Might be interesting to compare and contrast how we in the US have handled our laundry list of "bad things we've done in the past" compared to, say, Germany.

I know that the Nazi flag and other imagery are outright banned / censored in Germany. From what I understand, WW2 history taught in schools in Germany is handled very carefully, if not largely glossed over.

In the US, the only bit of history that gets treatment similar to that (in my experience/opinion) is the Vietnam war. I know my High School history classes definitely glossed over it and didn't want to get into any details about why, how, or whether or not we should have been in the war at all.

Compare that to WW2, which was covered in pretty great detail. Very much including actively encouraging students to consider their own thoughts on controversial things like dropping not just one but two atomic bombs on Japan.

The Civil War is also covered much more openly and honestly. I don't think I can recall anyone ever seriously suggesting that the single, most important root cause of the Civil War wasn't slavery. Other umbrella labels like "states rights" might be referred to as the impetus, but yes, any and all of those things really boil down to slavery.



One thing that scares me about the German approach (sweep under the rug and don't talk about it) is that it sort of all too conveniently ignores the reality that these terrible things were done by people who were (disturbingly) not very different from us. OK, Hitler himself might have been a 1 in a million or 1 in a billion combination of evil, crazy, and powerful. But Joe Average from today ... not so different from Hans Average from 1930s Germany.

Celebrating one's heritage and past is OK, sometimes even good. Especially when one can honestly own and try to understand the bad along with the good. I think it is OK to appreciate the Confederate flag, along with historical figures like Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. It is possible to accept that their core motivations were done in support of a very bad and evil institution (slavery), but to still respect or even admire their accomplishments as human beings. Thomas Jefferson owned slaves too, but we are willing to look beyond that when considering his legacy.

Maybe the Confederate flag is tied too closely to the institution of slavery for it ever to be uncoupled from that. Maybe a government that prides itself on being democratic should consider that that connection creates a conflict with many of its constituents. But I hope we never sweep it under the rug and pretend it never happened.

What other language do Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam and India have in common?

We have two in our house. Grandparents brought them back from Vietnam for the kids. They are fun the first say 100 times...

"Dominic: What do you think will happen?

Finch: What usually happens when people without guns stand up to people *with* guns."

My history teacher in high school was very civic minded. He was a Quaker too, but I believe he converted after serving in the army during Vietnam. I will never forget that he us that protesting is important, but if cops/national guard/ people with guns show up - get away. It creates a dangerous and volatile situation.

I really don't believe that the majority of police or protesters are bad people and want these kind of things to happen. In the heat of the moment things escalate rapidly and get out of control. People make bad decisions - now we capture them and put them on youtube.

@radx

The liquidity/insolvency line is just a fancy way of asking for more money than is being provided. As I said, I expect once structural reform is fully implemented, the ECB (tacitly instructed by Germany et al) will take a much more active role in buying the debt of these countries but it's not at that stage yet. The problem is they've been slow to sell off assets, reform government and reduce public employment to levels demanded.

Again what you propose is easing that eliminates the pressure to reform, which is the intent of the troika/Germany as I see it. I just don't see any of those things happening. As I mentioned before, Greece's debt has largely stopped rising and GDP has been edging upwards since 2010 and is now positive:

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/greece/government-budget-value
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/greece/gdp-growth

As far as running surpluses, I would argue if everyone was nearly as zealous as Germany, then the deficit/surplus gap between countries would narrow - which would be the best outcome globally. As you'd probably know Germany's attitude towards fiscal stability and inflation is fairly hawkish given its history with hyperinflation. But it has clearly served them well when their bond yields didn't spike during the euro crisis because of a shortage of funds.

I wouldn't characterise it as beggar thy neighbour, that's generally reserved for active measures to prevent trade from other countries (such as through tariffs or subsidies). Instead Germany from what I've read, has carved out a competitive niche for itself with it's Mittelstand. I don't know Germany history particularly here, but I assume it led to companies in industries like retail which can't compete globally reducing or being bought out.

I would compare it to what happened here in Australia with the car industry when government support for it vanished. In our case at least, the only reason the industry existed for the past couple of decades is because of that support and it should never have been propped up by the government in the first place. I don't see that really being any different to typewriters being replaced by computerisation, whale oil being replaced by fossil fuels or US manufacturing going to China (and now leaving to other areas of Asia).

Coming back to trade surpluses, for similar reasons to Germany, most Asian countries also run large trade surpluses because of their history with capital flight in the Asian financial crisis of 97. This is despite many of them developmentally being far behind Greece let alone Germany or France. There has been no Asian crisis this time around and investment into these countries (like Malaysia, the Phillippines, Vietnam and China) has hardly been low over the past 10 years.

