The terrorists want to kill me.
- Thread starter 1X83Z
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- 3,001
I found a funny video where George Bush said, "They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." He said the US never stops looking for ways to harm our country. It can be found at http://politicalhumor.about.com/gi/...w.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0805042bush1.html
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neon_duke
sure, he does it better than i do, but i'm not President of the United States. You would think he would do better. I'm sure he had plenty of Practice as governor. I wonder if he messed up all the time as Leader of Texas. Oh, did anyone see The Daily Show recently where it was explained that "Don't Mess With Texas" was actually started as an anti-litter slogan???
- 935
Okay, let's take this to a high level abstraction.
Okay, as Milefile said, history is written by the winner, or as Orwell perhaps more eloquently stated "Whoever controls the present controls the past." That quote might be slightly innacurate, so don't flame me for that one.
This means, in short, that if you win, then you were right. End of story. Subsequent generations, at least those controlled by the same regime, will believe that, because they had it drilled into them from birth. So, in effect, as far as progeny is concerned, there is no right or wrong, simply who won, and how completely. Therefore, the only true failure or a war which you won is to not have won it completely, as we have done in Iraq, because their history will never truly depict the United States as its savior. Whether or not this is true is not the issue. Because, in all honesty, what you think is of far less importance than what subsequent generations think, because it is their thought that will shape foreign policy. The only war crime, following this logic, is losing. Had Germany won WWII, horrid stories about the Halocaust would not exist. To provide an example, the United States undeniably won the Pacific Theater of WWII. In the United States, at least, the atomic bombs that we dropped on Japan, killing thousands upon thousands of civillians, an obviously morally reprehensible act, is rarely considered so within US borders. Most people I know, and probably most that I am likely to know, have never considered the act in this light, and use the "well, we won," argument. Of course, they don't use the correct logic behind this viewpoint, and it comes more from the blind patriotism that doctored history is written to inspire than any true thought on the part of the commenter. So, although the war in Iraq is not yet over, it has been partially successful, but, of course, not completely.
To why history is written in this manner, I'll take a simple historical example. During the course of the Vietnam war, it was more likely to be supported by the higher educated, rather than less. The longer one spends around History books, the more one remembers and believes out of them. So, in the end, the winner wins, and the loser loses. No matter what.
Okay, as Milefile said, history is written by the winner, or as Orwell perhaps more eloquently stated "Whoever controls the present controls the past." That quote might be slightly innacurate, so don't flame me for that one.
This means, in short, that if you win, then you were right. End of story. Subsequent generations, at least those controlled by the same regime, will believe that, because they had it drilled into them from birth. So, in effect, as far as progeny is concerned, there is no right or wrong, simply who won, and how completely. Therefore, the only true failure or a war which you won is to not have won it completely, as we have done in Iraq, because their history will never truly depict the United States as its savior. Whether or not this is true is not the issue. Because, in all honesty, what you think is of far less importance than what subsequent generations think, because it is their thought that will shape foreign policy. The only war crime, following this logic, is losing. Had Germany won WWII, horrid stories about the Halocaust would not exist. To provide an example, the United States undeniably won the Pacific Theater of WWII. In the United States, at least, the atomic bombs that we dropped on Japan, killing thousands upon thousands of civillians, an obviously morally reprehensible act, is rarely considered so within US borders. Most people I know, and probably most that I am likely to know, have never considered the act in this light, and use the "well, we won," argument. Of course, they don't use the correct logic behind this viewpoint, and it comes more from the blind patriotism that doctored history is written to inspire than any true thought on the part of the commenter. So, although the war in Iraq is not yet over, it has been partially successful, but, of course, not completely.
To why history is written in this manner, I'll take a simple historical example. During the course of the Vietnam war, it was more likely to be supported by the higher educated, rather than less. The longer one spends around History books, the more one remembers and believes out of them. So, in the end, the winner wins, and the loser loses. No matter what.
- 660
Sure, and the US "president" is making a point of it right before the elections :milefile
Mr Bush also announced that he had signed into law a bill by which the US the state department would rate countries annually on the way they treated Jews.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3749862.stm
Did you ever try to speak in public with a radio receiver in your jacket? I think it must be very hard to speak someone elses words in real time in publicneon_duke
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3730364.stm
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Hmmmm put this in context and is it a bad thing ?
