I never said to rely on Putin or RT solely. I just tried to explain that ignoring him and RT because of stupid reasons like that is not very wise, because the west isnt much better. You have to see all the sides to make a proper judgement.

A, B and C are irrelevant. Ownership is irrelevant because the western media is also "owned" by people with an agenda. But even between those different people there is a common agenda. You can see that in Germanys media right now very well. They are outright lying collectively to the people just to stay politically correct.

Reputation also is irrelevant because objectivity > reputation.

Funding is also irrelevant, as you said yourself. You can see it very well that it doesnt change much where they get their money from. The agenda matters. Also very well observable lately.

Putin first and foremost is a counterweight. He makes the western mistakes more obvious. He also has very good points when defending his own countries actions. Even the homosexual ones, if you ever listened to him on that topic. Yes, as a political leader he is of course manipulating, but he makes much more sense, actually uses facts and doesnt nearly lie as much as any politician I have ever seen.
You of course need to have and acknowledge those facts to realize that. But you made it clear that you arent. Comparing Russias imperialism with Americas shows just how much. Its pretty much clear the USA was involved in that coup detat once again. Now imagine how the USA would have reacted if Russia did that in Canada or Mexico. Or imagine how the USA would react to being completely surrounded by Russian military bases, having decades of history of destabilizing and overthrowing countries and whole regions, breaking and ignoring international law, even threatening the country where the international court sits to never dare to bring one of their before their court and then Russia claiming that the USA is the aggressor.

Actually Russia has long been very passive about the eastern expansion of NATO and they forgave that bleeding out of Russia towards the west in the 90s. Something like that happening at their doorstep actually justifies much MUCH harsher reactions, but they didnt use them. Instead they actually took another (hypocritical) slap in the face rather passively and silently with those sanctions.

Syria... I am surprised you even bring that up, because thats just stupid to use that for your argument. Syria has been a long ally of Russia and they asked for help after the US and NATO started bombing their infrastructure instead of ISIS. The war in Syria is even more obviously an externally funded war, not a civil war, while in the Ukraine you can actually see parts of a civil war, it started like that, because those people didnt want the new government. Also again mostly due to America and their support of other totalitarian regimes in that region.
You should read this:
https://consortiumnews.com/2015/05/31/holes-in-the-neocons-syrian-story/

http://videosift.com/video/Black-Man-Vs-White-Man-Carrying-AR-15-Legally#comment-1872048
...damn. this comment is sooo unbelievably succinct, Lantern, it hurts..

Do you realize what this comment implies?

Did you forget to check that /Sarcasm box?

No?

Because I find it EXCEEDINGLY difficult to believe that YOU, @lantern53, genuinely ACTUALLY care to investigate the close ties between racism & Law Enforcement/"Criminal Justice"?

Ironic cause yer a cop. /s [see tongue in cheek.]

You don't care one bit about the suffering of "others" who you can't relate with.

You live inside a happy little bubble that protects you from dealing with "other people's problems"..

Get it?

You know good and well racism is ever-present.

You've even admitted more or less in your recent comments to me "racist isn't ending anytime soon, so get over it Genji"

You know exactly how police "became institutionally racist", Lantern.

You're a police officer, and yet you disparage black people & culture repeatedly & intentionally as in the manner/style that a racist or white supremacist, etc would.

You see the same events, unfairness, racism, abuse of authority, etc. etc. etc

You just choose to ignore that reality, because it doesn't match up with your little fox news bubble.

"I've got boot straps! Why don't you just use yours?!"
Lantern said to the Shoeless man..

Hence why you NeoCon-artists [see, it's like when you say Lib-tards. hokey, isn't it.] are ruining the country.

I'll ask you the same favor, spell corrected...Please if you are going to insult me please be intelligent about it.

I would bet that 90% of those claiming to be 'conservative' really meet definition 2 for neocon. I think you clearly fit definition 2.
It is not a complete definition, describing only a small part of their political mindset, but describes the people like you that call themselves 'conservative' today. They do not resemble the people called 'conservative' when I grew up, just as you don't. Back then you all were called jingoists, among other things.
And no, I do not believe in promoting national interest abroad with military actions in almost every case, with exceptions for when we've been actually attacked.

