Moonlight Graham

The thing that is truly garbage is that nobody tells these kids when they are in high school that a uni degree in history or sociology or whatever will not get you a job. High school teachers/counselors and certainly nobody in university told me this...luckily I dropped my English/Fine Art major after 1st year. Paying tens of thousands for a mostly unemployable education you could have got for free at the library is a sham. I don't fault the kids, they are 18 and don't know how the world works until 4 years later and in debt. Some of them are lucky and have natural interest in an employable area of education or parents who will guide them right.

Now just found a video clip of her saying at a GOP debte that both Iraq and Libya should reimburse the US, and people in the audience of the debate clapping. Nothing more dangerous than having countries you voluntarily choose to attack paying you back for your military adventures. Geez, just replace soldiers with robots and there would literally no cost to going to war. War on everybody!

Just heard a clip of Michele "Bat-crazy" Bachmann saying these things: And the winner of the most crazy Republican is... p.s. Michele, Iraq has a GDP-per-capita of $2,500, so if you think that makes them a "rich country" you are batshit stupid too. And that number is likely inflated because of all the people killed in the last decade...or maybe deflated because of the destruction to their economy/infrastrcuture caused by the war.

lol ya.

I've recently gone back to university, and after a 4th-year political science class i had last week I was talking to 2 guys in my class, neither knew each other, but both came to class with luggage and a tent, and told me that after class they were each heading downtown (I live in Ottawa) to join protesters in the Occupy movement at Confederation Park, a block from Parliament Hill. These guys were both full-time 4th-year political science students who had part-time jobs too, and said they go down to protest whenever they don't have classes/work and that they sleep at the protest site whenever they can. I really respected that. This changed my tune a bit on the protesters from the image portrayed in the media. These are intelligent, well-spoken, and obviously educated guys who obviously aren't just bums whining about being paid more for being lazy. Oh and they weren't hippies or weirdos either. One of them said the protesters are a mix of social democrats and anarchists. I suspect there are many other full-time students doing what these guys were doing, as well as people who work full-time in good jobs who are down there and sleep down there. It's likely mostly young people protesting because older folks who have family responsibilities are obviously less likely to do so, and yes unemployed people too are disproportionately represented in the protests because they have the most free time to give. I would bet there are many older, fully employed regular folks who support the protests but aren't represented well among the protesters because of time and family responsibilities. So let the media & people on here call this a "lazy bum" movement, but I think it has much wider support than it appears.

If he said what he felt could get banned. Hard to blame the fascist-zionist. If he does live in Israel, i'm kind of glad he's there and not in Canada. As dangerous as any hate-preaching Christian or Muslim.

No, but they better fight it and have it removed. Easy way: add a $6 fee for Americans coming into Canada by air/sea.

Good then we agree. It's just that you have been defending the bankers etc. more than the others, or should I say blaming the others more than the banks etc. Not sure if this is your argument, but they should occupy wall street AND Washington. And i'm not sure why there are so many "occupy" movements in Canada, our corps & investors & politicians aren't saints, but Canadians didn't cause this recession. Maybe they should get on some buses and go down to NYC and Washington.

Just saw on the news that some protesters are planning to "occupy" through the winter and 2012 presidential elections. I'll give them one thing...they have commitment!

Would agree that is was the fault of all players - Banks, investors, government, and consumers - who contributed to the housing/credit crash? Yup consumers should have been more careful, yup US gov't policy was horrible, and yup banks pushed predatory lending on customers using deceitful tactics. If someone gets conned, they must be blamed for falling for it, but the con-man has to take blame too.

Of course it is. Bob is always good for fabulously entertaining irony. Sounds like he's supporting the idea of a holocaust of Arabs/Muslims or whomever he sees as his enemy over there.

Removed a democratically elected leader and installed a US-friendly monarch. Liberty! I don't disagree, but that has nothing to do with my point. What about the last 60 years? Or slavery? My point is that removing/killing leaders at whim is not a sound strategy in the middle-east.

Like Mossedegh? That worked out awesome. How would you like it if Saudi Arabia became the global superpower and kept bombing and killing your leaders and whatever US civilians were in the crossfire? You'd probably want to go kill those bastards and fly planes into their buildings too. So let me get this right: American colonies got PO'd at the British King because he had "...a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States" (US Declaration of Indep.), so the colonies formed their own state over this and self-determination and freedom from tyranny became the basis of their constitution, yet some, like you and a long history of US leaders, support forcefully removing at whim foreign leaders who don't agree with your interests and otherwise imperial policies like the good 'ol British Empire Americans despised. Sounds like a bunch of massive hypocrites to me, King George.

Smash and destroy who? The Muslim radicals, or all Muslims?

They didn't "deserve it", but they sure as hell were asking for it. If you kick a hornet's nest then don't be so shocked if you get stung. I liked the video (only watched half of it). What happened to such rational thinking in the UK afterwards?

I wouldn't spend one dime training any Afghan military/police. OP is right, get out now. Get out years ago.

