>> ^Entropy001:

Did you all ever stop and think that maybe these new screening protocols are actually a necessary invasion of privacy in order to prevent bombers from getting their explosives through security?
Or that there is not another way other than pat downs and the scanner?
Grow up!


Or that these few bombing attempts are blowback from an encroaching hegemonic interventionist policy the US has sustained for a very long time in the middle east? In other words: maybe if policy makers didn't start nothing there wouldn't be nothing.

@Winstonfield_Pennypacker

Tired of hearing people talk about "entitlements" when things like medicare are enormously successful and are paid for by a fund that everyone pays into. If any of these things are "unfunded liabilities" it's because the programs are robbed of funds to pay for the Pentagon, or cut from budgets for political points to generate a "surplus" when we borrow from China against our kids' futures every day.

Any article that talks about low birthrates in a world with 6 billion people and rising is automatically intellectually bankrupt. There's nothing wrong with populations stabilizing after the post-WWII boom. There's nothing inherently wrong with an aging population in a world filled with new medical technologies. The problem is paying for it all.

It's all really a failure of that post-WWII generation to control the culture of excess they've generated. Why do you think "sustainability" is such a huge buzzword? It's because the past 60 years have had nothing to do with thinking ahead. The financial crisis and the BP oil spill punctuate that...corporations obsessed with nothing but profit causing huge unintended blowback into financial and ecological systems alike...all because of lack of meaningful and enforced regulation.

It's funny how conservatives will fight for smaller government, but then, to try and score political points, they'll complain that our government isn't acting quickly or comprehensively enough to stop a giant disaster. Reagan said gov't is part of the problem, but today's conservatives seem to go back and forth on that point, depending what serves them best. Laissez-Faire is just another subject in a long list of naive extreme ideologies.

We need thoughtful balance, not extremes.

Uh - the Coast Guard works for the U.S. Government. They don't take orders from BP. If the Coast Guard is not allowing journalists into an area, then the responsibility falls on the U.S. Government - not BP. The only reason journalists could possibly be turned back is if the government was wanting it to be that way.

Now - BP may be involved in the motivation for the government to be doing this (though there is no evidence of that beyond hearsay at this point). However - considering the political blowback Obama's administration is now getting for thier weak, slow response to the event - it is entirely possible that it is the OBAMA administration that is the one engaging in censorship so as to minimize the impact.

Consider... Obama has a notorious, even infamous, habit of stonewalling the pres and suppressing information. I'd make a list - but it would take too long. Needless to say he has a LONG history of hiding away facts that are inconvenient to his agenda. He has a frosty relationship (at best) with the press corps. His history as a community activist was oriented towards suppressing/hiding information he doesn't like, while propogandizing information he wants to be talked about. That's about the only thing Obama knows how to do well as he's a dundering incompetent at just about everything else.

BP certainly has a vested interest in minimizing its damage here to be sure. But they don't control the Coast Guard. Who does? The Obama administration. Ultimately - who is responsible for the USCG? Obama. He's the one you need to be pointing fingers at here. BP is probably more than happy to be complicit, but they aren't the ones giving the CG its orders.

I sympathize with your POV, but while I have not always had the best textbooks in school, I have actually had a few outstanding history teachers that went way beyond the textbooks. So I can say I have had good history classes in grade school.

I agree that politicians should not make decisions about this type of curricula, but for as long as I can remember, this has been the case. And not only politicians, but most ignorant politicians of the lot -- locally elected, fundamentallist, Harper Valley PTA-like politicians.

The way I see it education is a heavily political domain, since many see its purpose as indoctrination.

>> ^NordlichReiter:

@<a rel="nofollow" href="http://videosift.com/member/longde" title="member since April 8th, 2009" class="profilelink">longde
When have you ever gotten good history in public schools, any cultures history? See the Texas School Board on history books to understand what I mean. These are people who aren't even Historians making decisions on what should be in History books.

