Empire is a new monthly segment on Al'Jazeera, covering more than just the US.

See a list of the previous episodes here.
>> ^Kalle:

>> ^skinnydaddy1:
>> ^Kalle:
>> ^Trancecoach:
Couple years ago, I submitted this documentary which looks at how the militarization of popular culture -- including reality shows and video games -- has turned war into a spectacle of entertainment.

Thx for that link its quite interesting to watch especially the part about military tech fetishes...
>> ^skinnydaddy1:
now I'm not going to watch it.
Someone want to tag it propaganda for me?

You haven`t watched it but you wanna tag it as propaganda???

As I've stated I find the title insulting and offensive. It would be like me starting a news segment on Faux news channel titled,
Terrorists: Muslim religious groups and Al Qaeda Media. Terrorists examines the symbiotic relationship between the Middle Eastern religion and the IED and sniper videos filmed for the internet.
The title of the program already has made the statement that the U.S. wants to take over your country. EMPIRE! Being a prominently Muslim based News organization it its telling everyone in the middle east that.
This is the same reason I won't watch Fox News. So while they may be trying to get my attention and prove a point. Insulting the country I live in is not a good way to start. So lets continue to look at the title. Hollywood and the War Machine. Wow so its not the U.S military or Defense contractors. Its the WAR machine.... So now the men and women in uniform serving my country are no longer doing so. They are there for the express purpose of starting wars. Great 2 insults and I've not even started watching the video yet but I've got a good Idea where its going. SO no i'm not going to watch it. The Propaganda in the title alone has stated enough already.

Thats a good point youre making, the title really sends out a certain anti american message..
But its still quite interesting to watch and not really comparable to fox news from a intellectual point of view.

>> ^skinnydaddy1:

>> ^Kalle:
>> ^Trancecoach:
Couple years ago, I submitted this documentary which looks at how the militarization of popular culture -- including reality shows and video games -- has turned war into a spectacle of entertainment.

Thx for that link its quite interesting to watch especially the part about military tech fetishes...
>> ^skinnydaddy1:
now I'm not going to watch it.
Someone want to tag it propaganda for me?

You haven`t watched it but you wanna tag it as propaganda???

As I've stated I find the title insulting and offensive. It would be like me starting a news segment on Faux news channel titled,
Terrorists: Muslim religious groups and Al Qaeda Media. Terrorists examines the symbiotic relationship between the Middle Eastern religion and the IED and sniper videos filmed for the internet.
The title of the program already has made the statement that the U.S. wants to take over your country. EMPIRE! Being a prominently Muslim based News organization it its telling everyone in the middle east that.
This is the same reason I won't watch Fox News. So while they may be trying to get my attention and prove a point. Insulting the country I live in is not a good way to start. So lets continue to look at the title. Hollywood and the War Machine. Wow so its not the U.S military or Defense contractors. Its the WAR machine.... So now the men and women in uniform serving my country are no longer doing so. They are there for the express purpose of starting wars. Great 2 insults and I've not even started watching the video yet but I've got a good Idea where its going. SO no i'm not going to watch it. The Propaganda in the title alone has stated enough already.


Thats a good point youre making, the title really sends out a certain anti american message..

But its still quite interesting to watch and not really comparable to fox news from a intellectual point of view.

>> ^Kalle:
>> ^Trancecoach:
Couple years ago, I submitted this documentary which looks at how the militarization of popular culture -- including reality shows and video games -- has turned war into a spectacle of entertainment.

Thx for that link its quite interesting to watch especially the part about military tech fetishes...
>> ^skinnydaddy1:
now I'm not going to watch it.
Someone want to tag it propaganda for me?

You haven`t watched it but you wanna tag it as propaganda???


As I've stated I find the title insulting and offensive. It would be like me starting a news segment on Faux news channel titled,
Terrorists: Muslim religious groups and Al Qaeda Media. Terrorists examines the symbiotic relationship between the Middle Eastern religion and the IED and sniper videos filmed for the internet.

