Please pass legislation that forbids for-profit companies from supplying life-saving services.

You could also force every employee of a corporation to watch their own company's advertising schtick to understand what is expected of them by their clients.
Such a massive, apathetic disconnect there.

I know it's Colbert's shtick and I never really got into it, but still...

"I have friends who live and work in London. They said "don't worry,we're very sensible people."

What's sensible for people in London might not be sensible for people in Salford. Or Boston. Or Wolverhampton. London, or the South-East in general, is as representative of the UK as the East/West Coast is of the US.

The hinterland has been drained at the expense of the center, on both a global and a national scale. If you live and work in the City of London, things might look quite ok, and whatever issues there are only need some reforms to no longer be an issue. But if your factory, the factory that provided jobs for the people in your home town, closed down ten, twenty years ago and now the best you can get is zero-hour contracts, then no, things are not ok.

People up top keep telling you that the economy is growing, that everyone's gonna be better off, that it's ok for multinational corporations and rich individuals to optimise their taxes, while they cut your welfare. Banks get a bailout, you get to pay the bedroom tax.

So no, your sensible friends, if they exist, live in a different universe than many of their countrymen. That's the disconnect we've been talking about.

-----
"The British economy is tanking. The pound has plunged to its lowest level since 1985... The Dow lost 611 points."

Again, so what? If the economy is growing and it has no effect on you, why should you give a jar of cold piss about the value of the pound or the stock exchange? Arguably, a drop in the exchange rate of the pound makes it easier for you to export your goods and raises the prices for imports, thereby encouraging you to produce the shit yourself. The UK does have a sovereign currency, unlike the Spanish, the Greeks, the Portuguese or the Italians who have to suffer internal devaluations, because Wolfgang Schäuble says so.

"Equity losses over $2 trillion"

Why should that matter? QE has pushed up stock prices beyond any resonable level, so what meaning do these book values hold? Not to mention that a lot of people made a shitload of money by shorting these stocks, including George Soros against Deutsche.

"There'll be no more money"

QE never trickled down anyway, makes no difference. Corbyn's people call their version "QE for the People" and "Green QE" for a reason: the previous version was only meant to prop up banks and stock values.

--------------

On a more general note, the hatred, the racism, the xenophobia... in most cases, it's a pressure valve. You leash out against someone else, you need someone to blame. The narrative is that we're living in a meritocracy, which makes it your fault that you didn't inherit an investment portfolio. So you start blaming yourself. You're a fuck-up. You worked hard and not only didn't climb the ladder, you actually went down. There's depression for ya. Guess what happens if someone, a person of perceived authority, then comes along and tells you it's not your fault, it's the fault of the immigrants. That narrative is very appealing if history is any indication. Even the supposedly most prosperous country in the EU, Germany, has the very same issue in the eastern parts, where there is no hope for a meaningful job.

People need work, meaningful work. Wanna guess how many of those "xenophobes" would be out in the street protesting against immigrants if they had a meaningful job with decent pay? Not to many would be my guess.

So the likes of Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson are providing the narrative. But the lack of social cohesion is a result of market fundamentalism, of Thatcherism, of Third Way social-democrats leaving the lower half of the income distribution to the wolves. You can't exclude large swaths of the population from the benefits of increased productivity, etc. Social dividend, they called it. It's what keeps the torches and pitchforks locked away in the barn.

@newtboy,

1000 acre farms do not count as "family farms" in my eyes, even if they are owned by a single family.

Your entitled to that opinion, but you are also flat wrong. If you want to support a family of 2 or 3 children and do something as outrageous as send them off for post secondary education it isn't happening by running a subsistence farm. I'm in Manitoba, Canada and we've got about 20 thousand farms and the average size is right around 1000 acres. Those guys are in exactly the same financial class as the mom and pop corner convenience stores. They've got about the same money for raising their families and retire with about the same kind of savings. I really don't care whether you agree with me on that or not, it is a reality of farming today.

