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

We're about half-way through the first season and love it. Thanks for the recommendation. We've been watching the BBC doco series "Edwardian Farm" which makes a nice companion piece.


In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
Issy and I just finished the second season. I'm pretty sure you will love it. Part of it involves WW1, so there is some blood, violence and frightening situations. There is also very mild sexuality, but probably nothing progressive parents like you would object to. The plot might be hard for kids to follow, but I think they would enjoy the colorful characters and beautiful locations.

In reply to this comment by dag:
Might have to give this series a try. We've been watching Edwardian Farm lately, which coincides nicely chronologically. I don't want to watch the spoilers above. Is this show suitable for kids?

Issy and I just finished the second season. I'm pretty sure you will love it. Part of it involves WW1, so there is some blood, violence and frightening situations. There is also very mild sexuality, but probably nothing progressive parents like you would object to. The plot might be hard for kids to follow, but I think they would enjoy the colorful characters and beautiful locations.

In reply to this comment by dag:
Might have to give this series a try. We've been watching Edwardian Farm lately, which coincides nicely chronologically. I don't want to watch the spoilers above. Is this show suitable for kids?

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:

We're debating why we were attacked by a handful of radical folks
Pht - I can answer that in one word. Isreal. Next?
...whether or not our military engagement, specifically since WWII, has been productive in any measurable way...
Productive to who and in what way?
You see - to a leftist - your question is unanswerable. Like Ron Paul, leftists view any military intervention by the United States as unproductive. By their very natures it is literally impossible to supply a leftist with any response that they will find satisfactory. Leftists come from a particular philosophy and perspective that disallows the word 'productive' to be used in the same sentence as 'American military engagement'. Heck to this day there are leftists who even question whether the US should have gotten involved in WW1 or WW2 or not.
Other people with other perspectives are not quite so closed-minded about whether or not a military action was 'productive' or not because they allow other definitions of 'productive' to be satisfied. But to a Proglibdyte, ANY US military action is viewed as unproductive.

Bollocks. I'm a socialist and I firmly believe that not only was America right to get involved in WW2, it was right to get involved in Libya recently.

Typical "rightist" attitude. You can't see any nuance or context. The left opposed Americas intervention in Vietnam, in Iraq and guess what? They turned out to be fucking right. Hell, I don't even remember that much left wing opposition to gulf war 1, other than the likes of Bill Hicks pointing out the ridiculous position you were in was largely of your own making.

As for "American exceptionalism", the USA had some grand ideals, and should be commended for that. But the reason it occupies the place it does in the world today is down to geology (it was rich in natural resources) and geography (America has never had a strong belligerent neighbour). So really, more down to good luck than good management.

We're debating why we were attacked by a handful of radical folks

Pht - I can answer that in one word. Isreal. Next?

...whether or not our military engagement, specifically since WWII, has been productive in any measurable way...

Productive to who and in what way?

You see - to a leftist - your question is unanswerable. Like Ron Paul, leftists view any military intervention by the United States as unproductive. By their very natures it is literally impossible to supply a leftist with any response that they will find satisfactory. Leftists come from a particular philosophy and perspective that disallows the word 'productive' to be used in the same sentence as 'American military engagement'. Heck to this day there are leftists who even question whether the US should have gotten involved in WW1 or WW2 or not.

Other people with other perspectives are not quite so closed-minded about whether or not a military action was 'productive' or not because they allow other definitions of 'productive' to be satisfied. But to a Proglibdyte, ANY US military action is viewed as unproductive. Someone could wax eloquent on the subject, but to a dyed-in-the-wool leftist who views the US military as the chief evil of the modern world, it is an anathema.

"they hate our freedom"

As I said before - the primary reason they are hostile is Isreal. However, from a cultural perspective the Islamic world DOES hate our freedom. The Muslim world wants Sharia Law as the method of governance for the entire world - and stuff like the US Constitution is viewed (at best) as a secular affront to Islam that is viewed with latent hostility or (at worst) a "Christian" modern Crusade to be viewed as a military enemy.

>> ^newtboy:

I think debt is a bigger problem in Europe because they have much larger debts (per capita).

I'd say per capita isn't as important as debt/GDP ratios. By that measure, Greece is in terrible shape (148% of GDP), while places like Sweeden and Denmark and Finland are all in the 30-40% range. The US is at about 60%, which isn't great, but it's not terrible, and definitely nothing like Greece.

>> ^newtboy:
They do all have soverign currency still, don't they? I thought they all just added the euro, not replaced their currency. If you're right, YIKES!

It's true. Not every EU nation has given up their own currency, but all of the PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain) have.

>> ^newtboy:
I disagree that we have control of our currency since we left the gold standard, but that's a different discussion althogether. We certainly do have the control to devalue it, just maybe not re-value it.

