Think this may be a dead of this dead video
http://videosift.com/video/Why-We-Fight-BBC-Storyville-US-war-machine-documentary

>> ^notarobot:

Interesting blueprint. I wonder if something like this will be done to the nation?


Something like this has been done to many nations, listen to this guy for some examples:
http://videosift.com/video/Economic-Hitmen.

But I guess you want to know whether it will happen to our nation. I don't think that can happen as long as the US dollar remains the world reserve currency, which is Why We Fight. When the dollar goes the way of the pound sterling then all bets are off.

>> ^JiggaJonson:

@BoneRemake I'm just saying that, as a matter of practice, it seems more appropriate to have one video = one sift
See:
http://videosift.com/video/The-Secret-Life-Of-Brian-Monty-
Pythonreligion-documentary
http://videosift.com/video/the-making-of-star-trek-2009-to-boldly
-go-part-one
http://videosift.com/video/Talking-to-the-Taliban-it-s-a-triba
l-civil-war-stupid
http://videosift.com/video/Why-We-Fight-BBC-Storyville-US-war
-machine-documentary


So then you are just vaguely telling others what to do ? after understanding your point I do not understand why it was brought to discussion. Was the point of that to make it a rule ? or bring light to the issue ? You offer your opinion, which is digested and respected, but after that fact, that is all it is, is opinion. Because as of now I know of no videosift ruling that states you are not allowed to do so. With all that being said the base of the paragraph, I wanted to know is what do you want to be done about it ?

**editors note: Not to edit what I said above, I understand by discussing it you are bringing light to it, but I think a sift poll or talking through a direct sift talk post would be best to get a concrete solution of terms.

@BoneRemake I'm just saying that, as a matter of practice, it seems more appropriate to have one video = one sift

See:

http://videosift.com/video/The-Secret-Life-Of-Brian-Monty-Pythonreligion-documentary
http://videosift.com/video/the-making-of-star-trek-2009-to-boldly-go-part-one
http://videosift.com/video/Talking-to-the-Taliban-it-s-a-tribal-civil-war-stupid
http://videosift.com/video/Why-We-Fight-BBC-Storyville-US-war-machine-documentary

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:

M'eh - as usual with most faux documentaries this one ignores quite a lot. The cold war of the 50s to the late 80s was no figment of imagination. There was a very real need there, and it has to be said that France, Britain, Germany, and the other pillars of Western Civilization were neither interested in, or capable of, dealing with the issue of Communist expansion. Quite to the contrary - as evidenced by their socialist policies most of Western Europe was - in fact - somewhat sympathetic to it.
So the U.S. stepped up to the plate, and via military spending & brinkmanship they contained China, and even collapsed the Soviet Union. It also allows governments like the UK to spend a piddling little 4 to 5% of their budget on defense and the rest on social spending. It also allows smug, self-satisfied twits in the BBC to act all snooty over the fact that the U.S. spends over 24% of its budget on defense while not pointing out the reality that the U.S. defense spending is in fact obliquely subsidizing their own nation's social spending.
But I do think that the U.S. military is long overdue for some cutbacks and oversight. Like most government programs, they are rampant with cronyism, inefficiency, and waste. Let's start by cutting all the military in Western Europe, and letting them pay for their own national defense, eh wot? Wonder how staid the BBC would be if we actually did pack up and do as they suggest and leave them hanging.


No the figment of our imagination was that all that military spending was to combat the soviet union. Notice how the military budget during and after the Cold War didn't drop a cent. That tells us that the spending wasn't really about the Soviets, it was a constant redistribution of wealth to keep an empire going.

Also beating the Soviet Union isn't something the brag about after we got a look at their internal economics. They were a 3rd world country twice destroyed by Germany that built back up and was still very flimsy. The US emerged from WW2 with literally Half the worlds wealth and remained almost completely untouched by the War.

Sorry but where the fuck did you go to college?

