Please Get Off Your High Horse, World

[Injury]

Lawl... freedom fries.

And, like I said, I don't know whether you can call this racism or not, but it surely wasn't the same way he would treat somebody else who bought something worth 10$. Just because I'm not an American, does that mean that I can't be treated equally?

Oh, and I didn't wear a shirt saying 'lol I'm from Lithuania' =P

EXPLAIN!  I am asking you to clarify how exactly this person even KNEW you were from a different country, not to tell me it's plausible that you were treated differently because you were from somewhere else.

Also:

seriously you all should watch that movie, it will rip the superstition out of your assholes and put some brain back in where it belongs.


"WELL DUH! I mean, look at the name:

S A D D A M

S=19. A=1. D=4. M=13.

A+A+D+D+M=23.

23-19=4, which is TWICE the difference between 9 and 11.

So OBVIOUSLY it's connected."

please punch yourself for me. If numbers were a connection to everything in the world, we'd all be too superstitious to do anything. 9/11 is a scam, and if you don't think I'm right, you should try to prove me wrong. Look at any tapes of the buildings falling, there is not one damned second where you see WTC 7 get hit by a plane, get ran into by anything, etc. and yet there is molten cordite or whatever in the basement. OMG watch it. Have your mind blown please.

You really need to realize two things.

1. Sarcasm exists.  That person was making a joke, the number thing is silly, and he knew it.

2. There's a reason people are ignoring you, so responding to being ignored with advertising isn't really...  good.

1. How am I to know?

2. Your not ignoring me.

I kinda thought I could express my opinion here, but it's just the opposite.

 

[Venetia]

You're alright, Injury. Just continue the discussion.

 

[___]

In response only to the OP (I didn't read the rest of the forum), I do love my country, the United States, but I love the principles it was founded on, not the monstrosity it has become.  I daresay I spend more time reading, watching, and listening to information concerning American politics and generally educating myself than almost anyone on this forum - most of my free time every day is spent either watching documentaries while working on my art or else reading history and current events.  I don't watch television, although I do occasionally pick up boxed sets of TV exceptional TV shows, I watch about 3 movies a week, and I pretty much refuse to watch anything I've seen before.  So with that little bit of background on me, here's my comments.

Number one, I believe, and I think our founding fathers would have agreed with me, that it is your patriotic duty in a representative government to be critical of the government and your politicians.  You have to keep them on their toes, make sure they are representing your interests, and never for a moment trust them on faith alone.  You have to hold them responsible for their failures and always be vocal about things you disagree with.  As a citizens in a representative government we are responsible through action or inaction for every single thing our government does, and the rest of the world holds us as individuals responsible.  We have the ultimate power in this country, and the responsibility to exercise it.  Remember this country was founded by a group of people who were highly distrustful of the ruling body, so much so that they went to war for independence, and they believed strongly that power corrupts and people in powerful positions are inherently untrustworthy.

Number two, what you've expressed is not what I call patriotism, or what early U.S. citizens would have considered patriotic.  What you are expressing is strongly akin to nationalism, and I don't exaggerate on comparison when I say that nationalism is the "Na" part of "Nazi.".  I've been reading The Rise and Fall of The Third Reich, a massive book which is still considered the definitive history of the Nazi party, and I've been really shocked just how similar in many ways we're becoming to Germany in the 20s at the dawn of national socialism and of fascism in Italy.  Take into consideration the fact that the book was written over 40 years ago before you suggest that it was intentional as people are wont to do any time someone points it out.  Hitler said, "One Fuhrer, One Nation, One Race" and what he meant by that was that it was the German people should act as a single unit along with their leader.  He expected total support for whatever he decided to do, 100% compliance from his people, and zero questioning or criticism from them.  To question the actions of Hitler or the Nazi regime was to commit treason against Hitler, against the Nazi party, and against the German people.  When you condemn people who are critical of the actions of the government or of the American public for failing to control the excesses of our government, you strongly parallel the sentiment of the early Nazi party, and the fact that this is becoming such a common sentiment is frankly terrifying to me.  The view of the Neo-Conservative faction in our country that our military power should be exercised to pursue our interests on a global scale also strongly parallels the national socialists.  The tendency we seem to have of the public and the political right to strongly favor large business both in terms of sentiment and legal policy falls right in line with Mussolini's economic ideas.

