Haven't seen this one in circulation yet:

Dear Chancellor Merkel,

The never-ending austerity that Europe is force-feeding the Greek people is simply not working. Now Greece has loudly said no more.

As most of the world knew it would, austerity has crushed the Greek economy, led to mass unemployment, a collapse of the banking system, made the external debt crisis far worse, with the debt problem escalating to an unpayable 175% of GDP. The economy now lies broken with tax receipts nose-diving, output and employment depressed, and businesses starved of capital.

The humanitarian impact has been colossal – 40% of children now live in poverty, infant mortality is sky-rocketing and youth unemployment is close to 50%. Corruption, tax evasion and bad accounting by previous Greek governments helped create the debt problem. But the series of so-called adjustment programs has served only to make a Great Depression the likes of which have been unseen in Europe since 1929-1933. The medicine prescribed by the German Finance Ministry and Brussels has bled the patient, not cured the disease.

Together we urge you to lead Europe to a course correction before it is too late for Greece and for the Eurozone. Right now, the Greek government is being asked to put a gun to its head and pull the trigger. Sadly, the bullet will not only kill off Greece’s future in Europe. The collateral damage will kill the Eurozone as a beacon of hope, prosperity, and democracy, and could lead to far-reaching economic consequences across the world.

In the 1950s Europe was founded on the forgiveness of past debts, notably Germany’s, which generated a massive contribution to post-war economic growth, peace, and democracy. Today we need to restructure and reduce Greek debt, give the economy breathing room to recover, and allow Greece to pay off a reduced burden of debt over a long period of time. Now is the time for a humane rethink of the punitive and failed programme of austerity of recent years and to agree to a major reduction of Greece’s debts in conjunction with much needed reforms in Greece.

We urge you to take this vital action of leadership for Greece and Germany, and also for the world. History will remember you for your actions this week. We expect and count on you to provide the bold and generous steps towards Greece that will serve Europe for generations to come.

Yours sincerely,

Heiner Flassbeck, former State Secretary in the German Federal Ministry of Finance;

Thomas Piketty, Professor of Economics at the Paris School of Economics;

Jeffrey D. Sachs, Professor of Sustainable Development, Professor of Health Policy and Management, and Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University;

Dani Rodrik, Albert O. Hirschman Professor of Social Sciences at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton;

Simon Wren-Lewis, Professor of economics, Blavatnik School of Government, Oxford University

Herein documents another facet of the unwinnable war that never ends.

ROTFLMFAHS!!!!!!
Your organization (the police) has fought tooth and nail to keep those names and the numbers from being complied in a useable form, or viewable form. You know this well, and yet you dishonestly pretend that not having them somehow invalidates the numbers the DOJ compiled. They're hidden from the public by the police themselves, and there's only one reason for them to be 'hidden', police are embarrassed at the real numbers. Police kill >10 times the number of citizens compared to the number of people that kill police, yet police are constantly whining about how 'dangerous' their job is (not even in the top 10 most dangerous in America), and insisting on rules and equipment to allow them to kill more people with impunity while putting themselves at less risk. Most Americans don't think cops should have their own laws or loopholes, nor should they have any offensive equipment not available to the public, and there should be no purely defensive equipment outlawed.
Blacks aren't necessarily resisting arrest more often, they are definitely being attacked by police more often. 100% of dog bites on blacks is telling to anyone with a brain...but not to you. So is 85% of use of force being against blacks. Blacks have a reason to not want to be under police control, it never ends well for them, and often ends with them dead, it is never just a minor inconvienience.
How often are those reported 'black' suspects actually not black, pretty often.
Of over 500 innocent deaths per year in this law enforcement report, how many prosecutions? How many convictions? I bet close to 0...if not 0.
Hey Bill O, non-violent civilians are not actively fighting military, armed or not....so not a war zone.
Since 99+% of officer's crimes are not even reported, and of those that are 99% are not investigated, and of the 1% of 1% left, <1% are prosecuted, so it's a good bet they got away with the improper behavior.
Wow, you're really blind to racism, aren't you? One person in a position of power does not erase racism, sometimes it causes it (can you say Obama)...and racism happens within races as well. The report on New Orleans shows that even when the police closely resemble the populace, racism still happens, even from black officers against black citizens. You've said some fairly racist things in this thread alone...but you are so used to blatant racism that you can't see your own racism, ever.
Eric Holder told us, we don't need to tell him. Give me a fucking break!
Now Bill O...that's a fraud.

"Imagine yourself taking a stroll through Manhattan, somewhere north of 68th street, deep inside Central Park, late at night. It would be nice to meet someone friendly, but you know that the park is dangerous at night. That's when the monsters come out. There's always a strong undercurrent of drug dealings, muggings, and occasional homicides.

It is not easy to distinguish the good guys from the bad guys. They dress alike, and the weapons are concealed. The only difference is intent, and you can't read minds.

Stay in the dark long enough and you may hear an occasional distant shriek or blunder across a body.

