unarmedman wrote:What has been so unbelievable in all this mess is that no one seems to understand the Sunni/Shi'ite split has wars dating back practically to the birth of Islam. This is not something unique to Iraq, or to this century. But the idiots that run our country seem hopelessly optimistic that they can change something. Who the hell are they, anyway?

"So this has been happening for 1300 years now. But yeah, let's have a couple more meetings. That might stop it."

Sure...

I'm sorry, but fuck off. With Galanter gone, and Matthew quiet, there remains only smarmy drive-by bullshit like this to redress. It's not that American imperialists are in cahoots with warlords and thugs--nothing to do with the violent politics of imperial occupation at all. Rather, according to you, it's the bumbling naivety of well-intentioned Westerners thinking it's possible to intervene in 1300 years of atavistic Muslim savagery. Just like the shit with Chiquita/United Fruit and death squads is really a local Colombian problem. Wherever Americans go, they mean well and, when things go wrong, it's never their fault. It's simply that Americans keep overestimating the democratic potential of backwards peoples.

Start here. Or here. Take a look here.

Try also:



(Enlarged)

Andrew L. wrote:It's not that American imperialists are in cahoots with warlords and thugs--nothing to do with the violent politics of imperial occupation at all.

When you use a conspiracy theory to describe the devolution of Iraq, do you flinch a little, Andrew? And make no mistake about it: assignment of blame for Iraq on a cabal of American imperialists in cahoots with warlords and thugs is a conspiracy theory, because it describes foreign policy made by a group of men who do not answer to our democratic process, do not explain their plans to the controlled media, and do not respect American or international laws. Thus, they are conspirators.

Andrew L. wrote:I'm sorry, but fuck off. With Galanter gone, and Matthew quiet, there remains only smarmy drive-by bullshit like this to redress. It's not that American imperialists are in cahoots with warlords and thugs--nothing to do with the violent politics of imperial occupation at all. Rather, according to you, it's the bumbling naivety of well-intentioned Westerners thinking it's possible to intervene in 1300 years of atavistic Muslim savagery. Just like the shit with Chiquita/United Fruit and death squads is really a local Colombian problem. Wherever Americans go, they mean well and, when things go wrong, it's never their fault. It's simply that Americans keep overestimating the democratic potential of backwards peoples.

I never said they meant well. Precisely the opposite - American self-interest in the region has tipped the balance of power. There is a history of Western interference in the Middle East that dates back hundreds of years. Most pertinent to today's issues are the British imperialism and subsequent American imperialism. We ("the West") need to get the fuck out of there.

I've said it before on here and I'll say it again - Saddam Hussein may have been the best buffer against an Iranian client state. That's why Reagan supported him in the 80's, why Bush I didn't remove him from power, and why Bush II was incredibly shortsighted for removing him from power.

edit: I will add though, that you cannot deny that the Sunni/Shi'ite split is something that has existed long before the existence of Western imperialism.

I'm sorry, but fuck off. With Galanter gone, and Matthew quiet, there remains only smarmy drive-by bullshit like this to redress.

Don't worry - I don't taint this perfect forum all too often these days...

clocker bob wrote: The only hope is economic collapse ruining the slow boiling frog of globalism and corporate tyranny, and then we break out of our mental prisons.

I seriously hope you're joking. If an economic collapse does happen, we, the public, will be the ones who'll get seriously fucked in the end. The elite, political, and corporate, will survive without so much as a hair moved on their heads. Not to sound cryptic, but our mental prisons will stay as long as we live in this society, or it'll be replaced by new ones.

Skronk wrote:

clocker bob wrote: The only hope is economic collapse ruining the slow boiling frog of globalism and corporate tyranny, and then we break out of our mental prisons.

I seriously hope you're joking. If an economic collapse does happen, we, the public, will be the ones who'll get seriously fucked in the end.

