I don't know what drives people to do dumb things, but there are many things humans do that are insane. - bull running in Pamplona spain - somewhere i forget, they have a massive tomatoe fight, and waste food that can be sent to starving nations - bloodsport in ancient rome - Smashing guitars at rock concerts - the destruction of the very planet that we call home, all the way from pollution to overpopulation... etc... - war - outbreak of riots i can make this list literally go on forever!!! its amazing how many dumb things we do, yet we still call ourselves INTELLIGENT. Excuse me while i laugh...
Oh, come now ... riots? The outbreak of a riot is usually a long-standing tension that requires several incredibly stupid phases, anyway. Power to the people! The only dumb thing to do is to back down once the gas is flying; it's gonna hurt no matter where you run. --Tiassa Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! ------------------ We are unutterably alone, essentially, especially in the things most intimate and important to us. (Ranier Maria Rilke)
the whole idea behind a riot is incredibly dumb... It is a bunch of people in the state of anarchy. Those long-standing tensions which turn into violence are a GOOD demostration of how dumb it is. Any type of violence is dumb. I said wars are dumb because they really are, and there has NEVER been a time when a war has accually solved WHAT IT ENTENDED TO SOLVE. If any of you want to try and prove me wrong on that fact, try me... We had debates about it in world history class (yeah im only in high school, but i am quite capable of standing my ground in an intellectual conversation) EXP: american revolution sure you may thing we solved the problem? WRONG... a couple years later the WAR OF 1812 started (showing that we didn't really gain independence) EXP: vietname i don't think i hafta go into detail in this one EXP WWI and WW2 this one is easy, if there were two then of course the problem wasn't solved! sure, they got hitler out, but THERE WOULDN'T EVEN BE A HITLER IF WW1 NEVER TOOK PLACE!!! Go ahead and try me on any other war, and each type you will see that VIOLENCE NEVER SOLVES WHAT IT INTENDS TO!!! therefore any type of violence is dumb and shows that humans aren't very intelligent... [This message has been edited by chaos1 (edited July 22, 2000).]
there is no such thing as verbal violence, there is profanity... But it is all about communicating our emotions... what is so dumb about trying enhance our communication? ------------------ Who owns the words www.chaos.com? I do!
Last November, when the WTO converged on Seattle, the police ensured people's First Amendment rights by marking about two blocks of sidewalk as the legal protest area. After the riots, which I consider to be quite small, all things considered, there were a few things left to consider: * Our mayor declared marshal law in the name of the First Amendment. * For several days, the sale of a gas mask to a civilian was illegal throughout the county. * When the dust settled, the police supporters' number one tagline was, "We could have avoided this if the protesters had just stayed where they were told to." And in the meantime, the delegates were packing heat. Thank god for diplomatic immunity, eh? Starting a riot by pointing an unregistered pistol at an unarmed civilian is a bright, bright idea. That particular riot could have been avoided, had the police arrested the property aggressors (who were in identifiable uniform). But they waited until the property damage ceased and the aggressors disappeared before assailing the thousands of demonstrators with tear gas. In the US, people aren't used to rubber or wood bullets. But they weren't surprised when the police department began using them, except that the police department had, only a couple of hours earlier, publicly declared that the police had no rubber or wooden bullets. But from the moment the police declared a small, removed zone of sidewalk as the only legal protest area around the WTO, everybody knew there was a better than 50-50 shot of a riot. They still launched the tear gas, though, just to make sure. Of course riots are dumb. But the things leading up to them are dumber. Such is the case with war. Certainly the American Revolution didn't solve everything, but of the War of 1812 ... when did the British Empire ever understand that it was time to leave? Technically, the Civil War accomplished nothing but the bloody deflowering of the Declaration of Independence. But their aftermath--the things and ideas wars cause--are more potent societal transformers than the wars themselves. I wanted to pick on the rest of your list, too ... it's kind of a fun list: * Bull running is a dumb tradition in its own right, but so are all traditions, really. To me, the tradition of running away from a herd of pissed-off bulls is no dumber than the American "tradition" of making your son into a man by taking him into the woods to kill something. * Tomato fight ... okay, I live in the west half of Washington state. We're divided by the Cascade mountains, and the east side is largely farmland and desert plateau. If you drive through the farmland, at each farm you'll see huge piles of grain with pipes coming out of the center of the pile. The grain is awaiting use, and the pipe is cooling the center of the pile against a flashburn. There are subsidies to pay farmers for this grain if it isn't sold, and much of it isn't sold. Let them waste tomatoes. Let's ship the grain to Africa. * I think it takes humanity, in general, a while to learn some things. When we came together in cities, we could no longer rip each other senseless at will. Thus, bloodsports. It took a while to work that lethal streak out of us. After all, we still have boxing, various sports of swordplay, and organized