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Random Political Thoughts

Started by MV/Liberace!, February 08, 2012, 10:50:42 AM

b_dubb

Quote from: Frys Girl on March 15, 2012, 05:38:53 PM
http://www.breedingcontempt.com/

Dog lovers: please check this site and consider donating. Let me know what you think.
Road trip! Let's all pile in my Winebago and go to Seneca, NY. There ... we'll take turns jumping up and down Yoder's face before we stick him and his family into his makeshift gas chamber and hooking the hose up to a diesel exhaust. I'm joking. Well ... mostly

BobGrau

Quote from: b_dubb on March 19, 2012, 05:25:53 PM
Road trip! Let's all pile in my Winebago and go to Seneca, NY. There ... we'll take turns jumping up and down Yoder's face before we stick him and his family into his makeshift gas chamber and hooking the hose up to a diesel exhaust. I'm joking. Well ... mostly

A coastgab road movie? Jesus.

BobGrau

I keep seeing this ad for the (uk) electoral commision - their slogan is 'use your vote, don't lose it'.

This attitude has always pissed me off - you're telling me if I don't vote, one of the two mainstream parties that have any realistic chance of forming a government in this country are likely to promote a fascist agenda that involves repealing democracy? Really???

I live in a country where the individual vote counts for NOTHING, and the established partys refuse to reform the electoral system because it threatens the status quo. There is no way for us to express dissatisfaction with the candidates, it's just 'vote for the lesser of two evils'. To then be told 'if you don't vote we might just take it away all together'... aaargh it makes me so angry.
It's like criticising a rape victim for not being on the pill, or something.

OK, it's not - but it is totally unfair.

MV/Liberace!

Quote from: BobGrau on March 19, 2012, 06:26:07 PM
I keep seeing this ad for the (uk) electoral commision - their slogan is 'use your vote, don't lose it'.

This attitude has always pissed me off - you're telling me if I don't vote, one of the two mainstream parties that have any realistic chance of forming a government in this country are likely to promote a fascist agenda that involves repealing democracy? Really???

I live in a country where the individual vote counts for NOTHING, and the established partys refuse to reform the electoral system because it threatens the status quo. There is no way for us to express dissatisfaction with the candidates, it's just 'vote for the lesser of two evils'. To then be told 'if you don't vote we might just take it away all together'... aaargh it makes me so angry.
It's like criticising a rape victim for not being on the pill, or something.

OK, it's not - but it is totally unfair.


hey, bob...


it's a bit off topic i guess, but i wonder... are brits worried at all about the fact that europe is now economically dominated by... drum roll... germany?  i think they should be.  with the last 100 years of european history taken into account, and more specifically german history, the country's rise seems like a troubling development that should never have been allowed to happen.  the german people have such a defined record of waging war on their neighbors and the world, it's inconceivable to me that the people of europe would stand by and watch as their economic futures are placed in the hands of that country.  world war two was such a short time ago in terms of true historical separation.  there are still people walking the planet today who fought in ww2.  the last remaining ww1 soldier died within just the last year or so.  are people talking about this in the uk?

Eddie Coyle

 
          I wouldn't worry about a return to Prussian militarism. The West(and Soviets) really declawed and destroyed Germany after WWII, multi-cult insanity has turned pockets of urban areas like Frankfurt and Munich into polyglot slums like you see in London or New York City, except instead of Spanish(NYC), the language is Arabic. THAT has been a problem for nearly 45 years, with the 1972 Olympics being the paramount example, but a lot of the Palestinian terror of 1970-1990 had bases in Germany, with help from groups like Baader-Meinhof.

        But the blitzkrieg Germany is long gone,IMO.

MV/Liberace!

