Live from the New Europe: Reporting from Lithuania

netWMD (netwmd.com) ^ | June 23, 2003 | Andrew Jaffee

[1rudeboy]

Gosh, I'd better not let you know I'm Catholic. That would really set you off . . . I'd be blamed for the Inquisition.

[Destro]

This article was written in search of (or justification for) an agenda.

Suddenly nations in which we have had no long term relationship with are written about as alternatives to the existing order...why? Is the old order dead? Do some want to kill off the old alliance system and substitue in a new one made up of pliant client states?

What groups are funding the publication of said articles-giving them a forum?

[1rudeboy]

This article was written in search of (or justification for) an agenda.

That is non-sensical. Either there is an agenda, or there is not. Or it's an American-Lithuanian Jew writing about his recent trip to Lithuania.

[Destro]

Which makes his none mention of the issue of contention all the more puzzling...

[1rudeboy]

Only to you, my friend. I you had bothered follow the link back to the originating website, then you would have discovered that has mentioned it in passing, and promised to delve deeper into the issue in another installment. Poof goes your theory.

But back to the brass tacks. Are you consumed with hatred over the fact that I'm Lithuanian, or Catholic, or both? On what level of sub-humanity do I exist? You're not thinking of bringing in the cattle-cars, are you?

[Destro]

I didn't know you were anything.

[cardinal4]

They love to get russian oil,yet spew hate to russians behind their backs. What is the democracy,when most of ethnic slavs like russians and belorussians have no rights and no citizenship in 3 baltic states? who is practicing an Apartheid? russians? I think not..

I thinks its quite understandable why the Balts hate the Russians; they occupied them for 49 years. And they werent very nice about it, either.

[stevejackson]

puzzling?

So if anyone visits Italy, Ireland, Poland, Hungary, Check Rep., Slovenia, Slovakia, Croatia, Germany, etc., etc., then the first thing they have to do when telling people about their trip is the Holocaust? I guess the next time I go to Canada, first thing I'll do when I come back is tell all my friends about how the Anglos kicked out the French.

The writer mentions nothing about replacing any "old order" with a "new" one.

Talk about overly-sensitive politcal correctness.

[Destro]

Actually in Quebec that's all they talk about......

[1rudeboy]

Now we are going in circles. I'm Lithuanian, therefore according to you, I'm a Nazi. I threw in the Catholic part because I remember you getting your frillies in a bunch over a thread that credited the Pope for helping to end the Cold War. In fact, and in the unlikely event that this column is propaganda, I fail to see why you would have a problem with it at all . . . you seem to breathe it.

[stevejackson]

Not if you talk to the Jews, Anglos, Vietnamese, Jamaican's, etc., that live there. And many French have gotten past it too.

[1rudeboy]

So if anyone visits Italy, Ireland, Poland, Hungary, Check Rep., Slovenia, Slovakia, Croatia, Germany, etc., etc., then the first thing they have to do when telling people about their trip is the Holocaust?

Not merely tell about it, but assign blame for it to all subsequent generations.

[stevejackson]

Not merely tell about it, but assign blame for it to all subsequent generations.

When I read your post, I thought (almost assumed) it was our common friend here. Nice.

[HISSKGB]

It is sad to see that some think the oppression and deaths of millions is either unimportant or deserved.

[1rudeboy]

I don't think so. But it's getting to the point where I cringe to see "Lithuania" in the title of a thread. I am mystified why every bit of information from this part of the world needs to mashed-down with a hammer. DPB brings-up an interesting notion: are the howls of "Nazi!" meant to diminish, obscure, or distract from the atrocities visited-upon this area of the world by the Soviets?

After all, loading them up and shipping them to the Gulag was no big deal, they were all "Nazis!" Interesting indeed, and plausible.

[DPB101]

As I mentioned, and I am sure you know, 1940 came before 1942-1944. Some do not want to acknowledge that.

This is not apologizing for anything. It is only relating history. My comments are merely a reaction against the knee-jerk "this country killed Jews!"

Liberals who always bring up American Indians and America dropping the bomb on Hiroshima never mention that Indians weren't just minding their own business and the Japs had bombed Pearl Harbor.

[stevejackson]

DPB brings-up an interesting notion: are the howls of "Nazi!" meant to diminish, obscure, or distract from the atrocities visited-upon this area of the world by the Soviets?

I think it is two-fold: 1) to diminish Soviet atrocities (because the communists really meant well [so the leftist thinking goes]) and 2) some people think that since the Soviets fought the Nazi's, then they couldn't do any wrong (even though Lenin and Stalin killed more people--numerically--than Hitler did).

And I'm not by any means diminishing the evils of Hitler by saying this.

[stevejackson]

Note that the Russian communists killed more than 300,000 Lithuanians from 1940-1954--about a third of the entire population. The rounding up of victims was arbitrary. If anyone was remotely suspected of anything, they were off'ed. Special attention was given to the educated (the usual criteria of the Khmer Rouge, Maoists, Stalinists, Sendero Luminoso, etc., etc.).

[DPB101]

A pity we even have to say that, isn't it?

The 20th century wasn't pretty. There were enough victims to go around. But, and this is critical, there were no innocent parties in Europe. The murder of the Tsar in 1881 set it all off. Russia responded with the May Laws and had almost 20 years of terrorism after that. Nazi Germany was a response, not something created out of thin air.

[HISSKGB]

According to these jerks, America is evil. All leftist regimes are excused from crimes no matter how many people they murder.