Loosing my head every time someone says, "What, a black guy? What happened to the clones?"
The production of clones stopped after Order 66. The clones died off rapidly with their accelerated aging. Once the Empire took over, Storm Troopers were made up of people from concurred planets. All Troopers were human because of the Emperor's distrust of Alien races.

There were no living clones left in Episodes 4-6

Ronald Reagan signed a sweeping immigration reform bill into law. Emperor Obama didn't.

On one hand the president was engaged with the house and senate and the other president just figuratively said fuck you to the house and senate.

Also, remember the Democrats had all 3 branches for the first 2 years and the Obama campaign was to make immigration reform as one of his key addenda items once elected.


Finally if an illegal alien is already here working ( paying taxes ect) by very definition they ARE taking an American job.

IronHulk! *cough*

Then again maybe, like The Avengers trailers, they're not showing the good stuff.

I hate it when they CGI robots. The Terminator (after the tanker esplodes and is chasing Sarah through the factory) is still God Emperor of robot filming.

Up until I saw my fellow countrymen (including many I respected) fawning like chimps at a tea party during that whole "jubilee" thing I might have agreed. There seems to be a huge cognitive dissonance for most people when it comes to the royals.

On the one hand most don't really take it very seriously, on the other many (maybe even most) appear to have a sub-conscious desire/need to submit to their natural betters. Our whole national identity is built on the myths of Kings and failed rebellions and I fear for many the Monarchy represents a kind of bizarre political security blanket. We claim to not really care but deep down I think many of us secretly fear loosing our mythical matriarch.

One might liken it to celebrity worship backed by 100's & 1000's of years of religious mythology. The Royal's aren't really human to us, they are more like some closely related parent species born to a life we could only dream of. I realise that when asked directly most people would consciously acknowledge that was silly, but most would also respond the same to say Christian sexual repression. They know sex and nakedness when considered rationally are nothing to be ashamed of, but they still continue to treat their own urges as somehow sinful when they do not fall within rigidly defined social parameters.

We still haven't gotten over such Judeo-Christian self policing because the social structures built up around it are still with us (even if we fool ourselves into thinking we are beyond the reach of such sub-conscious influences). I don't think we will ever get over our master-slave culture while class and unearned privilege are still built into the fabric of our society. Having a Royal family, no matter how symbolic, is the very living embodiment of this kind of backwards ideology.

It's like trying to quit heroin while locked in a room with a big bag of the stuff.

It's true to say most don't take the whole thing very seriously but that to me is almost as concerning. Most people when asked don't believe advertising has a significant effect on their psyche but Coke-a-cola still feels like spending about 3 billion a year on it is worthwhile. One of them is clearly mistaken!

Our royal family here, is to me working in the same way as coke's advertising. It's a focal point for a lot of sub-conscious concepts we are bombarded with our whole lives. Naturally there are many sides to this and it wouldn't work without heavy media manipulation, state indoctrination etc. but it's an intrinsic part of the coercive myth none the less. Monarch's, Emperors and wealthy Dynasties are all poisons to me. No matter the pragmatic details, the sub-conscious effect seems significant and cumulative.

"Dead" symbolisms IMHO can often be the most dangerous. At least one is consciously aware of the devils we see. No one is watching the one's we have forgotten.....

The above is reason enough for me but I have bog all better to do this aft so I'll dive into the rabbithole a bit.....

(We do very quickly start getting into conspiracy theory territory hare so I'll try to keep it as uncontroversial as I can.)

A. The UK is truly ruled by financial elites not political ones IMHO. "The city" says jump, Whitehall says how high. The Royal family being among the wealthiest landowners and investors in the world (let alone UK) presumably can exert the same kind of influence. Naturally this occurs behind closed doors, but when the ownership class puts it's foot down the government ignores them to their extreme detriment. (It's hard to argue with people who own your economy de-facto and can make or break your career)

B. The queen herself sits on the council on foreign relations & Bilderberg group and she was actually the chairwoman of the "committee of 300" for several years. (and that's not even starting on club of Rome, shares in Goldman Sachs etc.)

C. SIS the uk's intelligence services (MI5/6 etc.), which have been proven to on occasion operate without civilian oversight in the past, are sworn to the crown. This is always going to be a most contentious point as it's incredibly difficult to prove wrongdoings, but I have very strong suspicions based on various incidents (David Kelly, James Andanson, Jill Dando etc.), that if they wanted/needed you dead/threatened that would not be especially difficult to arrange.

