A 100 yard suppressed subsonic 22lr shot killed Archbishop Oscar Romero
in El Salvador during the Regan/Ortega years, it was a direct hit to the heart. High-velocity 22LR round up to 50yards would do the job consistently. Also very little clean-up from ancillary damage, bullets are cheaper than drywall.

>> ^kymbos:

@jimnms - link for your last para?
Meanwhile, I think you're missing the point: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/22/america-is-a-violent-coun
try/
Over to you and your next move: the 'data must be wrong' argument.


Here's your source, and it didn't come out of my ass like Bill's shit.

What point I'm missing? Your linked article doesn't mention guns anywhere, it shows that America is more violent than other advanced countries, which is even more of reason to carry a gun for self defense. I think you're the one missing the point.

Ninety percent of violent crimes are committed by persons not carrying handguns. This is one reason why the mere brandishing of a gun by a potential victim of violence often is a sufficient response to a would-be attacker. In most cases where a gun is used in self-defense, it is not fired. Can the average citizen be trusted to judge accurately when he or she is in jeopardy?...

A nationwide study by Don Kates, the constitutional lawyer and criminologist, found that only 2 percent of civilian shootings involved an innocent person mistakenly identified as a criminal. The 'error rate' for the police, however, was 11 percent, more than five times as high." [source]

Of course, it is not surprising that where there are more guns, there tends to be more gun-related deaths, but northern Latin America (Brazil in particular) breaks from this trend in a major way. The area has a massive homicide by firearm rate, with some of the lowest rates of gun ownership in the world and the highest homicides by firearm count...

Brazil, Columbia, Venezuela and Ecuador combine for more homicides by firearm than Mexico, the United States, South Africa, the Philippines, Honduras, Guatemala, India, El Salvador, Dominican Republic, Bangladesh, Argentina and Jamaica put together. That is every other country with over 1,000 homicides by firearm. You would imagine that gun control would be very lax in the area, but as the top chart here illustrates, that is not the case. Brazil, for example, has roughly 255 million fewer guns (and about 115 million fewer people) than the United States and a much more strict and effective set of firearm regulations. So, while it is true that where there are guns, there is gun violence, that is clearly not the only determining factor. [source]

Tags for this video have been changed from 'newt gingrich, t shirts, work, usa, el salvodor, uncomfortable' to 'newt gingrich, t shirts, work, usa, el salvador, uncomfortable' - edited by xxovercastxx

@Psychologic

If the implication is that subsequent generations from Nicaragua or El Salvador do well academically and economically, I'd be skeptical because all the factors appear to be very similar.

On the other hand, if the implication is that immigrant children from regions like Asia or India do well, yes, that's to be expected.

In general, my experience when I was an academic working in this area was that academics want very much for some things to be true, so they'll often mess up their results.

Below is an explanation of why it is both fair and logical for the rich to pay more taxes. Taken from http://www.zompist.com/richtax.htm The website also has an argument against the flat tax.

It was written a while ago (90s I'm guessing) but most of the points are still valid today.

For more than a century it's been generally recognized that the best taxes (admittedly this is an expression reminiscent of "the most pleasant death" or "the funniest Family Circus cartoon") are progressive-- that is, proportionate to income.

Lately, however, it's become fashionable to question this. Various Republican leaders have trotted out the idea of a flat tax, meaning a fixed percentage of income tax levied on everyone. And in their hearts they may be anxious to emulate Maggie Thatcher's poll tax-- a single amount that everyone must pay.

Isn't that more fair? Shouldn't everyone pay the same amount?

In a word-- no. It's not more fair; it's appallingly unfair. Why? The rich should pay more taxes, because the rich get more from the government.

Consider defense, for example, which makes up 20% of the budget. Defending the country benefits everyone; but it benefits the rich more, because they have more to defend. It's the same principle as insurance: if you have a bigger house or a fancier car, you pay more to insure it.

