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wvParticipantJapan at that time was basically ruled by the military police (the infamous Kempeitai). And Japanese war crimes were beyond description (reading about the medical experiments alone would freeze your blood, and that was just part of it). And so on.
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Unit 731
wvParticipantI’ve read a lot of military history about WW 2 including about the japanese surrender.
BNW, I have to say, I didn’t like that article much.
First, I am not against the use of nukes in WW2. I also believe Truman acted out of the desire to bring the war to an end and reduce future casualties (on both sides).
But the reason I don’t like that article is because it’s not a serious discussion of the issues. It’s more of a conservative blogger trying to pick on (very cherry picked) arguments…
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Why aren’t you against the use of Atom bombs in WW II ?
w
vwvParticipant… status quo narrative and people think they’re being informed and that they are engaging in the process. So now, they can freely and without guilt discuss openly the murder of children by the US Government abroad or homeless Veterans in the same breath as a school bake sale. They can feel good that they’re talking about it (well, really it’s the meta in that they’re usually talking about talking about it). That’s the gratification part….
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Wonder what the odds are, that Hillary will name a VP candidate
that is far-left? Would she invite Bernie to be VP?
would you vote for her, if she added a Kucinich, or Warren, or Bernie as VP?Wouldnt it be in her interest to do that? Or would it be in her
interest to add another pro-corporate, DNC-type like herself?w
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“I hate goddamn fruits and vegetables. And your omega 3’s, and the treadmill, and the cardiogram, and the mammogram, and the pelvic sonogram, and oh my god the-the-the colonoscopy, and with it all the day still comes where they put you in a box, and its on to the next generation of idiots, who’ll also tell you all about life and define for you what’s appropriate. My father committed suicide because the morning newspapers depressed him. And could you blame him? With the horror, and corruption, and ignorance, and poverty, and genocide, and AIDS, and global warming, and terrorism, and-and the family value morons, and the gun morons. “The horror,” Kurtz said at the end of Heart of Darkness, “the horror.” Lucky Kurtz didn’t have the Times delivered in the jungle. Ugh… then he’d see some horror. But what do you do? You read about some massacre in Darfur or some school bus gets blown up, and you go “Oh my God, the horror,” and then you turn the page and finish your eggs from the free range chickens. Because what can you do. It’s overwhelming!”
— Woody AllenwvParticipantwvParticipantwvParticipantGround Zero story. Good listen. From NPR.
w
vwvParticipantFYI, there’s a youtube channel called “liberal redneck”. It’s really something…funny and enlightening, challenging and thought provoking, the author of the channel (or whatever you call the content creator) embraces being a redneck AND being liberal and challenges the notion that one excludes the other.
I think the grad student is dead on about her critique.
The DLC’s embrace of the professional class has only FURTHERED neoliberalism which had been the sole domain of the Republican “trickle down” crowd since Reagan got elected.
With both Clinton’s not just embrace of the professional class, but the embrace of the professional class to the exclusion of the working class, it allowed the DLC to fashion a message that co-opted the Republican financial message with social moderation. Basically, they could be Republicans that weren’t openly racist, antagonistic assholes. They didn’t engage in openly hostile dog whistle politics. They nominally tried to fix social problems, etc. People could get dirty stinking rich AND feel good about helping brown people…over there…somewhere.
It became de rigueur to play politics with social and financial policies without taking into account the consequences.
I came up with a quote for that (I do have the time for such contemplations…)
Politics is pornography for polite society. It is the observation, embrace, acceptance and engagement in social intercourse and/or engagement of governmental processes regarding the non-consensual violation of the people for the express purpose of self-gratification.”
William KeyserWhen policy makers engage in politics, we truly see obscenity displayed before the masses.
No three way or German fetish was more obscene than a white man in bad suit giving an uninspired speech enumerating badly articulated and poorly thought out reasons as to why a program that actually helps people in need should be cut, leading to a direct increase in children going hungry or a direct increase in women being exposed to harm or a direct increase in veterans going homeless or direct increase in Active Duty Service Members’ deployment length…
The DLC Dems who made the “compromise” seem fucking incredulous that young people see the hypocrisy and obscenity of what they’re continuing to propose.