D. Jimmy Saville. This one really is tin foil hat territory, but it's no secret he was close to the Royal family. I am of the opinion this is because he was a top level procurer of "things", for which I feel there is a great deal of evidence, but I can't expect people to just go along with that idea. However given the latest "paedogeddon" scandal involving a extremely high level abuse ring (cabinet members, mi5/6, bankers etc.) it certainly would come as little surprise to find royal family members involved.

Points A&B I would stand behind firmly. C&D are drifting into conjecture but still potentially relevant I feel.

But even if we ignore all of them, our culture is built from the ground up upon the idea of privilege of birth. That there are some people born better or more deserving than the rest of us. When I refer to symbolism this is what I mean. Obviously the buck does not stop with the monarchy, England is hopelessly stratified by class all the way through, but the royal family exemplify this to absurd extremes.

At best I feel this hopelessly distorts and corrupts our collective sense of identity on a sub-conscious level. At worst....Well you must have some idea now how paranoid I'm capable of being about the way the world is run. (Not that I necessarily believe it all wholeheartedly, but I'm open to the possibility and inclined to suggest it more likely than the mainstream narrative)


On a pragmatic note: Tourism would be fine without them I think, we still have the history and the castles and the soldiers with silly hats etc. And I think the palaces would make great hotels and museums. They make great zoo exhibits I agree, just maybe not let them continue to own half the zoo and bribe the zoo keepers?


Anyway much love as always. You responded with considered points which is always worthy of respect, regardless of whether I agree with it all.

This situation is sad and ironic.

The area known as Judea was renamed Palestine during the time of Roman emperor Hadrian.
The residents of Judea/Palestine were forced to convert from Judaism to Christianity around 400 ad by the Romans, and later in the 700's ad were forced to convert to Islam.
They never left. They just changed religions. The children of the Jews of the new testament, are the Palestinians of today (now practicing Islam).

Many years passed, the Eastern Roman empire resided over much of the area, ruled out of Turkey, and the region was more or less all-right. Along the way it changed names to the Ottoman empire.

After WW1, the Ottoman empire shrank dramatically, and renamed itself to simply Turkey. However it still held some lands that were not actually Turkish (eg. ~Syria), and was still a mini-empire.
Around this general time period, Palestine became a British colony.

During WW2, there were many displaced Europeans of Jewish faith that had nowhere to go.
(*Britain didn't want them either, most places didn't. Anti-Semitism was rather common at the time. Even the Nazi eugenics policy wasn't much criticized at the time. re: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics#Supporters_and_critics. Actually, the Nazi's strong association with anti-semitism + all the anti-Nazi propaganda during WW2, helped cure a lot of anti-semitism in Europe.).
In the late 1940's Britain split occupied Palestine into smaller-Palestine+Israel, and assisted in relocating WW2 displaced Europeans of Jewish faith to Israel. Which at face value made sense, because "the bible says Jews are from Judea". However the area from which was established Israel was more or less ~devoid of followers of the Jewish faith in the 1940's.
And that's the irony! The British creation of Israel involved taking land from Palestinians (i.e. The children of the original Jews of Judea), and giving it to Europeans of Jewish faith (foreign immigrants).

That then resulted in middle-eastern resentment and backlash over western invasion/occupation/seisure-of-land. This resentment against immigrating European Jews caused 'Jews at large' to be discriminated against throughout the middle-east, and that in turn led to a migration wave of regional-Jews from the surrounding areas into Israel.
This resulted in a concentration of Jewish-faithed immigrants of European and middle-eastern ethnicity, all in Israel - further displacing the original residents.

Basically, in the end, the original people of Judea were kicked out of their homes and their lands given to immigrants... and they really resent it. While in the mean time the immigrants acclaim to have a god given right to be there because there is some old paper that says that people of their faith are from the area.

Ta-da.

Britain could have just sent Europeans of Jewish faith to Palestine, and made it an integrated nation.
But nope, they had to displace people and create a bunch more problems.
Gee, thanks Britain.
I pretty much face-palm when I hear "this conflict is thousands of years old" (when it's only been ~66 years).


Note :
I make the distinction between ethnically Jewish and religiously Jewish.
I use the phrase "Europeans of Jewish faith" to clarify that these were displaced Europeans, who may have had an ancestor or two way way way up the family tree that was from Judea - but were otherwise European and of Jewish faith - who may have lived in an area with little mingling with outsiders, and hence a visually distinct appearance (i.e. what made it possible to make visual caricatures of their people, such as : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eternal_Jew_%281940_film%29)
You can also play semantics with "what is ethnically Jewish, when the ethnicity is labelled after the faith", etc.

