Oil anybody?

[Zeke]

So I'm here starting the thread about Iraq, anyone got a complaint or a valid reason to stop this thread before it explodes will need to do it now. Past that I think it's good. Forumites UNITE!!!
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Anyone who says money can't buy happiness doesn't have enough money.

[Dave]

Oh boy, Politics!

Politics and Religion are two sure fire ways to have a forum just explode. Good luck.
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"Addiction can neither be created nor destroyed, it can only be changed."
-Clango, Diesel Sweeties
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I (heart) Hanners of Questionable Content.

[Zeke]

Lest I can divert it to something much more trivial.
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Anyone who says money can't buy happiness doesn't have enough money.

[jynexia]

The tangents that our posts go off on i'm sure that this will be an interesting thread.
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~jynx~
I need to go to my Happy place, but I accidentally blew it up, so now I have to find a new one...

[Zeke]

Well, that is if anyone posts something...
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Anyone who says money can't buy happiness doesn't have enough money.

[Fuego]

I have so many things to say on this topic..... but i will refrain. too many points to get across....
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Wii boxing is the shiite...

[trebuchet]

I just have a coupel o' things I want to say about the whole Iraq situation. First off, let's all agree that media, whether commercial or independent, has always been a mere tool for the powers that be to disseminate disinformation for their own nefarious purposes. A helicopter was shot out of the sky, a soldier killed this many civilians in a murderous rampage, American soldiers are killing more Brits these days, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. These reports could be true, but how do we know for sure in the first place? We don't. And that is why The Republic and The British Commonwealth consist of the blind and deaf. We are fed misinformation on a daily basis by untrustworthy sources who perpetuate the idea that they, the key holders to information in the Information Age, are the only source of that information. This is an absurdity in the philosophical sense. To paraphrase Plato: it would be like a man who, his whole life, learned about the outside world only from the shadows cast upon the back of his cave. He knows nothing about the scent of flowers, or the sound of a running brook, or of the real dangers that await him, should he ever venture forth from the cave. The powers that be have set themselves to keeping that man in his cave by placating him with distractions too numerous and devious to count or to quantify.

We have all become pudgy little children too accustomed to our "way of life" to lift a finger to help ourselves. We eat food that makes our bodies weaker rather than stronger and our minds ill-equipped for the rigors of human existence. From childhood we are media-programmed to be one thing: a consumer. That's right - a bipedal, opposing thumbed, vertebrate maggot. Why? Because it keeps us docile and the powers that be in power.

So what does any of this have to do with the "war" in Iraq? At the end of WWI someone figured out that war is good for business and the two sectors that benefit the most - I mean, they make out like bandits whenever there's a war - are munitions manufacturers (duh!) and pharmaceutical companies. The U.S. leads the world in weapons manufacture. The U.S. and the U.K. have cornered the market on pharmaceuticals. Remember when our NATO allies France and German vehemently opposed the war in Iraq? That's because they were being left out in the cold. But when they finally got in on the economic raping of Iraq their protests suddenly dwindled to a barely audible whispered regret that they didn't get their cut sooner.

Now that there's going to be a leadership change in Great Britain we're going to hear a lot of ridiculous innuendo and rumor mongering so that the new Prime Minister can distance himself from Blair and his unpopular war. When Bush leaves office, we'll be hearing more of the same disinformation so that "we" remain "we" and "they" are still considered "they" - completely dehumanizing everyone so that, when it finally trickles down, some punk-ass kid in England can post a virtual pissing contest on a forum about how British soldiers aim better than American ones and some asshole American can waste 20 minutes of his life responding to said post - both idiots missing the point altogether: that real people are suffering on a daily basis and all we can come up with is to yell at each other from across oceans.
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Conan! What is best in life?

To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women!"

[jynexia]

Agreed. I have always said that we need to start teaching the children of all that crap their parents try to teach them is bull. That there is no real reason for anyone to be fighting. That none of us are actually different. That the rivalaries that we fight for every day are age old disputes about land and who it belongs too. NEWSFLASH: land belongs to no one and everyone. Of course the "powers that be" would never allow for that because it isnt lucrative for them. In truth it all comes down to everyone needs money.
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~jynx~
I need to go to my Happy place, but I accidentally blew it up, so now I have to find a new one...

[Zeke]

Paul your argument reminds me of the DeBeers diamond mines of Africa. The whole thing about keeping power for "them" and leaving nothing for the "we"
I do agree about the problems that will occur with the next change in politcal structure with Britain and the US and it saddens me that people today have only certain aspects of the war shoved down their throats on a daily basis. Now it seems like a majority of the people don't like the war, but what happened to all those who supported it in the first place? I don't ever hear about regular citizens thinking or saying that they themselves were ever wrong. I only seem to hear about regular citizens complaining that the governments fucked up, no one is taking responsibility for this war; it seems the choice for war is being passed on from everyone creating a gigantic loop of blame. I can relate this circular blame to the writer Faulker, I read a page of bullshit to get one sentence that tells me ANYTHING. Seems to me that this war is the same way.
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Anyone who says money can't buy happiness doesn't have enough money.

[trebuchet]

I have a couple of websites that you two might be interested in (or anybody else, for that matter):

http://savetheinternet.com/

http://www.savedarfur.org/content?splash=yes

If the collective voices of the masses reaches critical mass, sometimes things happen.
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Conan! What is best in life?

To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women!"

[jynexia]

Hence why i say we need to teach people better. Because clearly the goverment cant. We also have to not vote for stupid people. If John edwards can run for president i think we need new management and voters.
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~jynx~
I need to go to my Happy place, but I accidentally blew it up, so now I have to find a new one...

[Zeke]

Gotta love our government running our lives for our own saftey right? Of course we don't know any better we need the government to tell us everything about how to live and eat and exist in general. Wonder what it's like in other countries where they actually think people are intelligent?
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Anyone who says money can't buy happiness doesn't have enough money.

[trebuchet]

Actually, I think it's pretty shitty all around. Take France for instance, where the national motto is "liberty, equality, fraternity." Kids in school there can't where any religious accessories to school. Pretty easy to deal with if you're Christian but what if you're a Muslim girl or a Jewish boy? Japan and Korea are masters of mass marketing, especially to kids! And don't get me started on those banana republics of Africa - they're the most blatant (those diamond mines you were talking about).

It only takes one little spark to not get snuffed out and pretty soon you'll have a full blown revolution on your hands. I think the key is to not get discouraged because it seems that nothing is happening while all the little sparks in the world are being snuffed out. We have to keep trying, in our own little way, and I believe that the internet is the key. It's the only free marketplace still standing. Right now, the huge telecoms (AT&T, Verizon, etc.) are lobbying congress to pass a bill that would, in essence, make your ISP exactly like your cable service provider. You'll have restricted access to certain sites and no access to many others unless you pay more - just like cable TV's a la carte system of channels. We must fight for Net Neutrality! The 'net is the only place where we still have a real voice.
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Conan! What is best in life?

To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women!"

[Zeke]

I thought I sounded funny over live.
But seriously people in general are too dumb to notice things going on in the world, or they just don't care. Either reason is more than enough proof we're living in apathy, but what do I know.
Oh yeah anyone hear about the US government "Fed-Ex"ing soldiers corpses back home? WTF is that bullshit?
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Anyone who says money can't buy happiness doesn't have enough money.

[trebuchet]

It's our government showing its colors: total disregard for the lives of its citizens. As long as someone is making bank on this war, it will continue.
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Conan! What is best in life?

To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women!"