The constitution was origionaly designed so the PEOPLE of the country could question its government and retain the ability to assure their freedoms. ie: ammendments. In fact it was your duty as a citizen to constantly question your government so assure it was being ran correctly and to avoid corruption. Unfortunately somehow along the way, the controlers of public opinion (bill O'reily, fox news, cnn, etc) mingled with politicians (McCain, Hilary, Bush, Cheney, etc.) and now its unpatriotic to question your government and you are now considered a hindrance to your own country by trying to take a part in the decisions being made and/or questioning how and why those decisions are even being made in the first place. example of what is taking place in mass media. Bill just happens to be more blunt about it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrNl6-j9x5w
Its just a simplistic way of seeing things. We can look at the way things turned out 20years later, 100 years later but you cannot predict the future. If you look at the examples given the question you have to ask is what was gained? We can sit here and claim that U.S installed this dictator or that dictator but then you have to ask why? So you can sit here and say "well there are only dictators because the U.S likes dictators, these dictators were not born, they didnt fight their way to power, its just an illusion, thats what the 'moneyed' people want you to believe." Look at the examples in South America, try and stop these people from gaining power...ok, you stopped one now what about the next guy? well he is even worse than the other guy 'didnt you know that? Well he seemed ok at the time.' Another misconception is war is simply to make a profit. But the reality is that these people make money no matter what happens. If i come up with a drug to cure a disease does that mean i created the disease? Some people think that is actually the case too. But it is just a simpletons way of examining a complicated scenario. Did Bayer create headaches so he could sell people aspirin? Did Heinz alter peoples taste buds so Ketchup would end up on the tables of every restaurant? And you know, i still cannot figure out why U.S would want a dictator to run a relatively poor country in South America. Well, i know why there are dictators and how they come to be but...am i the only one here who knows these things? Asian countries? They never went to war with eachotherPlease Register or Log in to view the hidden image! And also, before U.S war didnt exist (sarcasm). Its all an illusion and you guys who think it did are just dumb. This is OT but the other day i was reading in a news paper about how much a President made (in huge letters) while retired and i was think yeah but what about that basketball player or baseball player who makes that in a year. And sure enough on the next page in the small print there was a story about a rap star signing a contract for his next tour making more than that. You just cannot make this stuff up.
Really. So when the United Fruit Company pulled their strings in Washington, and got a democratically elected President of Honduras Guatemala deposed by a US-backed (battleships, airplanes) military coup that installed a horrible dictator, and said dictator (along with consolidating his power by the means we take as normal in such countries) repealed the property taxes that United Fruit did not want to pay, reversed the eminent domain actions on idle acreage (fully paid for by the government, which did not get its money back) that United Fruit disliked, turned his death squads loose on the unions and labor representatives United Fruit did not want to deal with, and terrorized the journalists and honest civil servants who in any way interfered with United Fruit's doing of business according to its own whims and interests, to just pick one of the several democratically elected heads of state the US has replaced with its choice of dictators, all over the world but especially in South and Central America, that is a mystery to you ?
Your playing with yourself. The banana republic U.S sent war ships for a fruit company. I guess at this point you can just add whatever you want.
Ok. Just for fun. Where is this happening? Notice that nowhere in this rant do the words "communist", "communism", "KGB" or "USSR" appear...
Where is it being attempted, you mean (it isn't happening until it's happened) ? Iran, Venezuela, and possibly Colombia, come to mind. Maybe Lebanon? Recently Haiti. Although the US has in recent years taken to replacing the undesirable with "democratically" chosen rather than overt dictators - better form, and better results from the quality control standpoint. So you are telling me it didn't happen ? You might want to check on that first. I picked one far enough in the past that some of the simple facts normally fought over and obscured are admissible and ordinary. And if you had checked, you would have caught me in an embarrassing error - the United Fruit Company was involved in the Guatemala coup (Arbenz ) not the Honduran death squads and the like. The US based some of its support military (planes and stuff) in Honduras, for the Guatemalan coup, and my memory slipped. The US has been running fairly large terrorist operations in South and Central America since WWII (and before), and in the process knocked off several democratically chosen governments and replaced them with strongmen. Very ugly, that scene. But profitable, in the sense of preventing things like taxation of profits, currency controls, labor unrest, environmental regulation, eminent domain and outright seizures, etc, that otherwise threatened to afflict US favored corporations. Partial, incomplete list: http://www.zompist.com/latam.html
Ah, the US...Always was up for a little insurrection in their back yard. Now we need to turn it against them .
