Pretty much interview scripted by Putin personally.

Why the drama about US - russian relations if the russians supposedly are not dangerous and Putin is not evil.

Building a case to sell Poland and the Baltic countries to Putin. Worked like a charm with Hitler and Czechoslovakia before WWII. Poland these days does not even have a border with Russia proper, only with what used to be Koenigsberg. Poland is part of NATO and if Abby and her friend the professor want to give that up then it is them who are pushing us all closer to a war (cold or not).

Ukraine has already exploded. Putin has already taken 1/3 of the country breaking bilateral treaties. Cant get much worse, hard to imagine how the US can get involved, Trump notwithstanding.

Syria - its basically over, except for the humanitarian and human rights catastrophe. Putins ally won - a slightly pyrrhic victory perhaps, but for the meantime Assad stays. Did they level cities or liberate them? Hard to tell the difference. Probably both. That said US involvement in the middle east is a grave shitstorm.

This awesome "analysis" somehow misses the biggest current problem of NATO - Turkey - possibly because Putin does not have a good handle on Turkey yet so its off-limits. Also Pakistan/India and North Korea does not get a mention for the same reason - no chance to push Putins agenda.

NATO might have reassured Gorby it had no intention to spread. It is important to understand that Warsaw pact countries generally accepted Russians as saviours from German occupation, by the 1970s this had changed firmly to perceiving Russians as occupants, political persecutors and economic idiots.

After the economic collapse of the USSR (supposedly somehow caused by Ronald Reagan :-) all these countries needed reassurance that the Russians were not coming back. The only possible reassurance was joining NATO. If that meant breaking a promise made to an ex-representative of a no longer existing country, that is fine by me. If NATO had promised not to spread to Mother Theresa I would be more concerned.

The problem with the Ukraine is that we (EU) made an offer that put them in danger (from Putin) and we could not back that up with real economic or military assistance. Dumb move. But also Ukrainian politics is an incredible mess and simply too many ethnic russians live there giving Putin a strong nationalist base.

Back when Czechoslovakia was a thing.

Which non countries? I only noticed a few ex countries, like Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia.... which would be the out-of-dateness that you mentioned too.

Interesting looking film! Sedmikrásky (Daisies) (1966) from Czechoslovakia, and according to the IMDB details was released 30 December 1966, and promptly banned by the Government

There was a dubbed French version called "Les Petites Marguerites", since both the girls were called Marie, but it was Daisies in most languages.

Seeing as how the site is hosted out of Czechoslovakia, I kept wondering if the prices were in US dollars or (and this sounds stupid, I know) some other sort of dollar unit...

I seriously doubt "Czechoslovakia" is playing. Kid's right: his dad is smarter.

>> ^quantumushroom:

The Top 200 Chomsky Lies.
Oh, that's right, it's FOX that has an agenda.


Let's look at the very first "lie" in that list:

The "Lie": “in comparison to the conditions imposed by US tyranny and violence, East Europe
under Russian rule was practically a paradise.”

The "Truth": The communists murdered 4 million people in the Ukraine; 753,000 in Poland;
360,000 in Romania; 300,000 in Belarus; 200,000 in Hungary; 100,000 in East Germany;
100,000 in Lithuania; 70,000-100,000 in Yugoslavia; 30,000-40,000 in Bulgaria; 20,000 in
Czechoslovakia; and 5,000 in Albania. Other atrocities included the murder of over 500,000
POWs in Soviet captivity and the mass rape of at least 2 million women by the Red Army.

I don't have to know anything about the context of the quote to see that the response is nonsense. Nowhere in that quote does Chomsky say that the Russians did not commit any atrocities. He also did not claim that the US committed more genocidal acts than the Russians. He said "conditions", which most people would understand meant things like running water, sewage removal, food and shelter availability, employment availability, and such. So the whole list of atrocities is missing the point of his statement entirely.

Now maybe the conditions were arguably better under US control. I certainly don't know. But the fact that the very first "lie" is so poorly refuted, and the fact that there is absolutely no context around Chomsky's quote given, makes this list entirely pointless.

And I would also ask what you think Chomsky's "agenda" is.

>> ^bcglorf:
>> ^alizarin:
>> ^zor:
Great sift! I've never seen anything like that before. Now, on to find the assholes who made those and sold them.

That'd be us - "mines found in Cambodia have been manufactured in the US, China, Vietnam, the former USSR and East Germany, the former Czechoslovakia, India, Chile, South and North Korea, Thailand, Iran, Iraq, South Africa, Bulgaria, the former Yugoslavia, Hungary, and Poland." - article
As of 2007, a total of 158 nations have agreed to [ban landmines]. Thirty-seven countries have not agreed to the ban, including China, India, Israel, Pakistan, Russia and the United States.
We deserve a swift kick to the nuts!

Actually, the particular mines this guy is defusing would NOT be us(the western world). The video description is clear that the Khmer Rouge(communists) were the ones that laid the fields he is clearing.
I know it may seem anal but the details of how these atrocities went down are important to remember and have straight.



