We've been vilified since long before Nam, and in some cases rightly so. Look up the history of Iran for example. Any idea why they hate us so much? Do you think us deposing a rightful and Democratic Prime Minister back in the 50s to install the Shah might have had something to do with it?

The CIA warned us at the time that there would be blowback, that's on record, and what we saw a couple of decades later after the extremist movement had time to ferment and grow under the Shah was that blowback. It wasn't an extremist nation in the 50s. And we always act like we don't have any idea why they were pissed.

Nothing excuses a terrorist or extremist but that kind of anger often has roots somewhere, in that case it was in our concern over them wanting to control their own oil. We thought nationalization of it was a big problem. In "dealing" with that we just created a bigger one. We've got a habit of that. It's not that we don't have a right to do anything, just that we too often decide to do the wrong thing and are too aggressive about it so trade small problems for big ones as a result. Instead of pretending that we're simply misunderstood and there's no reason for the anger we'd be better served to try to find the roots of it and deal with the problems.

Damn I misread the points required, it takes more for a self promote than for a regular it seems.

*promote

I ended up with a quirk or two also, but in all it's a great job and I'm glad to see this much. It's better than anyone expected just a few hours ago.

As far as I can figure the older stuff was restored intact but without newer votes, newer stuff put together best they could. That gives a couple of odd results it seems but for the one I cared about I never expected to see 10 votes on it again and it's got 53 of the 62 back. I'm happy enough given how in the dumps I was about it before.

*promote

My personal opinion? If that guy is making a good living as a consultant for that stuff his customers aren't getting their moneys worth.

Infamous crimes aside most don't care why you're in, the idea of child molesters and such having it so much worse than others mostly applies to cases that made the news and tugged on someones heartstrings. For the rest and for the most part they don't care. In his case they'd know I'd guess but I'm not sure that means more to them than any for other rich white collar criminal there. He didn't rape a baby, he made money by committing a crime. That they understand, some might even be impressed by the scale of it.

Not saying there couldn't be a hit on Bernie, but I doubt it. You don't play at that level without a "just in case" note left with a lawyer or a close friend. If he's got any secrets left then the people he's got them on are more likely working to keep him healthy and happy than to hurt him.

It made good TV but I didn't buy it.

There's only one video I care about in my collection and either way would deal with it about as well so I'll abstain and let those with more of a stake in it make the choice.

I do want to say thanks to Lucky and anyone else working on this, for reasons I've whined enough about elsewhere that one video was kind of important to me. Thanks

Hell, I'm just being a shit I guess. Sorry about that. Lost an animal early today and just let the two of them together get to me, haven't been in a great mood to start with. With the number of people we have here we can't do this every time one of us has a rough time or something. I'll try to shut up about it here and deal with it otherwise in a few days when I'm better suited for it maybe.

The YouTube page for this video has a number of links and some additional info for anyone interested, links to both the software used to make this video and to some of what he considers to be like minded channels or sites.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrPYQraAcws

The comparison between them isn't new in the reform community and it's an argument that some at LEAP have used for ages. Although the effects are somewhat different both are highly addictive and tobacco use dropped by a significant amount through intensive education and regulation rather than through prison. The Swiss have had a fair bit of success with a combined treatment and maintenance routine they recently shifted from trial study to permanent for heroin which seems to lend some merit to the argument. Similar trial studies have been done in Germany, Britain, and elsewhere with good success but a lot of political resistance.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:
All the content is still here. The videos, comments, playlists and people are all still standing in the face of today's syftopianfuture. It's not the end of the colander. If we let this bring us down, then the errorists have truly won.
Long live the sift and it's awesome citizenry!


It might be that simple for some, but not for others. I'll share something here I hadn't posted publicly yet in all the time I've been here. This is why I'm so hung up on the prison system and the drug war in general. I shared it with one person in private but so far I've always just said it isn't relevant in public posts.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=216&topic_id=3703&mesg_id=3722

I wrote that on request for someone who thought it might help them with something, wouldn't have put it on record otherwise but there it is. I do what I do so we'll stop making new people like me.

