Mike Pence Will Be the Most Powerful Christian Supremacist in U.S. History

Hell of a line, isn't it? Normally I'd blow this off as your run-of-the-mill hyperbole, but it's Jeremy Scahill, which made it a must-read for me. Well worth the time. For instance, I didn't know that Pence was buddy-buddy with Eric Prince himself. Yes, that's Blackwater's Eric Prince. Christian Supremacists with a mercenary army -- think about that for a minute.

I will never come to terms with how much hyperbole is being thrown at this (semi-)botched launch. How is the world 'letting' Microsoft have a poor product roll-out strategy? How is Microsoft more nefarious than Blackwater, or the Corrections Corporation of America? How am I more locked out of my PC when Windows stops working than I'm locked out of my DVD player when I have to return the disc I rented?

I mean - I get why people care. I have a McLuhanesque relationship with my PC that I'll never have with my phone or my tablet (devices that regularly force me to upgrade OS, and also 'siphon' personal data), and I can feel actual low levels of anxiety when my PC breaks, even if I don't need it for anything. I just don't get the hyperbole.

in an anarchal society the corporation could not and would not exist.they would go back to being temporary business alliances in order to complete an assigned project and then disbursed.

Who tells Enron or Blackwater they have to disburse? Who enforces this?

in an anarchal society,if a company wanted to move its plant over-seas and would leave thousands un-employed,effectively destroying that community.they would first have to seek permission from that township and/or sell the plant to the town in order to change base of operations.

Again, what's stopping them? In fact, what stops a company from cutting down a massive forest or polluting a river?

in an anarchal system,there would be no war on drugs.no criminalizing the poor.no war on terror or wars of aggression.

Maybe, but it would simply be replaced by something even worse.

look,the argument is always,and i mean always:power vs powerlessness.

anarchy is about power to the people in its purest form.
and i hold zero illusions that it may be remotely perfect but if i have to choose..i will always choose YOU over some wealthy elite power broker.

And that's why I believe in a representative democracy. To me there are only a few ways the world can work:
- there's what I would call historical anarchy, where there was nothing to stop groups of the powerful banding together to oppress the weak. This has been the default position for most of human history.
- there's small scale communal anarchy, where people live in small communities. It's possible for this to work, but some bright spark usually figures out that these people are easy pickings for oppression (see above). Even if that doesn't happen, it's incredibly limiting. All of our greatest achievements only happen with cooperation on a large scale. If we're ever to get off this rock and see what's out there, it's not going to happen with hippie communes.
- representative democracy. It's ugly, inefficient, susceptible to corruption, open to pointless "moral crusades" and can be heartless and bureaucratic. And it's still the best system we have....

Churchill really wasn't kidding when he said "democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others"

These cops did an excellent job under difficult circumstances. And I don't buy for a second the "she's only a girl" bullshit.

And I'm with @sheppard. Yes, there are bad cops, but to tar them all with them same brush is just fucking ignorant. I have a friend who is right now in police college. He's taking a massive pay cut from his previous job to be a cop, because he believes in it.

Everything in this video made me admire these cops. They did the best they could with a woman who was cynically trying to exploit her gender to get out of being arrested. Watch the look on her face at 3:12. She's perfectly fine and is even trying to signal someone, but then she goes back to being hysterical.

Meanwhile, the people videoing are insisting on knowing what she was arrested for, which is none of their business, and in fact would be a violation of her privacy for the cops to give out.

All in all, they handled the situation with professionalism and courtesy.

And @Trancecoach, you really want to replace the police with private security? Yeah, 'cos that's worked out so well with prisons and the military (blackwater, etc)....

You have been awarded 1 Power Point for fixing the embed code for Dead Pool video Profitable Patriotism: Blackwater in Iraq. Thank you for helping maintain VideoSift's reliability.

what this video does not mention is the huge contingent of blackwater mercenaries that were sent to new orleans during katrina.
*quality

>> ^bobknight33:

Sounds like the current Administration / DOJ protects the bankers more that the last bank loving President.
Bush prosecuted I believe around 1 thousand Banker type crooks. Obama rate is near zero.


