radical islamic terrorism is the usage of a rigid fundamentalist interpretation as a justification predicated on abysmal politics.

ill-thought and short sighted politics is the tinder.
hyper-extremist fundamentalism is the match.

ISIS would never even have existed without al qeada,who themselves would not have existed without US interventionism into:iran,egypt and saudi arabia.

and this is going back almost 70 years.

so lets cut the shit with apologetics towards americas horrific blunders in regards to foreign policy.actions have consequences,there is a cause and effect,and when even in the 50's the CIA KNEW,and have stated as much,that there would be "blowback" from americas persistent interventionism in those regions.which stated goals (in more honest times) was to destabilize,dethrone (remove leaders not friendly to american business) and install leaders more pliant and easily manipulated (often times deposing democratically elected leaders to install despots.the shah and sadam come to mind).

see:chalmers johnson-blowback
see: Zbigniew Brzezinski-the grand chessboard.

or read this article:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/america-created-al-qaeda-and-the-isis-terror-group/5402881

so to act like islamic radicals just fell from the fucking sky,and popped out from thin air,due to something that has been boiling for almost 70 years is fucking ludicrous.

radicalization of certain groups in populations have long been understood,and well documented.

and religion,though the most popular,and easiest tool to motivate and justify heinous acts of violence for a political goal,is not the SOLE tool.

nationalism is another tool used to radicalize a population.
see:the nazi party.

but it always comes down to:tribalism of one kind or another.

@transmorpher

so when you use this "ISIS themselves, in their own magazine (Dabiq) go out of their way to explain that they are not motivated by the xenophobia or the US fighting wars in their countries. They make specifically state that their motivation is simply because you aren't muslim. You can go an read it for yourself. They are self confessed fanatics that need to kill you to go to heaven. "

to solidify your argument,all i see is someone ignoring the history and pertinent reasons why that group even exists.

you may recall that ISIS was once Al qeada,and they were SO radical,SO fanatical and SO violent in their execution of religious zeal..that even al qeada had to distance themselves.

because,again...
religion is used as the justification to enact terrorism due to bad politics.
but the GOAL is always political.

you may remember that in the early 90's the twin towers were attacked and it was the first time americans heard of al qeada,and osama bil laden.

who made a statement back in 1993 and then reiterated in 2001 after 9/11 that the stated goal (one of them at least) was for the removal of ALL american military presence in saudi arabia (there was more,but it mostly dealt with american military presence in the middle east).

but where did this osama dude come from?
why was he so pissed at america?
just what was this dudes deal?

turns out he was already on the road to radicalization during the 80's.coming from an extremely wealthy saudi arabian family but had become extremely religious,and he saw western interventionism as a plague,and western culture as a disease.

he left the comforts of his extremely wealthy family to fight against this western incursion into his religious homeland.he traveled to afghanistan to join the mujahideen to combat the russians,who were actually fighting the americans in a proxy war.and WE trained osama.WE armed him and trained him in the tactics of warfare to,behind the scenes,slowly drain russia of resources in our 50 year long cold war.

how's that for irony.

osama was not,as american media like to paint the picture "anti-democratic or anti-freedom".he saw the culture of consumerism,greed and sexual liberation as an affront to his religious understandings.

this attitude can be directly linked to sayyid qtib from egypt.who visited the united states as an exchange student in 1954.now he wasnt radicalized yet,but when he returned to egypt he didnt recognize his own country.

he saw coco cola signs everywhere,and women wearing shorts skirts,and jukeboxs playing that devils music "rock and roll".

he feared for his country,his neighbors,his community.
just like a southern baptist fears for your soul,sayyid feared for the soul of his country and that this new "westernization" was a direct threat to the tenants laid down by islam.

so he began to speak out.
he began to hold rallies challenging the leadership to turn away from this evil,and people started to take notice,and some people agreed.

change does not come easy for some people,and this is especially true for those who hold strong religious ideologies.
(insert religion here) tends to be extremely traditional.