prizefights where, every once in a while, someone actually gets killed. Sure, we're not feeding Christians to the lions, but can you imagine the stink PETA would raise? * The only thing I can say about smashing guitars is let them smash all the Charvels and ESPs they can get their hands on. I'm sad about the Les Pauls that Townsend destroyed, but not just for smashing the Paganini of electric guitars: Gibson ran an entire forest into the ground making that guitar; the '59 came from a forest that can never be regrown, the wood was unique as the sustain implies; never again can we build it the same way. We can only compensate with electronics. And I've babbled about riots and war; suffice to say that any mass violence is dumb. But people chose to settle their differences that way. Much like bloodsports, it's a learning process. Eventually we'll figure out how unhealthy war is. And someday we'll figure out how unhealthy it is to anger a population to riot. But we're the human race; right now the only thing that can stop us is ourselves. (If the aliens land in the next 24 hours, I will laugh about that.) I live in a region where the voting constituency frequently chooses financial return over social infrastructure. We'll spend what it takes to build commerce, but raising money for education is like bleeding pavement. Material greed is a stupidity I'd tack onto your list. While I can't speak for the bulls, I think the rest of that list leans heavily on human greed. thanx much, Tiassa Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! ------------------ We are unutterably alone, essentially, especially in the things most intimate and important to us. (Ranier Maria Rilke)
Chaos-Verbal violence often is the precursor of physical violence. Expressing one's emotions, i.e., "This sucks," is not verbal violence, but directing it at a sentient individual, i.e., "You suck," is probably considered verbal violence, because it is a direct attack at someone or something that is probably going to lash back and in fact is usually done with the intention of drawing a direct response. Oh yeah, I looked it up. The tomato thing is also in Spain. I agree the food should be used to feed the hungry, not to enhance imbecility. [This message has been edited by Oxygen (edited July 23, 2000).]
One only has to browse the Internet to find a whole assortment of dumb things. Gee, sometimes I wish Al Gore never invented the Internet and Dan Quayle's spell checker isn't the best either.
Chaos 1,It looks to me that your World History Books are no better than they were back in the early 1940's. Believe me, they are all crap. There is an organization called the Bilderberg's, once called the Illumnati. This organization has been around since the mid 1700's. It was from the French revolution these movers and shakers got control of the British banks, which they still control to this day. Yes, they also control the bank's of this country, i.e., the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve is a private corporation. They funded Germany's cause as well as giving funds to France and England. Millions died and the Bilderberg's got richer. It is said the mother of Adolf Hitler worked as a maid in the House of Rothchild in Austria, where she was impreganted by the Baron Rothchild himself. The Bilderbergs advised and funded Hitler in his rise to power. The Bilderbergs also funded the Russian revolution. The Bilderberg's had the Russian Tzar's family murdered be cause the Tzar found evidence of the Bilderberg's plans and publicized them. The bilderbers's agents were at work the world over. Our Goverment knew of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, but kept quiet. The so-called police action of Korea was played out by a Russian General sitting in UN Headquarters, refusing or OK-ing battle plans of the American commanders in the field. The only reason the Inchon invasion was a success was because General MacArthur found out about the Russian calling the shots and refused to notify Harry Truman, who forwarded all battle plans to the UN. The only reason the UN gave MacArthur "permission" to invade North Korea was because We were already nearing Manchuria. The unit I was with was about 25 miles from The Yalu river when the UN announced it's OK to cross the 38th Parallel. No wonder 50,000 Americans died. The Russians played the war as a movie director directs a movie. That was bad? It was the same thing in Viet Nam. The Gulf War? Bush said we will get Sadam Hussien. They ran them out of Kuwait. Bush said "we won." Where is that dictator today? The same place he has been for years. The same thing happened in the Balkans. Haven't you heard? That ethnic cleansing SOB is going to run for reelection? I am not even sure we will have an election in November. If we do have an election, that communist in the white house may call the election "null and void", send the congress home to serve as liason, declare martial law to dis-arm the citizens of this country, and rule by decree. He has already signed the executive orders to carry this out. He has the democrafties and some repukes in his back pocket. SMILE IN THE FACE OF ADVERSITY
Ozarky-re: the Gulf War The only way we could get the UN to approve any action there was to agree only to get Iraq out of Kuwait. Our hands were tied after that point. If we went any further, our troops faced an international force that could cut off their supply lines anytime they wished. It was the American people who decided that the goal should be to get rid of Hussein as a leader. We could have done it easily, too. We're used to all-out war, hit-'em-with-everything-we've-got. This sort of limited war, like Viet Nam and Korea, is evidence of how badly we neutered ourselves when we joined that infernal organization called the United Nations.
