And that this wouldn't undermine capitalism within any particular nation provided that it was done by force of the state rather than whim of the capitalist.
I'm wonder if you know what capitalism is. As anyone who's read Adam Smith, especially "On Wealth of Nations", should know there is not capitalism if there's governmental interference. Capitalism requires a voluntary exchange but when government is there there is no voluntary exchange. Government puts restrictions on all sorts of things.
Also, if you are right, then wages globally should rise in proportion to productive output as capitalism becomes more competitive. That's actually not what happens. And that's why illegal aliens in the US earn lower -- not higher -- wages for doing the work that (supposedly) workers in the US aren't willing to do.
Ah, while those so called "illegal aliens" or immigrants aren't making as much as an American would make doing the same job those immigrants still make a lot more money than they made at home in Mexico. Mexicans sent hme, back to Mexico, some $23 million in 2006. That's Mexico's second biggest source of international income. The biggest is oil, after Canada Mexico is the US's biggest supplier of oil. As for why US citizens aren't doing those jobs, because they want to be paid more than the employers are willing to or can pay.
2. Because Marxism is built on the assumption of historically inevitable economic changes. History goes from capitalism, to socialism, to communism
After reading this, I'm wonder what to make of the rest of your post. From what I recall of Marx, he said economic history starts with feudalism, progresses to capitalism, then goes to communism.
"Are you implying that if China (and it's population) disappeared, a significant portion of people in the world would die?" Wouldn't it be the other way around? "The rest of the world depends little on Chinese food, or so I would assume... " Soy products, anyone?
The US grows a lot of soy, as does Brazil and Argentina. And of course Japan.
I wonder what exactly the big concern is with nuclear power. We wouldn't have such a large waste problem if we'd just reprocess the fuel, and who cares if it yields weapons-grade plutonium? Security risk, boo hoo... Really, we might as well use the plutonium for fuel too.
I do admit I don't know entirely about the economic feasibility of it, but France seems to be getting along fine with their large nuclear power system.
France has come the farthest is reprocessing nuclear fuel yet they still have problems. Reprocessing creates waste that's even hotter than before and it creates a lot of toxic residue. IEEE"s "Spectrum" has an article on France's reprocessing, Nuclear Wasteland. It goes over some of the problems France has with reprocessing.
You better plant some food long before you start to starve or your going to be dining on grass soap with an main course of roast tree bark.
Growing up I knew how to live and eat in the woods. Where I grew up I knew where to look for water, what plants were edible, and how to trap small game. There are field guides available in bookstores that can help with this. As for grass, some grasses are in our diet, both corn and rice are grass. And the bark of some trees are edible as well.
If I were starving I'd plant some food in my backyard and most people would do the same in their backyards, though I have no idea what people in places like NYC would do.
How do you store food without power? I can store frozen burger patties in my freezer for quite some time. Without a freezer how would you do it?
It was a bad choice of words perhaps. Yes power is needed but the power doesn't have to be derived of petroleum, or coal. Two ways I know of to preserve food without refrigerating or freezing is canning and dehydrating food. I live alone yet I have a lot of tomatoes and tomatilos growing in my garden this year. I'll use them to make sauces, salsas, and soups then I'll can them. I also have broccoli and cauliflower which I may also use to make soup. I don't have any this year but if and when I have grapes and or berries, I planted blueberries but they didn't survive, I could dehydrate them, make jams and or brew some wine, or fruity beer. And yes, I've done these, canning and made beer and wine.
You're suggesting that somehow the whoooole rest of the frickin world would die if America stopped exporting stuff?
Actually if the US, along with the EU and Japan stopped subsidizing food exports third world nations would then grow more food themselves. Because First World nations heavily subsidize agriculture they are able to export food to third world nations cheaper than people in those countries can grow it. That's one of the reason the US has as many "illegal aliens" or immigrants from Mexico. Because of NAFTA US agribusiness can grow corn in the US, export it to Mexico, and sell it cheaper than Mexican farmers spend growing it. Farm subsidies are a hugh problem in world trade talks, as with the WTO. Africa, Brazil, and India and well as others refuse to open up their markets unless the EU, Japan, and USA stop subsidizing agriculture.