Oh boy... someone's been ringing the imaginary unicorn bells... Even ignoring that you pulled your númbers out of your arse and establishing that I'm fine with stating that Obama is a tool of kinds...
... but trying to use that to white-wash the guys involved in the blackwater (now "Academi"-) scandal, the iraq/post-katherina reconstruction "inconsistencies", not to mention the establishment of the biggest and most "public" political prison in the western hemisphere is a tad far-fetched of an effort.

Let's just settle with both parties are made of similar material when it comes to employing the judicial apparatus and leave it at that, ok?

I understand that there are time concerns with a televised series, but I felt like there was a lot in this battle/episode that I missed in comparison to the book.

I've read that George R. R. Martin is a fan of the Chinese historical novel "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" (I'm a fan also), and to me it seems pretty clear that the Battle of the Blackwater was fairly strongly inspired by the Battle of Red Cliff (Chi Bi) from that book.

Both have a long lead-up to a known naval battle, led by very intelligent strategists (Tyrion in GoT, Zhuge Liang in RoTK) coming up with a strategy that involves clustering/connecting the boats with a chain/chains and then hitting them with fire. The nuances present in the telling of both of these battles in their respective books are great, and although I personally think that the GoT version was partially inspired by RoTK, Martin did a good job of putting his own spin on it and making it his own.

The TV version was still entertaining for me, but I kept on thinking about what was missing that makes the characters (particularly Tyrion) shine even more. It also seemed that everything happens so fast that it would likely be fairly confusing to viewers who haven't read the book also.

Anyone coming from a TV perspective only have a take on that? Or is anyone familiar with RoTK and see the shadows of it come through in Game of Thrones like I do?

I think one thing not mentioned yet is that the positive things Ron Paul is promising were already promised by the current president (to an extent):

"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank." - Barack Obama Campaign Promise - October 27, 2007

Yes, the last troops did come home last December, however an enormous private security presence remains - up to 20,000 people costing America ~$3.5 billion a year.
http://newsjunkiepost.com/2011/12/18/iraq-war-us-troops-are-out-but-blackwater-and-halliburton-will-stay/

...and America is expanding it's wars and troop presence in other countries, e.g. in the Asia Pacific, including here in Australia (FU), and trying to escalate the situation with Iran.

So the war has morphed into something else, and the spirit of his statement has been broken, you don't promise to end wars if you plan on just starting others somewhere else.

He also made plenty of other promises, for example @MonkeySpank about stopping corporate lobbying:
“You said the time has come to tell the lobbyists who think their money and their influence speak louder than our voices that they don’t own this government – we do. And we are here to take it back.” (Sen. Barack Obama, Remarks, Des Moines, IA, 1/3/08)

Here's some more broken promises of his:
http://www.politisite.com/2012/01/05/obamas-failed-promises/

So the point? They are both politicians, they can say whatever they want and continue to do the exact opposite, all they have to worry about is a few people sleeping in a park, there is absolutely no accountability in Washington. Obama got far closer to highlighting many of the issues that face America than Ron Paul ever has, and look at the result, all Ron Paul will bring is fewer broken promises, so the only reason to vote him in is if you want to be 'let down less'.

However I think he has been clearer about the fact all troops need to be brought home, not just some troops involved in a specific conflict, so in that regard I think Yogi is right in that there would be some serious consequences from the establishment if he tried to do that, so it would be impossible for him, even if he is actually telling the truth about wanting to do it. As for the policies he wants to introduce that will have far reaching negative consequences for the vast majority of Americans (e.g. dropping/lowering corporate taxes), those will get passed easily.

>> ^Yogi:


They're mad. They're very upset that Obama isn't doing what he said he was gonna do. They're fucking morons believing in fairytales.


