>> ^Mikus_Aurelius:

So what, we have to accept the legitimacy of leaders who are actively exterminating their own people now? I was against Afghanistan. I was against Iraq. Gadhafi was right in the middle of killing Libyan citizens, those citizens asked for aid, and we decided to help them install a government that won't butcher civilians? How dare we! Sovereignty is a convenient concept for regulating actions between nations. It isn't a moral necessity. This was a case where the moral choice was not the one that respected sovereignty.
I don't see a world in which puppet governments are making us a colonial power, though I won't deny that Bush and Cheney hoped for that. Iraq is now aligning with Iran. Karzai is so far off the reservation that if Afghanistan were Vietnam, we'd have assassinated him twice by now. Most critics of the Libya action are worried that the transitional government is a bunch of Islamists who played nice to get our help and now intend to train terrorists and pick fights with Israel. The truth is that Libyans will probably be a lot friendlier to the US and Europe than they were a year ago. But maybe, for once, that's because we've earned it.
>> ^criticalthud:
I'm a little weirded out too by what just happened in Libya. As much of a fucktard as Gadhafi was, this was yet another leader of a sovereign nation felled by a U.S. and oil-interest-backed coup. No one is really talking about that. Instead, even Jon Stewart is taking an "atta-boy" attitude towards this administration. and relishing in how little it cost.
the next Lybian regime will be a democracy in name only and friendly to US and European interests: light, sweet crude.
Then the IMF will come in under the pretext of "re-building" the country and really fuck the people.
I think we are still a little complacent about our country essentially waging aggressive war.



we have of course, actively supported dictators who have exterminated their own people or violently put down any protests. and we continue to. it's happening right now. The point is, "revolution" in the name of democracy only occurs when US interests are favored. otherwise the US categorizes 'rebellion' or 'revolution'...or even dissent as a terrorist action against a legitimate state. When it favors the US or other high powered interests, "revolution" is simply a pretext for us to topple regimes that are unfriendly to US interests.

So what, we have to accept the legitimacy of leaders who are actively exterminating their own people now? I was against Afghanistan. I was against Iraq. Gadhafi was right in the middle of killing Libyan citizens, those citizens asked for aid, and we decided to help them install a government that won't butcher civilians? How dare we! Sovereignty is a convenient concept for regulating actions between nations. It isn't a moral necessity. This was a case where the moral choice was not the one that respected sovereignty.

I don't see a world in which puppet governments are making us a colonial power, though I won't deny that Bush and Cheney hoped for that. Iraq is now aligning with Iran. Karzai is so far off the reservation that if Afghanistan were Vietnam, we'd have assassinated him twice by now. Most critics of the Libya action are worried that the transitional government is a bunch of Islamists who played nice to get our help and now intend to train terrorists and pick fights with Israel. The truth is that Libyans will probably be a lot friendlier to the US and Europe than they were a year ago. But maybe, for once, that's because we've earned it.

>> ^criticalthud:

I'm a little weirded out too by what just happened in Libya. As much of a fucktard as Gadhafi was, this was yet another leader of a sovereign nation felled by a U.S. and oil-interest-backed coup. No one is really talking about that. Instead, even Jon Stewart is taking an "atta-boy" attitude towards this administration. and relishing in how little it cost.
the next Lybian regime will be a democracy in name only and friendly to US and European interests: light, sweet crude.
Then the IMF will come in under the pretext of "re-building" the country and really fuck the people.
I think we are still a little complacent about our country essentially waging aggressive war.

>> ^9547bis:

>> ^Sagemind:
It makes me wonder if this is the result of over population, or the way the government sets up the communities. Living too long under martial rule maybe.

Definitely martial rule, because doing anything out of the ordinary, or just showing curiosity, might get you in trouble (plus, the law is weak and you can often get away with murder, but repression is merciless, so why turn yourself in?). I'd say a high population density would on the contrary help a bit. Exhibit A: Hong-Kong, which is 100km from where this took place, and where that kind of thing would not happen. Note that I'm not saying that there would not be a bystander effect in HK, I'm saying that a child being run over twice and then ignored would not happen in a freer/saner society. It's just not the same level of horrific.
And to be fair though, this story generated major outrage in China.


