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See subject & JUST A TASTE of what I noted in my post I am replying to http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Book_Excerpts/HigherCircles_PE.html/

* Get used to it folks - it IS, the REAL world (that both JFK & Eisenhower warned us of).

(MOST IMPORTANT PART? Break the family, you break resistance & good guidance a father gives out of love for his own tribe/cubs/woman - creates 2 sets of bills leaving no legacy for most family's children, men that aren't RAISED BY MEN (creating what I call "not men flimsors", lol) & destroys a nation in the way of the TRUE wannabe ruler power cabal).

APK

P.S.=> It's changing though - Thank Goodness for President Trump! apk

"... Or do you support the notion of everyone being able to legal own a 20 Megaton nuke? Because that's the sort of firepower you really need to oppose the US government; ..."

Just wanted to point out in reply that in a democracy, people oppose the government in terms of existing laws all the time through voting, lawsuits, campaign donations, jury nullification, running for office, civil disobedience, writing to their congress person, moving, innovation that changes perceived economic imperatives, performance art, publishing books, writing newspaper editorials, buying different products, eating differently (like eating less energy/water-intensive meat despite government subsidies for it), creating new organizations as examples, fostering alternative communities, contributing to internal political pressures when working with government, and so on. These could be considered variations on the "boxes" of democracy: soap box (publishing), ballot box (voting), mail box (writing legislators), band box / pizza box (community), lunch box (eating and purchasing politically as I see it; social safety net as originally defined), jury box (jury nullification by voting not-guilty because the law is wrong), moving box (between states or between countries) -- all available before the ammo box.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F...

Other countries oppose the USA all the time as well via the international laws, tariffs, subsidizing local industries, currency manipulations, making choices about whether to trade in dollars, setting standards of imported products, forming their own cartels (like OPEC), educating their own populace, investing in their own infrastructure, making stuff for the USA cheaply to make the USA dependent on the other country and to obtain its business and technological secrets, setting examples of alternative practices as successes, and so on. See also Noam Chomsky on "The Threat of a Good Example":
http://www.thirdworldtraveler....

As Isaac Asimov had a character (Salvor Hardin) say, "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...

And for a true-life example, consider Leon Shenandoah:
http://pathwayofpeace.blogspot...
"We are the spiritual energy that is thousands time stronger than nuclear energy. Our energy in the combined will of all people with the spirit of the Natural World, to be of one body, one heart and one mind for peace."

Or as I quote about him here:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/on-d...
"Warriors are held up as heroes. They are praised for their gallantry, exalted for their conquests, and used as symbols to inspire patriotism. Monuments are built for them as reminders of past victories and to prepare citizens for the next campaign. Leon Shenandoah was no warrior, yet no warrior could stand up against his power. He carried no weapons, used no harsh rhetoric, and made no demands. His strength was in gentleness. When he spoke, those around him listened. His words were always soft, his kindness evident. He was a spiritual man."

I don't feel US gun culture or politics is likely to change anytime soon. The USA is what it is with a certain cultural momentum. And personally I feel if the USA took care of its economic and mental health issues better (like a basic income and medicare for all) the amount of gun violence would go down. Improving the environment helps too, given lead levels have been linked to violence:
http://www.motherjones.com/env...

But what really bothers me is US gun owners who vote for politicians (of any party) who put i

The Destruction of the Carter Presidency by the Democratic Congress

The Destruction of the Carter Presidency by the Democratic Congress

More ideas: http://pdfernhout.net/beyond-a-jobless-recovery-knol.html

On self-replicating space habitats:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/princeton-graduate-school-plans.html

The grad plans were about "Elysium" but for all. Contrast:
http://www.itsbetteruphere.com/
with, from me:
http://www.gardenwithinsight.com/solarius/

Related attempts, but not very successful so far:
http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com/oscomak/
http://www.openvirgle.net/

David Brin on the Transparent society:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transparent_society

Related suggestions by me:
http://pcast.ideascale.com/a/dtd/The-need-for-FOSS-intelligence-tools-for-sensemaking-etc./76207-8319

A basic income would give more people more time for self-education and civic engagement and raising independent children. They would have more time to review all this data.

Alaska has a bit of a basic income. Brazil has something of one recently. Germany has been talking about one. The USA has a basic income for people over 65 called "Social Security", so it could just be extended to all from birth and replace things like public schooling and unemployment insurance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income_guarantee

Of course, two countries that implemented something of them, Lybia and Iran have experienced US attempts to destabilize them. See also "the Threat of a Good Example" by Noam Chomsky:
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Chomsky/ChomOdon_Example.html
"No country is exempt from U.S. intervention, no matter how unimportant. In fact, it's the weakest, poorest countries that often arouse the greatest hysteria. ..."

Still, once could argue a basic income just props up capitalism. I guess it depends how it is implemented and what people actually would do with their time.

See Marshall Brain's Manna for a fictional example with both a basic income and a transparent society.
http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm

There are many reasons things change slowly. People are naturally resistant to change, since they know the old ways work somewhat at least in the past. New intellectual paradigms take a while to propagate. Some people are invested in the current system emotionally and financially, even as it crumbles or faces increasing catastrophic systemic risks. And so on.