I don't say all this to suggest that the end result of nationalistic sentiment must be racism and genocide, but rather to point out that when you subscribe to nationalism you consent to allow your government to take actions under your authority which you may find objectionable or even horrifying, and when you do that you must accept the fact that the rest of the world will hold you as a person and your country as a society responsible for that.  The behavior of our military, our political body, and especially of clandestine segments of our government over the past 50 years has been atrocious by global standards and to try to say that nobody, especially the American people themselves have a right to talk about it or be critical of it, is fallacious and unrealistic at the least, and I find it frightening, anti-patriotic, and fundamentally against the principles our country was founded on.

I suggest you spend more time studying history and current events and making critical comparisons and less time cheering on your country.  I will make a more scholarly attempt to back up my statements here thoroughly when I have more time, for now I have to get going, I have errands to run before work.

Oh as a closing statement please don't take this personally, but rather try to consider it intellectually, I have no personal problem with you or anyone else who shares your idea, I just think you're misguided.  It seems like that needs to be said any time someone brings up the nazis, so there you have it.

 

[Injury]

Thank you Venetia.

Why I posted that link:

Zeitgeit is a film about many of the aspects this conversation is remarking about. It talks about the main controversy of today, religion, the "big scams" of today, and the serious problems in this world. You say advertising, but have you watched it? Please, tell me that movie isn't possibly one of the best depictions of the world today, explain yourself, and if your argument is relevant, I'll have to concur.

Legendary : Sorry. I'm just pissy when it comes to those actual number people trying to say that the stars and the sky have something to do with it.

 

[So fist]

@ Nphyx

First I'm invoking Godwin's law on this:

As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.

The view of the Neo-Conservative faction in our country that our military power should be exercised to pursue our interests on a global scale also strongly parallels the national socialists.

What a load of shit.  First, the Nazi's don't believe in Nation building and Democracy.  They were Fascist, remember? Second, their policy of Lebensraum was designed for the fulfillment of their ultimate plan of establishing an Aryan super-race. This ultimate goal took precedence over National and security interests, and even during the grim final years of the war the Final Solution's implementation took priority over the military.  Which also leads to the fact that the Nazis were in love with the use of eugenic policies which are abhorred by Neo-Cons such as Fukuyama.  I could go on but to keep it short I'll leave it at this: Let's not cheapen the cruel facts about WWII by comparing its actors to today's brand of partisanship.  It's retarded and way over the top.  I don't think you'd find it acceptable if I started comparing today's American Left to Stalinists. So let's lay off that crap.

The behavior of our military, our political body, and especially of clandestine segments of our government over the past 50 years has been atrocious by global standards

For the first thirty of those years it was a bi-polar world, and if you were to compare atrocious behavior by body counts, I'd say the Socialist world of the Soviets, Maoists, Khmer Rouge, DPRK, ect. win easily.  And the Soviets did as much meddling in the affairs of others as we did.  For a philosophy devoted to freeing mankind from bondage and capitalism it sure dealt with life cheaply and inhumanely in practice. 

I agree with you on principle that Democracy is about dissent and debate, but comparing your ideological opponents to the most aberrant and destructive of ideologies in our modern era is equally as retarded as declaring all criticism or critics as unpatriotic.  They're both ad hominem imho.

