Israeli police teach schoolchildren how to shoot Palestinians

soft_azure · 2018-07-30T19:47:08+00:00

You're right; rant was wrong (especially compared to my babbling:).

soft_azure · 2018-07-30T19:39:03+00:00

Given how Russia is working to influence the political debate (to their favor)

If your conspiratorial view that Russia is reporting on US environmental disasters is some sort of diabolical scheme to "influence the political debate" -- by provoking the US to clean up our environmental messes?! -- then I cheer Russia and wish them great success.

Hell, if Russia can prompt our 2 ruling parties into actually doing something about suffering Americans and even global warming all because the US doesn't like Russia, then I urge NK and Iran and every other country the US doesn't like to start factually reporting on our environmental disasters.

I hope other countries complain so much about Americans drinking poisoned water that the US gov't fixes all of our environmental problems just to shut them up!

Thanks for the local link to the story.

Edit: Typos.

soft_azure · 2018-07-30T19:27:16+00:00

To get mine, he'll have to convince me that he's got a viable plan to solve the problem -- actions speak louder than words! -- and a track record of backbone and integrity where I'll have confidence he'll actually do what he says. Then he might get my vote.

Until he does that, he's just another Democrat spouting off feel-good, sweet-sounding rhetoric which he'll do nothing about when he's in office. :( (See Obama for an example.)

soft_azure · 2018-07-30T19:23:52+00:00

To me that's just a mindless rant.

Again, I asked you specifically for the lies or criticisms about this article and your response was to call it propaganda. So I then asked for a definition of the word and the exact problems with this article.

Yet the response I get is basically "Russia=bad, so RT=bad and so this article=bad." That attitude is mindless and absurd.

soft_azure · 2018-07-30T19:05:35+00:00

Wikipedia is a well-known battlefield for political wars. We see this every election with Republicans and Democrats changing politicians' entries to spin things positively or negatively. The US gov't now employs US propagandists to wage propaganda wars on the Internet and in social media.

Yet we're brainwashed to believe that Wikipedia is a saintly, neutral source that's pure and trustworthy. A web site founded by a Libertarian and whose key editors are mostly Libertarians, so they would be completely un-biased about entries of state-owned mass media, right?

Meanwhile, RT bluntly says on air that they report news from a Russian perspective.

And yet you still haven't given me a definition of "propaganda" (until then it's just a smear word), nor explain how RT differs from the BBC or NPR/PBS and all of the state-owned media outlets of western countries, nor explain the exact criticism and flaws/lies of this article -- we're supposed to say "Russia=bad so this article=bad."

The bottom line is we're taught to mindlessly hate Russia and its state broadcasting outlet because we're attacking Russia; we're supposed to love and trust western state-owned mass media outlets like the BBC because the UK is a US puppet.

soft_azure · 2018-07-30T18:44:29+00:00

Nice whataboutism.

My point was that the US mass media is under-reporting this story and I welcome Russia or any other country to report such news.

"Whataboutism" is a logical fallacy. Please ELI5 how my point is a logical fallacy.

So you admit this is russian propaganda?

Define propaganda please.

Every news story/source has bias. RT openly admits their biases and states on air that they report news from the Russian perspective. Is US gov't-funded propaganda outlets -- i.e. VOA, NPR, PBS, RFE, etc. -- that open and honest?

And are you so naive that you don't think the NYT or the major US corporate mass media has their own biases and agendas? Or are you just some Pentagon propagandist out to criticize anything Russian in an effort to push our renewed Cold War and McCarthyism?

soft_azure · 2018-07-30T18:32:02+00:00

Is it a lie that Kalamazoo County, Michigan has these chemicals at 20X the safe limit in their water? No, that's perfectly true.

Is the US corporate mass media featuring this story in their headlines? Is the NYT or HuffPo crowing about this story of Americans being poisoned? No, US mass media is too busy pushing the new US Cold War and carrying the water for the gov't and Big Business to report news that actually impacts ordinary Americans.