Quote from: Eddie Coyle on March 19, 2012, 09:19:13 PM

          I wouldn't worry about a return to Prussian militarism. The West(and Soviets) really declawed and destroyed Germany after WWII, multi-cult insanity has turned pockets of urban areas like Frankfurt and Munich into polyglot slums like you see in London or New York City, except instead of Spanish(NYC), the language is Arabic. THAT has been a problem for nearly 45 years, with the 1972 Olympics being the paramount example, but a lot of the Palestinian terror of 1970-1990 had bases in Germany, with help from groups like Baader-Meinhof.

        But the blitzkrieg Germany is long gone,IMO.


in thinking about the german arabs you mention above... i suspect there are significant portions of white germany who want an end to the infusion of foreign people/cultures.  if there were a significant terrorist attack in germany, i could see interesting/troubling things happening, and from there possibly leading to a military buildup.  these things always begin with a spark of some sort.  germany now has the financial clout to do big things.


is there a nationalist movement of any sort in germany today?  i guess the hypothetical scenario i mentioned above would depend on it, but i don't know enough about today's germany to say one way or the other.

Eddie Coyle

Quote from: Michael Vandeven on March 19, 2012, 09:34:58 PM

in thinking about the german arabs you mention above... i suspect there are significant portions of white germany who want an end to the infusion of foreign people/cultures.  if there were a significant terrorist attack in germany, i could see interesting/troubling things happening, and from there possibly leading to a military buildup.  these things always begin with a spark of some sort.  germany now has the financial clout to do big things.


is there a nationalist movement of any sort in germany today?  i guess the hypothetical scenario i mentioned above would depend on it, but i don't know enough about today's germany to say one way or the other.

          I've long been fascinated by post-war Germany, because of the terrorism angle especially(beginning in earnest in 1967) and it's a very complex nation. The US really trampled on West Germany, basically telling them "get like us or else". It fostered a lot of resentment, we were a "benign" occupier, under the guise of protecting them from the Soviets.We managed to irritate the left (Badder Meinhof) and neo-Nazis.  It was our meddling that lead to West Germany's open door immigration policies of the 1950's/60's/70's. Which has bit us in the ass on 9/11 especially. Germany was a HQ for the PFLP at times and Al Qaeda certainly in more modern times.

         From what I've read, their nationalist movements are fractured. The neo-nazis are a vocal minority, sometimes merging with Pan-Germanic movements. There is a growing anti-immigrant movement that is somewhat non-partisan, creating shaky alliances between left and right. But like America, I doubt any politician has the guts to do anything substantive, cheap labor from Turkey is  likewhat ours is from Mexico/Central America. Big business won't allow reform.

   

           

Quote from: Michael Vandeven on March 19, 2012, 09:34:58 PM

in thinking about the german arabs you mention above... i suspect there are significant portions of white germany who want an end to the infusion of foreign people/cultures.  if there were a significant terrorist attack in germany, i could see interesting/troubling things happening, and from there possibly leading to a military buildup.  these things always begin with a spark of some sort.  germany now has the financial clout to do big things.


is there a nationalist movement of any sort in germany today?  i guess the hypothetical scenario i mentioned above would depend on it, but i don't know enough about today's germany to say one way or the other.

There is no more opposition to immigration in Germany than there is in the U.S.  There is a nationalist movement, but it is very small and ordinary Germans regard them as "scary extremists."  The nationalist are, however, better organized than they are in the U.S.  It is a much smaller country and so people meet face to face as opposed to over the internet.

There is no birthright citizenship in Germany.  So a child of Turkish (or whatever) parents is not a citizen unless they apply.  Many do not apply.  Also non-Germans are more concentrated in big cities than in America, so many Germans do not really run into them that much.  Of course, Turkish culture, African culture, etc. is commented on very favorably by the newspapers and on TV and many people think it is great.

It is illegal to criticize immigration using racial terms in Germany.  Actually, a lot of things are illegal.  One cannot criticize” democracy” or the German constitution, and technically it is illegal to call someone a “aâ€"hole” (can’t remember the German word, but it is quite similar).  This later law is rarely enforced.  However, political correctness is strongly enforced.  I know someone who was jailed for saying, “When I was young, this was a nice German city, but now it resembles an Oriental (meaning Turkish) slum”.