Well, Fed policies can reduce the money supply too. Any time the Fed raises interest rates, that's what it's doing.

>> ^newtboy:
You say 'at worst, inflation' as if that's just fine, but remember Germany after WW1, they 'just' had inflation to pay their crushing debt, it started with them needing a wheelbarrow full of deutchmarks to buy a loaf of bread, and ended with the creation of the Nazi's and WW2.

That's hyperinflation, i.e. a process where inflation doesn't just rise, but starts exponentially increasing. That's why central banks in modern times have explicit, stable inflation targets that they communicate publicly.

Adopting a higher inflation target definitely helps a government's long term fiscal position, at the cost of weakening its exchange rate, without risking any sort of runaway inflation.

Sometimes that's a worthwhile trade to make, especially if the alternative (default) is worse.

>> ^newtboy:
There's no need to focus solely on taxes either, it's a ballance thing.
...
Our 'friends across the pond' will shortly not be supplying these programs to their citizens either, they bankrupted themselves with these kinds of programs and lack of revenue, and now their bankrupting their partners in the EU. That's why it doesn't make sense to compare our social programs to theirs and say 'they can, why can't we?'...theirs bankrupted them.

That's the thing, you say it's the programs that "bankrupted them", I'm saying "no it didn't, they went bankrupt because they didn't ask people to pay the taxes to pay for the safety net they had".

You can balance the government budget at 18% of GDP or 50% of GDP. Having paid maternity leave doesn't bankrupt you. It's having paid maternity leave, and then cutting the taxes that pay for it that bankrupts you.

>> ^newtboy:
If we had the money, I would be all for it, and 3 months paid vacation, guaranteed retirement benifits, low or no taxes, etc.,

Well, having the money is a choice we make as a society. Our GDP, even in this crisis, is $14 trillion a year. I suspect maternity leave wouldn't even cost a thousandth of one percent of that.

Again, the size of government has nothing to do with your fiscal discipline. Fiscal discipline is saying that you want to be taxed at a rate that will pay for the government as it exists. Demanding other people sacrifice so that you don't have to pay higher taxes is the height of fiscal irresponsibility.

I think debt is a bigger problem in Europe because they have much larger debts (per capita).
They do all have soverign currency still, don't they? I thought they all just added the euro, not replaced their currency. If you're right, YIKES!
I disagree that we have control of our currency since we left the gold standard, but that's a different discussion althogether. We certainly do have the control to devalue it, just maybe not re-value it.
You say 'at worst, inflation' as if that's just fine, but remember Germany after WW1, they 'just' had inflation to pay their crushing debt, it started with them needing a wheelbarrow full of deutchmarks to buy a loaf of bread, and ended with the creation of the Nazi's and WW2. I think they also defaulted in the end. Inflation can be a nation killer.
I have repeatedly said the same thing to you about ballance, but reversed. There's no need to focus solely on taxes either, it's a ballance thing. You seem to be focused solely on raising taxes as a way out of the problem, I'm saying that's only 1/2 the solution (that should not translate into 'I don't think low tax rates are a problem' or 'I think overspending is the only problem', it seems that's what you're incorrectly gleeming from my words). Maybe it's just that you don't like the WAY I said it, but you agree with my point? I don't get it.
We are NOT the rich and powerful country we claim to be, and have not been for a while...that's the issue. We need to consider ourselves a second world country and decide if we want to continue on the path of fiscal irresponsibility and become a third world country, or do we want to regain first world status. Our 'friends across the pond' will shortly not be supplying these programs to their citizens either, they bankrupted themselves with these kinds of programs and lack of revenue, and now their bankrupting their partners in the EU. That's why it doesn't make sense to compare our social programs to theirs and say 'they can, why can't we?'...theirs bankrupted them. If we had the money, I would be all for it, and 3 months paid vacation, guaranteed retirement benifits, low or no taxes, etc., as long as we never spend more than we have, I'm fine with it. It's just not fiscally possible without going into the hole even farther, and that leads to disaster. Right now, we are in debt more than the entire country produces in a year, and that only counts the debt on the books, and counts our GDP at 09 levels, which we no longer meet. That means if every person/corperation was taxed at 100%, it could not erase our debt in a year (assuming we also stop spending a dime on anything). That's a HUGE problem that should never have been allowed to happen, if you don't think it is, I think you aren't responsible with money. Living above your means on credit is irresponsible, and usually passes the bill on to others or leaves it unpaid. I have no children to worry about there, but I'm not the kind of a$$hole that plans on leaving YOUR children deep in debt in a third world country...and I don't want to end up there myself before I die.
>> ^NetRunner:
>>
The European debt situation is different, and seems to be a major cause of their current economic crisis, so is the whole credit default swap thing to a lesser extent, but they're far more removed from it.
Debt is a bigger problem in Europe because they have sovereign debt without having a sovereign currency, and don't have an established EU-wide fiscal policy.
In the US, we have control of our own currency, and have a federal fiscal policy, so a debt crisis for us would at worst lead to inflation, not to default.
Not to mention, there are two halves of a balanced budget, spending and revenue. One way to balance a budget is by cutting back on your social safety net, another way is to raise taxes. There's no reason to focus primarily or solely on cuts, if your overall goal is fiscal balance.
More broadly, I think paid maternity leave is a pretty good idea, and if we're really the rich and powerful country we claim to be, then we can afford the taxes to pay for it. If we can't afford it, then we need to think of ourselves as an impoverished 3rd world nation who aspires to one day be able to provide such a valuable benefit to our citizens. If we're simply unwilling to pay for it, then we're less humane than our European friends across the pond.