At least the Republicans are only proposing obscenity. And even if the obscenity is worse, for some, that’s the difference. There’s such an aversion to hypocrisy that they’d rather choose extra obscenity than be part of any hypocrisy.
Worse, the Clinton campaign is in full attack mode online for anyone who has issues with her obscene policies.
In word and deed, it’s tribal, traditional “party first” politics where policies are secondary (if they rank that high). So, when someone points out to the Clinton Campaign that their policies are harmful, truly harmful…the reaction is visceral, defensive and feral. And it’s not on policy. They don’t defend the policy. It’s all about fearmongering about a Trump Presidency and about how everyone needs to get in line.
Which is kind of funny because the criticism all along is that DLC Dems are Republican lite and Bill Clinton’s own quote is “Democrats want to fall in love. Republicans want to fall in line.” The Clinton Campaign is desperately making the argument that Dems need to fall in line and are making NO arguments about falling in love. Compounding that dilemma for them is that Bernie Sanders has said that he’ll be “against Trump”, but if Clinton wants to WIN his supporters, she’ll have to earn them herself using…POLICY. Which has them freaking out because all along the Clinton and surrogates online have promoted the idea that “to the victor go the spoils”. Actually, they’ve used those exact words so often that it looks coordinated as if through Correct the Record as if it’s a building meme with Clinton supporters.
This whole thing is looking to become a steaming pile of clusterfuck and anyone’s who’s either in the bottom 80%, of color or disadvantaged or serves their country is going to get completely shit on no matter who gets in. The only difference will be where the shit meteor hits.
So, in that vein, I can see why some folks would want to be further away from ground zero from the massive shit meteor strike, but it’s still going to be catastrophic for nearly everyone…
Saying Hillary Clinton is the “lesser of two evils” is overstating it. Different evil, maybe. Lesser? Tell that to the families who lose loved ones in the military due to her sending troops to Libya or back to Iraq or staying in Afghanistan or who continue to lose jobs due to manufacturing jobs going overseas. Lesser of two evils is a false narrative. In order to believe that you have to diminish the power of flag draped coffins and why we have them.
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I think i agree with all that Mack-a-doo.Cept for the quote, which was over my head or somethin.
w
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“For us to maintain our way of living, we must tell lies to each other and especially to ourselves. The lies are necessary because, without them, many deplorable acts would become impossibilities.” — Derrick JensenwvParticipantHappy b-day TSRF
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vwvParticipantGöring summed it up well. Joe 6-pack has nothing to gain from going to war and everything to lose. It is encoded in our DNA. The leaders lie and false flag their way to fear mongering the people to acquiesce to war…
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Well DNA is always involved in all that humans do, i suppose, whether its wage-peace or wage-war….but yes, I’d say Goring summed it up well.
There will be a parade in my town today or tomorrow celebrating…somethin. War, or soldiers or somethin.
Wagers-of-Peace get no parades in appalachia.
w
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“Our country is now geared to an arms economy bred in an artificially induced psychosis of war hysteria and an incessant propaganda of fear.” – General Douglas MacArthur“The argument that there are just wars often rests on the social system of the nation engaging in war. It is supposed that if a ‘liberal’ state is at war with a ‘totalitarian’ state, then the war is justified. The beneficent nature of a government was assumed to give rightness to the wars it wages.
…Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt were liberals, which gave credence to their words exalting the two world wars, just as the liberalism of Truman made going into Korea more acceptable and the idealism of Kennedy’s New Frontier and Johnson’s Great Society gave an early glow of righteousness to the war in Vietnam.
What the experience of Athens suggests is that a nation may be relatively liberal at home and yet totally ruthless abroad. Indeed, it may more easily enlist its population in cruelty to others by pointing to the advantages at home. An entire nation is made into mercenaries, being paid with a bit of democracy at home for participating in the destruction of life abroad.”
