Obligatory comical YouTube thread

[ThunderPeel2001]

Interesting stuff about Nixon... but let's not forget the guy was a lying bastard who would do anything (anything!) to get power. But if he did some good stuff along the way, then that's cool.

You know, for all its problems, I honestly believe America is going to be fine... eventually. It's not about to drive itself into the ground, and even if things did get worse before they got better, it'd only provide lessons for the future (lessons that most countries have learned by now).

As Churchill once said, "You can always rely on America to do the right thing... once it's tried everything else".

I think the hysteria needs to be dialled down a bit (hence my complaint about the utter shite that passes for news over there -- I was shocked, and continue to be shocked, even by network news). I remember talking to a fellow who was doing a PhD while travelling to Seattle a few years ago. He was absolutely freaked about the whole healthcare reform... but it was blatantly clear that he had zero idea what he was talking about.

I, myself, was completely unaware what the whole healthcare reform was about at the time, so I just listened. Then I went home and read up about what was actually going on, and realised that his grasp of the situation was... weird.

He summed it up like this: "These new reforms are trying to stop doctors from being able to say certain things to their patients."

Yes. That's how he summed up the issue to an outsider... WTF?

Fear without knowledge. I think that sums up my experiences of talking to the most hysterical folk in the US (certainly a minority, I might add). With some knowledge that they trusted, I think they'd see that things aren't really anywhere near as bad as they think.

[OssK]

You know, for all its problems, I honestly believe America is going to be fine... eventually. It's not about to drive itself into the ground, and even if things did get worse before they got better, it'd only provide lessons for the future (lessons that most countries have learned by now).

Oops, the "getting worse" part was supposed to be Bush and the "getting better" the Obama administration. Turned not to be true…

[ThunderPeel2001]

Oops, the "getting worse" part was supposed to be Bush and the "getting better" the Obama administration. Turned not to be true…

I don't think things are worse because Obama is in power...?

[MrHoatzin]

Yeah, no, Obama is at worst useless, at best disappointing. McCain would've been far worse for the country.

And also, that hippie in the coffee shop is a horrible straw man, Sully. There are no hippies in coffee shops. They don't exist. Look at the data. Argh, I think you're gonna make me ramble here. I don't like it when I ramble.

In the last 30, 35 years this weird dogma has arisen in the US, that government, in general, is incapable of solving problems. That all the society's problems can be solved by just letting big, benevolent corporations deal with them. This is patently false, and yet all the allegedly liberal presidents have embraced this belief. In the same time frame, India and China have invested immense amounts of resources in generating smart people, developing complex industries, as the US has stagnated because investing into the populace is what damn pinko commie secularists do and is not The American Way™.

Most of the wealth generated in the US in this time period went to the richest 10 percent of people, making them richer. The middle and lower classes, in relative money terms when you adjust for inflation, had stagnated and got worse. It is now harder to raise from the strata of society one is born in than ever since the turn of the 20th century. This dogma that government is part of the problem didn't arise out of nowhere. It was manufactured by big business PR interests and spouted by Ronald Reagan. It benefits big business directly. And it is not supported by evidence.

When the government is weak and unable to protect its constituents, it creates a kind of state of nature and the strongest kid on the block (i.e. the huge employer that employs 30% of a town's people) all of a sudden wields amazing power. The level of power over the people in the area is damn near feudal (since a lot of the time, quitting and finding another job is really not much of an option). They always wielded such power over smaller governments. A General Electric can bully a state's government easily. But they cannot bully the federal government as easily. That is why there is this weird cry for "states rights" that goes along with the cry for a smaller government. More power given to the states means that more power can be wrestled away by big businesses. Big businesses absolutely don't think that government is not a part of the solution, because they profit from the government, it is the place they go to get things done cheaply. They blackmail states to get tax breaks to open new facilities in certain places. Then states bid against one another to get those jobs happening, underbidding, disregarding environmental impact reports, making it harder for workers to unionize, passing all kinds of beneficial regulations and building supporting infrastructure, roads and pipelines and communication networks to get these companies situated in their nook rather than their neighbors. It one stupid game of big brother. I am not here to make friends, I am here to win.

