No barbed wire.

The tragedy of that "charge" in World War I wasn't that the Newfoundland soldiers died in epic combat, man-on-man, but that they got hung up on their own barbed wire and were simply machine-gunned to death by the Germans as they struggled to get through. Those that did manage to stagger into No Man's Land were picked off because they were the only soldiers crossing the open gap between the lines.

In a war marked by human wastage, the charge of the Newfoundland Regiment on the Somme was an appalling low point.

Let's call them what they are.

Concentration camps.

The first stages of Ethnic Cleansing.

I'd like to point to the following article via Slate.com

"As one of the few journalists permitted to tour the government’s new internment camp, about 40 miles from the southern border, the New York Times correspondent tried to be scrupulously fair. Forcing civilians to live behind barbed wire and armed guards was surely inhumane, and there was little shelter from the blazing summer heat. But on the other hand, the barracks were “clean as a whistle.” Detainees lazed in the grass, played chess, and swam in a makeshift pool. There were even workshops for arts and crafts, where good work could earn an “extra allotment of bread.” True, there had been some clashes in the camp’s first days—and officials, the reporter noted, had not allowed him to visit the disciplinary cells. But all in all, the correspondent noted in his July 1933 article, life at Dachau, the first concentration camp in Nazi Germany, had “settled into the organized routine of any penal institution.” "

Yes... he did it. If there were any doubts left, this should remove them. Trump officially put the United States on the same path as Nazi Germany.

What are you going to do about it?

------------------------------------------------------------------------

"First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."

-Niemöller

Your video, Trump Trades Barbs with Biden as Legal Problems Mount, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Possible, but I don't really think so. I think that the Medical minds of the time thought that physical shock, pressure waves from bombing etc. as you described, were a (or perhaps THE) primary cause of the psychological problems of returning soldiers. So the name "shell shock" came from there, but the symptoms that it was describing were psychological and, I think precisely equal to modern PTSD. Basically, "shell shock" became a polite euphemism for "soldier that got mentally messed up in the war and is having difficulty returning to civilian life".

My grandfather was an Army Air Corps armorer during WWII. He went through basic training, but his primary job was loading ammunition, bombs, external gas tanks, etc. onto P-47 airplanes. He was never in a direct combat situation, as I would describe it. He was never shot at, never in the shockwave radius of explosions, etc. But after the war he was described as having mild "shell shock", manifested by being withdrawn, not wanting to talk about the war, and occasionally prone to angry outbursts over seemingly trivial things. Eventually, he started talking about the war in his mid 80's, and here's a few relevant (perhaps) stories of his:

He joined the European theater a couple days after D-Day. Came to shore on a Normandy beach in the same sort of landing craft seen in Saving Private Ryan, etc. Even though it was days later, there were still LOTS of bodies on the beach, and thick smell of death. Welcome to the war!

His fighter group took over a French farm house adjacent to a dirt landing strip / runway. They put up a barbed wire perimeter with a gate on the road. In one of the only times I heard of him having a firearm and being expected to potentially use it, he pulled guard duty at that gate one evening. His commanding officer gave him orders to shoot anyone that couldn't provide identification on sight. While he was standing guard, a woman in her 20's rolled up on a bicycle, somewhat distraught. She spoke no English, only French. She clearly wanted to get in, and even tried to push past my grandfather. By the letter of his orders, he was "supposed" to shoot her. Instead, he knocked her off her bike when she tried to ride past after getting nowhere verbally and physically restrained her. At gunpoint! When someone that spoke French got there, it turned out that she was the daughter of the family that lived in the farm house. They had no food, and she was coming back to get some potatoes they had left in the larder.

Riding trains was a common way to get air corps support staff up to near the front, and also to get everybody back to transport ships at the end of the war. On one of those journeys later in the war, my grandfather was riding in an open train car with a bunch of his buddies. They were all given meals at the start of the trip. A short while later, the track went through a French town. A bunch of civilians were waiting around the tracks begging for food. I'll never forgot my grandfather describing that scene. It was tough for him to get out, and then all he managed was "they was starvin'!" He later explained that he and his buddies all gave up the food that they had to those people in the first town -- only to have none left to give as they rolled past similar scenes in each town on down the line.

When my mother was growing up, she and her brothers learned that they'd better not leave any food on their plates to go to waste. She has said that the angriest she ever saw her dad was when her brothers got into a food fight one time, and my grandfather went ballistic. They couldn't really figure out what the big deal was, until years later when my grandfather started telling his war stories and suddenly things made more sense.


