This is farcical, but one more round
lest silence be taken as tacit agreement. For those of you who
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On 7/21/15 2:03 AM, Zenaan Harkness wrote:
On 7/21/15, Stephen D. Williams <sdw@lig.net> wrote:
On 7/20/15 10:32 PM, Juan wrote:
On Mon, 20 Jul 2015 21:36:57 -0700
"Stephen D. Williams" <sdw@lig.net> wrote:
On 7/20/15 9:07 PM, Juan wrote:
Hey. *Now* I get it.
This mailing list has a lot of tor-tards who are apologists
of the pentagon's propaganda and spying efforts.
Are you saying that the Pentagon is never good or useful? Nor are
any of their spying efforts?
Are you saying the pentagon is good and useful?
The Pentagon et al are protecting a large portion of the world from being
overrun. Nobody else will do it.
Damn! From Russia and China yeah? Wow. What a mindset.
Not really, more from warlords, dictators, etc. Supposedly Russia
is "only protecting their ethnic Russians". From what? Joining
NATO and Western Europe as far as I could tell.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covert_United_States_foreign_regime_change_actions
"The United States has been involved in and assisted in the overthrow
of foreign governments (more recently termed "regime change") without
the overt use of U.S. military force. Often, such operations are
tasked to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)."
Yep, the US has been involved in all kinds of past situations, along
with a number of other countries. Those were indeed the bad old
days. Sometimes intentions were good, sometimes maybe not. It's
too bad that people 40-80 years ago didn't have 2015 sensibilities.
Romans begat Europe, British begat a lot, including terrible
treatment of Aborigines and Maori. Europe decimated American
Indians. Slavery. But you imply that past possibly-poor actions
indicate present value. Hardly. None of those people are in power
and most are dead. Everyone has learned a lot, J. Edgar Hoover is
no longer blackmailing US Presidents and everyone else to preserve
his FBI empire, etc. Americans beat up on America quite a bit and
all of this eventually comes out, often these days as very watchable
movies that authoritatively teach what we weren't taught in school,
about the US and often the rest of the world. Generally, lessons
are learned and we do better in the future. But occasionally
someone slips in who is not an intellectual powerhouse and mistakes
are made again. Se la vie. What's your better alternative?
Even when the US meddled, except for a very few circumstances, it
was to achieve something useful, not to subjugate peoples for
colonies, incorporation into an empire, etc. The US pays a lot for
legacy military bases everywhere, provides lots of protection and
other benefits, and generally attempts fit in and be respectful.
I grant they seem to be doing ... something. Here's the table of
contents from that wiki page:
Contents
1 Cold War
1.1 Syria 1949
... 2.3 Iran 2005–present
Perhaps those are the countries that were going to overrun "us" (never
mind the fact I live in Australia anyway, but damn, what a way of
thinking).
What is your concept? That no one have power to repel anyone else?
That some other country / culture is better suited to being "on
top"? The US is the worst system, except for everything else. It
is deliberately designed to be messy, in conflict, and unstable.
The genius of this arrangement is that it leads to a stronger result
than anything else.
SDW, thank you for being so frank - honest about how you think. It is
educational to me in a good way. Part of the difference is perhaps
that I am not living in the USA, so I look inwards to your government
and agencies, not outwards.
Many non-Americans don't really get America, even if they have
visited or lived here. Many Americans don't fully get America
either; easy to be parochial.
Not long ago, someone was tearing into the US about teargas being
used in some situation, how terrible and dangerous it was, etc. I
pointed out, with references, that every single American military
individual is subjected to a good dose of teargas as part of
training.
when they don't determine their goals or rules of
engagement? Their job is to be a bad ass tool, the proverbial big
stick. It is someone else's job to decide how to use that tool.
Marines don't kill people, politicians using Marines kill people.
Err, something like that.
Marines and other 'military personnel' murder people when
'ordered' to. They are the worst scumbags on earth.
Politicians are morally responsible. The military are morally
and materially responsible.
