Europeia Embassy

[Zaolat]

Three things;

1. Way to ignore the pretty newspaper

2. I don't think it's fair to describe CAIN as an Independent initiative. It's has a much broader base and even if it was not, wanting to oppose Nazism is not a specifically Independent belief.

3. I think the jury is still out. Personally, I have moved closer to your viewpoint on this or at least more mixed but I don't think we will or will ever have a definitive answer on this. It's important to note though, that during my time as Europeian President and later on that what of the big accomplishments of that anti-Nazi campaign was that we stopped mainstream raider regions from working with Nazis. The whole LWU working with Nazi groups for example, is not something that has reoccurred as far as I know. At the very least, such actions are no longer mainstream. I think that was a decent enough accomplishment.

He's not really wrong. Despite my distaste for Nazis OOC. Though, IC I don't see anything wrong with CAIN and encourage this form of Gameplay against Nazis, but let's not pretend CAIN will ever stop Nazi regions in NS. The only people that can stop that is Admin, and attempts by CAIN will only stem Nazis temporarily.

Anyways, do what y'all got to do.

[Cormactopia II]

But it's only ever after these blasted campaigns stop that Nazi regions ever actually decline.

Except they don't decline. After NAZI EUROPE was destroyed, Nazi Europa was virtually ignored except to defend against its invasions of other regions as you suggest, or to (SC) liberate regions it had already locked down or would very soon lock down. Yet Nazi Europa experienced a boom in growth because, lo and behold, they can send recruitment telegrams just as well as any of the rest of us can. They attributed their growth to the periodic attention paid to them by the Security Council but it was clear for anyone to see that, attention or not, they would continue to grow as a result of their recruitment efforts. And the more they grew, the more numbers they had to make their invasions unassailable; the more regions became indifferent toward them, the more difficult it became to liberate regions they invaded.

Ignoring Nazis except to defend against their invasions is a tactic that has been tried and has failed. The only regular attention they received for quite some time was the attention they had always received from the NationStates far left, accompanied by periodic Security Council attention that was necessary unless we were also going to let regions be destroyed by them in the name of ignoring the problem away. So what you're advocating is a strategy that has already failed. CAIN is advocating that, having seen that approach fail, a more aggressive approach is warranted. And I will point out that while you may not like CAIN invading Nazi regions, CAIN has also created the numbers necessary to liberate regions Nazis invade, numbers that weren't being achieved while the world was pursuing your approach.

[The Stalker]

Seems to me the recent rise of Nazis / white supremacy in RL, has lead to an increase of it on NS, and while it was "fun" for some to pretend to be a nazi when they just existed in history, it's not so fun anymore for anyone with a moral compass.

Also seems to me that Nazi Europa lost it's military branch when Woodhouse left, doubt NE will be raiding anything anytime soon.

[Unibot III]

Three things;

1. Way to ignore the pretty newspaper

2. I don't think it's fair to describe CAIN as an Independent initiative. It's has a much broader base and even if it was not, wanting to oppose Nazism is not a specifically Independent belief.

3. I think the jury is still out. Personally, I have moved closer to your viewpoint on this or at least more mixed but I don't think we will or will ever have a definitive answer on this. It's important to note though, that during my time as Europeian President and later on that what of the big accomplishments of that anti-Nazi campaign was that we stopped mainstream raider regions from working with Nazis. The whole LWU working with Nazi groups for example, is not something that has reoccurred as far as I know. At the very least, such actions are no longer mainstream. I think that was a decent enough accomplishment.

He's not really wrong. Despite my distaste for Nazis OOC. Though, IC I don't see anything wrong with CAIN and encourage this form of Gameplay against Nazis, but let's not pretend CAIN will ever stop Nazi regions in NS. The only people that can stop that is Admin, and attempts by CAIN will only stem Nazis temporarily.

Anyways, do what y'all got to do.

I think it's fair to say I was being overly bitter about CAIN; in truth, I'm echoing the sentiments I had about its predecessors, in part because its rhetoric so far has reminded me of its predecessors. My main beefs with CAIN's predecessors were:

(1) They didn't seem at all interested in liberating or defending. Defenders were on the ground fighting Woodhouse in 2013: his army kept getting bigger and bigger each time Nazi Europe shrunk and we were stretching resources thin to liberate his muck by the height of the Nazi raids. Independent regions - who were calling us Nazi-lovers and dogmatic freaks for not participating in their (overmanned) Nazi raids - were turning us down when we invited them to our (undermanned) Nazi liberations. It didn't seem to occur the people leading the NE raid that the more Nazi accounts were ejected from their home regions, the more free WAs, the white supremacist community had to invade abroad.