It has nothing to do with martial rule. China's repression is notorious, but only aimed at politically sensitive topics. A child getting run over has NOTHING to do with politics. No government official is going to lose face, there's no embarrassment over touchy subjects like sovereignty or religious freedoms or human rights or government corruption. No one has to watch their backs or think twice about helping someone in an emergency out of fear of the government.

It is comforting to be in denial, to blame this on our differences. There must be something wrong with THEM; this could NEVER happen in OUR civilized society. The fact is, whether its a homeless man bleeding to death on a street, or those who cannot empathize with the millions of people without jobs or health care in America, or this poor child, these are just faces of the same ugliness that is humanity.

Seems to fit:

“Once a nation parts with the control of its currency and credit, it matters not who makes that nation's laws. Usury, once in control, will wreck any nation. Until the control of the issue of currency and credit is restored to government and recognized as its most conspicuous and sacred responsibility, all talk of the sovereignty of Parliament and of democracy is idle and futile.”

-William Lyon Mackenzie King, former Prime Minister of Canada.

I think I may not have been clear about what I meant in my statement. I believe we're talking about two different segments of the same problem.

I absolutely agree with you that there has been very poor management of the U.S. debt over the past few years, especially in over the financial bail out/sub-prime mortgage/housing bubble fiasco. And yes, some (many?) of those individuals culpable are working with the current cabinet.

However, my thoughts were more to the fact that 1/2 the American national debt (some $5+ Trillion) is interest. I see this as a crime no single individual could commit over night. Yes, the last few years have had fuck-ups and thefts of the common purse on a colossal scale, but the majority of the (compound) interest on the the U.S. debt was accumulated before the bank bail out. I see those responsible as being the people who permitted the system with a privatized central bank. Money is now created by private companies through debt which the taxpayer is charged compound interest on.

NEW YORK -- Here's a new way to think about the U.S. government's epic borrowing: More than half of the $9 trillion in debt that Uncle Sam is expected to build up over the next decade will be interest.

More than half. In fact, $4.8 trillion.

If that's hard to grasp, here's another way to look at why that's a problem.

In 2015 alone, the estimated interest due - $533 billion - is equal to a third of the federal income taxes expected to be paid that year. /CNN, 2009.

>> ^notarobot:

@NetRunner, @GenjiKilpatrick, It is unfair to blame any single person in recent memory. Not Bernake, not Greenspan. They were making the best choices they knew to make given the system they have inherited.
The people at fault are no longer alive today. I'm sure I don't know American history as well as Americans, but I know that similar issues are being faced by pretty much every country that has left the management of the nation's money supply in the hands of private interests. For myself, in Canada, I'm pretty worried.
"Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes it's laws" — Mayer Amschel Bauer Rothschild
“Once a nation parts with the control of its currency and credit, it matters not who makes that nation's laws. Usury, once in control, will wreck any nation. Until the control of the issue of currency and credit is restored to government and recognized as its most conspicuous and sacred responsibility, all talk of the sovereignty of Parliament and of democracy is idle and futile.”
-William Lyon Mackenzie King, former Prime Minister of Canada.


The people at fault are very much alive because they could've done something to prevent it years ago. They're in Obamas cabinet now.

@NetRunner, @GenjiKilpatrick, It is unfair to blame any single person in recent memory. Not Bernake, not Greenspan. They were making the best choices they knew to make given the system they have inherited.

The people at fault are no longer alive today. I'm sure I don't know American history as well as Americans, but I know that similar issues are being faced by pretty much every country that has left the management of the nation's money supply in the hands of private interests. For myself, in Canada, I'm pretty worried.

"Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes it's laws" — Mayer Amschel Bauer Rothschild

“Once a nation parts with the control of its currency and credit, it matters not who makes that nation's laws. Usury, once in control, will wreck any nation. Until the control of the issue of currency and credit is restored to government and recognized as its most conspicuous and sacred responsibility, all talk of the sovereignty of Parliament and of democracy is idle and futile.”

-William Lyon Mackenzie King, former Prime Minister of Canada.

