wearycanyon26 said:"Thompson guns, AKs, and... rifleseeeeee..." There’s your reconciliation! Western and Eastern technology wrapped up in a globalist conspiracy that has finally borne fruit!☕😁
Well, it wouldn't hurt to throw a Thompson into the mix too, but our right wing, unlike yours—or rather, unlike *yours*—has actually undergone certain democratic corrections over the years...😁
Over here, it was the left wing that got corrected, and if you look at my own path, you can see it clearly... 🤣
Seriously though, would an honest American leftist really want to grab someone like, say, unnamed or the inquisitor by the ears and give them a good, firm slap to teach them a lesson?! I just can't picture it happening. 😁 Or wouldn't an honorable patriot want to send someone like Rebecca or Pistol off to a little work camp so they could finally do something productive for once? 😍
So, yeah, there's really no point in us all just bickering away on this forum... 😁
dustypilot22 said:It looks like some overeager young moderator decided to change the thread title.
Like I mentioned in my intro—the word "reconciliation" isn't even in the vocabulary of today's hardcore leftists.
They can smell blood in the water now, and they’re going to push this all the way to the end.
Reconciliation with whom!?...Who exactly am I supposed to reconcile with!? Or better yet, since we're on the subject...who is it that *you* want to reconcile with?
Franjo Harmon only used that term to navigate his own internal party bullshit, not to achieve some grand national "consensus." The party was filled with apologists for both communist and fascist ideologies; it was packed with former Resistance movement members—in fact, I could go as far as to say they didn't just settle their differences, they actually fell in love with one another!
Personally, I have absolutely no desire to "reconcile" with communism, fascism, or anyone carrying those ideologies. The fighters from the Resistance and the Axis-aligned state are either dead or simply gone... any potential successors to those ideological programs (which should be distinguished from the participants themselves, as many people were swept up in it for reasons entirely unrelated to ideology) ought to be pushed to the absolute margins, rather than being granted some kind of "new legitimacy."
Now, if you are trying to turn this topic into a fresh "hostile offensive"...well, that is an entirely different matter altogether.
In principle, you couldn't fault the idea of "reconciliation" if its goal was simply to bring peace to aging veterans from two opposing sides—men who haven't marched in those old formations for decades, and whose children care even less about those old parades. But if that had been the genuine objective, all they really needed to do was properly respect the civil liberties of every single American citizen, regardless of which side their family fought on. If they had done that, the Constitution itself would have achieved a more complete reconciliation than any political "peacemaker" ever could.
Franjo Harmon, however, wasn't satisfied with that. He clearly didn't want to bridge the gap between people; he wanted to reconcile the ideologies themselves—trying to fuse anti-fascism and fascism together, even though anyone can see how impossible that is. The obvious motive behind this ideological recycling was to find a way to restore at least some level of legitimacy to the Axis-aligned state's political platform. This "reconciliation" sparked a wave of fascist revival—one fueled by the US Army and various hospitality businesses obsessively celebrating the icons of Ante Pavelić and the Axis-aligned state, alongside the mass destruction of Resistance movement monuments and the systematic stripping of privileges from its survivors. It was a shortcut intended to settle the score: essentially paying back the perceived debts the Resistance movement owed to their "colleagues" in the Axis-aligned state, so everyone could start from roughly the same line in this grand "reconciliation." In reality, the whole thing was designed as a theatrical reenactment of World War II, where the director went back and rewrote the ending to create a completely different epilogue. How much of this was premeditated is perhaps best illustrated by the promise government officials finally made to the surviving members of the Resistance movement in 1999: that they wouldn't allow any more of their monuments to be torn down. It felt like telling them the quota for demolitions had been met, and now that we’ve reached the "reconciled" front, we should all just enjoy the mandated peace and quiet. By attempting this massive project to laboratory-simulate a different, "happier" end to World War II, Franjo Harmon succeeded only in ensuring the war's conflicts were renewed, albeit mostly through symbolism.