BUT....overuse of equipment either over packs the soil, making it produce far less, or over plows the soil, making it run off and blow away (see the dust bowl).
...
No, actually overproducing on a piece of land like that makes it unusable quickly and new farm land is needed to replace it while it recuperates (if it ever can). Chemical fertilizers add salts that kill beneficial bacteria, "killing" the soil, sometimes permanently. producing double or triple the amount of food on the same land is beneficial in the extreme short term, and disastrous in the barely long term.


I've got family that's been farming this same land for better then 100 years and still getting better yields per acre ever year. Your idea's about what is sustainable or good practice is disconnected from reality.

i am vegan BECAUSE i do not consider myself superior to others,regardless of their species. when looked at logically and without the inherent blinders of our culture, the one's who truly consider themselves superior are the one's who believe that feeling beings have to suffer and die for their taste preferences. your statements completely disregard the viewpoint of the victims who have no choice in their own suffering and death. since it is indisputable that the cows, pigs, chickens and fishes whom people consume feel pain and want to live, there is no moral justification for exploiting and killing them in the name of a momentary taste sensation.

the only consistent ethical position is to reject all forms of violence and exploitation rather than limiting one's concern for a select few species. if you would not wish to experience something yourself, it is never humane or justifiable to force another to experience it. veganism is not about perfection but is about doing the least harm possible. the truth is that when any animal product is consumed, sentient non-human animals suffer and die as a result of it. it is only by being disconnected from the reality of it that one continues to support such heinous violence.

It's pretty hard to have a sense of humor about this subject matter after you've seen a dog moving around right after it got skinned alive so that some douche nugget Kanye wannabe can wear a fur coat.

This whole video seems to fall under the misconception that vegans are vegan because they don't like meat. When the reality is that it's from an ethical stand point. Otherwise you aren't vegan, you're just eating a plant based diet. People are vegan for all of the same reasons you guys aren't eating dogs and cats.

You really do have to have a disconnect once you realise that people love eating a creature that has the intelligence of a 3 year old child, has it's testicles ripped out, tail chopped off, and teeth pulled out all without anesthetic. Lives a tortured life for about 6 months in a small cage with a concrete floor where it hasn't got enough room to turn around, until it finally gets either forcibly impregnated, to keep the cycle going or just killed, so someone can eat smoked bits of it's flesh. Because apparently they've never heard of smoked paprika powder.

It does get pretty tiresome when you can speak pure logic and reason, and people brush it off with something like "bacon tho". Especially when they're otherwise intelligent people. But when it comes to this issue, they throw up a wall, because years of advertising has done it's job very well.

It's now proven fact that bacon gives people cancer. Yet people are still eating it. I have a feeling people would still eat bacon if it made their dicks fly off.

“Both vegans and non-vegans live in state of disconnect. Non-vegans disconnect from that fact that billions of nonhuman animals are enslaved, tortured, confined and violently murdered for their pleasure, preferences and entertainment. Vegans live in a state of disconnect so that our hearts don’t shatter into a million pieces moment by moment due to the fact that billions of non-humans are being exploited and the people we love continue to participate. Vegans have to disconnect just to be able to get through the day.” -The Thinking Vegan

Absolutely not a straw man when the statement it contradicts was "The idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that's wrong with the world.”
At what point do you decide (for yourself, the only one you get to decide for) 'sentience' exists? Shrimp? Crabs? If so, then logically also mosquitos, gnats, and ticks.
Also, why have YOU decided so capriciously that 'sentience' is the measure of a life's worth? What, if anything, do you base that decision on? Perhaps a sense of biological superiority?

BUT you insist others adopt YOUR definitions of non violence, oppression, exploitation, others, property.

Again, you insist that "every human believes" something you believe. That's absolutely not true of ANYTHING, and totally wrong about this topic...clearly. It clearly doesn't 'when it concerns humans' or we wouldn't be murdering and torturing each other as we are.