Although, perhaps it is better to not know what "X" is now, if it will take decades to see it come into being, with so much needless suffering along the way? :-(

James P. Hogan's "Voyage From Yesteryear" is a good example of people not being willing to embrace "X" when it is staring them in the face.
http://www.jamesphogan.com/books/info.php?titleID=29&cmd=summary

Another "X" is vitamin D and good nutrition to prevent or reverse much chronic disease.
https://www.changemakers.com/discussions/discussion-493#comment-38823

But that's been know for thousands of years. It just gets forgotten now and then.
http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/62262-let-food-be-thy-medicine-and-medicine-be-thy-f

An additional and slightly more to the point link...

Yes, but "corporate entityhood" isn't an inflammatory subject. Saying "corporate personhood" ignites a bit of cognitive dissonance, so the politics start off biased.

The reason it starts off biased is precisely because entities don't have rights but people do. And while Congress and the Supreme Court have on various occasions shown an interest in curtailing those rights under often dubious standards, the fact that corporations have billions of dollars to spend trying to expand their "rights" often translates into what people fear most, that corporations have more say in what happens than real people do.

There's no need to treat an entity exactly like a person, but only to an extent. "Free speech", as it's been interpreted over the past 200 years, means any form of expression, including production and commerce. Tangentially, this means that using a 3D printer to make a gun is exercising both your first and second amendment rights at once.

Which is more a byproduct of both company overreach, to avoid state or federal law, and federal government overreach, to allow them to regulate things like the lack of commerce as a form of interstate commerce. It stands to reason, then, that with such a mash up it becomes even more important to not pretend like corporations are people.

A corporation must have some measure of free expression, to produce products that the government may not like (as Paladin Press does regularly, for example). A corporation's expression does not need to include financial donations to a political party, but specifying that distinction would require significant changes to the Constitution.

Not really. "The press" is already well covered under the First Amendment as an example of where government may not tread. And the point of financial donations aren't directly covered under the federal government since that's almost all done at the state level. In fact, states were meant to be primary guardians against corporation abuse precisely because as much as the federal government was bound to respect all speech, states were not.

Agreed. Unfortunately, they didn't do anything to limit what rights companies had. We inherited the slippery slope they left for us.

I think you might be interested in reading The History of Corporations in the United States. You have to remember that a large issue at the foundation of the US was just how much the US government would federalist vs confederalist. As a result, a lot of big issues were put on to states to deal with with the idea that the US government would be something of a referee if state actions started to effect other states--hence the various language about resolving interstate commerce or other sorts of disputes. More the point, by placing the power of corporate charters in the hands of states, it was likely felt that, worst-case, a corporation would only have the power to usurp the power of one state vs all the states if left to the US government to charter. Of course, that's turned into a sort of rent seeking where lots of corporations setup shop officially in Delaware--just like in Ireland*, and sadly there's no simple fix to the point of interstate commerce if you can't tariff products from a usurped state.

So, I'd say the truth is closer to the founding fathers simply not being world-renowned economists and believing that enough compartmentalization and democracy would work through such issues. But, then you have massive sums of money from corporations and a third branch of government, the courts, that often seem too affixed to the letter of the law or the spirit of the law to suit the current establishment... So, I'm not sure there's any real simple way that the issue could have been addressed. Put another way, if corporations *had* been mentioned in the US Constitution, then i

Do you also believe that the gas companies send agents around the world to assassinate researchers every time they get close to discovering "free energy" or carburetors that will make any car in the world get 100 mpg?

De-chartering Unocal. Unocal has been accused of aiding and supporting human rights violations in Burma and with the Taliban in Afghanistan. In 2001 President Bush recognized almost immediately the leaders of the coup against the democratically elected president of Venezuela Chavez. Many people believe the Afghan and Iraqi invasions are for oil. Some think the same of the accusations against Iran.

Falcon

By "modern" liberalism, I'm not referring to Jeffersonian libertarianism/liberal.

Yea, look at Wiki's entry to Modern liberalism in the United States and Classical Liberalism. Today the closest political party we have to Classical Liberalism in the US is the Libertarian Party. However even there, it seems to me that some libertarians are corporate libertarians. Thomas Jefferson warned about the corporate aristocracy though. Corporations were originally granted limited liability by government if the corporation served a public good. And when it did not the corporate charter could be revoked.

Most people don't even know about the history of corporations and where they got their start. The first corporate charter was granted to the Dutch East India Company by the Dutch government in 1602. In 1604 Britain granted a charter to the British East Indian Company. Both companies were shippers and shipping was a risky business. If cargo being shipped was lost the ship owner was liable. Whether by bad weather or by pirates cargo lost was expensive to replace or pay for. Both of these companies transported cargo between Europe and India. Someone who was able to set aside some money to invest in a ship was liable to lose everything they owned, including their home. But with corporate charters the same person could invest in a shipping corporation. Then if the ship was lost the only thing the investor lost was the amount they invested. This enabled more people to invest in and expand shipping which benefited a lot of people. So as it were, the Dutch and British East India Companies were the first multinational corporations.

