Smooman, I should have expected a knee jerk reaction from you. I don't hold the act in contempt. I hold the fact that so many people were put in that position in the first place, in contempt.

It's a shame that this sort of heroism is needed, in such wasteful wars. Perhaps I could have phrased it better. It's a shame that this sort of heroism is wasted on shameful wars.

What's even more shameful is that you misunderstood my comment, and charged into a litany of cliched insults without fully understanding what I wrote.

The Idea that we should separate acts of courage from the sleazy politics behind a war is completely abject to me. If anything these acts of courage should be used as a reason to not have war.

>> ^NordlichReiter:

It's a shame that this sort of heroism is needed, in such wasteful wars.


a shame? i bet that couch yer sittin on is comfortable. a shame? spoken like a true keyboard patriot. a shame? say what you will about the vietnam conflict, but acts carried out by men like MSG Benavidez show what embodies the human spirit: courage, vigilance, tenacity, intestinal fortitude, selfless service, and integrity in the face of crippling fear and certain death.

what's really shameful is that you would hold an act of personal sacrifice such as this in contempt so that you may add relevance to your political commentary

It's a shame that this sort of heroism is needed, in such wasteful wars.

Dude, you're the one that's preachy. Come on, dude. I put one word down, and you go off on how sad you are about the condition of the world, about my heroes, and the rest.

The video was FUNNY. The young dude got what he deserved, and EBM was able to defend himself.

It's not like I wrote down "[h]eroic" in all CAPS followed by exclamation point as so: "HEROIC!"

>> ^longde:
Look, the guy is not in any way heroic. Tragic, yes; a sympathetic figure to some, sure; but heroic, no way.
Just over the last month, there are people all over the world that have done heroic things, much of it captured on youtube and videosift. Some kid pushed a stalled car off rail tracks before it was hit. People rescued others from collapsed buildings after an earthquake. Police and firemen have saved lives this week. Yet, this guy gets the moniker of "epic" and you call him a hero. Get real. Is your bar for heroism that low? If so, that's sad.
Irony alert when preachy people tell me to get off my high horse. I do have some crazy relatives, but I'm not addled enough to call them heroes. I try to get them help when i can. Which is what is missing from this hullabaloo. Of all the videos and websites, who is raising money to get this man some help? People are going so far as to post the names and addresses of the camera people for revenge, and others are talking about recovering the guy's bag. Those things aren't going to help this guy.
Most videos are just using his image to drive some stupid meme. This video for example. She obviously found this guy. Why not ask him about his living conditions and how to help, and then relay to others with her video. Noone is helping because they see EBM as a sideshow, to be forgotten tomorrow.
>> ^GoodAttorney:
>> ^longde:
I also feel more sympathetic for that guy, but after reading GA's quote, >> ^GoodAttorney:
Heroic.

I feel kinda sorry for people who are so short of heroes to make this troubled guy into one. The Great White Hope ain't what it used to be.......

Dang. You could just call my comment "disgusting" and leave it at that (you've done it before to some other newb). Maybe you don't have a father figure in advanced age who rides the bus and may be subjected to this type of silliness only to be able to answer forcefully.
Get off the high horse for a second. We're all a little crazy. Thank the good lord there is you, with your large, generous, and sympathetic heart to guide us into the moral oblivion that is what the world is supposed to be and not what it is.

Look, the guy is not in any way heroic. Tragic, yes; a sympathetic figure to some, sure; but heroic, no way.

Just over the last month, there are people all over the world that have done heroic things, much of it captured on youtube and videosift. Some kid pushed a stalled car off rail tracks before it was hit. People rescued others from collapsed buildings after an earthquake. Police and firemen have saved lives this week. Yet, this guy gets the moniker of "epic" and you call him a hero. Get real. Is your bar for heroism that low? If so, that's sad.

Irony alert when preachy people tell me to get off my high horse. I do have some crazy relatives, but I'm not addled enough to call them heroes. I try to get them help when i can. Which is what is missing from this hullabaloo. Of all the videos and websites, who is raising money to get this man some help? People are going so far as to post the names and addresses of the camera people for revenge, and others are talking about recovering the guy's bag. Those things aren't going to help this guy.