Technically true, but moot. Modern intensive farming techniques require machinery that needs fuel. Then additional fuel is needed for machines to transport food to cities, where most people live. And finally fuel is used to refridgerate, heat, and otherwise process food. So technically food is more important, but we wouldn't have food without fuel.
Actually Cuba is and has shown a lot of petroleum fuel isn't needed to grow enough food. City Farms and city gardens as gaining as a method of growing food for cities, and Cuba basically started it. After the Soviet Union collapsed and Cuba lost the support from the SU, the government started encouraging city residents to grow food in small private gardens as well as city gardens and farms. While not everyone in a city could or will grow food many can do so, and others will leave the cities to rural locations where they can grow more food. Farming and large scale gardening will require more people to work but between growing some of their own food or working on a farm and starving at least some people will do so.
The feds aren't going to clean up the mess. The best hope is that local governments or communities (hell, even a home owners' association or group of neighbors) will build out infrastructure, fiber, wireless, whatever, and either run it as a cooperative or allow open access to ISPs to provide service. The important thing is don't repeat the mistake made with cable companies: Don't grant a monopoly. Own the infrastructure like you own the roads. Let companies compete to provide service over the infrastructure, like Fedex and UPS compete to provide service using the same roads.
In northeastern Utah some cites have banded together to create a "Broadband Utopia:
A municipally owned network in Utah is poised to offer 100 megabits per second--and that's just to start
While I'm a Libertarian and support a freemarket, infrastructure like this I prefer to have local coop, government, or nonprofit to own. They would then allow any and all comers who have the resources to use to the infrastructure to offer services.
If your livelihood depends on broadband then you are a total dipshit for not making sure it's available (at a reasonable price) *before* you move.
And what if you exercise due diligence to make sure you can get braodband, say you're moving so you check what access is available and the cablecos and telcos tell you broadband is available at that address but once you've signed on the dotted line and you call to have it installed they say it's not available?
Who is the someone you think should fix the problem? If you're advocating federal government subsidies or mandates, I disagree.
The telcos and cablecos already got billions of dollars to built out infrastructure but they did a halfass job and didn't finish it. Such as the "The $200 Billion Broadband Scandal.". They should be held accountable for the taxpayer dollars they already received. But whether they can or not they should not have a government granted monopoly Government created the problem by giving both monopolies and subsidies to businesses, now it's government's responsibility to clean up the mess. Allowing open access to the 700 MHz band is a start to that, small start but a start.
They don't GIVE it to you, they "give" it to you. You're missing parent's point--from the customer's perspective, you'll usually pay the same monthly rate with the cable company's equipment. There's no discount for buying your own equipment. So it's "free" only in the sense that your other alternative is paying for the equipment twice.
I don't know if you have cable access or if you do it's on your bill but my cable bill has an entry for the rental of the cable modem I have, I'd have to pay rental for the cable box if I had one for tv as well. It's only a few dollars/mo whereas the cheapest cable modem I've seen was about $80, something like 20 months rent. If it failed I'd have to buy another whereas when the original modem I had failed it was replaced, and with a faster modem, without be charged more. Generally I prefer to buy not rent but in this case I think renting is cheaper.
I was always amazed that so few people knew about or considered satellite broadband despite the millions of bucks a year that HughesNet throws at advertising, especially on DirecTV. WildBlue now also has big co-marketing programs with DirecTV, DISH Network and AT&T. So I'm curious - do people not know about satellite or do they know and just don't want it?
When I moved I could have gotten satellite access but being able to get cable access I chose it instead. Latency isn't an issue with cable and I get faster speeds. I'd rather have DSL so I wouldn't have to share a connection, however I don't know if the wiring here is any good. Nor do I have landline phone service, which I'd probably have to have or I'd have to pay more. If however there was no landline broadband available yet I really wanted to live there I'd probably go ahead and get satellite. With the new FCC rules, er proposed rules, for the 700 MHz airwaves though companies like Google, or small local businesses, may be able to offer broadband wireless in a lot of places.