But talk of revoking a corporate charter today is denigrated by some so called libertarians, those corporate libertarians I mentioned above, even as corporations write the rules and regulations they are regulated by.

Falcon

Right, because we all know its not like major mineral wealth producers like gold and oil companies have ever engages in shady practices. Let's just get it straight. Profit is the motive in a game called "All's Fair." Anything goes, no holds barred. Murder, you bet. Mercs by the batallion, whatever. Political assassination, What part of "no Holds Barred" is unclear? Shell oil has slaughtered thousands of Africans to get "Their" oil, and made certain through a masterwork of bribery, that the local get no value from their own mineral wealth, but do get stiffed with the environmental disaster.

You mean as opposed to Henry Kissinger who also won a Nobel Peace Prize, while managing Nixon's assassination of Chilean President Salvador Allende, because he wasn't going to have a Socialist in the western hemisphere, even if the socialist was elected democratically. In its place we installed the Junta, who murdered, excuse me, disappeared over 3,000 people. Under the Freedom of Information Act, Whitehouse tapes now available clearly present Nixon and Kissinger discussing Chilean Assassination and CIA incompetence.

Just goes to show you what a Nobel Peace prize is worth.

Christopher Hitchens wrote a great book about the war crimes of Kissinger. This man is sub-scum level: http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Kissinger/CaseAgainst1_Hitchens.html

Third world economies desperately need to transition from subsitence farming to producing cash crops. I'm no fan of Monsanto, but their actions will ultimately be beneficial

No, in order to qualify for World Bank 'loans', third world economies are forced to produce cash crops to sell on the foreign market in order to pay off the self same 'loans'.

Food and Third World "economic miracles"

Iran has funded all kinds of terrorism in the world

And how many democracies has the U.S. government overthrown? How many dictators supported? How many civilian airliners shot down? How many scientists murdered?

People in glass houses....

RE:"Just another reason for the separation of Corporation and State." yup, crony capitalism = friendly fascism

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Fascism/Classic_Friendly_Fascism.html

Most socialist countries can't afford to give all people homes, with the exception of maybe Northern Europe

thats because the only locale that has been left untouched by united states' puppet building and dictator making, not to mention shit like gladio (due to avoiding nato membership) has been northern europe.

all other locales of the planets had their share of u.s. political, economical or military interventions ( when others failed ).

that's thanks to the rather desolate climate and lacking resources of northern europe, and lack of their strategic importance. anything they would be valuable for were already covered by other countries until then.

and africa had to deal with the below shit :

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/US_ThirdWorld/dictators.html

The very reason those countries are still in knee deep shit even 50 years after getting free of being colonies of european countries, was u.s.

so, the reason socialism and socialist attempts have failed in ANY given country, is united states itself. the biggest example being cuba, and the sole reason being the totally illegal embargo u.s. enforces over cuba worldwide, with the only countries that can run past u.s. pressure and political influence and military power and trade with cuba being china and russia . any other country of the world hesitates from doing anything with cuba, and it is used only as a means to card to play in relations with u.s. if u.s. does anything to upset that nation. and EVEN in that case, healthcare in cuba is better than healthcare in usa, and u.s. rich secretly fly there to get fixed. whereas the u.s. poor keeps foaming at the mouth about cuba.

thankfully cuba has stood so long, due to the protection of ussr and later russia. otherwise, u.s. would put an end to the socialism there the month it came to being - they actually tried it in bay of pigs too.

Capitalism maybe a broken system but socialism is no better, they are just broken in different ways.

just look at sweden and see. there are homeless there, yes, but they are homeless out of choice, not out of necessity. and, there is a good amount in between them that develop into poets, writers or authors eventually.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/US_ThirdWorld/dictators.html

do NOT support atrocity-committing dictators into power in other countries for the sake of a few corporations' self-interests, dont get hated. simple. VERY simple.

it only becomes complex when you are allowed yourself to be brainwashed by the propaganda arms of those corporations (Called media). and america has been doing it for around a century, only to be disrupted by the thing we call internet, which allows real information to be accessible.

but hey - they are fixing that too ! they are giving you soap .... sorry, sopa to fix that problem. not that things like fox news channels et al were not around to allow people to stupefy themselves into the mindset of 50 years ago either ...... but they will fix everything - dont worry. they even fixed habeas corpus recently !!!

In USSR, I'd wager 99% could be considered poor by the US standards

no. majority would qualify over the hellhole slums americans were living, in around 80s. middle class, the 10-15% in america would rank over most of the u.s. population indeed, but, when you take masses into account, u.s. poor would be in direr straits and conditions than the bottom line in ussr.