I didn't know other ideas of the cause of WWI until I saw a comedian talk about the Assassination of Franz Ferdinand; or the idea that Oil played a role in WWI. I also did not know the real reason behind the "blowback" in Iran (which we are still seeing take place to this day); which was caused by what is now British Petroleum and the CIA (Which was known as the Office of Strategic Services) see Mosaddegh.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat
The US cannot have effective history classes unless the truth is told. Truth be told half of our international (And Domestic. Don't forget about The Gulf Spill) problems are because of the need for Oil, but that is beside the point. My main argument is that teaching multiculturalism has the same problems as teaching true history.
What we are seeing in this Ethnic Studies law is the exact same shit we are seeing in Aron Ra's video above. Politicians should not be making decisions about what history should be taught. I would differ to Historians with PHDs from Major Universities.

@longde

When have you ever gotten good history in public schools, any cultures history? See the Texas School Board on history books to understand what I mean. These are people who aren't even Historians making decisions on what should be in History books.



I didn't know other ideas of the cause of WWI until I saw a comedian talk about the Assassination of Franz Ferdinand; or the idea that Oil played a role in WWI. I also did not know the real reason behind the "blowback" in Iran (which we are still seeing take place to this day); which was caused by what is now British Petroleum and the CIA (Which was known as the Office of Strategic Services) see Mosaddegh.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat

The US cannot have effective history classes unless the truth is told. Truth be told half of our international (And Domestic. Don't forget about The Gulf Spill) problems are because of the need for Oil, but that is beside the point. My main argument is that teaching multiculturalism has the same problems as teaching true history.

What we are seeing in this Ethnic Studies law is the exact same shit we are seeing in Aron Ra's video above. Politicians should not be making decisions about what history should be taught. I would differ to Historians with PHDs from Major Universities.

So, she's not dead? Just released a video because she feared murderous blowback from her attempts to keep Austrailia "white"?

One of those situations thats all about context. The VP made a stupid decision and he's been reprimanded for it. The issue got blown way out of purportion with this one.

1. Dudes were trolling. The "offended" got trolled.
2. VP overreacted. VP got nailed for it.
3. This wasn't a Mexican vs American race issue, it was a teenager douchebag vs the status quo issue that happen to involve an American Flag on Cinco de Mayo. I seen it back in my day when I was in highschool and I'm sure it'll keep going well into the future. We still have clowns rolling the confederate flag up in Idaho...never once left the state, but all hail "southern" heritage and what not.

It should have been handled differently and if the VP's decision was to be upheld, then they should have been prepared with a better statement knowing what the climate is right now.

"You can't wear patriotic clothing." Ohhhh, right...thats going to go down with no blowback. Awesome job.

Sounds like the school needs to take a step back and handle whats happening with their students in a more productive manner, but I suppose thats easier said than done.

^Choggie, that ended when technology took over the progression of our evolution on this planet. We, as human beings, are no longer part and parcel of "Natural Selection". Or else people like me would not be here still walking, talking and breathing; I would've died years ago due to complications with Diabetes had there not have been advances in medical science to treat it.

Our compassion for each other to keep us alive and well keep us from being "naturally selected" and it is a good thing too; think of all the minds that could be lost to us without medical science and its achievements. I always use Stephen Hawking as a good example of this.

Trial and error, failure and success: Everyone is right when they say no treatment can be 100% effective, but if we don't keep trying, we'll never get there one day.

>> ^choggie:
Another way to look at it would be to decide, "Fuck it. Vaccines have their benefits which far outweigh the dangers and the few who will suffer as a result of the poisons contained therein." This is surly the sentiments of the companies which manufacture them and are impervious to any real trauma, blowback, or litigation.....
What ever happened to let the planet cull the weak links from the genetic pool, eh??

Another way to look at it would be to decide, "Fuck it. Vaccines have their benefits which far outweigh the dangers and the few who will suffer as a result of the poisons contained therein." This is surly the sentiments of the companies which manufacture them and are impervious to any real trauma, blowback, or litigation.....