>> ^quantumushroom:

Didn't care for the "Blame America First" tone. These ambitious crockumentarians all turn a blind eye to the evils of communism and downplay the evil in the world in their attempts to pin the entire war-drenched history of humanity on America. Puh-leeze.

Of course, it's always easier to fault civilized Americans than islamofascist scum, since the savages attempt to murder anyone who speaks out against them in any media.


Because it's an American documentary. The point being is that we should be harder on ourselves and apply more rigid standards to ourselves more than anyone else in order to be better and constantly improve. Pointing at other peoples crimes doesn't really help anything because it's the people in those countries who can change the direction their country is headed. In America we have a democracy and we can change a whole hell of a lot the direction of this country that is why we should be critical of ourselves more than anything.

I don't understand your argument...it's like a child telling their mother "but but jimmy did this and that" it's irrelevant.

Yes.

In reply to this comment by dag:
This is why we fight.

As dag has so eloquently stated in another post "This is why we fight".

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

This is why we fight.

If only you could see time the way I do...

I see what you mean, but I must disagree. Atheism does not base itself on "I know" but rather "I don't know", this basic humility is not present in religions, because they indeed say "I know". Agnostic is a bad word, because it elevates every crack-pot theory higher than it should. I'm certainly not agnostic about the Celestial Teapot, fairies or cockatrices, but like with, let's say the Christian God, I technically have to be. The way I say I'm an atheist is, "as long as no evidence is produced to the contrary, I believe that there is no God". Like another poster in the post said, it is often intellectual cowardice to say you are an agnostic, because you don't want to offend (or what have you).

I am arrogant about my atheism, because I cannot see how anyone can look at the world and come to a theistic conclusion. I think it is hiding the truth, and truth is more important than comfort.

It is an entirely different beast to talk about organized dogma and such - that's just pure control of the masses = evil, in my book and I think that is much more apparent, even to many believers. I usually "attack" Faith instead of organized Religion, because I think that faith underpins the great chains of the big religions. If the truth comes out, it will shatter the chains and only man is left. Most chains are self-inflicted, however, and if I can make people realize they are there, they will lose their power and people will be free.

That is why we fight.^TM

In reply to this comment by enoch:
In reply to this comment by gwiz665:
would the fact i am a man a faith color or cloud my theories and conclusions in your eyes?
could you still be objective about my work knowing i had a belief system entirely different from your own?

Yes and yes. Luckily the scientific method will weed out your theories if they are biased by your belief system. If your theories are biased every time, you will not be a successful scientist.

i agree,very much so.
did you find the context of my comment inconsiderate?
i find myself battling two fronts on issues of religion and atheism.
and both seem to be convinced of their self-righteousness.
i find it tiresome when so many make assumptions based on their own perceptions.
the arrogance of these assumptions piss me off.
from both sides.
one is convinced i am going to burn in hell,the other is convinced they know what i am all about..based on? nothing.
i have never attempted to coerce,convince or convert anybody.not here on the sift,nor anywhere for that matter.
why is agnostic such a bad word to atheists?
hell..i think we all are agnostic to a certain degree.
it just means not-knowing.that while we can have certitude in some things,there are some we just dont know.
not yet at least.
but i find it incredibly exciting that we may know,and to even just ponder that possibility is...well..awesome.
i have no problem with atheists,not like i do fundamentalists,but to be so arrogant to think you know everything just rubs me the wrong way.
it shows a total lack of intellectual curiosity and humility in the face of something that is unknowable.
the more we learn,the more we find out there is so much more to learn.
that discussion cant happen if everyone is convinced they know it all.
well..i dont know it all,and i find the journey to find out the mysteries of life quite exhilarating.
thanks man..just had to get that off my chest.
and i didnt want to offend some tender sensibilities of some people here.
atheism? have at it.arrogant certitude?
yeah..i might call ya on that.
not you of course,because you are blue and can manipulate time and space.