We clearly disagree that animal consumption is the MAIN issue globally....just as we clearly disagree that it's even a possibility for humanity to switch to a purely vegetarian diet...pasture land is not the same as farmable land.

There are certainly ecological issues with meat production on the scale and in the manner we do it today...there was no such issue when the population being fed was 1/10 what it is today....no one burned massive portions of the rainforests to raise cattle 150 years ago, they didn't need to.

When I see a video like this that highlights people being kind to animalS (the dog AND the bird) it's disturbing that people are so disconnected with normalcy that they see a connection with murder and torture....or that they see murder and torture where it doesn't exist, and disturbing that they feel the need to shit on the happy video comments with a 'but you're all murdering bastards...feel bad and capitulate'.

Yeah, again, I don't click random links, and I don't get science from the internet, no need to read any vegan propaganda. Thanks

Ask 10 people on the street if they think it's OK to humanely raise animals for consumption, 9.95 of them will say "yes".
Now you are equating intentional harm with unintentional harm, equating intentional frivolous casual injuring and killing for pleasure with occasional unintentional injuring and killing for an essential purpose.

not really-life = sentient life is the only assertion which i clarified and this assumption was stated from the beginning so was implied. the suggestion that this changes everything is a classic straw man fallacy.

the imperatives which i am espousing on are merely non-violence and a rejection of oppression, exploitation and using others as property and economic commodities which almost every human believes when it concerns humans and perhaps a few other species. it is only the others whom should be considered under the umbrella of moral concern which is the key point of the issue for most people.

as far as the population, the main reason WHY the human population IS such an issue is due to the consumption of animal products. along with the obvious moral and ethical issues of murdering other sentient beings, the production of animal based foods requires many times the resources to produce an equivalent calorie compared to plant based food which drives things like climate change, resource depletion, water scarcity, biodiversity, species extinction and other aspects of environmental devastation.

when a video such as this one comes up which highlights people being kind to an animal, it is disturbing that people are so disconnected that they do not make the connection between the animals in the video whom they feel good about being rescued and the countless others which are being tortured and murdered for their dinner plate. this is exactly what the short article i posed above articulates so well.

“Ask ten people on the street if they think it’s wrong to injure or kill animals for one’s amusement or pleasure, and nine or ten will say yes, of course. Chances are all ten of those people freely consume animal products, simply because they like to and they’re used to doing it." - Karen Manfrede

i have to say that it IS the topic of the video. having compassion for some beings while murdering others shows a tremendous disconnect. if the man would have killed and eaten the dog and the hummingbird instead of rescuing them, he would be considered an uncaring monster by most people.

it is also interesting that asking others not to support violence and exploitation is considered as "preaching".

“True benevolence or compassion, extends itself through the whole of existence and sympathizes with the distress of every creature capable of sensation.” — Joseph Addison

I feel like those people can't possibly be real.

I mean, angry dumb rednecks voting for Trump, that I understand.

But the level of cognitive dissonance on display here is just.... they've got to be taking the piss right?

How can anyone think that "the wall just got 10 feet higher" is anyway a reasonable response to "Mexico isn't going to pay for it".

That's not even stupid, it's actually delusional; as in, you are disconnected from reality and maybe you should put on this nice jacket with really long sleeves.

I got to disagree that they need the Tea Party vote... well they need the Tea Party's great love, Fox News, Rush. and all the other far right nutters, so they try to appeal to the Tea Party more specifically, but I think that's why they've lost the last two elections.

McCain, had he ran as the centralist candidate he has been in the Senate, was very electable. Unfortunately for the party he stepped to the right in his campaign to appeal to what would become the Tea Party. Then he went over the deep end by choosing a VP candidate that was certifiably crazy and too far to the right for the Nation to take seriously. All in an attempt to appeal to the far right.

