were strongly anti-Soviet and pro-Nazi. Most other newspapers in the US and Canada were rightist, not socialist.