― Howard Zinn, Declarations of Independence: Cross-Examining American Ideology——-
Let the People Vote on War By Allen L. Benson
(American Socialist writer, born 1871)
EACH voter should sign his or her name to the ballot that is voted. In counting, the ballots for war should be kept apart from the ballots against war. In the event of more than half of the population voting for war, those who voted for war should be sent to the front in the order in which they appeared at their respective polling places. Nobody who voted against war should be called to serve until everybody who voted for war had been sent to the front.wvParticipantThere is only one Debs. While I agree with his take on war especially given the neocon chickenhawks of today he seems to have forgotten the French Revolution.
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Are there “just” wars? Good wars? Bad wars? Is every war unique
or are there universals involved? Which wars were ‘good’ ?I dunno. But generally speaking, the poor get killed and the rich
do not.w
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Göring:
Why, of course, the people don’t want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or..
Gilbert:
There is one difference. In a democracy, the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.
Göring:
Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.” Herman Goering (wikiquote)wvParticipant================================
http://noglory.org/index.php/articles/346-how-the-uk-government-is-rebranding-the-first-world-war-to-promote-militarism-today
How the UK government is rebranding the first world war to promote militarism today……
…What, you may ask, is wrong with celebrating heroes in this way?
War to end all warsIt is an attempt to rewrite the history of the war as somehow glorious and necessary. The war was an ugly clash of imperial rivalries, marked by the unspeakable horrors of trench warfare. Far from proving “the war to end of all wars”, it scarred a nation whose sons would be sent to die against the same enemy within a generation.
Veterans also tend to baulk at their lauding as “heroes”, explaining themselves more humbly as men just doing their jobs and looking out for their comrades. Great War memorials rarely record either rank or medals, but are starkly simple alphabetical lists of all those who had their lives taken from them. By singling out only those men who received the top military award, the government is tearing up a century of practice.
Why has the government taken this radical departure? The answer is in part a reaction to the public scepticism about military operations that has become mainstream with the failures of the “War on Terror”. The unprecedented anti-war demonstrations against the Afghanistan and Iraq wars in the early 2000s may represent a sea-change in public attitudes to foreign wars. This has alarmed conservative politicians of all parties and the military top brass, who have been scrambling to regain ground ever since….. see link
wvParticipantLilly is an out-of-the-box thinker for sure.
He will probably introduce Sensory Deprivation tanks, ketamine-induced-visions,
and various dolphin dialects to the Offense.w
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John C Lilly
…Career overviewLilly was a physician and psychoanalyst. He made contributions in the fields of biophysics, neurophysiology, electronics, computer science, and neuroanatomy. He invented and promoted the use of an isolation tank as a means of sensory deprivation.[4] He also attempted communication between humans and dolphins.[5] His work helped the creation of the United States Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972.
Lilly’s eclectic career began as a conventional scientist doing research for universities and government. Gradually, however, he began researching unconventional topics. He published several books and had two Hollywood movies based partly on his work. He also developed theories for flotation.
Lilly published 19 books, including The Center of the Cyclone, which describes his own LSD experiences, Man and Dolphin, and The Mind of the Dolphin which describe his work with dolphins.
In the 1980s Lilly directed a project which attempted to teach dolphins a computer-synthesised language. Lilly designed a future “communications laboratory” that would be a floating living room where humans and dolphins could chat as equals and where they would develop a common language.
Lilly envisioned a time when all killing of whales and dolphins would cease, “not from a law being passed, but from each human understanding innately that these are ancient, sentient earth residents, with tremendous intelligence and enormous life force. Not someone to kill, but someone to learn from.”[6] In the 1990s Lilly moved to the island of Maui in Hawaii, where he lived most of the remainder of his life.
Lilly’s literary rights and scientific discoveries were owned by Human Software, Inc., while his philanthropic endeavors were owned by the Human Dolphin Foundation. The John C. Lilly Research Institute, Inc. continues to research topics of interest to Lilly and carry on his legacy.