The title of the program already has made the statement that the U.S. wants to take over your country. EMPIRE! Being a prominently Muslim based News organization it its telling everyone in the middle east that.

This is the same reason I won't watch Fox News. So while they may be trying to get my attention and prove a point. Insulting the country I live in is not a good way to start. So lets continue to look at the title. Hollywood and the War Machine. Wow so its not the U.S military or Defense contractors. Its the WAR machine.... So now the men and women in uniform serving my country are no longer doing so. They are there for the express purpose of starting wars. Great 2 insults and I've not even started watching the video yet but I've got a good Idea where its going. SO no i'm not going to watch it. The Propaganda in the title alone has stated enough already.

>> ^Trancecoach:

Couple years ago, I submitted this documentary which looks at how the militarization of popular culture -- including reality shows and video games -- has turned war into a spectacle of entertainment.


Thx for that link its quite interesting to watch especially the part about military tech fetishes...

>> ^skinnydaddy1:

now I'm not going to watch it.
Someone want to tag it propaganda for me?


You haven`t watched it but you wanna tag it as propaganda???

Couple years ago, I submitted this documentary which looks at how the militarization of popular culture -- including reality shows and video games -- has turned war into a spectacle of entertainment.

I'm temporarily living in Brazil and there's several different kind of police here. I don't know which type these were, maybe Policia Civil or Guarda Municipal, but I'm amazed at their restraint. People here tend not to trust the police the same way we do back in Sweden (the salaries here are low and there's a lot of corruption). Policia Militar is the military police and then there's the Policia Federal (something like the FBI). Then there's BOPE (famous from the film 'Tropa de Elite'), I tried giving one of them a slice of pizza while they were guarding some building. Don't try that. Anyway, if BOPE had been involved in this sort of chase (which I don't think they ever are) then it would have ended differently

>> ^Januari:

I am more than a little confused by your argument, or rather it's ambiguity. As BC said, I've never in my life heard anyone who favors the militarization of our police force. This man wasn't run over by a tank... he wasn't exploded from a grenade... Or any of the other over the top examples you listed. Can you tie these concepts together with any degree of reason?
You chastise people for assuming you mean cutting funds from police officers salaries but you haven't exactly clarified... You simply want less police?... lower quality of equipment?... fewer patrol cars?...


But the militarization is happening, like it or not. That aside, the conversation got derailed. I was asked my solution for the police state, which would be to cut funding. That got interpreted as cutting the worker's wages somehow, and it devolved from there.

So, yes, less police. Not lower quality equipment but just not military equipment. Fewer patrol cars? Maybe. I don't know. It's a tangent we're on at this point. And it has very little to do with the video.

But certainly someone favors the militarization of our police because it's happening.

I am more than a little confused by your argument, or rather it's ambiguity. As BC said, I've never in my life heard anyone who favors the militarization of our police force. This man wasn't run over by a tank... he wasn't exploded from a grenade... Or any of the other over the top examples you listed. Can you tie these concepts together with any degree of reason?

You chastise people for assuming you mean cutting funds from police officers salaries but you haven't exactly clarified... You simply want less police?... lower quality of equipment?... fewer patrol cars?...

>> ^blankfist:

>> ^bcglorf:
Your claiming cutting police wages will make these situations less frequent, and better handled.

Let me stop you right there.
I'm not for cutting wages of rank and file police officers. I am against how much we pay the law enforcement agencies to grow into what they've become. Long gone are days of the donut eating cops. Say hello to the days of the militarized police.
If you and NetRunner cannot differentiate between cutting rank and file officer's wages and me not wanting the pentagon to give local police weapons and equipment used by the military, then I'm afraid you both are too far gone. I don't want the law enforcement agencies to be as well funded as they are today, because they've grown into something horrible and tyrannical.
The solution is limited government. The solution is not continuing to over fund these agencies until the entire nation is one big police state.


So in summary, your against militarizing our police forces. Who could really be against that?

What part of this story is the result of militarizing the police?

