Ghosts of future past  

Hi Hatley

Let me say this first. I am the first to acknowledge and and condemn the crimes of my country, both past and present. The British Empire was the biggest, bloodiest bunch of baztards that ever walked the face of this earth and if anyone wishes to bash my country then they'd better get behind me in the bashing queue. There is an awful lot of my country's history in which I take no pride, the crimes and atrocities committed by us fill me with horror, disgust and shame. You will never see a Union Jack anywhere near my house until our government has recognised this and makes extensive public apologies and reparations to those who have been wronged by this country.

Some people will see my attitude as unpatriotic and un-English. I don't care, I place the common humanity I share with all the people of this world way above a grubby little piece of cloth which only defines where I was born and which serves to divide and separate me from my fellow man.

I have no intention of bashing your country and I have both hope and faith that your country will learn and change. Please don't take the path that we did.

This disc was never about any of that. It has two main points which people have missed. I'll address the first here and the second down in spalladino's box so please read my replies there as well as here.

The quote at the start of my OP was taken from Eisenhower's 'Cross of Iron' speech and the final words of the article linked to are a link to the full text of that speech. I strongly, strongly suggest that everybody read that speech in full. In it, Eisenhower draws comparisons between spending on armaments and spending on other things e.g. for the cost of one heavy bomber you could build 30 schools. This was Eisenhowers point and it is mine. If the amount of money spent on armaments was spent on schools, hospitals etc it would benefit the people rather than lining the pockets of the armaments industry. Eisenhower coined the phrase 'military industrial complex' (MIC) to describe the situation where armaments manufacturers have a vested interest in building up the military war machine, at the expense of public works, and all done with your tax dollars. Thus he suggested that the armaments industry would like to promote military spending, not because it makes you country more secure but because it gains them huge profits. And this speech warned of the dangers presented by allowing the MIC to get away with this.

This is why I said America doesn't appear to have heeded that warning. I stated the projected military budget for 2011 so that you would have some idea of what you could do with tax payers money by spending it on public works rather than bullets and bombs. Your country has a huge national debt, high unemployment and othe problems; politicians say the country can't afford to introduce a system of universal healthcare, yet they feed the war macine with billions of your tax dollars. Result: your people die through lack of health insurance while the bomb makers make huge profits. It's a question of priorities really. Which would you rather have, healthy people or a huge war machine?

My apologies if I did not spell all of this out for people but I don't like to tell people how they should think by influencing what they read. I don't do ABC, I like people to think for themselves. Unfortunately this means that a lot of people read what I write and don't take the time to think about it, which means that they can often get the wrong end of the stick.

I hope this clears up any misconceptions people may have about me in that I am out to 'bash America'. Nothing could be further from the truth.

"Which would you rather have, healthy people or a huge war machine?"

Safe people. If terrorists are allowed to exist unchallanged, to train and arm homicide bombers unchallanged, to communicate freely, no one is safe and there would have been even more innocent lives lost than there already has been.

Hi Holly, I see EOE is in a good mood and trying to cheer up the US tonight. We'd better watch out that he doesn't come over there to sort things out.

Hi thea!

I understand that EoE is trying to get some us to open our eyes before it's too late. He enjoys making people think, so I do imagine he's in a good mood.

If I thought he could actually make some differences here, I'd ask him to emigrate, if only for a little while. :-)

Heck I'll pick him up at the airport. :-) Sacramento anyway...

You'll have to read my replies to Hatley and spalladino because I'll only be repeating here what I said there. But overall, The US military machine is swallowing up zillions of tax payer dollars and the only people who are gaining from this exercise are the armaments manufacturers like Boeing, Mcdonnel Douglas etc and the private contractors from the mercenaries of Blackwater to the government defrauding civilian contractors like Haliburton and KBR.

Eisen hower warned you of the growth of what he called the Military Industrial Complex. The military have a vested interest in promoting the growth of the war machine and so do the armaments manufacturers.

War is a business and it goes like this. A situation arises somewhere in the world. The generals decide that military intervention is necessary and advise the government that this is the best course of action. The government borrows money from the banks to pay for the bullets and bombs etc. The government then pays the armaments companies to supply the bullets and bombs. These don't have a shelf life so lots and lots of them are needed. The armaments companies make a huge profit. The military blow everything to pieces. Now everything needs to be rebuilt. The government borrows more money from the banks to pay the contractors to rebuild evrything. The contractors make huge profits. Now the government has to pay back the loans + interest. The taxpayers money is used to pay back the loans + interest.
The banks make a huge profit. The government take kudos for a military victory and are voted back into power because they won the conflict, everybody loves a winner. The conflict consimes thousands of lives - they all lose. The tax payers money has been spent on bullets, bombs and reconstruction; thereby not leaving them with the money to build schools and hospitals or provide initiatives to give jobs to the people who don't have jobs. The tax payers lose. Then everybody sits and waits for it to start all over again when the next situation arises.

Whether it was necessary to deal with the situation by going to war doesn't really matter. The military told the government it was, so the government told the people it was and all the people believed them because they believe everything the government tells them.

Thea, Holly, Dawn

Yes I was in a good mood
Yes I'm trying to make some open their eyes
Yes I like to encourage people to think by questioning things which they have taken as given so far

No I'm not in a good mood now because twice today I have spent nearly two hours writing replies to people who have responded to my discussions, which involved researching different things all over the place so I have facts right and can give helpful information. On both occasions everything was all done and typed out but
when I hit the post button, POOF! Everything vanishes.