ResearchAfter graduating from the University of Pennsylvania, Lilly was forced to stay on as a member of the faculty working under Dr. Detlev Bronk for 19 years of indebted servitude, conducting priority military research for the U.S. Air Force.[citation needed]
During World War II, Lilly researched the physiology of high-altitude flying and invented instruments for measuring gas pressure. After the war, he trained in psychoanalysis at the University of Pennsylvania, where he began researching the physical structures of the brain and consciousness. In 1951 he published a paper showing how he could display patterns of brain electrical activity on a cathode ray display screen using electrodes he devised specially for insertion into a living brain. Furthermore, Lilly’s work[7] on electrical stimulation of the nervous system gave rise to biphasic charge balanced electrical stimulation pulses (later known as “Lilly’s wave” or “Lilly’s pulses”[8] ), which is currently an established approach to design of safe electrical stimulation in neuroprosthetics.[9]
Development of the sensory deprivation tank
Allen Ginsberg, Timothy Leary, and John C. Lilly in 1991
In 1953, Lilly began a job studying neurophysiology with the US Public Health Service Commissioned Officers Corps. At the N.I.M.H. in 1954,[10][11][12][13] with the desire of isolating a brain from external stimulation, he devised the first isolation tank, a dark soundproof tank of warm salt water in which subjects could float for long periods in sensory isolation. Lilly and a research colleague were the first to act as subjects of this research. What had been known as perceptual isolation or sensory deprivation was reconceptualized as Restricted Environmental Stimulation Technique (R.E.S.T.).[14]
Lilly later studied other large-brained mammals and during the late 1950s he established a facility devoted to fostering human-dolphin communication: the Communication Research Institute on St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands. During the early 1960s, Lilly and coworkers published several papers reporting that dolphins could mimic human speech patterns.[15][16] Subsequent investigations of dolphin cognition have generally, however, found it difficult to replicate his results.[citation needed]
S.E.T.I.
Lilly was interested in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (S.E.T.I.) project. In 1961 a group of scientists including Lilly gathered at the Green Bank Observatory to discuss the possibility of using the techniques of radio astronomy to detect evidence of intelligent life outside the Solar system. They called themselves The Order of the Dolphin after Lilly’s work with dolphins. They discussed the Drake equation, used to estimate the number of communicative civilizations in our galaxy.[17]
Exploration of human consciousness
In the early 1960s, Lilly was introduced to psychedelic drugs such as LSD and (later) ketamine[18] and began a series of experiments in which he ingested a psychedelic drug either in an isolation tank or in the company of dolphins. These events are described in his books Programming and Metaprogramming in the Human Biocomputer: Theory and Experiments and The Center of the Cyclone, both published in 1972. Following advice from Ram Dass, Lilly studied Patanjali’s system of yoga (finding I. K. Taimni’s Science of Yoga, a modernized interpretation of the Sanskrit text, most suited to his goals). He also paid special attention to Self-enquiry meditation advocated by Ramana Maharshi, and was reformulating the principles of this exercise with reference to his human biocomputer paradigm (described in Programming and Metaprogramming in the Human Biocomputer: Theory and Experiments and The Center of the Cyclone).
Lilly later traveled to Chile and trained with the spiritual leader Oscar Ichazo (whose attitude to metaphysical consciousness exploration Lilly characterized as “empirical” in his book The Center of the Cyclone). Lilly claimed to have achieved the maximum degree of satori-samādhi consciousness during his training.