Reading the press release, they don't really SAY much... other than "We hate you Microsoft, neener neener neener."
Is this more FUD? Unlike other/.ers I read articles and neither in this one or the press release I did see anywhere in there where it said the FSF hated Microsoft. What they said was that MS has used anticompetitive conduct, which courts in both the US and in Europe have acknowledged. Not in one place did I see "hate" other than as part of "whatever".
But it all seems insignificant compared to what the evil bastards did next. (The holocaust)
True enough, what the NAZIs did was evil. They didn't just do it to European Jews though, they also targeted crippled people though they honored those wounded in combat. They also tried to exterminate the Romani or Roma and the Sinti both otherwise known as Gypies. Actually the Sinti are a subgroup of Romani. NAZIs also considered Arabs and Africans inferior. However bad, evil, the NAZIs were at first they tried to get Jews to immigrate. They negotiated deals with Jewish leaders under two agreements. One was the Haavara Agreement. It was an agreement for European Jews to move to Palestine. NAZIs would buy property owned by Jews then the money would be deposited in a bank with a branch in Palestine. Once there Jews could then withdraw money. The other agreement was the Rublee-Wohlthat-Abkommen Agreement, where European Jews could move out of Europe to anywhere else.
Fine. Just don't go pulling out your gun first if someone tries to rob your house. If you threaten their life, surely they can be justified in protecting themselves and killing you with their own firearm. They should still be charged with robbery, but not murder since, like everyone else, they were just carrying a gun for self-protection and not planning to even threaten you with it.
Breaking in, a robber has already declared they are a danger. "Oh wait please Mr robber while I call the police." Gang you're dead. Growing up my best friend's dad had a sign in the front window beside the door with a smoking gun, the caption read "Anyone found here at night will be found here in the morning." And he meant it. Like my dad he served in the US Air Force, though he was discharged when he suffered an injury causing a disability whereas my father retired from the Air Force. He was an expert shot too, he'd take the two of us out in the middle of nowhere for target practice, and he'd have one of us toss something small up then he'd shoot it drawing from the hip. Before I was a teenager my dad gave me a.22 long rifle and I'd use it for practice myself. I believe it's important for a person to grow up being able to handle firearms and being taught to respect them.
I believe that's a root problem with firearms in the US today, too many people are afraid of firearms so when they have children they don't teacher them to respect firearms. Then like when a young adult reaches legal age to drink they go off on a drinking bing. They never learned to respect alcohol, or firearms. It used to be that parents in the US were able to give their teens a drink and not get in trouble, my parents did as well as most other parents I knew growing up. They just made sure the child only had a little bit to drink and not a lot. A sip or two to start with, then a little more. By the tyme I was 18 I'd open a longneck bottle of beer and nurse it throughout the evening. When I was stationed in Germany, I enlisted in the US Army, I saw how casually German parents would order a glass of wine for their child to drink while eating out. Try that now in the US and that parent will have their child taken away, have a good chance of being criminally prosecuted, and be labeled a child abuser.
it makes more sense when you put it in the context of all the larger evils that could have happened -- but didn't through the actions of the U.S.
And what evil was there in letting East Timorese elect their own government? Or the Chileans elect their's? What threat did the Mayans massacred in Guatemala pose?
To use one example, the dropping of the atomic bombs. The Chomsky screaming version is, "The U.S. dropped the only two atomic bombs ever used in war!!!
I don't know what Chomsky thinks or says of the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, but I will say though I know it was necessary to end the war I still hate that it was needed. Without the bombing Japan would of had to be invaded which would have caused many deaths, both Japanese and American. However World War II never would of been needed to be fought if France, Great Britain, and the US had not allowed Hitler to rearm Germany in the 1930s. And without fighting in Europe Japan would of been crazy to declare war in the Pacific.
even the Nazis claimed to be treating Jews well in their propaganda
For a short tyme NAZIs did treat Jews well. They even trained Jews as terrorists to fight against the British in Palestine. Some of the members of the Stern Gang, Lehi were some of those trained by the NAZIs. The Stern Gang even proposed a colaboration with NAZIs during WWII.