They won't let me cut and paste here because they don't trust me enough yet to give me my little cut and paste badge. They won't let me use more than one link in any box or things just get stuffed up.

This is like being at nursery and having to ask the teacher for a crayon and being told no because I might stick it up my nose and have to be taken to hospital.
I would like to come over there and sort things out but they won't give me the keys to the big white house. And even if they did they'd try to shoot me before I gave my inauguration speech. Not that that particularly bothers me but bloodstains can be very difficult to remove.

Right now I'd like to be anywhere but sat here trying to make this STUPID F***ING PLACE perform simple actions which even yuwie allowed me to do.

I think the best thing I can do at this moment in time is to go to the shop and purchase a serious amount of hard lickor (they won't even let me use the correct spelling for this simple inoffensive word). This may well be the only thing which will prevent me from from writing a lengthy, highly abusive email to the brain dead idiots who run this madhouse, before deleting my account and punching a hole through the centre of my screen, which will undoubtedly cost me much more money than the hard lickor will, and at least I'll be pleasantly intoxicated with a smile on my face and not sat fuming in casualty next to the stupid kid with a crayon stuck up his nose.

EoE--I think many of us can relate to your frustration, my friend!

I used to say that the powers that be were afraid I'd get caught running with scissors and eat up all the glue. I stopped that in about 2nd grade or so, but felt that same way again when I joined here.

I agree, their policies here don't always make sense.

However--and unfortunately, many of the policies in place now have come about due to past misbehavior and misadventure by previous members.

People like us have to pay the price for those who came before us. The whole waiting for the magical number 500 is about trying to ensure a commitment from the members. I guess they feel that there has to be a carrot. It also gives them time to find out just what kind of members they have and whether we will survive the rating system before that.

Apparently, there was a large problem in the past with plagiarism and stealing of other people's discussions, so again the reasons for the copy/paste delay.

I'd hate to see you get so upset that you take off on us again, now that you've just gotten back into a good rhythm here. So, go lick your likor, beat up on a few recycled pots and come back and try again.

We will be happy to see your smiling face--and don't let the idiots win! :-)

Just a rant born of frustration Holly. I understand the reasons for the system here and they're perfectly correct. Sadly, if people can't or won't grasp the idea of self-responsibility, there will always be a nanny lurking in the background to wipe our noses when we snivel and smack our legs when we eat the glue.

The idiots never bother me until the point is reached when it becomes clear that the only option is to be an idiot. Then I jump ship. I managed to stick it out for the last year of my time at yuwie, but then the idiot point came, so I jumped.

But who is really doing the fear mongering?

Hi spalladino

It is some fantasy and fantasy only. I mentioned in my reply to Hatley above that there are two main points in my OP and that people seem to have missed them. See Hatley's box for one. The other is this.

The title of my OP was a reference to 'A Christmas Carol' in which Scrooge was visited by ghosts who showed him his past, present and a POSSIBLE future. My OP itself gave you these three views of the US military machine. If people had read Eisenhower's 'Cross of Iron' speech in full it would have given them a view of the past. The main text of the article plus what you are already aware of now gives the present view. The 'fantasy' gives you a view of a POSSIBLE future, the same as the ghost of christmas future gave Scrooge when he showed Scrooge his grave. Thus I have put you in the position Scrooge was in. I have shown you - with regards to the military machine - your past, present and a POSSIBLE, i repeat POSSIBLE future. This leaves you, like Scrooge, in the position where you can look at past and present and THINK about what MAY happen if the present course is continued.

You describe the writer's 'fantasy' as ridiculous. Let me say this. What would you have said to me on New Year's Eve 2000 if I had told you that within 3 short years, the WTC would be hit by hijacked airliners and your country would be fighting two wars half way across the world? I think you would have told me that I was either drunk, stupid, ridiculous or insane; if not all four. And you would have been right, but that possible future tragically came to pass.

When you refer to this fantasy as fear mongering I think you have to remember that this appears ridiculous because the writer intends it to be. This is to both emphasise the point he is making and to separate it so far from reality in order to not make it appear as fear mongering.

Finally, as I said to Hatley, when people come to my blogs or discussions, please don't expect ABC. To me that is telling people what to think, not encouraging them to think for themselves. That is for politicians not me. I don't try and impose my beliefs on others, I merely encourage them to question theirs and the ones they have been given by politicians, the media etc.

"What would you have said to me on New Year's Eve 2000 if I had told you that within 3 short years, the WTC would be hit by hijacked airliners and your country would be fighting two wars half way across the world? I think you would have told me that I was either drunk, stupid, ridiculous or insane; if not all four. And you would have been right, but that possible future tragically came to pass."

Actually, I wouldn't have said any of those things to you because the attack on 9/11 was not the first...nor the second...and extremist violence is historically progressive. I would have expected my country to react as it has for many reasons.

I do realize that these types of writings are designed to get people to think but some of it was too outrageous and distinctly unAmerican to let pass without comment.

I'm afraid that you have completely missed the points this discussion raise, nut you're not on your own. Please see my replies to Hatley and spalladino above.

ps Welcome to the lot cowboy!

@EoE--A Freudian slip, perchance?

Cowboy

Typo - 'nut you're not on your own' should have been 'no you're not on your own'

sorry

Thank you Holly