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#1
09-17-2010
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Stop and Think
 No money for universal health care. No money for the economy and jobs. A trillion dollars owed to China. Yet for some reason, hundreds of billions a year to finance wars. Billions in revenue for defense contractors. Billions to sustain expensive and purposeless military bases across the world. After all, the next five military powers cannot defend themselves, right? The Cold War is over. It is impossible to have an arms race with scattered terrorist cells. The nation is bankrupting itself. All of us are effected by everything you do. That is unfortunately the price to pay for being the sole remaining superpower. Corrupt government owned by special interests and lobbyists. Dangerous Wall Street influence. Progressives and Conservatives left without a voice. Neither party actually represent them. Two party system an utter failure. Partisan bickering polluting the airwaves. Your head of state may be a Kenyan born, socialist, communist, fascist, secret Muslim, black liberation theology adherent, and radical Jeremiah Wright Christian Anti-Christ. You have a long way to recovery, America. But were with you every step of the way. Just for the love of God, please don't make a mistake come the November elections! 
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#2
09-18-2010
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Spending money on the military is never a mistake.
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#3
09-18-2010
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AdjacentOrigin is not anti-military, he's opposed to gratuitous military spending (as shown via the contrasting expenditures between the US, which encompasses nearly 50% of all global military sales, and the rest of the world in that pie chart).
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#4
09-18-2010
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As someone totally against Universal Health care and understands that the military PROVIDES jobs to people, I'm still against it.
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#5
09-18-2010
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You can feel it in the jobs in America, since they are cutting back and sending people home. some have to work a two or three man job, stressing and worrying about losing their job too. And it's sad that there was workers that was sent home and soon after turned homeless. I know USA can pump out the guns for war, but they are putting to much into the military, not that i'm against it. But i maybe that money could be spent on the Americans? the damage that hurricane Katrina dealt is still there, still a big mess. But i have seen that my city and (i don't know if any others) are making plans to go eco friendly soon..... BLAH
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#6
09-18-2010
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#7
09-18-2010
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#8
09-18-2010
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Because of the time (1 in the morning here) Im not going to write about it myself, but heres SOAD to sum up my agreement
I know not quite the same message but yeah along the same lines. Its ridiculous when it could be spent of more things than death for more death (Rather than so much money being focused on causing death which causes more death that is) Last edited by grimfang999; 09-18-2010 at 07:20 PM.
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#9
09-18-2010
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As such, I'm going to have to take a page out of Cor_Limey's book and point out that you've just thrown a red herring at me. To explain, you pointed out that the military is more important than Universal Health Care because it provides jobs. I rebutted that maintaining a military for the sake of employment doesn't make sense. And, the red herring; without addressing my question you've changed the topic to something new; military progress. Very well, I'll take this red herring* and say that you can have your military progress for the sake of beating everyone to the punch. But, nowadays, the US seems to be the one throwing the punches in the first place. *I prefer my red herring smoked, and not cured in brine as is tradition. Having said that, I ate it for dinner.
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#10
09-19-2010
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It's not just the jobs it brings. The military also helps with middle to lower class kids being able to afford college. If the military works, why fix it? Because some liberals would rather risk the budget on Universal Health care that might work?
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#11
09-19-2010
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Also, how many kids with well-to-do parents are signing up for military service? Does it not seem like the system is constructed for the poor to take the brunt of the cost? Forget Universal Health Care ... If education really was that important to the government, why not just skip the middle-man of military service and funnel some of that gratuitous military spending towards subsidizing education for everyone?
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#12
09-19-2010
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A man becomes employed be the military.
Suffers a nervous breakdown due to stress. Gets placed on a leave of absence and is eventually terminated from him job with the military. Since he no longer has a job with the military he no longer has health insurance to cover the necessary medications and treatments needed to return to work and support himself. What happens next? What does the man do? while it is important to have a job and support oneself financially, if you are physically or mentally unable to work. how do you survive? Also not everyone can be employed by the military. I'd love to try and join the military, but I can't by reason of mental defect or disability.