Iran supports global terrorism. It openly supports Hizballah and other terroist organizations.
Maybe you didn't know it but not only has Israel supported terrorists, Muslim terrorists at that, but Israel was founded by terrorists. Ask the British what they thought of the Stern Gang, Lehi.
Really, the notion that the US funded bin Laden is ridiculous on the face of it, as bin Laden is fucking loaded. Seriously, the man's a billionaire.
Here, you're wrong. The bin Laden family may be worth more than a billion dollars, barely if at all, but Osama isn't worth that much. When he left Saudi Arabia Osama bin Laden was worth $250 million. As for the Taliban, shortly after taking office pres Bush in 2001 gave the Taliban $43 million of taxpayer money, ostensibly for fighting opium. However while the Taliban did fight some farmers and others dealing with opium the Taliban also militarily supported others who then paid the Taliban. As it is now the Taliban is benefiting from a Record-breaking opium crop.
The funny thing to me about the connections to Al Qaeda debate is that as far as I know, we gave them all their money and weapons originally, didn't we? But that's not a connection, that's history.
Not only did the US arm and support the Mujahadeen which gave rise to Al Qaeda and the Taliban but shortly after taking office pres Bush gave the Taliban $43,000,000 of US taxpayer money.
Yea, I watched Christiane Amanpour's "God's Warriors" earlier. Christiane does pretty good at cover extremists, whether Jew, Christian, or Muslim.
I would like to add that:
Christianity may be viewed as a faith of lost morality
Judaism is a faith of the "chosen" one's
Islam my be viewed as a faith of hate
I liked how a professor I had for Understanding Religious Man put it:
Judaism is the law
Christianity is a translation of the law,
and Islam is the law in practice.
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And that this wouldn't undermine capitalism within any particular nation provided that it was done by force of the state rather than whim of the capitalist.
I'm wonder if you know what capitalism is. As anyone who's read Adam Smith, especially "On Wealth of Nations" , should know there is not capitalism if there's governmental interference. Capitalism requires a voluntary exchange but when government is there there is no voluntary exchange. Government puts restrictions on all sorts of things.
Also, if you are right, then wages globally should rise in proportion to productive output as capitalism becomes more competitive. That's actually not what happens. And that's why illegal aliens in the US earn lower -- not higher -- wages for doing the work that (supposedly) workers in the US aren't willing to do.
Ah, while those so called "illegal aliens" or immigrants aren't making as much as an American would make doing the same job those immigrants still make a lot more money than they made at home in Mexico. Mexicans sent hme, back to Mexico, some $23 million in 2006. That's Mexico's second biggest source of international income. The biggest is oil, after Canada Mexico is the US's biggest supplier of oil. As for why US citizens aren't doing those jobs, because they want to be paid more than the employers are willing to or can pay.
Falcon2. Because Marxism is built on the assumption of historically inevitable economic changes. History goes from capitalism, to socialism, to communism
After reading this, I'm wonder what to make of the rest of your post. From what I recall of Marx, he said economic history starts with feudalism, progresses to capitalism, then goes to communism.
Falcon"Are you implying that if China (and it's population) disappeared, a significant portion of people in the world would die?" Wouldn't it be the other way around? "The rest of the world depends little on Chinese food, or so I would assume... " Soy products, anyone?
The US grows a lot of soy, as does Brazil and Argentina. And of course Japan.
FalconI wonder what exactly the big concern is with nuclear power. We wouldn't have such a large waste problem if we'd just reprocess the fuel, and who cares if it yields weapons-grade plutonium? Security risk, boo hoo... Really, we might as well use the plutonium for fuel too.
I do admit I don't know entirely about the economic feasibility of it, but France seems to be getting along fine with their large nuclear power system.
France has come the farthest is reprocessing nuclear fuel yet they still have problems. Reprocessing creates waste that's even hotter than before and it creates a lot of toxic residue. IEEE"s "Spectrum" has an article on France's reprocessing, Nuclear Wasteland . It goes over some of the problems France has with reprocessing.
FalconYou better plant some food long before you start to starve or your going to be dining on grass soap with an main course of roast tree bark.