Social security payments, which make up another 20% of the budget, are dependent on income-- if you've put more into the system, you get higher payments when you retire.

Investments in the nation's infrastructure-- transportation, education, research & development, energy, police subsidies, the courts, etc.-- again are more useful the more you have. The interstates and airports benefit interstate commerce and people who can travel, not ghetto dwellers. Energy is used disproportionately by the rich and by industry.

As for public education, the better public schools are the ones attended by the moderately well off. The very well off ship their offspring off to private schools; but it is their companies that benefit from a well-educated public. (If you don't think that's a benefit, go start up an engineering firm, or even a factory, in El Salvador. Or Watts.)

The FDIC and the S&L bailout obviously most benefit investors and large depositors. A neat example: a smooth operator bought a failing S&L for $350 million, then received $2 billion from the government to help resurrect it.

Beyond all this, the federal budget is top-heavy with corporate welfare. Counting tax breaks and expenditures, corporations and the rich snuffle up over $400 billion a year-- compare that to the $1400 budget, or the $116 billion spent on programs for the poor.

Where's all that money go? There's direct subsidies to agribusiness ($18 billion a year), to export companies, to maritime shippers, and to various industries-- airlines, nuclear power companies, timber companies, mining companies, automakers, drug companies. There's billions of dollars in military waste and fraud. And there's untold billions in tax credits, deductions, and loopholes. Accelerated depreciation alone, for instance, is estimated to cost the Treasury $37 billion a year-- billions more than the mortgage interest deduction. (Which itself benefits the people with the biggest mortgages. But we should encourage home ownership, shouldn't we? Well, Canada has no interest deduction, but has about the same rate of home ownership.)

For more, see Mark Zepezauer and Arthur Naiman's informative little book, Take the Rich Off Welfare.

How about social spending? Well, putting aside the merely religious consideration that the richest nation on the planet can well afford to lob a few farthings at the hungry, I'd argue that it's social spending-- the New Deal-- that's kept this country capitalistic. Tempting as it is for the rich to take all the wealth of a country, it's really not wise to leave the poor with no stake in the system, and every reason to agitate for imposing a new system of their own. Think of social spending as insurance against violent revolution-- and again, like any insurance, it's of most benefit to those with the biggest boodle.

Its not a lack of police to fight drug cartels which is the cause of the violence. That analysis is hollow. You are leaving out the devastating consequences of NAFTA and imperialism on these countries.

Poverty and unemployment have only worsened as a result of subsidies going towards big agrobussiness instead of local farmers. This is what leads to crime. Its a reaction by the working class getting even more fucked. When you can't get any $ by growing corn and instead have the chance to make $ selling drugs, yeah, you do it.

It isn't a coincidence that the majority of immigrants come from countries that have had dictators and death squads with the support of the US. Guatamala, El Salvador, Mexico. Destroyed economies create migrants which are CHEAP LABOR. Add to this the criminalization of immigrants with AZ's SB1070 and GA's copycat HB87. The AZ bill was pretty much written by Corrections Corporation of America, a private prison corporation which gets $200 per bed a night.

Its all part of the imperative of profit, the inherent violence of capitalism, duh
----
Additional reading:

http://blog.sojo.net/2010/10/28/prison-and-profits-the-politics-of-az%E2%80%99s-sb1070-bill-revealed/

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/5/25/harvest_of_empire_new_book_exposes
"And then there's this from independent journalist Zafar Bangash:

"The CIA, as Cockburn and (Jeffrey) St Clair reveal, had been in this business right from the beginning. In fact, even before it came into existence, its predecessors, the OSS and the Office of Naval Intelligence, were involved with criminals. One such criminal was Lucky Luciano, the most notorious gangster and drug trafficker in America in the forties."