And at the end of the day, most of the wealth generated by the company will go to the CEOs and shareholders. Most shares are owned by a dinky minority of people. The abstracted method of ownership is just an extension of the feudal system; those who are already rich will get richer, and those lower down will work like crazy to get up, and probably not make it anywhere.

This is not a problem of lazy people just not working hard enough to pull themselves by the bootstraps. This is a retarded order of things. It is patently undemocratic and unjust, if you're into those kinds of things.

And the people that run the show on the big business side of things, the CEOs, are not there because they're the smartest kids on the block that managed to beat everyone else in the great meritocracy we live in. They are, by and large, utter morons, just like the rest of everyone. Read this article from the Financial Times about a memo one Tom Barrack sent to his employees. That is the quality of the smart people running this show. They are clueless morons who lucked out. And they are working hard to stay on the top by moving the floor further and further away from them.

Back in the office, I looked again at the original memo (which can be read on dealbreaker.com) and am inclined to agree with the reader who e-mailed me: it isn’t funny, it’s terrifying.

“Gang,” Mr Barrack starts.

It goes on to describe how after “an agonisingly tough couple of weeks” he took some “yacht time” and chanced upon his daughter’s copy of Twilight. “I don’t get it ... but I feel it. Taking the agenda-less time to absorb a point of view that I had ignored while loved ones around me relished it was an oasis for my soul.”

There are long musings on love, on anticipation and vampires, allowing him to draw the following conclusion for his team: “It is hard for us to dream ... it is time for all of us ... to spend more time outside the strict arithmetic cadence of our business ... we must really find the ‘moment’ ...”

There is no time to answer the questions this raises – Why are dreams good for hedgies? Find what “moment”? What is a “strict arithmetic cadence”? – as there is more.

“Move your cheese!!!! ... The earth is turning on its axis. Planets and moons and suns are in orbit. Gravity is pulling and tugging, and molecules and quarks are warring inside of us. We need movement to live ...”

There is a lesson to be drawn from all this but it has nothing to do with cheese, moons or quarks. It does, however, relate to planets, and in particular to these people being on a different planet from the rest of us.

I wish I had all the facts collated, with all the references. I should totally do that. And then just dump a fact bomb when someone comes out of the wood work and implies so offhandedly that what I am saying is crazy talk by an irrational person who cannot take blame for his own fucked-up life. I am doing just fine. I bought a house last year. I don't work particularly hard but I work intelligently. And, of course, I got lucky. I am not a fucking hippie in a coffee shop.

[MrHoatzin]

You know, for all its problems, I honestly believe America is going to be fine... eventually. It's not about to drive itself into the ground, and even if things did get worse before they got better, it'd only provide lessons for the future (lessons that most countries have learned by now).

As Churchill once said, "You can always rely on America to do the right thing... once it's tried everything else".

I don't really see it. I've been in this shit for a dozen years now. Every time someone tries to suggest a better course of action for the country to take, inspired by our best understanding of the situation, the status quo side dials up the crazy and all of a sudden the political reality is such that doing the right thing is untenable.

This country is incapable of pulling out at the last second. I can't fucking see it, for as long as the left power structure 1) has no alternative story simple enough for the stupid motherfuckers to comprehend, 2) has no balls to do what is right, and 3) is eager to throw the little man under the bus time and again.

The little man is so fucked by both sides all the time, and its only recourse is to vote for the other guy. So now, after being fucked by Bush and the arsonist who burned down everything for eight years, the people elect a messiah who turns out to be made of cardboard, so they are in a situation where their only recourse is to reelect the arsonists. Shit is not right. GWB's presidency took place because people were annoyed with the Democrats and voted for Nader. I really can't blame them. The media noise machine on the right is super powerful. There is no way they will just wake up one day and realize they're the problem.

[Patters]

Yeah, no, Obama is at worst useless, at best disappointing. McCain would've been far worse for the country.