Growing up I knew how to live and eat in the woods. Where I grew up I knew where to look for water, what plants were edible, and how to trap small game. There are field guides available in bookstores that can help with this. As for grass, some grasses are in our diet, both corn and rice are grass. And the bark of some trees are edible as well.
FalconIf I were starving I'd plant some food in my backyard and most people would do the same in their backyards, though I have no idea what people in places like NYC would do.
Cities could start city farms.
FalconHow do you store food without power? I can store frozen burger patties in my freezer for quite some time. Without a freezer how would you do it?
It was a bad choice of words perhaps. Yes power is needed but the power doesn't have to be derived of petroleum, or coal. Two ways I know of to preserve food without refrigerating or freezing is canning and dehydrating food. I live alone yet I have a lot of tomatoes and tomatilos growing in my garden this year. I'll use them to make sauces, salsas, and soups then I'll can them. I also have broccoli and cauliflower which I may also use to make soup. I don't have any this year but if and when I have grapes and or berries, I planted blueberries but they didn't survive, I could dehydrate them, make jams and or brew some wine, or fruity beer. And yes, I've done these, canning and made beer and wine.
FalconYou're suggesting that somehow the whoooole rest of the frickin world would die if America stopped exporting stuff?
Actually if the US, along with the EU and Japan stopped subsidizing food exports third world nations would then grow more food themselves. Because First World nations heavily subsidize agriculture they are able to export food to third world nations cheaper than people in those countries can grow it. That's one of the reason the US has as many "illegal aliens" or immigrants from Mexico. Because of NAFTA US agribusiness can grow corn in the US, export it to Mexico, and sell it cheaper than Mexican farmers spend growing it. Farm subsidies are a hugh problem in world trade talks, as with the WTO. Africa, Brazil, and India and well as others refuse to open up their markets unless the EU, Japan, and USA stop subsidizing agriculture.
FalconTechnically true, but moot. Modern intensive farming techniques require machinery that needs fuel. Then additional fuel is needed for machines to transport food to cities, where most people live. And finally fuel is used to refridgerate, heat, and otherwise process food. So technically food is more important, but we wouldn't have food without fuel.
Actually Cuba is and has shown a lot of petroleum fuel isn't needed to grow enough food. City Farms and city gardens as gaining as a method of growing food for cities, and Cuba basically started it. After the Soviet Union collapsed and Cuba lost the support from the SU, the government started encouraging city residents to grow food in small private gardens as well as city gardens and farms. While not everyone in a city could or will grow food many can do so, and others will leave the cities to rural locations where they can grow more food. Farming and large scale gardening will require more people to work but between growing some of their own food or working on a farm and starving at least some people will do so.
FalconThe feds aren't going to clean up the mess. The best hope is that local governments or communities (hell, even a home owners' association or group of neighbors) will build out infrastructure, fiber, wireless, whatever, and either run it as a cooperative or allow open access to ISPs to provide service. The important thing is don't repeat the mistake made with cable companies: Don't grant a monopoly. Own the infrastructure like you own the roads. Let companies compete to provide service over the infrastructure, like Fedex and UPS compete to provide service using the same roads.
In northeastern Utah some cites have banded together to create a "Broadband Utopia :
A municipally owned network in Utah is poised to offer 100 megabits per second--and that's just to start
While I'm a Libertarian and support a freemarket, infrastructure like this I prefer to have local coop, government, or nonprofit to own. They would then allow any and all comers who have the resources to use to the infrastructure to offer services.
FalconIf your livelihood depends on broadband then you are a total dipshit for not making sure it's available (at a reasonable price) *before* you move.
And what if you exercise due diligence to make sure you can get braodband, say you're moving so you check what access is available and the cablecos and telcos tell you broadband is available at that address but once you've signed on the dotted line and you call to have it installed they say it's not available?
FalconWho is the someone you think should fix the problem? If you're advocating federal government subsidies or mandates, I disagree.
