Ban Nolan for excusing rape

[727Goon]

I cant bring this up in the members forum but if anyone wants to:


Considering the toll the German government took on Soviet society, it was inevitable that some Soviet occupation troops would take it out on German civilians. Rape is one thing that always happens.

It was the bloodiest war in history, many of your family, friends, and neighbors have been killed, your hometown has been leveled, and you've finally chased the rat back to Germany and whipped him. Put yourself in the shoes of a typical Soviet soldier.

(emphasis mine)
http://www.revleft.com/vb/did-red-army-t155381/index.html

Kind of speaks for itself.

[Cleansing Conspiratorial Revolutionary Flame]

You're not taking Nolan's comments in context. :lol:

[Sir Comradical]

"Put yourself in the shoes of a typical Soviet soldier."

I can safely say that I wouldn't commit rape. Go on a looting spree, YES. Kill SS officers, MAYBE. Rape, NO.

[#FF0000]

Nah I don't think he's trying to excuse rape. Explain it. Not excuse it

[Jose Gracchus]

I'm with FF on this one. He's not saying "yeah rape the fascist sluts!"

[Sir Comradical]

I'm with FF on this one. He's not saying "yeah rape the fascist sluts!"

Don't be ridiculous. (Sorry I read it wrong)

[#FF0000]

Don't be ridiculous.

It's true though.

[727Goon]

"put yourself in the shoes of a soviet soldier"
Sounds a fuck of a lot like hed be ok with rape if he was a soviet soldier. Cuz I put myself in the shoes of a soviet soldier and rape is still fucked up.

[#FF0000]

"put yourself in the shoes of a soviet soldier"
Sounds a fuck of a lot like hed be ok with rape if he was a soviet soldier. Cuz I put myself in the shoes of a soviet soldier and rape is still fucked up.

There's really no telling what you'd do if we want to be totally honest about it.

But yeah. He's just saying that's why the rapes happened. Completely non-controversial.

[727Goon]

nah I can pretty safely say I wouldnt rape anybody ever in any circumstance

[ZeroNowhere]

That was not posted on the Discrimination forum, and as such you do not have the right to go on witch-hunts at the drop of a hat. In any case, it was perhaps a bit badly phrased, as I'm fairly sure that if most Revlefters, myself included, were placed in the shoes of a Soviet soldier, they would be too dead ultimately to display their strong moral convictions.

[727Goon]

The point of the thread was criticizing the Red Army for the mass rapes and he was coming pretty clearly in favor of the Red Army with his "explanations". I've never heard of any other case of rape where people try to "explain" the aggressors motives in that way.

[Sir Comradical]

It's true though.

Wait wait, I read it wrong. I didn't read the "not" in this:

"I'm with FF on this one. He's not saying "yeah rape the fascist sluts!""

[#FF0000]

I've never heard of any other case of rape where people try to "explain" the aggressors motives in that way.

Really? Because it's done all the time because people seek to understand why soldiers in wartime rape, and what the impetus for it is.

It's just saying "This is what contributed to the act"

[727Goon]

It was pretty fucking sympathetic to the Soviets, to say the least. I remember a thread about a similar atrocity committed by American soldiers or maybe soldiers from another imperialist nation idr, but everybody just rightfully condemned it and no one made bullshit excuses like that. But hey I guess if the country has "Socialist" in the name it's soldiers get a pass in the rape department.

[#FF0000]

Yeah maybe you could say that.

Kinda dumb, the way he put it

[ZeroNowhere]

At this point in the thread, it's pretty clear that the quoted passage does not 'speak for itself'. Perhaps you should make an actual argument for why they should be banned, rather than simply contradicting people, or alternatively ask for this thread to be closed.

[727Goon]

At this point in the thread, it's pretty clear that the quoted passage does not 'speak for itself'. Perhaps you should make an actual argument for why they should be banned, rather than simply contradicting people, or alternatively ask for this thread to be closed.

I mean it pretty much does. If you know it was a thread about the Soviet's mass rapes during World War II you can tell it's really sympathetic to the point of excusing it. Or maybe you need to know the broader context of this forum and how people are rightfully appalled by wartime atrocities. If it were any other army's soldiers, this shit wouldn't fly at all.

[hatzel]

"Put yourself in the shoes of a typical Soviet soldier."

I can safely say that I wouldn't commit rape. Go on a looting spree, YES. Kill SS officers, MAYBE. Rape, NO.