The CIA's involvement in drug trafficking closely dovetails America's adventures overseas - from Indo-China in the sixties to Afghanistan in the eighties....As Alfred McCoy states in his book: Politics of Heroin: CIA complicity in the Global Drug Trade, beginning with CIA raids from Burma into China in the early fifties, the agency found that 'ruthless drug lords made effective anti-communists." ("CIA peddles drugs while US Media act as cheerleaders", Zafar Bangash, Muslimedia, January 16-31, 1999)

And, this from author William Blum:

"ClA-supported Mujahedeen rebels ... engaged heavily in drug trafficking while fighting against the Soviet-supported government," writes historian William Blum. "The Agency's principal client was Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, one of the leading druglords and a leading heroin refiner. CIA-supplied trucks and mules, which had carried arms into Afghanistan, were used to transport opium to laboratories along the Afghan/Pakistan border. The output provided up to one half of the heroin used annually in the United States and three-quarters of that used in Western Europe....""


http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=18877

>> ^Crosswords:

Part of the problem is often the face of Mexican nationality in the US isn't the successful educated Mexican's, its the day laborers. Hired as skilled labor, but largely unskilled and paid next to nothing, often below legal limits if they're undocumented. They tend to do a shit job, cutting corners and generally not caring about the quality of work they do and trying to communicate with them through the language barrier is frustrating as all get out. Of course this only happens because companies, and it seems people as a whole, prefer cheap labor over quality labor. They only exist because the market for that kind of labor is huge, so large I think its degraded the quality of labor overall. But people don't make that connection, they see bad work being done by low paid unskilled labor who happen to be Mexicans thus Mexicans are dirty and lazy. The real connection should be that builders and contractors are greedy shysters.
>> ^bareboards2:
One pride movement that is starting, quietly, is the idea of Mexican Pride. I have only seen this a couple of places, and I am cheering it on.
Unfortunately, in America, the very word "Mexican" carries with it the echo of the phrase "dirty Mexican" -- one of the reasons we use back away to be "nice" and say Hispanic/Latino/Latina, when someone is clearly Mexican.
"Nice" becomes really ugly, when the word Mexican should be a descriptive word and not pejorative just by itself.
There are some Mexicans out there who are sick of it, and are starting to reclaim their national identity.
I had never thought of it this way, until I heard this famous actor interviewed (do wish I could remember who it was -- Salma Hayek? Someone smart and beautiful, I remember that.)
I have been trying to use the word Mexican ever since, and have screwed up, because it turns out I can't tell Guatamalen from Brazilian, so I end up insulting folks anyway. But I'm trying.
Mexican. Mexican. Mexican.



Maybe that was your experience with day laborers but, it is not representative of all day laborers or people of Mexican nationality (but, Spanish as far as their race). I have worked with and hired transitory day laborers and most of them do a better job and work just as hard (if not harder) than any permanent (usually unionized) worker.
And as for hiring them, they were paid well over the average wage of most American workers. They were paid beforehand and proceeded to work quickly and efficiently. The money they make in the U.S. is worth so much more in their country. THAT'S why they're willing to work for lower wages than most Americans. I currently work with a guy that said the money he makes in 2 hours at his job here in the U.S. would last a week in El Salvador.
The market wouldn't exist if people were unhappy with the end product. So, to say that their work doesn't meet quality standards doesn't make much sense. If they were producing inferior products nobody would be hiring them.

When a widespread tsunami warning is issued this is what the list looks like after an 8.9 130 km off the coast of Japan:


Japan, Russia, Marcus Is., N. Marianas, Guam, Wake Is., Taiwan, Yap, Philippines, Marshall Is., Belau, Midway Is., Pohnpei, Chuuk, Kosrae, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Nauru, Johnston Is., Solomon Is., Kiribati, Howland-baker, Hawaii, Tuvalu, Palmyra Is., Vanuatu, Tokelau, Jarvis Is., Wallis-futuna, Samoa, American Samoa, Cook Islands, Niue, Fiji, New Caledonia, Tonga, Mexico, Kermadec is, Fr. Polynesia, Pitcairn, Guatemala, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Antarctica, Panama, Honduras, Chile, Ecuador, Colombia, Peru

Here is some insane raw footage of water moving through Miyagi Prefecture-There is another clip with a raging fire moving with the rush of water which may be part of the fire from a turbine a Nuclear Power facility.