The people I knew were with the NPD (www.npd.de).  They would have teams of lawyers go over all their publications and their speeches, but there were still regularly fined and jailed.  Activists can have their houses searched at any time without warrant and have their computers, phones, iPads,  books, etc. seized.  It can take months to get them.  Even if nothing illegal is found this can go on on a regular basis for years.  There are many German government agents that infiltrate nationalist groups.  The list attempt to ban the NPD failed because it was discovered that those promoting illegal activities were government agents.
There are also 2 police agencies: one for thought crime and one for ordinary criminal activity.  I could go on, but this post is getting too long.
Oh, one last point.  The NPD (and I suspect German nationalists generally) are totally opposed to the EU and the Euro.  And they do see Germany as being economically strong, but rather banks as being strong.  They do not identify with them any more than American identify with the Federal Reserve.
I also think that both Germany and Japan are prohibited from building up their militaries (although I am not an expert on this).  Most Germans are totally okay with this.  The nationalists are happy with it since when German troops are deployed it is always to help out the U.S./NATO or the UN.

Yikes!  Have the editing window open longer please!  Or maybe I should stop posting when half asleep.

b_dubb

Quote from: Eddie Coyle on March 19, 2012, 10:11:23 PMI've long been fascinated by post-war Germany, because of the the terrorism angle ...
Baader-Meinhoff?

BobGrau

Quote from: Michael Vandeven on March 19, 2012, 08:27:31 PM

hey, bob...


it's a bit off topic i guess, but i wonder... are brits worried at all about the fact that europe is now economically dominated by... drum roll... germany?  i think they should be.  with the last 100 years of european history taken into account, and more specifically german history, the country's rise seems like a troubling development that should never have been allowed to happen.  the german people have such a defined record of waging war on their neighbors and the world, it's inconceivable to me that the people of europe would stand by and watch as their economic futures are placed in the hands of that country.  world war two was such a short time ago in terms of true historical separation.  there are still people walking the planet today who fought in ww2.  the last remaining ww1 soldier died within just the last year or so.  are people talking about this in the uk?

Eddie and DB both appear to know much more about this subject, thank goodness. I can only really comment from a pop-culture observer status, as follows -

The recent dominance of the German economy within the EU has indeed raised a few eyebrows, but it's a fairly sensitive subject so people tend to talk round it. Personally I think it's like saying 'Washington DC rules the United States' - it's true, but national (or state) identity doesn't really come into it. Even discounting all conspiracy theory, the 'developed world' really is controlled(for lack of a better word) by a network of powerful people who come from all over the world - decisions made in the german, french, british etc governments are very much influenced by a global philosophy that is supposed to transcend borders.
I'm all for this in principle, as with any ideology the trouble only really starts when you factor in basic human nature.

BobGrau

I like to think of it as Germany won WW2 in the same way that the Roman Empire still exists. With the romans, they simply moved into the religion business, having worked out that physical domination of the world is expensive and a pain in the ass.

Same with Germany, except they stopped physically invading other territorys and moved into financial dominance.

BobGrau

One more thing -

What always bothers me is that when you remove a dictatorship, the lower echelons are still there. Iraq is a good example of this. So we got rid of Saddam and his top people - great! But where are the prison guards, the torturers and secret police and so on?
In terms of Germany, how many ordinary people were indoctrinated into the nazi mindset during the 30s and 40s? How many passed it on to their children, whilst warning them to keep their mouths shut in polite company?

I've met quite a lot of white South Africans in my time, and I'm sorry to say that the older ones always turned out to be rather unpleasant people. Those brought up under the old apartheid regime really do have a noticably different mindset - these tend to be 'ex-pats' who moved to the UK when things in south africa loosened up a bit - basically to get away from 'the bleks'.