Most videos are just using his image to drive some stupid meme. This video for example. She obviously found this guy. Why not ask him about his living conditions and how to help, and then relay to others with her video. Noone is helping because they see EBM as a sideshow, to be forgotten tomorrow.

>> ^GoodAttorney:
>> ^longde:
I also feel more sympathetic for that guy, but after reading GA's quote, >> ^GoodAttorney:
Heroic.

I feel kinda sorry for people who are so short of heroes to make this troubled guy into one. The Great White Hope ain't what it used to be.......

Dang. You could just call my comment "disgusting" and leave it at that (you've done it before to some other newb). Maybe you don't have a father figure in advanced age who rides the bus and may be subjected to this type of silliness only to be able to answer forcefully.
Get off the high horse for a second. We're all a little crazy. Thank the good lord there is you, with your large, generous, and sympathetic heart to guide us into the moral oblivion that is what the world is supposed to be and not what it is.

My moment of heroism:

I was walking past my university main building on my way in to uni that morning. There's areas in england where the road connects to a bicycle path on the pavement (sidewalklol). It's marked in red and separated by a small kerbstone from the pedestrian part of the pavement. Cyclists are SUPPOSED to be carefull when joining these from the road to make sure they don't hit the peds and vice versa. It usually occurs around complicated roundabouts where bikes can get the shaft.

Ok, so there's a girl walking along, about to step into the red area, she's checked the road which was clear from her view. I saw a bike come out of a side street very fast, swing round and go straight onto the pavement colliding HARD with the girl.

So i stopped and waited to see if all was well, she got up and was clearly shocked but started walking away as the big guy on the bike started going "OI YOU, COME HERE. NO DON'T WALK AWAY, GET HERE NOW." This girl really wasn't sure what to do, she was so intimidated by this guy and she was caught between running away and standing still. This guy seemed really unhappy about hitting her and coming off his bike, he had no regard for if she was ok, just the fact that he wasn't ok and his bike wasn't ok.

So the second time he yelled "COME HERE!" I decided to get involved. I yelled at him "Leave her alone you idiot!" And marched right over to him (oh i can be quite brave when i'm annoyed at someone). He stopped yelling but still didn't want to lose the girl. "No don't walk away, come back here," he said. So i said "No, if she wants to go she can go where she likes." At which point, she legged it, clearly scared.

So the guy turns his attention to me now and said "She's just walked right into me!" So i say "No, i saw the incident, dickhead, you're meant to be a lot more careful."

He said "So who's going to pay to fix my bike then?" So i told him i'd take a look at it for him, cos i'm a cyclist myself.

This is when the reason for him not wanting the girl to walk off became apparent - it was a reasonably expensive racing bike, and where he'd fallen, he was going so fast that the handlebars which normally look like -.- (best i can do) had been COMPLETELY bent over so it almost touched the other side, so it looked like this =.

My solution? I laughed and said "Oh i can't fix that hahaha." And off i went.

Yeah, It pisses me off that these news guys use the misery and heroism of others to profit. If they had any respect for the people that day they would be giving in their coverage than taking!
Only he knows if his tears are real anymore.

As for the completion of the new tower it's planned for 2013, because thats the plan. Make no mistake about its intention its an office building, why do I say that, because if we really cared about the people that died, we'd leave just a monument there, people would remember, especially rich people(they can't make money from a monument).

did you catch the vaccines=poison banner in the background?
jesus fucking christ
this either a joke, or hes suffering from some paranoid delusions. not folk heroism.

*heroism

Also an interesting look at herd behavior, as well as how chaotic it can get the more people you add to the equation. Your chances of surviving go down the more people that get involved. Glad it was ultimately a happy ending, even though the kid suffered those burns.

And westy, give up satire. It's not your forte.

>> ^castles:


either way, between the flowers and the heroism, the dude's getting laid.