What ever happened to let the planet cull the weak links from the genetic pool, eh??

>> ^thinker247:
While I am one to never believe anything my government tells me, I find it highly improbable that anybody but the 19 hijackers caused the events of September 11th. But to play devil's advocate, let me for a minute suspend my belief and agree with the "truthers" that my government perpetrated an act of terrorism against itself.
Why?
In order to invade Afghanistan to plunder its oil? We already had bin Laden on the FBI's Most Wanted List for the bombings of U.S. Embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. We easily could have invaded under the pretense of finding and extracting bin Laden (and the Taliban and al-Qaeda), because that's exactly what we did after September 11th.
In order to invade Iraq under the banner of anti-terrorism? Hussein had already defied U.N. weapons inspectors for over a decade and Bush was never the type to ask permission, so we didn't need September 11th to justify illegally invading a sovereign nation. We did it anyway.
In order to enact greater restrictions upon the citizens by inducing their fear response? Hell, as a general populace we're lemmings. The Bush administration certainly did not need to kill 3000 people in order to take away our liberties. We gladly give them up whenever anybody in authority asks.
I have yet to hear a rational answer to the question of "Why?" But I'm all ears.


niiiice.
ask a question and then propose possible hypothesis which of course you then dismantle.
let me preface this by stating i am not a "truther" and am not as convinced as my friend rougy is concerning 9/11.
that being said,the US government has never,in my opinion,given this a proper investigation.
let me give you an example:
lewinsky and the impeachment of bill clinton =168 million dollars.
9/11 investigation=6 million dollars
and lets be clear here.the governments version of what happened on 9/11 is itself a conspiracy theory and one that does not hold up well under closer scrutiny.
who is responsible? i do not know and neither do you but i think it prudent to not only ask questions but be allowed to ask those questions.
agree?
now...
as for YOUR question thinker247.
why?
i presume you are asking for motive.
ok.
1.lusitania
2.reichsthag
3.gulf of tonkin
these are all false flag operations and all preceded war.WW!,WW2 and vietnam respectively.i could mention the oil embargo on japan but that is a lengthy conversation.
what ARE the motives for war?
they have always been unequivocally about:
1.land/labor/resources/trade
how does a government,crown or ruling entity get its poorest,least educated and therefore most expendable to go fight and die for something the ruling class wishes?
1.propaganda.
which creates a "fighting spirit".
for thousands of years religion was the impetus to create this spirit but for the last hundred years it has been nationalism but it is ALWAYS the F>E>A>R that is the true driving force.
now that we have established a basis for war let us get to the heart of your question.
since i am not privy to secret documents i must make my answer based on conjecture.i shall do my best.
why would the US government use 9/11 (by action or by proxy) to change 200 years of national defensive posturing to one of "pre-emptive" and declare a war,not on any person or nation but one against an ephemeral opponent?the "war on terror".
1.war is HUGE business and the DOD has been one of the top 10 lobbyists since 1962.
2.saddam hussein,having been bombed for over 10 years straight(fact,look it up) along with sanctions and that ridiculous "oil for food" threatened to change iraq's oil transactions from the american dollar to the euro(fact,look it up)which would have cost the US billions if not trillions.seeing that every oil transaction is done in american dollars.it is the world reserve currency (not for much longer).
3.uzbekisthan has one the last and richest oil and natural gas left in the world.a pipeline which was denied by turkey (that has since changed,but for europes benefit,not america) is being built right now...
where?
ill give ya a guess.
iraq.
and do you know where it will lead into?
want to try another guess?
afghanistan.