I believe the question was "who made the landmines" not "who laid the landmines" in which case the WEsterners would be among the culprits.
"The CMAC reports that mines found in Cambodia have been manufactured in the US, China, Vietnam, the former USSR and East Germany, the former Czechoslovakia, India, Chile, South and North Korea, Thailand, Iran, Iraq, South Africa, Bulgaria, the former Yugoslavia, Hungary, and Poland."

"I know it may seem anal but the details of how these atrocities went down are important to remember and have straight."

>> ^alizarin:
>> ^zor:
Great sift! I've never seen anything like that before. Now, on to find the assholes who made those and sold them.

That'd be us - "mines found in Cambodia have been manufactured in the US, China, Vietnam, the former USSR and East Germany, the former Czechoslovakia, India, Chile, South and North Korea, Thailand, Iran, Iraq, South Africa, Bulgaria, the former Yugoslavia, Hungary, and Poland." - article
As of 2007, a total of 158 nations have agreed to [ban landmines]. Thirty-seven countries have not agreed to the ban, including China, India, Israel, Pakistan, Russia and the United States.
We deserve a swift kick to the nuts!


Actually, the particular mines this guy is defusing would NOT be us(the western world). The video description is clear that the Khmer Rouge(communists) were the ones that laid the fields he is clearing. The swift kick in the nuts is still shared with us for being the ones that carpet bombed Cambodia into the stone ages 'just in case', paving the way for the Khmer Rouge to commence their own even worse genocide of the country.

I know it may seem anal but the details of how these atrocities went down are important to remember and have straight.

And the biggest reason for opposing the landmine ban is situations like Korea were tonnes of explosives hidden in land mines along the border play a big role in PREVENTING violence.

And yes, this guy rocks.

>> ^zor:
Great sift! I've never seen anything like that before. Now, on to find the assholes who made those and sold them.


That'd be us - "mines found in Cambodia have been manufactured in the US, China, Vietnam, the former USSR and East Germany, the former Czechoslovakia, India, Chile, South and North Korea, Thailand, Iran, Iraq, South Africa, Bulgaria, the former Yugoslavia, Hungary, and Poland." - article

As of 2007, a total of 158 nations have agreed to [ban landmines]. Thirty-seven countries have not agreed to the ban, including China, India, Israel, Pakistan, Russia and the United States.

We deserve a swift kick to the nuts!

I dunno about you, but I have a good job that I'd like to keep. I could not afford to spend time in jail. California has an "At Will" policy and can legally terminate your employment due to incarceration. I know this from experience and it holds up in a court of law. Look up California employment laws. I'm not a lawyer, but one of my bosses used to be one and my mother works in a law office. Inefficacy might not be something that would stop determined minds who have dedicated their lives towards such pursuits, but when the majority of people are mostly spending their days being employed and enjoying (or just frantically keeping up) the fruits of their labor, despite their opinions (and especially if they have a family to support), are faced with moral dilemmas above the evil of government.

If you've ever read anything by Milan Kundera, you might be familiar with The Unbearable Lightness of Being in which the protagonist, a Czech surgeon named Tomas, is forced by the Soviets to either renounce a loosely anti-Communist article he wrote or step down as surgeon. He steps down and becomes a window washer. He is approached by his estranged son and a man who was impressed by the article, requesting his signature on a petition to free political prisoners. Tomas, remembering his wife's smiling face, declines to sign for fear of what the secret police might do.

As the days go by, he can't remember why he didn't sign, but when justifying to himself why he didn't, he recalls Czech history: 1618, in defiance of their emperor, the Czechs threw several high officials out the window of a castle in Prague, leading in part to the Thirty Years War. A war of which resulted in the death of 1/3 of the population of Czechoslovakia. More than 300 years later, at the 1938 Munich Conference, it was decided that Czechoslovakia would be given up to appease the Nazis. Here, the Czech leaders showed caution in not opposing, leading in part to World War II.

"Einmal ist Keinmal," says the author. Or, "What happens once might well have not happened at all." Meaning, we cannot ever know if caution or courage are the correct choices in situations. And, because I'd rather not spend time interpreting what I know of this philosophy into words, will quote Wikipedia: (Which is pretty accurate in this case.)

"By this logic life is ultimately insignificant; in an ultimate sense, no single decision matters. Since decisions do not matter, they are light — that is, they don't cause us suffering. Yet simultaneously, the insignificance of our decisions — our lives, our being — causes us great suffering. Hence the phenomenon Kundera terms the unbearable lightness of being: because life occurs only once and never returns, no one's actions have any universal significance. This idea is deemed unbearable because as humans we want our lives to mean something, for their importance to extend beyond just our immediate surroundings."

Some of us know this, or rather, believe this through experience, informing our actions or lack thereof. Yes, life can be unbearably light; and, through a combination of survival, providing for our families, understanding that courageous action can lead to catastrophe and that we have no way of knowing the whole truth in any given situation, do not go out disobeying the government to demonstrate.

Most of us wanna do the right thing, but sometimes the right thing isn't easily determined. I'll tell you what, though: if it came down to it, like Han Solo, I'd most assuredly fly back and shoot Darth Vader. (I'm going off on a tangent unrelated to my lack of conviction towards CD.) But in California, it is currently a time of peace and, despite having friends and relatives who are currently, faithfully blowing shit up (Semper fidelis), I am focused on being monetarily sound (and philosophically open) -- I really need more vespene gas.

