Peter_Puget Posted February 12, 2005 Author Share Posted February 12, 2005 I'm sure that part of GWB's motivation for invading the middle east is to "make the world safer", but I believe economics, religion, the unifying/empowering nationalistic effects of war, and personal vendettas play a bigger role. PP, regarding your table, here is another: 1 Saudi Arabia 2 Iraq 3 Kuwait 4 United Arab Emirates 5 Iran 6 Venezuela 7 Russia 8 Mexico 9 Libya 10 US top 10 countries in terms of oil reserves. That's because you understand so little about them. People always fear what they do not understand. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JayB Posted February 12, 2005 Share Posted February 12, 2005 I guess the message is that it's okay to eliminate 80-100 million people so long as the slaughter is accompanied by the appropriate rhetoric. Amazing stuff - it's still okay to talk fondly about Mao et all, but the CEO of Walmart is the devil incarnate. As opposed to those great rulers of the right? Hitler, Mussolini, Pinochet, various African dictators - it's ok to imprison and bully minorities, not to mention the populace at large, as long as it's in the name of law and order, right? I could compare the popular support that say, Hitler and Mussolini enjoyed on the American right after 1940 to the present, and the idelogical cheerleading that the various men at the helms of the aforementioned regimes have received from the American left since then - not to mention their comrades in Europe and elsewhere - and proceed on and on and on - but that would be a digression from my intended point earlier, which was to point out that for those of us who were never waving the pompoms for economic collectivism - which has been the foundation that every totalitarian regime has been built upon - it is rather puzzling to see people who didn't bat an eyelid during the Terror Famine, Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution, et all get worked up over....corporations. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Squid Posted February 12, 2005 Share Posted February 12, 2005 - it is rather puzzling to see people who didn't bat an eyelid during the Terror Famine, Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution, et all get worked up over....corporations. Yeah, you got me there. I slept right through that shit. oh, wait.. I wasn't even fucking born yet. You go chase those historical dragons, I'll deal with the present. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
klenke Posted February 12, 2005 Share Posted February 12, 2005 "Those that forget history are doomed to repeat it." -George Santayana Or "Whoso neglects learning in his youth, loses the past, and is dead for the future." --Euripedes Nice try, Squiddicals. Or you must subscribe to Sting's song: "History...will teach us nothing." Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Squid Posted February 12, 2005 Share Posted February 12, 2005 Post deleted by Squid Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlpineK Posted February 12, 2005 Share Posted February 12, 2005 (edited) "You're still sore I teased you" - Squid Actually he's mad that you and I ganged up on him. Edited February 12, 2005 by AlpineK Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
klenke Posted February 12, 2005 Share Posted February 12, 2005 (edited) "You're a wanker" --me Edit: "You're both wankers" --me again Edited February 12, 2005 by klenke Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Squid Posted February 12, 2005 Share Posted February 12, 2005 Post deleted by Squid Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
klenke Posted February 12, 2005 Share Posted February 12, 2005 Post deleted out of respect for the tentacled one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
olyclimber Posted February 12, 2005 Share Posted February 12, 2005 Q: What's the difference between a rectal thermometer and a regular thermometer? A: The taste. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JayB Posted February 12, 2005 Share Posted February 12, 2005 Squid - if you were the Left incarnate, something roughly akin to the ideological equivalent of the Dali Lama - then my argument would certainly fall flat. However personally flattering this notion might be, your identity as such was hardly the foundation that my argument was constructed upon. I propose that there were plenty of Leftists alive before you were born - that many of these same people are still alive, and that the smany of the said people who were waving the pompoms for Mao, Kruschev, Fidel, Che et al back in the day are the same ones who consider corporations to be one of the more dire threats to humanity at the moment. Given the respective death toll that one can attribute to A) Corporations and B) Collectivist regimes this stance seems rather odd, especially when contrasted with the blithe indifference with which many of the older folks whom you presumably share a common ideology with greeted the news that the states that they looked upon so fondly - had actually extinguished three times more of their people than all of the world wars combined had killed off. Given the present array of dangers that humanity is confronting at the moment, this fixation on corporations as a leading threat to mankind seems equally odd. The fact that every single person who has adopted this ethos either directly or indirectly owes their health and material well-being to corporations in some fashion or another represents puzzling evasion of reality - but that's a rant for another time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chirp Posted February 12, 2005 Share Posted February 12, 2005 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alpinfox Posted February 12, 2005 Share Posted February 12, 2005 I'm sure that part of GWB's motivation for invading the middle east is to "make the world safer", but I believe economics, religion, the unifying/empowering nationalistic effects of war, and personal vendettas play a bigger role. PP, regarding your table, here is another: 1 Saudi Arabia 2 Iraq 3 Kuwait 4 United Arab Emirates 5 Iran 6 Venezuela 7 Russia 8 Mexico 9 Libya 10 US top 10 countries in terms of oil reserves. That's because you understand so little about them. People always fear what they do not understand. PP, Could you please define "them". I don't know what you are talking about. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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