General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsIf you could eliminate one person from history...who would it be?
Last edited Sun Aug 12, 2012, 09:55 PM - Edit history (1)
The rules: You can use your time machine (once only) to go back in history and prevent the conception of any person. Example: You want to stop Hitler from being born, so you go up to Klara Pölzl (Adolph's mother) in 1880 and give her 10,000 marks to emigrate to the USA. She never meets let alone marries Alois, so voila...no Adolph. This will have the incidental effect of preventing his brothers from being born as well, of course.
After you prevent your target from being conceived, you snap back to 2012 and enjoy living in a world made better by your actions. Bear in mind, though, that removing someone from history may not have that great an effect. If you prevent Thomas Edison from existing, someone is still going to invent the phonograph and the light bulb. They may be called by other names, and they may be delayed by a decade or so, but things tend to get invented when it's time to invent them.
I would note that some individuals would be exceptions. If you took out Isaac Newton (heaven knows why, but it's your choice), modern science as we know it may be delayed by half a century. Prevent Jesus Christ or Muhammad from existing, and history may change so much that the present day would be virtually unrecognizable.
Anyway, that's the setup. Who do you pick, and what do you think would be the result of this person not existing?
(My pick is to take out Hitler)
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cantbeserious
(13,039 posts)eom
LeftofObama
(4,243 posts)My first thought as well!
NNN0LHI
(67,190 posts)
GentryDixon
(3,142 posts)
malokvale77
(4,879 posts)
99Forever
(14,524 posts)I wish there was a Hell for him to be burning in for an eternity.
Freddie
(10,094 posts)The prize goes to St. Ronnie, the man who started this country going to hell.
graywarrior
(59,440 posts)leveymg
(36,418 posts)
RKP5637
(67,112 posts)
no_hypocrisy
(54,778 posts)Lasher
(29,535 posts)If not for Reagan, they would have found themselves another idiot. As a matter of fact they did.
HarveyDarkey
(9,077 posts)Then there'd be no "*" or Jeb nor countless descendants of them.
LiberalEsto
(22,845 posts)He was among the banksters who financially aided Nazi Germany and was among the leaders of a plan to depose FDR and take over this nation. They were foiled by Gen. Smedley Butler, among others.
HarveyDarkey
(9,077 posts)that would save the world a whole lot of misery.
HCE SuiGeneris
(14,997 posts)and so on, and so on.
LiberalEsto
(22,845 posts)I couldn't agree more
Canuckistanian
(42,290 posts)Hands down.
SammyWinstonJack
(44,315 posts)He ruined it. Then I moved to Texas and bush the idiot took control and ruined Texas.
Tikki
(15,107 posts)Tikki
northoftheborder
(7,636 posts)
Zoeisright
(8,339 posts)He started this mess, with his lies and deceptive attitude.
Raine
(31,157 posts)
JHB
(38,144 posts)He wouldn't have done any damage as the CP spokesmodel, and it would have prevented his political career. There were enough things going on that there still would have been the conservative push, but they would have been denied a personality cult figure.
RagAss
(13,832 posts)
valerief
(53,235 posts)rug
(82,333 posts)
part man all 86
(367 posts)
rug
(82,333 posts)BlueJazz
(25,348 posts)
ZombieHorde
(29,047 posts)I love it.
crimson77
(305 posts)They have upwards of 30 scratch tickets, when I am behind someone who is buying 40 dollars worth and they want 16 diffrent tickets. Or the roofer or landscaper who has like 15 different orders on a piece of paper, and I'm getting just an ice coffee at dunkin donuts.
rug
(82,333 posts)OTOH, I live in Pennsylvaia . . . .
crimson77
(305 posts)If I am in line for more than 5 minutes, I look like Bill Murray in the elevator at the begining of Lost in Translation.
UnrepentantLiberal
(11,700 posts)
hughee99
(16,113 posts)that when it was his turn, they would ask him "what kind of donut?".
Much like the lady at the supermarket who waits until after the checkout clerk gives her a final total that she STARTS rummaging around her giant bag for a well-hidden check book.
liberallibral
(272 posts)
DainBramaged
(39,191 posts)
Whiskeytide
(4,651 posts)... I think Nixon did as much damage to the conservative movement as he did to progressive causes. It didn't set them back much, but no telling where we'd be if Nixon had not so dramatically tarnished the party in the early 70s. A lot of people turned away from the Republicans because of that scandal.
treestar
(82,383 posts)Something similar would have happened. In a way it gives Hitler too much credit to think that without him, things would not have happened. Someone would have inflamed the hatreds of the Germans of that day. Hitler didn't do it alone. He couldn't have done it without people to go along with him, enable him and support him. He should have been a raving loon in an institution - but the Germany of that day made him other than that.
cali
(114,904 posts)who agrees with that. Not one.
treestar
(82,383 posts)An effective orator like Hitler can make them agree to things without their true agreement or consent?
cali
(114,904 posts)And I think people in general are highly persuadable.
treestar
(82,383 posts)responsible in the least? All the ones you read agree that only Hitler could have brought about any such situation as the Third Reich. Without Hitler, the people were free not to create such a state as occurred there. With him, it then follows, they could do nothing to resist.
The Second Stone
(2,900 posts)if it had not been him, there may have been dozens like him. He really didn't do it alone. But his particular skill set made it possible for him to do it. Were there others that history never recorded? Maybe. The individual movers and shakers theory of history (Great Man history) is interesting, but really a movement needs hundreds of thousands of people moving things along.
cali
(114,904 posts)and I don't believe in one dominant historical theory. I do think there are elements of the Great Man theory of history that are valid: A certain person + a certain time + a certain place, to put it in simple terms. Would someone have come along at that moment in history who could galvanize and coalesce that precise movement in such a way? Probably not. Do you think another FDR was destined to be President?
Oh, by the by, you might be interested in what I think is a fascinating book with some interesting observations about Hitler and the German people entitled 'Diary of a Man in Despair'. The author wrote the manuscript in secret. He was executed by the Nazis toward the end of the War and the manuscript was found subsequently.
demosincebirth
(12,824 posts)treestar
(82,383 posts)Nobody has that kind of power. You have to enable them. It's up to us to make sure the insane don't become our leaders.
We're doing sort of OK. As a nation, we didn't let Palin get into positions of greater power.
WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)
wake.up.america
(3,334 posts)
loyalsister
(13,390 posts)The eugenics movement here would have been credible and expanded beyond the forced sterilizations that did occur.
If you want to stop the worst of Hitler's atrocities you have to look to historical figures here in the US.
The eugenics movement supported by Thomas Edison and other mainstream figures was a large piece of the blueprint for the holocaust. Of course, whoever came up with the idea to put Native Americans on reservations also deserves some credit.
The only thing that awakened the public consciousness to the dangers and horror to be found with the evolution of a eugenics movement was the holocaust. It's a terrible awful truth, but I can say with near certainty that my life would have been much worse or ended very early if not for some of the most horrifying discoveries of programs in NAZI Germany.
Was the point of this exercise to learn that what we do with where we are regardless of what means by which we got here is what matters?
Selatius
(20,441 posts)If Kennedy was killed by a conspiracy, you'd know it instantly back in 2012.
The assassin would simply be a different person.
If he was truly a lone gunman, Kennedy would live and likely have won a second term once the sole threat was eliminated, and US history would take a totally different arc altogether.
IDemo
(16,926 posts)Oswald would definitely be in my top five as well, but Hitler is still number one.
Grave Grumbler
(160 posts)There have been quite a few short stories on exactly that subject. The only novel that springs to mind is Stephen King's "11/22/63". If you decide to read it, I would warn you that while it's quite good, the main thrust of the novel is not the world that results from saving JFK.
Sheepshank
(12,504 posts)
jeff47
(26,549 posts)It was some short story show, with each episode being completely independent.
In this particular episode, a history teacher from the future uses a time machine to prevent JFK's assassination.
Then JFK starts a nuclear war.
So history teacher uses the time machine to trade places with JFK. Teacher gets shot by Oswald, and the show ends with JFK giving a lecture in the distant future.
1monster
(11,045 posts)What show was that? The revival of The Twilight Zone?
MicaelS
(8,747 posts)Fitzgerald is understandably nervous about watching his own ancestor be murdered, especially since he never got to know the man himself; he has met Kennedy only once. Wang reassures Fitzgerald that every field historian has moments of doubt such as this. When she departs for their home time, she says something that Fitzgerald does not quite catch. He decides to get it over with and journeys to Dealey Plaza in Dallas. However, when he glances up to the Texas School Book Depository and sees Lee Harvey Oswald raise a gun to kill Kennedy, Fitzgerald is unable to stand by and watch the killing. He intervenes and saves the president's life, shouting for the president and his entourage to take cover. Oswald fires anyway, but misses, and is later arrested by Dallas police.
A grateful President Kennedy (Andrew Robinson) invites Fitzgerald to stay at the White House. As Kennedy and his entourage return home, the president is notified that Soviet troops have captured West Berlin. Fitzgerald is astonished, and claims that Khrushchev would never do such a thing. Kennedy sadly points out that Khrushchev was assassinated earlier that day.
In his room that night, Fitzgerald frantically consults his time-travel wrist computer, which informs him that his alteration of history has caused massive rips in the fabric of time. The assassination of Khrushchev was not enough to "fix" the damage to the time stream; the computer informs Fitzgerald that all possible outcomes to this timeline will result in total war between the superpowers and mutual annihilation. There is only one way to repair the timeline, the computer intones: "The Kennedy presidency must end, as history originally recorded it."
RC
(25,592 posts)For we will have still had only one history. We can't know both.
Selatius
(20,441 posts)If I went back in time to kill my father before he met my mother, I'd erase myself in the sense that I would no longer exist in this timeline.
However, from what we know of physics, the current speculation is I would be transferred into a separate timeline where my father did die, but only I would be the one to know how I ended up in the alternate timeline or universe where the desired event did occur. I wouldn't be able to go back to my original timeline without also having the ability to rip holes into alternate universes and get at my old timeline.
In a strict sense, time travel to the past is impossible if we assume what I said was true. The second you make the journey backward in time and alter it, you've eliminated yourself from this timeline. You will end up in an alternate universe by the time you end your journey and go back to the present.
ThomThom
(1,486 posts)oh wait he did.......... from the grassy knoll
Ruby the Liberal
(26,632 posts)It was his fucked up court reporter's note attached to the record in the Southern Pacific v Santa Clara County case that set this country on the economic collision course that it is on. He is single handedly responsible for "corporations are people".
MyshkinCommaPrince
(611 posts)I'll go with this one, too.