And also, that hippie in the coffee shop is a horrible straw man, Sully. There are no hippies in coffee shops. They don't exist. Look at the data. Argh, I think you're gonna make me ramble here. I don't like it when I ramble.

In the last 30, 35 years this weird dogma has arisen in the US, that government, in general, is incapable of solving problems. That all the society's problems can be solved by just letting big, benevolent corporations deal with them. This is patently false, and yet all the allegedly liberal presidents have embraced this belief. In the same time frame, India and China have invested immense amounts of resources in generating smart people, developing complex industries, as the US has stagnated because investing into the populace is what damn pinko commie secularists do and is not The American Way™.

Most of the wealth generated in the US in this time period went to the richest 10 percent of people, making them richer. The middle and lower classes, in relative money terms when you adjust for inflation, had stagnated and got worse. It is now harder to raise from the strata of society one is born in than ever since the turn of the 20th century. This dogma that government is part of the problem didn't arise out of nowhere. It was manufactured by big business PR interests and spouted by Ronald Reagan. It benefits big business directly. And it is not supported by evidence.

When the government is weak and unable to protect its constituents, it creates a kind of state of nature and the strongest kid on the block (i.e. the huge employer that employs 30% of a town's people) all of a sudden wields amazing power. The level of power over the people in the area is damn near feudal (since a lot of the time, quitting and finding another job is really not much of an option). They always wielded such power over smaller governments. A General Electric can bully a state's government easily. But they cannot bully the federal government as easily. That is why there is this weird cry for "states rights" that goes along with the cry for a smaller government. More power given to the states means that more power can be wrestled away by big businesses. Big businesses absolutely don't think that government is not a part of the solution, because they profit from the government, it is the place they go to get things done cheaply. They blackmail states to get tax breaks to open new facilities in certain places. Then states bid against one another to get those jobs happening, underbidding, disregarding environmental impact reports, making it harder for workers to unionize, passing all kinds of beneficial regulations and building supporting infrastructure, roads and pipelines and communication networks to get these companies situated in their nook rather than their neighbors. It one stupid game of big brother. I am not here to make friends, I am here to win.

And at the end of the day, most of the wealth generated by the company will go to the CEOs and shareholders. Most shares are owned by a dinky minority of people. The abstracted method of ownership is just an extension of the feudal system; those who are already rich will get richer, and those lower down will work like crazy to get up, and probably not make it anywhere.

This is not a problem of lazy people just not working hard enough to pull themselves by the bootstraps. This is a retarded order of things. It is patently undemocratic and unjust, if you're into those kinds of things.

And the people that run the show on the big business side of things, the CEOs, are not there because they're the smartest kids on the block that managed to beat everyone else in the great meritocracy we live in. They are, by and large, utter morons, just like the rest of everyone. Read this article from the Financial Times about a memo one Tom Barrack sent to his employees. That is the quality of the smart people running this show. They are clueless morons who lucked out. And they are working hard to stay on the top by moving the floor further and further away from them.

I wish I had all the facts collated, with all the references. I should totally do that. And then just dump a fact bomb when someone comes out of the wood work and implies so offhandedly that what I am saying is crazy talk by an irrational person who cannot take blame for his own fucked-up life. I am doing just fine. I bought a house last year. I don't work particularly hard but I work intelligently. And, of course, I got lucky. I am not a fucking hippie in a coffee shop.

Capitalism is a disgusting thing.

[Sully907]

The system is not without it's flaws, but capitalism is a large reason for our quality of life being what it is right now in the developed world. The internet, consumer electronics, winter heating and A/C, it isn't all that bad.

Kingz does make some very cogent points though. My main issue is that corporations are given the rights of people, but not regulated as such, which contributes a lot to their control over governments with unlimited campaign contributions and lax regulation, but I don't want to go so far in the other direction where everyone has a guaranteed job and I'm paying half my paycheck to keep my house warm because the taxes are so high.

[Patters]

The system is not without it's flaws, but capitalism is a large reason for our quality of life being what it is right now in the developed world. The internet, consumer electronics, winter heating and A/C, it isn't all that bad.

