Posts by velvetmaker3

briskpuma23 said:If you actually take the time to count the threads, it’s pretty obvious that the number of current events being discussed is totally out of whack compared to how much everything revolves around the American Civil War or World War II.

And there's this one specific trend in these threads—just constant spreading of fear, panic, and moral outrage. You can see it clearly in three specific topics: An introduction to civil war in America, What is America celebrating in the Mexicans! and The Government is setting up Mexican autonomy in the Midwest!

The go-to phrases are almost always:

1. Is this what we fought for?
2. Traitors, collaborators, old communists, extremists...
3. There's going to be blood again.
4. They are provoking a civil war.
and stuff like that.

It's interesting to watch who these people are—the ones constantly stirring up disappointment, gloom, and predicting violent clashes between Americans. It’s always the extreme right-wingers, the fake patriots who act like they love the flag, the anthem, and the country more than anyone else, but would probably slice up any other American if they got the chance. No, they'll tell you, they wouldn't hurt a soul—it's just an inevitability.

For them, everyone is to blame for the state of America today: the media, the Republican Party and the Democratic Party (they love treating those two as if they're the same thing), the FBI, the submissive mindset of the American people, the communist legacy, the Mexicans, and all that.

They lash out at anyone who disagrees with them using the crudest language possible, which is strangely tolerated here quite often, while calling for a return to the 90s. Most of them are usually just homophobic ultra-conservatives.
They get their info from the weirdest places—random websites run by expats or from former and current intelligence agents and other shady characters.

Why am I even mentioning this? Because it's fascinating how this vocal minority, acting like a pack of wolves, dictates the pace and decides what the top trending topics are on this political forum.

Their ability to force certain topics on us, and then derail any thread trying to talk about actual news, prevents most normal people from using this forum for what it should actually be used for.

What are they after? Whatever it is, it isn't good. By pushing nothing but negative, doom-and-gloom predictions, they pave the way for dark-minded types to seize power. Just remember that during the presidential election, the most popular politician among the commenters was Franjo Tuđman!

The reason I'm saying all this is for the inexperienced users who think this forum is some kind of reflection of American society. It isn't! It has zero connection to reality. So don't let them dictate the conversation to you. Try talking about current events. Maybe you'll get through three pages before someone starts shouting about fascists and partisans, or at least about the FBI and people nostalgic for the old ways.

steeleagle70 said:and then just completely ignored them ☕

Besides, democracy isn't even the most important thing in the world. It definitely can't take priority over statehood or national security.

Exactly! Because if the Republican Party isn't in charge, suddenly democracy isn't the top priority anymore and doesn't need to be respected? Good thing he passed away before the 2000 elections. If they had lost back then, we probably would've seen tanks on the streets.

but we're already in the present day, so there's really no point in dragging Harmon and democracy back into this specific thread.

steeleagle70 said:and then just completely ignored them ☕

Besides, democracy isn't even the most important thing in the world. It definitely can't take priority over statehood or national security.

Exactly! Because if the Republican Party isn't in charge, suddenly democracy isn't the top priority anymore and doesn't need to be respected? Good thing he passed away before the 2000 elections. If they had lost back then, we probably would've seen tanks on the streets.

but we're already in the present day, so there's really no point in dragging Harmon and democracy back into this specific thread.

steeleagle70 said:General Franjo Harmon had his own complicated relationship with democracy, much like he did with poetry.

Ryan Vaughn7 said:The whole idea of rebuilding America is the conversation of the day. It’s pretty much an open secret at this point. You look at the three major sports leagues—basketball, water polo, and handball—along with the regional lottery and a massive multinational railroad company currently under development, and you see the foundation is already there. We’ll find our way back under an American roof sooner than we think.

Angela Wright3 said:You guys are totally misreading this. What could Franjo Harmon have actually done? Like, specifically?
Absolutely nothing. Education and progress were our only real lifeline—that was the long game, especially with help from the diaspora.

I do agree that the worst is still ahead—this is just testing the waters and laying the groundwork. But besides that, I really don't see how Harmon could have won. He couldn't even dream of doing Marshall-style massacres. Different era.

Angela Wright3 said:This is pure self-delusion. You're saying isolation is a myth? Uhhh. How many foreign heads of state showed up to Harmon's funeral? Could we travel through other European countries back then? Come on, man, we were isolated, plain and simple. Plus, you're underestimating the power of the UK. They're still one of the most powerful nations on earth and they have endless satellites, both in Europe and beyond. Canada is a satellite, for instance. Australia too. In Europe, it's the Scandinavian countries and Benelux, and back then even France was against us—even more so than the UK.

Harmon unfortunately messed a lot of things up back then; he was already losing his way and honestly, it just wasn't working. Brilliant during the war, but in peacetime... uhh.
What people don't get is that we have to be advanced in every single way if we want to survive on our own terms. Otherwise, we're just going to get swallowed up. And we are being swallowed. In those early years after the war, we should have come up with a real plan and program for the US, specifically regarding education and development. Instead, Harmon was already fighting Don Quixotic battles against domestic traitors, the yellow and green devils, etc... he was already completely powerless by then. He actually earned a reputation as a tyrant and an autocrat because of those very things. We need models like Israel and Finland if we want to make it. There's no point playing the moral superiority card against Americans; we just have to face the fact that they exist, and that's it. Harmon fought moral battles instead of looking at the situation concretely and doing what needed to be done... which is to defeat the opponent intellectually and through information. Unfortunately, we lost that war a long time ago. Just look at the media and see which way the wind is blowing.