The telcos and cablecos already got billions of dollars to built out infrastructure but they did a halfass job and didn't finish it. Such as the "The $200 Billion Broadband Scandal." . They should be held accountable for the taxpayer dollars they already received. But whether they can or not they should not have a government granted monopoly Government created the problem by giving both monopolies and subsidies to businesses, now it's government's responsibility to clean up the mess. Allowing open access to the 700 MHz band is a start to that, small start but a start.
FalconAs someone who lives in the great state of NH I can easily say: Welcome to NH, b*tch.
Ah, the state for the Free State Project.
FalconThey don't GIVE it to you, they "give" it to you. You're missing parent's point--from the customer's perspective, you'll usually pay the same monthly rate with the cable company's equipment. There's no discount for buying your own equipment. So it's "free" only in the sense that your other alternative is paying for the equipment twice.
I don't know if you have cable access or if you do it's on your bill but my cable bill has an entry for the rental of the cable modem I have, I'd have to pay rental for the cable box if I had one for tv as well. It's only a few dollars/mo whereas the cheapest cable modem I've seen was about $80, something like 20 months rent. If it failed I'd have to buy another whereas when the original modem I had failed it was replaced, and with a faster modem, without be charged more. Generally I prefer to buy not rent but in this case I think renting is cheaper.
FalconI was always amazed that so few people knew about or considered satellite broadband despite the millions of bucks a year that HughesNet throws at advertising, especially on DirecTV. WildBlue now also has big co-marketing programs with DirecTV, DISH Network and AT&T. So I'm curious - do people not know about satellite or do they know and just don't want it?
When I moved I could have gotten satellite access but being able to get cable access I chose it instead. Latency isn't an issue with cable and I get faster speeds. I'd rather have DSL so I wouldn't have to share a connection, however I don't know if the wiring here is any good. Nor do I have landline phone service, which I'd probably have to have or I'd have to pay more. If however there was no landline broadband available yet I really wanted to live there I'd probably go ahead and get satellite. With the new FCC rules, er proposed rules, for the 700 MHz airwaves though companies like Google, or small local businesses, may be able to offer broadband wireless in a lot of places.
FalconReading the press release, they don't really SAY much... other than "We hate you Microsoft, neener neener neener."
Is this more FUD? Unlike other /.ers I read articles and neither in this one or the press release I did see anywhere in there where it said the FSF hated Microsoft. What they said was that MS has used anticompetitive conduct, which courts in both the US and in Europe have acknowledged. Not in one place did I see "hate" other than as part of "whatever".
FalconWell. So may it be.
But it all seems insignificant compared to what the evil bastards did next. (The holocaust)
True enough, what the NAZIs did was evil. They didn't just do it to European Jews though, they also targeted crippled people though they honored those wounded in combat. They also tried to exterminate the Romani or Roma and the Sinti both otherwise known as Gypies. Actually the Sinti are a subgroup of Romani. NAZIs also considered Arabs and Africans inferior. However bad, evil, the NAZIs were at first they tried to get Jews to immigrate. They negotiated deals with Jewish leaders under two agreements. One was the Haavara Agreement. It was an agreement for European Jews to move to Palestine. NAZIs would buy property owned by Jews then the money would be deposited in a bank with a branch in Palestine. Once there Jews could then withdraw money. The other agreement was the Rublee-Wohlthat-Abkommen Agreement, where European Jews could move out of Europe to anywhere else.
Fine. Just don't go pulling out your gun first if someone tries to rob your house. If you threaten their life, surely they can be justified in protecting themselves and killing you with their own firearm. They should still be charged with robbery, but not murder since, like everyone else, they were just carrying a gun for self-protection and not planning to even threaten you with it.
Breaking in, a robber has already declared they are a danger. "Oh wait please Mr robber while I call the police." Gang you're dead. Growing up my best friend's dad had a sign in the front window beside the door with a smoking gun, the caption read "Anyone found here at night will be found here in the morning." And he meant it. Like my dad he served in the US Air Force, though he was discharged when he suffered an injury causing a disability whereas my father retired from the Air Force. He was an expert shot too, he'd take the two of us out in the middle of nowhere for target practice, and he'd have one of us toss something small up then he'd shoot it drawing from the hip. Before I was a teenager my dad gave me a .22 long rifle and I'd use it for practice myself. I believe it's important for a person to grow up being able to handle firearms and being taught to respect them.