On that note:

CAIN has also created the numbers necessary to liberate regions Nazis invade, numbers that weren't being achieved while the world was pursuing your approach.

This is twisted logic and sheer revisionism. We weren't facing Nazi raids before the Nazi war of 2013 began. Certainly not regularly. NE and GGR were near DEAD before 2013. They were in an activity coma. If "my approach" had continued, no Nazi War would have begun in 2013 and no liberations would have been necessary.

Once the liberations became necessary, they were tough liberations - requiring loads of people who we didn't have. Fortunately, with very little help from some people claiming moral authority on the Nazi file, we were able to liberate those Nazi occupations. We pulled it off multiple times. And I'm quite proud of the lieutenants and all of the people who spent their weekends and Sunday mornings to kick butt with us (that includes you, for at least part of the year.) You can go trawl through the old UDL thread and find many mentions of successful liberations against Nazi holds, if you like.

And, with no disrespect intended to my successors, I don't think my presence ever hurt the number of soldiers attending a mission. I heard many complaints about my leadership while the head of the UDL, but my ability to recruit, summon bodies and get shit done was scarcely mentioned as a point of concern.

___________________

(2) Their propaganda was way, way over the top. I mean, 'over the top' enough to make you wonder if the goal of the propaganda was to promote themselves more than make a real stand against hate in NationStates. I mean, hate's real. It's a thing that affects real players and makes them feel genuinely uncomfortable. I'm not sure if all of CAIN's predecessors were doing it, but I do think, rather distastefully, some were just exploiting hate as a political target and making hay out of it as issue. Which isn't right.

(3) The limits of what was considered "NazI" was often extended quite wide to include simply 'fascist' themed regions or worse, 'radical' themes. When we're talking about white supremacy, I don't think it's fair to others to start painting with a wide brush. The problem with CAIN's predecessors is a lot of their members didn't particularly care about being selective - any invader/independent members were happy to see more regions raided even if they weren't strictly necessary and communist allies were ecstatic to see fascist regions targeted, so the selection naturally tended to be pretty broad.

My hope is, especially with defenders participating, that CAIN goes in a different direction and I'll leave it at that. If I were running CAIN (and I'm not), I would aim to be pragmatic about the goal of reducing Nazism and its influence in NationStates rather than jingoistic; smart rather than loud; and focus on the long term trend rather than short term victories. (Veterans can confirm: this may be the first time I've ever recommended less braggadocio. )

Cheers.

@Rach: It is a pretty newspaper. Folks should check that out.

[Falapatorius]

My hope is, especially with defenders participating, that CAIN goes in a different direction and I'll leave it at that.

It won't. Defenders are just as extreme as raiders. One strives for fame, the other notoriety. It's a weakness on both sides. Pummeling some 'nazi' regions may feel good, but in the end the collateral damage adds up.

[Unibot III]

My hope is, especially with defenders participating, that CAIN goes in a different direction and I'll leave it at that.

It won't. Defenders are just as extreme as raiders. One strives for fame, the other notoriety. It's a weakness on both sides. Pummeling some 'nazi' regions may feel good, but in the end the collateral damage adds up.

Err, I would correct this, a bit. Although I'm not in total disagreement.

Some of the most (internally) respected and significant defenders are very insular and downright quiet people, they prefer to take a very low key approach in those regards.

But I don't disagree that big egos, in looking for fame, are attracted to defending. However what separates them from others is they want to be known for doing the right thing when the right thing needs doing, rather than the wrong thing or the easy thing. In that respect, I hope they tame the beast of multilateral anti-fascism.

[Falapatorius]

Point taken. I didn't mean to generalize as much as I did. Apologies.

[WARDEN DRAKE]

It's difficult for me to believe that modern defenders are in it for fame. Libs, defenses, supports, detags, it's all a pretty thankless and invisible job. There are many reasons to sit and spam F5 for hours, night after night, but fame doesn't exactly come to mind as one of them...

[Brunhizzle]

I'd like to ask that discussions about CAIN be directed to the relevant thread. CAIN is its own entity with a large variety of signatories and it is fair to none of them to have the conversation directed to one region.

Europeia deserves to have its own gameplay thread where it can discuss its happenings independent of its involvement in CAIN.

[Kaboomlandia]

At today's minor update, our delegacy transition will be complete and Trinnien will take office.

Thank you, Mouse, for your 2+ years of hard work.

[Mousebumples]

At today's minor update, our delegacy transition will be complete and Trinnien will take office.

Thank you, Mouse, for your 2+ years of hard work.

It was strange hitting that "resign button" on the WA page. I've never hit that button in my 13+ years of playing NS. I've trained myself to not hit that button! What was I doing?

Anyhow, thanks to all for their support over those 2 years, and I look forward to seeing where Trinnien takes things, moving forward.