Kingz does make some very cogent points though. My main issue is that corporations are given the rights of people, but not regulated as such, which contributes a lot to their control over governments with unlimited campaign contributions and lax regulation, but I don't want to go so far in the other direction where everyone has a guaranteed job and I'm paying half my paycheck to keep my house warm because the taxes are so high.

Bullshit. Don't argue a paradoxical point, things have been developed to make life easier throughout the entire existence of man. Capitalism has directly damaged our medical system, our transport system and our education system. These hyper corporations have bankrupt not only developed countries but also our souls, Nestle, Coke, Tesco, I could go on. The developing world has purposefully been hindered to advance the developing world. These mega corporations are a bad thing, producing so much capital means that they can buy governments off, simply to look away from what they are doing, it's happened here.

"Capitalism is indeed organised crime" In the words of the Refused.

[Thompson]

Bullshit. Don't argue a paradoxical point, things have been developed to make life easier throughout the entire existence of man. Capitalism has directly damaged our medical system, our transport system and our education system. These hyper corporations have bankrupt not only developed countries but also our souls, Nestle, Coke, Tesco, I could go on. The developing world has purposefully been hindered to advance the developing world. These mega corporations are a bad thing, producing so much capital means that they can buy governments off, simply to look away from what they are doing, it's happened here.

"Capitalism is indeed organised crime" In the words of the Refused.

It's easy to sit there and scream about capitalism being a horrible thing but it's not so easy to implement a system that would run the world perfectly. The reason communism and socialism don't work is because of man's intrinsic greed and lust for power, try taking away people's sense of power (Especially those in large corporations) and see what you get.

Like it or not, capitalism is what we have. Capitalism is the way the human race runs. It's easy to take all the worst elements (Endemic corruption, poverty, etc.) but it has also given us the capability to function as a global community.

Tell me i'm wrong, tell me that if humanity had or does go instead with some perfect system that we could get by without capitalism and i'd love to hear how.

For the record, I agree that Capitalism is anything but the perfect system, however I don't agree that we could or should dump it, unless you have the master plan to utopian society.

[MrHoatzin]

Socialism is working just fine in Europe and Canada. Such as it is. You're talking in truisms. And you're being both a dick and unimaginative by throwing your hands up in the air and declaring that everything that is not capitalism must be some sort of pie in the sky fantasy utopia.

And no, communism didn't die out because of greed. If I felt like being a pedant, I'd say it has yet to be truly tried out. If anything, it died out because it was a totalitarian beast and as such hardly a friendly society prone to thriving. Besides, the Chinese brand of communism is doing just fine:

Emphasizing the changes in China isn’t wrong, of course—the country has changed remarkably, thanks in large part to its jettisoning of many Communist policies and practices. But as Richard McGregor shows in his book The Party: The Secret World of China’s Communist Rulers, the Party is not increasingly irrelevant; rather, it is at the center of events as varied as shifts in global currency markets, New York stock market listings, and clashes over North Korea. And far from being decrepit, the Party is surprisingly vital, as McGregor convincingly demonstrates in chapters on how it influences China’s economy, military, minority policy, and understanding of history. Although many of its policies are not Communist, the Party is still Leninist in structure and organization, resulting in institutions and behavior patterns that would be recognizable to the leaders of the Russian Revolution. McGregor’s book is also proof that for all of its secretive tendencies, the Party and its power can be usefully analyzed.

Our failure to do so has led to spectacular misperceptions about China, a key one being that the government has been privatizing the economy. Back in the 1990s, for example, the government announced that it would “grasp the large and release the small,” which was taken in Western capitals to mean privatization. In fact, the plan was simply to turn state-owned enterprises into shareholder-owned companies—with the government holding a controlling or majority stake. Many shares were sold overseas to investors eager for a piece of China’s economic growth, but even today almost all Chinese companies of any size and importance remain in government hands.