I'm not a huge fan of QE as a policy either. Part of the problem is central banks like the ECB weren't designed with the intent of using QE, merely adjusting interest rates, let alone any direct purchases of bonds. I was a big fan of what they did here in Australia where they just gave a one off wad of money to everyone who is earning an income. We ended up avoiding a recession entirely, although our economy was doing quite well at the time.

In effect that's more fiscal policy and I can imagine it being difficult to implement in the EU across countries in an even way. Merkel is certainly too hawkish overall. Policy along those lines, unbiased investment via the EIB or let alone just implementing QE earlier (like the US did) would have helped everyone.

Wait, you think that servicemen didn't have to face children in Iraq that fought for the insurgency, be it bomb-strapped or not? Because honey, that shit's above board. If on the other hand you are suggesting that this woman is somehow glamorizing war and dismissing the importance of Iraqi lives, that's another matter, but converting children to your cause is the oldest and easiest trick in the book. It happened in Vietnam, it happens every single day in your pick of war-torn African nations, and it sure as shit is happening as we speak in Iraq and Afghanistan.

McCain served in the Vietnam war, was shot down and captured in October 1967, and was mistreated and tortured as a prisoner of war. This is the first hand knowledge he claims.

Although it's always hard to know how accurately the media portrays people, and especially in the U.S., he has always struck me as an honourable man and one who has the best interests of his country at heart.

I'm afraid I can't say the same of the men who supported mistreatment of prisoners, or those who attempted to hide it.

*length=792

Because we find it abhorrent and we've been against massive deaths for awhile. After two World Wars Europe came together and basically decided if they have another one it would probably be the absolute death of everyone. So they started communicating, and I know everyone has problems with the Euro, and Politics and the EU and the UN. But this is the result, the end of massive war deaths. So that's Europe.

Second is the US, basically the lone super power after World War 2 controlling about half of all the worlds wealth. After the 1960s there was a civilizing effect because of all the protests. When Vietnam started nobody knew about the body counts, heck nobody knew that we attacked south vietnam at all. So suddenly there was a demand for information about this war where our kids were dying and we were finding out that they were doing a lot of things our consciousness couldn't tolerate.

So after a ton of protesting and upheaval in the country, so much so that troops were being rerouted to come back to the US to deal with the people the government went underground. They had secret wars, which of course are illegal and immoral however much MUCH less death. They just can't do whatever the hell they want anymore, we won't put up with it.

That's why when people try and compare Iraq to Vietnam I just laugh. There are hardly any comparisons that could be justified. The amount of deaths alone and the results aren't even in the same galaxy. And the reason is one thing, public protest and pressure. Iraq was the first war in human history where there was massive protests BEFORE the war even started.

Then even the Iraqi people protested because they weren't getting a chance to choose their own leaders, have their own democracy. There was nothing about us letting them vote for anything, we didn't want to allow though, and tried whatever we could to stop it. But too many people protested, there was too much reporting done on those protests.

So this is what it is, People. We stopped it, we got up and looked at these millions of dead bodies and said ENOUGH. We're not perfect we fuck up a lot, but if you want to look at what has affected the body counts in War more than anything it's peoples reaction to it. You could say weapons caused that reaction if you want but I prefer to give the people their fair do. We know when something is wrong and we're standing up to it. All over the world it's happening now, take part.

I don't particularly like O'Reilly's conservatism and warmongering, but about this, Colbert is simply ignorant or worse. "OMG, mercenaries going rogue!" Because, y'know, the state's armies never go "rogue" or cause any "mayhem." Nope! Not in WW 1. Not in WW 2. Not in Korea. Not in Vietnam. Not in Latin America. Not in Iraq. Not in Afghanistan, or anywhere else!. Nope. Not ever.

The American forces never goes rogue and Bradley/Chelsea Manning is not being locked up for exposing the never-rogue nature of the American forces.

I don't think Colbert is an idiot. So I'm inclined to think that Hoppe may be correct and Colbert is just part of the "intelligensia," paid to promote stupidity among the masses. (OMG, I'm beginning to sound like "OMG Bernays!")