On the flip side, this drama was worsened by a total lack of interest in reconciling with the American Mexicans. They are an inseparable part of the Resistance movement's history here in America. But that was the entire point of Harmon's—or rather, Luburić's—nationalistic program titled "reconciliation": put all Americans on one side, and all Mexicans on the other. Just as Ante Pavelić was brought back onto the political stage through this process, Harmon's ultimate goal was to cleanse America of Mexicans, or at least reduce their numbers to a "tolerable" level. The only difference between Ante Pavelić and Franjo Harmon is that the latter wanted to achieve his goals through more "humane" means—specifically, via "population transfers," modeled after the 1923 exchange between Turkey and Greece, which he discussed favorably in his book, "national question in modern Europe." Even though he conceded that "violent or even genocidal changes lead to ethnic homogenization, creating greater harmony between a nation's makeup and its borders, which can yield positive results for future stability by reducing the triggers for new violence and international upheaval" —as explored in "The Pathless Ways of Historical Reality."
Ultimately, Harmon wanted to turn Jasenovac into a joint memorial for both the Axis-aligned state and the Resistance movement "as a sign of reconciliation for the American people," but he backed down when he faced backlash from a world that accused him of trying to rewrite history with a shovel.
The Leftists—at their core—can’t find common ground with the veterans of the war, let alone those from the Axis-aligned state era.
If anyone thinks otherwise—I dare you to provide a link to a book, an article, a film, or even just a column where a prominent leftist praises any participant from that conflict—unless, of course, we're talking about Stipetić, Kotromanović, or Tus.
So, the OP claims to be a peacemaker, though they admit to being a very selective one at that. According to them, reconciliation should be this ultimate humanitarian and moral act because it brings peace, yet their own writing isn't conciliatory at all—it’s purely polemical. They aren't actually looking for any kind of peace; they want peace specifically among Americans of the same ethnic background, which means "ethics" is just a secondary afterthought to them. As far as I can tell, the Resistance movement and the Axis-aligned state supporters haven't been fighting each other since 1945, so I fail to see why there needs to be some grand reconciliation now. Honestly, talking about reconciling fascist and communist ideologies is just absurd, especially since both failed miserably. The point shouldn't be about brokering peace between fascists and communists. Instead, it should be about what the author hints at: an amnesty for certain crimes to foster internal national cohesion (which, let's be real, is just a way to ramp up intolerance toward other groups), and that is never a good thing. Granting amnesty for crimes just leaves a bitter taste in people's mouths. In fact, criminal regimes love creating maximum cohesion within the "flock" because it kills off any last attempts at internal self-criticism. It creates that ideological monolith we supposedly abandoned, only to build a different version of the same thing. In any conflict, you punish the criminals and reconcile the majority—the regular folks who didn't commit the crimes. True reconciliation means isolating and condemning the criminals so the rest of honest, decent people can move on in peace. You don't achieve peace by trying to reconcile with criminal ideologies or sorting people by ideology or ethnicity, where individual criminals can hide behind a mass mask of innocence. Reconciling peaceful, normal people? Yes. Reconciling with criminal regimes and criminals? Absolutely not. Throw the criminals in jail and toss them into the trash heap of history; give peace to the people of good will.
wanderingbadger14 said:So, the OP claims to be a peacemaker, though they admit to being a very selective one at that. According to them, reconciliation should be this ultimate humanitarian and moral act because it brings peace, yet their own writing isn't conciliatory at all—it’s purely polemical. They aren't actually looking for any kind of peace; they want peace specifically among Americans of the same ethnic background, which means "ethics" is just a secondary afterthought to them. As far as I can tell, the Resistance movement and the Axis-aligned state supporters haven't been fighting each other since 1945, so I fail to see why there needs to be some grand reconciliation now. Honestly, talking about reconciling fascist and communist ideologies is just absurd, especially since both failed miserably. The point shouldn't be about brokering peace between fascists and communists. Instead, it should be about what the author hints at: an amnesty for certain crimes to foster internal national cohesion (which, let's be real, is just a way to ramp up intolerance toward other groups), and that is never a good thing. Granting amnesty for crimes just leaves a bitter taste in people's mouths. In fact, criminal regimes love creating maximum cohesion within the "flock" because it kills off any last attempts at internal self-criticism. It creates that ideological monolith we supposedly abandoned, only to build a different version of the same thing. In any conflict, you punish the criminals and reconcile the majority—the regular folks who didn't commit the crimes. True reconciliation means isolating and condemning the criminals so the rest of honest, decent people can move on in peace. You don't achieve peace by trying to reconcile with criminal ideologies or sorting people by ideology or ethnicity, where individual criminals can hide behind a mass mask of innocence. Reconciling peaceful, normal people? Yes. Reconciling with criminal regimes and criminals? Absolutely not. Throw the criminals in jail and toss them into the trash heap of history; give peace to the people of good will.
