Catch 22

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Crack Monkey &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

Remember? He's still here. Since being arrested on drug charges in 1990, he served on the City Council for Ward 8, got re-elected as mayor, and now sits on the Council again. He recently plead guilty to tax evasion, but he's still here.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Ta-Da!!!!!!

chrisb

The main thing that has changed for me in the past couple years is whether I would want any Americans to die to save the life of a Muslim. I hate to admit it because contrary to some things I say in jest, I am pretty open minded. But more and more I am seeing that Islam is a religion based in violence. The fact that a Muslim can be put to death for converting to Christianity is simply amazing to me. But while bitter about the mess in Iraq, the election of Hamas in Palestine and the general insanity of the Muslim world, I think Afghanistan was more of a success and it does seem that Muslims of that country were happy to freed from the Taliban.

So I don't know. I really think that much of what we do as a country is done with good intentions but we all know the path those often pave. And it is often fashionable to criticize the current leader. Would 9-11 had ever happened if the previous leader had done his job? Do you remember the rockets he launched against innocent civilians working in a factory that had nothing to do with terrorism and how that just happened during the Monica Lewinsky deal?

P.S. I missed running over Marion Barry on my skateboard in DC in 90' by 2 inches. He stepped out of his limo right in front of me across the street from Freedom Plaza in DC and I just barely missed him. He was pissed. Hehe. I guess I would have been famous if I had hit him.

JMU R1

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by WWDTrackRacer &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I've been meaning to read Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed .

History has a habit of repeating itself? Are we doomed to repeat it?
</TD></TR></TABLE>

Collapse was an excellent book and I recommend that anyone who is considering reading it to stop procrastinating and pick it up.

The basic premise is that quite a few civilizations in the past catastrophically collapsed due to several factors, but mostly because of environmental problems and irresoponsible and incorrect responses to said problems. Compounding factors included poor trade with neighbors, wars with neighbors, and cultural beliefs that prevented them from taking action that could have saved them.

Collapse also examines civilizations that came close to collapsing but pulled it together and avoided their demise by making drastic changes and reorienting on a course of sustainable development.

The major correlation some failed previous civilizations have to us today is that many of them did not have the scientific knowledge to accurately foresee their demise. Today climatologists can't explain the global warming process entirely and hence many people ignore the threat altogether. Hopefully we won't be as foolish as some of our extinct brethren

slowSER

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by Crack Monkey &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

Remember? He's still here. Since being arrested on drug charges in 1990, he served on the City Council for Ward 8, got re-elected as mayor, and now sits on the Council again. He recently plead guilty to tax evasion, but he's still here.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Don't forget testing positive for cocaine last year!!

Pat

maxQ

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by slowSER &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Don't forget testing positive for cocaine last year!!

Pat</TD></TR></TABLE>

You have to understand... he's a proper example of his constituents.

He represents his district better because he's "one of them".

Who should DC residents have represent them? A white woman from, say, Arkansas? Whoops, bad example.

Andy - who wonders if America's apathy is stronger than its need for survival yet. People are criticizing the French right now for protesting/rioting all the time... but you have to give them the fact that they are, at least, engaged in the process.

CRX Lee

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by maxQ &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Andy - who wonders if America's apathy is stronger than its need for survival yet. People are criticizing the French right now for protesting/rioting all the time... but you have to give them the fact that they are, at least, engaged in the process. </TD></TR></TABLE>
Well stated. Seems like a mix of pathetic and apathetic. Toss in the world dominating leadership of not-the-smartest idealogue backed by greedheads mixed with some zealots and we got us a country by gosh! There is a happy snapshot of politics.

RR98ITR

My neighborhood progressive book reading club has reluctantly come to the inescapably dialectically correct position that things are indeed very bad, and in fact have never been worse, and that America is on the tipping point of the long awaited popular revolutionary uprising. Our local committee has determined that the Rwandan example is the correct one, and we have targeted anti-freedom anti-peace loving reactionary forces for liquidation. Most of our members have been sharpening their machettes and buying extra carpentry saws. I've taken it to the next level though and will be sporting a small chain saw. "H-T Represent! Vtack YO! Bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa".