No kidding, i see the mistakes that you make. I know a lot about South America and how the Soviet Union had its sights on the region and the people they backed. If you think this was a positive thing then its none of my business. Your memory is probably not the problem, your just naive but thats not my problem either. Where would dictatorships be without this kind of thinking? You think this is a good thing? Hey, the truth is that these things are very complicated and i dont respond to propaganda like you do. I wouldnt have been there with my little Hitler Youth uniform, or singing the praise of Uncle Adolf either.
But you didn't know about the US bringing the military in to back up the United Fruit Company, and you thought the whole idea was ridiculous ? And you continue to describe that, and similar situations, as the US replacing one dictator with another, rather than the US deposing democratic governments and replacing them with strongmen and employers of death squads. You seem to have an image of South America as a place just naturally suited to dictators and death squads - so the US installing one or two in its own interests is no big deal, and the democratic governments the US destroyed were not really significant. Is that a fair description of your well-informed views ? Not as much. They're greedy. The United Fruit Company was faced with a local government that was out of control - levying taxes, employing eminent domain in the interests of its citizens, treating them as though they were subject to governmental authority and regulation, etc. They called the cops. It's like saying that rich people don't pay taxes anyway, so giving them tax breaks doesn't make any difference. There's a reason rich people want tax breaks, and United Fruit, Halliburton, Enron, and Chevron want deregulation and welcome US military operations.
A rhetorical difference to be sure, but I still challenge people to show evidence of US involvement in such activities. For good or for ill, the days of this sort of thing happening are long gone... The US is probably attempting to unsettle the Iranian leadership, but I doubt there is a serious effort toward a coup, given that a coup in that country, especially one where the US is the backer, is extremely unlikely. Your claims about Venezuela have never been more than claims. You've been ablt to produce no definative evidence that shows this is happening. I seem to recall one story you linked to from a UK paper several months ago, a story that was poorly sourced and directly refuted by numerous other news sources, all of which you dismissed as "righty." Colombia? Not likely. We're getting along with the government down there. Do you have any proof? Lebanon? Doubtful, too. It's a cess pool, and one I doubt the US is eager to climb back into. There's no one to support, too many factions, etc. Again, do you have any proof? I don't know enough about Haiti to comment, but given your less than stellar record on the others, I'd like to see something tangible before I take your word for it. And you seem to totally overlook — or discount — the hand of the USSR and its role in these so-called "democratic elections" you continue to drone on about. Anytime Latin America comes up you do this. One would wonder why, if they didn't know you better. That's not the whole story — and you know it.
That depends, if his intentions are to brainwash Americans (like Hollywood does with many of it's fictitious movies) with half-truths and B.S. to try turning us all into good little Socialists/Communists; then it's NOT patriotic. Because if the U.S. turns into a Socialist/Communist nation (as people like Michael Moore would like), it will no longer be the free country it was. Lots of left-wing radicals would like this to happen.
I cannot see how Hollywood movies are brainwashing people. Anyway, Michael Moore and his type do not want U.S to be communist or to change too radically. If that was to happen people like michael moore would disappear and we know what that means. There is a market for this stuff that make assumptions and false claims and people make their livings from it.