so sayyid started to gain popularity for his challenge if this new "westernization",and this did not go un-noticed by the egyptian leadership,who at that time WANTED western companies to invest in egypt.(that whole political landscape is totally different now,but back then egypt was fairly liberal,and moderately secular).

so instead of allowing sayyid to speak his mind.
they threw him in prison.
for 4 years.
in solitary.

well,he wasn't radicalized when he went IN to prison,but when he came OUT he sure was.

and to shorten this story,sayyid was the first founder of the muslim brotherhood,whose later incarnation broke off to form?

can you guess?
i bet you can!
al qeade

@Fairbs ,@newtboy and @Asmo have all laid out points why radicalization happens,and the conditions that can enflame and amplify that radicalization.

so i wont repeat what they have already said.

but let us take dearborn michigan as an example.
the largest muslim community in america.
how many terrorists come from dearborn?
how many radicals reside there?
how many mosque preach intolerance and "death to america"?
how many imams quietly sanction fatwas from the local IHOP against american imperialistic pigs?

none.

becuase if you live in stable community,with a functioning government,and you are able to find work and support your family,and your kids can get an education.

the chances of you become radicalized is pretty much:zippo.

the specific religion has NOTHING to do with terrorism.
religion is simply the means in which the justifications to enact violent atrocities is born.

it's the politics stupid.

you could do a thought experiment and flip the religions around,but keep the same political parameters and do you know WHAT we find?

that the terrorists would be CHRISTIAN terrorists.

or do i really need to go all the way back to the fucking dark ages to make my point?

it's
the
politics
stupid.

jimmy dore is from the young turks.

while you may disagree with his delivery,you cannot deny that historically the intelligence community has been used as a battering ram to perpetrate some fucked up,and sometimes,illegal shit.

multiple intelligence agencies also swore that saddam hussein had WMD's and was collaborating with al qeada.

multiple intelligence agencies swore that the conflict in vietnam needed to be expanded,and use sect of defense robert mcnamara to sell it to president johnson.

mcnamara later recanted and displayed deep regret for the lies he sold not only the president,but the american people.colin powell ended up doing the very same thing,for the EXACT same reasons.

in my opinion,CNN has slowly become a propaganda arm for the state.so it is NO surprise that they reference these "multiple intelligence sources" as a means to increase tensions between US and russia.

and while i am positive that russia,along with the US and pretty much every advanced nation on this planet engages in cyber spying,until i see actual PROOF that putin directed russian intelligence to actively hack our elections in order to put trump in power...i am going to remain skeptical.

because i have seen "multiple intelligence sources' as an excuse to engage in some pretty despicable activities by my government.

i live by a very simple axiom:
governments lie.

Fuck you grass, and fuck you mellon!!!!

From the music, I expected one of the ninja to be Don Johnson.

It's always a treat to hear Ashley Johnson sing.

Didn't play the original, but I did love watching a six hour cut of it on youtube so I'm looking forward to doing that again.

Your video, Dwayne Johnson - You're Welcome (From "Moana"), has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

This achievement has earned you your "Pop Star" Level 104 Badge!

Yeah, I can't imagine we would be offended if the situation were reversed, like if the Japanese film industry cast Japanese actors in an adaptation of Shakespeare, that would be expected.

Plus, it's difficult to make the case that Motoko even has a race any more. She is the brain of a Japanese woman in a prosthetic body. One she didn't choose to look Japanese, rather a sort of ostentatious athlete/sex doll look with red eyes and blue hair. Basically no one looks like that, but Scarlet Johnson pulls it off as well as anyone could.

Now if they had gone with the ARISE timeline, an Asian actress would embody that incarnation perfectly.

One thing I am looking forward to are good polemics as part of the election's post-mortem. In terms of video footage, both Cenk and Kyle over at TYT and Secular Talk respectively went off the rails quite nicely. But the good stuff, the really good stuff, will trickle in, and exclusively in written form.

