as a self professed liberal.. oh the shame, the shame. Sorry marines.

HAHAHA! "If only there was an organization to defend free speech."
And I love that he gets up in the middle of the interview.

I <3 Rob Riggle.

hey rasch?
so long as the Daily Show, Colbert, etc are regionblocked?
because their reptilian alien overlords at Viacom continue to be more concerned with their short-term residual pennies, then the long-term repeat business from ... oh, was i rambling again? shit. where was i? oh.

if you're going to sift regionblocked stuff, please include an un-RB'ed alternate link, in the Description, so that the rest of earth can enjoy?

let's not make fedquip have to do it for everyone else? thx!

As a a self-professed liberal I am also ashamed, but only to a certain extent. Marines, along with the rest of the United States military, help protect the free speech that hippies so dearly treasure, as should we all. (To be clear: I am NOT anti-hippie. Just anti-hippie ignorance. Wait: I'll make it simpler and state that I'm just anti-ignorance, all the way across the political spectrum.) They would not have these freedoms unless they were defended. No, I'm not talking about faux bogeymen like Saddam, but the Axis powers in WWII.

HOWEVER, I can understand the hostility of those who don't like the military because they openly and (unfortunately) legally discriminate against homosexuals. And I am a former military man. I personally knew a number of gays in the Navy who were still outstanding sailors, and it still gets me riled that to this day that they have to live a lie in order to keep their jobs. On that account, the hippies got it right.

But when they start talking about Marines being murderers then the conversation ends for me. I know at that point that they cannot be reached, in the same way that people who equate dissent with treason are also unreachable.

So let me frame the larger debate this way: Who was the worst Democratic president? Carter? And what did he do wrong? Allow double-digit inflation and ask us to dial down our thermostats. Who's the worst Republican president? You might as well ask who's the worst president ever. Until Hitler or Stalin gets reincarnated, I think we all know the answer to that one.

*politics

Adding video to channels (Politics) - requested by kronosposeidon.

Mmmmm Crepes A Go Go..... the best little crepe shop in the Americas*
ok, now I'm hungry.

*biased personal opinion.

My girlfriend goes to Berkeley. Whenever I visit her, there always seems to be some retarded hippie protest going on.

And Berkeley does have some delicious crepes right there.

lol

>> ^kronosposeidon:
So let me frame the larger debate this way: Who was the worst Democratic president? Carter? And what did he do wrong? Allow double-digit inflation and ask us to dial down our thermostats. Who's the worst Republican president? You might as well ask who's the worst president ever. Until Hitler or Stalin gets reincarnated, I think we all know the answer to that one.

wow - until now, I thought you were old enough to know better. I guess not. FDR might qualify as the worst Demo president, because he intentionally brought the US into a war which this country did not need to fight. As with Bush, Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy, Eisenhower, Truman, etc., we have been fighting that ever present ghost. That crazy notion that if we don't fight them there, they will come here and overrun us all with their godless atrocities. Wake up. This has been an imperial nation since Teddy and even before -- going back to Jefferson and Adams. The real question is when will the citizens of this country accept that fact? They never have - they keep inventing reasons why we need to invade place like the Philippines, New Orleans, Cuba, Eastern Europe, South Africa, Central Asia, etc.

And as far as the Marines are concerned, name a single day on which the Marines defended the shores of the United States, as opposed to invading the shores of another country, not counting the American revolution, which is debatable depending on which side of the Atlantic you live.

Whoa, wait. We invaded New Orleans now?

>> ^jonny:
>> ^kronosposeidon:
So let me frame the larger debate this way: Who was the worst Democratic president? Carter? And what did he do wrong? Allow double-digit inflation and ask us to dial down our thermostats. Who's the worst Republican president? You might as well ask who's the worst president ever. Until Hitler or Stalin gets reincarnated, I think we all know the answer to that one.
wow - until now, I thought you were old enough to know better. I guess not. FDR might qualify as the worst Demo president, because he intentionally brought the US into a war which this country did not need to fight. As with Bush, Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy, Eisenhower, Truman, etc., we have been fighting that ever present ghost. That crazy notion that if we don't fight them there, they will come here and overrun us all with their godless atrocities. Wake up. This has been an imperial nation since Teddy and even before -- going back to Jefferson and Adams. The real question is when will the citizens of this country accept that fact? They never have - they keep inventing reasons why we need to invade place like the Philippines, New Orleans, Cuba, Eastern Europe, South Africa, Central Asia, etc.
And as far as the Marines are concerned, name a single day on which the Marines defended the shores of the United States, as opposed to invading the shores of another country, not counting the American revolution, which is debatable depending on which side of the Atlantic you live.