 

[JonoSasson]

Democracy runs on three basic principals:
Representation, that people are represented by one governing body;
Participation, that the people are able to elect their governing body; and
Accountability, that the actions of the government are accountable to the other branches of government, and the people

I might be Australian, but having studied politics for two years now, you'd be surprised to see how similar the Australian and American political systems are. Why I bring up the principals of democracy is this. Yes, I believe America is a democratic country. Is it 100% democratic? No. But there are no complete democratic countries out there. America isn't particularly high on the official list of most democratic countries in the world, not even in the top 15. Australia is 8th; Sweden, Iceland and the Netherlands are first, second and third respectively. It's not my intention to bag out America because of how democratic they are (it's not my intention to bag America at all), but somewhere along the lines I think the American executive has left it's people behind (in some issues) as they exploit their power. It's hard however to judge a government entirely, it's a big responsibility to lead a country forward. Enough about that...

I don't dislike America as a whole, it some Americans however that I dislike. It's comments like

Who cares about what other people say about the U.S.? They don't know shit.

that annoy me. There are some Americans who are extremely dumb and ignorant who, to use the same phrase as the title of this post, are on their 'superior American' high horses. I was on IGN.com, a predominantly American gaming site which also has correspondence in the UK and Australia, reading an article published by the Australians... anyway, I read the comments which were written mostly by Americans, and some guy goes and says, paraphrasing, "Who cares about Australians? They're so small and insignificant, America could easily buy them out..." I kid you not, that's what this person said. It's ignorance like that which annoys me ever so much. I know there are the kind, thoughtful, intelligent people out there and I'm not targetting any of them... I'm involved with an American at the moment

Spoiler: The world to the ignorant

http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j212/JonoSasson/americanworld.gif[/img]
All in good spirit

That's my piece.

 

[___]

Spoiler: In Reply to Sophist - Warning, it's Long

@ Nphyx

First I'm invoking Godwin's law on this:

I'm well aware of "Godwin's law", thanks, thus the several disclaimers.  If you would like to present a more useful and universally recognizable example of nationalism and totalitarianism in behavior and put into practice in society and governance, please, point one out, and I will gladly use that one instead.

The view of the Neo-Conservative faction in our country that our military power should be exercised to pursue our interests on a global scale also strongly parallels the national socialists.

What a load of shit.  First, the Nazi's don't believe in Nation building and Democracy.

I believe the idea that "American Interests" have much to do with nation building and democracy is laughable in light of both the results of our meddling in foreign affairs and by extension the underlying intent.  You don't have to be a cynic to realize that the overt and covert use of American money and military in foreign affairs has been anything but in the interests of the populations it effects.  I'm not even talking about our most recent and completely overt adventures overseas, either.  I'm talking pretty much all our foreign actions since WWII.  Among the most atrocious, our aid in installing totalitarian dictators bent on genocide from Suharto to Sadam to Casto.  In a very modern and relevant context, look how much money and political power we're devoting toward encouraging foreign countries to institute and uphold protectionist laws that favor American-based multinationals, especially in the field intellectual property but pretty much in all walks of life - see for instance McLibel or the attacks on the Pirate Bay as documented in Steal This Film, Part 1. The resounding pattern has always been to get friendly with governments who support our big business and political interests and to help undermine those who don't, and wherever we can to help install people who will support our interests, regardless of their ethics or the way they plan to govern their country.  The Neo-Cons just take this to the farthest extreme by saying "yes, we should be out there using our military might to smack around people who won't get in line with our agenda," whether they oppose our puppet dictators, farcical democracies, globalization, exploitation of their natural resources, or what have you.  The difference between them and the clandestine factions of the government in the past several decades is that they do so unabashedly.  In interviews of Neo-Con leaders I've seen in the last several months especially, they actually talk about Rome's military agendas as if it was a good model of politics.  And indeed you do actually see in the economic world strong parallels with Roman Imperialism, in terms of imbalanced export & import, economic inequality between citizens and the working class (then slaves, today people working slave wages, especially in the third world), especially laborers in outlying territories.  I'll stop here rather than go too far into a history lessen or derail the point of the thread and get too much into debating US foreign policy rather than the notion of the right to criticize the government, I hope that's more than enough to back up my statement.