Almost all money was spent on the military complex and bribing African, Asian, etc dictators. Very inefficiently at that.

glad that you brought that up. unfortunately, u.s. won at that front - leave aside bribing, but breeding african, asian etc dictators :

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/US_ThirdWorld/dictators.html

details more than 15-20 u.s. backed/placed/created dictators and their atrocities. be warned : not a pleasant read.

the thing you are right about is that, they indeed had spent most of their GNP on military. and they did so consciusly - in 1960 socialist international, ussr declared that they would overtake the west in military and space. and everything was spent to that end from that point on.

however you cant blame them. the west was besieging them in an unholy alliance since 1917. with only intermittent pause being world war ii. outside, whereas u.s. only needed to supply and subvert military brass with luxuries and funds to install them as dictators, ussr needed those personas to be ideologically compliant with the left ideology so that they could get a dictator, if they could. you can understand that a dictator would generally prefer luxuries and a lavish life over having to put up at least a storefront of modesty and communal instinct. that goes against greed. moreover, u.s. and its angloamerican allies were conveniently invading/intervening in minor countries by justifying through various means - but if ussr attempted that, world risked nuclear war. see the list of u.s. military interventions -an endless list :

http://academic.evergreen.edu/g/grossmaz/interventions.html

there is no end to these since 1890. what happened in nikaragua, puts any half decent person into tears. and yet, it was done for 'democracy', and the world community just kept silent.

ussr could easily escalate tensions at the wake of these endless invasions, and brave world war iii. and actually, when a similar thing happened in korea, a maniac named mc arthur had went as far to request authorization to use nuclear weapons to 'bomb china into stone age'. the only open half intervention/invasion by ussr through chinese proxy, and this was the u.s. reaction. thankfully, truman was not a maniac himself and retired mc arthur.

moreover, whereas u.s. was stuffing any country bordering ussr with nuclear weapons (turkey, japan etc), hell broke loose and we came to the brink of world war iii when ussr attempted to place a few missiles in cuba. in all grandstanding bastardry. again, ussr backed.

so, in the end, ussr bloc came as the saner, more tempered party in the cold war - despite endless invasions and brutal empire building by the west, we have not come to the point which would cause ultimate destruction of civilization on the planet.

however this naturally had its toll - while u.s. was besieging ussr bloc with nuclear weapons, and spending cash made from empire building to weapon development, ussr had to spend their own bloc's gnp for that end. and since they had to wage war on many fronts, thanks to the endless empire building by the west bloc, they had to cope up with numbers. therefore, we ended up a HUGE military imbalance on ussr side. let me put it into context for you : if ww iii happened with anything other than nuclear weapons, entire europe, asia would be overrun by ussr in mere months. the numerical superiority was SO high that even an f14 bein

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/US_ThirdWorld/dictators.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange

https://www.google.com/search?q=cia+drug+running&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

but especially in the same page :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_drug_trafficking#Panama

despicable.

And I said, no, personhood has nothing to do with protecting shareholder rights. It protects the shareholders from liability. Maybe that is what you meant to say?

Well, you should have said here what you said there. Personhood doesn't have to do with the corporate veil, the shield against liability.

I doubt that was ever true. The UK never did that, for example. Further, given the often vile envy and hate that cuts through any human society, it is better that US society currently has no say in corporate charters.

See: http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Corporations/Hx_Corporations_US.html or just google "corporation history charter revoke"

From that link, I read:

In fact, the corporate presence in prerevolutionary America was almost as conspicuous as it is today. There were far fewer corporations then, but they were enormously powerful: the Massachusetts Bay Company, the Hudson's Bay Company, the British East India Company. Colonials feared these chartered entities. They recognized the way British kings and their cronies used them as robotic arms to control the affairs of the colonies, to pinch staples from remote breadbaskets and bring them home to the motherland.

So I was right about UK corporations. Further, when I googled on your suggested search term I came across this article.

The revocation movementâ(TM)s account of history has been laid out in many places; one is Taking Care of Business, a 1993 pamphlet by activists Richard Grossman and Frank Adams. The tract notes that in the early 19th century, enterprises took many forms, from limited partnerships to unincorporated associations to cooperatives. âoeLegislatures also chartered profit-making corporations to build turnpikes, canals and bridges,â the authors write. âoeBy the beginning of the 1800s, only two hundred such charters had been grantedâ¦. Citizens governed corporations by detailing rules and operating conditions not just in the charters but also in state constitutions and state laws.â

The pamphlet does not explain why a business would tolerate such restrictions, if all it need do to avoid them was not incorporate. The answer, of course, is that incorporation bestowed certain advantages. In those days, historian Robert Hessen notes in his 1979 book In Defense of the Corporation, corporate charters often included special privileges, such as âoea legally enforced monopoly, exemption from taxation, release of employees from militia and jury duty, power to exercise eminent domain, and authorization to hold lotteries as a means of raising capital.â Others received direct subsidies from the government.

So how are obtaining special competitive advantages from government in the public interest?

Second, you ignore that no one is able to determine what the public interest is. In the US, the Supreme Court punted on this subject for the most part, acquiescing at the federal level to the legislative branch on deciding what is in the public interest. The legislative branch in turn is notorious for placing special interests ahead of public interests.