I realise I'm generalising rather offensively in my reverse-snobbery sort of way, but if you grow up in scotland, wales or ireland, you see this sort of subtle prejudice all around you from an early age, and then you tend to notice it everywhere.

My advice? Soccer. Team sports channel that tribal mindset into a less important area of life, and given a few hundred years what used to be dangerous radicalism fades into vague soccer hooliganism.

I'm rambling now. Time for a fag.

MV/Liberace!

great posts, you guys.  that was a good read.

Eddie Coyle

Quote from: BobGrau on March 20, 2012, 07:32:09 AM



I've met quite a lot of white South Africans in my time, and I'm sorry to say that the older ones always turned out to be rather unpleasant people. Those brought up under the old apartheid regime really do have a noticably different mindset - these tend to be 'ex-pats' who moved to the UK when things in south africa loosened up a bit - basically to get away from 'the bleks'.


           I know a couple of "ex-Rhodesians", and they have no grip on reality. They speak of "returning Rhodesia" to it's former glory(whatever that was) and their dream of some white republic in Africa. It's funny talking to them, because they fail to see the impracticality of their goal and these three haven't been back to the "motherland" since about 1991. They go on and on about being betrayed by Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, Ian Smith,Maggie Thatcher,The UN...antiquated kooks.

Eddie Coyle

Quote from: b_dubb on March 20, 2012, 06:46:33 AM
Baader-Meinhoff?

        Fascinating group, kinda like our Weather Underground, but far more deadly and severe. Especially amongst their own, they'd kill "traitors" without compunction. When their namesakes Ulrike Meinhof(suicide in jail on 5/9/76-Mother's Day) and Andreas Baader(jail suicide on 10/18/77)died, the group became inceasingly divided and still operated...but dwindled in membership. By the mid 1990's they were reduced to a few handfuls of people. 

b_dubb

Quote from: Eddie Coyle on March 20, 2012, 09:18:11 AM

        Fascinating group, kinda like our Weather Underground, but far more deadly and severe. Especially amongst their own, they'd kill "traitors" without compunction. When their namesakes Ulrike Meinhof(suicide in jail on 5/9/76-Mother's Day) and Andreas Baader(jail suicide on 10/18/77)died, the group became inceasingly divided and still operated...but dwindled in membership. By the mid 1990's they were reduced to a few handfuls of people.
Have you seen the movie?

Eddie Coyle

Quote from: b_dubb on March 20, 2012, 10:47:38 AM
Have you seen the movie?

    Yes and a few documentaries over the years.

Quote from: BobGrau on March 20, 2012, 07:32:09 AM
One more thing -

What always bothers me is that when you remove a dictatorship, the lower echelons are still there. Iraq is a good example of this. So we got rid of Saddam and his top people - great! But where are the prison guards, the torturers and secret police and so on?
In terms of Germany, how many ordinary people were indoctrinated into the nazi mindset during the 30s and 40s? How many passed it on to their children, whilst warning them to keep their mouths shut in polite company?


My dad was a meteorologist in the U.S. Army serving in the weather unit of an artillery battalion in Germany in the late 1960s. One of the other men in his unit was the son of the CEO of an American company that made waterproofing material, through which they met and became friendly with a German family who owned a similar company in the area near where they were stationed and were somehow associates of this CEO. They would regularly be invited over to dinner at the very palatial home of this German family.

Anyway, they were all former Nazi Party members and would speak reverentially of Hitler. Though, none of them were members of the various neo-fascist groups that exist in Germany, I think the father figure in the family was involved with either the CDU or SDP, my dad couldn't recall but one of the mainstream parties. My dad said that what was, for him, the oddest thing, is that they had a suitcase full of Reich service coupons. Apparently, after war rationing went into effect in Germany during WWII, families would be issued service coupons for doing various community good deeds and you could eventually cash-in these coupons for a Volkswagen (or maybe it was your volume of coupons impacted your place on the waiting list, I forget). Anyway, this relatively well-off German family - who apparently owned three Mercedes already - was keeping these service coupons because they were convinced that the Reich would eventually reestablish itself and they could cash them in for a VW Beetle.

