I haven’t read the book you mentioned and there cannot be any doubt that the Nazis regarded Slavic peoples as lesser human beings (“Untermenschen”). However, it is a common but false assumption to ascribe a grand masterplan to Nazi ideology. If you look at it closely, the Nazis didn’t really have a fully developed ideology apart from cornerstones like virulent anti-semitism and the dictatorial “Führerprinzip”. There were plans and ideas to basically enslave the peoples of Eastern Europe, mostly cooked up by Himmler’s SS, but the statement that the German army planned to exterminate the Polish in their entirety is probably false.

Also, the plight of Eastern Europeans during WWII and afterwards is well known and researched. What makes you think otherwise?

Whoa whoa whoa. Yes there were 9 million victims of the Holocaust and only 6 million were Jewish (with the bulk of the remainder Gentile Poles, assuming we consider Soviet POWs a different story) but don't marginalize or trivialize the Holocaust. The Jews were actively targeted for murder by the Nazis. They, and the Gypsies, were the only such group, And that's why they almost all died. Don't try to pretend it wasn't about the Jews.

To not contradict a person doesn't mean you agree... is that not obvious?

Also, can we show some working perhaps? Just a quote and a source will do



I applaud you for actually bringing up Stalin. How often do people seem to conveniently forget that he also ordered genocide? Maybe because the common targets were wealthy people, no one seems to mind much.

In other news, did you hear about how they're rounding up Holocaust deniers and having them shot?

Well Wahlberg was just a kid when he did that, and kids do really stupid shit, some moreso then others. I was more pissed at Stahl for needlessly dragging the subject up to begin with, I highly doubt Wahlberg is like that anymore, I think he reacted the way he did is because it's a part of his past that he's not at all proud of.

I also wouldn't want to meet two of the four Baldwin brothers, Alec and Stephen to be specific, the former because of what a jerk he was to his own daughter, and the latter because of him being increidbly anti-gay.

It was about the Jews yes, and other groups as well. What I'm saying is that it wasn't just the Jews and Gypsies that were specifically targeted by the Nazi's. People with disabilities, mental illnesses, gay men and lesbians, and Jehovah Witnesses were also targeted, or most generally, any group the Nazi's deemed inferior.

Since the whole point was to create a master Aryan race, any one who could not contribute to that race was targeted for murder, sterilization, or imprisonment in concentration camps. People with disabilities were actually the first to be killed in large numbers, with these early killings paving the way for the later murder of 9 million Jews.

See also: Wikipedia: Holocaust Victims

You have an odd sense of priorities here. Yes, people do dumb things when they were kids and given the conditions Wahlberg grew up in, perhaps his earlier crimes can be forgiven, but what's wrong with questioning Wahlberg on it? If Wahlberg really was not proud of what happened, then he should have explained that in the interview. I really don't feel sorry for Wahlberg, if he thinks he has it bad having to answer questions the rest of his life for the crap he pulled as a teenager, think about what it's like having to live with your eye punched out. Just saying.
-Jeremy

I'm just saying it seemed pretty random for her to bring it up during an interview, and I don't necessarily feel sorry for him either, but I can definitely understand why he wouldn't want to talk about something like that. He was probably just expecting a normal interview and wasn't expecting to have his past brought up, and then got defensive over something he was trying very hard to forget, what he did was bad no doubt, and if he did that as an adult, i'd probably look at him differently, but he's not the same person he was a teenager, so I certianly wouldn't call him a "monster"
I honestly never even knew Mark did something like that until you brought it up.

That's fine that he's trying to forget it, but again, he wasn't the victim here so I think it's totally in-bounds to bring it up. It's not "random," it's a part of his past -- should it be looked past? He has said that the right thing to do would be to fine the man he blinded and apologize, but that he doesn't feel like he needs to because he doesn't feel guilty about it anymore. Kindof a lame excuse, I'd say.



Wait...didn't you say you were pissed at Stahl? You mean you read TheRed's account of the interview and got pissed at Stahl because of that?

I don't know any 16 year olds that were charged with attempted murder or that randomly attacked someone based on their race & partially blinded them.

If I did find that out about someone I knew, I would reconsider my relationship with them. That's some seriously psychotic shit, he's lucky he didn't get 20 years or life for that (not uncommon for teenagers to get that sort of sentence, he must have had a good lawyer. and with todays 'hate crime laws?' Marky Mark is a VERY lucky dude) Wahlberg even says in the link below, "I was taught the difference between right & wrong at a young age" so you can't just dismiss this as 'dumb teenager shit.' Dumb teenagers I knew stole shit, did a lot of drugs, & drove drunk or recklessly. or got in fights with other teenagers at football games. None of which is acceptable, but it is a bit more common teenage behavior than racially motivated attempted murder. at least in my world.



Guess it just shows the inane contradictions of Hollywood. This sounds far worse that what Mel did(or Tom Cruise, its beyond absurd that James or anyone cares so much about his silly religion or his couch jumping, that it actually negatively affects how they view his movies)



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Wahlberg

must be a nightmare for those Vietnamese men & their family, to constantly see Wahlberg all over tv, billboards etc. and having never received an apology(except in court, where everyone's sorry)

and then there's Victor Salvo, who I think Coppola supported & helped after he got out of jail for child molesation.
ah Hollywood. we probably don't know 1% of all the misdeeds committed by this lot. But we all sure know how Mel feels towards his girlfriend, thanks to her phone tapping skills. and carefully edited releases of their conversations. The 'misdeeds' that he likely will never be forgiven for.