We've been on a bunch of dates
I weigh debates that this creates
And hate that state of forced introspection
We traded wit, we swapped some spit,
You fingered me a little bit
But we never really had a connection

You did nothing wrong, I have no excuse
Just my intuition telling me we shouldn't reproduce

I know I have to end it
But pretend to just suspend it
By contending that I'm busy all week
I let the foregone linger on
Text back with an emoticon
Withdraw from you by being oblique

Inside I know my tactics just delay it
But I'd do anything so I don't have to say it

I'll draw this out forever like it's Vietnam
Then one day I'll be gone like Bambi's mom Awww

Cause there's the right thing to do
Then there's what I'm gonna do
There's so much I should say
But instead... I do the fade away

Now I'm fading like chalk on a sidewalk
Or the polio virus after Jonas Salk
Like a Jewish guy at Sizzler on Yom Kippur
The Whig party post Millard Fillmore

The erection of a man on antidepressants
The cast of Diff'rent Strokes after adolescence
Reproductive rights below the Mason Dixon
Native Americans after the barter systems
Your thyroid gland after Hashimoto
The family in the Back to the Future photo
Yeah I fade away

We say that men are asshole who don't communicate
We revel in our victimhood and amplify our hate
We find ways to be indignant like it's a sport
Then dissect their malignance with the views we distort

The way men break up may be sloppy and terse
What they do is bad, but what we do is worse

We pretend to ourselves it's the nice thing to do
To let you down gently by just not ever telling you
And deep down we know it's the worst way to play it
But we are what we have... huge pussies

And women are hypocrites
Especially ones in comedy bands
We see your faults but not our own
Then we wonder why we're all alone

We fill you up with maybe's, excuses and stalls
But like a baby in China... it's better to have balls

Not the Good Wife type like Christine Baranski
So I'll pull out and leave like I'm Roman Polanski

Cause there's the right thing to do
Then there's what I'm gonna do
There's so much I should say
But instead... I do the fade away

Like Verbal Kint fading into Kaiser Soze
The rights in Arizona for a guy named Jose
Opportunities for a college grad
The love between your mom and dad
Gonna Peter out like a gay Cetera
Iranian relations since the Regan era
Black Nike sales after Heaven's Gate
Summer Camp attendance at Penn State
The name Adolph after World War Two
Like Debbie Gibson's pop career, Out of the Blue
Yeah I fade away

Cause I don't wanna get to know you
I just want to blow you... off

You seem to think that eliminating guns will somehow eliminate mass shootings. However, there is zero correlation to the number of legal gun ownerships with the number of homicides. In fact, here are some statistics for you:

At present, a little more than half of all Americans own the sum total of about 320 million guns, 36% of which are handguns, but fewer than 100,000 of these guns are used in violent crimes. And, as it happens, where gun ownership per capita increases, violent crime is known to decrease. In other words, Caucasians tend to own more guns than African Americans, middle aged folks own more guns than young people, wealthy people own more guns than poor people, rural families own more guns than urbanites --> But the exact opposite is true for violent behavior (i.e., African Americans tend to be more violent than Caucasians, young people more violent than middle aged people, poor people more violent than wealthy people, and urbanites more violent than rural people). So gun ownership tends increase where violence is the least. This is, in large part, due to the cultural divide in the U.S. around gun ownership whereby most gun owners own guns for recreational sports (including the Southern Caucasian rural hunting culture, the likes of which aren't found in Australia or the UK or Europe, etc.); and about half of gun owners own guns for self-defense (usually as the result of living in a dangerous environment). Most of the widespread gun ownership in the U.S. predates any gun control legislation and gun ownership tends to generally rise as a response to an increase in violent crime (not the other way around).

There were about 350,000 crimes in 2009 in which a gun was present (but may not have been used), 24% of robberies, 5% of assaults, and about 66% of homicides. By contrast, guns are used as self-defense as many as 2 and a half million times every year (according to criminologist Gary Kleck at Florida State University), thereby decreasing the potential loss of life or property (i.e., those with guns are less likely to be injured in a violent crime than those who use another defensive strategy or simply comply).

Interestingly, violent crimes tend to decrease in those areas where there have been highly publicized instances of victims arming themselves or defending themselves against violent criminals. (In the UK, where guns are virtually banned, 43% of home burglaries occur when people are in the home, whereas only 9% of home burglaries in the U.S. occur when people are in the home, presumably as a result of criminals' fear of being shot by the homeowner.) In short, gun ownership reduces the likelihood of harm.

So, for example, Boston has the strictest gun control and the most school shootings. The federal ban on assault weapons from '94-'04 did not impact amount and severity of school shootings. The worst mass homicide in a school in the U.S. took place in Michigan in 1927, killing 38 children. The perpetrator used (illegal) bombs, not guns in this case.