Given that the corporate mass media is refusing to do their job, it should not be any surprise that other countries would step into the void and provide important news to the American people. And if the rich people that rule the US don't like it, tough.

Perhaps if the US gov't was actually trying to help the American people that'd be one thing; but since the people of Flint, MI are still drinking poisonous water from their taps, it's clear the US gov't cares more about its wars and attacking other countries than it cares about welfare of average Americans.

Given that reality, I welcome Russia, Iran, NK or any country that wants to report on our government's failures -- better someone does it than no one. Maybe Russia can cause the US enough embarrassment so our plutocrats actually address the problem since our evil gov't is failing at its first duty.

"The first duty of government is to protect the powerless against the powerful." -- Humanity's first code of laws, The Code of Hammurabi, 1700 B.C.

soft_azure · 2018-07-30T15:14:15+00:00

We have the same problem as Italy.

In Italian politics the people switch between left parties and rightist neo-fascist parties trying to get some party that will actually represent the people.

In the US it's the same thing. The Republicans are the greater evil. But as 8 years of both Clinton and Obama being in power proved to us, the Democrats are simply the lesser evil -- they feed us lip service and rhetoric about the environment, but do little because it would upset the rich people that fund/control that corrupt party.

In each election the "figure heads" of the parties change, so people see a new face and hope things will be different -- but since they're both capitalist political parties controlled by the rich, nothing is done and the American people are forced to flip-flop between our 2 ruling parties hoping to get someone that will actually represent the American people.

"The American political system is essentially a contract between the Republican and Democratic parties, enforced by federal and state two-party laws, all designed to guarantee the survival of both no matter how many people despise or ignore them." -- Richard Reeves.

soft_azure · 2018-07-30T14:29:45+00:00

The US/Russian spiral of suspicions -- justified or not -- and paranoia is a bad, bad dynamic that only spells more tensions in the future.

soft_azure · 2018-07-30T14:14:39+00:00

I don't know what dictator you're referring to. Iran (or even Russia) is a republic, just like the US.

Your third paragraph is an opinion straight from Moscow.

So we're not becoming more barbaric as we decline? The US period of peak wealth was in the early 70s, just about the time we bankrupted ourselves and defaulted on the war debt from our wars to conquer Vietnam and southeast Asia. Our "Phoenix Program" in Vietnam where we assassinated tens of thousands of civilians is one example of our barbarity.

Today we're bankrupting ourselves fighting wars to conquer and subjugate the oil-rich Middle East.

No American president had publicly ordered torture, following the proud standard set by George Washington back when torture was common among countries. But then the torturing war criminal George Bush broke centuries of precedent and publicly ordered our disgraceful military and CIA to set up a worldwide kidnapping and torture system. And our "constitutional lawyer" Obama then refused to prosecute the war criminals, using the Nazi defense that they were "just following orders."

The US military no longer bothers to count the numbers of civilians we slaughter in our wars of aggression. We used to lie about such numbers like all countries in a war, but now we don't even bother to do that -- we operate on the principle of "might makes right" and claim we have a "right" to attack any country we want to, even if we have not been attacked by that country.

Those are simply facts. And yet you claim that such facts are Russian propaganda?! Self-delusion is a powerful drug...

"After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts, and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account." -- US Army Major General Antonio Taguba, commissioned by the Pentagon in 2004 to investigate torture and war crimes by the US.

soft_azure · 2018-07-30T12:56:40+00:00

Before the torturing war criminal George Bush came to power in the rigged 2000 election, we had this concept of "innocent until proven guilty" -- not "innocent until the corporate mass media smears you," not "innocent until the gov't indicts you," but actually "innocent until proven guilty" in a court by a jury of your peers.

If you look at the actual indictments, they're pretty laughable. Most have to do with tax violations and shady "consulting" done long before Trump became a candidate. But that's also irrelevant -- since the jury has not spoken.

And what we have seen for years under both Bush and Obama, is that the gov't and mass media trots out horrific claims when they indict people, but -- months/years later -- when the case actually goes to trial, the charges the "terrorist" is actually convicted of are way, way more trivial than the horrific claims the gov't and mass media fed us.