QUOTED FROM THE LINK;
QUOTED FROM THE LINK;
We already grade other countrys on how they treat women and other minority groups. anti semitism is an ingrained problem for many countrys around the world. And the Jews have the unfortunate distinction of being a target of Hitlers Europe with all the unpleasant side affects like people being gased and put into ovens and other government sanctioned forms of genocide.
- 3,001
All the of the TV News stations here in America do that. The news anchors wear these recievers and somebody is telling them the story while they relay it to the public. The papers they have are like two story's incase the system goes out and then they have backup. When the two stories are done they can go to a commercial break if they need to.Did you ever try to speak in public with a radio receiver in your jacket? I think it must be very hard to speak someone elses words in real time in public
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3730364.stm
- 3,001
Yeah. When you watch many of the Milwaukee news channels you can see it. Right before the add's they show the whole studio. When they go behind the news people you can see a little wire that is on of those round accordion ones that when you pull gets longer like old phone cords. They are normally white so they stick out like a sore thumb.
- 660
Hmmm, that's why the Bush family has such a good relationship with Saudi Arabia, isn't it ... where it's illegal for women to drive a car ...ledhed
And that's why Bush Jr, in a leading function for oil company UNICAL, hosted a member of the Taleban regime as their special guest in Texas, when Unical was prospecting to build a pipeline through Afganistan in 1997?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/west_asia/37021.stm
PublicSecrecy
(Banned)
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The beginning of this post brings me to another point. Bush is playing on people's fears and paranoia and is promising security that he cant possibly give. Read the above thread of "who do want for president".
- 935
I'm implying that semantic indoctrination is the defining factor in human perception, don't twist my words. So, yes, that means that we are incapable of having a completely objective thought. Any news we read, or any collection of facts, will have a bias, even if that bias is caused by an incompleteness in the information presented. You seem remarkably hostile towards that idea, I realize, but it is fairly well accepted that all writing, or even reporting of facts is biased at some level, even if the author was intending to be objective. Simply because you believe that whatever you hear on the news has no influence on your perceptions doesn't mean that that is true of the entire poplulation, or even completely true of yourself. Humanity would be capable of objectivity if it were presented with a complete, unbiased set of data, but I have yet to hear of an instance where that is the case. The best we can do it attempt to be objective, and sometimes we get pretty damned close.danoff
However, none of this changes the fact that if someone wins a war, and they control all significant news outlets, then they will also control what information the majority of the population recieves. If the population only recieves information that supports one course of action, they are likely to take that course of action. There will be a minority who will resist, of course, but they are, in most cases, going to be a minority.
I'm not condemning humanity as suspect, or trying to justify immoral acts, I'm simply stating that if you win a war, the general population is likely to forget, simply because they will, if access to information is controlled, not hear of any conflicting information, the circumstances under which the war was won. I suppose that's idiotic from your point of view, but it makes at least a certain amount of sense from mine.
Perhaps the atomic bomb statement is off the mark for your community, but not for mine.
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I'm with Timmotheus on this one. It is impossible to look at history without bias. It's the first thing you learn as a historian. Even if you were present at the event(s) in question, you still have bias.
Sage
Staff Emeritus
- 12,533
- United States
- GTP_Sage
Judging by his previous posts, I'd say the latter.
s13drifting
(Banned)
- 351
Schumysorry U.S., I like you but sometimes you dig your own grave.
i agree with you 100%, america is like the bully of the world imposing themself upon everyone else. They are drunk with power. Us canadians are like cheatahs, were calm, beautiful, but mess with our cubs their will be hell to pay. So far we were only in afghanistan for a couple months on a peace keeping mission, and have had no terrorist threats. Sadly our Prime Minister Paul Martin will be sending our troups to the middle east in the new years, which i strongly apose because we are killing inocent people when we should just try to capture and persecute terrorist. just my 2 cents
sennafreak
(Banned)
- 181
had a chat with osama last night, he still feels like givin the u.s. of ape a good spanking...
beware *****es!
beware *****es!
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Huh?sennafreak