Don't be so sure of yourself there. A quick look at wartime psychology should tell you that soldiers are pretty unpredictable, for a number of reasons. Fact of the matter is, people are generally reluctant to kill people. High command therefore has to force people to kill people. They do that by dehumanising the enemy, desensitising the soldiers to inflicting suffering on other people, all manner of other techniques. And this, to be honest, fucks people's heads up. Anyway, if you've been desensitised to the extent that you'd be more than happy to shoot some guy in the face (because that's war, you know), how can you then say that your moral compass will automatically flick back into action when all your army buddies decide to / are encouraged to go around raping everybody? If you've been trained to see nothing wrong with killing people, and inflicting such levels of suffering, how can you then tell us that you definitely wouldn't be willing to inflict suffering on one of these women? The emotional void is suddenly going to swell up again? Something tells me none of us can be sure about that, and I bet plenty of soldiers have gone to war, saying they'd never rape anybody, never participate in acts of genocide, but they come back having done both...

Nolan didn't say it well. At all. But war fucks people's heads up. War turns decent people into savages. Putting myself in the shoes of a Soviet soldier, considering the psychological impact of the war, the influence of 'following the group' if all the other soldiers are doing it, the ease with which high command or anybody else can convince soldiers to do things against their better judgement...yeah, Nolan's right. We can understand how people would do terrible things in war, because that's what people do in war. That's just what happens. The entirely point of war is doing terrible things to each other. I feel most people, in a wartime situation, having already been taught to do terrible things to people, would not then be particularly good at drawing lines between this and that act, and between this or that terrible thing to this or that person.

However:


If it were any other army's soldiers, this shit wouldn't fly at all.

I agree with that. Or, I agree that very few people on here would try to cast the barbaric actions of soldiers in a warzone as a result of the situation they find themselves in, if they didn't support that 'side' in the war. Nobody on here would look at those American soldiers who took pictures of Iraqis being humiliated and say that this was a result of war, and nobody would consider Hungarian troops lining people up along the Danube and shooting them to be a result of war. People generally only try to understand the barbarism committed by troops on 'their' side, yes. But I'd rather see people extending that understanding to all troops, irrespective of who they're fighting for, than see it totally ignored, for us to pretend that all wartime atrocities are committed by inherently evil people, and that the war itself played no part in facilitating them. I mean, seeing the effects of war in turning otherwise decent people into monsters is a helpful first step in finding all war repugnant...

[/pacifist ramblings]

[Sir Comradical]

Don't be so sure of yourself there. A quick look at wartime psychology should tell you that soldiers are pretty unpredictable, for a number of reasons. Fact of the matter is, people are generally reluctant to kill people. High command therefore has to force people to kill people. They do that by dehumanising the enemy, desensitising the soldiers to inflicting suffering on other people, all manner of other techniques. And this, to be honest, fucks people's heads up. Anyway, if you've been desensitised to the extent that you'd be more than happy to shoot some guy in the face (because that's war, you know), how can you then say that your moral compass will automatically flick back into action when all your army buddies decide to / are encouraged to go around raping everybody? If you've been trained to see nothing wrong with killing people, and inflicting such levels of suffering, how can you then tell us that you definitely wouldn't be willing to inflict suffering on one of these women? The emotional void is suddenly going to swell up again? Something tells me none of us can be sure about that, and I bet plenty of soldiers have gone to war, saying they'd never rape anybody, never participate in acts of genocide, but they come back having done both...

Nolan didn't say it well. At all. But war fucks people's heads up. War turns decent people into savages. Putting myself in the shoes of a Soviet soldier, considering the psychological impact of the war, the influence of 'following the group' if all the other soldiers are doing it, the ease with which high command or anybody else can convince soldiers to do things against their better judgement...yeah, Nolan's right. We can understand how people would do terrible things in war, because that's what people do in war. That's just what happens. The entirely point of war is doing terrible things to each other. I feel most people, in a wartime situation, having already been taught to do terrible things to people, would not then be particularly good at drawing lines between this and that act, and between this or that terrible thing to this or that person.

You make an excellent point and I totally understand where you're coming from, however I think if a soldier is properly educated and cultured enough then they'd know where to draw the line. If we accept khad's argument that the number of rapes were exaggerated then it probably is the case that most Red Army soldiers didn't commit rape. For this reason I think it's safe to assume that my fellow males here on RL wouldn't be the ones who would go around raping women.

[Sasha]

I cant bring this up in the members forum but if anyone wants to:



you do know you have an functioning PM dont you, you can just PM any admin or mod to bring this up.
thread closed