Now That Trump's President... (not any more!)

  On 4/18/2020 at 9:06 PM, Brisbot said:

That is too much, if I focus too much on the politics stuff it starts to put me into a negative frame of mind, lol.

me too. but at least the bush people are out and a new set of morons are in place so it's in the rear view mirror even if we're still dealing w/the consequences of those decisions. the iraq stuff is particularly amazing. the battles between rumsfeld and CIA etc. Bremmer disbanding the iraqi army etc. he was the provisional authority in iraq and they go in deep on his actions there and the conversations around it. it's all pretty crazy and intense jaw dropping head smacking wtf type of content. so many mistakes or bad decisions. there's also lot's of content about big business, pharma, prisons etc etc.. all kinds of investigative journalism that's really good but i'm w/you.. i can only take in so much of that or get a bit bananas. 

  On 4/18/2020 at 9:24 PM, ignatius said:

me too. but at least the bush people are out and a new set of morons are in place so it's in the rear view mirror even if we're still dealing w/the consequences of those decisions. the iraq stuff is particularly amazing. the battles between rumsfeld and CIA etc. Bremmer disbanding the iraqi army etc. he was the provisional authority in iraq and they go in deep on his actions there and the conversations around it. it's all pretty crazy and intense jaw dropping head smacking wtf type of content. so many mistakes or bad decisions. there's also lot's of content about big business, pharma, prisons etc etc.. all kinds of investigative journalism that's really good but i'm w/you.. i can only take in so much of that or get a bit bananas. 

 

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What's the best documentary to watch about it? Honestly the Bush stuff was before my time. Only got into politics during Obama era.

  On 4/18/2020 at 9:30 PM, Brisbot said:

What's the best documentary to watch about it? Honestly the Bush stuff was before my time. Only got into politics during Obama era.

this one all about bush. and covers the lies and misleading stuff w/in the white house and intelligence organizations and how when 9/11 happened basically people said "what plans do you have for invading iraq?"

https://www.pbs.org/video/frontline-bushs-war-part-1/

this one straddles bush/obama years

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/losing-iraq/

In 2013, Maddow did an MSNBC documentary called "HUBRIS: Selling The Iraq War" about evidence indicating that the stated rationales for the invasion were cooked up as pretense, as well as what the real intents may have been.

The sad thing is that it's long been a known fact how criminal the US government is, how it lies and deceits, how it scams its own population, tortures and kills, yet nobody can do anything about it. Public pressure can't achieve as much as you would expect in a democracy

  On 4/18/2020 at 10:43 PM, darreichungsform said:

The sad thing is that it's long been a known fact how criminal the US government is, how it lies and deceits, how it scams its own population, tortures and kills, yet nobody can do anything about it. Public pressure can't achieve as much as you would expect in a democracy

also...

That Dirty Money episode about Kushner is pretty infuriating.

https://www.indiewire.com/2020/03/dirty-money-jared-kushner-slumlord-netflix-1202216998/

  On 4/18/2020 at 10:43 PM, darreichungsform said:

The sad thing is that it's long been a known fact how criminal the US government is, how it lies and deceits, how it scams its own population, tortures and kills, yet nobody can do anything about it. Public pressure can't achieve as much as you would expect in a democracy

Apparently the Pacific and New England regions have already formed semi-autonomous regional councils over COVID-19 response though, amid Trump's latest shenanigans over state sovereignty.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/4/14/1937064/-Trump-declares-himself-a-dictator-Blue-state-governors-organize-A-breakup-is-now-on-the-table?detail=emaildksp

we have so many sick people that need ventilators that we won the ventilator race. take that rest of the world 

  On 4/18/2020 at 10:24 PM, very honest said:

In 2013, Maddow did an MSNBC documentary called "HUBRIS: Selling The Iraq War" about evidence indicating that the stated rationales for the invasion were cooked up as pretense, as well as what the real intents may have been.

Just based on a gut feeling and some conversations I've had I'd say most of the world outside US thinks that the official reasons for the Iraq War were a huge pile of bullshit. And now we have fucking ISIS thanks to that blunder. I for one am not nostalgic for the Dubya years even with the current shitshow going on.

Nice ad! ;D

All I can say is, there was a bumper sticker from the Nixon years saying "Don't blame me, I'm from Massachusetts."

What I realized when I went to Europe is that a lot of people over there have no idea where MA is, and just see America as one homogeneous wad of retardation. They also think they know what a "typical American" is, for some reason. I breathed a sigh of relief when I was assured I did not fit this description, but still... I guess what I'm saying is that Europeans somehow get this pass for being just as geographically/culturally retarded as the dumber Americans. 

  On 4/19/2020 at 10:38 PM, goDel said:

Nice ad! ;D

 

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fAkE NeWs wItCh HoAx

You could argue that WMDs in Iraq thing was just another in a long trend of fallacious speculation being used as data input for military strategy. That sort of thing goes at least as far back as the start of RAND and the Cold War, but America's imperialist corruption can be felt all over the world, from 1850s Mexico to 1900s Panama to 1940s West Papua and then all manner of proxy backstabbings.

  On 4/20/2020 at 12:14 AM, Candiru said:

All I can say is, there was a bumper sticker from the Nixon years saying "Don't blame me, I'm from Massachusetts."