Dude, you been drinking again? FDR brought US into a war? Last I heard, we were attacked first. And don't start with some conspiracy shit about FDR knowing about the Pearl Harbor attack ahead of time.

I don't debate that we are an imperial nation, and that our military has often been an instrument of our imperial designs. That's why I only mentioned WWII, because we were fighting to defend ourselves. However virtually every nation on Earth, even the most peaceful ones like Switzerland, maintains a standing army. Why? To deter invasions, if nothing else. So even with our imperial government our armed forces, through their mere presence, have still done the noble job of defending our shores.

I didn't know the Marines invaded New Orleans either. You must be privy to some secret history that no one else knows about.

>> ^kronosposeidon:
Dude, you been drinking again?

yep.

FDR brought US into a war? Last I heard, we were attacked first. And don't start with some conspiracy shit about FDR knowing about the Pearl Harbor attack ahead of time.

It has nothing to do with any crazy conspiracy. FDR did pretty much everything he could to provoke the Japanese gov't, knowing full well what the likely response would be. He didn't have to know the specific time and place.

And I meant south Africa with a small 'S'. But that's really only by proxy (afaik).

I don't debate that we are an imperial nation, and that our military has often been an instrument of our imperial designs. That's why I only mentioned WWII, because we were fighting to defend ourselves. However virtually every nation on Earth, even the most peaceful ones like Switzerland, maintains a standing army. Why? To deter invasions, if nothing else. So even with our imperial government our armed forces, through their mere presence, have still done the noble job of defending our shores.

Marines, by their very nature, are not a defensive force. I found the vid way over the top in its attempt to discredit a group of people protesting recruitment into a strictly offensive force, so I responded in kind. Whether the U.S. needs a million strong standing army to defend itself is debatable. To argue that it needs the strongest invasion forces on the planet (not to mention nuclear capable subs, B-2s, etc.) borders on the ludicrous.

I didn't know the Marines invaded New Orleans either. You must be privy to some secret history that no one else knows about.

lol - Invasion was the wrong word. No, I was referring to Jefferson's purchase. Imperial expansion doesn't, by definition, have to occur at gunpoint.

He's like a grown up Cartman.

Well jonny, I'm sorry that FDR didn't leave the poor Japanese alone so that their army could rape Nanking and the Korean peninsula in peace. I'm also sorry he loaned hardware to Britain so that they could defend their nation from Nazi aggression. All Hitler wanted was genocide and world domination. What right did we have to stand in his way?

As far as your take on the purpose of the military in general and the Marines in particular, to me it's not worth debating. I'm not talking about B2's and umpteen thousand nukes, I'm talking about maintaining a standing army. Tell us all what the ideal size of our armed forces should be, and for the hell of it also tell us all the hardware our military really needs, right down to the last destroyer, tank, bomber, and bullet.

And why even bring up the Louisiana Purchase if it doesn't involve the military, which is what we're talking about in the first place? I agree that imperialism takes on many forms, including gigantic land purchases. But how the hell that relates to the topic at hand, i.e., the military, is tangential at best.

I wasn't suggesting that the imperial aggressions of other nations during WWII were at all defensible. But you don't really believe the U.S. entered the war for purely altruistic or defensive motives, do you?

You conveniently sidestepped the point I was making with all the sarcastic jibes. You're obviously smart enough to know better than to suggest this country is not an imperial power. But then you seem to claim that whatever military power it feels it needs is appropriate.

The tangential references to non-military imperialism were included only to illustrate the larger picture. The relevance is to the aggressive nature of the country, exemplified by what the folks in Berkeley were protesting against.

^jonny surely you can bring up a better examples of US imperialism using the armed forces than WWII. The Mexican and Spanish American wars for instance, where the goal of those wars was to gain territory. After WWII we established more military presence in the Pacific, I suppose you could call that imperialism, but its not in the traditional sense where one plants a flag in the ground and claims it for their country. We expanded our influence, but I can't say that's the same as actually taking over a country. Even in South Korea where we still have a military presence, we're far from running the place.

If your definition of imperialism is any amount of influence over any nation not our own, then yeah we do a lot of that, but you're obviously smart enough to know better than to think everyone has that broad a definition. I define it with actual territorial gains, or at the very least installing a puppet government that does everything we say.