How do you survive the night? The last thing you want to do is shout, "I'm here!" The next to last thing you want to do is reply to someone who shouts, "I'm a friend!"

What you would like to do is find a policeman, or get out of the park. But you don't want to make noise or move towards a light where you might be spotted, and it is difficult to find either a policeman or your way out without making yourself known. Your safest option is to hunker down and wait for daylight, then safely walk out.

There are, of course, a few obvious differences between Central Park and the universe.

There is no policeman.

There is no way out.

And the night never ends."

Hi leebowman- As I just commented, you weren't being censored, nor will you ever be on VideoSift.

We have tons of automated measures in place to combat our never-ending influx of spam, and unfortunately you got caught in our net. (That's also why, as you noticed, your first comment's URL was automatically redacted.)

Please don't feel as if you aren't allowed to have a dissenting voice here. One of VideoSift's most treasured assets is its quality debates between intelligent people.

Welcome to VideoSift!

Hear, hear...A lonely voice of sanity, crying-out in a wilderness of the self-deluded...

I'd offer...Who gives a fiddler's fuck whose missile hit whose fight club incubator? Missiles found stacked neatly at two United Nations Relief and Works Agency school buildings to-date, and as far as that shit goes who is to say it wasn't the UN who brokered the bomb deal and sent the blue-helmet fucks to deliver 'em?

I have a suggestion: Israels' a big boy now (the 'dybbuk' have come a long way since 1947)... How about the rest of the world back the way back from The Never Ending Storyline of Real-Jew/Fake-Jew vs Persians (2700+ years and counting??) and let all interested parties duke it the fuck out? Oh and by all means, think of the children, consume more news-corp spin, and go out and get yourselves some solar-powered Vitamin D maybe??

I know...Let's identify and list 24/7-365 the names and addresses on news-tickers worldwide of the DAMAGED WHITE PEOPLE who manufactured the ordinance and continue to bank Hanover Phist on regional conflicts worldwide (while stealing $$ from the planet's wage-slaves) and eliminate ALL THOSE motherfuckers??


...'and the world, will be a better place'

...as I rightly predicted, you missed or overlooked the posts @ http://videosift.com/talk/this-site-is-being-removed, RIGHT, you don't get email notifications nor do you follow comment streams, RIGHT, AND the overlap of pertinence conveniently saves some typing, so....

"...pathetic self-deluded "little...thing" unsuccessfully, incessantly peddling his self-promoting, illusory, persecution complex effused, over compensatory inflated self-worth dribbling in a never-ending vain campaign of misrepresentation and deceit to unsuccessfully justify his existence to himself and to whomever else he deludedly believes hasn't the experience, acumen or awareness to know or see otherwise."

...AND...

"...self described "little...thing" whom with its adoption of this well earned moniker belies the slightest claim to any semblance of real self-respect or self-worth and further demonstrates Its inability to not only represent any idea he may borrow or steal but in the most banal, basest manner with no apparent capacity for self-awareness or objective perspective much less the truth. The question begs as to whether this incapacity is deliberate or if it is born of another pathology of which a number are glaringly obvious to many here and which is the subject of many frequent conversations here some of which I have copied and if the slightest ember of yearning to real self-awarenes exists in It I would be amenable to provide them...PUBLICLY ONLY,,, with the speakers names redacted of course. I WILL FURTHER PROVIDE THAT I WILL NOT BE A PARTICIPANT IN ANY PROVIDED CONVERSATION. As a further albeit futile stipulation I will only provide Lounge conversation as a anticipation of the pitifully predictable refuge to Its ascribing any such conversations to private conversations on profile pages that It prefers to paint in his persecution complex's inimitable fashion. OF COURSE, THIS WILL NOT BE ENTERTAINED."

...pathetic self-deluded "little...thing" unsuccessfully, incessantly peddling his self-promoting, illusory, persecution complex effused, over compensatory inflated self-worth dribbling in a never-ending vain campaign of misrepresentation and deceit to unsuccessfully justify his existence to himself and to whomever else he deludedly believes hasn't the experience, acumen or awareness to know or see otherwise.

Exchange...unworthy of but a shoe wipe on the grass.


chingalera said:

I have been here chicco, for many years in one iteration or another and have been ganged-up on by others like yourself-The only reason I would banned at this point is by those unwilling to see their reflection in the mirror, who would rather accuse than communicate, or burn bridges rather than build them.

I am not an enemy of anyone, or anybody on this site, sir. Deal with a reality through the eyes of your peers please rather than foment discord?? An humble and sincere request for change. I'm an amenable chap and always welcome two-sided conversations which you have continually and steadfastly avoided in exchange for continued dysfunctional cat-calls and attacks from the insulated comfort of your cozy computer-hole...

Should have left out a couple loops -or added more cars- until the front engine connected to the caboose, and made it TRULY never-ending.

Also, at 3:10 you see the track heads off into the rest of the house, the spiral is just his pièce de résistance.