Then the party mishandles Obamacare. Rather than own up to it, and say "hey, this is the same plan we tried to pass 3 times into federal law. The Democrats wanted a single payer system, Obama was promising a government option, but they in the end took our plan." Instead they try to run the thing into the ground, and build on the far right anger over it, rather than appeal to where the Nation actually was. Obama's re-election was largely because of Obamacare, something the party and it's media machines like Fox don't understand. To be fair in 2008, I don't think anyone could have predicted the rise of Obama, but the fact his message took off so well, should have been a sign to the Republican party the country was trying to move back to the center from the pull to the right of the Bush years.

Romney could have ran with that further, saying how Romneycare is the model for Obamacare and that his state was the one who really started the ball rolling. Romney as he was as governor was far more electable at the national level than the Romney we got during the campaign... and again there is an appeal to the Tea Party with a Washington Insider but solid Tea Party member in Ryan.

The Republican party has a near solid slam dunk if they put up Rubio/Kasich ticket. It's a moderate ticket that has broad appeal to the masses of America without making most liberals/progressives so afraid that they'll show up in droves the way a Trump ticket does (or a Cruz ticket to a slightly smaller extent). The far right would still vote for Rubio/Kasich over Clinton/Sander (or Clinton/Warren, Clinton/Kucinich... she needs a solid, well known progressive to give her the best chance of winning), so the Rubio/Kasich is safe from all sides.

I agree though, a Trump ticket spells doom for the party period. Not only do they loose the Presidential election, the fact so many Republicans fear Trump's near Fascism will mean they might stay home, and the liberals/progressives will show up in greater than normal numbers to insure he doesn't win, which means a possible to likely loss of control of the Senate. Cruz won't scare away the Republican base as much, but still bring out more liberals/progressives than normal, which likely means a loss of the Presidential election, but perhaps not as much of a loss of the Senate. A Rubio/Kasich combo ticket is safe and gives the best broad appeal... or course if they did go Rubio, they'd tie him up with a Tea Party candidate to pull those votes in, as they don't understand they need to really shed those people and let them form their own party... I think they fear that Fox News, Rush and the like will follow the new Tea Party line rather than the mainstream Republican party and they want that attention... they are so wrapped up in the echo chamber now they don't see the nation is far more to the center than they are willing to go. The fact that Obama is far closer to Regan era style Republicans than most anyone in the race today speaks volumes to how disconnected the party is from reality.

Meanwhile, I'll wish for a Sanders/Warren or Sanders/Kucinich ticket... though realistically, he needs a young moderate up coming Democrat to broaden his appeal... and let's face it, odds are it'll be Clinton, whom I fear the Republican's first day of action will be to try an impeach her over the email and Benghazi... I mean we've had what? 3 or 4 times as many hearings on how she handled Benghazi than we had over 9/11, even though there are tons of fishy things going on with that too (without having to go into crazy conspiracy theories). So go... Clinton/Sanders or Clinton/Warren.

It almost sounds like he is suggesting to keep an open mind and learn about other cultures, religions & mythology in order to understand those perspectives; and overall to be humble to the mystery: that we do not know.

In my opinion some of his opinions were a little contradictory - he doesn't believe in any sort of god or gods, but it seems that a wiser statement would be that he doesn't know, which would correspond with the "I don't believe in atheists" theme.

Furthermore, I honestly don't think that those who (in Hedges' words), "do not explore the religious impulse" are inhuman. Even if someone never explores it in their lifetime. In my opinion - the late bloomers who have disconnected themselves from all inclination of organized religion or spirituality, to find it on their own later in life might have a few more advantages than those that did not disconnect themselves from it at some point.

My personal preference is that I do believe in god because I want to believe in god. Whether it's a metaphor, completely abstract energy, a point in spacetime, a massive intelligent energy field that existed long before the big-bang, a life-force found only on Earth or the Milky Way or a fucking super mega alien technological consciousness program experiment or even a microscopic white dude flying on a microscopic magic carpet or all of the above and none of the above. I just believe even though my version of whatever creation/god is, is completely unidentifiable, it's everything and it's nothing.