What I realized when I went to Europe is that a lot of people over there have no idea where MA is, and just see America as one homogeneous wad of retardation. They also think they know what a "typical American" is, for some reason. I breathed a sigh of relief when I was assured I did not fit this description, but still... I guess what I'm saying is that Europeans somehow get this pass for being just as geographically/culturally retarded as the dumber Americans. 

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Most people were very nice over there and are also interested to talk to people from a far off place. I was an obnoxious American maybe once, but I was pretty drunk because people were getting me wicked drunk, it's inevitable. 

It sucks that the dum dums are going to make social distancing last even longer, but I wish it was only them that would die from their historic levels of stupidity. That's been the theme these last few years: being really pissed off that I have to be associated with this bullshit because I was born on a specific piece of land, even though people on that piece of land largely want nothing to do with said bullshit. 

  On 4/20/2020 at 4:47 AM, Candiru said:

Most people were very nice over there and are also interested to talk to people from a far off place. I was an obnoxious American maybe once, but I was pretty drunk because people were getting me wicked drunk, it's inevitable. 

It sucks that the dum dums are going to make social distancing last even longer, but I wish it was only them that would die from their historic levels of stupidity. That's been the theme these last few years: being really pissed off that I have to be associated with this bullshit because I was born on a specific piece of land, even though people on that piece of land largely want nothing to do with said bullshit. 

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Yes, sucks and maybe spurs preexisting anti American prejudice worldwide, which in itself is pretty stupid. But people like to feel good about themselves and pointing the finger at others is a pretty convenient method. So the typical European arrogance of thinking we are somehow better than Americans (while loving American movies & music) is just a cheap way of distracting ourselves from our own unique sort of stupidity. Being from Eastern Germany, which is Germany's Florida, I can relate to being associated with phenomena that are connected to that place and that I want to have nothing to do with, namely the rise of right wing populism. Don't take it to heart. Americans are generally very obnoxious, though. Ice cream with bacon? Apple pie with cheese? Just obnoxious

I know Berlin is cool, I liked it there, I went back again. But I never saw any poop sex. How much does it happen there?

Trump likes poop sex. 

Happens a lot

thank god

I'm originally from a part of northern Finland that maybe compares to something like, I don't know, well whatever part of US is sparsely populated, with cold harsh environment and high unemployment and crime rates. The attitudes back in the 90s were that all the Americans are super dumb, ultrareligious and materialistic, Swedish are all rich, effeminate and gay and Russians are just plain criminals and evil. (I could go on with these stereotypes, but let's not offend everyone. )

Sometimes I wondered why everybody was so anti-American and sort of weirdly anti-city, but I was looking at old Finnish documentaries from 70s and early 80s and they paint a really fucking bleak picture of US, especially the big cities like New York. I remember teachers at schools also having this attitude towards US and cities. So, I don't think it was just the general attitudes in the population but the anti-American sentiment was institutionalized to some degree and US was associated with anti-culturalism, anti-intellectualism, greed, materialism and over-urbanization.

Also I remember having my first English text book at the second grade and all the English text books were of course about British English, not US. Because, you know, obviously the US English is inferior to the original UK English. The book had a kind of story arc and at some point they introduced a kid from US and all the other characters found his English funny and laughed at him.

  On 4/20/2020 at 9:52 AM, zkom said:

Also I remember having my first English text book at the second grade and all the English text books were of course about British English, not US. Because, you know, obviously the US English is inferior to the original UK English. The book had a kind of story arc and at some point they introduced a kid from US and all the other characters found his English funny and laughed at him.

I always wondered why British English is taught at schools and not American English. I guessed it was because BE is somehow considered "more proper" but the actual reason is simple: There simply are more British people available in Europe to teach our teachers English.

Sorry, off da topic

While it is true that Europeans like to feel superior, it's not true that they are completely wrong when they paint "Americans" with the same brush, IMHO. Compared to Europeans, Americans really are all alike in that they all do speak broadly the same language and have broadly the same culture that on the one hand places excessive value on individualism and that on the other hand is excessively fearful of not following the rules. This really is the same from New York to California and everywhere inbetween.

The differences between someone from Massachusetts, say, and Wisconsin really are very small in the larger context of things. They are much smaller than the difference between someone from Germany and someone from France, not in the least because they speak completely and mutually unintelligible languages there. People from Massachusetts read the same books and watch the same movies as people in Wisconsin. People in Germany and people in France watch different movies and read different books, even if they live within 50 km of each other. It's just no comparison.

That said, us Europeans do like to make a caricature of the US as a hellhole where everybody is a gun nut that votes for Trump. That, of course, is unfair and very much not true.

What is true, however, is that Americans, yes, all of you, talk too goddamn loud.

  On 4/20/2020 at 10:55 AM, darreichungsform said:

I always wondered why British English is taught at schools and not American English. I guessed it was because BE is somehow considered "more proper" but the actual reason is simple: There simply are more British people available in Europe to teach our teachers English.

In high school we had a couple of classes about Australian English also and then the text book decided to get really woke about the aboriginals and we had to listen to the "Beds are burning" by Midnight Oil in the class. Funnily enough the British colonialism or Ireland never came up when the Brits were concerned. Also I think  learned much later that UK has actually more than one native language and they are not just all "English".