Did you have to read Fukuyama????

BWHAHAHAAAAAA!!!!

That book was so stupid, it’s a miracle people still take him seriously. It is a good excercise on how to disagree with a certain world view though…

Haven’t read Kagan though. Sounds like fun though – can you enlighten me a bit?

Vortex,

You seem really desparate in proving the whole world likes nothing better than taking a piss against the US of A, that the world thinks that the US of A is the most vile, revolting, disgusting, international-law-breaching country around.

Being critical on a number of US policies, i don’t recognise myself in your rants even though i suspect i am one of your aims.

To continue with one of your rather rather far-off examples: it might shock you, but i think the US has the right to send spyplanes out above China’s EEZ. Just like China has the right to intercept those aircraft (mind you, the American ADIZ is also it’s EEZ, which is beyond territorial waters) – unfortunately accidents happen, and the Chinese did not handle this well. Tough sh!t.

And yes, North Korea is a far less law-abiding and decent country than the US has ever been or will be. But then again, it doesn’t claim to be the world’s pinnacle of justice, freedom and human rights.

The US does claim to be that, and i won’t deny it has no reasons to make that claim. But tall trees catch a lot of wind, and you can expect a lot more wind if that trees starts boasting how big it is.

You want the US to be an example to the rest of the world? Fine. Then make sure that the US starts behaving like one. It will give the rest of the world a lot less to complain about.

The inquisition, the crusades, religious expansion at the cost of native populations in South America, Africa, Asia and the Baltics, Northern Ireland…

If you think i’m going to believe in a god which was the inspirating factor for abovementioned horrors, you’re wrong.

The GC is valid when combattants of Team A are in armed conflict with Team B, no matter if there has been a declaration of war. Those declarations have become something of the past for most countries anyway – they are hardly ever issued anymore.

Thanks guys, you leave me all the stupid ones except for Bach’s Air…. The least i can hope for is that you’ll be humming one of the following songs for the next few days:

“Jet airliner” – Modern Talking

“Ca plane pour mois”- Plastique Bertrand (hey, it’s got plane in the title right?)

“Leaving on a jetplane” – John Denver

“Love missile F1-11” – Sigue Sigue Sputnik

“(I don’t wanna die in an) Air disaster” – Albert Hammond

“Fly away” – Lenny Kravitz

“99 Luftballons” – Nena (please not the English version).

“Enola gay” – OMD[ (this one beats Motorhead’s Bomber for sure!)

“Learn to fly” – Foo Fighters

“Learning to fly” – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

“Flight 643” – DJ Tiësto

“Flight of Icarus” – Iron Maiden

“Ritt der Walküren” – Richard Wagner (well, the valkyries are actually riding but nobody told FF Coppola when he used it as a soundtrack for Hueys, Loaches and a few F-5s to blow up a village in Apocalypse Now).

“Alec Eiffel” – Pixies

If the sky is not yet the limit, you might also add:

“Ashes to ashes” – David Bowie

“Völlig losgelöst” – Peter Schilling (no, again not the English version)

This is just a first handfull, there literally are hundreds if not thousands of songs which have something to do with flight, sky, air – and if you want to add space as well, it gets even worse.

EDIT: Only see now it should have been metal… well, a few of those mentioned are on the rougher edge of musicland…

How can you not love the US?

Even their fire is friendly….

(yep, this is one where the little devil smiley would be in place)

Originally posted by Glenn
Ventilate frustration? Fine, I can deal with that. But if they really want to make their mark, they should do so at the next election. As for informed, I am no expert but I do not tend to believe all I read and hear from the mass media as most people tend to do, and thus they have formulated opinion based upon other opinions or biased reporting.

You might not have such high regards of your fellow countrymen’s capability of remembering things, but i think most people who are demonstrating against the war won’t reward Howard when the next elections show up. Just a gut feeling i have.

You know what a funny thing is about the media (which happens to be my profession, in case you didn’t know yet)? EVERYBODY who reads newspapers or watches the news claims to be a critical consumer not believing everything at face value. Funny huh?

It’s even funnier that most people indeed are critical when it comes to the media. Now don’t jump for joy because humanity is more intelligent then you thought and that there’s hope after all, because critical media consumption works completely different. People are critical of media reports which do not support their vision, and people are a lot more receptive (or gullible, if you like) when it comes to media reports which support their point of view. And since the media you have chosen to be informed by are so supportive of your view, if you’re not careful your perspective might actually narrow down quite a bit…

With this in mind, i suggest you take a look at your own statements and combine them with your media consumption. Now, unless you’ve witnessed one of those demonstrations on your own and have spoken to the demonstrators in more than just three-second-soundbites, do you still think your media consumption is of a higher level than theirs, hence you are better informed, hence your position regarding the war is right and theirs is wrong?

Being critical towards the media is only valuable if one is critical of oneself too, Glenn. I’m not trying to be disrespectful here, but your generalisation of those people demonstrating suggests you forget to do the latter.

Most of the people in the marches when stopped and interviewed have only the simplest typical views on why they protest and when the media pastes ‘WAR’ all over the front page of the papers, dire images and stereo-typical thoughts often conjure in the minds of those that don’t really know WHY, and hence they get angry and then pick up boards and banners and vent that anger. You won’t find me out there shouting and waving about thats for sure!

I don’t care if you’d go out on the streets for something you care about or not, that’s not the point. But i understand that what you’ve heard from the protestors came to you via the TV or a newspaper. And those quotes from those protestors didn’t impress you much.

Well, a critical media consumer like you should know that quotes are by definition very short. No TV-report of a demonstration will have a soundbite longer than 2 seconds in the report. No newspaper will quote a demonstrator for more than two sentences. Why? Because those reports are not interviews, those reports are ment to give an impression of an event, the basic who/what/where/when with a bit of how and some atmosphere. It’s not an interview, where there is time and/ or ink enough for someone to properly construct and state an opinion.

Somehow it’s ironic that a critical media consumer like you didn’t realise this… but perhaps those demonstrators aren’t the only ones with a biased and non-critical media consumption…

Re: Well.

Originally posted by Glenn
Arthur,

I don’t care if they are against it or for it. I just can’t get over the futility of it now that the war has started. And a lot of them are just the average joe public and are often il-informed about matters surrounding this conflict.

What do you mean by that? Only the well-informed members of the Baath-party should be allowed to publicly demonstrate their opinions?

Those people are against the war for whatever reason, even if they’re just lowly Joe Publics rather than the Astonishinhly Well-Informed Glenn. Demonstrating is for them a way to ventilate their frustration that this war is on now, so i wouldn’t call that futile.