I'm downvoting anything I find that is regionblocked. We decided not to sift things from comedy central, but left it as "community inforced." Which means nothing. So my version is to downvote everything I find from there.

Crosswords, I'm sure you've heard of Guam. The U.S. in fact did basically go there and plant a flag. As it did in Berlin and lots of other places around the world in the aftermath of WWII. But look, I don't want to argue over points like that. I mentioned WWII in the context of good vs bad presidents. But even this is getting way off topic.

The whole point of my original comment was that I think the ridicule of people sincerely protesting aggressive recruitment to be shallow and reactionary. It's a bit reminiscent of the kind of false patriotism around the lapel pin flags. There are folks in this country who genuinely think that the U.S. should not be maintaining such a large aggressively positioned military force. In fact, a couple of them were running for President. It's not like the folks in Berkeley were some radicals on the lunatic fringe. But that's how they were depicted in the vid and in some of the preceding comments.

Admittedly, my original comment was not only poorly conceived and delivered, but strayed way off topic. I can also understand KP's reaction since my comment would seem to have been a direct attack on him. Sorry about that dude - you guessed it correctly in your first response to me. It was a drunken reply to what I saw as a condescending dismissal of legitimate philosophical/political positions.

^Peace, brother.

I want to chime in on the "worst Democratic president ever" question, I say it's a toss up between James Buchanan or Andrew Johnson. Buchanan because he got to oversee the dissolution of the Union and the beginning of secession, Johnson because he botched the post-war period and left things such that we'd end up having Jim Crow...and in my mind, many of the social issues of the 21st century America has its roots in the civil war, and the reconstruction period that followed.

In the 20th century, all the Democrats who actually became president were better than all the scores of Republicans. I might give Eisenhower the nod over Woodrow Wilson, but that's iffy.

Anyone calling FDR the worst Democrat needs their head examined. Anyone disagreeing about Bush ranking anywhere other than just a tick better than Buchanan and Johnson as worst president of ANY party, also needs their head examined (or has some extra dirt on Harding that I hadn't heard yet).

If we end up descending into civil war in the next decade or two, Bush will have earned that bottom slot fair and square, though.

BTW, this was a pretty funny clip, wtf is up with the serious commentary? =)

I am ever surprised in how many people that sift while they are drunk. We should get a beer-sponsor or something, because I have seen quite a few posts that ended with something like "I'm sorry, I was drunk.." Fun while it lasts, though.

Guam was acquired during the Spanish American war, I believe the US took the Marshal islands from Japan, though I think they're sovereign now.

My reaction was to them trying to boot the Marines out of their office suggesting they had no right to be there. I didn't see much on them just protesting the war or the aggressive recruitment tactics they used. I have no doubt they were either. The Daily Show is sensationalist, that's kind of what they do, and the report was on something most people find absurd, saying they had no right to have a recruitment office (not protesting the war, or aggressive/dishonest recruitment). I guess my stance on the whole thing is, i thought it was a douchey thing for them to do, just as it is when the armed forces uses aggressive/misleading recruitment tactics, it had nothing to do with patriotism.

cool. i love a good chat.

here's the funny part, for me.
as a liberal, i personally feel not one fucking ounce of ashamed.

if you didn't take part, in the behavior you're embarrassed to witness, why feel any sense of shame about it?
and no, that's not purely a rhetorical question. if, after reading this, you actually do know of some reason you should feel ashamed, say so, and what you think you should do to atone.

>> ^jonny:
> The whole point of my original comment was that I think the ridicule of people sincerely protesting aggressive recruitment to be shallow and reactionary.

and if they had presented their case, as well as you just defended them with that sentence? we wouldn't be having this discussion. because the Daily Show wouldn't have had anything to make fun of.
i don't doubt their sincerity. but personally, i don't see a thoughtful, organized protest against aggressive recruitment, here. i've seen those. they know the specific recruitment tactics they are protesting. this doesn't look like that, to me.

and maybe i'm being cynical here, but i suspect half of what Berkeley's pissed about? is NIMBY. and if so, i say fuck that.

i find many of the Code Pink events to be honorably conceived, but poorly organized & executed.
know who they could learn from, in that regard? the USMC.
though i share the anti-war sentiment that the community of Berkeley is expressing? i think they're expressing it poorly. and that the Daily did a good job of pointing that out, because exposing hypocrisy is what they do best.

and if the hypocrisy comes from a group i associate myself with?
i'm all the more grateful to those exposing it, not ashamed.