those are just a few off the top of my head.i could take the time to be more concise and specific but this is a comment section.
maybe we have differing political philosophies thinker247.i do not trust government nor power because that power historically has ALWAYS attempted to garner more power for itself at the expense of liberty,freedom and the common good of society.
so while i dont think the US government attacked the twin towers,i believe they ALLOWED it.
what evidence do i have? none.and any evidence we could have gotten has been destroyed.
but i was military for a number of years and unless they have gotten lazy and stupid there is no way that would have happened.
could i be wrong?you betcha.
but unlike you i do not trust government and neither should you because historically,governments will abuse whatever powers they have and take your rights away as fast as they are allowed to.
might i recommend:
1.bryzinski "the grand chessboard"
2.naomi klein "the shock doctrine"
3.chalmers johnson "blowback"
hell...just go the PNAC website they practically lay it out for you and that minority controlled the government for 8 years.
history is the greatest teacher and it is your friend.
i have enjoyed this conversation thinker247.

sposo2 is correct.
there is no proof.not in any definitive sense.
there is only conjecture and suspicious coincidence,which leads to more questions which have not been answered satisfactorily.
this is where spoco and i diverge.
history has shown us that those who rule will exploit it's own citizens for it's own machinations,even if that device is wholesale slaughter.
read Zbigniew Brzezinski:
http://www.amazon.com/Grand-Chessboard-American-Geostrategic-Imperatives/dp/0465027261
or chalmers johnson:
http://www.amazon.com/Blowback-Second-Consequences-American-Project/dp/0805075593/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1253120736&sr=1-1 (to give you context)

no body? then there is no case.
the REAL question to start with,and this can be verified,documented and is blocked at every turn,is the WHO and the WHY.
this has never been answered fully or even in part and what we were told has been proven to be not only false,but laughable.
let's start there.
so i cant blame anybody being suspicious of the governments accounts for 9/11.
their answers on these two questions have been suspicious from the start in their inaccuracies and outright lies.
try to avoid the physics and possible demolition of the trade towers.
not because your questions are invalid,but because the physical evidence is no longer there and to attempt to argue the validity of a government conspiracy with no physical evidence puts you in the hole at the beginning.
ask WHO and WHY.
even playing field.

This thread is all about people who can deal with complexity and nuance, and those who can't.

Was there ever a cop-out so easy to make and so devoid of pith? I trow not. It is ever so when those pesky, nasty, mean old facts and logic end up troubling the counsels of the followers of a pied piper. The persons unable to grasp nuance and complexity in this debate are the ones who are blindly following Obama, and taking everything he says at face value. Obama is in trouble. His numbers are dropping horribly. He's lost the support of the public, and his own party is wobbling.

Last night was not a speech for the public (who he's lost). Not was it a request for Republican cooperation (which he doesn't need). Last night was a warning shot at democrats who are getting nervous at how much the public is against this vague, undefined, secretive, expensive, socialistic bill.

"The time for bickering is over..." That was aimed smack dab at his own party to shut their pie-holes, line up, ignore their angry constituants, and goose-step where he tells them to go. Obama is telling the eroding Democrats in his party anything/everything he thinks he needs to say in order to give them just enough CYA to cram his bill through over the objections of the people. In doing so he's trying to get the entire country to ignore the details. He's trying to soar his bill through with rhetoric alone, and he's hoping there are enough Obama-zombies out there to make it work without too much political blowback.

Obama's claim that the bills do not cover illegals is window dressing. There is more than enough evidence and historical precedent to lend credence to the accusation that the bill will end up covering illegals as sure as the sun rises. I'm sure Obama really BELEVES that just because it 'says it' in the bill then that means the issue has been dealt with. Actually taking the time and effort to make his bogus claims reality is for his minions and flunkies to deal with at some unknown future time...

To further comment on that - calling it "Canada care" is fairly illuminating of their strategy. Referring to the Canadian system by its actual name, Medicare, could potentially cause confusion in the Fox audience and, at worst, cause the older watchers to think that Hannity is knocking their beloved Medicare. So, screw the facts, screw reality, craft a message that will have the highest possible efficacy and shoot it out there. None of the viewers will ever look anything up, ever question what's being talked about on the air... So you can pretty much get away with whatever you want. And, if you get called out on it and there's enough blowback - you can always apologize and play the "See - we admit when we make mistakes" card.