My view is that it is best that the option remains unused. There are better ways to destroy a corporation or other business that has used up its public interest credit card, namely, through bankruptcy court.

For local affairs, society is not capable of determining for the most part what is in the public interest. Common dangers that threaten everyone? I think we can usually find consensus on that (doesn't always happen, for example, this very debate about corporate personhood happens because people disagree on what the problem is). But a corporation whose dissolution would have a numbe

People's feelings about this change sometimes change in different points in their lives...

This is not to deny there is some truth in what you say, echoed by Chris Hedge's point in his book:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Force_That_Gives_Us_Meaning
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/War_Peace/War_Gives_Meaning.html

Still, war is only one thing that can help people find meaning in life. How about the issue of worrying about a big solar flare or a supervolcano? If you really want a challenge, why not help solve those sorts of issues? Or help design better space habitats? Or improve cold fusion reactor designs to power space craft? Or figure out how to get everyone on the planet fresh vegetables and fruits so they can afford to eat like Dr. Fuhrman suggests? Limiting the scope of your ambitions to fighting ironic wars with superweapons seems, well, not very ambitious. :-)

War is also a racket, by the way, just to be sure you know, acording to a very decorated military man:
http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm
"Written by Two-Time Congressional Medal of Honor Recipient Major General Smedley D. Butler USMC, Retired
WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes. .."

So, you want to go to war to line some rich guys pockets?

Apparently, compulsory schools were mainly created to indoctrinate people to be part of the war racket, and to ensure they were trained to not see how they were being used. See either of:
http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2003/Compulsory-Schooling-AnarchistMar03.htm
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/7a.htm
"The particular utopia American believers chose to bring to the schoolhouse was Prussian. The seed that became American schooling, twentieth-century style, was planted in 1806 when Napoleon’s amateur soldiers bested the professional soldiers of Prussia at the battle of Jena. When your business is renting soldiers and employing diplomatic extortion under threat of your soldiery, losing a battle like that is pretty serious. Something had to be done.
The most important immediate reaction to Jena was an immortal speech, the "Address to the German Nation" by the philosopher Fichte—one of the influential documents of modern history leading directly to the first workable compulsion schools in the West. Other times, other lands talked about schooling, but all failed to deliver. Simple forced training for brief intervals and for narrow purposes was the best that had ever been managed. This time would be different.
In no uncertain terms Fichte told Prussia the party was over. Children would have to be disciplined through a new form of universal conditioning. They could no longer be trusted to their parents. Look what Napoleon had done by banishing sentiment in the interests of nationalism. Through forced schooling, everyone would learn that "work makes free," and working for the State, even laying down one’s life to its commands, was the greatest freedom of all. Here in the genius of semantic redefinition1

and how did america become a superpower again ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/US_ThirdWorld/dictators.html

it is easy to become a superpower if you are able to dominate more than half of the world into a dominion, allowing you to use their raw resources cheaply and monopolizingly, and use them as markets to export.

real life and death like in iraq, afghanistan, and below ?

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/US_ThirdWorld/dictators.html

im expecting a certain level of aptness and awareness from anyone participating in this forum, due to the level of affiliation with technology that finding and wanting to hang out in this place requires.

as a result of this, i find it infuriating, beyond comprehension that there may be still people who are unaware of the past and ongoing filth on this planet, despite its a fucking google search away. so simple to access.

and when someone like this comes and reiterates and insists on some bullshit, the very kind of bullshit that allowed these filth to come into being in the first place,

i call asshole. or, fuck off. or, screw you.

because, i am a human being with emotions. not an automated truth dispenser unit at the wake of insisted, self-inflicted ignorance of those who prefer that.

anyone who doesnt like that, should take the very easy option to educate themselves, so, they do not incur emotions like that in other people, like me.

clear enough ? homie ?

OOOOOH. your servicemen and women !!!

who will hold the below responsible for what they did ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/US_ThirdWorld/dictators.html

oh wait - i know !! noone can. because, it was US GOVERNMENT which did these !!!

hmmmm. yeah. wikileaks probably did more harm than the 'strategic superiority of us' did.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/US_ThirdWorld/dictators.html

i find your ideas disgusting. your place is in 1930s. not 2010.

I think the current status quo, Pax Americana, is the least disruptive and most beneficial to all parties involved.

it only is because fools like you dont know whats going on :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/US_ThirdWorld/dictators.html

tell that 'peace' to the people whose families were murdered in genocides by 12+ puppet dictators that u.s. installed to propagate that 'pax americana'

moron.

What wikileaks is doing is un-American and is the same as supporting terrorism

tell me what do you classify the things below as :

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/US_ThirdWorld/dictators.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio

dont give us 'supporting terrorism' bullshit.

you have lived off of others' souls, while maintaining that american dream of yours, thanks to the colonial empire you built over blood.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/US_ThirdWorld/dictators.html

And I'm not American, so my American history is patchy, but this is the first I've heard of the founding fathers wanting to outlaw capitalism? They were communists? First I've heard of that - can any other American back that up?

