[cherdanno]

jdonn, on Jun 10 2009, 06:06 PM, said:

Al_U_Card, on Jun 10 2009, 07:51 AM, said:

jdonn, on Jun 9 2009, 06:56 PM, said:

Outrage is down, but annoyance, deja vu, and sighing are all on a steep rise.

Yeah, everyone dies eventually.

How about your family and friends? Now (by careless agression) or later (naturally)?

Wouldn't bother you, would it?

I bet it wouldn't bother someone in Afghanistan.

I didn't know you were so fond of making failed analogies Josh.

[kenrexford]

hrothgar, on Jun 11 2009, 10:57 AM, said:

Spare me the oversimplistic simplistic bullshit

For example:

Quote

If Bush drinks too much when younger, he's a drunk.  If Obama snorts cocaine when he's younger, he has more of a wealth of experience and thus more empathy.

Don't you understand this yet?

There's a world of difference between Bush's descent into full blown alcoholism and Obama's experiments with cocaine.

Bush has an addictive personality. In recent years, he substituted religion for booze and blow. However, the same pathologies are readily apparant.

Personally, I think that we'd all be in a lot better place if Bush had never kicked the sauce and spent the last eight years or so face down in a pool of vomit rather than playing figurehead as the world self destructed.

That was a trap that I was sure someone would fall into.

The "for example" you offered was quite the easy one to attack, as I expected. What? No specific defense of the other three actually important issues?

BTW -- I voted for Obama. So, do not get all ready to claim "Republican talking points" as your attack.

If I wake up one morning after a great party and find red ***** in my toilet, I get worried. If I find blue ***** in my toilet, I get really worried. But, whether the ***** is blue or red, it's still *****.

[hrothgar]

kenrexford, on Jun 11 2009, 10:47 PM, said:

That was a trap that I was sure someone would fall into.

The "for example" you offered was quite the easy one to attack, as I expected. What? No specific defense of the other three actually important issues?

In what way is "I said something stupid" a trap?

Hate to break this to you, but claiming that you deliberately said something dumb in no way lends credibility to the rest of your argument.

As a cunning plan, this is worthy of Baldrick.

I readily admit, I plucked the low hanging fruit...

That whole nasty work thing has a way of interferring with debate especially when I have major deliverables due. For whats its worth, I think that the rest of your examples are equally flawed. It just takes a bit more time t explain why...

[Al_U_Card]

Afghanistan has been a sinkhole for fruitless combat since the time of Alexander (likely longer....).
The presence of the "combattants" was always conquest for acquisition, be it empire or heroin or oil or idealogy.
The issue is only clouded, it is not suborned by the justification nor by pretending that the overarching lack of humanity is a valid reason for it's existence.

Who benefits? There lies the answer. Not the people of Afghanistan nor of the U.S.

[Lobowolf]

Winstonm, on Jun 10 2009, 05:47 PM, said:

It seems as long as it is brown people getting killed, nobody gives a *****.

I think human nature is generally that it's a proximity issue. Right or wrong, most people would be more disturbed by reading of the death of someone in their city than in another country, regardless of race.

[Winstonm]

jdonn, on Jun 11 2009, 10:23 AM, said:

Al_U_Card, on Jun 10 2009, 08:04 PM, said:

Once you are sufficiently anesthetized, it makes no difference either way. You cease to be sentient.

Can you tell me why you want to defend not feeling that killing innocents is an outrage?

I didn't defend anything. But too many innocent people die every day for me to be outraged at each of them.

Can you tell me why you want to defend not feeling that the same thread beginning 4 times a week is annoying?

I didn't start this thread this week - the thread is over a month old and I had to look it up to add a posting to it. I added the post because it was relevant to the original - the charge I made in the original post was that the Pentagon purposefully lied about its role in the bombing mission, and that the U.S. news media was complicit in spreading those lies.

Now, over a month later, those facts are being verified.

Turns out that accusation I made was dead-on accurate. The story created by the Pentagon and spread as "news" by the willing media was nothing short of purposeful propaganda - not much different than the news Tass used to deliver for the U.S.S.R.

Perhaps this has little meaning to you - but I lived during that era and so when the U.S. military gets out of control and starts to lie, deceive, and is not called out on it then I get really nervous because I know how far wrong things can go.

You can make merry and play bridge but for some of us the choices our government gave us when we were 18-25 was to fight in the jungles of Vietnam for absolutely no reason, go to prison, or move to Canada. When you are 18-25 and these are your ONLY choices, smother plays and trump coups don't mean *****.

You learn what the real power of government is - and you learn to fear its misuse - and you learn not to trust that our government is always the good guys looking out for our best interests.

[mycroft]

20 years ago, I worked with a Polish couple. They emigrated over here legally (were post-Doc'ing at a Canadian university). They told me then that it was better for them to listen to Tass than to the American news. Why?

They knew how Tass lied; from what Tass said, when said, and how it was said, they could work out what the news actually was. They couldn't do the same thing here - we were better at lying (or we did it in different enough ways (specifically, more subtly) that it was harder to read for them).

20 years on, and we're proving that it doesn't actually matter. By and large, you can pull Tass-style reporting and the majority don't care, can't work it out, or have learned how to. But as they say: "Izvestia nyet Pravda, V Pravda nyet Izvestia"

[blackshoe]

23,000 people work in the Pentagon, Winston. Are they all evil manipulators? Dupes? Unwilling conspirators? Or do they just not care what their political masters are doing?

[jdonn]

I have to say I'm somewhat unimpressed by "Back in my day we had to walk uphill to school both ways" arguments. But what do I know, I'm not yet 30 so all I do is play bridge and stare at the wall the rest of the time, I never did anything good for anyone nor have I ever put any thought into anything happening in the world.

[Winstonm]

blackshoe, on Jun 11 2009, 08:41 PM, said:

23,000 people work in the Pentagon, Winston. Are they all evil manipulators? Dupes? Unwilling conspirators? Or do they just not care what their political masters are doing?

Don't be a twit.

Of course not. Like any large organization, the leadership sets the course - while we tend to use simply the name of the organization in lieu of pointing out specific leaders names. How many times have you made some claim about GM - and if and when you did were you speaking of every single person who works for GM or did you mean the top management of GM who set the course of the entire company?

[Winstonm]

jdonn, on Jun 11 2009, 09:05 PM, said:

I have to say I'm somewhat unimpressed by "Back in my day we had to walk uphill to school both ways" arguments. But what do I know, I'm not yet 30 so all I do is play bridge and stare at the wall the rest of the time, I never did anything good for anyone nor have I ever put any thought into anything happening in the world.

In that case, have a nice day.

[Al_U_Card]

As long as you are arguing, you aren't doing anything about it.

I love this (as long as it is, it is worth the ride) showing that the founding fathers saw their lessons, struggled against the forces that work against us and warned us to continue the struggle.

http://www.youtube.c...feature=related

further on in, it takes on the Rothschilds and how they worked Napoleon and the Monarchies of Europe to subjugate the people of those countries before stepping in with A. Hamilton and Morris and their cronies at the US Bank "back in the day"

you have to learn from the past or you will be doomed to repeat it