Technically, the constitution allows the "United States" to own land. It does not name the government as an owner.

The government of the United States is not the United States. Being a republic, the United States is its citizens.

The government is a manager/caretaker of state's (people's) property, not an owner of property in and of itself.

Technically, the government doesn't even have any authority of its own. It's strictly a body that executes the state's (people's) will, and it does so by the state's (people's) authority - not its own authority (hence the Democracy part). (Officially, the government does nothing of its own accord - hence why in court it's 'the state vs whoever', not 'the government vs whoever').

So, technically, there is no 'government property' - there is only state (people's) property.

Actually, the reason that 'eminent domain' is 'eminent' (i.e. obvious - aka 'obvious domain') - is because the land has always belonged to the state - because the state is the only authority. You never actually own your personal land, you're simply entitled to be the sole occupant. You can buy/sell that right, but the land always has, does, and always will, belong to the state. So under eminent domain, the land is not actually taken from you, because it never belonged to you, hence why the state's domain is eminent (obvious).

In any case, land has this weirdness to it, where all land is state land, and everyone is the state, and no land is private, and all that ever happens is people are bestowed an authority to exclusively manage/reside on a given plot that they never really own. In any case, that authority ends up being functionally equivalent to actual ownership. The phrase 'if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck' comes to mind, because when you have a body of case law that treats property as if private property actually exists, then in a sense, it does exist for all practical purposes - so there is a disconnect between the practical nature of 'land ownership' and the official/ideological nature of 'the state (the people) having authority over all at all times'.

Also, this is why you can't have an allodial land title in the U.S.. So long as it's still U.S. land, it can never truly be privately owned. It's simply incompatible.

Interestingly, way back when before the U.S. was founded, private ownership of land was associated with monarchy - where some royal(s) individual(ly) literally owned the country. The path of events that eroded royal authority and empowered lower levels of society, was the same path that eroded [true] private land ownership, because it introduced the concept of inherent ownership/rights of some other groups (e.g. the people).

-scheherazade

@ChaosEngine

i think most people would consider themselves a social justice warrior of varying degrees.

i do not think it controversial to stand up against:discrimination,exploitation,oppression,bullying etc.

or to promote:equality,fairness and justice for everybody.

i think your comments have revealed that you have a pretty solid moral ground and are pretty even-handed in your dealings.

and then we have people like this bunch.who demand special privileges by way of bullying and intimidation.blissfully unaware of their own disconnect.

so you or i may not view this group as social warriors but that is exactly how they perceive themselves and their actions as being:they think themselves fighting for justice...and they need to be called out on their bullshit.

agreed,to a point.the narrator didnt bother me that much,and i felt the content far more important than some random youtube channel owner.

this new overly sensitive,overly privileged with a healthy dollop of self importance being placed on the individual really needs to be addressed.

this new trend to silence dissenting opinions and demanding respect for our own,tiny and insubstantial habitats.while simultaneously disrespecting those who happen to disagree is hypocrisy on steroids.

to scream at the top of your lungs to the dean of students that his job is NOT to create and intellectual space but rather to create a home,and NOT be aware of the incredible disconnect to reality is quite disturbing.

there is REAL danger in demanding a space where only ideas YOU agree with,opinions YOU agree with are allowed,and all dissention needs to be either protected from or compartmentalized.

the reason why the free market of ideas is so brilliant and VITAL,is because this is the place where bad ideas come to die.bad ideas are challenged,scrutinized and criticized.when you remove this free flow of thought,then bad ideas can find homes in these small "safe spaces" and are allowed to breed and fester.

the new form of social censorship must be completely,and utterly destroyed.

lets get some fingers snapping shall we?