You are once again sounding insane.
First, "conservatives" barely exist, and you are not one.
Neocons, like yourself, still believe in enslavement...they claim to be the "law and order" party, which means they write ridiculous laws (drug war, debtors prison, privatize prisons and let prison guards write laws, etc.) that put people in jail/prison for money...a type of enslavement.
Regulation is not enslavement.
Yeah, I see you can't even read yourself....they "haven't changed since Lincoln", but they have changed positions 100% since Nixon....and you don't seem to have the capacity to understand the two things are mutually exclusive.
What...you don't think there are enough highways, but there are too many salamanders? That seems like a typical assessment from you.


Oh, and for your last post, you are absolutely clearly racist. No question about it for anyone who's read your posts. When you separate people by race then talk crap about the other groups, that's racist, and you do it daily. You seem to just not know what the word means, that's the only explanation for you claiming to NOT be racist. The rest of your post is just insane straw men you made up....as in "only white people can be racist"...no one said or implied any such thing...you just WISH they had so your argument would make sense.

Obama is so bad, he made me realize that there is not much of a difference between a republican neocon warmonger and a "socialist" democrat.

Actually the NeoCons love Hilary.

I've made similar statements to my family. I was raised Republican and think that a lot of the core values are great. Unfortunately, you've got the koch brother tea party nutjobs and previously the neocon PNAC SOB's that have co-opted the party. I do think there is a large portion of the Tea Party that have legitimate beefs and that they actually align in many ways with the Occupy movement. I would like to see the U.S. have many more legitimate parties, but it seems like the system is too rigged for this to happen.

Your video, Neocon Reunion Tour, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Once again, the neocon answer is dismissiveness and insult, with no logic, reason, or facts.
You certainly don't have me pegged, sir. I'm not a dumb kid of today, nor did I spend much time in public schooling. 1290, 3.5, 138 and graduated...sorry to disappoint or confuse.
Your comprehension of my position is appallingly incorrect, and knee jerkingly insulting to boot.
I have both been taught, and learned from experience, that capitalism is not the best answer to every problem, nor is liberalism (not that they are opposites or related). Neither is evil or good, those are things only people can be. Neither is a panacea.
Educators want nothing of the sort...you are describing baby sitters.
Wow, amazing that you aren't chanting "We're #1" like most neocons mindlessly do. I'll give you props for that little victory. I agree, our position is sad, more so when you consider the cost we pay for that result, and the costs we will pay because of it.
I do think you are (redacted) wrong that any TEACHERS want this kind of mind numbing chanting or dumbing down of their students...I do agree there aren't enough teachers teaching, and too many babysitters in their place. I also think this is due, in large part, to the lack of respect and compensation available to a public school teacher....you've already shown the former quite clearly, and your political affiliates have seen to the latter.
You seem to have convinced yourself that, since I don't go along with your narrow train of thought, that I'm all for, and 100% behind the current education system, I never even hinted at that straw man arguement. What I did say is that capitalist business always does the least work possible to get the most pay out, and that's not what we want for our tax dollars, especially not our education system. As was said before, this particular flaw is an issue caused by for-profit privatization with not enough regulation, which if it must be politicized is a right wing baby.

Delaware is considered a northern state. Maybe not by you but by others.
And when I lived in Maryland, everyone there seemed to consider it a northern state too. But ok, you don't consider it a northern state. Cool.
(Ask anyone in Boston if he is a "Yankee" and see how that goes!)

But what's your point now? You agree that the Civil War was a "War to preserve the Union, not a Lincoln crusade to end slavery". That's why he did not invade or interfere with the border states. They did not secede. So how is this relevant to the original point about Jon Stewart thinking otherwise and going off on Andrew Napolitano about it? And are you now trying to claim that the north was acting in "self-defense" because of southern attacks on federal forts?


"In 1862, the General Assembly replied to Lincoln's compensated emancipation offer with a resolution stating that, "when the people of Delaware desire to abolish slavery within her borders, they will do so in their own way, having due regard to strict equity." And they furthermore notified the administration that they regarded "any interference from without" as "improper," and a thing to be "harshly repelled.""

The proposal was never put to a vote. It was not tried in other states. And it was not addressed directly to the slave owners but to politicians in the Assembly. No effort was put into it.