Second, their policy of Lebensraum was designed for the fulfillment of their ultimate plan of establishing an Aryan super-race.

Actually Lebensraum, literally, "Living Space", was the movement to conquer foreign territory, especially in the Ukraine, for use by Germans.  The "Dual Monarchy" of Germany and Austria at the turn of the century and on into the 20s was experiencing serious overcrowding and a lack of arable land, and the expansionist agenda of the Nazi party was meant to solve that problem.  Lebensraum, at least in concept, had little to do with the racist ideals of the later aspects of the Nazi party.  You may be thinking of "Lebensborn", the secret (even amongst Nazi officials at the time) breeding program headed up by Heinrich Himmler.  This information is available on a rudimentary Wikipedia search.  I do see many parallels between Lebensraum and Globalization, but certainly not in the overt and obvious way in which I was referencing the nationalistic ideals of Hitler's Nazis as compared to modern nationalistic leanings in America on both sides of the political divide.

Which also leads to the fact that the Nazis were in love with the use of eugenic policies which are abhorred by Neo-Cons such as Fukuyama.

I'm not at all interested in talking about eugenics, if you recall the point of my argument, as I stated, was to draw a parallel between modern nationalism and that of the early national socialists in Germany, not to call the political right racists, or any other nonsense, as I also clearly stated.  If I failed to communicate that, I apologize.  As much as there is a racist component in a lot of far-right rhetoric, especially concerning immigration, I don't think the Neo-Cons would have anything to do with it, and they if anything are model citizens in that regard.

those years it was a bi-polar world, and if you were to compare atrocious behavior by body counts, I'd say the Socialist world of the Soviets, Maoists, Khmer Rouge, DPRK, ect. win easily...

Here you seem to jump to the conclusion that people who are critical of the political right must be communists or socialists.  I find communism and most forms of socialism horrifying, personally, to at least the same extent that fascism and corporatism are.  The two are not diametrically opposed points of view, but rather brothers with the same basic agenda:  take away the ability of the common citizen to live independently, make personal choices and be active in their government, and ensure their dependence on and support of people who "know better".  Both of them spit in the face of any free society, who require governance only to the extent that it ensures the continual dissolution of power bases and the preservation of basic inviolable human rights.  I believe in the country of George Washington, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, et cetera, at least on the points that they all agreed on and laid out in our now sadly abused constitution.  Looking back at the founding fathers and their ideologies, I think it is easy to see how far we've strayed from them, and how timeless they truly were.

I agree with you on principle that Democracy is about dissent and debate

I'm glad in any case of that

but comparing your ideological opponents to the most aberrant and destructive of ideologies in our modern era is equally as retarded as declaring all criticism or critics as unpatriotic.[/quote]
See my first statement.  Nationalism is the most important component in the establishment any totalitarian regime and thus it bears looking into history and remembering its effects.  The growing notion that it is distasteful to talk about Nazis or any other abhorrent regime as a historical reference to modern events is ridiculous.  The old truism that those who ignore the past are doomed to repeat it is never more applicable than today, when leaders and policy makers all around the world seem to be happily charging down the path of blissful ignorance and short-sighted self-interest.  If you're willing to do some heavy reading I strongly recommend The Rise and Fall of The Third Reich by William Shirer.  It gives unparalleled insight into the rise of nationalism and totalitarianism in Germany from the most direct source possible - someone who lived through the experience and had extensive access to first-hand information in the aftermath of WWII. You can read a little more about the book and its author if you follow that link to Amazon, and it's widely available in public libraries as well as illegitimately on the web.

They're both ad hominem imho.