I believe this is from the documentary "Why We Fight"

Part 1 of 10: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgDBOuJn9G0&feature=related

you stated about the "thermite babble".
ok...that should be a topic of discussion


I would disagree, it should NOT be a topic of discussion. It deserves as much discussion as questions about Obama's birth certificate. It is a waste of time. I will gladly try to clarify the 'thermite babble' with friends, family and people I meet who believe it, I consider at least attempting that discussion worthwhile. I will avoid listening to hours of video that includes the 'thermite babble', that is relatively worthless.

I consider it akin to refuting the latest cult of the day. I consider watching Scientology's latest video to be relatively worthless. I do however consider discussing Scientology with friends, family and people I meet who don't know it's a scam worthwhile. I've already picked up enough about Hubbard that I really don't see the need for anymore proof for the truth of things. I don't feel a need to spend days and nights going through every piece of teaching anyone in Scientology has ever come out with before rejecting it all as not worth my time and a bad source for useful information. I consider videos that believe in the thermite myth to be in the same category of proven non-utility.


the "conspiracy theory" we were given and the questions therein have never been fully answered by the american government.


I'm not sure which 'conspiracy' you refer to. For certain I agree lots of what happened around 9/11 has not been answered, in particular a lot of what happened immediately after. My previous point though ties into my response here. Videos talking about thermite are one of the poorest places to go looking for those answers. The answer to the biggest question though is clear. Al-Qaeda was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. The proper response to that is littered with a lot of smoke and mirrors and a century of geo-politics, and I don't see any of the trailers for these videos looking as promising sources for wading through that.


i have no problem with disagreements,but at least digest the material before you critique said material.


Well, I've now watched the two that looked the most worthwhile.

"War Made Easy" didn't provide a single piece of novel information, and was little more than archived news footage with a one sided commentary read by Sean Penn. I learnt nothing as expected and wouldn't reccomend it to anyone. I'd in fact argue against someone not informed about recent history watching it for the very false image that it protrays of recent history taken all by itself without knowing the things the film leaves out.

"Why We Fight" confirms what I said I expected as the high mark of the videos. It includes some new footage and interviews, although the information found in those videos that is new/novel is trivial in nature. The major points and facts it does present are all available in other places, and with better context. More over, it presents an extremely one sided picture and works more strongly as a propaganda piece than as an informative work.

For anyone under the delusion that corruption isn't rampant in American government, this video has important information. There are better sources for that information though, and to be honest no video is likely to persuade people so deluded anyways. In the real world though, one has to actually look beyond the state of America and look also at the geopolitics of the places it is in conflict with. Yes, we all know Cheney is corrupt and his actions have been criminal, that isn't the final word on the Iraq conflict. In many ways, that fact is barely a footnote.

Both videos, as I've said elsewhere, follow the same road to failure as the mainstream media, and the same road to failure they themselves decry. That failure is the oversimplfication of geo-politics and it's causes. Both videos present the problem in American foreign policy as simply being too militaristic, and the solution as simple as reducing military spending or better media coverage of arising conflicts. If only the world where truly that simple. In reality things are vastly more complicated, and there is a wealth of video, interviews, and documentaries that attempt to investigate and reveal the layers of that complexity. These videos though are no where near that world.

this is such a fantastic movie,its right up there with "why we fight".

Why We Fight
http://www.videosift.com/video/Why-We-Fight-BBC-Storyville-US-war-machine-documentary
End Of America
http://www.videosift.com/video/End-Of-America-a-letter-of-warning-to-a-young-patriot
War Made Easy
http://www.videosift.com/video/War-Made-Easy
America: From Freedom to Fascism
http://www.videosift.com/video/America-From-Freedom-to-Fascism-full
The Future Of Food
http://www.videosift.com/video/The-Future-Of-Food
The Century of The Self
http://www.videosift.com/video/The-Century-of-The-Self-Part-1-of-4
The Corporation
http://www.videosift.com/video/The-Corporation-Documentary-on-Corporate-Influence

Tags for this video have been changed from 'why we fight, string quartet, Opus 131, Movement 6' to 'why we fight, string quartet, Opus 131, Movement 6, beethoven' - edited by Deano