Peregrine Took
(7,583 posts)Bombtrack
(9,523 posts)leveymg
(36,418 posts)Oliver Cromwell made the Irish slaves and deported tens of thousands of them to the New World in the first decades of the 1600s, before anyone even thought to go to West Africa for replacement workers.
The "Redlegs" (sunburned Celts) were the first to roast and die in Barbados so the English gentry could enjoy rum.
Lovely place to drink rum, but not to make it.
MrMickeysMom
(20,453 posts)Evil seed maker!
Lone_Star_Dem
(28,158 posts)I'm sure I'm just not thinking far enough back, though.
1-Old-Man
(2,667 posts)I have seen estimates way higher than the nazi exterminations.
amandabeech
(9,893 posts)AngryAmish
(25,704 posts)Taiping Rebellion. Look it up. 20-30 million souls lost.
A unified China would not be vulnerable to Japanese colonization/war and those bodies (20 million or so). No Chinese civil war (no estimate in wikipedia). And no Mao. (who between the Great Leap Forward (18-42 million) and Cultural Revolution (?) may have killed as many folks as Stalin)
Not saying that there would not be war in China but the way it worked out was about the worst way possible.
BTW, ever wonder why the CCP is so nuts about Fulan Gong? They see Fulan Gong as a rival to their power and could cause another Taiping Rebellion.
part man all 86
(367 posts)IDemo
(16,926 posts)His brand of economics is at least as responsible for the current bizarre state of right-wing ideology as Ayn Rand.
grntuscarora
(1,249 posts)after reading Shock Doctrine.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)The very short list. Responsible for as much human misery as anyone who has ever lived.
Baitball Blogger
(52,183 posts)And I wouldn't want him dead, but my second choice for a rewrite of history would be Johnson.
MrMickeysMom
(20,453 posts)That would do no good... they'd just find another pasty!
Raster
(21,010 posts)Vincardog
(20,234 posts)
sadbear
(4,340 posts)So many birds, one little stone. 
nebenaube
(3,496 posts)leveymg
(36,418 posts)SammyWinstonJack
(44,315 posts)That slimy rat bastard!
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)dflprincess
(29,316 posts)
Initech
(108,506 posts)
joshcryer
(62,536 posts)leveymg
(36,418 posts)Stalin hadn't been turned and sponsored early in his career.
joshcryer
(62,536 posts)Had the Bolsheviks been neutered or equalized the USSR would've looked a lot different.
leveymg
(36,418 posts)Last edited Sun Aug 12, 2012, 10:25 PM - Edit history (1)
I'm not talking about the outcome of the 1917 Revolution, but its impetus. Which side are you on?
OMG - without Lenin and Trotsky, there would have been no Revolution. Without Stalin and Beria, there would have been no Soviet State. Don't confuse the two - they aren't the same.
white_wolf
(6,257 posts)I assume Joshcryer's is hoping that without Lenin and Trotsky, the USSR would have followed an Anarcho-Syndicalist route to socialism as the Free Soviets and people of the Kronstadt wanted.
joshcryer
(62,536 posts)I think that Lenin was the firecracker that caused Bolshevism to be what it was.
Alexander Bogdanov probably would've taken over the Bolsheviks and implemented a more Menshevik style system.
Stalin and Trotsky may have become simply niche players.
white_wolf
(6,257 posts)The person I was replying to mentioned getting rid of Trotsky and I replied to that scenario instead of what you laid out. My mistake.
leveymg
(36,418 posts)Last edited Mon Aug 13, 2012, 11:49 AM - Edit history (1)
He had no role in the 1917 revolution, from what I understand. But, he was certainly right about the following:
That's another way of saying that those who are persecuted come to resemble their persecutors in their choice of methods of repression once they reach power. That is so true.
Thanx for mentioning Bogdanoc. He's one the most interesting of the unmentionables.
BOG PERSON
(2,916 posts)no "socialist accumulation", no crash industrialization, no production for the war effort, slavs would have been exterminated.
joshcryer
(62,536 posts)Don't get me started on the Cheka (ordered by Lenin himself), dekulakization, Holodomor, the Tambov Rebellion, the Kronstadt rebellion all a result of Lenin's anti-democratic policies which Stalin followed to the tee.
joshcryer
(62,536 posts)There were numerous social movements in Russia at the time, most of which outside of the Whites, were pro-socialism. The Bolsheviks took absolute power and killed those movements and created an insane kind of totalitarian socialism. Without Lenin I think that the Bolsheviks would've been a kinder, more gentler, less brutal regime.
I think that Trotsky would've been more of a power holder without Lenin and without Lenin Stalin would not have implemented the kinds of draconian policies that Lenin's philosophy resulted in (note: Lenin didn't prescribe totalitarianism explicitly, but implicitly and in practice that is what happend).
DU is not a site centered around "the Bolshevik Revolution."
leveymg
(36,418 posts)revolution and the Western intervention?
DU most certainly isn't centered around Bolshevism. (What an absurd thing to say.) But, it isn't exactly the natural home of Boris Brasol, either.
joshcryer
(62,536 posts)They had the might of the entire allied forces and western influence and yet they still lost to a weaker but more organized and cohesive force. Lenin did not magically make the Red Army what it was. I would argue that nothing changes without Lenin up until the revolution. Trotsky would've helped the Red Army make its successes.
You said "what am I doing here?" because I said I'd get rid of Lenin. What "here" and Lenin have in common, is still lost on me.
leveymg
(36,418 posts)and world history in 1926. They thought that if they got rid of that 'authoritarian figure" the whole thing would fall into their hands, which it did through Stalin who "proved" that revolution was doomed to fail, and what would follow capitalism and monarchy would be worse, and it was.
Look 'em up, and then look around. The spooks are still in charge of the show. This is their world that they created.
Lenin and Trotsky were both, indeed, indispensable to the Revolution, and to beating off the Counterrevolution, which is why they both had to be removed to make way for the State.
RZM
(8,556 posts)You do know that he had four strokes, right?
leveymg
(36,418 posts)Look it up. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-12785695
Better yet, read the whole story, Richard B. Spence, Trust No One: The Secret World Of Sidney Reilly; 2002
RZM
(8,556 posts)With a history of political violence. And Lenin still had four strokes.
What does this alleged providing of the gun have to do with his death? Especially since he survived the shooting.
leveymg
(36,418 posts)a Dictator would emerge from the Revolution and lead to a Great Terror and Police State. Just have to read your Toynbee (or if that's too modernist for your tastes), Carlyle, to know that.
RZM
(8,556 posts)Lenin would still have been Lenin without Western intervention in the Civil War, though he probably could have consolidated power sooner without Western involvement. But he would still be an authoritarian who didn't believe that political opposition could be tolerated. He would still have created the police apparatus, the camp system, and used violence to achieve his ends.
Lenin laid the foundation of the Stalinist state. He wasn't Stalin, but he made Stalinism possible.
LooseWilly
(4,477 posts)an existential external threat? Or Stalin for that matter?
Please provide documentation of how they behaved in fictionality-world which supports your assertions about never-when.
Thanks...
joshcryer
(62,536 posts)...to prevent imperialism from having an effect. But you forget so easily.
joshcryer
(62,536 posts)I think it is difficult to make the argument that Stalin didn't follow Lenin's roadmap as he most certainly did. I don't think that outside meddling changed the overall sinister nature of Marxist-Leninism.
Lenin and Trotsky overstated the imperialist threat to the point of turning their own country into a totalitarian state and throwing out the edicts of democratic socialism. In the end Trotsky realized that he was wrong (and by admitting he was wrong and questioning the suppression of democracy in Russia, he was ousted from the party). I think that Lenin went to his death bed believing he was right.
Trotsky would've been Lenin and had he the power level that Lenin had he would've implemented democratic socialism.
LooseWilly
(4,477 posts)So you think Marxism-Leninism is ... sinister overall? Maybe "sinister" in some specific ways? Would you care to elucidate in what ways it is "sinister" aside from the concrete examples of how Stalin interpreted it in steering the new Soviet state (and "persecuted" the "poor anarchists" who were merely trying to stage their own petty revolutions in the midst of the overall revolution... and were... "sinisterly" shut down in their efforts "as if they were mere bandits trying to take lands for themselves rather than participating in the greater governmental system being implemented" by Lenin and Stalin)?
It seems like the basest form of spin to use adjectives like "sinister" in describing a philosophy without at least providing a sentence worth of description of how & why the adjective is being used/chosen (I'm guessing you're not just using it as a cognate for the Italian siniestre, meaning "left", to refer to the Soviets as being Leftists... 
)
I think you're naive to say that Lenin and Trotsky overstated the imperialist threat... I also dispute that they threw out the "edicts of democratic socialism" (an ironic turn of phrase since Lenin, at least, never claimed to be a "democratic socialist" ... it wasn't until after the assassination of Sergei Kirov in 1934 that the state apparatus began cracking down on "dissidents"... a process which, many have argued, was heavily influenced by Nazi co-opted officials and infiltrators.
If the process of state apparatus crackdowns was indeed influenced by Nazi provocateurs, then your accusation of "sinister nature", not to mention "overstated imperialist threat" are downright silliness... and agitated anarchists would likely have been just another target of any Nazi intelligence agent provocateurs looking to weaken the state in preparation for a future invasion... which means that most of the sources you're about to quote to me were very possibly Nazi collaborators.
Does this mean that you, personally, probably love Hitler?
Let us consider the History.
Without Lenin... would the Bolsheviks even have succeeded in organizing an October Revolution? If not— would that neo-liberal state that came out of the February Revolution have been able to withstand Nazi agression? I think not... an economically liberal state, arising from Tsarist Russia, would never have been able to industrialize sufficiently to withstand blitzkrieg.
Had the Bolsheviks succeeded in their October Revolution (maybe in November) without Lenin... would Trotsky have succeeded to leadership, wavered and leaned Menshevik-wise, resisted structured uniformities and allowed for looser "diversity" and "democratic socialism" amongst various factions, regions & ethnicities?... Would a USSR organized along such lines have been able to stand up to the "overstated imperialist threat" of the Nazis?... I'm thinking—No.
If Lenin were eliminated... and Stalin had been at the helm of the Bolsheviks (unlikely, as he wasn't much of a theorist at that point)... would the USSR have been able to industrialize sufficiently to withstand the Nazis? Probably... but I would argue that Lenin's theoretical depth and George Washington-like eschewing of personal stakedom in anything but the work of "national fatherdom" was an anchor for what was obviously a suspicious and ruthless set of streaks in Stalin's nature... without Lenin's influence I suspect Stalin would've potentially turned out Idi Amin-like crazy (and no, I don't think he was anywhere near that crazy as it turned out)
So... does your answer love Hitler... 2 out of 3 extrapolations say: Yes, You love Hitler...