I believe that's a root problem with firearms in the US today, too many people are afraid of firearms so when they have children they don't teacher them to respect firearms. Then like when a young adult reaches legal age to drink they go off on a drinking bing. They never learned to respect alcohol, or firearms. It used to be that parents in the US were able to give their teens a drink and not get in trouble, my parents did as well as most other parents I knew growing up. They just made sure the child only had a little bit to drink and not a lot. A sip or two to start with, then a little more. By the tyme I was 18 I'd open a longneck bottle of beer and nurse it throughout the evening. When I was stationed in Germany, I enlisted in the US Army, I saw how casually German parents would order a glass of wine for their child to drink while eating out. Try that now in the US and that parent will have their child taken away, have a good chance of being criminally prosecuted, and be labeled a child abuser.
Falconit makes more sense when you put it in the context of all the larger evils that could have happened -- but didn't through the actions of the U.S.
And what evil was there in letting East Timorese elect their own government? Or the Chileans elect their's? What threat did the Mayans massacred in Guatemala pose?
To use one example, the dropping of the atomic bombs. The Chomsky screaming version is, "The U.S. dropped the only two atomic bombs ever used in war!!!
I don't know what Chomsky thinks or says of the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, but I will say though I know it was necessary to end the war I still hate that it was needed. Without the bombing Japan would of had to be invaded which would have caused many deaths, both Japanese and American. However World War II never would of been needed to be fought if France, Great Britain, and the US had not allowed Hitler to rearm Germany in the 1930s. And without fighting in Europe Japan would of been crazy to declare war in the Pacific.
Falconeven the Nazis claimed to be treating Jews well in their propaganda
For a short tyme NAZIs did treat Jews well. They even trained Jews as terrorists to fight against the British in Palestine. Some of the members of the Stern Gang, Lehi were some of those trained by the NAZIs. The Stern Gang even proposed a colaboration with NAZIs during WWII.
FalconEnemy of whom? Iran has not been in a war of aggression against any nation, since the 19th century.
So that little decade long stalemate with Iraq back in the 80's doesn't count?
It was Saddam and Iraq that attacked Iran not the other way, Iran didn't start the war Iraq did. The aggressor wasn't Iran.
FalconIran supports global terrorism. It openly supports Hizballah and other terroist organizations.
Maybe you didn't know it but not only has Israel supported terrorists, Muslim terrorists at that, but Israel was founded by terrorists. Ask the British what they thought of the Stern Gang, Lehi.
FalconReally, the notion that the US funded bin Laden is ridiculous on the face of it, as bin Laden is fucking loaded. Seriously, the man's a billionaire.
Here, you're wrong. The bin Laden family may be worth more than a billion dollars, barely if at all, but Osama isn't worth that much. When he left Saudi Arabia Osama bin Laden was worth $250 million. As for the Taliban, shortly after taking office pres Bush in 2001 gave the Taliban $43 million of taxpayer money, ostensibly for fighting opium. However while the Taliban did fight some farmers and others dealing with opium the Taliban also militarily supported others who then paid the Taliban. As it is now the Taliban is benefiting from a Record-breaking opium crop .
FalconThe funny thing to me about the connections to Al Qaeda debate is that as far as I know, we gave them all their money and weapons originally, didn't we? But that's not a connection, that's history.
Not only did the US arm and support the Mujahadeen which gave rise to Al Qaeda and the Taliban but shortly after taking office pres Bush gave the Taliban $43,000,000 of US taxpayer money.
FalconYea, I watched Christiane Amanpour's "God's Warriors" earlier. Christiane does pretty good at cover extremists, whether Jew, Christian, or Muslim.
I would like to add that:
Christianity may be viewed as a faith of lost morality
Judaism is a faith of the "chosen" one's
Islam my be viewed as a faith of hate
I liked how a professor I had for Understanding Religious Man put it:
FalconJudaism is the law
Christianity is a translation of the law,
and Islam is the law in practice.