Health Reform Legistlation

[Barnabas]

If you are going to restrict the definition of terrorism to the killing of civilians, then its hard to apply it to the founders since they raised a Continental army to do their fighting for them and they were kindof several thousand miles away from Britain so they couldn't exactly go slaughtering civilians.

Then call them insurgents or a gorilla army, it suits better and still has semi-negative conotations.

 

[muir]

The US killed more Japanese people through conventional bombing then through the 2 nuclear bombs

'The Fog of War' is an interesting documentary about US bombing where you can hear from McNamara ie straight from the horses mouth (not a bleeding heart liberal) how the US would try to bomb opponents into submission and how this isn't an effective policy (think vietnam war)

Also as we are not children I am sure we can face up to the reality that the US has been involved in proxy wars as well as propping up tyrannical regimes, puppet governments and various other subversive actions, which has lead directly or indirectly to countless deaths and suffering worldwide

Don't let your love of your homeland cloud your judgement

I love my country but i fully acknowledge its crimes on the world stage and also against its own people

I see 'terrorism' as trying to create the maximum psychological effect from minimum effort. The US are 'shock and awe' experts!

Concerning the nuclear bombs...why drop 2...hadn't they made their point with the first?

OR....and here's another idea....maybe they wanted to send out a terrifying message to the rest of the world (especially Russia) that the US had a terrifying new weapon. Also it presented the perfect opportunity for the US to test out their new terror weapon, which is why the two bombs used were of different designs....terrifying

 

[Barnabas]

The US killed more Japanese people through conventional bombing then through the 2 nuclear bombs

'The Fog of War' is an interesting documentary about US bombing where you can hear from McNamara ie straight from the horses mouth (not a bleeding heart liberal) how the US would try to bomb opponents into submission and how this isn't an effective policy (think vietnam war)

Also as we are not children I am sure we can face up to the reality that the US has been involved in proxy wars as well as propping up tyrannical regimes, puppet governments and various other subversive actions, which has lead directly or indirectly to countless deaths and suffering worldwide

Don't let your love of your homeland cloud your judgement

I love my country but i fully acknowledge its crimes on the world stage and also against its own people

I see 'terrorism' as trying to create the maximum psychological effect from minimum effort. The US are 'shock and awe' experts!

Concerning the nuclear bombs...why drop 2...hadn't they made their point with the first?

OR....and here's another idea....maybe they wanted to send out a terrifying message to the rest of the world (especially Russia) that the US had a terrifying new weapon. Also it presented the perfect opportunity for the US to test out their new terror weapon, which is why the two bombs used were of different designs....terrifying

I accept my country's mistakes, and of course I disagree with them. I agreed woth Satya that we've done terrible things to Native Americans.

But it's another thing entirely to through out untruthful claims like the founding fathers were terrorists, or the nuclear bombs were a political stunt.

Do you know why we droped the second bomb, because Japan refused to surrender after the first.

secondly the two bombs were of different design because they were to seperate projects organised for development to be completed quicker, not because it was terrifying to have two different bombs that did the same thing.

there's another thing, politics and the military make a terrible cocktail, one always pressureing the other to heat up or cool down. Operation Rolling Thunder was a brilliant military tactic, hell we won every battle we faught in Vietnam, we lost due to it's political nature.

I also don't know if I can agree with your satement that more Japanese were killed by conential bombs, we didn't use a massive air campaign in WWII in the pacific theater like we did Nam. That is unless your including naval battles and torpedos in which you are likely right.


WWII is one of the places I have a pretty well build bit of knowledge and most of what you said runs out later in US history. Namely the politics and the Cold War.

 

[bamf]

The ends never justify the means. We would have won the war in the pacific regardless. Murdering ~200,000 civilians (a significant portion of which were Koreans working in forced labor) is hardly a justifiable act in my book. However, this is far from being on topic, so I'll stop here.