Why don't you just eliminate Adam or Eve and just save us all the heartache of your blinder-visions of Daydream-Anarchism? Maybe let rats evolve into the dominant species so at least all the fascists that crush your theoretical day-dreams will have cute tails?
http://www.google.com/imgres?start=144&hl=en&sa=X&biw=1048&bih=621&tbm=isch&prmd=imvns&tbnid=kagMlX-IQ8CgdM:&imgrefurl=http://www.fark.com/comments/7214104/In-order-to-stop-killer-black-rats-from-taking-over-a-tropical-island-paradise-scientists-are-bombing-area-with-poisoned-bait-for-100-consecutive-days&docid=oqnc9ooKMVvEDM&imgurl=
&w=650&h=366&ei=R5ooUMvKJsPOiwL934DoCg&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=255&vpy=117&dur=7740&hovh=168&hovw=299&tx=169&ty=130&sig=117087002360567104965&page=8&tbnh=104&tbnw=185&ndsp=23&ved=1t:429,r:18,s:144,i:273
joshcryer
(62,536 posts)Even though you believe I love Hitler 2 out of 3 times.
I'll respond later, if I remember. 
Though it does not surprise me that you'd sink so low as to insult me at that level. A typical response from state-socialists! 
BOG PERSON
(2,916 posts) joshcryer
(62,536 posts) joshcryer
(62,536 posts)The Bolsheviks shut down the constituent assembly and crushed the workers committees (that spontaneously grew up throughout Russia with little Party Involvement).
As far as "eliminating" Lenin, we're talking about removing him from existence, from history in totality. He never existed in this alternate timeline.
The October Revolution did not rely on Lenin. Trotsky was there and the majority of the Soviets backed implementing socialism. As RZM pointed out in this alternate history without Lenin factionalizing the socialists in Russia we would've had a stronger socialism in Russia and the civil war may not have even happened.
Without the Civil War then Russia goes without having depleting its resources fighting its own people, and therefore would've been much more suited to fight Hitler.
Ironically, while you defend Russia's extreme efforts to "take out" imperialism as a necessary evil, you neglect Russia's own imperialism into the Eastern Bloc as well as its imperialistic trade deals with the west. This argument basically falls flat.
Without Lenin stoking the more authoritarian approach to socialism, as Trotsky later learned and was ousted for pointing out (Trotsky before he was exiled pointed out how it was undemocratic and totalitarian and wouldn't have it), things would've looked a lot different in Russia.
LooseWilly
(4,477 posts)Are you sure your nose isn't just out-of-joint because they won? (Maybe that's why you would eliminate Lenin?... Hoping to have the White Army and their US & UK financiers and arms suppliers win control of the USSR?)
The only path I can imagine by which Trotsky (who was a classic fence-straddler and probably couldn't've actually won enough support to achieve leadership in his own right, but instead found his true "glory" in the skill with which he played Menshevik factions against Bolshevik factions in order to heighten & prolong tensions so that he could lead his fellow fence-straddlers into a position of importance simply as a minority who could swing a "majority" either way, by hopping the "fence" one way or the other, as opportunity/opportunism permitted) could have... even had he somehow reached a leadership position amongst the Bolsheviks... avoided the (US & UK financed & backed) "civil war" (and numerous opportunistic incursions/invasions) would have been by... cooperating with the "opposition" forces (i.e. capitulation, large or small, to the Western Imperialist Powers that didn't want communism/socialism to achieve any hint of legitimacy, and didn't want to lose the opportunity to exploit rich Russian Empire resources).
Trotsky would have essentially had to have agreed with the capitalist powers to half-ass the socialism of the USSR ... much like Andrew Johnson agreed with the Ex-Confederacy to half-ass Reconstruction (making the product of the October Revolution as hollow a victory for workers as Emancipation was a hollow victory for African Americans facing Jim Crow). There is simply no other way for the "civil war" not to have happened.
The absurdity of your argument on this point is almost laughable... because, had such an agreement been made, there would have been NO WAY that the worker enthusiasm for the Five-Year Plans could have been mustered to industrialize the USSR enough to face the Nazi onslaught. The sufferings of the "civil war" were endured in the face of attacks by dispossessed kulaks, often armed by foreigners... and the results of those first few Five-Year Plans show an enthusiasm by the population that shows that these were not "popular" forces fighting an oppressive government to liberate the people... they were opportunists struggling in the face of potential loss of their old privileges (which would, presumably, have been restored under a capitalist, pro-UK/US governmental body).
It wasn't the "civil war" (or fights against foreign aggressions and opportunistic sponsoring of local dissidents, as I would call it) and consequent "depleting its resources" that most threatened the USSR... it was the inherent backwardness of a completely non-industrialized serf-state that had been inherited from the Tsars, who had no interest in industrialization since their lives were just fine without it.
And it was that nation of serfs and illiterates that Hitler expected to roll like a hick fresh off the turnip truck in downtown Berlin.
I'm not sure what "imperialism into the Eastern Bloc" you are referring to, nor which "imperialistic trade deals with the west" you mean... when you make these sorts of assertions you should really attach at least a hint of detail, so your readers have at least a starting place for assessing what you're saying.
Trotsky's "idealism" in the face of measures taken in the face of "civil war" (incursions by forces of and proxies of imperialist powers from abroad) is rather admirable... but wasn't liable to prepare the country even to face those incursions... let alone the Nazi incursion to come.
Or... are you arguing that Trotsky would've made so many concessions to the West that the likes of Chamberlain wouldn't've considered "egging Hitler on" with appeasements like the "gifting" of Czechoslovakia... in order to "entice" Hitler east... and try to "manipulate" him into attacking the USSR for them, in an attempt to use Hitler just as the UK (& US) had previously used the "White Army"?
Because that seems to be the only way your argument for the elimination of Lenin being a good thing makes sense... if you just don't want socialism to ever be really tried... but instead only "fence-straddler" tried (while waiting indefinitely on the results of the permanent revolution's scorecard among workers abroad).
You know, tried in a way that is palatable to UK & US industrialists and financiers... because, really... only with their blessings, can the world be made... better?
joshcryer
(62,536 posts)So this is just pointless but I'll have a go at it anyway.
No, for one, the oppression started before the civil war. Secondly, Whites were mostly ousted by 1920 and that what factions were left scattered were not a big enough threat to continue the oppression the rest of ... the entire existence of the Soviet Union. The totalitarian expansion oppression, the complete disregard for democracy, etc. As soon as the Whites were pushed back they should've made a treaty with the other leftists who were simply defending themselves from totalitarianism.
Meanwhile, had Lenin not existed it is dubious that there would've been a split in the socialist factions to begin with. Without a split mitigation of the Whites may have been possible, even with outside pressures.
I'm glad you have such a high opinion of the Soviets, comrade.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov-Ribbentrop_Pact
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Brest-Litovsk
The rest of your post is just insulting and does not merit a response.
edit: actually:
If you really think that Soviet Russia was anything other than capitalism where the vanguard was the corporation, then you're living in self-delusion. They did not "try" to implement socialism with their disregard for democracy and their unheard of level of oppression.
yawnmaster
(2,812 posts)leveymg
(36,418 posts)or the discussion page on Huffington Post.
yawnmaster
(2,812 posts)BOG PERSON
(2,916 posts)joshcryer
(62,536 posts)I can back up my reasons against Bolshevism.
RZM
(8,556 posts)Although I took more of a FP approach on my post about this above, there is plenty to recommend his choice in Russia itself.
Lenin was a straight-up authoritarian. It's pretty tough to argue that he didn't lay the foundation for Stalinism. Russian Socialism without him would almost certainly have had more of a 'human face,' in Dubcek's famous phrase.
I'm not sure how the poltiical situation in Russia would have ended up without him. But I'm pretty sure it would have been better than what really did follow, not to mention the FP consequences.
joshcryer
(62,536 posts)I think the Bolsheviks would've still taken power. The White movement wasn't cohesive, and the people had something they wanted to fight for, with every fiber of their being (for better or for worse, they wanted to try the experiment). The White movement really didn't stand a chance, with or without Lenin.
Overall though Stalin simply implemented Lenin's roadmap to the tee. Had Lenin continued living (say there was some magical life extension device that the Russians made) he would've done everything that Stalin did.
I think the entire history of the planet would've changed had the Russians been allowed to implement democratic socialism. The peasants and workers did not bargain for Leninism.
RZM
(8,556 posts)When there was an assassination attempt against him, as I'm sure you know.
I'm talking about him never being born. Lenin was instrumental in the original split within the Russian Social Democratic Party. Without him, you wouldn't have Bolsheviks and Mensheviks in the first place. Lenin was always splitting and dividing. Always eschewing those who didn't see things his way. Without that divisive presence around at all, you might have seen much more unity in the Russian socialist movement.
As for the Civil War, who knows. My guess is that the hardcore authoritarianism of the Bolsheviks came in handy when fighting the Whites. But would the Civil War have looked at all similar without the Bolsheviks running the anti-White show? A broader-based Socialist coalition might have made the world of difference, including even mitigating the White movement from the outset. No Lenin means no 'the guard is tired' bullshit when the Constituent Assembly was sat. You might have ended up with a decently smooth transition of power after February, with Kadets, SRs, and relatively unified Social Democrats all in the mix. The right would have been excluded, but how many White supporters would have been tempted to not take up arms with at least some non-Bolshevik elements involved in the government? Probably a small but significant amount.
Of course, the Germans are the wild card. The war effort collapsed before the Bolshevik seizure of power, but I wonder if a broader-based government wouldn't have tried to continue the war (Lenin had to lobby quite hard to get his comrades to agree to peace). But in any case, after Nov. 1918, the Germans are out of the picture, no matter what happens in Russia.
joshcryer
(62,536 posts)Good theory.
LooseWilly
(4,477 posts)Specifically 18 February, 1918.
Because Trotsky had enough votes behind him with the Central Committee to defy the votes that "the despotic" Lenin had... and refuse to sign the peace with Germany.
After Nov. 1918?... so "Germans are out of the picture" after making a peace with the US?... their relations with the rest of the world are irrelevant?
And... with Germany "out of the picture", there's no worry about psychotic strongmen like Hitler arising there?... right?
Kalidurga
(14,177 posts)Christianity would have likely remained a small cult. Most of Europe would have retained paganism as their religion. Conflicts would have still happened, but may have been more overtly political without religion being the excuse. The colonies if they had happened would have happened because Europeans were looking for resources rather than religious freedom most likely. They cause might have still been religion, but they would have likely brought paganism to the New World rather than Christianity. The end result after a few hundred or several hundred, no telling when Europeans would have come to the New World without the push of religion, would be that the US if it was called that would be much more like Europe.