1/3 of legal gun owners obtain their guns (a total of about 200,000 guns) privately, outside the reach of government regulation. So, it's likely that gun-related crimes will increase if the general population is unarmed.

Out of a sample of 943 felon handgun owners, 44% had obtained the gun privately, 32% stole it, 9% rented/borrowed it, and 16% bought it from a retailer. (Note retail gun sales is the only area that gun control legislation can affect, since existing laws have failed to control for illegal activity. Stricter legislation would likely therefore change the statistics of how felon handgun owners obtain the gun towards less legal, more violent ways.) Less than 3% obtain guns on the 'black market' (probably due, in part, to how many legal guns are already easily obtained).

600,000 guns are stolen every year and millions of guns circulate among criminals (outside the reach of the regulators), so the elimination of all new handgun purchases/sales, the guns would still be in the hands of the criminals (and few others).

The common gun controls have been shown to have no effect on the reduction of violent crime, however, according to the Dept. of Justice, states with right-to-carry laws have a 30% lower homicide rate and a 46% lower robbery rate. A 2003 CDC report found no conclusive evidence that gun control laws reduced gun violence. This conclusion was echoed in an exhaustive National Academy of Sciences study a year later.

General gun ownership has no net positive effect on total violence rates.

Of almost 200,000 CCP holders in Florida, only 8 were revoked as a result of a crime.

The high-water mark of mass killings in the U.S. was back in 1929, and has not increased since then. In fact, it's declined from 42 incidents in 1990 to 26 from 2000-2012. Until recently, the worst school shootings took place in the UK or Germany. The murder rate and violent crime in the U.S. is less than half of what it was in the late 1980s (the reason for which is most certainly multimodal and multifaceted).

Regarding Gun-Free Zones, many mass shooters select their venues because there are signs there explicitly banning concealed handguns (i.e., where the likelihood is higher that interference will be minimal). "With just one single exception, the attack on congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in Tuscon in 2011, every public shooting since at least 1950 in the U.S. in which more than three people have been killed has taken place where citizens are not allowed to carry guns," says John Lott.

In any case, do we have any evidence to believe that the regulators (presumably the police in this instance) will be competent, honest, righteous, just, and moral enough to take away the guns from private citizens, when a study has shown that private owners are convicted of firearms violations at the same rate as police officers? How will you enforce the regulation and/or remove the guns from those who resist turning over their guns? Do the police not need guns to get those with the guns to turn over their guns? Does this then not presume that "gun control" is essentially an aim for only the government (i.e., the centralized political elite and their minions) to have guns at the exclusion of everyone else? Is the government so reliable, honest, moral, virtuous, and forward thinking as to ensure that the intentions of gun control legislation go exactly as planned?

From a sociological perspective, it's interesting to note that those in favor of gun control tend to live in relatively safe and wealthy neighborhoods where the danger posed by violent crime is far less than in those neighborhoods where gun ownership is believed to be more acceptable if not necessary. Do they really want to deprive those who are culturally acclimatized to gun-ownership, who may be less fortunate than they are, to have the means to protect themselves (e.g., women who carry guns to protect themselves from assault or rape)? Sounds more like a lack of empathy and understanding of those realities to me.

There are many generational issues worth mentioning here. For example, the rise in gun ownership coincided with the war on drugs and the war on poverty. There are also nearly 24 million combat veterans living in the U.S. and they constitute a significant proportion of the U.S.' prison population as a result of sex offenses or violent crime. Male combat veterans are four times as likely to engage violent crime as non-veteran men; and are 4.4 times more likely to have abused a spouse/partner, and 6.4 times more likely to suffer from PTSD, and 2-3 times more likely to suffer from depression, substance abuse, unemployment, divorce/separation. Vietnam veterans with PTSD tend to have higher rates of childhood abuse (26%) than Vietnam veterans without PTSD (7%). Iraq/Afghanistan vets are 75% more likely to die in car crashes. Sex crimes by active duty soldiers have tripled since 2003. In 2007, 700,000 U.S. children had at least one parent in a warzone. In a July 2010 report, child abuse in Army families was 3 times higher if a parent was deployed in combat. From 2001 - 2011, alcohol use associated with domestic violence in Army families increased by 54%, and child abuse increased by 40%. What effect do you think that's going to have, regardless of "gun controls?"
("The War Comes Home" or as William Golding, the author of Lord of the Flies said, "A spear is a stick sharpened at both ends.")