Lilly’s maxim: “In the province of the mind what one believes to be true, either is true or becomes true within certain limits. These limits are to be found experimentally and experientially. When so found these limits turn out to be further beliefs to be transcended. In the province of the mind there are no limits. However, in the province of the body there are definite limits not to be transcended.”[19]
Solid State Intelligence
Solid State Intelligence (S.S.I.) is a malevolent entity described by Lilly (see The Scientist). According to Lilly, the network of computation-capable solid state systems (electronics) engineered by humans will eventually develop (or has already developed) into an autonomous bioform. Since the optimal survival conditions for this bioform (low-temperature vacuum) are drastically different from those needed by humans (room temperature aerial atmosphere and adequate water supply), Lilly predicted (or “prophesised”, based on his ketamine-induced visions) a dramatic conflict between the two forms of intelligence.[citation needed]
Earth Coincidence Control Office (E.C.C.O.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_C._LillywvParticipantMy great grandma considered herself a Red Guard Finn. She used to take part in secret meetings and sorts of shenanigans that the Canadian government used to fear back in the day.
http://warfarehistorian.blogspot.ca/2014/02/finlands-civil-war-1918-red-white-suomi.html
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Interesting link about the Finnish Civil War and “Kinship Wars”. I did not expect to be learning about such things today.The Internet. Ya just never know.
That finland-war-thingy seemed quite complicated. Kinda like the spanish civil war.
…i couldn’t find anything on the symbols or insignias of Finland’s Red guard. I’m always curious about flags, symbols, etc.
w
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“….Finland’s Civil War left an indelible mark on the young nation’s psyche especially for such a small country. 35,000 Finns would perish in the civil war and the Kinship Wars, around 1 percent of the total population of the country at that time. Less than half of this number would be killed in engagements with the enemy, many more would perish in executions, persecutions, disease, or by famine throughout the conflict.An independent Finland would remain a divided society long after the painful memories of the civil war had faded. Communist constituents gained seats in the republican government for many years thereafter and enjoyed a large and loyal following amongst the industrial workers and laborers of Finland until well into the 1980’s. White Guard and Jäger veterans of the civil war and the Heimosodat dominated army leadership until the 1960’s and their White political representatives would dominate Finland’s upper echelon of politics for many years after. The last White Guard President of Finland was Urho K. Kekkonen (1900-1986) who served as the 8th president of the republic from 1956-1982….
wvParticipantNow Trump has chickened out of the debate with Bernie.
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Yeah, i was surprised Trumps handlers were gonna let him try that.
w
vwvParticipantI get how you feel about Clinton or for that matter anyone out there that might be considered a moderate democrat. But I really posted the article because of my concerns over a Trump presidency. Of course the Clinton haters can and will dodge that issue and use it as a vehicle to attack Clinton. As I said earlier the attack on middle of the road democrats are -on this board- far more intense than the spectrum of Trump becoming President. That scenario is far scarier to me than Clinton ever could be. Of course there are those who say its hopeless, the system is rigged. Even the opening sentence in your post is “were out of time on climate change”. Well I’m not as cynical as you and I don’t believe we are “out of time”. The part that is given is that climate change is here to stay. But we can do things to not further escalate it at the pace we have been going. A Trump presidency may well further the escalation at an even faster pace. But maybe climate change and the continued pouring of fossil fuels into our atmosphere ain’t all that important to you. That seems to be the case when you casually state its all over and “were out of time”.
The one thing I notice about my “moderate” republican and democrat friends is that they are not susceptible to “group think”. They are mostly independent thinkers who believe in some policies advanced by republicans and some by democrats. And they even disagree among themselves on issues. However my far right -and I mean far -as in tea party-relatives (wife’ side) in Arizona and Colorado are all on the exact same page on every single issue. I sense the same with the progressive left.
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So, this kind of thing is ok with you?
“Big oil companies like ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips have given millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation, as have Saudi Arabia and other oil-rich nations in the Middle East. Thursday brought the latest exposé on this issue from the International Business Times, which reports on donations from Pacific Rubiales, a Canadian oil company accused of human rights violations in Colombia. Pacific Rubiales’ founder, Frank Giustra, now sits on the Clinton Foundation’s board. IBT reports, “After millions of dollars were pledged by the oil company to the Clinton Foundation — supplemented by millions more from Giustra himself — Secretary Clinton abruptly changed her position on the controversial U.S.-Colombia trade pact. Having opposed the deal as a bad one for labor rights back when she was a presidential candidate in 2008, she now promoted it, calling it ‘strongly in the interests of both Colombia and the United States.’” A cynic would say oil companies are buying influence with the Clintons without being subject to campaign finance laws. A Clinton defender would point out that the foundation gives away this money, it isn’t going into Hillary Clinton’s pocket or her campaign account.”