Ricochet21
(3,794 posts)Great choice
Lone_Star_Dem
(28,158 posts)And, one I wish I'd picked. I knew I was thinking too short term with my choice.
While my choice would have slowed fascist regimes in our modern times, thus restructuring modern history, I didn't consider changing our entire concept or modern religion.
Congratulations on a thought provoking choice.
Posteritatis
(18,807 posts)There was never such a thing as "paganism" as a religion, after all, contrary to what so many people think these days, and most of the ones at the time weren't exactly cheery tolerant pacifist afafirs.
I shudder to think about what a Roman Empire that went Mithraic at the state level would be like.
Ya Basta
(391 posts)and not due to religion.
Posteritatis
(18,807 posts)If Constantine or Theodosius had made Mithraism the state religion of the Empire, in all likelihood our culture since then would have been determined by that every bit as much as it was steered by Christianity in ours. There weren't many other opportunities for an audience that wide to have a new major religion dropped on them since then, and things really could have gone in three or four different ways under the Romans religiously speaking.
demosincebirth
(12,824 posts)LooseWilly
(4,477 posts)I'm not sure that Mithraism didn't survive, with a change of character names for the same actors, into our new Empire...
Jesus as a justifier of colonialism is a delusional re-constitutionalization of any of the gospels quotations...
demosincebirth
(12,824 posts)Posteritatis
(18,807 posts)demosincebirth
(12,824 posts)that is exactly 136 years after the fall of the Roman Empire. Doesn't look like centuries to me.
By the way, 476 is the date given by historians to the downfall of the RE.
Ya Basta
(391 posts) Tom Ripley
(4,945 posts)leveymg
(36,418 posts)Great Game, or Yogi Berra.
No Yogi Berra, no Ballentine Ale, No Mets! Forget it!
klook
(13,579 posts)OK, Constantine stays.
leveymg
(36,418 posts)Nor is the past. Can you imagine America in the 1950s without the Russians? We'd of never won the Cold War without them.
LooseWilly
(4,477 posts)klook
(13,579 posts)
BlueinOhio
(238 posts)He was a mithras worshiper. He managed to replace Jesus with Mithras.
leveymg
(36,418 posts)Why would you prefer the Christianity of the Council of Constantinople to the more grass roots, egalitarian Christ-myth based in Mithras? Before you answer, please see, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10402a.htm
379 Theodosius, a devout Catholic, becomes the Eastern Roman Emperor (-395). For the first time in half a century, the State would favour Catholicism over Arianism. Theodosius is the first emperor to legislate against heresy. The churches of heretics are to be confiscated and handed over to the Catholic Church. Heretical gatherings are forbidden and heretics cannot make wills or inherit. He also legislates against apostasy from Christianity to Paganism.
*379 Death of St. Basil the Great (b. 329), Doctor of the Church.
380s *c. 381 Emperor Theodosius makes Christianity the de facto official religion of the Empire by forbidding the worship of the ancient Gods.
*381 The First Council of Constantinople. Presided by Pope Damasus and Emperor Theodosius I. It proclaimed the divinity of the Holy Spirit.
Efilroft Sul
(4,407 posts)Together, we'll do our best to save the Library of Alexandria and all the knowledge from antiquity. Such a deliberate destruction of humanity's accomplishments was the worst crime we ever perpetrated upon ourselves.
leveymg
(36,418 posts)That would set-back human learning and development even further, without immediately killing a single soul (but, wouldn't want to be in the air at the time it happens). Wouldn't want to be on the ground six months later.
Maybe, Robert Oppenheimer should be on that list.
Union Scribe
(7,099 posts)Yes, what a utopia the world would have been, verily.
ieoeja
(9,748 posts)A few decades after Constantine one Emperor tried to restore Paganism to counter the growing power of the Church. After decades of Christianity, the people were disgusted by the animal sacrifices. When rape gangs tried to celebrate the Saturnalia, there was a revolt. Paganism put to the torch, and a new Emperor installed.
Then there was the pacifism of early Christianity. Christianity did not make Pagan Europeans warlike. Pagan Europeans made Christianity warlike as missionaries and new converts began translating the bible in a manner more suitable to the northern Europeans.
But this was not a one-way street. As European Christianity became more martial, the Europeans became more peaceful. In some cases this led to disastrous results. The Danish conquest of England is widely blamed on the fact that the English had become so religiously pacifistic. One English kingdom (East Anglia, I think) offered no resistance whatsoever, even refusing to permit Mercia to defend them. The Danes put a sword in the King's hand and tried to torture him into defending himself eventually tiring of the sport and killing him.
The Danes in turn began to embrace Christianity. They got a little more peaceful, and Christianity a little less so.
Kalidurga
(14,177 posts)neo-pagans. Also I am not a pacifist. I think war is a bad thing. But, if someone started some chit I would not hesitate to put it down. My whole and perhaps only point is the world over all would have been better off if Christianity would have remained a small cult instead of the mammoth money making(taking) machine that it is today.
OffWithTheirHeads
(10,337 posts)GoCubsGo
(34,871 posts)Prescott Bush. At least two generations of suffering and the deaths of tens of thousands of lives could have been saved.
Freddie
(10,094 posts)Was also part of the 1933 plot to overthrow the US Government in order to get FDR out of office. The charm on that family goes way back.
craigmatic
(4,510 posts)We'd still have gotten independence eventually but we'd be more like Canada with less gun crime and universal healthcare.
sadbear
(4,340 posts)Excuse my ignorance, but I need more than that.
craigmatic
(4,510 posts)The British were quicker to end the slave trade. Women's sufferage would've been quicker. There would have been no civil war and our politics would look completely different from how they do today. We'd probably have a parliament and the government would be quicker to act and more accountable to the people. There'd probably be a longer history of egalitarianism due to the country not having been founded with slavery still existing. Gun rights wouldn't be a wedge issue and niether would abortion. Size of government still would be. Of course we would've been involved in the World Wars earlier.
Douglas Carpenter
(20,226 posts)Thus a British dominated America would have seen significantly less or at least significantly slower expansion. The U.S. population would probably be significantly less and the land a lot less developed. Of course far fewer Indian wars. The entire character of America would be different and a lot fewer Americans.
Uncle Joe
(64,911 posts)in North America.
Confusious
(8,317 posts)Most everything you said was correct and I agree with it.
But..
The United States granted women's suffrage to everyone over 21 in 1920,
The UK, in 1918, but only to women over 30.
To all women over 21 in 1928.
Ps. after looking a little more, seems that had a right to vote in local elections in the late 19th.
They still weren't much faster then the United States.
Uh, and it seems the British treated the protesters a lot worse then the states.
lastlib
(28,078 posts)...America would have essentially degenerated into a congeries of separate independent nation-states, with possibly a few merging to fend off other larger neighbors. A lot of ugly little wars might have followed....you could speculate a lot on how it all would have played out, but I doubt seriously you would see anything like our constitution, with all 13 colonies buying into it--unless threats from Britain and France forced them to unify.
1monster
(11,045 posts)German Empire?
liberallibral
(272 posts)You have a chance to ELIMINATE one person from history, and arguably the greatest AMERICAN that has ever lived comes to your mind???
Oh...My....GOODNESS!!!
Please keep 'em coming!!!! 
dmr
(28,705 posts)This is one I would never agree to or think of ever.
There are too many murdering tyrants in which to choose. I'm embarrassed this answer is here on DU.
liberallibral
(272 posts)I thought the most popular answer (Reagan - and I'm no fan of his) was bad, but Washington??? Really??? Good grief.... 
craigmatic
(4,510 posts)interpret things for ourselves. You don't have to agree but why be embarrassed?
craigmatic
(4,510 posts)have been paid because the Brits did keep the colonies safe during the French and Indian war. It was selfish and wrong. When the colonists came here they knew they were giving up their right to vote in exchange for economic opportunity. You can't complain when you know the rules and things don't go your way. Now could the Brits have given them more say yes but they were fighting a series of wars that the colonists were benefitting from too. The only good thing Washington did was step down after 2 terms.
ieoeja
(9,748 posts)The colonies were never under serious threat from the French. The Brits wanted Canada, not the other way around. And taxes had very little to do with the American Revolution.
King George III's ministers felt the colonists were too independant. So they decided to crack the whip. Ironically, odds are the American Revolution would never have happened had the Court not taken steps to prevent it occuring!
Four words : Black Hole of Calcutta. Yes, that was in India and occurred after the American Revolution. But it was on the immediate heels thereof under pretty much the same sort of management. This, not taxes, was the sort of things that led to the American Revolution.
British Army : sent to control the colonists, not protect them. Disbanded colonial rangers so colonies had no advance warning of Pontiac's Rebellion. Took over negotiations after colonial militas, not the British Army, put down the uprising. Result : thousand of colonists dead. British Army handed over children of raped colonists, generally viewed by colonists as the "silver-lining" in that tragedy, to the Indians to raise instead of allowing their mothers to keep them as had been done by the colonies in the past.
Stamp Act : no document in the colonies is legal unless using the same stamped paper required in Great Britain. Sort of like a notary public today. Perfectly reasonable and not that costly. Except that the paper was manufactured by a single company licensed to do so, and the law went into affect long before that company could double output and setup a worldwide distribution system. The Court could have simply put the law on hold, but they wanted to crack that whip. Result : economic and social chaos. No contracts were valid. Little Johnny couldn't marry Little Susie whom he HAD to marry, so Little Susie became a pariah for having a child out of wedlock.
White Pines Act : all white pine trees reserved for the use of the British Navy as masts. This was an old law which fell into disuse once the Brits realized how massive North America was. But they wanted to crack that whip. So they started enforcing it. No new fields could be cleared, etc. And most pines were unsuitable for masts. But the Brits refused to make exceptions.
Sugar Act : Brits wanted to help their sugar growers by prohibiting the importation of French sugar and allowing the sugar growers to produce rum. French wanted to help their domestic distillation industry by prohibiting the manufacture of rum in French colonies. Result : French colonies had a glut of cheap sugar while the British colonies had no excess sugar as it was mostly being used for run. Companies in north American that required molasses were going out of business as none was to be found. But the Brits wanted to crack that whip.
Supreme Justice : a new position created after the French and Indian War and given power over colonial justice systems. Located in New Foundland far from the population centers. The Justice made attempts to shut down public education in New England because, ""they were failing our children and private institutions could do it better." Decades after everyone was dead and gone, private correspondance would become public showing that the Justice and the King's Court believed just the opposite. The schools were working too good. The people were no longer willing to listen to their "betters".