Yeah they're crazy for wanting to stop the destruction of the biosphere, end suicidal trillion dollar opportunistic oil heists around the world, get rid of nukes before one ends up in NYC, control the bullying of 6th generation intellectually mediocre inheritees wielding billions, stop rich right wing politicians sending the poor off to die in foreign fields in return for backhanders from Halliburton, Blackwater and the oil companies, stop 'losing' billions of dollars in cash on aeroplanes bound for Baghdad, try and resuscitate America's tattered reputation as a country of democracy, freedom and law, deal with Afghanistan, Pakistan and Saudi because THATS WHERE THE TERRORISTS LIVE NOT IRAQ, stop burning thousands of children to death in their cots in self defeating attempts to dominate huge populations of increasing angry bereaved paupers,and stop America from ending up as the poor beggar in a nuclear standoff with china in 20 years that they'll have to back down from cos china could take everything the US has and walk away with 300m people breathing -and the US knows it- and the west now talking about 'freedom' and respect for individuals and other nations will just make the Chinese commie party laugh even harder (and milks been coming out of their nose since 2002).

Stop America tearing itself to pieces and handing the next 2 centuries to 1.5 billion Chinese who have EVEN LESS interest and empathy for the 'Rest Of World' than Americans?

Maybe you're right Yogi.

I read the wiki article you posted, it says the opposite of what you suggest. That pre-1980, they had no ability to generate policy...they just gathered information. Do you have a link to something that talks about the freemarkety nature in the 80s?, because that link doesn't have it. Unless you are just talking about Regan doing free market stuff on the whole affecting education somehow indirectly, but the link clearly says he made it a federal government responsibility to create educational policy in the 80s. In that, I don't know that your argument fully answers @Grimm's claim that educational stardards have gone down since federal policy making has been done. We aren't talking about free markets here, even at the state level. We are talking about who makes better policies affecting children's education; federal or state. It has also been of my opinion that for important things, eggs in one basket methodologies are dangerous. Best to have a billion little educational experiments boiling around the country, cooking up information that the rest of them can turn around and use. Waiting for a federal mandate to adopt a policy can be rather tedious.

I have some friends that are educators, I will have to ask them how they feel about this. It is easy for us to have an opinion based on raw idealism of our core beliefs, but I would be interested to see what certain teachers have to say. I met a real interesting person at my friends bachelor party. He came from a union state, and moved down here to Texas, we have teachers unions and things, but they aren't as powerful as the north. He experienced a complete change in himself. He found that his own involvement in his union happened in such a way where he basically held the kids education hostage over wages. He said that is was basically the accepted role of teachers to risk children's education over pay. I am not talking about just normal pay, but he was making 50k as a grade school teacher in the early 90s. Not suggesting this is normal, but it is something we don't copy here in Texas. As for his own mind, he knows he would never teach in that area of the country again, and would never suggest anyone move their that values their children's education.

What would be interesting to me is if the absence of the DOE would break down some of the red tape and allow schools to "get creative" with programs a federal political body might not want to take a risk on. Education is to important to fail on, and applying "to big to fail" kind of logic to a failing system of education is to much politics to play for me. Empower teachers and schools, and try to avoid paying as many non-educators as possible would be one way to improve things I would wager. What aspect of the DOE do you think is successful that we need to keep exactly? I mean, I can tell you I don't like that the DOD is so huge and powerful, but I know nuclear subs and aircraft carriers can't operate themselves. What necessarily component of the DOE do you see as necessarily, beyond just talking point of either party line stance of it? I mean, the Department of Energy's main goal was to get us off foreign oil, like a long time ago, that is pretty failed as much as the DOE. Different approach needed, or a massive rethinking of the current one. You don't usually get massive rethinking nationally of any coherent nature, which is why I think a local strategy might be a good way to go here. Perhaps then, you could have that initial part of the DOE before it became the DOE of providing information to schools about what works from other schools kick in again.