Are police always bad too?
...
Is everyone from the CIA scumbags by definition?
Yes.
Whatever you gotta believe.
Most of their job is to understand the world,
:)
Interesting way of "understanding" the world - 'regime change' is
about as polite a way the current empire can couch its predominant
activity since WWII.
In some cases, regime change can be nice. Depends on specifics.
...
I would even say that a lot of government employees and
contractors seem to have got away with a lot of things they shouldn't
have. But that doesn't mean that any of those organizations are
fundamentally evil and aren't almost completely staffed by
intelligent, respectable people.
LOL. So, how much trolling should I let you get away with?
Worthless murdering scumbags are 'respectable' people and not
'fundamentally evil'. Sure. Maybe they are 'accidentally'
evil?
DOJ, Treasury, State, HHS, etc. are filled with worthless murdering
scumbags?
Time to wake up. You evidently need to do more research. The balance
of good vs. evil, of the once mighty USA, is well and truly tipped in
favour of despotism and cronyism at this point in history. Very
unfortunately. And notwithstanding the good remnant who do remain
actually within the system (as insignificant and ineffective as they
are to effecting good into the world).
Yea? Interesting. I think you've been watching Fox News too much.
Or you are talking about New Jersey. ;-)
We obsess about that stuff precisely because it isn't tolerated at
all, except for narrowly acceptable, mostly noise levels.
How do you come to think this? What's your evidence?
Greece. Rome. Persia. British Empire. USA.
Every empire falls. USA has fallen, it just can't quite see the
reality of this yet.
Yea? What would constitute a fall for the US? I don't think you
understand the nature of the US or what would constitute a win.
There are certain people, Marines et al, who are trained to be very lethal.
Sucks to need that, but being anything less than the
strongest & baddest isn't an option for the US. They are concentrated,
supposed to be carefully deployed and directed. Create
people like that from the subset of people who want to be like that and a
few are going to go off the rails occasionally. That's a
bummer, and needs to be constantly protected against, but there's no obvious
alternative.
The US is the least imperialist top superpower that ever existed. Still not
perfect, but better than all the rest.
"No better than all the rest". Fixed that for you.
Few would agree with that.
The record is abysmal. USA is "morally" (on an international political
and death-toll level) and financially bankrupt.
Depends on what you look at. There are some things that we as a
group definitely think were mistakes, Iraq etc.
I just pray that the end of USA's grab for global hegemony means a
long lasting multi-polar world, and not a new imperialist Chinese
"empire regime".
What do you think the "success" of a USA grab for global hegemony
would look like? What do you think the USA end goal is if it wasn't
"stopped"?
How about they 'accidentally' beat you to a pulp and then feed
you to the pigs? Just as an innocent mistake of course...
Oh kay. Are you off your meds?
You're missing the point. "Regime change" means if you're in their
way, your life ends. Time for you to do some history lessons. Because
you feel safe (you're one of the "good guys" right?), you don't see
the problem, and you therefore have difficulty hearing the message.
Your construction there seems off, but:
Much of aggression has been about answering threats, directly or
indirectly. So your statement doesn't apply to Afghanistan, WWII,
etc. Korea, Vietnam, etc. were about a perceived threat that seemed
real; we generally consider those to probably have been wrong on
multiple levels. I guess you think that if anyone supports the US,
they must be agreeing with everything that's ever happened.
Obviously that's a terribly simplistic assumption.
Anyway, if you're still in the rebelling against authority stage,
fine, have fun. Good luck with that. In the US, government wise,
the people are the authority
Really? That's an interesting concept. How many lsd doses do
you need in order to reach the parallel universe where that
is reality? Because in this universe, it isn't.
You haven't been watching long or closely enough. Things have changed
a lot in the US in my lifetime, and it's only speeding up.
Sadly, individual liberty was not respected enough to capture the
sanction of foreign thinkers. I'm being extraordinarily conservative
in my words here...
"Capture the sanction of foreign thinkers"? Nonsense.
sdw