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#13
09-19-2010
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Even if the United States cuts its military budget by HALF it will still be more than the next 5 military powers COMBINED. Maintaining jobs is good, but the costs outweigh the benefits. In the end more jobs (especially domestic jobs) are lost and nobody wins but the Military Industrial Complex. Eisenhower warned you guys about it. But both Democrats and Republicans refused to listen. I am confused with your opposition to Universal Health care. Would you care to elaborate?
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#14
09-19-2010
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That's a story for another place.
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#16
09-19-2010
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-Well coming from Britain, I have no moral standing in the arms race what so ever, not only does our "third world country" have the third largest military budget in the world, it also has the most incompetent military budget in the world with most of our weapons arriving on average 10 years after they were scheduled in for deployment and half our troops not equipped adequately for battle o_0
However i will say this, Ostinato is right, maintaining a military for the sake of it, is pointless and insane to any logical person, but this politics', not logic, therefore that is out the window from start -And Allison's point about jobs is made redundant when we see that the countries with the universal healthcare she scorns so much actually employ more widely and demographically through healthcare than military and most of those healthcare countries also pay for the education of those willing to work within the healthcare system removing education point too, but that is because employment is not cause of this issue, and anyone who believes it is, is ether misinformed or lying, this is all about the wonderfully named "war economy!" =Now this brief introduction into the war economy, is just that, brief, it is lot more complicated than this, but to get into the detailed points of it would convolute things and put it beyond my own meager understanding of it:- =Now I use Britain as an example because while our spending is incompetent in terms of military usage, it almost brilliant in terms of economic distribution and cynical money making of the most woeful kind. Step 1=Start a war=Now this may seem like should be at the end, but in fact needs to be at front and then we will come full circle back to it later. -Now you start this war in a country where you will always win and the county has people who are willing to take conditioned power from you, once you have taken control (this is important factor for later) it also helps if the place is somewhere, where fighting will be long and drawn out without being overly destructive to the point of say Korea or veirtuam:-(yes I know I cannot spell) -This is because the public doesn’t take well to death and the costs are more prominent to the public eye. Step2=Use the war as justification to inflate military spending=(Note this doesn’t nesscary mean increase the amount spent, but in many cases change what spending it on) Now taking UK as example, you will pump money into UK based armes firms at inflated prices, this then allows them to undercut foreign arms dealers in deals with foreign arms buyers as you are basically subsidising their deals for them, this is why Britain, is both the third biggest military expender and the third biggest arms exporter. -Subsidising it also allows you to purposefully delay competition of products till after their need has passed, prolonging engagement, weakening rival buyers military force for later engagements (because most arms dealers are more than willing to sell to people killing their own race) and creating need for more expenditure. Step 3=Military and economic control=Suddenly, you have a proxy government allied to you and control over the arms market, what do you do, easy, use position to get them to not only start buying your arms, but loan them the money to do so, so their indebted to you and have to start leasing their land, workers and resources to you, not only creating more control over them, but increasing your income and return on the whole venture ten fold -Result=more money, more economic muscle, more power and more political push Step 4=Start another war=What do with do with all this lovely control and income, easy start another war, to start possess again. =Now like said this is very very simple explanation of the way it works and to put it into to practise is a million times more complex, especially when put the alliances between arm traders into the mix and what not, but this is why countries like the US and UK spend so much on war, it makes them more power and money in the end. Last edited by Fat1Fared; 09-19-2010 at 12:38 PM.
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#17
09-19-2010
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The problem the US faces in regards to it's military budget is that they have forced upon themselves a mantle that is unnecessary and bad for their country in the long run. Particularly the neoconservatives of America believe that an aggressive foreign policy and occupation of nation states is the best way to promote freedom and democracy. And it isn't. To reiterate my point. The Cold War is OVER. Other western democracies are perfectly able to take care of themselves. The US should lead by example and not by force. There are far too many intelligence agencies that were formed after 9/11. The bureaucracy is too large and many government programs should be cut to increase efficiency (Department of Homeland Security comes to mind). The DoD/FBI/CIA/DSA is perfectly capable of countering any terrorist threats without more government programs and a massive military budget. Billions of dollars can be saved and invested into infrastructure and keeping jobs from leaving overseas.
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#18
09-19-2010
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Did you ever think that maybe we just wanna blow shit up?