“The classical example for all times,” says Junius, referring to 1793, “is the Great French Revolution.” From all this, he draws the following conclusion: “Century-old experience thus proves that it is not a state of siege, but heroic class struggle, which rouses the self-respect, the heroism and the moral strength of the masses of the people, and serves as the country’s best protection and defence against the foreign enemy.”

Junius’ practical conclusion is this:

“Yes, it is the duty of the Social-Democrats to defend their country during a great historical crisis. But the grave guilt that rests upon the Social-Democratic Reichstag group lies precisely in that, in solemnly declaring, on August 4, 1914, that ‘In the hour of danger we will not leave our fatherland unprotected,’ they at the same time belied those words. They did leave the fatherland unprotected in the hour of greatest peril. For their first duty to the fatherland in that hour was to show the fatherland what was really behind the present imperialist war; to tear down the web of patriotic and diplomatic lies with which this encroachment on the fatherland was enmeshed; to proclaim loudly and dearly that both victory and defeat in the present war are equally fatal for the German people; to resist to the last the throttling of the fatherland by declaring a state of siege; to proclaim the necessity of immediately arming the people and of allowing the people to decide the question of war and peace; resolutely to demand a permanent session of the people’s representatives for the whole duration of the war in order to guarantee vigilant central over the government by the people’s representatives, and the control over the people’s representatives by the people; to demand the immediate abolition of all restrictions on political rights, for only a free people can successfully defend its country; and, finally, to oppose the imperialist war programme, which is to preserve Austria and Turkey, i.e., perpetuate reaction in Europe and in Germany, with the old, truly national programme of the patriots and democrats of 1848, the programme of Marx, Engels and Lassalle: the slogan of a united, Great German republic. This is the banner that should have been unfurled before the country, which would have been a truly national banner of liberation, which would have been in accord with the best traditions of Germany and with the international class policy of the proletariat.... Hence, the grave dilemma—the interests of the fatherland or the international solidarity of the proletariat—the tragic conflict which prompted our parliamentarians ‘with a heavy heart’ to side with the imperialist war, is purely imaginary, it is bourgeois nationalist fiction. On the contrary, there is complete harmony between the interests of the country and the class interests of the proletarian International, both in time of war and in time of peace; both war and peace demand the most energetic development of the class struggle, the most determined fight for the Social-Democratic programme.”

This is how Junius argues. The fallacy of his argument is strikingly evident, and since the masked and avowed lackeys of tsarism, Messrs. Plekhanov and Chkhenkeli, and perhaps even Messrs. Martov and Chkheidze may gloatingly seize upon Junius’ words, not for the purpose of establishing theoretical truth, but for the purpose of wriggling, of covering up their tracks and of throwing dust in the eyes of the workers, we must in greater detail elucidate the theoretical source of Junius’ error.

He proposes to “oppose” the imperialist war with a national programme. He urges the advanced class to turn its face to the past and not to the future! In France, in Germany, and in the whole of Europe it was a bourgeois-democratic revolution that, objectively, was on the order of the day in 1793 and 1848. Corresponding to this objective historical situation was the “truly national,” i.e., the national bourgeois programme of the then existing democracy; in 1793 this programme was carried out by the most revolutionary elements of the bourgeoisie and the plebeians, and in 1848 it was proclaimed by Marx in the name of the whole of progressive democracy. Objectively, the feudal and dynastic wars were then opposed with revolutionary democratic wars, with wars for national liberation. This was the content of the historical tasks of that epoch.

At the present time the objective situation in the biggest advanced states of Europe is different. Progress, if we leave out the possibility of temporary steps backward, is possible only towards socialist society, only towards the socialist revolution. Objectively, the imperialist bourgeois war, the war of highly developed capitalism, can, from the standpoint of progress, from the standpoint of the progressive class, be opposed only with a war against the bourgeoisie, i.e., primarily civil war between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie for power; for unless such a war is waged serious progress is impossible; and after that—only under certain special conditions—a war to defend the socialist state against bourgeois stares is possible. That is why those Bolsheviks (fortunately, very few, and we quickly handed them over to the Prizyv-ists) who were ready to adapt the point of view of conditional defence, i.e., of defending the fatherland on the condition that there was a victorious revolution and the victory of a republic in Russia, were true to the letter of Bolshevism, but betrayed its spirit: 48 for being drawn into the imperialist war of the advanced European Powers, Russia, even under a republican form of government, would also be waging an imperialist war!