Among the tactics employed by the British, French, Spanish, Dutch, Danes, and others were slave rebellions, abolitionist campaigns to gain public support for emancipation, election of anti-slavery politicians, encouragement and assistance of runaway slaves, raising private funds to purchase the freedom of slaves, and the use of tax dollars to buy the freedom of slaves.

The most charitable thing I could say is that Lincoln tried but failed to come up with and implement any other way to end slavery but to engage in 'bloodshed and violence' (putting aside that he claimed to not care to end slavery except as a way to get one over on the South).

Still, that only says something about his competency, his "political genius" as some say (or lack of it), but not about whether there were other options available that could have worked without the 620,000 dead and 800,000+ more maimed-or-disfigured-for-life.

Of course, there is no empirical way to 'prove' or 'disprove' that any more than there is any empirical way to 'prove' or 'disprove' that, without two nukes, Japan would have lost the war, or that without the Korean war, the Communists would have taken over the world, or that without the Iraq invasion, Saddam would not have built "weapons of mass destruction" to unleash on the world.

What if 'peaceful secession' would have neutered the federal enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act (which Lincoln strongly supported), creating a flood of runaway slaves that could not have been stopped and would have broken the back of the slave system'?

The Soviet Union collapsed on its own without the US and its allies going into a bloody war against it. Maybe if the US had started a third world war with the USSR, it would have collapsed sooner. But it certainly would not have been worth the 'blood and violence'. And it is far from certain that the 5 years of Civil War accelerated the end of slavery, while it has certainly served to bolster and continue the decades of segregation, discrimination, and abuse that followed.

The first Republican president seems to have set a precedent for later Republican neocons. When faced with a problem ---> go to war.

This is a warlike culture and your fellow Americans seem like war (until they are in it themselves). The neocon mentality permeates through both the left and the right. Except war is a serious evil and rarely does anything ever justify it. In all of US history, there have been only about 6 years in which the US has not been at war with someone somewhere. 6 years or so in over 230 years.

The economics of slavery would have ended it pretty soon, and it would have helped if the US federal government had not been enforcing "fugitive slave" laws which forced states to return escaped slaves.
Ending slavery was definitely a good thing. Just like ending the war with Japan. But the 'necessity' of the war to achieve that end is far from certain just like the 'necessity' of nuking Japan (twice!) seems rather absurd.
It's the neocon mindset. The 'necessity' to go to war, whether it's with Iraq, or with Afghanistan. With Mexico. With the British. With Spain. In Vietnam. In Korea. In Latin America. With the 'Indians'. Each of these wars were 'necessary' according to its apologists.

"War in the East. War in the West. War up North. War down South. Everywhere there's war."

War is the life of the State. This country, like all countries, was founded on slavery, and war. States do not come about peacefully and 'organically'. They are the product of coercion and war.

War apologists always have reasons why their wars are 'necessary' and only that war would have served. Ask Cheney.

But then, they also think that the situation now is 'necessary'. So I wish you luck and hope you are enjoying your wars.

Two wars started by.... neocons. Huge tax cuts by .... neocons. Financial crisis that brought us to the brink of worldwide collapse narrowly averted -- caused by policies written by members of all parties.

Sure, yeah, it is allllll the progressives' fault.

(I think the most frustrating thing about politics these days is the paucity of facts on the ground. There has always been political posturing and political gamesplaying, but this noise is just STUPID.)

Mitt is a complete buffoon. He's a rich, entitled prick who is parroting exactly what his target audience of millionaires (both actual and imaginary) have been told for years by neocon pundits.

That @bobknight33 agrees with his sentiment is just confirmation of what Santorum has being saying. Smart people just aren't his target audience.

>> ^dag:

Exactly. I would like to see this dubbed into Pashtun.
Xenophobe chicken hawk neocons will eat this up - seeing no irony at all. They want our freeeeedum!>> ^packo:
"for them this is just some place, for us, this is our home"
the irony of that statement in regards to US foreign policy is epic



And it's scheduled for release on Thanksgiving, the holiday that celebrates their arrival in the Native American's home.

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

Exactly. I would like to see this dubbed into Pashtun.

Xenophobe chicken hawk neocons will eat this up - seeing no irony at all. They want our freeeeedum!>> ^packo:

"for them this is just some place, for us, this is our home"
the irony of that statement in regards to US foreign policy is epic