There's also the geopolitical aspect. Israel is the only "Western" nation in the middle-east. Given that the area is globally significant in terms of resources, that makes Israel a critically important ally. So the rhetoric will always lean.

Personally, I wonder if the things that European Jews suffered during WW2, didn't create some mental/emotional baggage that today plays itself out with how they treat Palestinians. Sort of a "I don't care about your suffering, because I've been through worse" kind of situation.

However, I understand how Israel does not want an open integrated society with Palestinians. The Jewish population is rather small, and in an integrated society they would be such a small proportion that they would essentially be bred out of existence within a few generations. For those who wish to preserve their culture, that's 'kind of a big deal'.

-scheherazade

Come back when he makes a TIE Defender.

Gamma 1 is the Emperor's stool pigeon!

It's a set-up for what's going to be ubiquitous in less than 20 years A10anis, cameras on every pole (wi-fi, infrared, audio, facial recognition software) and a cop's nose up every corner of your ass at the great cost of having ended the 'great experiment' -

Feinstein is only a shill for power-brokers and a miniature version of someone whose mentality of "I, Me, Mine" let's a few people dictate the their will over of every person on the planet who is not in their small circle.

Mind you, they believe that the bulk of humanity are not suited to dictate the course of the planet but hey; The same people who have chosen to guide the course of humanity's burst off the planet would keep us rhesus monkeys in small, manageable boxes while they romp freely around the globe with the bulk of our assets and the maximum amount of power to dictate further every aspect of our lives.

The real power they will not wield is to provide for the basic needs and education of the throw-backs of humanity who would rather perpetrate violence and promulgate fear to maintain arcane sensibilities and uncivilized backward ideologies which are anti-evolutionary and savage, using anti-evolutionary and savage people to enforce what looks like order, which is in actuality, the same barbaric practice of subjugation, imprisonment, and fear.

The solution is to limit expansion of population until these ideologies are stamped-out like the insectoid disease that they are, that of a limited perspective based on arcane patterns of thought. We could do this through compassion and education but the established powers see a different solution that will protect their interests-

People like Diane Feinstein and her ilk see the rest of humanity as dogs and cattle. Unprivileged, unworthy flesh with which to extort from them their labor, their minds and souls to their utopian ends, at the cost of our unique humanity.

The same virulence that atheist's have against the western Christan diaspora, these elites have for anyone not aligned with their totalitarian ends.

That they justify their courses of action with propaganda like this, fear-induced surrender to force and control, is against all that is humane and righteous.

Bombs in subways?? Solution: No one has privacy or freedom of expression or thought beyond that which exist behind their eyes and between their ears-Greeeeeat. Your world, not mine.

Next will come thought crimes, cordoned neighborhoods, etc.

Start now by getting some of the comparatively neanderthal segments of humanity into those boxes, limit THEIR freedoms through educating them to at LEAST the level of 17th-century socialization before turning the entire world into a forced labor-camp.

Bread and circuses only work for so long before the emperor's clothes are set alight by those less inclined to hear shit as well as being forced to eat it.

Anarchy would solve some of the discord in civilized countries.

Fucking China-Get those insects to stop cranking-out useless consumption items at an exponentially toxic pace as well-Their version of the world makes Orwell's look like a clam bake. How? Stop using it. Create artisans and craftsman again and develop in every human an appreciation for THAT WHICH LASTS, rather than I WANT NOW, FIRST!

Americans, Europeans drunk on technology, disposable clothing, instant gratification and entertainment are a herd of disposable mental midgets to the Diane Feinsteins of the world.

Sick dance we're learning....I just hope we can stand the dervish without blacking-out.

That was really well done. *quality

Looking back on it, Vader without the mask actually kinda sounded like Bane.

But the really interesting thing is, after all the bullshit prequels, I'd forgotten just how good the end of Jedi actually was. Ok, the ewoks were annoying, but on the other hand, you had the death star space battle and tunnel run (still one of the most exciting set pieces on film IMO), and the fantastic confrontation with genuine pathos set to one of Williams crowning musicals achievements.

It's just awesome, and it made me remember why I loved Star Wars so much as a kid.

That and the Emperor fucking terrified me.

Huh, yep. Disney totally had 50 years of suck in the movie department.