“Once a nation parts with the control of its currency and credit, it matters not who makes that nation's laws. Usury, once in control, will wreck any nation. Until the control of the issue of currency and credit is restored to government and recognized as its most conspicuous and sacred responsibility, all talk of the sovereignty of Parliament and of democracy is idle and futile.”

-William Lyon Mackenzie King, former Prime Minister of Canada.

How many false arguments can one put in a post?

Protecting individual sovereignty is always the best solution and like I previously eluded to, sacrificing individual sovereignty to exist as a society is not only delusional thinking, but self-destructive.

@dystopianfuturetoday

Sorry for the delay friend. Replying to internet statist's illogical question was not a high priority. I see you were pregnant with anticipation though!

Individual sovereignty isn't protected by a "free" market. You're thinking ass backwards. A free market is the result of ensuring individual sovereignty.

How would a "free" market guarantee individual sovereignty? >> ^marbles:

The only delusion is believing you have to sacrifice individual sovereignty to exist as a society. Arguing about what "form" of capitalism is freedom makes no sense. Either one exists for him or herself, or he/she doesn't exist.

The only delusion is believing you have to sacrifice individual sovereignty to exist as a society. Arguing about what "form" of capitalism is freedom makes no sense. Either one exists for him or herself, or he/she doesn't exist.

@marbles:

First you need to acknowledge what a conspiracy is. When two or more people agree to commit a crime, fraud, or some other wrongful act, it is a conspiracy. Not in theory, but in reality. Grow up, it happens.

Thanks for the vocabulary lesson, but I used the term conspiracy theory, not conspiracy. Conspiracy theory has a separate and more strongly suggestive definition (this one from Merriam-Webster): "a theory that explains an event or set of circumstances as the result of a secret plot by usually powerful conspirators."

I openly acknowledge that the government of the United States has and does commit conspiracies, as you define the word. (You mentioned Operation Northwoods in a separate comment; a post on Letters of Note from few weeks ago may be of interest to you, too, if you haven't already seen it: http://www.lettersofnote.com/2011/08/possible-actions-to-provoke-harrass-or.html.) The actions described therein, and other such actions, I would aptly describe as conspiracies (were they to be enacted).

Definitions aside, my problem with posts like that of @blastido_factor is that most of their so-called conspiracies are easily debunked. They're old chestnuts. A few minutes' worth of Google searches can disprove them.

It may be helpful to distinguish between what I see as the two main "conspiracies" surrounding 9/11: (1) that 9/11 was, to put it briefly, an "inside job," and (2) that certain members of the government of the United States conspired to use the events of 9/11 as justification for a series of military actions (many of which are ongoing) against people and countries that were, in fact, uninvolved in the 9/11 attacks. The first I find no credible evidence for. The second I consider a more tenable position.


The Pentagon is the most heavily guarded building in the world and somehow over an hour after 4 planes go off course/stop responding to FAA and start slamming into buildings, that somehow one is going to be able to fly into a no-fly zone unimpeded and crash into the Pentagon without help on the inside?

Once again, much of what you mention can be attributed to poor communication between the FAA and the government agencies responsible for responding to the attacks (and, for that matter, between the various levels of government agencies). And again, this is one of the major criticism levied by the various 9/11 investigations. From page forty-five of the 9/11 Commission: "The details of what happened on the morning of September 11 are complex, but they play out a simple theme. NORAD and the FAA were unprepared for the type of attacks launched against the United States on September 11, 2001. They struggled, under difficult circumstances, to improvise a homeland defense against an unprecedented challenge they had never before encountered and had never trained to meet."

Furthermore, it seems to me that one of the biggest mistakes made by a lot of the conspiracy theorists who fall into the first cateory (see above) is that they judge the events of 9/11 in the context of post-9/11 security. National security, on every level, was entirely different before 9/11 than it is now. That's not to say that the possibility of this kind of attack wasn't considered within the intelligence community pre-9/11. We know that it was (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks_advance-knowledge_debate). But was anyone adequately prepared to handle it? No.

In any event, when's the last time you looked at a map of Washington, DC? If you look at a satellite photo, you'll notice that the runways at Ronald Reagan airport are, literally, only a few thousand feet away from the Pentagon. Was a no-fly zone in place over Washington by 9:37 AM? I honestly don't know. But it's misleading to suggest that planes don't routinely fly near the Pentagon. They do.