 

[Satya]

Back to the topic at hand, I find it funny that although most of the country didn't agree with the Health Care Reform bill, the polls show that most don't want it to be repealed either. The Republicans have only gained a +2% in the polls over the Dems on this issue and I can't imagine how the Republicans are going to push for repeal of this thing in November.

 

[muir]

I accept my country's mistakes, and of course I disagree with them. I agreed woth Satya that we've done terrible things to Native Americans.

But it's another thing entirely to through out untruthful claims like the founding fathers were terrorists, or the nuclear bombs were a political stunt.

Do you know why we droped the second bomb, because Japan refused to surrender after the first.

secondly the two bombs were of different design because they were to seperate projects organised for development to be completed quicker, not because it was terrifying to have two different bombs that did the same thing.

there's another thing, politics and the military make a terrible cocktail, one always pressureing the other to heat up or cool down. Operation Rolling Thunder was a brilliant military tactic, hell we won every battle we faught in Vietnam, we lost due to it's political nature.

I also don't know if I can agree with your satement that more Japanese were killed by conential bombs, we didn't use a massive air campaign in WWII in the pacific theater like we did Nam. That is unless your including naval battles and torpedos in which you are likely right.


WWII is one of the places I have a pretty well build bit of knowledge and most of what you said runs out later in US history. Namely the politics and the Cold War.

Concerning the founding fathers...did they not have some sort of sunset clause about black people being property in the declaration of independance?

So for all their high rhetoric they were essentially merchants and slave owners. Their principles (if they had any) certainly didn't get in the way of turning a profit

Concerning Japan it was under blockade and being attacked by the allies and Russia...the game was over and they knew it. You can cite their bushido code if you want but they would have come round to the realities given some time.

The bombs were both dropped within days of each other. If US high command wanted to prove to the Japanese that they had more nuclear weapons in their arsenal why didn't they drop the second bomb somewhere harmless?

I didn't say it was terrifying to have two bombs that did the same thing I said it was terrifying that the US wanted to test out their new terror weapons. I repeated the word terror because i wanted to make a point, semantics aside, that the US creates more terror around the world than any other government. The people of nagasaki and hiroshima certainly do not differentiate between enriched uranium and plutonium core bombs...they both have the same result

The Japanese where already well beaten. The thoughts of the US had already turned to the next threat which was the red army. There were hawks in the US who suggested hitting the Russians before they developed their own nuclear capability; the 'cold war' had effectively already started

You are flat out wrong about the US not waging a large scale conventional bombing campaign against Japan in the second world war...they did

Here is an excerpt from wiki:

The United States strategic bombing of Japan took place between 1942 and 1945. In the last seven months of the campaign, a change to firebombing tactics resulted in great destruction of 67 Japanese cities, as many as 500,000 Japanese deaths and some 5 million more made homeless. Emperor Hirohito's viewing of the destroyed areas of Tokyo in March 1945, is said to have been the beginning of his personal involvement in the peace process, culminating in Japan's surrender five months later.[132]

The death toll of Hiroshima was 140,000 people killed and 80,000 were killed in Nagasaki (in the initial event). This is significantly less than the number of people killed by the US strategic bombing campaign

I disagree with your assessment that the US military tactics in Vietnam were effective. Large scale bombing and harrasment of civilian populations proved a great recruiter for the anti US forces. I contrast these tactics with the tactics used by the British in Malaysia where small groups of highly trained men went into the jungle and defeated communist guerrillas at their own game (a tactic learned by the chindits in the second world war) and also fought a battle for the 'hearts and minds' of the local populace by providing medical care and other incentives to them (contrast this to Trumans dictum: 'If you have them by the balls their hearts and minds will follow'; unfortunately this seems to be a common theme in US foreign policy). The US relies on mechanisation and loud bangs and that is why they are repeatedly thwarted by irregular forces

Also you cannot blame the loss of the vietnam war on lack of political will because it was the people who decided that they did not agree with the war, therefore a military force relying heavily on conscripted soldiers failed; the will of the people of course being an essential part of a true democracy...right?