As McGregor explains in a masterful chapter, foreign investors were often told otherwise by ignorant or unethical Western investment banks and lawyers. Throughout the 1990s and into this decade, prospectuses written by Western lawyers for initial public offerings of China-owned companies consistently fudged the fact that the Party’s Organization Department, not the company’s board of directors, would remain in control of all personnel decisions. One prospectus for a particularly large IPO went so far as to misrepresent China’s political system, stating that the National People’s Congress—a largely rubber-stamp parliament—was the ultimate authority in political issues. It is hard to prove willful intent to deceive, but at the very least Western investment banks were badly misinformed.

Such misstatements might seem trivial or even amusing, but they led to fundamental misperceptions of how Chinese companies are run. All have Party secretaries who manage them in conjunction with the CEO. In big questions, such as leadership or overseas acquisitions, Party meetings precede board meetings, which largely give routine approval to Party decisions. The Party’s overarching control was driven home a few years ago when China’s large telecom companies had their CEOs shuffled like a pack of cards because of a decision by the Party’s Organization Department. It would have been like the US Department of Commerce ordering the heads of AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile to play musical chairs. For the Organization Department, which acts as the Party’s personnel department, it was normal; it often shifts senior Party officials every few years to prevent empire building and corruption.

As for the smaller companies that were “released” by the Party, government control still remains pervasive, if less heavy-handed. Few Chinese companies call themselves private—siying in Chinese—preferring instead the more nebulous term minying, or “run by the people.” What this means is that these companies are run as the manager sees fit, but the manager is often a former official or close to Party circles. Market forces hold sway, but in a form of crony capitalism that leads to local protectionism and corruption. Companies also feel obliged to line up behind government policies, such as its plan to develop China’s impoverished western regions.

Emphasis mine.

[MrHoatzin]

I will not argue with you that the left has yet to offer an alternative to capitalism. Postmodernism is not as good at generating Visions Of The Future that can inspire people as modernism was.

[Hermie]

I wont speak to the American situation due to lack of anything other than surface knowledge, but I do wonder how "socialism" came to be a swear word, something to be scared of.

I am currently attending a state-funded University, completely free. Not only that, they're also providing me with a student loan. Not a bank, or another financial institution, but the state. Do I always like paying almost a third of whatever I make in taxes? No, but I prefer that over the thought that I sometime will end up needing a critical surgery, only to be booted because I don't have a health insurance, or can't foot the expensive bill.

You might chalk it up to being rich of found resources, but our neighbors Sweden are doing the same, only they were built on such capitalist things like industrial design and wood export.

By the way, why are unions always portrayed as shady and suspect in the American media? Is it because they are/have been corrupt, or is it just a cultural thing of how they view workers? Because here it's the single most important way for employees to make sure they get fair treatment. Just something I always wondered about.

PS: Shouldn't a mod split this off by now? <.<

[ThunderPeel2001]

Kingz, I think you really hit the nail exactly on the head, and you've summed up everything I've witnessed during my time in the US and folk I've spoken to here. And the discussion between you and Sully is precisely the same one I've seen before... and I honestly believe it's core of the problem that I've seen over and over for the past 10 years (since I became interested in US politics).

As I see it: For whatever reason (50's anti-communism, Reagan, whatever) it's become almost a crime to say that you're not a fan of capitalism in America. People immediately get scared and apparently believe that if you're not a fan of capitalism, then you MUST be a communist.

Well, here in Europe we're NOT socialist, we're actually capitalist, but (in the UK at least) we're not as far RIGHT as the US.

For some weird reason, in the US it's apparently all or nothing: You're either a capitalist 100%, or you're a socialist 100%... but it's not the case.

For a start: Capitalism doesn't work!

If capitalism worked, there wouldn't be a need for minimum wage... If capitalism worked, then the market would dictate what people were actually worth, not the government. But it doesn't work! Without things like minimum wage, the workforce gets taken advantage of. Look at second world countries like India and Brazil. Companies are free to treat their workers as they see fit, and poverty is a million times worse. There is no protection for worker's rights, you have shanty towns and people working as slaves for 100 hours a week, just so their family doesn't starve. THAT'S capitalism without any safeguards.