This kind of talk of "Ron Paul addresses none of this" about something that isn't related exactly isn't really fair. It is like trying to talk about income tax issues and saying changing them doesn't address the issue of the military war machine...well of course not, it is a different issue. Did you see that recent Greewald video where he talks about the founders did think that massive inequality was not only permissible, but the idea...just as long as the rules were the same for everyone? What I mean to say is that there does need to be a measure of fairness, but that fairness needs to be the same for everyone, rich and poor. I still say the real problem lay in the government creating the monster first and the monster is now eating us. If legislators simply refused to accept the legitimacy of corporate entities and instead say that only individuals can deal on the behalf of themselves with the govenrment(the elimination of the corporate charter as it refers to its relationship to the government) things could get better in a day. But since the good ol USA thinks that non-people entities are people, well, I don't see much hope for restoration. Money is the new government, rule of law is dead. I liked the recent Greenwald input on this. Rant over Sorry, this is just kind of stream of consciousness here, didn't plan out an actual goal or endpoint of my ideas....just a huge, burdensome wall of text

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

The first incarnation of the department of education was actually created in 1876. Was our educational system unfucked before 1876? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Education
1980 was a pivotal year, but it had nothing to do with the department of education. 1980 was the year that Reagan ushered in a large number of 'free market' reforms: Privatization, deregulation, tax cuts for those at the top, austerity for those at the bottom... basically the Milton Friedman Shock Doctrine as described in Naomi Klein's excellent book.
We've since seen the rise of the corporate state and a deterioration of the public sector. These market principles have seen our jobs exported to 3rd world slaves (and then asked us to compete with those slaves), have given the green light to mass pollution and global warming, have allowed big business to use our military as middle east mercenaries and have redistributed vast amounts of wealthy to a tiny fraction of the population (not to mention numerous scandals (Enron, Exxon, BofA, Countrywide, Halliburton, Blackwater, Savings and Loans, Mortgages, etc..)
Ron Paul addresses none of this. He has no solutions for jobs or inequality outside of his faith in invisible hands and invisible deities. He doesn't even seem aware that there is a problem. I don't think he's lying when he pretentiously states that his partisan political views are the very definition of liberty. I just think he is another out of touch conservative millionaire with a mind easily manipulated by self serving dogma (be it religious political or economic).

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

The first incarnation of the department of education was actually created in 1876. Was our educational system unfucked before 1876? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Education
1980 was a pivotal year, but it had nothing to do with the department of education. 1980 was the year that Reagan ushered in a large number of 'free market' reforms: Privatization, deregulation, tax cuts for those at the top, austerity for those at the bottom... basically the Milton Friedman Shock Doctrine as described in Naomi Klein's excellent book.
We've since seen the rise of the corporate state and a deterioration of the public sector. These market principles have seen our jobs exported to 3rd world slaves (and then asked us to compete with those slaves), have given the green light to mass pollution and global warming, have allowed big business to use our military as middle east mercenaries and have redistributed vast amounts of wealthy to a tiny fraction of the population (not to mention numerous scandals (Enron, Exxon, BofA, Countrywide, Halliburton, Blackwater, Savings and Loans, Mortgages, etc..)
Ron Paul addresses none of this. He has no solutions for jobs or inequality outside of his faith in invisible hands and invisible deities. He doesn't even seem aware that there is a problem. I don't think he's lying when he pretentiously states that his partisan political views are the very definition of liberty. I just think he is another out of touch conservative millionaire with a mind easily manipulated by self serving dogma (be it religious political or economic).


Well said sir, in my view no department is inherently bad or good, the value of the department depends on who is running it, how it is used and how policies governing the department are made. If the Department of Education is causing harm to the education of students then this could be fixed by resolving the underlying issue which is one of corrupt policy making. Look at Bill Gates for example, he's playing his part to destroy and privatize the education system so he can have Windows on every school computer and influence the public education budget. He's allowed to do this because of policy changes and enormous amounts of lobbying money (which go hand in hand).

Here's an interesting read about some of the sweeping changes he's been able to introduce via lobbying:
http://techrights.org/2011/09/09/new-york-times-and-washpo-on-edu/

Plus of course all the other issues dystopianfuturetoday mentions - these won't go away just by removing a couple of departments - the core issues of corruption and lobbying have to be fixed first.

Is Ron Paul going to fix these? Hell no. Even if he was strongly in favor of these sorts of real changes, he wouldn't get support for them under the current system, the GOP would block everything, the Dems would keep talking about how bad the GOP is for blocking everything, and everything would continue to get fucked just as badly, or worse, than it currently is.