The list goes on....
craigmatic
(4,510 posts)It's trure that they wanted to restrict movement west too but that was largely to avoid a war with different Indians and other colonial powers. Did the British government make mistakes and bad decisions? Yes and they seemed especially worse after giving the colonies so much autonomy for so long but eventually these strict laws would've been relaxed just like things were in Canada.
Riftaxe
(2,693 posts)on April 5th, 1793.
He set the trend for corruption of democracy in the age of enlightenment to present, and even to this day has many adherents who desperately want to emulate him.
CrispyQ
(40,893 posts)part man all 86
(367 posts)Here is why, for the most part is true.
CrispyQ
(40,893 posts)Although I was thinking more along the lines of how nice a world this would be if humans had never existed. But thanks for the laugh. It's a keeper!
coalition_unwilling
(14,180 posts)
nichomachus
(12,754 posts)Without Adam, there would be no Eve. Remember? She was cloned from him.
LiberalEsto
(22,845 posts)The pagan Finns believed the world was hatched from a duck egg laid on the knee of the Goddess Ilmatar.
nichomachus
(12,754 posts)The god who created the world by masturbating.
The really interesting thing is that in Genesis, there are two stories about the creation of "man." There's the one where Eve came from Adam's rib. In the other one, largely ignored, they are created together.
LooseWilly
(4,477 posts)My theory went far more crazy sci-fi (rat evolution to take the place of mankind, but with cute tails)... but otherwise agreement...
El Supremo
(20,431 posts)He really started 30 years of world wars. We may have had them anyway, but he was the catalyst.
Xithras
(16,191 posts)No breakup of the Ottoman empire. No Nazi Germany. No middle eastern destablilization. Israel wouldn't exist. The U.S. wouldn't have risen to its world dominating superpower status. No Manhattan Project. No space race.
The world would be a VERY different place if he'd died at birth, and yet very few people even know who he is. He'll always stand as one of the preeminent examples of how one nobody can alter the course of human history.
leveymg
(36,418 posts)Last edited Mon Aug 13, 2012, 12:46 PM - Edit history (2)
the Black Hand Serbian ultra-nationalist group who had recuited Princip and the other "muscle" terrorists who sparked WWI.
Under cover as Ambassador, the real brains behind the assassination was Nicholas Von Hartwig,"more ardent a Serbian nationalist than any of the Serbs." He appears to have been a highly-placed agent provocateur loyal to the Germans, as were a number of others in the Russian Court and the Okhrana Guard unit that had been playing the role of court policeman in St. Petersburg on behalf of Prussia that had occupied and subverted Russia from above beginning in the 1700s.
Cobalt Violet
(9,976 posts)Grave Grumbler
(160 posts)Instead of the late 15th. Not much of a change.
Dash87
(3,220 posts)but they didn't care too much when they found it. They were just like "mmm... Okay...?" and continued going rather than making it a home.
MattSh
(3,714 posts)and much preferred Greenland?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Greenland
vaberella
(24,634 posts)L0oniX
(31,493 posts)leveymg
(36,418 posts)
Son of Gob
(1,502 posts)L0oniX
(31,493 posts)
Son of Gob
(1,502 posts)
L0oniX
(31,493 posts)
Son of Gob
(1,502 posts) L0oniX
(31,493 posts)If you did then that's ok ...I saw and heard the same name calling sort of thing way back when I was in grade school.
Son of Gob
(1,502 posts)L0oniX
(31,493 posts)Apparently you have a problem with me, which is what I thought. If so you can put me on ignore. I don't even want to try to figure out why you are speaking up for the person I suggested ...maybe you are him with another member name ...and welcome to my ignore dungeon.
Son of Gob
(1,502 posts)You sound pissed. 
ohiosmith
(24,262 posts)At Sun Aug 12, 2012, 11:16 PM an alert was sent on the following post:
No, you seem pretty pissed though.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=1121095
REASON FOR ALERT:
This post is disruptive, hurtful, rude, insensitive, over-the-top, or otherwise inappropriate. (See <a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=aboutus#communitystandards" target="_blank">Community Standards</a>.)
ALERTER'S COMMENTS:
It would seem that this member is trying to insult me by inferring that I am a "Douchebag*" First he says the suggested person pisses off Douchebags and then says "you seem pretty pissed though."
You served on a randomly-selected Jury of DU members which reviewed this post. The review was completed at Sun Aug 12, 2012, 11:30 PM, and the Jury voted 1-5 to LEAVE IT.
Juror #1 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: I feel like I am dealing with children. The person who reported this post started the insinuations of the other poster being a douchebag and he followed along the same train.
Pretty immature and stupid, but it should stand.
Juror #2 voted to HIDE IT and said: Pointless insult. Hide it.
Juror #3 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: No explanation given
Juror #4 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: No explanation given
Juror #5 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: The alerter started the exchange with post #137. Leave the post.
Juror #6 voted to LEAVE IT ALONE and said: No explanation given
Thank you very much for participating in our Jury system, and we hope you will be able to participate again in the future.
Son of Gob
(1,502 posts)Wow, he must have been pissed.
sharp_stick
(14,400 posts)You'd think they could figure out how to operate the ignore feature but I guess its a bit too advanced.
Speck Tater
(10,618 posts)Of course, odds are there never was such a person in the first place, so it might be a moot point.
Ya Basta
(391 posts)Since he's the focal point of all the three monotheistic religions which have caused so much death and destruction throughout history? That is of course as you point out if these biblical characters ever existed in the first place.
Union Scribe
(7,099 posts)You sound like you'll fit right in.
Ya Basta
(391 posts)I like what a lot of people here post and the speed at which all the replies come in. Looks like a good forum.
SammyWinstonJack
(44,315 posts)gets my vote....religion is some evil shite!
coalition_unwilling
(14,180 posts)taken care of the problem too
stopbush
(24,798 posts)Ya Basta
(391 posts) 
a la izquierda
(12,301 posts)that most religions have an element of violence in them when you really get to the heart of them (and completely looking at them from a 21st century, American perspective). I'll give examples I know best, outside the Judeo-Christian purview: religion in the Americas.
Mesoamerican religions included an element of violence that had nothing to do with Judeo-Christian beliefs.
Same with beliefs in the Andes that predate the Incas.
Same with beliefs in the Amazon.
Was there a convert or die mentality present in the Americas? Not really, as far as we can tell (the Aztecs demanded that conquered peoples simply add Aztec principle gods to the conquered folks' pantheon, but that's about it). I'm less familiar with North America, but I've never heard such a thing.
Nonetheless, there was violence attributed to religion.
I get what you're suggesting, though. However, Jesus didn't ever say "Kill you neighbors if they disagree with you about my teachings." His followers in the later centuries, however, seem to have forgotten his main tenets.
FreeState
(10,702 posts)Posteritatis
(18,807 posts)Grave Grumbler
(160 posts)If it wasn't him, it would have been something else.
Xithras
(16,191 posts)While it's true that Europe had been flirting with war for some time, the scale of WW1 was largely attributable to the so-called "Blank Check" that Germany gave Austria after the assassination. Most of the surviving works from that era suggest that leaders did expect war, but they were looking toward smaller, regional conflicts. The assassination, and the subsequent overreaction of the Central Powers, caused a regional conflict to escalate into a global one.
If WW1 had not occurred, there are many historians who believe that Europe would have simply slogged through several additional smaller wars in the 20th century. These would likely have been intense but short, similar to the Franco-Prussian War.
fishwax
(29,346 posts)
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)You'll know that history in many ways is a vast continuing series of improbable events, Connections really only talks about the history of science and scientific discoveries but the principle is the same for all of history.
If you go back much before your own birth there's an excellent chance that you will never be born which of course means that you won't be going back to change history which means you will be born which means ....
Removing any given historical figure could just as easily make things worse as make them better, there's really no way of knowing in advance..
The scary thing is that we might just be living in the best of all possible worlds..
https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!forum/soc.history.what-if
truebrit71
(20,805 posts)...very educational and highly captivating..
grantcart
(53,061 posts)I would say Joseph Smith.
CabCurious
(954 posts)
Duer 157099
(17,742 posts)Then Tesla is able to bestow all his gifts upon humanity.
liberallibral
(272 posts)Don't think I'd want to eliminate Edision, but you make an interesting point!
vaberella
(24,634 posts)liberallibral
(272 posts)Tesla was a legendary scientist and a definite man of the people!!!!!
Panasonic
(2,921 posts)and have him castrated before he spawns.
cali
(114,904 posts)WWII cost the lives of 60 million people- around 2.5% of the world's population. It's the most costly war in terms of casualties ever fought.
Given that fact, it's difficult to pick any other historical figure.
Though i thinl a strong case is made above for Constantine too.
southernyankeebelle
(11,304 posts)If it weren't for her maybe the nasties she was able to bring to the country would be less hateful.
But Number 1 should be Fox News and Rightwing talk radio. Crazy train.
ProdigalJunkMail
(12,017 posts)would be interesting if someone else had been given the mantle of expanding the gospel...
sP
Bragi
(7,650 posts)
Deep13
(39,157 posts)While clearly based on an earlier oral tradition, Paul's writings actually predate the canonical gospels. I'm looking at Paul as the founder of Christianity, not as the guy who perverted Jesus's teachings. I figure if the the redemption by vicarious suffering doctrine were stopped, monotheism (if Christianity really is monotheistic) would never have gotten off the ground. Islam, insofar as it is a reaction to Christian hegemony, would at least be very different and perhaps not exist at all. There would then be no east/west dichotomy and imperialists would need other justifications for pillaging that region.
ProdigalJunkMail
(12,017 posts)while Paul does predate...if we are to believe the story of the Gospels then Paul simply took it forward to the masses...while making some pretty audacious claims about meeting Jesus. Paul certainly is the founder of modern christianity, though. without him (or someone in his stead) it would have withered. the world would certainly be a different place were it not for him...
sP
lpbk2713
(43,267 posts)He's a shit stain on the pages of history.
kestrel91316
(51,666 posts)liberallibral
(272 posts)No doubt about it... Most historians believe Mao's rule caused the deaths of between 40-70 MILLION people. As EVIL as EVIL gets.....
Runner-ups would obviously go to Adolf and Joseph... Pretty damn EVIL, too!
Vidar
(18,335 posts)Freddie
(10,094 posts)Without her the Equal Rights Amendment would have passed and just maybe we wouldn't still be fighting about contraception after all these years!