Does that mean that socialism is the way forward? No. Unchecked socialism has shown itself not to work, either.

So obviously there has to be a balance between helping businesses grow (which creates jobs, after all) and the rights of the workers. Whenever people like Barack Obama try to create address this balance (like his healthcare reform -- which was erroneously dubbed "socialized healthcare"), the right go ape-shit and think he's a socialist. It'd be laughable, if it wasn't so terrible.

The right throw up major concerns: Reforming healthcare in America will cost the country millions, and damage the economy (this is what the right seem to argue). So Obama has to argue that, actually, it will SAVE the country money and HELP the economy.

Whether you believe him or not is really whether you are right wing or left wing... but it always goes to an extreme. So the right in the US say things like, "we have the BEST healthcare in the world", refusing to concede that there's even a problem to begin with! This blinkered thinking becomes part of the problem. I digress.

Here in the UK, we DO have socialized healthcare. It means that the government owns the hospitals and pays the doctors... Obamacare is not even CLOSE to this. (Not even CLOSE!)

It's so frustrating to watch as an outsider as folk only talk about the extremes of capitalism or socialism, when really it's just balance that's needed... Someone somewhere needs to take the stigma out of being left wing. Out of being a socialist. Out of being, hell, a communist... Just so conversation has flow freely without emotions running over.

But I do think, whatever happens, that the US will eventually even itself out. If things keep getting worse, it'll eventually lead to a revolution of sorts, and Churchill's declaration will come true (it's noteworthy that he himself was half-American).

Anyways, that's my ill-considered opinion, rushed out at 0.45am.

Kingz, I'd vote for you as President

[Thompson]

And you're being both a dick and unimaginative...

Thanks for that wholesale dismissal of my opinion and insult to my internet face.

[MrHoatzin]

Thanks for that wholesale dismissal of my opinion and insult to my internet face.

You're welcome. Asshole.

I made an effort to not be patronizing or dismissive, though those were my knee-jerk reactions. I could've said, You don't know shit about fuck, son, come back when you have studied world affaires some more, but I didn't. If you look closely, past the obvious and true accusation you've quoted, you will see that I did actually explain why your primary premises on which you've based said opinion are false. You have a tidy and appealing, but overly simplistic and faulty opinion on your hands there.

And Hermie, communism and socialism as dirty words in this culture are a theme of Dethspank, the second one in particular. I though that was one of the most ingenious examples of satire in video games since the last GTA game I played. But yeah, I don't really get it. There is a really strong business lobby and PR machine in this country that has completely discredited unions and social concerns of little people. Plus, talking about politics is seen as an impolite thing in fine company, to the point where no one explains any of this shit to the misinformed. So you have people in whose interest it is to organize mortified by the idea on spiritual, irrational grounds. Unions=evil, corporations=not an enemy. So, with that kind of shorthand embedded in peoples' thinking, you can have the most right politician in Europe fall to the left of the most liberal politicians in the States.

[Orv]

Can't you see you're tearing us apart?! In the. . .YouTube videos thread. . .no less. . .

Thompson, I'm afraid Kingz has you on this one.

Kingz, stop fucking turning my nightmares into reality. I like being oblivious to the fact that I live in the ritziest political shithole this side of the Middle East. Nachimir's comment actually had a nice long roll around in the cesspit of my brain while I got to sit in the dark and cold today. Yeah, funny that, I'd rather not think about having what amounts to a civil uprising and horrible shit. Weird how my mind works, I know.

I don't necessarily want to put a damper on the conversation, it's interesting, and in ways, enlightening, but. . .well. You sound like a not-crazy, intelligent Glen Beck, Kingz. Which is as much of a compliment as it can be. Maybe tone it down a tad?

[Korax]

Hey guys, how 'bout them internet videos? Some of them are pretty funny, huh?

gF_qQYrCcns

[OssK]

The reason communism and socialism don't work is because of man's intrinsic greed and lust for power, try taking away people's sense of power (Especially those in large corporations) and see what you get.