Your heart's in the right place Barny, but you are misinformed

Also if you must listen to people coming from the jewish prophetic tradition then why don't you put down the bible for a moment and pick up Marx or Chomsky. To keep this post on topic (although i see pretty much all of these issues as part of the same beast) here is a short clip of Chomsky talking about the healthcare system

His personal style of delivery is deliberatly non charasmatic because he believes that the content alone should persuade not the delivery (think of Hitler...he was the opposite), also despite being a professor who has transformed the field of linguistics he does not use big words because he recognises these as the tools of esoteric elites

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMvLJlmHFDI"]YouTube- Noam Chomsky on the US Healthcare System[/ame]

 

[Barnabas]

1)Concerning Japan it was under blockade and being attacked by the allies and Russia...the game was over and they knew it. You can cite their bushido code if you want but they would have come round to the realities given some time.

2)The bombs were both dropped within days of each other. If US high command wanted to prove to the Japanese that they had more nuclear weapons in their arsenal why didn't they drop the second bomb somewhere harmless?



3)The Japanese where already well beaten. The thoughts of the US had already turned to the next threat which was the red army. There were hawks in the US who suggested hitting the Russians before they developed their own nuclear capability; the 'cold war' had effectively already started

4)You are flat out wrong about the US not waging a large scale conventional bombing campaign against Japan in the second world war...they did


Your heart's in the right place Barny, but you are misinformed

1)you have what evidence to base this off of, definitley not from what their soldiers dislpayed in previous battles against hopeless odds

2) The thing is the U.S. didn't have more they only had the fat man and the big boy, they couldn't waste what they had by blowing up an island

3) I'll not disagree that there were those who wanted to go straight to war with the USSR, men like General Patton led the charge. But that also has flip side, there were also doves advocating peace. obviously they met in the middle as we never actualy faught the USSR but some how had war that man believed would never end.

4) I was mistaken apparently, oh well learned something and that atleast make this entire conversation valuable, also could you link the wiki as i can't find it

I'll not be jumping back to the original topic as it held no interest for me, but thanks for the discussion.

 

[Barnabas]

The ends never justify the means. We would have won the war in the pacific regardless. Murdering ~200,000 civilians (a significant portion of which were Koreans working in forced labor) is hardly a justifiable act in my book. However, this is far from being on topic, so I'll stop here.

sorry, I'll split out and let this topic go back on topic after this.

War is almost impossible to justify in an of itself, it's alway destructive and always hurts.

I by no means tend to justify Truman, but I due want people to see things from his perspective. History calls on men to make decisions like these, and in the end there is no right choice only what oyu feel is best.

 

[muir]

1)you have what evidence to base this off of, definitley not from what their soldiers dislpayed in previous battles against hopeless odds

2) The thing is the U.S. didn't have more they only had the fat man and the big boy, they couldn't waste what they had by blowing up an island

3) I'll not disagree that there were those who wanted to go straight to war with the USSR, men like General Patton led the charge. But that also has flip side, there were also doves advocating peace. obviously they met in the middle as we never actualy faught the USSR but some how had war that man believed would never end.

4) I was mistaken apparently, oh well learned something and that atleast make this entire conversation valuable, also could you link the wiki as i can't find it

I'll not be jumping back to the original topic as it held no interest for me, but thanks for the discussion.

1) Soldiers do what they are ordered to do (most conscripts want to get back home to their families...if you want evidence of this then read soldiers letters)

2) They didn't need lots of bombs they only had to convince the Japanese that they had more than one. Besides we are getting away from the fact that they were butchering the Japanese very efficiently with conventional bombing so why switch to nuclear....answer= because it is a terror weapon and it was the perfect opportunity to test it and show it off to the world. US testing also continued after the war where they blew up some of their old warships placed at different distances from the epicentre to evaluate the effect....there's nothing like the real thing though is there?