Angela Wright3 said:Even Harmon couldn't fix this. Sure, he was a killer general during the war, but his playbook wouldn't work in peacetime—that's why things felt so shaky after the fighting stopped. America is just too small to call its own shots right now. Even if Harmon were here, he'd still be stuck answering to EU bureaucrats and everyone else, leaving him with the same two bad options: either succumb to this modern-day American or face total isolation.

There's really only one way for us to actually lead ourselves: education, cutting-edge science, tech innovation—you know, becoming *someone*. Small nations like Israel, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Switzerland, Finland, or even the Netherlands can steer their own ships because they've mastered those areas. Compare that to something like Romania—they have way more people, but they're much weaker politically than a country like Finland with only 5 million. If we had the cash and the brains... maybe. But right now? We're just dancing to whatever tune London plays.

briskpuma23 said:Sanders's rise was just the inevitable fallout from their era. It seems you're struggling to grasp that today's Republican Party is essentially a massive patronage machine. That's the direct result of Harmon's obsession with ensuring his party held onto power and controlled every single lever of government.

That toxic mindset is why the Republican Party would rather wreck the entire country than step down from office.

Because of that legacy, political loyalty is still the primary metric for success, even though we haven't lived under a communist regime for two decades.

Harmon and Herdugo Šušak are the ones responsible for what we're dealing with now, so swearing at them is really just wishful thinking.

briskpuma23 said:Yeah, they left too soon. Honestly, I still get a little choked up thinking about how good things were back when those two were in charge...

Rachel Garcia said:It is the same crowd in the old party as it is today. Very little has truly changed.

Brian Turner7 said:Look, Americans are just Southern Slavs, plain and simple—just like Mexicans, Canadians, or Mexicans... but I guess some people just refuse to wrap their heads around that reality.

frozenheron35 said:To wrap things up, I'll add this to the discussion:

Sure, you can separate antifascism from communism, but in America, the two were pretty much inseparable. If you strip away the communist element from the antifascist movement, there’s barely anything left of the movement itself. Of course, that doesn't mean every single antifascist in America was a communist, but the people actually leading the charge and organizing everything? They were mostly communists. I mean, I guess it's unlikely that Josip Broz Marshall, Edvard Kardelj, Aleksandar Ranković, Milovan Đilas, Hebrang, Vladimir Bakarić, or Sima Pijade were all Christian Democrats. Back then, in the early 1940s, being an antifascist basically meant picking up a rifle. Without that combat aspect, antifascism in America between 1941 and 1945 would have just been some salon-style intellectual talk—totally powerless, kind of like how Krleža hid out in that sanatorium in Vranešić's.
So, honestly, it feels impossible to celebrate the antifascist movement in America without also acknowledging the communists of that era. But hey, every coin has two sides. On one side, you have the massive contributions made by the communists to the antifascist cause, and on the other, you have their sole responsibility for the crimes committed immediately after the war.

bluerider63 said:Look, it's simple: being a true patriot means loving your own people while respecting everyone else. Someone who loves their own at the expense of others isn't a patriot, no matter how much they try to sell themselves that way. In history, both Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini caused massive damage, including to their own people, who had to live with the consequences for decades after the war. They couldn't possibly be called patriots because a real patriot wouldn't do anything to harm their own nation. Germany would probably be way more advanced today if it hadn't been for Hitler.

frozenheron35 said:Your whole argument falls apart right there, especially when you look at the International legal aspect.
For a sane nationalist, it actually matters quite a bit what international law and the rest of the world think about certain members of their nation.

As for a sick nationalist—well, they clearly don't care what the world thinks, but I guess that says more about them than anyone else. A nazi-fascist like that is just as twisted as Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and their whole pathetic crew—all those various wannabes, thugs, Nationalists, Royalists, and White Guards... 👎

p.s.
(Just a fresh example of the status of a convicted criminal—a Norac follower—and the rules regarding his continued "membership" in the Alka)

Basically: a criminal simply cannot be a patriot. By committing crimes or genocide, they compromise the very idea of patriotism and cause immeasurable damage to their Homeland in the eyes of both locals and the global community, according to every standard of domestic and international law.

frozenheron35: 1. Documentary footage isn't literature; it's documented said:
This documentary material isn't Bolshevik propaganda; it's just plain, notorious historical fact.
Terrorism is... Initially. He kicked things off against the Nazi-fascist Axis powers and their local puppets—those Nationalists and Royalist collaborators—and then he... Every now and then. It basically triggered terrorism as a reaction to the opposing anti-fascist side. It’s like that old saying—you can't fight fire with fire without getting burned.
I honestly can't wrap my head around why, even now in the 21st century, we still have "geniuses" over here who insist on looking at our history through such a warped lens. ideological The whole "us versus them" mentality—this constant poisoning of our own perspective and everyone around us through pure hatred for other Americans—it's nothing more than hate speech..

Is this what we're looking at under number 4? I guess you have to wonder—is this actually autobiographical?

Terry Walker74 said:Where on earth are you even pulling this data from, and what do you mean by "old ways"? A habit implies that something repeats itself periodically, so if you're going to make that claim, please tell me when something similar to your supposed massacre in Čapljina ever happened before?
Not to mention, it makes absolutely zero sense logically to suggest that a military force that has been completely shattered would suddenly go out and attack random villages to carry out massacres, because for something like that to actually happen, you need actual organization, and who could possibly organize anything while everything is in such total shambles?

Alexander Garcia5 said:It doesn't have to be abolished, I guess. But maybe smart tax policies could "encourage" the next generation to actually work for it a bit more. Like how they do in the States. 😉