How would your demilitarized police force have prevented this? I still see a world where police officers with guns respond to the mother's call. I still see a world where this killer gets into the police force and ends up murdering someone.

Can you explain, in small words so we statists can follow, how demilitarizing the police would have kept this murder out of the police force?

>> ^bcglorf:

Your claiming cutting police wages will make these situations less frequent, and better handled.


Let me stop you right there.

I'm not for cutting wages of rank and file police officers. I am against how much we pay the law enforcement agencies to grow into what they've become. Long gone are days of the donut eating cops. Say hello to the days of the militarized police.

If you and NetRunner cannot differentiate between cutting rank and file officer's wages and me not wanting the pentagon to give local police weapons and equipment used by the military, then I'm afraid you both are too far gone. I don't want the law enforcement agencies to be as well funded as they are today, because they've grown into something horrible and tyrannical.

The solution is limited government. The solution is not continuing to over fund these agencies until the entire nation is one big police state.

>> ^blankfist:

If you cannot tell the difference between not wanting to pay to militarize our police and giving them paycuts/working them longer hours, I think we have nothing else to say, sir.


Here we go again. I asked you a very pointed question about how we stop police brutality.

Your answer was "cut funding" and "reduce department sizes". The recession is forcing departments to do just that all over the place, and it's meant laying off officers more often than not.

But, whatever.

So you don't want to pay to "militarize" our police. Is that it? If so, I'm totally on board with stopping that, let's do it.

I don't think it'll end police brutality though.

>> ^NetRunner:
Ahh, so your solution to cops behaving badly is to make them take paycuts and/or work longer hours.
Should work out awesome.


You and putting words in my mouth. Me and putting my dick in yours.

If you cannot tell the difference between not wanting to pay to militarize our police and giving them paycuts/working them longer hours, I think we have nothing else to say, sir.

I realize I will probably be flamed for this but... A couple of points:

1) There is one type of person which is the most dangerous you can come across. It is people who suffer from White Knight Syndrome. Most if not all cops suffer from it; they seem to have a pathological need to do "what is right"(tm) no matter the cost for anyone else or themselves. As they have "right" on their side they can do no "evil" (That's what Black Knights and evil people do). That is also why they are the most dangerous people you can come across. All their actions are justified. They are the type who will shoot you with a smile on their lips because they are "vanquishing evil". Living in a black and white world is great... isn't it?

2) The guy is not resisting he is simply talking, as in being a civilized human being and not a barbarian, and therefore there is no justification at all for using violence. Instead of throwing the guy face first into asphalt the cop should have just asked him to sit down. But I guess that doesn't look as cool on those cop shows.

3) I have no respect for people who drink and drive but that is not a good enough reason to physically injure the guy as he is not physically combative. Be polite, tell him to sit down, explain why he is being arrested and then arrest him. Problem solved. Imagine a world where police are not militarized and actually behave like police should and not like mob enforcers. Do as we say or we will bash your face in, taze you, mace you and add resisting arrest to your crimes as you writhe in pain...

Another Militarized Crazy Middle Eastern Theocracy, we need to stop supporting Isreal.

I remember reading a few articles a couple years ago about how in the past decade we've been minutes from annihilation. The reason is because Russia has a lot of missiles on ready alert but the computers are out of date and they have been reacting and almost firing missiles and our missile systems detect this and get antsy as well. Imagine destroying all of human civilization because of a computer error.

Also I hope they go into the Cuban Missile Crisis story, when we were literally one word away from total nuclear wasteland. We'd basically have no northern hemisphere after that. The story is roughly a Russian nuclear submarine was off Cuba and having depth chargers dropped on it from above. The captain said fire the missiles because it's probably already WW3 up there. Another person the Officer of the whatever stopped him and calmed him down from making this mistake. This one man is responsible for probably billions of peoples lives, he should've received dozens of Peace Medals or Peace hookers or something.

Also Russia is now investing more heavily in it's nuclear program which is states unequivocally is a response to the United States and it's militarism. Also a direct response to the missile defense shield placed in Europe which Russia correctly sees as a first strike weapon.