Unless you include
101 Dalmatians 1961
Sword in the Stone 1963
Mary Poppins 1964
The Jungle Book 1967
Bedknobs and Broomsticks 1971
Freaky Friday 1976
The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh 1977
The Rescuers 1977
Pete's Dragon 1977
Tron 1982
Honey I shrunk the Kids 1989
The Little Mermaid 1989
Beauty and the Beast 1991
Aladdin 1992
The Muppet Christmas Carol 1992
Homeward Bounds 1993
Cool Runnings 1993
The Lion King 1994
Pocahontas 1995
Toy Story 1995
Hercules 1997
Mulan 1998
A Bugs Life 1998
Tarzan 1999
Toy Story 2 1999
The Emperors New Groove 2000
Monsters Inc 2001
Lilo & Stitch 2002
Finding Nemo 2003
Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the black pearl 2003
The Incredibles 2004
Chronicles of Narnia 2005
Cars 2006
Meet the Robinsons 2007
Ratatouille 2007
Enchanted 2007
Wall-E 2008
Up 2009
Princess and the Frog 2009
Toy Story 3 2010
Tangled 2010
The Muppets 2011
Brave 2012
Wreck it Ralph 2012
Monsters U 2013

But, other then that, yeah, no, nothing since 59. Except the other hundreds of classics that I didn't bother mentioning.

May we suggest the most glaring (common sense with a view trumping the most gracious of mortality odds) 'security flaw' inherent in ANY similar device (including off-brand/hype models) with functionality requiring two thumbs, a pair of eyes, and a challenge to their users of navigating the useless shit whilst performing mundane tasks such as saaay, crossing a street, waiting in line for groceries, operating a motor vehicle much less, operating your legs while not looking at the GROUND? Who needs any of this engineered obsolescence garbage anyway?...The cunts who want you under their thumbs, that's who and if they are LUCKY(all indications point to this a inevitable)-you or someone you just texted die crossing a street using some ineffectual device, car wreck while the manufacturer staffs lobbyists while crunching quarterly loss numbers.

Incorporating distraction into large populations who can afford these ancillary toys is KEY to these cunts who compete to make available these consumer grey-matter-killers and it has been the goal of providing you with the convenience of your own self-importance and slow death from the OUTSET.

Use less of the shit (civil and economic disobedience), stop fawning-over it and selling it without compensation to your friends (because after all, you have nothing else to communicate about of substance or meaning since yer skills have fallen-off a bit after the in-crowd hi-jack feeds on trashing or band-wagoning the latest devices every week..(gotta have one gotgaotta have the best)) HINT: THEY ALL HOBBLE YOUR MIND, THEY ALL SUCK-

EVERYONE do the experiment collectively (don't use their services for a month and threaten to drop service altogether) and YO, maybe develop some lasting relationships along the way....remember "eye contact!?"

Watch how miraculously interesting, stress-free and simply satisfying your unnecessarily complicated, dull-fucking life changes overnight and adds 10 more quality years to it when you numb or otherwise mitigate your use of this and all tech connected by satellite or cable. Ssuddenly, the emperor has no billy-club, a birthday suit, and the obvious becomes clear:..He's a FUCK THAT CONTROLS YOU WHO SHOULD BE ON AN INTERNATIONAL SEX-OFFENDERS DATABASE.

@artician- the really hard part while trying not to burn-out on humanity is suffering apathy and mindless subservience in a time when knowledge and information is on-tap and available to non-members of the "club." -Clear light IS a motherfucker and most people are too weak to process information and respond accordingly.

Same old, same old. The few will always control the many and destroy the weak.

The emperor wears no clothes not only that, he sucks cock by choice and is still breathing the same air as us.

Unless you eradicate the queen the ants leave a clean slate for the next infestation.

No more metaphor, anyone with an opinion on geopolitics, or religion seeking to argue premise within the confines of these faulty estates are masturbating in public at this chapter in earth history as the cunts will succeed. Best to get as far from the blast zone as possible screams the expat inside my head.

The alternative, as far as I am familiar with the counterargument to this viewpoint, would have been to loosen the requirement of "unconditional surrender" of Japan, and possibly to demonstrate the bomb by dropping it on an unpopulated area. Inviting Japanese scientists to a staging ground for a controlled demonstration was also on the books.

Now, assuming the US top brass were convinced Japan was not going to surrender, the argument presented here is quite valid. Bombing a live target certainly had the most shock value, and the bombs were likely in quite limited supply. (I confess, I don't know how many there were at the time.) A continued conventional war would have been horrendous.