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#19
09-20-2010
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My story was an analogy based on an argument that was made. It was based on my opinion, instead of ridiculing it, find a more constructive to say my argument is invalid. ~~ Topic I'm not saying we should completely do away with the Military. Nations should be able to defend themselves should the need arise, but there is a need for healthcare. What good is it defending a country whose people are all dead because they couldn't afford to go to a doctor to treat their cancer or whatever?
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#21
09-20-2010
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This is the first thing I think about the moment I ask myself "What would I do if I were in charge?" as we all do from time to time. Honestly. I support and honor the brave men and women who defend us from the real existing threats, for as long as there is some existing authority of any sort, there will always be anarchists to resist it regardless of whether the authority in question is good or evil, stupid or wise.
The problem we face is this messiah complex we have. Why do we have to be the ones to oust a dictator? Didn't the Cold War teach us anything about how BAD we are at that? I'll give you a bit of a history lesson about a country that mirrors our own rise as a nation.  Mali is the 3rd poorest country in the world and was ruled by a dictator named General Moussa Traoré. He had overthrown the previous leader, Modibo Keita, during a coup in 1968 and took control. Decades later the people were rotting away due to political corruption that abused humanitarian aid and he used military to enforce his rule. On March 22, 1991 a large rally of college students protested the government on the bridge leading to the national headquarters. Traoré sent his military and more than 300 of those students were gunned down during the ensuing massacre. That was the initial spark that gave rise to widespread support of a coup however it did not gain military backing until the mothers of those college students led a march on that same bridge less than a week later. Traoré sent his troops to dispose of them in a similar matter but his soldiers refused him outright and his dictatorship was brought to an end shortly thereafter. Following the fall of the dictatorship, the country elected Alpha Oumar Konaré, but let me state immediately that this man was NOT the leader of the coup.... THAT was retired general Amadou Toumani Touré. Both men, however, contributed to the reformation of the country and the establishment of a new constitution. Touré was eventually elected after Konaré's second term and despite having been the man responsible for personally removing Traoré from power, he spared Traoré's life and instead gave him life in prison BUT in 2002, as he was about to leave his position as President, Touré PARDONED Traoré and his wife in full. As a representative of the nation of Mali, he showed mercy and forgiveness to the very person who oppressed them for over two decades. Absolutely mindblowing to say the least. What does this have to do with anything? *smack* Don't you remember history class? It's not like it was anything special. As for my POINT regarding all of this.... what is it that really defines a free nation? Is it really one that has a democracy? Because Sadam was quite good at persuading the populous into voting for him every election (Note: The same exact thing was occuring in Mali up until 1991). The true definition of a free country is a nation whose people unify against injustice and frees itself from the jaws of oppression. What is learned when that task is done for you? NOTHING. I say this now: The moment American troops are gone from Iraq (fuck what the news says, we still have troops there), it will revert to the way it was and everything we have done for the past 9 years will have been for nothing. We approached the problem from the wrong perspective. Do you know what we should have done? Educate them. Our forefathers and those college students from Mali are quite similar in several respects. Because they were educated, they realized that despite the relative peace they enjoyed, they were being treated as lesser human beings. The malians were unfortunate, however, because they didn't have an entire ocean between them and the man who wanted them dead. One final note though, education and propaganda are two sides to the same coin.