WWII pulled the west out of depression and fueled growth for the next 60 years largely because of the babyboom generation that came out of it. Population growth meant more consumption and spending. Spending fuels our capitalist economy, and whenever we cease to spend, because of lack of faith in the economy (like now) or any other reason, the economy stagnates. The babyboomers are starting to retire, that means they aren't making nearly as much income & are saving for the future instead of spending as they did. This means, unless we increase immigration from developing countries to make up for it, spending and likely consumption in western economies will decrease in the coming decades. On top of this, the babyboomers will put more strain on gov welfare services like health/pension/social assistance etc. and we will need to pay for this, meaning more taxes or much more likely more federal debt, and possibly more personal debt as well. Unfortunately, over the last few decades consumption (and economic growth) has been increasingly fueled by a) consumer debt, and government debt, ie: fantasy money/wealth we don't actually have. As we have seen recently, this debt is not sustainable at these levels. Unless we are to avoid a greater economic collapse, consumers and governments must decrease their debt. This means a further decrease in spending, not good for economic growth. Business, banks, credit cards companies, and government have been pushing debt in order to maintain capitalist economic growth. It's not sustainable, and in order to correct avoid major collapse, we will certainly need to decrease our spending. So basically I think we're either going to keep driving our personal and government's accounts into default, or we need to prudently decrease our spending/consumption. Based on this, and the demographics I mentioned, I think we are entering a new reality where economic growth is much more modest...that is, unless we greatly increase immigration or we have another revolution in production like the past industrial revolutions that is also somehow sustainable on our resources.

Ain't thems things supposed to burn up in the atmospheres or somethings?

Rubbish. The US only acts in its own self-interest. Libya operations had little to do with freedom, and all about oil. If the US valued individual liberty so much then explain US inaction recently towards Yemen, the monarchy of Bahrain, the Maliki government, Syria etc. Not to mention the US kissing ass with the Saudi monarchy and doing massive business with China.

If you read my post I did ask this question in the sentence the before the one you quoted: "Or would the Arab Spring not have even happened in the first place with the spreading of "democracy" in Iraq via the US-led regime change there." So this would be your valid argument to my question. You think no, because the Arab Spring would not have happened without the democracy regime change in Iraq. I'm torn on this, it's really hard to know. It is possible for sure, but I just don't know enough about the exact motivations of the first people who started the Spring, ie: that dude who set himself on fire in Tunisia, and the protesters in Egypt. Would be interesting to see some very in-depth interviews and surveys of those involved.

Actually I love his name, it's freaking delicious. Rocky Road, my opinion is that there is a very real likelihood that there will be a massive systemic collapse of the world capitalist economic system, worse than the Great Depression. Our capitalist system depends on perpetual growth, and this may simply become unsustainable. We have seen what the financial world has done to try to avoid and recover from these boom-bust cycles that are inherent in a capitalist economy, they have tried to squeeze money in markets/industries that can't sustain themselves and eventually have collapsed (re: tech and housing bubbles), and have partook and criminal fraud or ridiculous practices in order to sustain profit growth that have inevitably caught up with them and undermined the system and contributed to a crash (re: Enron, Nortel, banks, hedge-funders) On top of this, our governments are trying their best to "fix" the capitalist economy on different occasions over the last few decades and get back to this needed perpetual growth by throwing mountains money at businesses to bail them out and throwing huge money into the economy as "stimulus", all the while racking up massive amounts of government debts that are simply unsustainable. Also, the profits in our current economy have increasingly relied upon consumers taking out large debts to pay for this, so this wealth is simply not real and not sustainable from a consumer's perspective nor a government perspective. Personal and government debt is the primary reason why our economies are currently still teetering on the edge of disaster, yet what has been our governments' response to get the economy back on track? Lower interest rates so people/businesses can take on MORE debt!!! Lowering lending rates in order to recover after the 2000 dotcom bubble is what greatly led to the current credit crunch and recession, and yet we are repeating the same thing again?!? Insanity. If we don't change things drastically we are headed towards a major crash sometime in the future (even if we do change things it may be unavoidable), whether it be 2 or 5 years or 20 years, but it's going to come and the busts will repeat and get worse because this drive for perpetual growth seems unsustainable and just throwing money at it that we don't even have is a short-term band-aid on a bursting dam.

Hypothetically, would it have been possible, or likely or unlikely, given the strength of the Iraqi military at the time of US invasion, and they fact that Iraq actually didn't have WMD's to use on dissidents, for the citizens of Iraq to topple the Hussein regime on their own (or possibly with some NATO support re: Libya) during this era of Arab Spring uprisings if the US & gang had never invaded Iraq? Or would Saddam have been able to crush such an uprising, similar to Syria? Or would Iraqis have feared a possible WMD response re: the gassing of Kurds, and not dared to try a rebellion en masse? Or would the Arab Spring not have even happened in the first place with the spreading of "democracy" in Iraq via the US-led regime change there. The point here is: could the US-led invasion of Iraq & regime change there have been a complete waste because such regime change may have happened anyways via popular uprising?

My point is that you can't really predict the future. There may be situations that arise, ie: some country invading another, re: Iraq vs Kuwait, that might demand a major US or NATO ground response. But I also see your view, and think it would be prudent financially, politically, and even security-wise to avoid any major ground operations as possible, and do more of a Libya-style operation (airstrikes, covert ground support of locals).

very good point

I doubt that, it's impossible to predict the future. What happens if, say, a terrorist attack sponsored by the Syrian gov't is committed against the US? Or Iran attacks a neighbour for whatever reason? Also, you're forgetting that war is big business in the US and the military-industrial complex has massive power infiltrating virtually every congressional district and federal gov department in the country.