Scott, who...what? John Stewart makes most of that **** up?...uhm, Nevermind.

WWDTrackRacer

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by CRX Lee &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
Interesting that you mentioned this, when I was in Europe for a meeting of ...</TD></TR></TABLE>

Hi Lee,

I too experienced similar sentiments while I was in South America.
I was in a poor neighborhood in a somewhat distant urban area...
and there was anti-Bush grafitti on the wall. pretty incredible!

When the locals found out I was American, they were very curious about
my thoughts about world issues. After getting to know me, they admitted
that I broke thier stereotype of an American. They even said they did
not believe I was American. I just laughed it off -- I told them they have
to understand most Americans think Californians are from another place
too!

Catch 22

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by maxQ &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

You have to understand... he's a proper example of his constituents.

</TD></TR></TABLE>

SO I guess that means GWB is a proper representative of his constituents?
Or at least the ones who give enough of a **** to get off of their couch and vote.

At the end of the day, there it is.

Scott, who's voting for the same guy he did last time, and realizes he's likely "wasting" his vote again.

SJR

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by maxQ &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">
Andy - who wonders if America's apathy is stronger than its need for survival yet. People are criticizing the French right now for protesting/rioting all the time... but you have to give them the fact that they are, at least, engaged in the process.
</TD></TR></TABLE>

Yeah, we've been doing this kinda stuff with a vengeance since "the events" of 1789. Once we saw what a good mob could do, we kinda thought we'd keep that in our bag of tricks.
One big difference I noticed as a 17 year old when I moved to the US (other than the amazing number of obese people ;P) is the complete lack of interest/knowledge the US youth and not-so-young had for politics.
When I was in high school in France, I participated in a couple of protests, we always knew what and who was doing what and to whom. I don't know if that is because america is a republic and not a democracy, or if it is because there are only two very ideologically close parties, or what - but don't forget that the people who decide who our leaders will be are old rich white males.

anyway, there was a scary/funny interview on the french news last week. The reporter asks a few youths (yutes?) why they are there protesting. One says that he wants the CPE repealed, the other says "yeah, me too" The third guy says: "I don't care about no law, I just want to beat me up some cops"
There you go, that's the spirit! And that's why our protests often end up in riots. It only takes a few of those guys to cause a disaster.

anyway, back to your regularly scheduled programming...

JMU R1

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by RR98ITR &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Our local committee has determined that the Rwandan example is the correct one, and we have targeted anti-freedom anti-peace loving reactionary forces for liquidation. </TD></TR></TABLE>

Ironically enough Collapse touches on the Rwandan massacres and explains that it was touched off not by tribal tensions but by agricultural and land problems. Simply put, when there is a scarcity of arable land and overpopulation, people will resort to killing each other. I guess that really applies to any necessary resource, like oil, food, air, etc.

RR98ITR

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by SJR &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

....anyway, back to your regularly scheduled programming...</TD></TR></TABLE>


"Bwaaaaaaa-uh-aaaaaaaa-uh-aaaaaaaa....Die Filthy Warmongers!"