The first incarnation of the department of education was actually created in 1876. Was our educational system unfucked before 1876? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Education

1980 was a pivotal year, but it had nothing to do with the department of education. 1980 was the year that Reagan ushered in a large number of 'free market' reforms: Privatization, deregulation, tax cuts for those at the top, austerity for those at the bottom... basically the Milton Friedman Shock Doctrine as described in Naomi Klein's excellent book.

We've since seen the rise of the corporate state and a deterioration of the public sector. These market principles have seen our jobs exported to 3rd world slaves (and then asked us to compete with those slaves), have given the green light to mass pollution and global warming, have allowed big business to use our military as middle east mercenaries and have redistributed vast amounts of wealth to a tiny fraction of the population (not to mention numerous scandals (Enron, Exxon, BofA, Countrywide, Halliburton, Blackwater, Savings and Loans, Mortgages, etc..)

Ron Paul addresses none of this. He has no solutions for jobs or inequality outside of his faith in invisible hands and invisible deities. He doesn't even seem aware that there is a problem. I don't think he's lying when he pretentiously states that his partisan political views are the very definition of liberty. I just think he is another out of touch conservative millionaire with a mind easily manipulated by self serving dogma (be it religious political or economic).

>> ^blankfist:


But you're changing what you wrote above. Sure, when someone protects themselves or others that's being defensive, but you made a point of them enforcing the law - and doing that means they're an offensive force of violence, not defensive.


The law is ultimately there to protect people. As a society/culture/species we've made a collective decision over centuries that we are willing to trade some rights for protections, i.e. the right to assault someone v.s. that persons protection from assault. If a cop enforces the law then they are supposed to be protecting the citizens from whatever harm the perpetrator is committing.

Does that go wrong? All the time. Cops enforce unjust laws, or act (as the video subject did) outside the law. But there's no way in hell, I'd trust a corporation to fulfil that role.

>> ^blankfist:

To your second point, there'd be a better system of checks and balances with a private security firm over a public police force. Regardless of performance of the public option, you must pay for it. If you hire a private option and don't like it, you can let them go and are no longer required to pay for their services. Also with the private option you'd have competition which would lead to better services and lower costs.


You seem to feel that corporations are primarily beholden to their customers. I'd argue that's not the case. If recent history has shown us anything, it's that corporations are beholden to their shareholders.

>> ^blankfist:

This goes hand-in-hand with DFT's comment above about Blackwater and the other companies hired by the US State Department. You and I don't want to fund them, but you have no choice as long as taxation is compulsory. The government forces you to pay for compulsory services you may loathe whether that be public police forces, huge national defense contracts or even private military security companies like Blackwater.


Yeah, governments do stuff I don't like, but that's the point of elections. You can vote in someone who won't do that. OTOH, it's a lot more difficult to get rid of an entrenched monopoly.

But I suspect that, interesting as this discussion is, it's getting away from the point of the video.

>> ^ChaosEngine:
I don't think you can simply it that much. If I saw someone being beaten assaulted, I'd step in. I'm not being directly defensive, but I'm defending someone else. And ultimately that is what cops are supposed to do. Protecting the public from harm.
I completely agree that the kind of "cover up" culture we see in some police forces is bullshit, but are you really suggesting that a private security firm would be better? What makes you think that the same culture wouldn't develop there? I don't buy the line about hiring a different security company. In the real world such a choice wouldn't be possible and a private security company would have even more motivation to cover up.


But you're changing what you wrote above. Sure, when someone protects themselves or others that's being defensive, but you made a point of them enforcing the law - and doing that means they're an offensive force of violence, not defensive.

To your second point, there'd be a better system of checks and balances with a private security firm over a public police force. Regardless of performance of the public option, you must pay for it. If you hire a private option and don't like it, you can let them go and are no longer required to pay for their services. Also with the private option you'd have competition which would lead to better services and lower costs.

This goes hand-in-hand with DFT's comment above about Blackwater and the other companies hired by the US State Department. You and I don't want to fund them, but you have no choice as long as taxation is compulsory. The government forces you to pay for compulsory services you may loathe whether that be public police forces, huge national defense contracts or even private military security companies like Blackwater.