8 things you need to know about Hillary Clinton and climate changewvParticipantIf elected. For those of us who are genuinely concerned about our environment and its impact on our work force and-for that matter-all of us -this is what the guy’s goals are on the subject.
http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-trump-clinches-nomination-05262016-snap-story.html
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We’re out of time on climate change. And Hillary Clinton helped get us here
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/07/out-of-time-climate-change-hillary-clinton…A new paper from Oxford University, published in the journal Applied Energy, concludes that for humanity to have a 50-50 chance of meeting the temperature targets set in Paris, every new power plant has to be zero-carbon, starting next year.
That is hard. Really hard. At a bare minimum, it requires a willingness to go head-to-head with the two most powerful industries on the planet – fossil-fuel companies and the banks that finance them. Hillary Clinton is uniquely unsuited to this epic task.
While Clinton is great at warring with Republicans, taking on powerful corporations goes against her entire worldview, against everything she’s built, and everything she stands for. The real issue, in other words, isn’t Clinton’s corporate cash, it’s her deeply pro-corporate ideology: one that makes taking money from lobbyists and accepting exorbitant speech fees from banks seem so natural that the candidate is openly struggling to see why any of this has blown up at all.
To understand this worldview, one need look no further than the foundation where Hillary Clinton works and that bears her family name. Its mission can be distilled as follows: There is so much private wealth sloshing around our planet (thanks in very large part to the deregulation and privatisation frenzy that Bill Clinton unleashed on the world while president) that every single problem on earth, no matter how large, can be solved by convincing the ultra-rich to do the right things with their loose change. Naturally, the people to convince them to do these fine things are the Clintons, the ultimate relationship brokers and dealmakers, with the help of an entourage of A-list celebrities.
The problem with Clinton World is structural. It’s the way in which these profoundly enmeshed relationships – lubricated by the exchange of money, favours, status and media attention – shape what gets proposed as policy in the first place…. see link
wvParticipantHi, Billy. How you doing? And how’s the island doing?
Well, the old gang is all here, I suppose. Now all we need is GRITS to post regularly…you know, that guy is still believing the Rams are going back to LA. Crazy fucker…
Oh, wait…
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The Rams will never go back to LA. I’m tellin ya, football failed there.
The Rams are in St.Louis to stay, and all the LA talk is just smoke and mirrors.Kronky is FROM Missouri, for goodness-sakes. He’s NAMED after Stan the Man.
This is just a no-brainer.
w
vwvParticipantSome Irish folk will take Trump expats, too. I just got back from there two days ago.
Epic vacation, great people, great beer…even the driving on the left from the right seat was enjoyable…
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What was the most memorable thing about the trip?
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vwvParticipantLook, as the board socialist-anarchist-cake-examiner,
It is my job to make sure Pa-Ram cuts fair-and-equal pieces
for all of us. I have measured all the pieces of CAKE so far,
and it appears that Pa-Ram has given himself the biggest piece of Cake.
In fact PA-Ram’s piece of cake is 90 percent of the entire cake.
Then the rest of us have pieces that amount to less than One percent of the cake.I call for a Cake-Revolution. This kind of cake-a-tocracy cannot be allowed
to stand. I call for a Redistribution of the Cake.I mean, does PA really think we will fall for his “well if I get 90 percent of the cake, that means many many crumbs will fall to the rest of you” routine?
w
vwvParticipant“TurfShowTimes
@TurfShowTimes
Jeff Fisher is nine losses away from having more career losses than any coach in NFL history.”Let’s hope it takes him more than one season to get the record.
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Yeah, there’s probably a lot of ‘loss’ records he either owns
or is closing in on.But i think most of us on this board agree he’s not a ‘bad coach’.