In addition, families in the U.S. continue to break down. Single parent households have a high correlation to violence among children. In 1965, 93% of all American births were to married women. Today, 41% of all births are to unmarried women (a rate that rises to 53% for women under the age of 30). By age 30, 1/3 of American women have spent time as a single mother (a rate that is halved in European countries like France, Sweden, & Germany). Less than 9% of married couples are in poverty, but more than 40% of single-parent families are in poverty. Much of child poverty would be ameliorated if parents were marrying at 1970s rates. 85% of incarcerated youth grew up without fathers.

Since the implementation of the war on drugs, there's a drug arrest in the U.S. every 19 seconds, 82% of which were for possession alone (destroying homes and families in the process). The Dept. of Justice says that illegal drug market in the U.S. is dominated by 900,000 criminally active gang members affiliated with 20,000 street gangs in more than 2,500 cities, many of which have direct ties to Mexican drug cartels in at least 230 American cities. The drug control spending, however, has grown by 69.7% over the past 9 years. The criminal justice system is so overburdened as a result that nearly four out of every ten murders, and six out of every ten rapes, and nine out of ten burglaries go unsolved (and 90% of the "solved" cases are the result of plea-bargains, resulting in non-definitive guilt). Only 8.5% of federal prisoners have committed violent offenses. 75% of Detroit's state budget can be traced back to the war on drugs.

Point being, a government program is unlikely to solve any issues with regards to guns and the whole notion of gun control legislation is severely misguided in light of all that I've pointed out above. In fact, a lot of the violence is the direct or indirect result of government programs (war on drugs and the war on poverty).

(And, you'll note, I made no mention of the recent spike in the polypharmacy medicating of a significant proportion of American children -- including most of the "school shooters" -- the combinations of which have not been studied, but have -- at least in part -- been correlated to homicidal and/or suicidal behaviors.)

What BS There are 2 sides fighting and only 1 being put on the spot during this interview.

Hamas heard the Cease fire and chose to ignore it at their own peril.

And Israel is fighting terrorist. I say kill them all, women and children. If you just pick and choose then you end up like America wars since Vietnam, losing wars.

Where do you live exactly because I'm guessing that I can find similar propaganda tools in your society as well. The United States is unique in a few ways, and it's Public Relations Machine is absolutely amazing. Hitler and Goebbels copied it because at the time it was the most advanced in the world at Manufacturing Consent.

I meet some people from foreign countries who like to run America down in some ways and they're correct a lot of the time and sometimes I participate with them. There are other times though where say someone from the UK or France speaks up and I just have to slam them down. The UK is a joke with it's rules against broadcasting and freedom of speech, an absolutely backward democracy. France is way WAY worse in regards to it's worship of academias charlatans. Just bullshit constantly being peddled in both places that would NEVER fly in the United States.

And Australia specifically because I know there's some Aussies on the board that like to run America and the UK down. Do you guys like being told what video game is ok to buy? Do you like trying to find your way around archaic bullshit rules that the US public would've fucking smashed in a second if they were even suggested?

America has a lot of fucking problems, and this is certainly tied to the biggest. The fact that we will go through another HUGE crash in a couple years that will be worse than the 2008 one. It might actually solve our fucking problems though. The first crash caused some serious organization and it had to be put down violently. It didn't continue with serious steam because a lot of people were still doing ok. What about the next horrible crash that should be much much bigger. You think organization will be difficult then? It's only a matter of time, and it's looking good for the activists. Sadly time is not on our side with regards to the planet.

And the reason why it's looking good for the activists in America is because we have some education in stopping Wars because of activism, in stopping barbarism. You want to think we're backward, what other Empire in ALLLLLL Of human history actually had civilians go and live with their victims to try and stop their armies destroying them. There isn't an example in all of history except for good ol' Americans doing it in Vietnam and Nicaragua.

Also this might be a minor point but didn't we at our birth overthrow probably the worst Empire ever to exist? Which I might add caused everyone else to start throwing them off like a hot blanket in the Arab Spring (American influence Arab Spring).

You said Bloody so I'm gonna assume you're from Britainland, the land that gave us Big Brother. We should've burned the UK to the ground a long time ago, the Nazis before the Nazis even existed.

Let's face it, a lot of people are lazy. Then again, we are kinda wired to be lazy, but jesus, more people complained about supplements being regulated than they did the Vietnam war?

Tags for this video have been changed from 'marketing, branding, caps' to 'marketing, branding, caps, vietnam, recycle, reuse, coca cola, bottles, campaign' - edited by lucky760