In saying that class struggle is the best means of defence against invasion, Junius applied Marxian dialectics only halfway, taking one step on the right road and immediately deviating from it. Marxian dialectics call for a concrete analysis of each specific historical situation. That class struggle is the best means of defence against invasion is true both with regard to the bourgeoisie, which is overthrowing feudalism, and with regard to the proletariat, which is overthrowing the bourgeoisie. Precisely because it is true with regard to every form of class oppression, it is too general, and therefore, inadequate in the present specific case. Civil war against the bourgeoisie is also a form of class struggle, and only this form of class struggle would have saved Europe (the whole of Europe, not only one country) from the peril of invasion. The “Great German Republic” had it existed in 1914-16, would also have waged an imperialist war.

Junius came very close to the correct solution of the problem and to the correct slogan: civil war against the bourgeoisie for socialism; but, as if afraid to speak the whole truth, he turned back to the fantasy of a “national war” in 1914, 1915 and 1916. Even if we examine the question from the purely practical and not theoretical angle, Junius’ error remains no less clear. The whole of bourgeois society, all classes in Germany, including the peasantry, were in favour of war (in all probability the same was the case in Russia—at least a majority of the well-to-do and middle peasantry and a very considerable portion of the poor peasants were evidently under the spell of bourgeois imperialism). The bourgeoisie was armed to the teeth. Under such circumstances to “proclaim” the programme of a republic, a permanent parliament, election of officers by the people (the “armed nation”), etc., would have meant, in practice, “proclaiming” a revolution (with a wrong revolutionary programme!).

In the same breath Junius quite rightly says that a revolution cannot be “made.” Revolution was on the order of the day in 1914–16, it was hidden in the depths of the war, was emerging out of the war. This should have been “proclaimed” in the name of the revolutionary class, and its programme should have been fearlessly and fully announced: socialism is impossible in time of war without civil war against the arch-reactionary, criminal bourgeoisie, which condemned the people to untold disaster. Systematic, consistent, practical measures should have been thought out, which could be carried out no matter what the rate of development of the revolutionary crisis might have been, and which would be in line with the maturing revolution. These measures are indicated in the resolution of our Party: 1) voting against war credits; 2) violation of “civil peace”; 3) creation of an illegal organisation; 4) fraternisation among the soldiers; 5) support to all the revolutionary actions of the masses.[1] The success of all these steps inevitably leads to civil war.

The promulgation of a great historical programme was undoubtedly of tremendous significance; not the old national German programme, which became obsolete in 1914-16, but the proletarian international and socialist programme. “You, the bourgeoisie, are fighting for plunder; we, the workers of all the belligerent countries, declare war upon you for socialism”—this is the sort of speech that should have been delivered in the Parliaments on August 4, 1914, by Socialists who had not betrayed the proletariat, as the Legiens, Davids, Kautskys, Plekhanovs, Guesdes, Sembats, etc. betrayed it.

Evidently Junius’ error is due to two mistakes in reasoning. There is no doubt that Junius is decidedly opposed to the imperialist war and is decidedly in favor of revolutionary tactics; and all Messrs. Plehhanovs’ gloating over Junius’ “defencism” cannot wipe out this fact. Possible and probable calumnies of this kind must be answered promptly and bluntly.

But, firstly, Junius has not completely rid himself of the “environment” of the German Social-Democrats, even the Lefts, who are afraid of a split, who are afraid to follow revolutionary slogans to their logical conclusions.[2] This is a mistaken fear, and the Left Social-Democrats of Germany must and will rid themselves of it. They will do so in the course of the struggle against the social-chauvinists. The fact is that they are fighting against their own social-chauvinists resolutely, firmly and sincerely, and this is the tremendous, the fundamental difference in principle between them and Messrs. Martovs and Chkheidzes, who, with one hand (à la Skobelev) unfurl a banner bearing the greeting, “To the Liebknechts of All Countries,” and with the other hand tenderly embrace Chkhenkeli and Potresov!