He’s just not. Despite the Record, which includes a lot more mediocre records than good ones, and despite the many years since he’s had a playoff team.He is not a bad coach. He’s a losing coach most of the time,
but…there’s a reasonable explanation for that 🙂Some folks are just “you are what your won-loss record says you are” types
and to them, thats as far as it goes. And i got no problem with that. Let a thousand flowers wither and be eaten by 17 year locusts.Personally, though, I think the won-loss-folks are in for some
confusing times over the next five years. Cause i think the LA Rams
are gonna be looking pretty good, pretty soon. Not sure about this year, with a rookie QB, but I think good records are coming soon.And wouldnt it be ironic if Fisher started putting playoff teams on the field year after year — and then he got fired after three or four Ten and eleven win seasons. I could see that happening. I could see him being a playoff-coach but not a Ring Winner, and i could see people getting sick of “that”.
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vwvParticipant2nd berman vid
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Geezus. The first video gets a pass from me. His meltdown was probly justified, but that second one was bad.Its almost like he’s not the Hero i had always imagined. Ya know.
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vwvParticipantYeah, Denmarkians are happier and have a better quality of life
and they do it all better. Most Smart people know that. Its a given.Now the real issue To ME, is not whether and why Denmark (and other nations)
are Better than America — the issue to ME, is how and why the
corporate-media in America PREVENTS joe and jane amerika from KNOWING
this stuff. Denmark is totally completely uttlerly and forever-ly off the radar
in the corporate-media. They dont cover it. It might as well be Pluto.Now why would that be?
Why do only certain nations exist to the corporate-media? Iran exists. North Korea exists. Iraq exists. Israel exists. Mexico exists. Some others.
But nations like Denmark? The ones that have a higher quality of life — not allowed to examine that or look at that, or show the joe and jane amerika anything about that.
Strange, aint it.
Ask joe or jane amerika what they associate ‘socialism’ with and they
will say Stalin or Hitler. Thats all they know. Other than, “its Failed everywhere”.w
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This reply was modified 10 years, 2 months ago by
wv.
wvParticipanthttp://www.vox.com/2016/4/21/11451378/smug-american-liberalism
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I passed that “smug liberal” article on to a young grad-student friend of mine.
Just thot I’d pass along here spontaneous reply to it (for those that read the article) (…i also mentioned to her that i hate the word ‘neoliberal’ coz i think it confuzes the peepulz)===============
Yeah… I wasn’t sure what to think of it at first either. But I think I figured out why something about it seems off to me.I think he’s absolutely right when he says it’s misguided to blame poor rednecks. I think where he goes wrong is in saying we should instead blame the smug liberals. The problem isn’t “smug liberals,” just as it isn’t “poor rednecks.” Blaming the individual is the problem. Blaming the individual is…. neoliberalism.*
See, this is why I think we need that word. I don’t think this guy understands the big picture — the system, the ideology. This dude would have written a much better article if he had that framework to work with. Maybe he wouldn’t have had to use that word you don’t like, but certainly if he could write this piece, he could use the concept of neoliberalism to frame his criticisms and communicate essential parts of the concept. But he doesn’t see it, he’s too stuck in it to see it and misses the point entirely. That’s why he blames those smug liberals for their misguided blaming of dumb rednecks, when he should really be blaming the system.
If I could rewrite this whole article, I would say, “Rich educated people who vote Democrat like to smugly blame poor people for voting against their own interests. But the reason they blame poor people is because that’s what neoliberal ideology trained them to do so that they won’t question the fucked up neoliberal economic system that produces poor people.” But maybe that article wouldn’t have gotten on Vox. (I don’t know who owns Vox.)
I don’t think we can get out of the mess we’ve created for ourselves unless more people can “see” the ideology for what it is, and have some way of discussing/communicating it. I don’t know if your preferred term “corporate-capitalism” quite covers it or not. It’s just a part of the puzzle. Another part of the puzzle is that there is a very problematic over-emphasis on individual effort and “freedom.” Pointing the finger at corporations breaks it down into something more concrete and real, but I think maybe it does that at the expense of understanding how ideology shapes the way we think about the world and about things like individual freedm. Maybe. I don’t know. It’s late and I’m tired.