Yes, it's absolutely true... the Colonies were basically being savaged by government mandated corporate taxes and import/export tax inequities which favored British companies.

For the first 150 years, the only corporations allowed in the USA were for the public good (e.g. Harvard College). All other business activities were handled utilizing trusts, partnerships, and basic self-employment.

Here's a decent history: http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Corporations/Hx_Corporations_US.html

OK, here's another list.

And tell me why we are ignoring the cold war? Did that not happen?

You obviously don't understand the purpose of fringe parties. It's not to win seats. It's to make a meaningful effect on policy.

If enough people vote for a fringe party or a single issue party, the main parties take very strong notice of any lost votes. Then they usually change their ways to get that vote back... and in that way, bring the new ideas into the fold.

In the USA system, any new ideas... stay on the outside because both parties just need to ignore them. With fringe parties, they need to give them the consideration that they're due, based on the number of people voting for them.

This is currently unfeasible in the USA due to the number of laws and barriers put up against fringe parties from getting any traction at all. This is a great reference.
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Political_Reform/Third_Parties_America.html

It would be helpful to know that although those tv stations were directly linked to the 2002 coup Chavez had not gone after them at the time.

I would also like to inform me about another dictator that has gained 70% of the votes at the elections that the US said that were 100% legitimate,or another dictator that has eliminated iliteracy in his country, that has brought cheap sate food shops to the starving from free market people thus eliminating hunger, and has provided the poorest with free quality healthcare.

Many people have written on the causes of war from various points of view:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War#Motivations
Often wars result from some back and forth of economic and military aggression (when they are not about policital power or some notion honor).

While what you say about the first Gulf war was what the media portrayed, what it leaves out is that Kuwait had started using slant drilling techiques to take Iraqi oil:
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/CIA%20Hits/Iraq_CIAHits.html
"""
The whole dispute started because Kuwait was slant-drilling. Using equipment bought from National Security Council chief Brent Scowcroft's old company, Kuwait was pumping out some $14-billion worth of oil from underneath Iraqi territory. Even the territory they were drilling from had originally been Iraq's. Slant-drilling is enough to get you shot in Texas, and it's certainly enough to start a war in the Mideast.
Even so, this dispute could have been negotiated. But it's hard to avoid a war when what you're actually doing is trying to provoke a war.
The most famous example of that is the meeting between Saddam and the US Ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, five days before Iraq invaded Kuwait. As CIA satellite photos showed an Iraqi invasion force massing on the Kuwaiti border, Glaspie told Hussein that "the US takes no position" on Iraq's dispute with Kuwait.
A few days later, during last-minute negotiations, Kuwait's foreign minister said: "We are not going to respond to [Iraq]....If they don't like it, let them occupy our territory....We are going to bring in the Americans." The US reportedly encouraged Kuwait's attitude.
"""

There is more there.

So, with the first Gulf War, we had a ping-pong effect. Kuwait committed economic aggression against Iraq, but the US accepted that (having sold them the equipment). Iraq retaliated with violence, and the US moved in. But, the US media painted this in the way you just did -- as a sudden violent attack by Iraq on Kuwait with no reason other than greed for the Kuwaiti's oil -- ironically, the total opposite of what started it (Kuwait's greed for Iraqi oil).

Aspects of that also happened with WWII, economic agression by the USA leading to military agression by Japan at Pearl Harbor (this is not to defend Japan's attack, or its invasion of French Indo-China that the US retaliated for, just to show this ping-pong effect again of economic aggression begetting military aggression, and it being painted as out-of-the-blue violence):
http://askville.amazon.com/WW2-government-restrict-trade-Japan-blockade-countries-Pearl-Harbor/AnswerViewer.do?requestId=5936557
"The U.S. stopped selling oil to Japan in July of 1941, which was part of the motivation for the attack from Japan's perspective. We were their major oil supplier, and the shipments were stopped in protest of Japan's invasion of French Indo-China. This embargo would've ground their economy to a halt in fairly short order, forcing them to find oil elsewhere. But before they could do that, they had to make sure we wouldn't be able to interfere with their expansion."

Still, ultimately it is all foolishness. While liquid fuels are convenient, it takes more energy from electricity and natural gas to create a gallon of gas than an electric car would require to go the same distance as a car that uses that gallon of gas.
http://www.evnut.com/gasoline_oil.htm

So much ignorance, shortsightedness, narrow selfishness, and so on out there.
"A Christmas Carol -- Ignorance & Want"

im talking about the last 60 years, not last 300 years.

here, compare your list :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor

this one is a blast :

http://www.bluebloggin.com/2008/01/11/history-of-us-backed-dictators-redux/ [bluebloggin.com]

a detailed list :

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/US_ThirdWorld/dictators.html [thirdworldtraveler.com]

it was an additional reply to one of your own replies. you probably read the first, and missed the other. here :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor

this one is a blast :

http://www.bluebloggin.com/2008/01/11/history-of-us-backed-dictators-redux/

a detailed list :

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/US_ThirdWorld/dictators.html

indeed noone is sinless. but compared to the sins of u.s. europe comes up almost sinless. compare you petty little list to these :

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/US_ThirdWorld/dictators.html

im not even going to count cia doing drug trading in order to support its operations in vietnam and south america.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor

this one is a blast :

http://www.bluebloggin.com/2008/01/11/history-of-us-backed-dictators-redux/

a detailed list :

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/US_ThirdWorld/dictators.html

Thanks. I've enjoyed our dialogue.