the white house keeping its distance is the best foreign policy move i have seen from the white house in?..god,feels like forever.Iran has many pro-american constituents,but not from the mullahs.right now islam is so incredibly fractured it is a powder keg.i know i am just stating the obvious,but something has to be done and it wont help if its from an outside source,it has to come from within.

thats why i was cheering the protesters when they bogus election blew up in the mullahs faces.they may have restored some order after many deaths (nede being the most prominent)and many imprisonments but the word is out.now its just a matter of time.my hope is that the west stays out of it.there is a time to offer the hand of assistance,now is NOT that time.it would be too easy for iranian leaders to pounce on that and propagandize it to their own machinations.

if i had to point to a group to blame it would be the neo-liberals,now known as neo-conservatives.mrFisk posted an amazing doc today concerning just that topic so its fresh in my mind.i started paying attention to these guys around 2002,did some research and found an almost hidden group of empirialists who were pretty upfront about their goals.PNAC is a document i have posted about ever since.these guys mean business.
http://www.videosift.com/video/The-New-American-Century

one more point.
while much is addressed in this documentary.it's prudent to know why Iran has a problem with the US.it was not just ONE thing,it was many.
but the two biggest,i feel anyways.
was the CIA/SAS backed coup of democratically elected(yes,iran used to be a democracy,until we showed up)mossadeq so that a much more "west-friendly" dictator in the form of the shah could be installed.(mossadeq kicked BP out of iran to nationalize the oil fields).
the second of course was the espionage game played with both iran and iraq to keep the region unstable and therefore unlikely to consolidate and take over oil production,THEIR oil production.that war lasted NINE years and the US played both sides.
Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote a book called the grand chessboard.its an eye-opener on foreign policy,and explains many of the reasons why the US what they did.they were not exactly altruistic reasons.
http://www.wanttoknow.info/brzezinskigrandchessboard
the consequences of such actions?
chalmers johnson has the amswer:blowback
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20011015/johnson
interviews here:
http://www.videosift.com/search?q=chalmers+johnson
brzinzski here:
http://www.videosift.com/search?q=Zbigniew+Brzezinski

Bush spent a lot. A lot more than we wanted, but he didn't spend $4,000,000,000,000 in his first 6 months. Guess who did chief.

>> ^rougy:
>> ^quantumushroom:
There's no way the failures of California can be blamed on conservatives, since they have no power there and Schwarzy isn't one.

My god, you're a joke.
You've already forgotten St. Ronnie's magic?
Everything wrong with our country can be blamed on conservatives and conservative doctrine, and yes, that goes for California as well.


>> ^chilaxe:
Liberals and conservatives might both have a tendency to "overspend," but with liberals we get services, instead of trillions of dollars poured into a mostly unnecessary military.
Minimizing the chances of North Korea giving WMD to other crazy countries is one thing, but why do we need military presence everywhere?1,2
For every trillion dollars we spend on the military, we receive a certain amount of blowback, and we have to agree to funnel a certain amount of money to seemingly every country in the world to grease the wheels for our paternalistic foreign policy.


>> ^Raaagh:
Problem is, all the RINOs in the party make it hard because they are addicted to spending as much as foam-at-the-mouth hardcore liberal kooks (IE Pelosi or Obama).
...Oh yeah...the over spending species includes only the liberal kooks.
Jesys
-_-


>> ^rougy:
>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:
Well - frankly - YEAH! That's exactly right. The real problem here is that EVERYBODY in Washington today is a big-spending liberal. That includes the bulk of the Republican party. That's why voters are abandoning them in droves.

Since conservatives have, far and away, outspent liberals over the course of the last THIRTY YEARS, only the foolish or the deceitful would still classify overspending as an exclusively liberal trait.
And you don't know the meaning of the word "neo-lib" (neoliberalim) but I know it won't stop you from misusing it. After all, you're a right winger and you never have to back up your words with facts.
We on the left are not "neo-libs" - we're just liberals - same as we've always been, waging a constant battle for equality, fairness, and honesty against those of you on the right.