By assuming we are "close minded conspiracy theorists" simply off the basis of having a different conclusion than you, you're simply avoiding the discussion, and you still fail to make any legitimate arguments; you merely repeat the "tired and naive" talking point of how "it's not the best, but it's the best we have" to defend an unjust system.

When has that attitude ever done us good? We have such amazing technology and understanding of the universe because of the way we as a whole ultimately reject that argument and instead say "some of this works quite well, but we need a lot of work in other areas."

Personally, I'm a fan of the free market concept. I think a fair amount of those who you are so eager to write off as fools also do. The problem comes down to what our concepts of justice are. We speak fondly of "equality of opportunity," but anyone can see we have no such thing. Only when everyone has equal opportunity to pursue learning in the fields of their choice without having to give up on adding to our collective culture/knowledge because of the economic pressure of survival can we truly say people are free. So long as anyone is taking a job they hate just to scrape by at the bottom of the chain, and we exercise violence against each other to try and force our ways onto others on a massive scale, we are, in my opinion, a profoundly unjust society.

Of course, violence will never end, scheming and exploitation and all our evils will continue to plague us. We can't make a utopia. What we can do, though, is decrease the potential for abuse in our current systems. I, and many others, think that separating the means of survival and self-actualization - the things required to develop, grow, and contribute to humanity at a high level (namely, food/water/shelter, basic healthcare, and free, equal access to education) - from the rest of the market is one way to make a huge impact on that potential for abuse. Think about it: how many times do we let corporations damage our environment and abuse us simply because speaking out means losing your means of survival?

I think the rest of the market is going to have to stay the market, nobody can really say how it's fair to divide up all our resources (though I hope for an increase in democracy going forwards for things related to our environment and health). Amusingly, though you rail against anarchy, the actual ideals of anarchy fall in line with the concept of a free market (anarchy is really all about freedom of association rather than coercive structures; not a lack of order).

I really wouldn't be able to pick Piers Morgan out of a line up. I wrote that first comment over a year ago in the immediate aftermath of the Newtown shooting and it was largely a response to the rhetoric pro-gun advocates were displaying all over my Facebook feed.

What I wrote is not at all an over-reaction to what I saw during that time.

Totally normal and sane friends of mine applauded a ten year old girl who shot and killed a home invader, enthusing that this is how America should be.

Totally normal and sane friends of mine waxed romantic about how concealing and carrying a weapon transforms a vanilla suburban dining experience into a potential battlefield. Whereas most people get lost in one of the many flat screen TVs at an Applebees, they spend their time sizing up potential adversaries and keep close tabs on every exit as they feel the reassuring bulge of their Glock at their side.

I totally agree that most of these guys will never end up needing to use their weapons in an adversarial situation, and I totally agree that these guys are responsible gun owners if responsible gun ownership is defined by a safe stewardship of the guns you acquire, but that is not the point that I'm trying to make.

The problem is that these sorts of people and the gun culture they have created has an enormous impact on the type of gun laws we pass. This wouldn't be a problem if they were coming from a place that wasn't obsessive and wasn't paranoid and wasn't delusional, but they are and this is unfortunate because it enables and accentuates much of the violence you lament in inner city culture.

Yogi and radx make the only real point necessary here and that's that information, DIGITAL information especially, is floating about and cannot be contained exclusively, EVER. It 'IS'....You can't control the never-ending, ever-present flow of it BUT-

Certain people will use information for good, some for evil, some to control, some to enlighten and with a view to evolution and meaning, and LIFE.

Death to those who would that information be used for anything but what it is: The free-flow of bits and bites and the purest life-energy.

In the beginning, was the word.

Oh and for shinyblurry: We'll probably never know the 'need-to-know' factors involved in making a decision for ourselves about Snowden and you are correct in intuiting that there is something fishy with Snowden and with all of this. The righteous or, average folks on the planet simply DO NOT have the appropriate clearance to 'know.'

ANY president does not even have this clearance and this is why he wants Snowden back, to face a mock-trial under the mock government's 1918 Espionage act allegations and why the mock so-called journalists can continue to disseminate information that protects and promotes the machine. All are basically being blackmailed into serving this beast, which protects and insulates the most egregious and vile of humanity, so that they may be free and you may be not.

This has been going on in certain cities of Orange County for some time now.

Class warfare never ended, white flight and rich Chinese and Middle Eastern U.S. citizens just keep leap frogging each other into new territory. Class warfare does not have a color boundary, only money.

Yes yes...and "truth" is an idea in the mind of a crazy person...but you don't need to know the truth in order to not lie.
By "normal reality" I mean (my perception of) what is actually happening on a regular basis.
While I may not agree with the level of authority and lack of responsibility average police have been afforded, I also have learned to not intentionally violate the rules while trying to change them. That never ends well for the violator, and often works against their efforts.
To your third paragraph...would your solution be to force sterilization as a condition of employment for all officers, and require they don't already have children? I like that idea (and really, I like almost any idea that causes less children), but I don't really think it would be acceptable to most 'normal' people.