Bombtrack
(9,523 posts)So you could possibly eliminate the 2 biggest mass murderers of the 20th century. The Nazis rise was ostensibly anti-communist. If the Soviet Union had been inherited by the Trotskyist wing of the bolsheviks, which you could say would probably have happened without Stalin, then perhaps the tensions between them and the west would have been minimized, and we could have avoided the Holocaust, World War II, and the Cold War all together.
Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)to use your example, eliminating Hitler would negate my own existence (both sets of my grandparents met when my grandfathers were far from home in the Army during WWII). Along with, probably, the existence of most human beings born in Europe and probably North America as well since c. 1939-1942. The world we live in would be pretty much unrecognisable and most of us wouldn't be here.
RZM
(8,556 posts)And we're simply not capable of determining what the world of today would look like if we eliminated a major figure like Hitler. It could be a much better world, it could be one that's about the same, or it could be a nuclear wasteland. There's no way to know.
But if I had to pick somebody, it would have to be Hitler.
bupkus
(1,981 posts)If he had been eliminated we could have avoided this entire mess altogether.
mfcorey1
(11,134 posts)
WI_DEM
(33,497 posts)I'm sorry but I think that JFK is one of the most overestimated people in history.
mfcorey1
(11,134 posts)
charlyvi
(6,537 posts)RZM
(8,556 posts)Assuming no Genghis meant no Mongol conquests as well.
China, Central Asia, the Middle East, and Russia would all have ended up quite different, I think.
Dash87
(3,220 posts)catapult dead bodies into a besieged city, knowing that it would cause a contained spread of the plague within that city. A true warrior and total creep and the same time!
charlyvi
(6,537 posts)Than Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot combined. His reputation is undergoing somewhat of a whitewash these days, so I thought I would remind folks of this. Estimates run from 20 to 50 million people throughout Asia, Russia, Mongolia and various other countries. Whatever historians give him credit for -- it wasn't worth it.
sadbear
(4,340 posts)bluerum
(6,109 posts)
Spirochete
(5,264 posts)"Don't worry, be happy"
Rosco T.
(6,496 posts)father of the GOP Dirty Tricks, teacher of KKKarl Rove...
WI_DEM
(33,497 posts)yawnmaster
(2,812 posts)an oscillatory existence perhaps?
Xipe Totec
(44,547 posts)Time Enough For Love
"Da Capo"
In the concluding tale, Lazarus, in a quest to experience something "new", attempts to travel backward in time to 1919 in order to experience it as an adult; but an error in calculation places Lazarus in 1916 on the eve of America's involvement in World War I. An unintentional result is that Lazarus falls in love with his own mother. In order to retain her esteem and that of his grandfather, Lazarus enlists in the army. Eventually Lazarus and his mother, Maureen, consummate their mutual attraction before Lazarus leaves for France.
While in France, he is mortally wounded in the trenches of the Western Front, but rescued by those with whom he appears in Boondock and returned to his own time.
Motown_Johnny
(22,308 posts)yawnmaster
(2,812 posts)on second thought, I believe I have read that guy.
RZM
(8,556 posts)Lots to choose from. Stalin's a good choice, but I would probably opt for Lenin instead. No Lenin heavily reduces the chances of a Bolshevik seizure of power. The Tsarist state still would have collapsed, but I kind of doubt the Bolsheviks would have taken power without Lenin. Without Bolshevik government, Stalin would have spent his career on the sidelines.
So that means no Stalinist crimes and quite possibly a very different kind of international political situation as Hitler was coming to power. If Russia and the West had been better able to work together in the 1930s, Hitler might have been successfully contained (and perhaps a bit less obsessed with conquering the Soviet Union, since it wouldn't exist).
So removing Lenin give you a good chance of removing Stalin and possibly of containing Hitler as well. Of course, that might have meant a weaker/more divided Russia. But in that scenario you also have a larger and more powerful Poland. Without the Soviets to worry about, Poland could have focused on looking West. Lots of opportunities there for real cooperation against Hitler before he became too strong.
undeterred
(34,658 posts)He should be drowned in a bathtub full of liberal spit.
Enrique
(27,461 posts)Son of Gob
(1,502 posts)If he's gone some other schlub is sitting in that seat trying to catch the ball. It would play out the same way whoever was sitting there.
sadbear
(4,340 posts)Go back and kill the goat and presto, no more curse. 
Son of Gob
(1,502 posts)Only way to stop that is to kill the first ever goat. But that's stupid because curses aren't real in the first place. You could kill Abner Doubleday but that may not work because no one actually knows who the fuck invented baseball.
As far as I can tell there is no one specific person we could kill that would unfuck the Cubs.
Gidney N Cloyd
(19,847 posts)Incitatus
(5,317 posts)Give nature a second chance.
Union Scribe
(7,099 posts)You do know the REPUBLICANS are supposed to be the party of hating humanity right?
yawnmaster
(2,812 posts)and "nature" will survive with or without man.
lastlib
(28,078 posts)that was Alexander Graham Bell (hence the Bell System.) Edison's other main inventions were the phonograph and the
motion picture.
To address your central idea: Yes, der Fuehrer would be my first choice, as I think it would be everyone's. But for purposes of discussion, I will go with Josef Stalin. To me, he epitomizes evil to an extent surpassed only by Adolf. The 1917 Revolution would have taken a different course, Trotsky would likely have been Lenin's successor, and millions might have been spared the gulag. The Soviet state might not have become the oppressive monster that it became under Stalin and his followers, and it might have endured into this century, or evolved toward a more "democratic" model.
Of course, I would also like to see Poppy Bush's sperm run down his leg instead of becoming Dubya. That would have spared America much misery.
Grave Grumbler
(160 posts)And I'll edit the post. Thank you for the correction!
(can't believe I goofed up like that)
yawnmaster
(2,812 posts)a kept Alex from being born, well then.
Lil Missy
(17,865 posts)
Auntie Bush
(17,528 posts)Dick Cheney has influenced our lives more than anyone.
No Dick! No Bush presidency. Kill too birds with one stone. Also no Liz or daughter to boot. What a peaceful world this might have been without him and his influence! I'll bet Harry Wittington would agree with me! lol
Motown_Johnny
(22,308 posts)and all the problems they have caused.
Edit to add: and with any luck, the dark ages.
RZM
(8,556 posts)I don't think you could hold back monotheism forever just by taking out Abraham. The only effect of this would be that some other Abraham would have taken his place.
seanpencil
(168 posts)on what basis?
SammyWinstonJack
(44,315 posts)Motown_Johnny
(22,308 posts)I'm not saying it would end religion but it would have taken a different course. With any luck there would not have been any dark ages and maybe not any holy wars over the "holy land".
vaberella
(24,634 posts)Who do I have kill for that to happen?
RZM
(8,556 posts)First of all, you're only shaving about 30 years off of slavery in the US, since the British didn't completely eliminate it until the 1830s. And would that have even happened with the American south as an important part of the British empire? That might have affected some of their arguments/calculations about slavery. It certainly would have made it harder to give it up.
Not only that, but what would be the consequences for the British Empire were it able to marshal the resources and manpower in America into the subsequent centuries? You're talking hyperpower here, before anything existed as such. A Britain with America backing it up would have been much more formidable. Don't forget that the US generally stood AGAINST European colonialism for much of its history. That held true going into the Cold War, when the Americans were consistently annoyed with European attempts to hang on to colonies in the face of the Soviet alternative.
vaberella
(24,634 posts)The British Empire's form of slavery was indentured servitude in much of it's colonies. The exceptionalism of the United States in enacting slavery is due to the way it was implemented and how disturbing it was. The British did have slavery but it was again more like indentured servitude versus being used as cattle and/or put in muzzles---again very unique to the United States. So even if the British Empire did maintain some of the colonies in the South...Like Virginia or South Carolina it would still have had an indentured servitude. American forefathers are the ones that made Blacks into slaves.
I think the problem would not be so much Slavery being stopped. If I have to think the persecution of native people's...I need to as far back as hoping Columbus' ship sunk.
RZM
(8,556 posts)So all of those 'indentured servants' chopping sugar cane in Jamaica had it so much better than the slaves in the US south? How do you account then for the large number of rebellions they took part in, not to mention the large maroon communities there, which hardly existed in the continental US.
The idea that slavery was so much worse in the American south than in the Caribbean is pretty tough to defend. I'm pretty sure the opposite was true. It was quite possibly worse in the French and Spanish Caribbean colonies. But I find it hard to believe that British slavery was so much better in the Caribbean than it was in the US south. One of the reasons British slavery ended when it did was because of a large and violent uprising in Jamaica in 1831.
McCamy Taylor
(19,240 posts)
MichaelSoE
(1,576 posts)
arely staircase
(12,482 posts)ZombieHorde
(29,047 posts)I will never forgive him for what he did to The Last Airbender.
/nerd rage
mainstreetonce
(4,178 posts)If you want to talk recent history
Lucy Goosey
(2,940 posts)Horrible woman, horrible books, horrible ideas.
tech3149
(4,452 posts)Without him we might never been sold into WW1, which would have avoided WW2. Then the whole PR/perception management, psychological manipulation would be set back decades.
Lucy Goosey
(2,940 posts)Bragi
(7,650 posts)leveymg
(36,418 posts)Highly influential organizer, but not really an original thinker like his Father in Law, whose insights he perverted for Madison Ave and the George Creel Commission. More like Leslie Groves than Robert Oppenheimer.
seanpencil
(168 posts)RC
(25,592 posts)George Bush's grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany.
The Guardian has obtained confirmation from newly discovered files in the US National Archives that a firm of which Prescott Bush was a director was involved with the financial architects of Nazism.
His business dealings, which continued until his company's assets were seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act, has led more than 60 years later to a civil action for damages being brought in Germany against the Bush family by two former slave labourers at Auschwitz and to a hum of pre-election controversy.
The evidence has also prompted one former US Nazi war crimes prosecutor to argue that the late senator's action should have been grounds for prosecution for giving aid and comfort to the enemy.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/sep/25/usa.secondworldwar
Slow down Hitler and stop the evil Bush line. We could even have had Single Payer, Universal Health Care by now.
crimson77
(305 posts)Wiped out a whole side of my girlfriends family, her mom still cries about it,all the time.
patrice
(47,992 posts)McCamy Taylor
(19,240 posts)The Democratic Party is the one with the big umbrella. We are inclusive, not exclusive. We know that if we respect each other and make use of each others strengths and make allowances for each others weaknesses, we can create a better society. If we call another person disposable or unnecessary or inconvenient, we violate the most basic principle of our country which is "We must all hang together, or we will all hang separately."
The Nazis persuaded Germany that they could improve their country by eliminating certain people. Democrats fought a war to prove the Nazis wrong. Actions can be wrong depending upon the circumstances. People are never wrong. Sometimes, the right thing to do is to make it impossible for others to do the wrong thing. However, the right thing is never, ever to make it impossible for others to be.