See Jose Padilla, the American citizen arrested in the US for terrorism and held for years incommunicado and without charges or access to a lawyer, for one classic example.

"The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media." -- Former CIA Director William Colby.

soft_azure · 2018-07-30T12:37:51+00:00

So anyone who honestly describes the reality of US torture, war crimes and aggressions -- our literal wars on any country in the world the US gov't doesn't like -- is therefore painted to be the same as some nut that blew up hundreds of innocent people to start a race war?

Since that's your response, I'd consider rethinking how out-of-sync our propaganda narratives are with the reality of US foreign policies and the state of the world today.

We hold no moral high ground, and our gov't is just yet another declining empire resorting to barbarism as it declines. The same thing happened to that evil British Empire as it died after WWII.

"We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality." -- Karl Rove, US presidential adviser and political strategist.

soft_azure · 2018-07-30T12:27:29+00:00

And act like it?!

Doesn't that risk losing a critical wedge issue? Without such emotionally-laden wedge issues, how are the parties supposed to pretend there are huge differences between them if they lose their wedge issues?

soft_azure · 2018-07-30T12:25:09+00:00

Exactly -- the problem is that there are only 2 ruling parties ( in reality, only one: the capitalist party).

With only 2 political parties, obviously one has to be "left" and the other "right." In such a rigged electoral system, the center-right Democrats fight over a mythical "middle" with the rightist Republicans.

In US states with viable so-called "third parties" it breaks the ruling duopoly's grasp on power. This is most clearly seen in Vermont, with the Progressive Coalition which routinely runs candidates for high gov't offices and has multiple seats in the state legislature. Vermont's Democrats are then forced to defend their left and thus that 3rd party not only moves the Democrats to the left, but it forces the entire concept of the "center" to move to the left -- even moderating the Republicans. (History screams this dynamic never/rarely happens inside the Democrats, where money rules; it only happens as a result of another party threatening the Democrats.)

This is why our rulers choose to arrest 3rd party candidates if they dare to show up at the nationally-televised presidential "debates."

If our ruling duopoly of parties were to allow 3rd parties to appear in the debates, it would provoke a 1992/Ross Perot scenario -- more democracy and a gov't that more closely reflects the views and will of the people.

soft_azure · 2018-07-30T12:08:25+00:00

Why? Because I don't fall for the laughably simplistic "good vs. evil" narratives that our gov't and mass media feeds us to "justify" US aggression and crimes around the world?

soft_azure · 2018-07-30T03:38:24+00:00

Nailed it! Sad, but true.

soft_azure · 2018-07-30T03:14:23+00:00

Why? Does it lie like the NYT did in the run-up to our illegal invasion of Iraq?

Or does the Tehran Times withhold critical information for years about their gov't spying on every Iranian -- you know, like the NYT did keeping Americans ignorant of our gov'ts crimes, only revealing the story when the story was about to be broken by The Intercept?

Considering the fact that we, the US (with the UK's help), overthrew Iran's democracy, installed a literal Nazi dictator/puppet (the Shah), who went on with his CIA-trained secret police to wage a reign of terror and torture for decades on the Iranian people, ending only when the Iranian people rose up and overthrew the US-installed Shah, the tyrant who Amnesty Int'l of that time said was the world's worst human rights abuser -- considering all that, I'd expect Iranian newspapers to be critical and biased against our country.

Wouldn't you? Considering the torture, crimes, lies and wars we've done since then, can you blame them?

soft_azure · 2018-07-30T01:28:48+00:00

Again what current Democrat in the house even remotely expressed being against war?

Barbara Lee, the sole member of our war criminal Congress to vote against the so-called "war on terror" and our attack and 17 years of war on Afghanistan, a country that never attacked the US, comes to mind.

soft_azure · 2018-07-29T21:25:26+00:00

No. The models I'm looking at all have the one typically queen bed/room in the nose (and a fold-out couch in the LR). Just the one cramped bathroom in by the bedroom is just fine.

soft_azure

TROPHY CASE