I would really like to see a movie where aliens invade that don't have awesome, hugely advanced technology, and every facet of their war was in line with real weapons and real consequences.

Say, they get here not by FTL travel, but generation ships or cryonics, or a physiology that allows them to hibernate for years, like some earth organisms do. When they land, they have guns. Not lasers, or plasma rifles, or antigrav gunships, or weird fucked-up magic death rays that suck you up into the sky through your eyeballs (Skyline was teh suck). It could be an allegory of Iraq or Afghanistan. First would be an alien Shock and Awe, as they use EMP to knock out infrastructure and technology and drop asteroids on cities and installations. Superior firepower only due to them having the "high ground", and a ground occupation more like WW2 or WW1 as all our fancy shit was toast and we EMP'd the crap out of their tech too...

Shit... I should copyright this post.

>> ^MaxWilder:

Can we agree that the 56% was an absurd way to try to end the civil war? Obviously the Arab Palestinians weren't satisfied, and it seems that much more than that is now in the hands of Israel as the result of continued conflict, so the Zionists do not appear to be satisfied either.
Also, bcglorf, you keep talking about a civil war as if that is the natural thing that happens because the Arab population was becoming more oppressive toward the Jewish population. Are you denying the massive influx of Jews pre-1948? I am honestly curious because I am just starting to learn about this period of Israel's history.


I'll gladly agree that 56% for a group that had less than 50% of the population is hardly what one would call fair. In hindsight, I'd even say it would've been better for the UN to offer much, much less, but only on the condition that it would have been enough of a concession to avoid the war that immediately followed. I think most historians seem sure that even giving 1% to the creation of a Jewish state would have still resulted in the same war and outrage from the neighbouring Arab states.

More importantly than being "fair", the UN borders were arrived at by no special formula planned to take advantage of the Arabs. The UN, as it always has since, was simply picking the existing borders of the day and saying let's all call it quits right now and just get along. The 56% the Jewish Palestinians held was the land they had gained fighting with their Arab Palestinian brothers. The 44% the Arab Palestinians held was the land they'd held fighting their Jewish Palestinian brothers. Or to state it more simply, NO ZIONIST CONSPIRACY!

it seems that much more than that is now in the hands of Israel as the result of continued conflict, so the Zionists do not appear to be satisfied either.

I think it's unfair to blame the land Israel gained after declaring independence on Zionist greed. The reality was a war was being fought that left Palestine divided roughly in half with the Jewish side holding the bigger half. The UN recommended ending the fighting and maintaining separate states roughly along those borders.

The Jewish Palestinians said yes, they wanted peace along those borders. Most likely because from any practical standpoint, they were in no position to try and fight for anything better, they were lucky to get as far as they had outnumbered as they were.

The Arab Palestinians for their part were largely ready to say yes as well, only because they were fearful they to would lose in a longer fight. The changing factor was the neighboring Arab states, each of whom vastly outnumbered and outgunned the tiny fledgling state of Israel. All the neighboring Arab states agreed that the conditions for peace were NOT acceptable to them because they were each convinced they could gain more land for themselves from Palestine.

Not even the most zealous Zionist could have seen that not only would they survive such a war, but that they would even manage to gain more land in the process. The expansion of Israel's borders in 1948 can hardly be blamed on Zionist expansion, but instead much more simply on the Arab nations mystifying ability to lose the war they by all rights should have not only won, but won easily. To this day that loss is the single greatest source of shame in much of Arab identity.

Also, bcglorf, you keep talking about a civil war as if that is the natural thing that happens because the Arab population was becoming more oppressive toward the Jewish population. Are you denying the massive influx of Jews pre-1948?
Of course I'm not denying the huge influx of Jews leading up to 1948. It just can't be mentioned without obviously asking why they were coming. The video would suggest a Zionist plot to invade Palestine. I think you can figure out for yourself though if Jews might have had some other reasons around that time to be looking for a new place to live outside of Europe's borders. I was reluctant to bring it up of course because someone would think I'm trying to justify making Arabs pay the price for the Nazi's crimes, which is in no way my point.