Lambert over at NC makes a decent start, given his lack of sleep:

The Democrat establishment was warned about their weak candidate, and they were presented with a popular and well-funded alternative: Bernie Sanders. Instead, as the Podesta emails show in lavish detail, they used their control of the party machinery and their service providers in our famously free press to rig the primary in their favor at every turn. When their candidate was nominated, the Democrat establishment tacked right, and proceeded to explain to Sanders voters that their votes were not needed or even desired because, as #BernieBros, they were racist and sexist. Sanders supporters have every right to say #WeWereRight and #WeToldYouSo.

If this were Japan, we’d be seeing Democrat Party leaders committing seppuku, or cutting off their little fingers or — supposing them not to be gangsters — ritually and tearfully bowing to the people they betrayed. This being America, and these being Democrats, they are feverishly deploying the Blame Cannons at racist and sexist #BernieBros, Johnson, Stein, and the dogs who wouldn’t eat the dog food. These assclowns will only leave office if they’re whipped out with scorpions. So get to it, Sanders supporters. This is your time.

I don't like Trump. Yet with all that's known about Hillary's corruption, there is no way I could vote for her in good conscience. The democratic party had the opportunity to push forward a fantastic candidate with a spotless record in his public service. Instead, they used backroom deals and underhanded means to thwart democracy. I see no reason to reward such behavior.

As president, Hillary would likely get one or two bills passed improving some kind of social service-improved access to healthcare, or healthy foods or something like that. And the rest of her time will be devoted to enhancing the corporatist agendas of her owners. She is a puppet to those donors.

If I lived the the US (and I don't) I would be deciding between Stein and Johnson.

I see no reason to reward Hillary's corruption with a mandate.

Thailand by way of Kansas. Just sent in my absentee ballot a couple days ago.

I agree that the idea of the video is to suggest that "protest votes" are either A) entirely counterproductive always, or B) particularly counterproductive in this election. And they chose to focus on Johnson because he fits their narrative of suggesting that policy-wise he is very different from Bernie Sanders, and they make the unspoken assumption that many people considering "protest votes" are Sanders fans that are disgruntled with Clinton.

I'm still very comfortable with my 3rd-party vote, and fully aware that there is a chance that it could "spoil" things for one of the main 2 candidates. Although realistically, since my vote will be counted in Kansas (very red track record, polling 47/36/17 Trump/Clinton/Undecided at the moment) that is incredibly unlikely to happen either way.

I understand people that would feel motivated to "hold their nose" and choose the lesser of two evils (whoever they determine that to be) if they were in a swing/tossup state, but personally I would stick with my vote even if I was in such a state.

If the election is "spoiled" one way or the other by 3rd party votes, it would send a pretty clear message to both parties: give us better choices, or face the consequences. Then again, maybe I'm being overly optimistic about the parties actually getting that message... Democrats should have been highly motivated to push for getting rid of the electoral college and/or considering a push for ranked-choice voting when Gore "lost" in 2000, but failed to do either.

I don't think this video has anything to do with Johnson or Stein. It's about any vote that's not for the two major parties. They could have just as easily used Stein, but i don't think that it matters at all. It's about a '"protest vote", that's it. Whatever else you want to make of it has nothing to do with what the video is about (imo) At least that';s what i took from it.

Oh, and my protest vote will be going to Stein also

These things seem to continue to ignore Jill Stein.

And in doing so, they miss an important point: Johnson is the "spoiler candidate" for TRUMP. In other words, the chances of votes for Johnson swinging the plurality of votes in a hotly contested state in favor of Clinton are massively higher than swinging such a state into favoring Trump.

Stein is the spoiler candidate for Clinton. But die-hard Democrats should be pleased with her poll numbers being low, which suggests that fewer usually-Democrat voters are looking for an alternative option than usually-Republican voters. In other words, the Democrat party is currently more unified than the Republican party.

...But before patting themselves on the back too hard, they should remember that perhaps the only reason that their historically disliked candidate is more unifying than the GOP option is that he is even MORE historically disliked. A dubious distinction at best.