For those who prefer to look at history in Marxist terms, people are a product of their society. Germany created Hitler. Rome created Constantine. Some writer in Palestine created Abraham---probably around 200 BC. These folks do not exist in history as human beings. They are myths. And if we could go back in time and erase the name which ancient Rome gave to its myth of Constantine, Rome would give the myth a new name.
I think it would be interesting to go back in time and stop the mega volcanic eruption of 70,000 BC that caused a human bottle neck in which only a few 1000 of us survived. I think that event probably had more to do with making us cruel (to survive) and cunning (for the same reason) than anything else that has happened in history. However, without the eruption, I doubt that I would be here posting this response on DU.
leveymg
(36,418 posts) 
GoneOffShore
(18,015 posts)
ailsagirl
(24,287 posts)
liberal N proud
(61,190 posts)seanpencil
(168 posts)Union Scribe
(7,099 posts)seanpencil
(168 posts)Union Scribe
(7,099 posts)seanpencil
(168 posts)Union Scribe
(7,099 posts)I guess you'll just have to deal with that.
seanpencil
(168 posts)you do.
vaberella
(24,634 posts)I would want his ship sunk. I would sink it and all my ancestors...would no longer be my ancestors but they would not have been persecuted as they were!
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)Or at least the finger pointing.
limpyhobbler
(8,244 posts)One shot Martin Luther King.
The other is self explanatory.
sadbear
(4,340 posts)hlthe2b
(113,670 posts)Damn you! LOL
mythology
(9,527 posts)I'd probably have to go with who ever decided that having Jessie J be the star of the closing ceremony was a good idea. Sure nobody can take Freddie Mercury, but she was just awful. I'd have preferred that they have nobody singing instead that horrid tripe.
Ter
(4,281 posts)Never change the past and expect the future to be good. No Hitler? Germany might have someone who doesn't want to take over the world, but picks a fight with Russia in 1957. WWII starts then, then all-out nuke war. No more humans by 1960.
riderinthestorm
(23,272 posts)would be a GOOD thing imho.....
Grave Grumbler
(160 posts)I was just pointing out that eliminating such figures would have massive consequences to the historic narrative.
white_wolf
(6,257 posts)You'd wipe out all three of the monotheistic faiths.
madinmaryland
(65,717 posts)What if the North had called for a ceasefire in 1862 ending an unpopular war at the time. A Southern US continuing on with slavery.
All it takes is just a slight twist of history to change completely the way the world would be today.
Grave Grumbler
(160 posts)madinmaryland
(65,717 posts)Welcome to DU!
Bragi
(7,650 posts)Wonderful discussion and some great picks. I
'll go with Hitler, followed by Constantine.
Grave Grumbler
(160 posts)B Calm
(28,762 posts)ailsagirl
(24,287 posts)Too much!!
Comrade_McKenzie
(2,526 posts)It might create a whole new outcome in which I would have never been born.
And that's just not something I'm not willing to give up.
So, anyone in the last 24 years. Hmm... that's a tough one.
mysuzuki2
(3,580 posts)ailsagirl
(24,287 posts) emilyg
(22,742 posts)
MatthewStLouis
(920 posts)Many people started listening to him and drinking his kool-aid during the 80's. His BS "ring of truth" propaganda has done untold harm to our democracy.
Response to Grave Grumbler (Original post)
ailsagirl This message was self-deleted by its author.
Skittles
(171,146 posts)
PADemD
(4,482 posts)
Beacool
(30,513 posts)I just read last night about two survivors of Treblinka and the horrors they lived and saw. In Treblinka they were gassing 15,000 people A DAY!!! It's hard to comprehend so much evil.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2186984/Stories-Treblinka-Last-living-survivors-speak-horrors-haunting-memories-Nazi-death-camp.html
truebrit71
(20,805 posts)..it'll rot your brain...
Beacool
(30,513 posts)But it has some interesting articles. Historical pics of abandoned towns, articles on life in the 19th century, etc. Like you said, most of it will rot your brain, but I peruse it for the few gems.
truebrit71
(20,805 posts)...but then I'm just a dirty old man 
Beacool
(30,513 posts)Straight or gay, all guys I know get whiplash staring at some cute guy or gal (depending their preferences). My gay friends can spot a cute guy way before I do.
Deep13
(39,157 posts)coalition_unwilling
(14,180 posts)ProdigalJunkMail
(12,017 posts)i suggested it first... <whine> and i spelled Tarsus right.
sP
coalition_unwilling
(14,180 posts)made my comment and forgot to go back to delete mine.
Need an apology icon!
ProdigalJunkMail
(12,017 posts)the intertubes isn't really conducive to that, however!
it's all good.
sP
Deep13
(39,157 posts)Thanks for the right spelling. I should have checked.
ProdigalJunkMail
(12,017 posts)i was playing...please don't think at all about it...i had to look it up.
sP
Ezlivin
(8,153 posts)N/T
cecilfirefox
(784 posts)
MrScorpio
(73,772 posts)Had Lincoln lived throughout his second term, A. Johnson would not have been allowed to rescind Reconstruction and Jim Crow would have been averted during his term.
coalition_unwilling
(14,180 posts)assassination in Sarajevo by Serbian nationalists in June 1914, there is no World War I. Without World War I, there is no World War II, no Holocaust and the world might thus have had several more Einsteins, Freuds and (Karl) Marxes. For who among us can say what genius perished in the Holocaust?
OTOH, without a World War I, Ho Chi Minh would not have been able to approach President Wilson at Versailles with a petition calling for independence for Vietnam. Wilson's refusal to meet with Ho set in motion events that would make a stirring narrative of national liberation that lasted for 3/4 of a century. So not too sure about eliminating World War I.
I started by picking the war criminal Kissinger, then backed up to Robert McNamara, then to Allen Dulles, thence to Hitler. It was my consideration of Hitler that led me to Archduke Ferdinand.
Then I started to think about my other love, music. If only I could have removed the composer of that annoying State Farm ditty ("Like a good neighbor . . . "
Great thread. I tip my hat to you.
Justice wanted
(2,657 posts)that with good comes bad and with bad comes good by going along your line of thinking by killing say Hitler--which he was evil and all--that action would have stopped several other events and people that shape who we are today.
The German scientists that fled Europe in fear of Hitler came to America and help developed our space program. If Hitler wasn't alive YES MILLIONS of people would not have died BUT would we have the advance in space now?
What about the artists, writers and musicians that left or relocated to be safe and the works that came about from the evils of the war.
And yes, you mention how modern day where to change and maybe unrecognizable if someone like Jesus or Muhammad never been born BUT the same could be said about taking advantage and killing someone evil. It may have stop one evil but it also may have prevented or change good that benefited from that evil...
(Or am I too drunk that people can't make sense of what I'm saying?)
krispos42
(49,445 posts)He seems to be the guy that distorted the teachings of Jesus.
(be gentle; not religious!)
Maybe Alan Greenspan or Ayn Rand.
Hmmmmm... what about keeping Lenin from being born?
niyad
(131,760 posts)cali
(114,904 posts)you're not the only person in this thread who chose her. Perhaps you're being tongue in cheeK?
TBF
(36,397 posts)niyad
(131,760 posts)may not have caused any actual physical deaths, but this "sweetheart of the silent majority" has been a menace for many years.
cali
(114,904 posts)suffering? Unless one simply thinks that that's not an important criteria.
niyad
(131,760 posts)I am still sorry I didn't run her over when I had the chance all those decades ago.
Sheepshank
(12,504 posts)In March 2007, Schlafly said in a speech at Bates College, "By getting married, the woman has consented to sex, and I don't think you can call it rape
niyad
(131,760 posts)who preferred not to die in a nuclear holocaust was a coward.
and let us not forget her dear son andrew, founder of conservapedia (because wiki is just tooooo
"liberal"
PopeOxycontinI
(176 posts)If not for that "Great Awakening" horseshit, Puritanism would have died the fuck out
in just a few years. The Enlightenment would have taken more root here, and we
would be more civilized and egalitarian like Europe. The fundies and their odd bedfellows,
the economic royalists, would be less numerous and troublesome.
The Revolution might have happened later,though, we might develop parallel to Canada.
P.S.-I think hypotheticals like this should have a rule against Hitler, Stalin,etc. Too easy.
Think.
LeftishBrit
(41,450 posts)Not only did he commit and cause incredible atrocities, but in the case of many evil people, if they hadn't existed and risen to power, someone else similar would have. If Hitler had not existed, I don't think anyone else would have taken his place.
But plenty of choice: Stalin, Pol Pot, going back earlier Genghis Khan, Ivan the Terrible, and many others.
scheming daemons
(25,487 posts)More atrocities committed by the religions they created than by any other entities on earth.
TBF
(36,397 posts)if not for these 3 we might still have a hard left in this country. If I have to narrow it down to one it's Palmer because he hired J. Edgar Hoover and McCarthy came later ...
RufusTFirefly
(8,812 posts)Walsh, FDR's Attorney General designee, hated Hoover for the way he dissembled before the Senate during the hearings after the Palmer raids. (Walsh also played a key role in exposing the Teapot Dome scandal.)
It was generally accepted that Walsh would fire Hoover as soon as he took over at the DOJ. Unfortunately, Senator Walsh, who had just remarried, died en route to Washington for Roosevelt's inauguration.
Granted, Walsh was not a young man -- age 73 -- but his sudden death by heart attack was most fortuitous from Hoover's perspective.
joshcryer
(62,536 posts)He wound up overseeing (not necessarily fomenting) the split of labor. He just wasn't aggressive enough. Just my humble opinion.
Not to say I wouldn't want him disappeared but it would've been better if we had someone more aggressive in his steed. Preventing Taft-Hartley would've been a better option but I don't know of one single person that would qualify. If we can pick two it'd be Taft and Hartley.
Missycim
(950 posts)Hitler or Stalin
I cant think of any two people in history that has created more suffering.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)outright extermination, Milton Friedman is high on any list I'd make. The man was a monster of the first order.
Missycim
(950 posts)I just got done watching a series of teh death camps in Poland I am sorry no way an economist can cause that level of suffering. Not saying he hasn't caused suffering on his own part.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)Everywhere Friedman's ideas have been put into practice - and it is a lot of places - millions have been impoverished, displaced, left to die and even murdered in the name of his lunatic ideas. Democracy has been circumvented or extinguished every place Friedmanism has touched. Klein provides the whole horrorshow tour.
Missycim
(950 posts)I will check it out
MicaelS
(8,747 posts)Considering all the murders he caused to happen, IMO, everyone else is second rate.