If anyone reads German, you should check-out "The German Card" by Gen. Gerd-Helmut Komossa, which is available on amazon.de. (It was very difficult for me to read it as I can read German very piecemeal with a lot of checking the dictionary and so forth.) It was published in 2006 or 2007, I think, but hasn't been translated into English.


Komossa was the head of MAD (West German army intelligence) in the second half of the 1980s. In the book he claims that, secretly, the United States' #1 concern continues to be the resurgence of German militarism. He says that during his time at MAD he learned that (1) the U.S. has a nuclear targeting plan for a hypothetical war with Germany, (2) the BfD (German domestic intelligence/secret police) is obligated to copy an "organization" in Washington DC on their monitoring of German political parties and extremist groups and (3) a lot of other bizarre things.


Also, in English, you should read "Man Without a Face" by Markus Wolfe. Wolfe was the head of the foreign intelligence division of East Germany's Stasi through the whole existence of East Germany (the title of the book is so-named because no photographs of him existed until the fall of the Berlin wall) and the book is his memoirs. Wolfe is an interesting fellow as he was (he's dead now) Jewish and, while he is at times critical in reflection of communism, makes note that everyone in the DDR government were committed anti-Nazis and their frequent propaganda about west Germany being a crypto-fascist state represented the genuine feeling of the government and party. In the book he also claims that West German intelligence regularly spied on the United States from a facility they operated in Cadiz, Spain and was made possible by inter-governmental links that dated back to the Hitler-Franco friendship.

b_dubb

There's been some noise in the Random.. thread about "Obamacare". I thought I'd respond to said noise here.

Some of you seem to think that Obama wanted the current bill with all it's BS. the insurance industry lobbying group demanded that certain provisions be included or else they would stop the bill in its tracks. Now maybe we'd be better off if that had happened - I'm not a fan of the bill - but at the very least this should demonstrate how completely bought and sold our government really is. Both parties. This was a demand made by an industry lobbyist group. Not "the People".

MV/Liberace!

Quote from: b_dubb on April 03, 2012, 11:13:17 AM
There's been some noise in the Random.. thread about "Obamacare". I thought I'd respond to said noise here.

Some of you seem to think that Obama wanted the current bill with all it's BS. the insurance industry lobbying group demanded that certain provisions be included or else they would stop the bill in its tracks. Now maybe we'd be better off if that had happened - I'm not a fan of the bill - but at the very least this should demonstrate how completely bought and sold our government really is. Both parties. This was a demand made by an industry lobbyist group. Not "the People".


obama both promoted and signed the bill in its current form, so i'm not sure exactly what it is you're asserting with this post.

b_dubb

The insurance industry lobbying group said that they'd stop any bill that didn't include a requirement for people to buy health insurance. Having drawn a line in the sand Obama pushed forward to get the best bill possible. The turd that emerged is as much a product of the insurance industry as it is government.

I'm saying that allowing a trade industry group to shape public policy means that "we the people" have been supplanted by lobbyists. I don't think the health care reform bill does anything to expand coverage or improve quality. It has laid bare how completely paid for our government is

Americans, worried about their health care - as drones are used that often kill completely innocent women and children.

(I wanted to put the above in the Things That Annoy You area, but I was glutting that thread up with already three postings in a row. But it fits here just fine.)

1) "Since you mention Pakistan, let me ask a couple of questions about that. Number one, what do you make of the fact that President Obama has used â€" and you referenced this earlier â€" has used more drones, has dropped more drones, manless drones, in Pakistan, significantly more than even President Bush did?

Oftentimes women and children innocently killed."