But... Were the Japanese really unwilling to surrender, and if so, why? According to what I've read... Well, let me just quote the story, I've seen this in a number of texts:

"At the conclusion of the conference, Roosevelt and Churchill held a press conference. Roosevelt said that he and Churchill…

…were determined to accept nothing less than the unconditional surrender of Germany, Japan, and Italy…

Churchill said later that he was surprised by this statement. Churchill adds that he was told by Harry Hopkins that the President said to him:

…then suddenly the Press Conference was on, and Winston and I had had no time to prepare for it; and the thought popped into my mind that they had called Grant “Old Unconditional Surrender,” and the next thing I knew I had said it."

http://www.lewrockwell.com/2012/04/jonathan-goodwin/roosevelt-demands-unconditionalsurrender/

It was Jonathan Glover who I first read giving this account of events, but I don't remember what his source was. The argument he and others make, though, is that the Japanese did signal their willingness to surrender, but were not willing to do so unconditionally. This is because they feared the emperor might have been deposed and put to trial, which was simply unthinkable to them. If this is true, then dropping the bombs may have been unnecessary and even before the bombs, the war effort in the Pacific could have been ended through diplomatic means.

All this does leave one with some disconcerting questions. Would Allied leaders really have refused to reconsider their demands of Japan simply due to prestige and the need to show resolve? Was there no diplomatic backchannel? Certainly the fog of war must have played a part in the decisions made. I haven't been able to find a source beyond hearsay for what, exactly, the Japanese diplomatic position on surrender was. Considering this debate still goes on, no such source is likely to surface.

What stands out here, to me, as the saddest thing is: it seems countless lives were lost for lack of solid information and communication between enemies. Had Japan and the Allies been able to negotiate further, had the allies dared show their nuclear hand, had they made it possible for the emperor (while not a nice guy by any means) to be protected, how many lives could have been saved? Unfortunately, no-one has the benefit of hindsight when it's most needed.

I can't help but think of the Cuban missile crisis - what would have happened, had a similar failure to communicate occurred at that time? It was very close...

My favorite has always been the disappearing TIE fighters in Return of the Jedi. You'll need to use a copy of the original movie and not one of the new versions. Right after the Rebels escape Jabba's sail barge, we see a scene of TIE fighters circling the Death Star, welcoming the Emperor. As the scene starts, four TIE fighters appear from around the camera and fly down to the lower left. Keep your eye on them and *blink*, they disappear right before the scene changes.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist, or one of the less-grounded members of this community (you all know who you are!), and I'm not trying to make this out to be the good/bad/evil scenario, i.e. Emperor Palpatine et al. I use "government" as a collective, general term, however I felt it was apt in this context given that people strictly within the government, and maybe lobbyists to an extent, are responsible for these various decisions that have led us to this point.
No, they don't seek power for it's own sake, but the handful of objectives I listed in my last post are a sampling of what might drive an organization to pursue power fervently.

There does seem to exist a greater, definitively single-minded pursuit of lessening the civil rights of US citizens since the turn of the millennium, in an attempt to have more power over them, and while "government" at large generally fumbles over itself when it attempts to get all the parts moving together as one, I believe you can see the broader cooperation happening here. From inclusion of said US Tech companies roles, the nation-wide abuse by the police force, aggression of US border patrol agents, random TSA checkpoints on some state highways, and the statements made by the president and his staff, which only seem to serve to blow off civil concerns with one breath while granting increased power to these same entities with the next.

At this point in a country's history, it seems to me that the only thing that can change the course of an entire nation is decisive action by it's citizens on a scale that would simultaneously qualify as an act that justifies all their overreaches of power. And I don't mean in any way acts of violence, but if there were a 5-million-man-march on the capitol tomorrow to show a mass appeal for reason and demand accountability, I believe it would be used as an example of why the government is pursuing such surveillance to begin with.

Sorry this is long winded, but lastly, I wouldn't feel too bad about Obama's allegedly targeting only foreign individuals. To me that felt like damage control to appease the US populace rather than an affront to foreign nationals. They said the Exact. Same. Thing. about the Patriot Act, and that was being used to arrest US citizens for minor infractions by local law enforcement not 6-months after it was passed. Disgusting.

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

I think it's a mistake to think of "the government" as a single entity and capable of doing good or bad - it leads to all kinds of problems.

There are bad policies, bad laws, misguided individuals within government, people driven by self-interest, fear and prejudice, internal cultures that lead to incompetence and bad actions - all of those things - but no Emperor Palaptine in the woodworks - covertly angling for more power for its own sake.

Sunlight is the best disinfectant and that's what's needed in the US government. I like the French idea that a government should fear its people (as it does in France) and not the other way around.

Just the fact that Obama and his intelligence chief try to justify the program by saying that it only targets foreign individuals blows my mind - I mean WTF?? Don't we deserve privacy here in Australia? It's like a giant fuck you to the near 7 billion people who don't happen to live within the US borders.

It makes me so angry - especially that all of these American tech companies were in cahoots with the NSA - yes even Apple.