I think I'll stick with my protest vote (for Stein), thank you very much.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

My only rebuttal to this is that Jill Stein & Gary Johnson are still good options if you were otherwise planning to vote for Trump, but really it's 50/50 - Johnson is a spoiler for Trump and Stein for Hills.

@MilkmanDan, good points.

I do think there's a difference between "this plan is politically unfeasible" (healthcare, free public university) and "this plan is not actually possible under the rules of government" (forgiving student debt through quantitative easing).

And ultimately, that's why I think Hillary is the lesser of 4 evils. She might be a political insider, but she's at least vaguely realistic.

Basically, you can choose from
- idiot, evil and frankly repugnant (guess who?)
- dopey with a side of some pretty terrible policies (Johnson)
- well meaning, but without a clue of how government works (Stein)
or...
Frank Underwood

I say, "Make America Work!"
-

As great as John Oliver is, he spent more time there mocking them over petty things as opposed to really concentrating on the (admittedly real) flaws in their platforms.

OK, Stein's "music" is cringeworthy. And Johnson's "skirt" comment is creepy and ill advised, but clearly meant in a metaphorical way.

It kinda bothers me when people (not just Oliver) do it to Trump and Clinton also. Like Trump having "tiny hands", or bringing up cankles or pantsuits for Clinton.

All of those things can be funny, a few times. But bringing them up constantly makes it seem like we have nothing of actual substance to criticize them for -- which is clearly not the case.


He did bring up legitimate concerns for some of Stein and Johnson's signature platforms. In both cases, that criticism boiled down to "you can't actually do that", as in the president doesn't actually have the power to implement the policy that they want. That's fair ... BUT, pretty much every single politician ever makes campaign promises that they don't actually have the power to implement. You pretty much have to if you want to get elected.

That doesn't mean that setting those policies as goals can't have value. Obama wanted a much more thorough overhaul of healthcare and insurance, but he didn't have the power to make it happen unilaterally. So we ended up with a watered-down version of Obamacare after the Republicans in the legislature did everything they could to obstruct it. But still, even though it isn't exactly what Obama originally had in mind, there are plenty of people now with some health coverage who had none before. That's a tangible positive result.

Trump will never build his wall, even if he ends up in the White House (not likely). I offer no defense for this idiotic idea, but it is at least possible for massive public works projects to be used to create jobs, improve infrastructure, and have other tangible positive effects; like FDR's New Deal.

Hillary would face lots of obstruction if she attempts to implement her plan to let people attend public universities for free. Probably more than Obama did on Obamacare. But trying to do something to make post-secondary education more available to everyone is a good goal. Even if the cynic in me thinks she only produced this "plan" as a way to try to win support of Sanders voters.

Johnson couldn't eliminate income tax, or abolish all those departments he mentioned. But he could rein in a lot of spending that the Executive branch does have power over. That could be a good thing in many cases (I'd be happy to see the TSA eliminated and military spending drastically reduced), but there are also a lot of potential problems. See Kansas transformation to "Brownbackistan" as a result of Sam Brownback's drastic tax cuts.

And Stein couldn't forgive student loan debt for this "entire generation". But just like Clinton's proposal to make public universities free, there is potential value to be found in just trying to do something about the insane problems with our university system. Hillary is a savvy enough politician to know not to say too much about her plan, which would open it up to scrutiny and criticism. Stein stepped into that by revealing her political inexperience, but I tend to trust that she does actually want to do something as opposed to Hillary just saying what she needs to say to get more votes.

No mention of Jill Stein?

I'm not undecided, but if we had something like ranked-choice voting I'd go:
1 Stein
2 Johnson
3 Clinton
4 Trump

To all the people that think that 3rd party votes are counter productive, you can take solace in knowing that I'm registered in a state that is pretty close to a lock (for Trump), so because of the electoral college my vote doesn't really count. But I'd be voting the same way even if I was in a swing state. 'Cuz fuck both parties. Right in the ear.