I'm not joking. The lethargy that grips this country will only be broken by untethering the drones from their comfort zone. People are getting seriously fucked right now, but many don't know it and don't feel it because it's a slow erosion of the quality of their lives. They don't know it properly because they don't know what they're feeling, other than a strange unease, and they don't feel it properly because they are ill-equipped to understand what is happening to them.

The percentage of people who are getting less back for their effort is increasing, and the percentage of people who simply take more and get away with it is increasing. On a macroeconomic scale, many are being slowly poisoned, and some of us are being rapidly poisoned. We, the general population of this country, are being positioned for a great fall by corporate vampires, and we are being set up for a beating by a world that is being turned against us, thanks to the reckless imperialist policies of the warmongers. America is being drained like a pool, chiseled away by conniving impostors and mammon worshippers, our government has no legitimacy and our popular culture is approaching the status of a carnival side show.

I beg for an economic collapse that will test Americans, force them to think quickly on their feet again, expose to them the wolves that run wild through our house- that is the key point: people under duress must see the wolves. They must understand the origins and the design of the crash. If they channel their frustrations over the collapse into attacking and robbing their equally distressed neighbors, then yes, we will go from bad to worse. But we will never go from bad to good on our current path. The sun will set on us without a fight. A crash could make us fight and drive out the parasites. A complete Hobbesian breakdown of society is not guaranteed by a new Depression. It didn't happen last time. If the Americans who knew what happened in 1929 and why it happened could have somehow gotten the message out, maybe the vampires couldn't have implemented the second half of their evil plan after the designed crash, and the prison of the perpetual war economy would have been defeated in its infancy.

I think there is a tipping point in the American economy approaching that will reverberate throughout the global economy, sending shockwaves through world markets and currencies, and it will eventually kill the US dollar as we know it. The debt load will cause the US economy to implode, before the next ten years are up, but five years wouldn't shock me. Since I see the collapse as inevitable, I'm trying to cling to a very utopian dream of the shock treatment of the collapse translating into an opportunity for the meek to reinherit the Earth.

When America is tested with an economic crash, the same thing will happen that happened in 1929, but a hell a lot worse. The bankers orchestrated the charade, brought Wall St. to it's knees, and reaped the benefits. A crash like the one you're describing, would drive people into the arms of the Government, the same one that would place us in that situation. You've got a situation ripe for the picking, whether it's the National Corridor and/or the Amero, it's created for a purpose. Ordinary people wouldn't see it for what it really is, you know that.

"The meek shall inherit nothing"
-Frank Zappa

There was a very good debate on the Anniversary of the War on BBC Question Time a couple of days back, in which the panel, including Tony Benn and Benazir Bhutto (as well as the audience) got to debate the merits of the invasion,war and occupation with 'Lord of Misrule' John Bolton. Was there ever such a charmless fuckstick?

Selected clips on YouTube:

John Bolton on Question Time

Full programme here:

BBC Question Time

Skronk wrote: Ordinary people wouldn't see it for what it really is, you know that.

I know what I see now, in our current state: ordinary people not seeing it for what it really is. I'm very close to completely agreeing with you that ordinary people will not see it in any case, no matter what shocks are delivered to them- my pessimism tells me that chance of escape are slim. I don't want to give in to that.

skronk wrote:A crash like the one you're describing, would drive people into the arms of the Government.

That's where I think you might be wrong. If you can see that our visible government is just serving as a 'host' for the parasitical shadow government, then I can imagine the 'costume' of the visible government crumpling up into a sagging heap when the debt default comes. The monster will leave the host, and the host will be incapacititated, and unable to serve people looking for the Government to organize the reaction to the crash. For my fantasitical scenario of the people awakening from their slumber and learning to live independently from the nanny state again, there must be a schism between the people and the visible 'pretend' government, and there must also be a schism between the ranks of ordinary people serving in the military and the traitors who have captured the higher ranks.

clocker bob wrote:5. Freedom isn’t Free. Freedom is messy.

yes, but freedumb is.

madlee wrote:

clocker bob wrote:5. Freedom isn’t Free. Freedom is messy.

I don't think I wrote that. If I did, I stole it.