Nearly 64% of the lowest 20% income bracket do not vote. Tell me DT, why do you hate poor people?

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
If it is decided that certain classes of citizens should lose their right to vote, then who makes that call? If it is decided that people must pass a test before gaining the right to vote, then who writes that test? Who grades it?
I personally find Neo-Liberals/Neo-Conservatives too naive to vote; indifferent to the violence, misery, exploitation, pollution and economic decay their thinking has caused us over that past several decades. If I were to write a political literacy test, these people would fail it.
Would this be fair?
The human mind is excellent at rationalization. Do something that you know to be wrong and within a fraction of a second, your mind has already come up with several ways justify or dismiss the wrong doing. We all do it, and in most cases it is a fairly innocent process, but when you get a mass of humans using this process collectively to justify taking action against another class of people, that's how fascism is born.
Pre-WW2 Germany was filled with normal, rational people, whom for whatever reason, were able to rationalize violence, conquest, bigotry and genocide.
But that was a long time ago, right?
If you take away the prism of patriotism and the divine right of American exceptionalism, haven't we already rationalized the violence of war in the Middle East and the conquest of their natural resources? Haven't we already rationalized bigotry towards labor, The poor, Muslims, African Americans, Mexicans, gay people and liberals? Haven't we already rationalized the genocide of Native Americans and residents of Iraq, Afgannistan, Chile, El Salvador, Columbia, Vietnam....? Aren't there people already in the process of rationalizing future violence and conquest in Iran?
I know it makes people on this site uncomfortable to discuss fascism, or the possibility that America is taking steps in that direction, but if you take off the patriotic blinders, the signs are there.
This is how it starts.

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

If it is decided that certain classes of citizens should lose their right to vote, then who makes that call? If it is decided that people must pass a test before gaining the right to vote, then who writes that test? Who grades it?

I personally find Neo-Liberals/Neo-Conservatives too naive to vote; indifferent to the violence, misery, exploitation, pollution and economic decay their thinking has caused us over that past several decades. If I were to write a political literacy test, these people would fail it.

Would this be fair?

The human mind is excellent at rationalization. Do something that you know to be wrong and within a fraction of a second, your mind has already come up with several ways justify or dismiss the wrong doing. We all do it, and in most cases it is a fairly innocent process, but when you get a mass of humans using this process collectively to justify taking action against another class of people, that's how fascism is born.

Pre-WW2 Germany was filled with normal, rational people, whom for whatever reason, were able to rationalize violence, conquest, bigotry and genocide.

But that was a long time ago, right?

If you take away the prism of patriotism and the divine right of American exceptionalism, haven't we already rationalized the violence of war in the Middle East and the conquest of their natural resources? Haven't we already rationalized bigotry towards labor, the poor, Muslims, African Americans, Mexicans, gay people and liberals? Haven't we already rationalized the genocide of Native Americans and residents of Iraq, Afghanistan, Chile, El Salvador, Columbia, Vietnam....? Aren't there people already in the process of rationalizing future violence and conquest in Iran?

I know it makes people on this site uncomfortable to discuss fascism, or the possibility that America is taking steps in that direction, but if you take off the patriotic blinders, the signs are there.

This is how it starts.

Yeah I liked this movie a lot. I was on edge the whole time watching because you didn't know who was going to get killed next. There's a documentary on gangs in El Salvador called "La Vida Loca", watch it if you can find it. The director was murdered not long afterward, outside San Salvador.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'oscar romero, priest, assassinated, el salvador, 1980' to 'oscar romero, priest, assassinated, el salvador, 1980, raul julia' - edited by enoch

El Salvador!!

El Salvador!

(BA Psych)