I disagree with Pprt's stance not only because of what I have outlined above but primarily because his approach does not provide a solution to the problem, which is insuring the security of civilians on both sides. Essentially what his stance advocates is the blank check towards Israel's continued aggressive tactics when dealing with the Palestinian people, which have been going on for 60 years and have created more and more instability and friction between both parties, not less.

One cannot bomb and maim people into submission no matter what weapons you will use, the US tried to subdue Vietnam through massive bombing campaigns and failed, not because it was wrong in its military approach or didn't drop enough ordnance but because it did not create cooperation nor understand the local populace. The Israelis do. But their aim is not to live peacefully along side the Palestinian people as a stance of foreign policy but to create enough friction that will eventually justify a cohesive seizure of all the lands in Gaza and the West Bank. Or better yet keep infringing on Palestinians so they retaliate and they can seize more land.

This cannot be allowed to occur, as it would justify the brute force tactics in capturing and holding entire enclaves under the guise of assuring security. The argument has already been applied in America's intervention in Iraq which started as when the US sought to nullify WMDs in Iraq lest the smoking gun is a mushroom cloud. This is the same argument Russia has used in intervene in Georgia and South Ossetia. The same argument Germany used in capturing Czechoslovakia.

The Holy land is not mandated to one peoples over another.

EDIT: For clarification.

People like you are offended by reality. You tell me the difference between establishing Israel and annexing Czechoslovakia.

In reply to this comment by Lego123:
In reply to this comment by gorillaman:
They've been acting like Nazis since the beginning. Israel or Grossdeutschland, the ideas and arguments are the same.

This is such a stupid reply, and so offensive and I hope everyone recognises it as the shit it is...

Comparing Israel to Nazi Germany is plain and simple wrong....

>> ^sirex:
winston, find below required evidence of why your argument is crap.
MURDER (LATE-1990s)
EUROPE AND USA CITY MURDERS
PER 100,000
(1) Washington, D.C., USA 69.3
(2) Philadelphia, USA 27.4
(3) Dallas, USA 24.8
(4) Los Angeles, USA 22.8
(5) Chicago, USA 20.5
(6) Phoenix, USA 19.1
(7) Moscow, Russia 18.1
(8) Houston, USA 18.0
(9) New York City, USA 16.8
(10) Helsinki, Finland 12.5
(11) Lisbon, Portugal 9.7
(12) San Diego, USA 8.0
(13) Amsterdam, Netherlands 7.7
(14) Belfast, N.Ireland, UK 4.4
(15) Geneva, Switzerland 4.2
(16) Copenhagen, Denmark 4.0
(17) Berlin, Germany 3.8
(18) Paris, France 3.3
(19) Stockholm, Sweden 3.0
(20) Prague, Czechoslovakia 2.9
i've had this discussion with people on videosift before and cant be bothered getting into a flame fest about it again, but feel free to private message me and i'll link you up with a bunch more data.


You quoted some statistics, and this makes his argument invalid? Then you say, "Ive had this argument before". Appealing to past arguments as though they make you right, appealing to false authority.

Link to sources, bibliography. Until then your argument is unsustainable.

Your argument, is a very gentle Non Sequitur. It has no context, other than you had this discussion with another member. Also, linking to research does nothing unless you have good thoughts to go along with your quotes. Hence the confusion I have here.

Before you attack an argument make sure that you have your sources posted. Here is what I have from a Lt. Col. Dave Grossman Army Ret. Quoted from his book, titled On killing. "Lt. Col. Grossman a former army ranger and paratrooper taught psychology at west point is currently professor of Military Science at Arkansas State University."

The statistics are in here, and found by Interpol.
http://www.killology.com/art_weap_sum_worldwide.htm


EDIT: I do realize that your comment is flame bait.

By the way, this was really a long drawn out appeal to authority. And also a plug for the book because I think it is good!

winston, find below required evidence of why your argument is crap.

MURDER (LATE-1990s)
EUROPE AND USA CITY MURDERS
PER 100,000
(1) Washington, D.C., USA 69.3
(2) Philadelphia, USA 27.4
(3) Dallas, USA 24.8
(4) Los Angeles, USA 22.8
(5) Chicago, USA 20.5
(6) Phoenix, USA 19.1
(7) Moscow, Russia 18.1
(8) Houston, USA 18.0
(9) New York City, USA 16.8
(10) Helsinki, Finland 12.5
(11) Lisbon, Portugal 9.7
(12) San Diego, USA 8.0
(13) Amsterdam, Netherlands 7.7
(14) Belfast, N.Ireland, UK 4.4
(15) Geneva, Switzerland 4.2
(16) Copenhagen, Denmark 4.0
(17) Berlin, Germany 3.8
(18) Paris, France 3.3
(19) Stockholm, Sweden 3.0
(20) Prague, Czechoslovakia 2.9

i've had this discussion with people on videosift before and cant be bothered getting into a flame fest about it again, but feel free to private message me and i'll link you up with a bunch more data.