In most cases I agree, but, and sorry to restate myself yet again, I am simply drawing comparison between nationalism of this era and of the most commonly recognizable nationalist regime in recent history.  The German people, who were not guilty for the acts of their government, were nonetheless instrumental in enabling it by subscribing to blind nationalism, and I fear that we as a nation are walking down the same road of complicity, inaction and unquestioning support, with ultimately the same destination in terms of degree of horrible consequences, if not so much the same execution.

Sorry to chop up your last statement, but I think I left it in context.

So on to the media.  The subject of the decline of journalism in America since the New Journalism movement really gained momentum in the 70s deserves a thread of its own.  It is safe to say modern mass media outlets are completely in the pockets of corporate interests, but to say that they have an anti-government agenda I think misses the role of the media entirely.  The job of the media is to be highly critical of the government, to reveal its shortcomings and the agendas of the people running it.  In that sense journalism is inherently liberal; true journalism can't help but call to light the failure of the government to serve its people, and it's not much interested in gabbing on about all the wonderful things the government is doing because it expects those things as standard behavior.  If you find yourself in a place where the news media is supportive of and content with the government, you most likely live in a place where the government controls the media.  In the sense that it serves as an outlet for political pundits who would rather give us an opinion than give us facts on which to base our own opinions, that is a failure of basic journalistic integrity. 

I think more lamentable than the pandering and propagandizing of the mass media is the fact that it spends so much time on highly divisive topics, essentially preaching to choirs and doing nothing to enlighten its audience or bring attention to new and important material.  The documentary "Outfoxed" is a good primer on the utter lack of journalism or general ethics found in one of America's biggest news networks, and while it gives anything but a balanced view of media as a whole it's easy enough to extrapolate and gives you plenty to think about.  The 1976 film Network and the controversy surrounding it at the time gives a great insight into just how far we've fallen since the dawn of New Journalism.  People found the material in the movie utterly ridiculous and unimaginable at the time, and yet today's media in comparison makes the film look tame in some respects.

Perhaps saddest of all is that my generation, and I imagine that of most of the people in this forum, has been raised on this poison and really has no idea what real journalism is or what kind of things to expect from the media.  If you want a look at what is in my opinion a brilliant piece of journalism, pick up The Prisoner or: How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair.  It's a documentary about an Iraqi journalist who was erroneously accused of being part of a conspiracy to assassinate Tony Blair and imprisoned in Abu Ghraib for it.  Despite how that sounds they do a brilliant job of presenting straight facts, giving a full picture of the story from both sides, and staying away from political commentary.  They simply tell you what happened from the perspective of both the main subject and from some of the U.S. military officers involved with him and any kind of opinion forming or politics is left completely to the viewer.  Amazing.  Warning though, those used to modern news media will likely find it incredibly boring.

Both the documentaries I mentioned can be found on Google Video as of this writing, but for the sake of liability I won't provide links since I doubt they're authorized.  You can pick them up at your local video store as well, or order them online.

@JonoSasson:  the image you posted is sad but so true.  Not everybody in the U.S. has forgotten the rest of the world exists.  I'm as happy as any American to point out that we started modern democracy and provided the model most other countries built on, but I don't see a reason to have an air of superiority about it.  Some of the innovations in other countries on our model of governance are excellent - being the prototype has its drawbacks. I'm proud of my heritage in such a country for sure, and really depressed and sometimes ashamed of what it's come to.  I don't think many other countries have a pedestal from which to look down on the U.S.  There are problems right now throughout the democratic world, but they're problems mostly to do with forgetting where we came from and what our forefathers were trying to build.  We're all too eager to let other people provide us with comfort and security, tell us what to think and who to trust and how to live our lives.  We've thrown any concrete idea of what "freedom" actually is by the wayside and enshrined it with rhetoric.  I say freedom is the opposite of security, freedom is the opposite of dependence, freedom is the opposite of authority, and therefore all those things ultimately work to undermine it if not kept in check (maybe a little rhetoric of my own).