2) "Let me cut in right quick, Senator, because one of the things I want to just point out here while you’re on this â€" you’re right to lay out this list of these new challenges. One of those challenges, to my mind, is what Congress has to say about this. This is, to your phrase, a new kind of warfare, and to my mind, this has not as yet been debated in Congress, where you used to serve. The White House is making decisions, whether it’s Bush or Obama, to drop these drones, but as an American taxpayer, as an American citizen, I have not seen hearings as yet â€" nothing has happened on the Hill yet to talk about whether or not this is the path forward, because I thought Congress had something to say about declaring war, but that’s exactly what these drones have become â€" a new way to declare war without declaring war."

Both quotes, by Tavis Smiley, interviewing  former  U.S. Senator Chuck Hagel on  Feb 6, 2012.



Sardondi

Quote from: b_dubb on April 03, 2012, 11:13:17 AM
There's been some noise in the Random.. thread about "Obamacare". I thought I'd respond to said noise here.

Some of you seem to think that Obama wanted the current bill with all it's BS. the insurance industry lobbying group demanded that certain provisions be included or else they would stop the bill in its tracks. Now maybe we'd be better off if that had happened - I'm not a fan of the bill - but at the very least this should demonstrate how completely bought and sold our government really is. Both parties. This was a demand made by an industry lobbyist group. Not "the People".

In one sense you're right, but not the way you intended: Obama was disappointed in the bill which passed - he thought it was a very watered down bill. He wanted Obamacare to be much broader, much more massive, and much more coercive, with no loopholes. Well, except for the scores of waivers he's magically passed out to his supporters and big donors - not a single entity which can be fairly called an Obama opponent has gotten a waiver. It's good to be king...or the king's buddy.

MV/Liberace!

i don't agree with much bill maher says... but you have GOT to see his documentary entitled religulous.  very entertaining and eye opening.  it improved my opinion of maher quite a bit.

Frys Girl

Quote from: Michael Vandeven on April 19, 2012, 11:47:49 AM
i don't agree with much bill maher says... but you have GOT to see his documentary entitled religulous.  very entertaining and eye opening.  it improved my opinion of maher quite a bit.
I don't like that movie because it follows nuts mostly and then it uses those fringe types to cast all faith as dumb. I liked the Catholic priest he interviewed, a much more middle of the way dude.


I do agree with Maher that most organized religion and modern day prophet/profits are shady and even funny, e.g. the guy who said he was Jesus Christ. However, faith isn't about proof, so Maher is wasting his time. Also, not all people who believe in God are Creationists  >:(

MV/Liberace!

this story really annoyed me.  in order to call myself a conservative, i have to be lumped in with the type of people who would demand this guy's resignation?  because he's gay?  fucking insane.

b_dubb

Quote from: Michael Vandeven on May 01, 2012, 02:38:32 PM
this story really annoyed me.  in order to call myself a conservative, i have to be lumped in with the type of people who would demand this guy's resignation?  because he's gay?  fucking insane.
I keep coming back to my gut feeling that the republicans don't want to win

Ben Shockley

Quote from: Michael Vandeven on May 01, 2012, 02:38:32 PM
this story really annoyed me.  in order to call myself a conservative, i have to be lumped in with the type of people who would demand this guy's resignation?  because he's gay?  fucking insane.
I don't know if you call yourself a "Republican," MV, but if you do, then the answer is "yes."   If the 2012 Republican primary season has shown us anything, it's that anyone claiming to be a "Republican" MUST toe the line of extreme ideology or be politically purged, plain and simple.   Ideological purity and (pardon the term) homogeneity über alles.   And a major plank of that ideology is elaborate, strident ostracism of persons of non-hetero sexual orientation.
That Dick Cheney remains a Republican in good standing while occasionally advocating for his lesbian daughter --or hell, while even having a lesbian daughter-- only speaks for the tremendous cred he's built up with the Republican base through his having a part in the murder of countless thousands around the world.
What's a total mystery to me is how any gay or lesbian person in his/her right mind can claim to be a member of that party.

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