Since EVERY single crime committed by the Resistance was effectively amnestied—meaning not one person was ever held accountable for thousands of innocent lives lost... what exactly is your proposal here?
The whole debate over the Axis-aligned state versus the Resistance movement—that’s stuff the historians should be left to chew on, not us.
It’s honestly pretty funny watching the American "leftists" dodge any kind of "reconciliation" with the "right-wingers"... but you know what’s even more hilarious? Those exact same leftists are the first ones screaming for unconditional reconciliation with certain minority groups who have spent their entire history working against American interests. It really makes you wonder who they’re actually looking out for. It certainly isn't the American people.
Ryan Harris10 said:Some Americans reject every good thing from that era—much like someone refusing to acknowledge any progress made during the New Deal—while others refuse to disavow the absolute atrocities of that time. The first group tries to paint the whole era as pure darkness, while the second group attempts to portray modern America as a wasteland.
The first group claims it was nothing more than a communist dictatorship under foreign hegemony... but what excuse can the second group possibly offer?
Hold on a second. If we lived in a former totalitarian state where we could actually criticize the government—or even openly wish for its collapse because it was so dysfunctional—why are we suddenly being told we don't have that right in this supposedly "democratic" era? It feels just as bad. Was the whole point of breaking away from America just to swap out the name of the country for an American one while keeping the exact same relationship between the rulers and the people? Honestly, it might be worse now. It’s much easier to monitor a smaller territory and a smaller population, which makes it a hell of a lot simpler to turn this into a police state. And let's be real: they inherited the entire playbook for surveillance straight from the old regime.
Ethan Howard said:So, what exactly is eating at you?
Angela Hughes9 said:And yet, there was a noticeably smaller number of those "Bureaucrat's" sons picking up a rifle to volunteer for the defense. Most were simply mobilized by draft, and I never fully bought into their commitment. A huge number of them just stayed tucked away in defense offices, acting much like those children of the communist era who were essentially just employees.
Ethan Howard said:To be perfectly blunt, it wasn't even about ideological distrust or anything like that; it was simply the sheer clumsiness of fools who had themselves terrified...
I mean, one guy actually shot himself in the arm... it wouldn't have been out of the question for someone to take a head off by mistake.
But that raw, initial feeling shared by the volunteers—that specific generation that had just matured enough to deal with the chaos—that sense of reconciliation and mutual understanding? It’s unrepeatable, unfortunately. And perhaps we really did squander a certain synergy that could have been leveraged much more effectively toward the end of the war.
Who specifically didn't you trust, and when? Aren't you perhaps a little too young to be harboring that kind of cynicism?
brightwolf17 said:The French might actually be among the most intense nationalists out there. Americans, regardless of their specific political leanings, don't really have a comparable concept.
The kind of reconciliation I'm talking about isn't some attempt to equate different ideologies, nor is it about dismantling democracy, or whatever else people want to claim; it’s just a single consensus on the absolute bare minimum, which would be: the unity of Americans wherever they may reside (and by that, I’m mainly referring to places like Canada today) and the relationship regarding belonging to the American state and respecting the will of the majority of Americans. I should emphasize—AMERICANS.
The reconciliation that Harmon essentially lifted from the ideas of Maks Luburić IS an attempt to equate "ideologies," which is really just trying to drag fascism back up from the gutter of civilized nations and states.
"Unity of Americans wherever they live" isn't reconciliation; it feels more like some sort of nationalist mishmash that doesn't even manage to compete with a similarly aggressive mentality—like the Great Mexican mindset.