On your point, while I like the metaphor, we are not talking about real tapeworms. We are talking about human beings with a certain culture and a certain ideology that make them act like tapeworms. And we are talking about others who help them to be parasites through ignorance or not thinking they have options. How many kids join the military due to the "economic draft"?
http://www.workers.org/us/2005/economic-draft-0303/
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/War_Peace/Economic_Draft.html

And sure, many parasites got these wars going precisely so they could get a bit of the action, one dollar in their pocket for ever thousand dollars of tax payer money wasted. A key idea here:
http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm

A good sci-fi book on this broader theme of abundance and war is James P. Hogan's 1982 novel "Voyage from Yesteryear".
http://www.jamesphogan.com/books/info.php?titleID=29&cmd=summary
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyage_from_Yesteryear

As he points out there, the tapeworms as you mention will not get much support if everyone else has abundance. Besides, in a word of abundance, if some "lunatic" wants to build self-replicating space habitats on the Moon, why worry about it? There would be plenty of energy and stuff to go around, and it might provide some amusement.

So, ask yourself, why do people want to be tapeworms? And why do others go along with their plans?

I think key issues are "ignorance" and "want":
"A Christmas Carol: Ignorance and Want"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6MFN8yiVc0

But it is precisely abundance from the internet and robotics that may end ignorance and want.

So then, we are left mainly with the issue of mental illness to have people causing wars. Adequate vitamin D from supplements or sunshine can help relieve a lot of that too:
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/mentalIllness.shtml

More resources for families could help relieve some of it too:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200912/dobbs-orchid-gene
"Most of us have genes that make us as hardy as dandelions: able to take root and survive almost anywhere. A few of us, however, are more like the orchid: fragile and fickle, but capable of blooming spectacularly if given greenhouse care. So holds a provocative new theory of genetics, which asserts that the very genes that give us the most trouble as a species, causing behaviors that are self-destructive and antisocial, also underlie humankind's phenomenal adaptability and evolutionary success. With a bad environment and poor parenting, orchid children can end up depressed, drug-addicted, or in jail--but with the right environment and good parenting, they can grow up to be society's most creative, successful, and happy people."

Hitler wanted to be a painter for example:
"Adolf Hitler painting may have hung in Sigmund Freud's surgery"
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/7221058/Adolf-Hitler-painting-may-have-hung-in-Sigmund-Freuds-surgery.html
Would he have turned to politics if he had not had to worry about selling his paintings?

Will the world always have a problem with bullies and the mentally ill who hoard w

"International Terrorism: Image and Reality" by Noam Chomsky, notable linguist and self-declared Libertarian Socialist
http://www.chomsky.info/articles/199112--02.htm
"""
There are two ways to approach the study of terrorism. One may adopt a literal approach, taking the topic seriously, or a propagandistic approach, construing the concept of terrorism as a weapon to be exploited in the service of some system of power. In each case it is clear how to proceed. Pursuing the literal approach, we begin by determining what constitutes terrorism. We then seek instances of the phenomenon -- concentrating on the major examples, if we are serious -- and try to determine causes and remedies. The propagandistic approach dictates a different course. We begin with the thesis that terrorism is the responsibility of some officially designated enemy. We then designate terrorist acts as "terrorist" just in the cases where they can be attributed (whether plausibly or not) to the required source; otherwise they are to be ignored, suppressed, or termed "retaliation" or "self-defence." ... The answers are not difficult to find. We must simply abandon the literal approach and recognize that terrorist acts fall within the canon only when conducted by official enemies. When the US and its clients are the agents, they are acts of retaliation and self-defense in the service of democracy and human rights. Then all becomes clear. ...
"""

There are many related comments by Chomsky on this:
  http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=chomsky+terrorism

Even a book:
    "excerpts from the book: The Culture of Terrorism by Noam Chomsky"
    http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Chomsky/Culture%20of%20Terrorism.html
    http://www.amazon.com/Culture-Terrorism-Noam-Chomsky/dp/0896083349

More here:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noam_Chomsky's_political_views

And, not by him, but here is an essay by Prof. G. William Domhoff on why non-violence is the only moral and rational approach to social change in the USA:
    http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/change/science_nonviolence.html

"Unlike Capitalism however, communism only tends to survive when supports by an authoritarian regime"

Which explains why US capitalist interests have inspired the US government to overthrow so many democratically elected (but "leftist") governments, only to replace them with US-friendly dictators?
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/US_ThirdWorld/dictators.html
http://killinghope.org/

I'm probably a moron for hoping that it is humanly possible to open eyes after 60+ years of manipulation. The fact that people of a democratic nation consented to god-knows-how-many number of wars, is alone sufficient to prove that those people have been manipulated. However, since you called me a moron, let a Nobel Laureate talk to you. http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Chomsky/Journalist_Mars.html http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Chomsky/MediaControl_excerpts.html

I'm probably a moron for hoping that it is humanly possible to open eyes after 60+ years of manipulation. The fact that people of a democratic nation consented to god-knows-how-many number of wars, is alone sufficient to prove that those people have been manipulated. However, since you called me a moron, let a Nobel Laureate talk to you. http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Chomsky/Journalist_Mars.html http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Chomsky/MediaControl_excerpts.html

Oh come on... We've done a lot better than that lately.