Secondly, Junius apparently wanted to achieve something in the nature of the Menshevik “theory of stages,” of sad memory; he wanted to begin to carry out the revolutionary programme from the end that is “more suitable,” “more popular” and more acceptable to the petty-bourgeoisie. It is something like the plan “to outwit history,” to outwit the philistines. He seems to say: surely, nobody would oppose a better way of defending the real fatherland; that real fatherland is the Great German Republic, and the best defence is a militia, a permanent parliament, etc. Once it was accepted, that programme would automatically lead to the next stage-to the socialist revolution.

Probably, it was reasoning of this kind that consciously or semi-consciously determined Junius’ tactics. Needless to say, such reasoning is fallacious, Junius’ pamphlet conjures up in our mind the picture of a lone man who has no comrades in an illegal organisation accustomed to thinking out revolutionary slogans to their conclusion and systematically educating the masses in their spirit. But this shortcoming—it would be a grave error to forget this-is not Junius’ personal failing, but the result of the weakness of all the German Lefts, who have become entangled in the vile net of Kautskyist hypocrisy, pedantry and “friendliness” towards the opportunists. Junius’ adherents have managed in spite of their isolation to begin the publication of illegal leaflets and to start the war against Kautskyism. They will succeed in going further along the right road.

Not to make little of the pilot's accomplishment -he's obviously Airborne Samurai- but from what I hear of his background, and years of experience, what he did wasn't very heroic, it is to be expected. I think people need to raise the bar on "heroism". It's getting anointed onto way too many achievements lately. I mean, some are calling the ferry boat captains heroes, even though what they did is their lawful duty.

>> ^budzos:
The Wanted graphic novel is fantastic, if a bit nihilistic even for my tastes. It could just as rightly be titled "Wanton". There`s even less heroism than the movie, none of this "kill one to save a thousand" rationalization. The story is brilliant if you've read enough comic books to absorb all the meta stuff. Wanted has a permanent spot on my "public" comic book shelf, a few spots down from The Watchmen.

"nihilisitc" and "less heroism"? That's all you have to say about the comic? The characters in the comic are homicidal psychopaths! James Mcavoy's character rapes women and then murders them, for fun. One of his first actions after getting his powers is to go on a killing spree of every one who has ever wronged him. It's a fucked up work of antisocial adolescent fantasy, the kind of work you'd expect from the imagination of the colombine murderers or the virginia tech gunman.

There may be some interesting ideas thrown in, but that does not save the series from the weak plot and all the gratuitious sex and violence. It's no where near the level of great graphic novels like the watchmen.

I watched this on Blu-ray last night. It was pretty enjoyable, thrilling, and best of all, clearly made for a hard R rating. The loom thing didn't bother me. I also think the movie had very little to do with the comic, which is okay. They're both good. It really is Fight Club meets The Matrix. It`s not a classic, but one of the better action movies of that past ten years.

Nightwatch was interesting but even though I own Daywatch I have not felt compelled to screen it. Maybe I`ll give it a shot soon.

The Wanted graphic novel is fantastic, if a bit nihilistic even for my tastes. It could just as rightly be titled "Wanton". There`s even less heroism than the movie, none of this "kill one to save a thousand" rationalization. The story is brilliant if you've read enough comic books to absorb all the meta stuff. Wanted has a permanent spot on my "public" comic book shelf, a few spots down from The Watchmen.

Kronos i agree so whole heartedly, Craig brings Bond back to life for me. Daniel Craig is the best bond ever imo. I don't have some top10 list, but Craig has totally reinvented and reinfused Bond. For the first time ever, i'm really excited about a new Bond film.

The grittyness is a big factor i think. More realistic fights and actual injuries are great. The shitty sarcasm and poor gags just don't work anymore, and i think the Bourne films (i'm a huge fan) really gave us something new to look for in action films - less explosions, less 'bullet-proof-heroism' in favour of the new gritty style.