3) It is to the credit of the wiser heads in the US command that they did not attack Russia...though it is worth bearing in mind that they feared the scale of the Red army and also Russia has historically proven a resillient opponent. War that doesn't end is the result of nationalistic tribalism which has been fuelled by capitalist countries competing for trade, resources and land

What the neocons term as 'terrorism' is essentially people from weak tribes trying to make people from large tribes feel as unsafe as they have been made to feel

That is why some people around the world were celebrating when the two towers were hit, because they felt that someone had struck a blow back against the worlds biggest tribe, giving them a dose of what they had been dishing out to the world for a long time. (I am not supporting this violence, i am just explaining how violence leads to violence)

4)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing_during_World_War_II

If you are going to try and live within the spirit of the teachings of Jesus then recognise that he was saying love your fellow man and ask yourself whether this love should stop at the border of your own country?

 

[just me]

I hope to be able to remember to find time for a safe link regarding reports from the Congress regarding direction and implementation of specifics and which fiscal years they are intending to implement them, along with said costs per Fed and state govs, some states in which were forgiven their state's taxation for their votes.

 

[Satya]

I hope to be able to remember to find time for a safe link regarding reports from the Congress regarding direction and implementation of specifics and which fiscal years they are intending to implement them, along with said costs per Fed and state govs, some states in which were forgiven their state's taxation for their votes.

Forgive me if this comes across crass, but you are old.

Won't the burden of the cost fall on my generation and the generations to follow? I respect your concern, but is this not a choice that us who are younger should be making for ourselves?

 

[just me]

Forgive me if this comes across crass, but you are old.

Won't the burden of the cost fall on my generation and the generations to follow? I respect your concern, but is this not a choice that us who are younger should be making for ourselves?

http://www.state.gov/s/ct/enemy/index.htm#enemy regarding terrorism

Reminds me of an old joke, Satya. This elderly lady was waiting for a car to leave a parking space. As it was leaving, a youngster like yourself drove into the parking spot and got out laughing, "Young and fast".
As he was walking away, he heard this terrible crashing sound. The elderly woman had pushed his little econo car out of the way, crushing it to pieces. She got out saying, "Old and rich". Had to make a joke out of what you said.

Ate dinner with family this pm and there were two generations there visiting my Dad. I care for them and what they have to deal with, as most older people care for those behind them. Don't think we don't care and don't think we lack experience. It is not becoming. Good night.

 

[Satya]

Reminds me of an old joke, Satya. This elderly lady was waiting for a car to leave a parking space. As it was leaving, a youngster like yourself drove into the parking spot and got out laughing, "Young and fast".
As he was walking away, he heard this terrible crashing sound. The elderly woman had pushed his little econo car out of the way, crushing it to pieces. She got out saying, "Old and rich". Had to make a joke out of what you said.

I'll have to remember that one.

Ate dinner with family this pm and there were two generations there visiting my Dad. I care for them and what they have to deal with, as most older people care for those behind them. Don't think we don't care and don't think we lack experience. It is not becoming. Good night.

By no means was I saying you don't care. After all, I did say I respect your concern, and I certainly don't doubt your experience, I was simply stating a fact. I find it strange that so many older people have chosen the tact that they have instead of trying to persuade us younger folk with facts and their experience.

 

[just me]

Forgive me if this comes across crass, but you are old.

Won't the burden of the cost fall on my generation and the generations to follow? I respect your concern, but is this not a choice that us who are younger should be making for ourselves?

Crass?

Maybe we should take our technologies, medicines, electricity, air conditioning, and such and let you make all those decisions, too. You might be speaking German had it not been for folk like my Dad and those leaders that were in place when those terrible things happened.

Place our future in your hands? Until you learn to get that chip off your shoulder or someone knocks it off for you, you will never have anything explained to you coming across like that. There is much to be said for the honey/bees story. Sorry if I come across tired.

http://cnn.site.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=Timeline%3A+When+health+care+reform+will+affect+you+-+CNN.com&expire=&urlID=423293327&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnn.com%2F2010%2FPOLITICS%2F03%2F23%2Fhealth.care.timeline%2Findex.html&partnerID=211911#2011