No, I meant that I watched the interview after Red mentioned it. I'm not saying what Wahlberg wasn't "bad" or anything, but he just dosen't irritate the same way that Gibson does for some reason.

Stalin never industrialized genocide the way Hitler did, though more people did die under his regime. The millions that starved to death in the Ukraine did so not because Stalin went out of his way to kill them, but as an aftereffect of his policy of having agricultural products shipped out of the Ukraine.

Also, you forgot to include the "/sarcasm" at the end of that last statement.

The only difference was that he wasn't as organised. The aims and the crimes were the same.

You're right, I did forget but I does just amuse me to no end that it's actually a crime in some countries. You know, a crime. As in, you can actually go to jail for it :S

I feel I must ask - what exactly are you doing wrong by liking/paying to go and see a movie starring/directed by/etc Mel Gibson or Roman Polanski? I'm certain if we all spoke deeply enough, we could all find aspects of each other's lives that bother people for whatever reason. Armed with this knowledge, would any of us ever be able to take the moral high-ground?

It's not so much that people feel that they themselves are doing wrong by watching those films, it's that some of them can't seperate the person Mel is in real life from the characters he plays, I wouldn't blame any Jewish person for not wanting to watch any of his films because of his extreme anti-semticism(he's also extremely racist as those tapes proved, so i'd imagine he's not too popular with African-Americans either)

No, actually, they weren't. Hitler had expressed his ideas about the Jews long before he became dictator in the book he wrote (Mein Kampf). Did Stalin talk about his "plans" for killing millions of Ukrainians before he became dictator? The difference between Hitler and Stalin is that Hitler had a long-term plan to eradicate his target ethnic group, while the millions that died under Stalin's reign did so as an aftereffect of his policies, rather than as part of a deliberate plan specifically targeting them.


As far as I know, it's only a crime in Germany, and for obvious reasons.

Ragna, your first response is perfectly put and absolutely right. I would like to acknowledge this, since we've had our differences. It was the enormous level of mechanization and premeditation that makes the Holocaust so singular, terrible, and fascinating (for lack of a better word).

And as for Holocaust denial, I believe it's also illegal in some other European countries but I might be wrong

I have to say that Rag is really really wrong.Stalin was very well organized in his purges,deportations and starvations which were well orchestrated to subjegate all parts of Russian society to his rule.Prior to 1939 Stalin had killed millions while Hitler had only killed hundreds.Both decided to use starvation as a policy tools but the German use of it in Poland and Ukraine didn't work effectively as they did not have enough manpower to control every corner of a large territory with a large population.Stalin though worked his plan to perfection in Ukraine because he did have the manpower by first declaring a war on the kulaks(rich peasants against city workers)and using his omnipresent legions of communist cadres to grab every scrap of food in every village and had guard posts put up in farmers fields.It was a capital offence to take a potato from a field.Cities were well supplied with food but the peasants could not enter them or cross the borders into Poland that were sealed.Bodies could be found everywhere in homes,by roads and in fields.If any local communist official complained for compassion he would be executed.Then add in the quotas of executions that each local official had to meet and usually surpass to prove loyalty.In the end he probably killed 5 million people in less than a year but maybe it is not special because of the low tech methods the Soviets used to kill everyone but they are still just as dead.When you look at the Soviet behavior in occupied eastern Poland after they had a joint victory parade with the Nazis it was nearly the same as the Nazi policy with executions and deportations to destroy Polish culture and society.The well planned and executed Katyn massacres were part of that plan.Stalin had a plan to pacify external and internal enemies but hid it it behind Marxist rhetoric not a rambling biography.

I am glad that Mark Walhberg has apologized and admitted he is not Captain America and he could not land a airliner.He has to remember he is not a doctor he only plays one in the movies.

The reasons are obvious? I cannot think of a decent defence for such ridiculous laws especially when you consider the context; surely trying to separate yourself from fascism is best achieved by NOT bringing in such censorship?

Here is an article on the subject - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_again ... ust_denial. This mentions which countries have laws on the matter.

I just realised tonight that there is a person well known in art circles who fits right into this category - Andy Warhol. The guy was a grade A tosser, a misanthrope and generally treated people like shit. Yet he has become an icon in modern day art.

To put his attitude in context, he said the following on Edie Sedgwick - "I always knew she'd kill herself, I'm just surprised it took her this long".

Oak, you really need to read through more history books. Stalin never created factory-like structures to specifically exterminate specific groups of people. His only really targeted policy of murder were the Officer Purges prior to WW2, and this was done as a way of securing his position through control of the military as opposed to killing them just for existing, as Hitler wanted to do with the Jews. The Germans didn't only use starvation and overwork as method of extermination, they also created poisons (Zyklon-B) not to mention the thousands that they just shot before using the poison gas as a way to exterminate without expending ammunition. You are plain wrong if you're asserting that Stalin was anywhere near as focused as Hitler was on committing genocide.