*If you would like to stop receiving emails containing variants of the word “neoliberal,” please send youtube videos of baby animals doing cute things. No neoliberal baby animals, please.
====================wvParticipantWell, we can’t afford any of those programs because we are richer than Denmark. So forget it.
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LoL
Sometimes u hit chords as perfectly as Tom Tomorrow.
w
vwvParticipantThis is good. The more the establishment bashes Trump the more support he garners across the political spectrum.
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I dunno about that. There is a reason Obama never went all ‘attack-mode’
during his campaigns. He could have, but he didn’t. Now, maybe its
just his personality, but i kinda think the algebra favors a calm,
milk-toasty candidate in the end. I mean, sure the rightwingers love it when Trump is attacked and when Trump goes on the attack. The leftwingers (like me) dont care. We already sided with Sanders a long time ago. So who is left? Who will decide the election? The middle-ground, milk-toasties. And my ‘guess’ is, the algebra shows they dont like ‘attackers’ or bombastic-scary candidates.
I mean there is a reason Trump has ‘reined it in’ a bit, right? His handlers are trying to negotiate/maneuver/decide whether and how much “to let trump, be trump” i bet.I could be wrong, of course. I dont really follow campaign-algebra stuff, i just shoot from the hip based on my gut.
PS — i dont think trump is stupid, and i think its a mistake when people think his is or write that he is. I think he’s smarter than Reagan ever was, or G.Bush II. I do think he has huge blind spots, probly in foreign policy, but a lot of candidates have had huge blind spots and still won elections.
w
vwvParticipantYou know what made me hold my smile an extra beat,
when Kaepernik fumbled on the goal-line?..
… Just thinking of the pain it caused
Chris Berman.Yes.
Schadenfreude Ram
wvParticipantHappy b-day, Pa.
w
vwvParticipant… People need to realize that Trump is all campaign and no leadership…
… just said things out of his ass because that’s how you do business, by telling people what they want to hear…—————
Well, Reagan didnt have a plan either, and just told people what
they wanted to hear, and he got himself elected that way.So that formula can work just fine.
w
vwvParticipantI dont watch debates, but yeah that interesting.
Why no Hillary?
w
vwvParticipantThe training of lawyers:
An interesting personal experience that validates WV’s post on how lawyers are trained to think: First day in law school and first class -Torts. Literally weeks had gone into my preparation for this first day. Mostly out of fear. Read all the cases, outlined them, even researched the issues in the library and ended up “knowing what was right”. Come to class which had about 60 people. Professor Kleinberg tells everyone to close their books and put away all written material they have brought. He then brings out a wooden spoon and a wooden fork. He starts by calling each student by name to stand up and tell him what they see. The first 20 or so students say roughly the same thing:” I see a wooden spoon and a wooden fork” Sometime around half way through the session a middle age woman stands up and says: I see two utensils”. Then someone else gets the idea: “I see two tools”. Another:”I see pieces of art”. Still another: “I see two weapons”, etc,etc. After class there was a rush to the podium with many asking the prof. what about the cases I spent so much time reading and outlining? Kleinberg says: ” if by the end of this semester you don’t understand the exercise we just went through you should not be a lawyer”. I went to his retirement not long ago and-you guessed it-he brought out his wooden “utensils”. (He also confessed that when he was a young student at Yale that same exercise was trust upon his initial class)
True story.
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Good story.
I remember i didnt really figure out what my law-professors meant by “thinking like a lawyer” until about half-way through my first year. I mean, it took me that long to figure it out. Coz the teachers always acted like it was a great mystery that we had to ‘discover’ or figure out….
It annoys me that they treated it like a zen koan,
instead of just stating flat out, that it means learning
to see cases from all kinds of angles and being creative in how
you interpret arguments and patterns and stuff.I do like the spoon thing, but I would have followed that up
with a plain, straight, explanation-example of what the point is/was.w
v
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