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#22
09-20-2010
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Titan no offence here, as to be fair, history is what we are told it is, and that story does have some very profound messages in it, and if want comparison, compare it to the raise of Zhu Yuanzhang's Ming dynasty, (now there is a preasent rebellion and man who knew importance of education and quality over numbers and masses)
-However this does lead to us into china and that then allows us to see how educating masses is not always good idea ether as an arrogant British academic elite of 1908 found and china itself found in 1989 that sometimes educated protest fails if only the educated gain from it. =Now, as I have read that wiki page before, I am now only guessing at what you are comparing here, and if I got it wrong and you are making a different comparison, please tell me so, but if you comparing britain to Moussa Traoré, then I am stunned, not because that is grossly missappropriating anything Britain ever did in USA (though it is), but because that is grossly missappropriates the fact that you are comparing 1 man's actions to a whole empires, which simply unfair and overbearing on the 1 man. =Also, if you are comparing the US to Mali, then I think you have a very glamorized view of the miss-named American Revolution, that was nothing to do with tax's and oppression and all to do with Business man, trade routes and banking systems, in short, the USA's favorite sign of power, money. -Now this is not a history or American revolution based page I know, but seeing as this is being used to make a point, I feel further information is needed on it, as if this proves anything, all it proves is how every man is only worth what his country is willing to sell him for and how cynical war is, as in the end, despite popular belief, Britain did not see the territories of American as that important at this time, because they were more concerned with Frances growing power base and several hundred year old feud with them, fundermentally that is all the American Revolution was, a side-note in the war with the french and this is why an incompetent commander was sent with underfunded force to enforce order and then once America agreed to basically stab the French in back and stop trading with them, Britain gave them official home rule and was even nice enough to start letting you do your own banking, which turned out to be the economic doo-doo of the century, several hundred years later, but still..... PS I use the term Britain as though Britain as single ruled identity empire, technically didn't form till 1707, it had been calling itself that sense the Roman's arrived and was working unofficially in that formation sense 1500's =So what does this show us, war, whether it have religion, political ideology, social reform or rebellion at its heart, needs money to be a respectable war and the only men with the money to fund this kind of thing, normally only care about more gaining more money, so war is economic at is hearts very core and because it is so good at making certain men with no ethical or human regard for human life, it will always exist, heck we are taught we need war and encouraged to start them for this reason, it is like a cancer to our very social being Quote:
Last edited by Fat1Fared; 09-20-2010 at 06:23 AM.
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#23
09-20-2010
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TitanAura, The situation in Mali is very interesting. Thanks for bringing it up.
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#24
09-20-2010
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#25
09-20-2010
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Becaaaause ... it's evolution, bab-ey
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#26
09-20-2010
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They threw the equivalent of a hissy fit over a tea tax that was more than likely easily justifiable what with the cost of shipping tea back and forth over the Atlantic. These were rich, influential men who wanted a bigger slice of the pie, HOWEVER, they were wise enough to have foresight that their children's children would be fighting the same war they had just fought if they chose to elect a new king, or a man with power equal to a king as they nearly would have done had Washington not had the wisdom to step down from power resulting in a tradition that has more or less kept the balance of power in check. Of course these men sought personal gain but so does every living human being on the face of the earth. The income tax didn't exist for quite awhile after the founding of America because it was established by the rich and it honestly didn't occur to them that maybe their heaps of wealth could be better used elsewhere. This is why they tried as much as possible to establish a government that could be as free as possible from personal bias and opinion and operate for the benefit of everyone (mostly land owning white men from the start) and allowed changes that would further protect their rights. There have been countless missteps and errors and even our founding fathers didn't quite know how the fuck to organize a massive legal system that still doesn't seem to function all that efficiently since the constitution seems to give more of a vague guideline of how courts should be managed rather than specific outlines down to that whole swearing on the Bible thing that immediately contradicts the separation of church and state. I've gone on too long about how much our fore fathers have fucked up before but let me make my point. I was eluding to the similarities between the two events in history. Napoleon was not Hitler and their conquests weren't even close to being identical but they get brought up when the other is mentioned simply because they both tried and failed to invade Russia and got their asses handed to them. The thing is, I wasn't making a point about how great and wonderful the sunshine and rainbows are in the states, I was stating that historically, every country that has had foreign intervention as an attempt to "fix" results in failure. Countries that liberate themselves (violently or not) become more stable (after the transitional period when a new government is being built) when people who do not desire power are instead given power by their own people (whether these leaders desired it or not is debatable but regardless, they displayed self restraint and chose to step down as an example to their citizens). Quite possibly, how a new person comes to power might not even matter in the end if the man who is put in charge desires more power or not. Perhaps we've chosen a just and peaceful man to oversee Iraq's future change or he might just be bidding his time while scheming or worse yet he, too, will be overthrown when he is rejected and murdered by a power hungry warlord. Last edited by TitanAura; 09-20-2010 at 07:06 PM.
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#27
09-20-2010
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#28
09-20-2010
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 cloning IS NOT evolution
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#30
09-20-2010
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best musicvideo ever
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