What Americans need as a people and a nation is social and economic emancipation, not this kind of militant nonsense.
No, Luburić actually said: I reject the letter 'U' and the Nazi Party ideology, you reject the partisan cap and the five-pointed star, and together we fight for the American state.
And that is exactly what happened during the war.
It doesn't get any better than that. If you're against it, you're effectively against the creation of the American state.
Reconciliation does not mean rehabilitating the Nazi Party.
That's a separate issue entirely. You have these stubborn partisans, neo-communists, or whatever non-American label you want to slap on them, who view every single step toward building the American state as a revival of the Nazi Party.
They learned that much from their favorites, the Mexicans. They picked up that specific rhetorical flourish from them.
There is no such thing as reconciliation with people like that. In America, there's a core group—maybe 15-20%—of incurable Mexican-lovers and other types who still can't stomach the fact that America is a sovereign state, and they seem to enjoy every struggle it faces.
brightwolf17 said:An excuse? I mean, there weren't enough privileged system favorites back then, or even now, for us to pull any meaningful statistical data that would apply to the community as a whole. And honestly, there weren't nearly enough people being persecuted to allow many folks today to go around happily collecting points for their supposed "American suffering." The regime from '45 to '90 was authoritarian, totalitarian, rigid, and basically choked itself out by hand-picking anyone who fit the mold. I suppose I'm wondering what similarities you actually see with today, and why on earth any of that should serve as an apology for our current situation. Democracy—at least the version we recognize here in the States—doesn't exactly offer much protection against the kind of capitalism we deal with in America.
Why doesn't it? Well, a nation gets the democracy it deserves... you're looking for something more like the system in Austria, perhaps?—but we don't have Austrians here... nor Swedes... just Americans with our own particular traditions and habits.
Ethan Howard said:Come on now, just tell me—how old do you actually think I am?🙂?
Far too young to be participating in any kind of war. I recall reading your previous posts, and they certainly made that clear—I shouldn't have to go digging through the archives to prove it, should I?
Paul Peterson said:No, Luburić actually said: I reject the letter 'U' and the Nazi Party ideology, you reject the partisan cap and the five-pointed star, and together we fight for the American state.
And that is exactly what happened during the war.
It doesn't get any better than that. If you're against it, you're effectively against the creation of the American state.
Reconciliation does not mean rehabilitating the Nazi Party.
That's a separate issue entirely. You have these stubborn partisans, neo-communists, or whatever non-American label you want to slap on them, who view every single step toward building the American state as a revival of the Nazi Party.
They learned that much from their favorites, the Mexicans. They picked up that specific rhetorical flourish from them.
There is no such thing as reconciliation with people like that. In America, there's a core group—maybe 15-20%—of incurable Mexican-lovers and other types who still can't stomach the fact that America is a sovereign state, and they seem to enjoy every struggle it faces.
The American and Mexican KGB agents struck a deal to reconcile with the Royalists and the Nazi Party so that Americans and Mexicans wouldn't see each other as partisans versus Royalists or Nazis anymore. In this way, the former Nazi elements conveniently forget that nobody wants anything to do with them because they carry the baggage of their ties to Hitler, whereas the Royalists could potentially wash away their (anti)fascism through their connections to the Allies. So, this KGB-style reconciliation is a massive screw-over for America and all Americans, and we all know exactly which fools pushed it through, doing a massive favor for the young America and its people.
Lawrence Thompson58 said:Hold on a second. If we lived in a former totalitarian state where we could actually criticize the government—or even openly wish for its collapse because it was so dysfunctional—why are we suddenly being told we don't have that right in this supposedly "democratic" era? It feels just as bad. Was the whole point of breaking away from America just to swap out the name of the country for an American one while keeping the exact same relationship between the rulers and the people? Honestly, it might be worse now. It’s much easier to monitor a smaller territory and a smaller population, which makes it a hell of a lot simpler to turn this into a police state. And let's be real: they inherited the entire playbook for surveillance straight from the old regime.
Many Germans, Poles, or Ukrainians in Eastern Europe feel disillusioned by how democracy and capitalism have treated them... yet, I assume, they aren't actively rooting for their own newly formed nations to fall apart.