What gain ever occured during the gulf war? Iraq never got control of Kuwait. Sure we got Sadam Hussein out of Kuwait but what impact did this have on our national security? If this war was to get Sadam out of Kuwait why were we attacking Iraq! ------------------ Days Sat down to think about my life passin by So much i've done and have yet to try But why am I here just waiting to die? I can't complain about what lifes thrown my way I'm thankful to be in this moment today I've given nothing, for what I recieved These days are more meaningful than I believed
To draw Hussein back into his own territory. If you're trying to get your village back from the hands of Attilla the Hun, setting it on fire to drive him out would defeat your purpose. You attack his camp, especially if your spies show that in order to defend his camp he would have to pull his shaggy horde out of your village. The idea is to keep your village intact. At least, that's the tactic I'd use.
Hi All, Gulf War.....Don't you guys think it was ALL about the oil. Firstly the USA doesn't go to war for honourable reasons...its not about democracy or freedom or anything else of that kind...its about what the USA has to gain out of putting that much money into someone elses fight. Wheather it was to stop Saddam from controling that much oil (hence weakening the USA in all sorts of ways) or wheather the USA wanted an input into that control makes little difference its still about the oil and how the USA can be a part of CONTROLING IT. Tiassa, I had no idea Gibson destroyed a forest to make me a guitar....mixed feelings...I wonder if my les is still gonna feel as good knowing what the price was.......maybe its time for a PRS. [This message has been edited by Rambler (edited July 25, 2000).]
Rambler-- I'm unclear on the Gibson tale, myself. But this is what I know. (Know = "have heard") * The '59 Les was built of an incredibly unique, South American Ash. * The forest from which it came has been referred to, in the past, as a "grove". * It is not known whether these trees are a now-extinct breed or species, or whether local conditions favored the resonating characteristics of the wood. * Gibson feels terribly about the situation. * Gibson, at various points, has stated that they "Never knew" about the destruction, and also that they didn't know how extensive the damage was. Given that it was '59 ... okay, I'll buy that. * Some music-industry writers blame Pete Townsend; had he not taken to destroying the Les Paul sustain-demons, they may not have become so popular. But it's always time to buy a Paul Reed Smith if you've got the money. I'll return the thread to its regularly-scheduled topic .... thanx, Tiassa Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! ------------------ We are unutterably alone, essentially, especially in the things most intimate and important to us. (Ranier Maria Rilke)
Rambler-I never doubted it was for the oil. It's used for so much more than gasoline for cars that I believe it has a rightful place as a precious commodity until we get them to agree to market something better (and make it affordable!). I had hoped that the prospect of throwing away so much human life for a bunch of processed dinosaurs might have accelrated the process of replacing oil with something more convenient and cost effective, but it appears that even the eco-warriors have their price, as they were strangely silent about this prospect. As far as the Gibson Les Paul goes, now that the tree is dead and gone, to put that guitar away would mean that the death of the tree was truly a waste, as it's death now serves no purpose. Music is a universal language. Anything that contributes to it, live or dead, makes the world better for it. And if you don't want it, wrap that baby up and send it to me! I've got a '54 Kay Stratotone that needs a buddy! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! [This message has been edited by Oxygen (edited July 26, 2000).]