A lot of guys had a much rougher war than my grandfather. Way more direct combat. Saw stuff much worse -- and had to DO things that were hard to live with. I think the psychological fallout of stuff like that explains the vast majority of "shell shock", without the addition of CTE-like physical head trauma. I'd wager that when the docs said Stewart's father's shell shock was a reaction to aerial bombardment, that was really just a face-saving measure to try to explain away the perceived "weakness" of his condition.

My thought was it folds the barbs sideways so they don't hook in as well. Clearly they still catch some, but likely less than just tugging.

I say double down and go full barbed-tape concertina.

So, @bobknight33 how was the weather in Charlottesville?

You're still avoiding answering any questions, I see. Easier to hide like a coward rather than face the fact you might be wrong I guess.

Do YOU support the marchers? Are you a member of any of the groups represented there? Clearly you support some racists, I'm just checking how far it goes. Where do you draw the line? Are Nazi slogans okay so long as you're on the right side of the barbed wire?

I thought it was great, now I know what Milo is like in real life. It's fascinating to see. Like Coulter, about 5 second reactionary barbs is all that Milo has... and that works brilliantly for news shows and twitter where nothing more is expected. Get them on a show where they can talk unscripted like real people for more than 20 seconds however, and you realize there's nothing else there. I'm glad Realtime exists, because it's one of the only shows where that can happen.

Barbs? So sadistic!

Fuck you, Philip. In the future you are DONE. I'm going rogue and joining the raiders. While you're checking your email to see if there's an ineffective faggot that'll blow you while your wife is auto-driving in her black cock mobile, I'll be riding alongside of you on a jet propelled tricycle with a carboard cut out of a society car, just like yours.

Except it's not, Philip. It's NOT just like yours, Philip. It's really a cyberpunk barbarian motorized tricycle with a series of harpoons and tazers that I send flying at your smart car, connected to barbed wire and chains, that I use to ensnare my prize. And you, Philip. You're my bitch. My little Tatum.

Show the people what happens to future idiots who forget how to drive. That's right, their wife doesn't care because she's already taken care of and your ass is probably used on a constant basis by dirty disease ridden scavs. After the raiders have had the ol ultra violence on ya, real savage like.

"Burning behind me is eight and a half tonnes of heroin, opium, hashish and other narcotics which have been stolen from their rightful owners and destroyed in an act of vandalism so tremendous it amounts to a crime against humanity.

In this much larger pyre lie the smouldering corpses of those responsible. After witnessing the execution of their spouses and children, their skin was carefully flayed from their bodies, their eyes and genitals were removed and their bones were slowly ground into powder."

(Cut to footage of thousands of terrified people being herded toward a gigantic concrete pit. Bulldozers force them over the edge as the narration continues:)

"Those who enter first die quickly. Eventually their bodies cushion the fall of those behind, who are suffocated and crushed in their turn by the weight of ever more flesh."

(Cut to the pit being capped and sealed, the cries of those still alive inside are abruptly silenced. Zoom out to reveal dozens more exactly alike beside it; further to show the vast complex of huts and barbed wire fences, train lines and guard towers built to accommodate the multitude who pour in every day.)

"Each pit has a capacity of one million. There are sixty here and this is the correction centre of just one minor country. Thousands more are under construction worldwide."

Maybe he got so high he saw a better world. Of course he couldn't stop giggling.

The thumbnail image for this video has been updated - thumbnail added by oritteropo.

Wouldn't it be better, and safer for everyone, if we could just build some sort of "place" for these homeless people to live? Provide them with the basic needs of life like food, clothing and shelter. A cot to sleep on. A yard to exercise in. A place where they could make friends and network with other desperate people?

Hell, maybe we can even put them to work! One man's "slave labor" is another man's "productive member of society", after all.

Granted, some of these people are dangerous! When you hit rock bottom and have nothing left to lose, that can turn a man into an animal. So maybe we should surround the place with barbed wire and electric fences. And guard towers, just in case.

Maybe put bars on the windows and doors?

I'm just spitballing ideas here.

To elaborate on the captain's explanation:

Each barb of the feather is bending downward under its own weight due to the force of gravity. The weight of the barb exerts a downward bending force on itself. When the feather begins to fall, each barb is no longer affected by gravity, and so, recoils to its "natural" position of minimal tension. Though I can't see it in this video, I assume that each barb actually oscillates a bit about its natural position.