Aw sweet, thanks for the unblocked link.>> ^NetRunner:

BTW, this was a pretty funny clip, wtf is up with the serious commentary? =)


The Sift THRIVES on it, like a hungry mollusk.

I too applaud drunken sifting and this take on the opposition to the *waronterror on *latenight.

Adding video to channels (Latenight, Waronterror) - requested by Krupo.

I guess the better question is "...worst democratic president 1930-present", because the ones before that don't even resemble the modern democratic party. Dems used to be the mostly the party of the south and the rural, and Republicans used to be mostly the party of the North and urban, but that has reversed. Now the Republicans think they're "defending" themselves against immigrants just like the Democrats of the reconstruction era thought they were "defending" themselves against "negros". One thing that hasn't changed is that the majority of the South and the Rural are still on the wrong side.

FDR might qualify as the worst Demo president, because he intentionally brought the US into a war which this country did not need to fight.


O RLY? If the US had not intervened, there are 3 ways that might end, in order of likelihood:
1. Russia single-handedly takes control of continental Europe from the Axis Powers and sets up puppet satellites, putting the West at a huge disadvantage in the Cold War. Maybe Britain gets a small beachhead in France after Stalin sacks Berlin, but they don't have enough forces to take the rest of France without US help, and Stalin will control almost all of Europe.
2. Axis Powers and Russia fight to a standstill/truce and buy Hitler some time to finish the "final solution".
3. Axis powers win

It is extremely unlikely England could have liberated France without the help of the USA.

^ 4. Einstein goes back in time, kills Hitler, thus allowing Stalin to ... ahh fuck.

that horse is skeletal, j. done beating it?

HIPPIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

If you think the military "protects free-speech" then you are extremely naive. I'm no damn hippie although I do live in the Bay Area and many of us in California have seen riot police and the military suppress free-speech through violence and police state on many occasions. America never wages war to protect free speech - they use the police and military to censor it in the homeland... I mean come on this is just common knowledge at this point in time. Did you guys not see the recent expose on the military psyops campaign that took place and was supported by all of the mainstream news media outlets? They aren't here to protect your free speech you so adamantly speak of.

Code Pink sucks and are usually really annoying (they did pie a KRON 4 newscaster once and thought that was hilarious) but so does the military industrial complex and I think that is essentially what they are protesting. The only reason I would support the military is that for many of the less fortunate it is their only way to better skills and education. Obviously, this needs to STOP. This country doesn't need to be spending most of the tax money on military to wage war so defense contractors can run away with fortunes ; we need that money going into education fucking NOW.

Warren G. Harding and Franklin Pierce were pretty bad. Harding was so bad to this day people graffiti his wiki page.

William Henry Harrison was the best. It's impossible to find anything negative about his presidency.

William Henry Harrison gave a tremendously long inaugural address. So by my count the one thing he did as president he did poorly.

complacentnation - you seriously think you've experienced a police state? I think that if you ever did, you would look back to that^ event and pray it was then again.

No where in this country have we come remotely close to being in a true police state.

This reminds me of when the Black Watch (a Montreal infantry unit) had a recruiting information table at Concordia University for part of a day and a bunch of students came by and flipped it and started scattering and destroying the pamphlets and other materials. The two soldiers who were tending to the booth -- there in order to answer questions -- wisely stood back and let the students tear shit up until they ran out of steam (much better than doing anything which would result in the headline "Soldiers grapple with local students").

Really, though, attacking an information booth? That's ignorant. It wasn't a recruiting facility; you couldn't have enlisted there if you'd wanted to. It was just pamphlets and literature and a couple of soldiers to answer questions.

Actually one of my roommate's friends who I now gather is on the anti-establishment end of things was over today and used the magnetic poetry on the fridge to write "if you can't stand the military it is preferable to speak softly", definitely directed at me. I asked the girls politely who'd written it, the friend said nothing, my roommate claimed responsibility (which I know wasn't true), and I commented to both of them that the way I see it, if somebody can't stand the military it's preferable to have a conversation about it. But apparently the chick wasn't any more interested in having a discussion than she was in claiming her own zing; she stayed silent.

>> ^my15minutes:
^ 4. Einstein goes back in time, kills Hitler, thus allowing Stalin to ... ahh fuck.
that horse is skeletal, j. done beating it?


Actually if someone assassinated Hitler the axis powers might have fared better. Hitler's incompetence led to the defeat at Stalingrad.

*blocked

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