Shadowflash
(1,536 posts)and eliminate the entire lineage of the first person who thought it was a great idea to have their waitstaff do a little dance and sing Happy Birthday to their patrons.
Starry Messenger
(32,380 posts)
dmallind
(10,437 posts)A man who makes even me wonder whether some entity with a tail and a pitchfork isn't fucking with us. Not a personally evil or powerful tyrant as most people are suggesting they would choose, but one who seemed placed by destiny expressly to endanger and damage the planet.
When the same guy is responsible for endemic lead poisoning and ozone depletion you have to scratch your head.
Who put lead into gasoline and CFCs into refrigerants? Thomas fucking Midgley.
polly7
(20,582 posts)Despite Germany being a favourable environment for anyone choosing capitalize on the discontent at the time, it took a particular person to take it to the horrors Hitler managed.
hyphenate
(12,496 posts)Republicans have tried forever to instill fear into people through one means or another. McCarthy's "Red Scare" is one such ploy,and I think without his particular credibility, the US would have a short break in dealing with such things.
Of course, wiping out the whole series of testimonies won't happen, because unfortunately they will. However, without the charisma of McCarhty, the testimonies wouldn't appear as salacious as they happened, and the country would shift ever so much to the left, without the constsnt worry about McCarthyism.
That'gentle prod, though, would--or at least could ramp up more democratic politics, and along the way, perceptions could change altogether. Imagine no Nixon, no Reagan, to Bushs.
Whether we'd be better off or not, I don't know. I would just hope it would be worth it.
Javaman
(65,610 posts)oh wait, he wasn't on the list.
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)This is a brilliant strategy if I do say so myself.
By getting rid of the next GOP President now, I save us from what ever that idiot would have done, while also not changing my past or your past in any detrimental way.
BOG PERSON
(2,916 posts)or Mahatma Gandhi
lot of tacit fascists in this thread, wanting to take out Stalin
Arugula Latte
(50,566 posts)Are you defending Stalin? The murderer of 20 million people?
BOG PERSON
(2,916 posts)so cheap is the life of the avg russian (edit. let's say the avg former soviet citizen, it wasn't all russians) in the eyes of the educated liberal that 10, 20, 30 or even 60 million is all the same difference.
joshcryer
(62,536 posts)That is enough, isn't it?
Posteritatis
(18,807 posts)white_wolf
(6,257 posts)So are you saying they are tacit fascists? Is the only acceptable form of socialism Marxism-Leninism?
BOG PERSON
(2,916 posts)not sure about left-coms though. their analyses of the soviet union seem less idealist or personality driven (and just generally less *whiny*) to me. at the same time i am uncomfortable with their flat-out rejection of imperialism as a social fact and their opposition to trade unionism as well.
in answer to your second question : it's not a matter of acceptability, it's just a matter of *historical conditions*. imho.
TBF
(36,397 posts)joshcryer
(62,536 posts)LeftishBrit
(41,450 posts)And how is it fascist to be against Stalin?
ieoeja
(9,748 posts)Supreme Court ruled the Cherokee State eligible for admission. Congress was ready to grant it statehood.
President Andrew Jackson warned Congress that he had the US Army in his pocket and that he would dissolve the United States and establish a kingdom under his authority if Congress proceeded.
The wealthy were more threatened by Jackson's populist positions than by his hatred. So they looked among their number and found Harrison whose hatred possiblity exceeded Jackson. Similar to Nixon's Southern Strategy they decided to embrace bigotry to attain power. Killing American Indians became the third rail of US politics for the remainder of the century.
They discarded the enlightenment, and the promise of America was dimmed.
Myrina
(12,296 posts)n/t
FSogol
(47,586 posts)grrrrrrrrrrrrrr 
Proud Public Servant
(2,097 posts)Pretty much everything wrong with Christianity stems not from the teachings of Jesus, but from the embellishments and interpretations of Paul. Misogyny? Paul. Homophobia? Paul. Emphasis on Christ's divinity rather than his humanity? Paul. Emphasis on faith rather than good works? Paul. And all of the atrocities committed in the name of Jesus throughout history (which, taken together, make Hitler look like a piker) tend, theologically, to be traceable back to Paul's take on things. Saul/Paul, definitely.
white_wolf
(6,257 posts)I know Paul bragged in one of his letters about opposing Peter on some issue. James the Just, placed a strong emphasis on good works and declared faith without works was dead.
WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)Marinedem
(373 posts)While relatively harmless, his ideology influenced men that committed genocides and mass murders that made Hitler look like a girl scout. No Marx, no Pol Pot, no Stalin, no Mao.
One stone, many birds.
Starry Messenger
(32,380 posts)Since it is socialist.
Marinedem
(373 posts)Provisions for military health care existed FAR before his time.
Starry Messenger
(32,380 posts)white_wolf
(6,257 posts)Social Security wouldn't have existed if FDR was pressured by the Left, hell most of the reforms of the New Deal came from socialist pressure.
Marinedem
(373 posts)the negative impacts that communist ideology has on human lives, I'd be willing to chance it and still eliminate Marx. Socialism would have come about eventually. If eliminating the ideological father of communism spared so many from suffering, I'd take the risk that someone else thought up socialized services in its absence.
TBF
(36,397 posts)trickle down only benefits the very richest in society.
The Communist Manifesto, one of the most brilliant pieces ever written imo: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch01.htm
Zorra
(27,670 posts)
alfredo
(60,287 posts)Response to Grave Grumbler (Original post)
Post removed
gopiscrap
(24,693 posts)Jack Rabbit
(45,984 posts)The world would have been a better place without the Roman Empire.
Barring that, I just arrange for Vercingetorix to kick his ass.
wickerwoman
(5,662 posts)but I think the Republic was doomed anyway. A really obscene % of their population were slaves, massively outnumbering actual Roman citizens and a smaller and smaller number of families were consolidating wealth to the point that they couldn't offer land incentives to soldiers anymore. Since no one wanted to be in the army for 20 years if you didn't get a bit of land at the end of it, they had to hire mercenaries for everything. It was inevitable that the whole thing would fall apart, for a lot of the same reasons the US is ailing at the moment.
Caesar was just the more charismatic, slightly less bloodthirsty version of Pompeii and then Sulla before him. If he'd died, there would have been someone else. Probably Augustus.
Jack Rabbit
(45,984 posts)The Republic was of no consequence. In spite of what you may have been told, it was about as democratic as a Tea Partier's vision of America. The Senate was a rich man's club and it membership was largely hereditary. It existed to impose its order on the slaves and plebeians. It was fundamentally tyrannical and elitist. For most Romans, there was little difference in life under the Caesars as under the Republic and the Republic was scant improvement to life under the Tarquins.
My objection to the Roman Empire is not for what it was to Romans compared to the Republic, but for what it was to subjugated peoples in the outer reaches of the Empire. Gallic tribes were better as self-governing entities than as subjects of foreign conquerors. Empires come into and tell the people "we're better than you and can take your natural wealth, kill your men and enslave your women and children." Check out what happened to the Dacians in 117 AD.
Caesar was just . . . (a) slightly less bloodthirsty version of (Pompey) and then Sulla before him.
Tell that the Gauls. Caesar decimated their numbers by wiping out entire villages. After the Gauls surrendered, Caesar had the hand of every tenth Gaul cut off to remind them all just who was in charge. Caesar was a genocidal maniac, no more majestic as Custer or the Nazis.
If he'd died, there would have been someone else. Probably Augustus.
Augustus was another piece of work, but he rode to power on his great uncle's reputation. He wouldn't have amounted to anything had he not been Caesar's grandnephew. He was good at only one thing, really: self-promotion. Come to think of it, that was Julius Caesar's greatest gift, too. Take a look at Augustus' successors: of the five emperors of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, only Claudius was hard working, competent administrator who could let his deeds speak for themselves. Otherwise, following the self-promoter Augustus we have Tiberius, Caligula and Nero. Such luminaries! It may have taken 500 years from Augustus to the formal end of the western Empire in 476 AD, but it has always looked to me as though the Empire was in decline from its inception.
wickerwoman
(5,662 posts)As I said in my previous post, the Republic was doomed because it was tyrannical and elitist. Erasing Caesar from history wouldn't have made it less tyrannical or elitist (if anything just the opposite since his political rivals were the Optimates- the epiteme of elitest snobs).
Yes Caesar was a genocidal maniac. So were Pompeii and Sulla who also killed people who had surrended to them and butchered both foreign and domestic rivals. There were a series of "Republican crises" centered around the "Great Men" of the first century BC in Rome. Even if you erased Caesar, there would inevitably have been another "Great Man" crisis that would have led to an Empire.
It just wasn't possible for such a small group to maintain power over such a massive slave population or wider colonies absent modern communication and transportation technology. The Senate weren't willing to share power outside their small group, making it inevitable that a demagogue would come along and replace them with a cult of personality.
And erasing Caesar wouldn't have spared Gaul from genocide either since after all the money Pompeii raked in from his conquests in Spain and the Near East, some other ambitious, money-starved Roman would have been eyeing Gaul anyway.
It's actually a really interesting question since so many Great People seem to be products of their times or representative of wider trends that were going on anyway. It's hard to choose someone who by sheer force of personality or will changed the course of history by themselves.
jmowreader
(53,103 posts)Arthur Laffer invented the "cutting taxes increases government revenues" theory that Ronald Reagan used to push this country into the brink of collapse.
William Simon bought, with a partner, the Gibson Greetings greeting-card company using $1 million in cash, $330,000 of which came out of his own checking account. (The whole transaction cost $80 million, of which $79 million was borrowed money.) Eighteen months later, they sold Gibson Greetings back to the public in an IPO which netted the partnership $290 million. Simon, himself, came out of it $70 million richer. Leveraged buyouts had existed before but were largely initiated by company founders who were selling their firms before retirement. Simon proved you could do an LBO for (obscene!) profit, which caused firms like Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Bain Capital to spring up. So, in short, if there was no William Simon, Mitt Romney would be running a Burger King in Detroit.
wickerwoman
(5,662 posts)without whom we would probably have been spared the Chicago School of Economics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_to_Serfdom
David__77
(24,579 posts)Trojan horses.
CreekDog
(46,192 posts)
NoPasaran
(17,317 posts)The actual impact on history would probably be small, but at least no one on DU would have that stupid avatar.
JustAnotherGen
(37,999 posts)The world would be better off without the "High Concept" film. Top Gun pales in comparison to the movie Charade. Flashdance pales in comparison to The Turning Point. Oh yeah - and Top Gun signifies or Hyper Military of the Reagan Era.