And how did two giant titanium engines from a 757 disintegrate after hitting the Pentagon's wall? They were able to find the remains of all but one of the 64 passengers on board the flight, but only small amounts of debris from the plane?

In truth, I don't know enough about ballistics to speak for how well a titanium engine would withstand an impact with a reinforced wall at hundreds of miles an hour. But, if you're suggesting that a plane never hit the building, here's a short list of what you're wilfully ignoring: the clipped light poles, the damage to the power generator, the smoke trails, the hundreds of witnesses, the deaths of everyone aboard Flight 77, and the DNA evidence confirming the identities of 184 of the Pentagon's 189 fatalities (64 of which were the passengers on Flight 77).

Regarding the debris: It's misleading to claim that only small amounts of debris were recovered. This from Allyn E. Kilsheimer, the first structural engineer on the scene: "I saw the marks of the plane wing on the face of the building. I picked up parts of the plane with the airline markings on them. I held in my hand the tail section of the plane, and I found the black box ... I held parts of uniforms from crew members in my hands, including body parts." In addition, there are countless photos of plane wreckage both inside and outside the building (http://www.google.com/search?q=pentagon+wreckage).


Black boxes are almost always located after crashes, even if not in useable condition. Each jet had 2 recorders and none were found?

You help prove my point with this one: "almost always located." Again, I'm no expert on the recovery of black boxes, but here's a point to consider: if the black boxes were within the rubble at the WTC site, you're looking to find four containers that (undamaged, nonetheless) are roughly the size of two-liter soda bottles amidst the rubble of two buildings, each with a footprint of 43,000 square feet and a height of 1,300 feet (for a combined volume of 111,000,000 cubic feet, or 3,100,000,000 liters). (You might want to check my math. And granted, that material was enormously compacted when the towers collapsed. But still, it's a large number. And it doesn't include any of the space below ground level or any of the other buildings that collapsed.) Add to that the fact that they could have been damaged beyond recognition by the collapse of the buildings and the subsequent fires. To me, that hardly seems worthy of conspiracy.


Instead we invaded Afghanistan and started waging war against the same people we trained and armed in the 80s, the same people Reagan called freedom fighters. Now we call them terrorists for defending their own sovereignty.

Here, finally, we find some common ground. I couldn't agree more. You'd be hard-pressed to find a more ardent critic of America's foreign policy.

>> ^marbles:
First you need to acknowledge what a conspiracy is ...

>> ^aurens:

There's an old Jewish proverb that runs something like this:

"A fool can throw a stone into the water that ten wise men cannot recover."

Your stones, fortunately, aren't irrecoverable. I'll offer some counterpoints to a few of your claims, and I'll leave it up to you to fish for the truth about the others.
Kinda like a jet plane's black boxes aren't irrecoverable... no wait, they were. FBI: "None of the recording devices from the two planes that hit the World Trade Center were ever recovered." But this defies reason. Black boxes are almost always located after crashes, even if not in useable condition. Each jet had 2 recorders and none were found? Anonymous source at the NTSB: "Off the record, we had the boxes,"
Conspiracy? I think so.

>> ^aurens:

I don't know what you mean by "produced,"He means if you have evidence that implicates a suspect of a crime, then you indict that person. You then find and arrest that person, charge them, and follow the rule of law. The FBI admits they have no "hard evidence" that OBL was behind the 9/11 attacks, yet he was immediately blamed for it. The Taliban offered extradition if we provided evidence and we refused. Instead we invaded Afghanistan and started waging war against the same people we trained and armed in the 80s, the same people Reagan called freedom fighters. Now we call them terrorists for defending their own sovereignty.
Conspiracy? I think so.