I've spent much of the last 20 years fighting this stuff, full time the last 10 or so and part time in increasing amounts before that. For personal reasons I can't do it anymore and I've posted that here before, it's all getting closer to the surface again and I can't do this like that. The loss of the post "cops say legalize drugs" is something I'll probably never be able to reproduce and the only reason it got as many votes as it did was the debate, not the post itself.

For some it's the loss of some status and some votes. For me it was the loss of one of the few records I had of the last few years and it's a reference that's still posted in other places. Going to look pretty pathetic as a reference the way it is and there isn't a damned thing I can do about it.

Yeah, I'm pretty depressed too.

I'll post my most important one instead of top, it was #2 anyway.

http://www.videosift.com/video/Cops-say-legalize-drugs-ask-them-why

A couple of details on why it's important.

We're the most imprisoned nation in the world, bar none. That's per capita and in raw terms. Bottom drop down menu allows a view of either.

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/depsta/law/research/icps/worldbrief/wpb_stats.php

We haven't saved any lives, death rates for cocaine have climbed by 7 times with a similar climb in heroin.

http://www.briancbennett.com/charts/death/cdc/opiates-yr.htm
http://www.briancbennett.com/charts/death/cdc/cocaine-yr.htm

We didn't drive prices up, they fell at the street level range in particular.

http://www.briancbennett.com/charts/fed-data/heroin-prices.htm
http://www.briancbennett.com/charts/fed-data/cocaine-prices.htm

And we didn't reduce purity, purity is several times higher in heroin than it was when we started which likely contributes to the climb in death rates. Cocaine is up in the small amount street level range too, but not as much.

http://www.briancbennett.com/charts/fed-data/heroin-purity.htm
http://www.briancbennett.com/charts/fed-data/cocaine-purity.htm

The thread isn't about making them more available, it's about regulation and control guided by trial study, an alternative to what's now known to be failed and damaging policy. It could use some votes, or some thought at least. Used to have 62 in balance after the single downvote it had. Sorry for the long note but it's hard to say why it's important without the info and I honestly don't care about any of the others. Late edit to fix a link.

It's there now and was shortly after Dag posted, but I've got no channels or anything else filtered and never have. Can't tell you what changed but I'm sure it wasn't when I looked, I looked more than once and at both pages to be sure, and refreshed. I can see how I might have missed it in the middle of a list but not at the top of the page.

Doesn't matter anyway, it's the least of your problems right now I'm sure and if it's there now it's not one to me either. Thanks for checking on it.

In reply to this comment by lucky760:
Your video is at the top of your sifted videos listing:
http://wtf.videosift.com/member/drattus/published

It's possible you have one of the channels it's in filtered. That could make it disappear from just your view. It's in the religion and lies channels atm.

Bad morning overall I guess. I had an animal die a couple of hours ago, on the way to the vet but didn't make it. I don't think I'll be starting the post this time. I'll hang around and watch some vids, vote a bit. It'll help distract me if nothing else, but this probably wouldn't be a good time to resift a controversial thread if I'm likely to be short on patience or not in the mood. It's still a good idea though but don't wait for me to post it. Not for a few days at least.

That's a real good summary, RadHazG. The only qualifier I'd add is that as far as I can tell on the second set togetherinpeace didn't file them, he warned PCS that it wasn't a copyright issue and PCS filed those himself in spite of the warning that he shouldn't and that togetherinpeace wouldn't. Venomfangx was told straight out to "be careful, if you file a false DMCA you can get your account suspended".

Additional info would be that during the week+ that PCS had to think about it PCS had either a nervous breakdown or something pretty close to it. Two vids before this one in the playlist has segments of it, "False DMCA Consequences". PCS did at least 5 full videos in that time which were later deleted by him. There's just fragments left such as the clips used in this playlist but it got really, really weird. Costumes, makeup, lots of shouting and play acting. It got really weird. I think that had as much as anything to do with him getting off easy. It would have been kicking someone who was already in real trouble, or at least would have gave the appearance of it.

I should have done that earlier in the thread, thanks for getting to it