an ominous comment

[Stephen D. Williams]

This is farcical, but one more round lest silence be taken as tacit agreement.  For those of you who can't efficiently process 
unwanted email, apologies.  And consider getting a better email client + plugins.

On 7/21/15 2:03 AM, Zenaan Harkness wrote:
> On 7/21/15, Stephen D. Williams <sdw at 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 at 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

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