I think corporations exists for the shareholders not us...no?

Corporations exist for the common or public good. If a corporation does not benefit them it's charter can be revoked.

Falcon

But corporations are. The whole point of corporations is that both shareholders and executive are insulated from certain liabilities that enable them to do things a private person legally could not.

No, corporations were given corporate charters, which grants that limited liability, only if they served the common or public good. Businesses were given limited liability if it was thought the business would help people. The first two corporations given charters, specifically for this reason, was the British East India Company the Dutch East India Company. Corporations have had their corporate charters revoked because they no longer served the public good. Petitioners requested Unocal have it's charter revoked after it supported the military in Burma in forcing Karen tribesmen to vacate land they owned and to work as porters and in other low wage positions for Unocal.

Falcon

Toonol sed:

"Yes, companies screw up and are evil; but they have the right to be, just like individuals."

Your statement that companies have a "right" to be "EVIL" sums up the Libertarian philosophy in a nutshell. It's why I could never vote for Ron Paul despite having great respect for his consistent courageous opposition to endless war by the U.S. government. The fatal flaw of the Libertarian philosophy is that you don't think morality or even basic human decency applies to business, that they should be allowed to operate in a 100% ethics free zoneand that the "free market" excuses ALL excesses with a magic wand. M$ is just but one relatively small example of why that is a bad idea, Shell oil in Nigeria is a more serious example of what private businesses are capable of unhindered by morality.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Boycotts/Flames_Shell.html

And no this isn't the Nigerian governments fault they only used government soldiers because they were cheap they would have hired pivate militias to slaughter Nigerian environmentalists if no soldiers had been available.

In an ideal world of course business morality would come from voluntary self restraint but since greed seems to overpower self restraint (again see M$) alas it seems that businesses must be regulated to keep people from suffering. Unrestrained greed is quite literally the killer of the Goose that lays the golden egg of the Libertarians stateless utopia which is just that a utopia just as 100% unrealistic as the communist utopia that looks good on paper and not so much in practice.

"As far as I know (being an ignorant foreigner), the US Army does not include any torture instructions in its manuals."

You mean apart from these?
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/SOA/SOA_TortureManuals.html

Yes Carter started it, but it was mainly a CIA operation. It took Reagan to dramatically increase funding and US involvement:

From http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Afghanistan/Afghanistan_CIA_Taliban.html

In March 1985, the Reagan administration issued National Security Decision Directive 166,29 a secret plan to escalate covert action in Afghanistan dramatically: Abandoning a policy of simple harassment of Soviet occupiers, the Reagan team decided secretly to let loose on the Afghan battlefield an array of U.S. high technology and military expertise in an effort to hit and demoralize Soviet commanders and soldiers....

...

By 1987, the annual supply of arms had reached 65,000 tons, and a "ceaseless stream" of CIA and Pentagon officials were visiting Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) headquarters in Rawalpindi and helping to plan mujahideen operations

...

As well as training and recruiting Afghan nationals to fight the Soviets, the CIA permitted its ISI allies to recruit Muslim extremists from around the world. Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid reports: Between 1982 and 1992, some 35,000 Muslim radicals from 43 Islamic countries in the Middle East, North and East Africa, Central Asia and the Far East would pass their baptism under fire with the Afghan mujahideen. Tens of thousands more foreign Muslim radicals came to study in the hundreds of new madrassas [religious schools] that Zia's military government began to fund in Pakistan and along the Afghan border. Eventually more than 100,000 Muslim radicals were to have direct contact with Pakistan and Afghanistan and be influenced by the jihad [against the USSR]

Like I said - Good job Republicans!

"war is the part that is more fun"

Or as Chris Hedges wrote: War is a force that gives us meaning.

Those words, if they are true, should make us all very, very scared for the future.

google terms: monsanto sue neighboring field

results:

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Corporations/PSchmeiser_Monsanto.html

Googling for the litigant (Percy Schmeiser) brings multiple sources for the lawsuit, including wikipedia

The technology "needed"? Funny, there's this odd history book that seems to think that humans lived in Africa for a while before Europeans arrived. I'm not sure, but I hear that in this mysterious time before time, they even didn't have cellphones or the Internet!

What is needed is an end to things like this. Until the first world nations stop raping third world nations and supporting tinpot dictators just for the sake of guaranteeing access to their resources, human misery will continue wholesale.