My other point regarding the civil war in Palestine is that there were in fact a great many Jews already living in Palestine before the Zionists figured on it being a good place for their own schemes. In fact, one of the reasons it was high on the list was that there were already a very good number of Jewish Palestinians living there. I don't think even the video denies that the conflict in Palestine prior to 1948 was a civil war. They just suggest that it was Zionists that stirred up a Palestine that had otherwise gotten on well for the last century. I think since the time frame we are talking about is the time where Palestine was a British Colony, and where WW1 and WW2 were being waged, that maybe there were other very big factors in Palestine's newly enflamed ethnic tensions. Factors big enough that Zionism was just another symptom rather than an initial cause.

Things are getting better for humans. Humans for the win! (as long as we don't fuck up all the other living things in the process) But we still rule!!!! YaY!!! >> ^EMPIRE:

Not only are his techniques to show data very interesting, they are also very uplifting, because the statistics don't really lie, and the world HAS improved a great deal over the last 200 years, even with horrible things in its path like WW1 and 2, and the influenza, and ethnic cleansing. So there is really no reason to think the evolution won't continue.
Yet, people still say stupid things like: "oh it's the end of days", and "oh... the world has changed for the worst", or "things were much better when I was younger".. That is all BULLSHIT, and product of lack of perspective, that most humans seem to suffer from.

Not only are his techniques to show data very interesting, they are also very uplifting, because the statistics don't really lie, and the world HAS improved a great deal over the last 200 years, even with horrible things in its path like WW1 and 2, and the influenza, and ethnic cleansing. So there is really no reason to think the evolution won't continue.

Yet, people still say stupid things like: "oh it's the end of days", and "oh... the world has changed for the worst", or "things were much better when I was younger".. That is all BULLSHIT, and product of lack of perspective, that most humans seem to suffer from.

White people caused WW1 and WW2, carried out the inquisition, and murdered John Lennon. I guess they're just all the same.>> ^blankfist:

Hahaha. "Republicans walk the walk." Awesome. If it's partisan then you know it's true!

>> ^enoch:
>> ^TerryF:
Can you imagine how beautiful and pristine America would look if the white man would have never waged genocide against the Native Americans and stolen their lands. Yet now you all contribute to destroy this land and then rage against a nation that is merely reclaiming its long lost identity and lands. Can you say hypocrite?
What's good for the goose is good for the gander. And here's a thought - never bring a rock to a gun fight. Better yet, don't throw rocks at a man with a gun.

soooooo.....
your point is colonialism is a good thing?nation building can only happen with genocidal extermination?
america would have never got the bump without slavery..should we have kept that also?
should i build a time machine and go warn the cherokee and apache nations?
rage against a nation that is merely reclaiming its long lost identity?
so the palestinians were only keeping the bed warm for almost 2000 years?
OR..or....
central asian jews formerly known as kazhars traded assistance during WW1 to britain who promised these non-european jews a portion of palestine.look up sept 11th 1922 amended balfour declaration.britains blood soaked gift to the world.
good lord man...
your lack of knowledge is staggering.you actually managed to regurgitate almost every pertinent piece of propaganda in your comment.
well done.


I agree. As the saying goes...you should learn from history and not repeat its mistakes. History should never be used in anyway to justify a means to an end. Especially when we have hindsight (bias).

>> ^TerryF:
Can you imagine how beautiful and pristine America would look if the white man would have never waged genocide against the Native Americans and stolen their lands. Yet now you all contribute to destroy this land and then rage against a nation that is merely reclaiming its long lost identity and lands. Can you say hypocrite?
What's good for the goose is good for the gander. And here's a thought - never bring a rock to a gun fight. Better yet, don't throw rocks at a man with a gun.


soooooo.....
your point is colonialism is a good thing?nation building can only happen with genocidal extermination?
america would have never got the bump without slavery..should we have kept that also?
should i build a time machine and go warn the cherokee and apache nations?
rage against a nation that is merely reclaiming its long lost identity?
so the palestinians were only keeping the bed warm for almost 2000 years?
OR..or....
central asian jews formerly known as kazhars traded assistance during WW1 to britain who promised these non-european jews a portion of palestine.look up sept 11th 1922 amended balfour declaration.britains blood soaked gift to the world.
good lord man...
your lack of knowledge is staggering.you actually managed to regurgitate almost every pertinent piece of propaganda in your comment.
well done.

Thanks dude!


In reply to this comment by gwiz665:
*promote

Tags for this video have been changed from 'nfb, war, ww1, wwI, soldiers, europe' to 'nfb, war, first world war, world war one, ww1, wwI, soldiers, europe' - edited by calvados