>> ^aurens:

The North Tower was struck at 8:46 AM, the South Tower at 9:03 AM, and the Pentagon at 9:37 AM. By my math, the Pentagon was hit fifty-one minutes after the first plane hit the WTC and thirty-four minutes after the second plane hit. The 9/11 Commission estimated that the hijacking of Flight 11, the first plane to hit the WTC, began at 8:14 AM. It's misleading, in this context...
You're talking about the Department of Defense. The Pentagon is the most heavily guarded building in the world and somehow over an hour after 4 planes go off course/stop responding to FAA and start slamming into buildings, that somehow one is going to be able to fly into a no-fly zone unimpeded and crash into the Pentagon without help on the inside? Never mind the approach the pilot took makes no sense. If your target is the Pentagon, you can cause the most damage and most causalities by doing a nose down crash in the top. Instead the amateur pilot does a high precision 360 degree turn, descending 7,000 feet in the last 2 minutes to impact the Pentagon in the front, the only spot with reinforced steel. He spends an extra 2 and half minutes in the air exposed and ends up hitting the exact spot that has been reinforced and also where the bookkeeping and accountants were. Day before 9/11: Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld announces that the Pentagon has lost track of $2.3 TRILLION DOLLARS of military spending.
Conspiracy? I think so. (Bonus: WeAreChange confronts Rumsfeld)
>> ^aurens:

Three videos, not one, were released.
And at least 84 remain classified. Why?
And how did two giant titanium engines from a 757 disintegrate after hitting the Pentagon's wall? They were able to find the remains of all but one of the 64 passengers on board the flight, but only small amounts of debris from the plane?
Conspiracy? I think so.

>> ^aurens:

I don't fault you, or others like you, for wanting to "think twice" about the explanations given for certain of the events surrounding 9/11. I do fault you, though, for spending so little time on your second round of thinking, and for so carelessly tossing conspiracy theories to the wind.
First you need to acknowledge what a conspiracy is. When two or more people agree to commit a crime, fraud, or some other wrongful act, it is a conspiracy. Not in theory, but in reality. Grow up, it happens. If you spent anytime at all "thinking" or looking at the evidence, then you would recognize government lies for what they are. You don't have to know the truth to recognize a lie.