In effect, communism has hardly been tried, although I do believe that depriving people of their right to ownership will really mess things up, and I don't see how (Thunderpeel) total Socialism has failed and where it's been tried…

Also, people in America don't really seem to know what it is, one should go and ask people what they think socialism means, you'd be

1) Surprised

2) Depressed

That Youtube comical thread turned into an argument about politics, me likey !

[DanJW]

Communism is the ideal - in a post-scarcity society. Of course it is the interest of capitalist entities to prevent post-scarcity from ever occurring.

Capitalism works... depending on your definition of 'works'. It's Dawinist in a survivial of the fittest sense, so long-long term it may have benefits for mankind as a whole.

But competition and darwinism work by grinding up and killing 90% of the population. Unchecked capitalism isn't freedom - it is economic slavery. Rather than being restrained by laws, people are restrained by simple economics instead with far worse results. If you care about individual people rather than (or as well as) humanity as a species, then I don't see how you can justify turning them into grist for the mill.

I'm not religious, but I find it almost hilarious how a fundementalist christian nation like the USA can cling to values which are so totally contradictory to the teachings of the bible. It really is madness.

new rule: If you really must post on politics, you still have to inclide an Obligatory Comical YouTube clip:

LGOIzsNZaPQ

It's Obligatory!

Edited February 4, 2011 by DanJW

[MrHoatzin]

IqfSoDG1C3g

Here's a fun vid! Yay, the end of patriarchy! Or something!

[MrHoatzin]

Kingz, stop fucking turning my nightmares into reality. I like being oblivious to the fact that I live in the ritziest political shithole this side of the Middle East. Nachimir's comment actually had a nice long roll around in the cesspit of my brain while I got to sit in the dark and cold today. Yeah, funny that, I'd rather not think about having what amounts to a civil uprising and horrible shit. Weird how my mind works, I know.

I don't necessarily want to put a damper on the conversation, it's interesting, and in ways, enlightening, but. . .well. You sound like a not-crazy, intelligent Glen Beck, Kingz. Which is as much of a compliment as it can be. Maybe tone it down a tad?

See, Hermie, this is what I was talking about... It is impolite to talk politics in fine company. People would rather not know stuff, even though it would make them super fucking angry, with righteous ire, and maybe get them to think and talk about this shit... And talking about this public knowledge makes you comparable to a schizophrenic fear-mongering demagogue. Tone it down, man? Tone what down, exactly? Sit down and shut up, because that is the proper thing to do?

LIFrqZPehK8

Here's another one! Just making up for all the politics shit I made you read through. It's Obligatory.

[vimes]

I don't agree with capitalism, communism or any monolithic political ideal because they all make the assumption that, in order to work, every agent of a society would play by the rules they define. This is true - and you can hear people on both side of the board saying 'Oh, but wait, this isn't real *****ism, pure *****ism would work' - but it's also completely insane.

To me, this assumption is the reason that

1) the incarnations of communism and capitalism never matched the theory and never will. At worst they are corrupted (capitalism now and during the industrial revolution, communism during Stalin's reign) and at best, they are watered down (CDU/CSU, depending how you see it).

2) most institutions trying to apply those theory turned into dictature that destroyed the opposition because they just didn't know how to handle them. (chinese repression, union busting)

Also, video I find funny:

umDr0mPuyQc

[Orv]

I meant tone down being an asshole to Thompson. I'm fine with the political talk. The rest was, primarily sarcasm, as it's my natural defense to someone running around screaming "DEAAAAAAAAAAATH" even if it is true.

Nevermind, I guess.

[brkl]

So weird looking at this thread for perhaps the first time and finding that political erm, discussion.

[MrHoatzin]

I meant tone down being an asshole to Thompson. I'm fine with the political talk. The rest was, primarily sarcasm, as it's my natural defense to someone running around screaming "DEAAAAAAAAAAATH" even if it is true.

Nevermind, I guess.

Oh, ok, never mind then. Carry on.

"DEAAAAAAAAAAATH"

Here's an obligatory vid of a crow fashioning a tool:

TtmLVP0HvDg