Well, it's the thought that counts, no? When running MEK terrorists in from Iraq, and pratfalling while trying to foment Baluchistani "resistance" (terrorism), and creating various sanctions and blockades on one hand while winking at oil deals (Halliburton, et al) with certain Iranian factions on the other, success may seem a distant dream - but "regime change" seems to be fairly obvious as the goal. It was half a dozen articles detailing various circumstances and physical facts, none of which were refuted by anything you linked, all of which were simply dismissed by you as not reputable. Naturally we're getting along with our chosen government there. And feeding it lots of military help, supporting its various programs, etc. It's been very cooperative with "our" interests (oil contracts and drug wars and the like) and in return we help it with its enemies, such as a good share of its citizenry, rival drug gangs, trade unionists and journalists and religious "liberation theology" meddlers, and so forth. The US has an excellent proxy there, Israel, and can keep a little denial distance, but our backing of anyone who will oppose Hezbollah has led to some embarrassing evidence (the AQ that we funded, recall ?) that we are well immersed in that cesspool as we have always been.
Proof. We're running terrorists into Iran? Can you provide proof? Perhaps some details of these oil deals? And maybe an explanation about how business deals encourage the removal of a regime? Or do you intend to just keep talking out of your ass and bothering everyone with the inchoate paranoia published in your socialist new sources? I posted a story, from the AP, that directly refuted US involvement in a coup. Per my recollection, your "sources" were opinion pieces filled with nothing more than opinions — IE, not facts. Later, when challenged to find a hard news source, one that didn't have socialist in the title, you posted the aforementioned British piece (from the Guardian, I think?), which was entirely based on the word of a few officials from OAS and some anonymous sources. So no, you never delivered anything that looks even remotely believable, but wanting to believe such tripe, you willfully trumpeted the questionable, which was NEVER confirmed by any legitimate world news service, as the certain. In a word, pathetic... How, exactly, did we "choose" it? I mean, if good will is your rationale, the warmer feelings between France and the US in recent days is attributable to Sarkozy being "our chosen government"? No, I don't think so. Again, I'd like some proof you aren't just offering up more exrement from your cavity. What's wrong with advancing our interests, oil or otherwise? Perhaps we should just pack up shop and go home? Oh, wait. I forget. Your one of those self-righteous types who think that the US can never deal with any questionable people — and their questionable motives — around the world, a bankrupt ideology that would have us return to the days of isolationalism. The simple fact that for years the US has been dealing with whatever govt. was in power in Colombia seems to allude you, too. Your problem here seems to be that it's Bush dealing with another "righty." OK. Bias noted. No, I don't recall. When did we fund Al Qaeda? In all my reading, I've never come across it. But then, I don't read the Socialist papers.
Lotsa BS in that movie. It starts OK, but sometimes there really are dangerous people trying to kill us for ideological reasons. Clinton's bombing in Sudan of a suspected chemical weapons plant was never debunked as an "aspirin factory".
According to several things I have read, it was. The source, as I recall, the books aren't here in front of me, was a single soil sample provided by a dubious intelligence asset. The sample later turned out to have been wrong somehow, I can't remember at the moment. There was no coroboration of any kind, and Clinton distanced himself from the CIA after the incident, feeling that their reporting was suspect.
No, it didn't. As I (and a couple of other people) pointed out at the time - with facts and stuff, not that it mattered. Your idea of "opinion" includes recitation of sequences of physical events and circumstances. Such as the personal relationship between the Bush family and the leader of the coup attempt, the various behaviors of the US oil companies involved, the meeting between US representatives and the coup leader the morning of the coup, the quick diplomatic support of the new head of state - while the coup was in progress - and so forth. But it isn't, of course. IIRC the embarrassing incident of US support for anti-Hez factions in Lebanon ending up in the hands of AQ affiliates made the respectable press even. As did the betrayal of US interests and the making of common cause with AQ by Baluchi partisans in Iran who had just received US money. I don't know how you always miss these things - granted the Baluchistan details were on the inner pages and in the lower paragraphs. And granted the reality-based media is the only common source for news of Colombia, so you are obviously out of the loop there and to be forgiven, but the list of media you must be actually using shrinks every time you launch into one of these "I never read that, you must be pulling it out of your ass" little rants. From where are you getting your news ?