The claim for Arabs right to the land is stronger because they did not leave the area (as a group). They are also not as diluted genetically from their original ethnicity(s) (shared with Jews, who are of multiple ethnicities, but mainly of Arab decent).
Zionism is the support of the Jewish state, not necessarily the support for it's expansion (although that support is strong in Israel). That means all Israelites are Zionists, unless they are traitors to their own country and are working to end the Jewish state, there aren't many if any of those people in Israel, they would be stoned to death. I'm not sure what definition of Zionist you are working with, it must be different from mine. Not all Zionists are expansionists, and there is nothing in the word that requires poor treatment of others.
To answer Boise_Lib: Because these children are required to serve in the army, actively supporting the state, they are Zionist, whether by choice or by birth. They have the right to leave AFTER their service, or before if their parents leave Israel, so like any child, they are at the whim of their parents and forced into their belief system whether they believe in it or not. This means I was partially wrong in my statement and I will revise it..., all adult Israelis are there 100% by choice.
I love the 'you are just wrong, I can't be bothered to tell you why' mindset. It really doesn't help your argument or help sway my ideas, it gives the impression that you really don't have anything to point at as 'wrong' you just don't like what you read. If you really can point out any inaccuracies I would like to know so I can learn or clarify, but I think you are simply reading in what you want to argue against.
I'm flabbergasted by your idea that (to paraphrase) 'we only send $2.5 BILLION a year, that's not much'. It shows clearly that you aren't being logical or reasonable in the least. If we are going broke fast (and we are), why should we be sending 2.5 BILLION to ANYONE? Especially if your contention, that it isn't a large part of their budget and they don't need it is correct, why bother sending them a dime? There are certainly others we could send that money to and do FAR more good, like Africa.
Anti-Zionism might help, anti-Semitism probably not so much. Pro-Zionism is certainly hurting things by supporting one sides expansion while ignoring the atrocities that causes the Palestinians. As I previously wrote, anti-Semitism often is a by product of anti-Zionism, where the anger at the Zionists is misapplied to only and to all Jews. Therefore, Zionism creates anti-Semitism, rightly or wrongly. I am not an anti-Semite, I am an anti-Zionist...being human, sometimes the two are confused or convergent but not intentionally on my part.
The BEST solution in my eyes is a diplomatic one that stops the expansion and solidifies borders, and one that gets us OUT of the conflict as a nation (if the nutjob born agains want to send their own money, that's their business). I don't see that as the ONLY solution, and obviously neither does Israel, since they are not negotiating in any serious way, and instead continue to expand and provoke, expand and provoke. The Palestinians on the other hand have been pushing for solidified borders for decades and continuously agree to them only to have "settlers" (invaders) move into the land as soon as the treaty is signed. This gives them the moral high ground to me, but does not mean we should be involved.>> ^mxxcon:
>> ^newtboy:
Yeah sure, we're all 'Africans', but that designation intentionally ignores the evolution of the species and differentiation since the second great migration, (the first was the aborigines, genetically different from the second wave) and so intentionally ignores 'ethnicity' as a concept.
True, the scattering of the 'Jews' (ethnic term intended here) has changed them from the other 'Arabs' they originally were to the mixed ethnicity they are now, making them slightly different from the Arabs of the region today. Shouldn't the fact that their ethnicity has been diluted also dilute their claim to their ancestral lands (as if such a claim should hold water anyway, if your ancestors lost the land, it's lost, right)?
anti-Semitism is what results from the miss-application of anti-Zionism in many cases (including for me sometimes). For me, it is NEVER an ethnic issue, always a religolitical (religious/political)issue that causes the dislike of the group.
All Israelis are Zionists by definition and action, I suppose this is not true for ALL Jews (of either definition) but is the public position of their 'church' and their ethnic leadership as well. I feel fairly safe saying it's the position held by nearly all Orthodox Jews, but that might be wrong, I don't know many. That makes them a completely different animal from the Chinese, where many in China actively don't support their government or even their system of government, but are forced to stay in China and work for it. No Israeli is forced to live in Israel, it's 100% by choice.
I do understand that in large part, the 'fundamentalist Christians' (and also American Jewish Zionists) are to blame for us funding and supporting Israel, I hope I misread and you don't think they foot the bill too, we all do.
Can we agree that religious justifications for ANY otherwise bad act are wrong, and reinforce the idea that religion itself is wrong and bad?>> ^hpqp:
@newtboy
If we go back far enough, we are all Africans; ethnic distinctions happen to take the history of peoples' migrations into account. Yes, ethnic Jews are Arabs (or vice-versa) just like most Australians, Americans and Canadians are Europeans, except instead of colonisation it is the Jewish diaspora that is the cause for their break from their "land of origins".
Antisemitism is racism against Jews (ethnic group), whether they be religious or not. I fully disagree with Israel's politics and their funding by Americans (speaking of which, you do know, I hope, that they are above all funded/supported by fundie evangelicals, don't you?) for the purpose of colonisation, but to lump all (ethnic) Jews/Israelis (that's a nationality btw) together saying that they support this is about as ridiculous as saying that all Chinese in China and around the world support the communist government in China just because they're Chinese.
That being said, I agree entirely that the religious justifications over land - from both sides btw - is ridiculous and dangerous. "My prophet died here so it's my land!" Ugh.

Also very broad and inaccurate generalizations.
You can read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_ethnic_divisions for a pretty detailed explanation.
Dilution of ethnicity and claim of their ancestral lands can just as easily apply to 'Arabs' there.
And just like Jews, "Arabs" is a general term for various ethnic and religious groups.
So whose land it is is a very subjective topic of how far back in history you want to go.
Not all Israelis are Zionists. The word Zionist have many various meanings and definitions, but you seem to have a totally wrong understanding of what it is. There's a sizable portion of Israel Jew's population that is against those settlements and treatment of (to call it broadly) non-Jewish populace.
There are also many other wrong assumptions and generalizations in your post.(right now I'm too tired after work to elaborate on them all).
Needless to say the whole Israeli conflict is a very complex and messy situation. There are guilty parties on both sides. Cutting funding/aid to either side will not move things for the better. Over the last 10 years US aid to Israel was about ~$2.5billion/year. That is about 1% of Israel's $217billion GDP economy. While sizable, cutting that aid will not be a significant hindrance.
External boycotts, protests and especially antisemitism will not help things either. That will only make them more stubborn and have justification for potential threat to their sovereignty and survival. The only real solution is a diplomatic approach to change governments' policies.