Scott, who can't wait for the revolution...gonna liberate me my own plasma!

bad-monkey

the life of an american is more valuable than the life of a muslim?

there are instances in which that is true. the life of my mother and father, my friends, more valuable than the life of a terrorist islamist. but on the whole, it's not my place to try and trade and barter life based on some quasi-values based assumption that one life is worth more than the other. one might argue that stuff like that is god's province and god's alone.

there's more at work here than simply "islam vs. christianity." the extremists on both sides of that debate would like you to believe that it's simply good vs. evil, us vs. them, and lob a bunch of insults (or soon, lob a bunch of something else) because it is in the interests of extrememists to polarize and simplify complex situations. I mean, at what point does chopping someone's head off or carpet bombing a town become reasonable reactions in an otherwise reasonable world? answer is, they can't. so the rhetoric and the barbarity push us along further until we start picking a side and see things only based on that dichotomy.

i admit that i'm going down the same road you are. Granted, the whole christianity case in afghanistan isn't really a big thing for me (people are executed for much less, sometimes with our christian consent), but everytime a bomb goes off in an israeli disco, everytime that guy in ******* iran starts talking about holocaust denial and uranium enrichment, everytime sunni/shia death squads murder a whole neighborhood, i question islam.

truth is, i don't know enough about islam, and furthermore, i can't judge a whole group of people based on the actions of a few. a marginalized, brutalized, persecuted, dirt-poor, undereducated, desperate as hell few that are willing to do anything to change the terms of the debate from rational things like "reconstructing infrastructure" to "murdering everyone who isn't like me."

and i realize that i'm not losing faith in muslims. i realize i'm losing faith in people. all people. americans, europeans, asians, and martians.

i also find it funny that some people aaaalllwaaaaayssss find a way to put everything on clinton. not arguing whether or not it's true that he didn't do his job, but i bet if an asteroid crashed into earth, some people would find a way to blame bill clinton. i'm sure the same thing will happen with GWB. i'm pretty sure that he and his crew are pretty much my stock answer for what's wrong with the world...

chrisb

It is funny how everything is skewed by the prism of our perception. I was not bashing Clinton at all, rather just pointing out to all the Bush bashers above that mistakes were made by the previous President as well. But your perception of what I was saying and meant is skewed by your experiences, prejudices, views etc. And I am not picking on you saying that. We are all that way.

I am not giving up on Muslims or people in general yet. Though it is tempting. I always hope that there are good people left. But like you I sometimes wonder.

SJR

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by chrisb &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I am not giving up on Muslims or people in general yet. Though it is tempting. I always hope that there are good people left. But like you I sometimes wonder.</TD></TR></TABLE>

I tend to believe that people are NOT good as a rule. They are bad. the good ones are the exceptions, which makes it all the more important to preserve the good ones. And if you think about it, it makes *some* sense. the strongest instinct is self preservation, not community-preservation. It seems only natural that most of us look out for number one, at the expense of everybody else. Does that make you bad? If you live in a Society, I think so. If you're a hermit on a deserted island, who gives a expletive what you do.
Someone once called me a cynic. I ressemble that remark.

Gra

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by SJR &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

the strongest instinct is self preservation, not community-preservation. It seems only natural that most of us look out for number one, at the expense of everybody else. Does that make you bad? If you live in a Society, I think so. </TD></TR></TABLE>

That right there is the problem with people. We forget the very basics. We are ANIMALS. Society... who they trying to kid. There's no escaping instinct, as hard as you may try, your going against what you are. Self preservation wins.

WWDTrackRacer

So this whole American vs other countries things that were talking about...
reminded me of a great lecture I heard @ the 1999(?) Game Developer Conference in San Jose, CA.

The game industry had a lot of problems when exporting/translating
game titles overseas... much like the whole "All your base are belong to us"
fiasco... so Mr. Adams was trying to address this topic and describe his
experiences with localizing games.

I found the "War and History" very poignant.

Ernest W. Adams Eurostylin’: An American Game Designer in Europe

"American guys are shocked by a nude breast, but will cover a whole screen with bloody explosions. – Mickaël Pointier, Eden Studios, France"

phat-S

So I ask again, five and a half years later:

Are the opinions you held then those you hold today? Are the truths you believed then still truths today?

For me, still yes and yes.

What a very disappointing realization that McCain is no way the man today he was then. Here's to hope for an Obama/Biden presidency and some very needed new direction out of this morass that Republican ideology has driven us into.