Planet America

[Meadmaker]

Communism has been a handy boogie-man for the U.S.'s need to flex its military might. I doubt that most americans know what it means, but they surely know it's a very bad, evil thing that must be stopped.

I'm pretty confident I know what it means, and it is a very bad, evil thing that must be stopped.

Cluster bombs are not necessarily an effective way to stop it, and even if it worked, the cost, in human terms, may be excessive.

[stanky]

damn!

(i can't believe i turned down a free ride to all that excitement.)

It surprises me that we don't need the draft now. Young men (mostly) are still willing to join the 'service'. To me, it's a sign of desperate conditions or intense propaganda in the young person's life. We don't really 'do' history here. Not in school. It's strictly forbidden. sshhhsh! They might hear you. Reflecting back at my own good schooling, not only weren't any relevant facts taught that might help a kid understand his present situation, i can see that it remains that way today. Worse, maybe, by way of whitewashing in some states.

Despite the poverty that breeds the average recruit, the army has been having trouble luring in fresh meat. They have recently had to lower the standards for i.q. and criminal records. (80, btw, had been the old cut-off for i.q.) so rest assured, they are the best and brightest future heroes. The hype survives; mission intact; what could go wrong?

I hate that there's murder in our hearts. Or that we're horribly misinformed. Or that we lack courage.
But those are the explanations for why our aggression continues.
That Jesus is somehow included in the relentless sales pitch is over the top.
We will defend, violently, our commitment to non-violence.
it rests on the individual, ultimately, to bring an end to the violence.

[stanky]

Communism has been a handy boogie-man for the U.S.'s need to flex its military might. I doubt that most americans know what it means, but they surely know it's a very bad, evil thing that must be stopped.

I'm pretty confident I know what it means, and it is a very bad, evil thing that must be stopped.

Cluster bombs are not necessarily an effective way to stop it, and even if it worked, the cost, in human terms, may be excessive.

does capitalism need to be stopped?

[President Bush]

Communism has been a handy boogie-man for the U.S.'s need to flex its military might. I doubt that most americans know what it means, but they surely know it's a very bad, evil thing that must be stopped.

I'm pretty confident I know what it means, and it is a very bad, evil thing that must be stopped.

A mural I saw in Guangzhou. Commie countries tend to be fascinating.

Cluster bombs are not necessarily an effective way to stop it, and even if it worked, the cost, in human terms, may be excessive.

580,000 bombing campaigns and four decades later, a fourth of Laotian territory is littered with UXOs after nearly a third of the bombs failed to detonate on impact. Tens of thousands of Lao civilians have been killed or maimed by “bombies,” as they are called locally, including many children who mistook them, especially the tennis-ball-sized cluster bombs, for toys. Laos remains heavily agricultural, and many farmers have also been killed or injured while working the fields.

The Lao people have adapted in some surprising ways, transforming shrapnel, shell casings, and unexploded bombs into everything from decorations to boats, spoons, and ladders as well as creating a thriving, but highly dangerous market in scrap metal trade. Scrap is worth about 10 cents a pound and a large shell can bring in $30-40, a crucial income source for many Lao families. Scrap is sent for smelting across the border to Vietnam, where much of it is transformed into rebar used in construction sites across the region: “Laos is rebuilding on American scrap,” Redfern observed. Often the scavengers are young, helping support their families by searching bomb-ridden forests for metal. Children are taught about the deadliness of UXOs through the “bombie song,” which most Lao can recite from memory.

Clean up efforts to rid the country of UXOs are under way, but at a painfully slow pace. The U.S. spent $17 million a day to drop the bombs, but contributed just $61 million between 1993 to 2012 to remove them. At the current rate of spending, it will take several thousand years before Lao soil is bomb-free. Having little choice, “the Lao people live with these numbers and statistics every day of their lives,” said Coates.

https://asiasociety.org/northern-califo ... s-war-laos

[sparks]

Communism has been a handy boogie-man for the U.S.'s need to flex its military might. I doubt that most americans know what it means, but they surely know it's a very bad, evil thing that must be stopped.

I'm pretty confident I know what it means, and it is a very bad, evil thing that must be stopped.

Cluster bombs are not necessarily an effective way to stop it, and even if it worked, the cost, in human terms, may be excessive.

does capitalism need to be stopped?

Not stopped, but most definitely reformed. The greed that drives capitalism is obscene. And as I've said many times, there are some things that should not ever be for profit because it's a conflict of interest.

[arthwollipot]

I'm pretty confident I know what it means, and it is a very bad, evil thing that must be stopped.

It's not, it's just profoundly unrealistic and relies on humans choosing to behave in ways that they have never behaved in their history.

If humans could suddenly stop being human and become communist drones instead, then communism would be a perfect system.

[President Bush]

I'm pretty confident I know what it means, and it is a very bad, evil thing that must be stopped.

It's not, it's just profoundly unrealistic and relies on humans choosing to behave in ways that they have never behaved in their history.

If humans could suddenly stop being human and become communist drones instead, then communism would be a perfect system.

Yadda, yadda, yadda... sometimes it´s easier to just say ¨yes, dear¨.

FB_IMG_1657626904893 (2).jpg (66.9 KiB) Viewed 2439 times

[Meadmaker]

I'm pretty confident I know what it means, and it is a very bad, evil thing that must be stopped.

It's not, it's just profoundly unrealistic and relies on humans choosing to behave in ways that they have never behaved in their history.

If humans could suddenly stop being human and become communist drones instead, then communism would be a perfect system.

It reminds me of something my father once said to me. He was 70 at the time.

"All my life I called myself a socialist. It was only recently that I realized that if socialism could ever work, we wouldn't need socialism."

[Meadmaker]

(removed duplicate)

[Meadmaker]

A mural I saw in Guangzhou. Commie countries tend to be fascinating.

Was it next to one that said

War is peace.
freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength.