This is why we need to change the slogan to the 1‰. With a little explanation, people quickly realize who the anger is really directed at. And while per mil means one thousandth, it sounds like 1 in a million. And 300 out of 300 million is much closer to the reality of income inequality in America.
And extrajudicial drone strikes. (On weddings.)
Well, but you’re arguing that it was a discrete event, happening once or twice, as opposed to an ongoing operation, with little or not congressional oversight, which means even less oversight from us, the American public. We are using drones in both places, which has had serious collateral damage which the past two administrations has denied, despite evidence to the contrary… I’d point to Pakistan too, for that matter–we don’t want to go to war there, but we do continue to have operations going, with the (secret) consent of Islamabad.
For every “bad guy” we get, we take out a fair number of people just going about their daily lives–we are not endearing ourselves to the average Yemeni or Somali, frankly nor are we helping them. I’ll grant that it might mean more destruction if we went into those places in a traditional war, but what means less violence for our military, doesn’t mean no violence visited on the people who live in those places–you may or may not care about that–plenty of Americans simply don’t (I’m not saying that is you, but many people just don’t care about the lives of people in other places, especially if they don’t understand them, especially if they are of the “wrong” religion or skin color). If the trade off is worth it in your eyes, then okay, but I disagree. It’s just an end run around having to get permission to go to war, if you ask me. No, obama is not unique in this policy–in this case, it’s the policy that is running the show, not the politicians–just like there was little distance in actuality between Dems and Repubs during the Cold War, they tend to converge on issue of the war on terror.
That was exactly what I mean, actually. I’m sure there are even more operations not involving drones we don’t know about, too.
Hell, let’s just change it to “all of us versus the thousand richest bastards!”
“Compare” is not a synonym for “equate.” For instance, it’s perfectly valid to compare apples to oranges: One has an edible peel, the other is a citrus. One is said to repel physicians, the other was a harbinger of violence in The Godfather.
[quote=“Brainspore, post:61, topic:21261”]
What made the Nazis so horrific was the way they coldly and systematically butchered millions of helpless men, women and children.[/quote]
I’m not saying they’re equally bad. But comparing one mass murderer to another mass murderer is not unreasonable. We still don’t have accurate data of the human costs of these wars.
As a card-carrying leftie — I made the card myself, it says “I am a leftie” — I don’t recall ever calling GW Bush “Hitler”. I called him a lot of other things, though, mostly to do with the Iraq debacle, the Patriot Act, the mistakes that led to 9/11 being successful, and other related issues. But then, I’m not a celeb. When did this become a thread about celebs, btw?
So what is the logical conclusion of making the rich feel like they are about to being dragged of to death camps like the Jews? Providing moral justification for them to have the poor nuked and firebombed, like the Nazis? This is real Daily Mail stuff, vitriolic bile of the worst kind.
But why jump straight to Hitler when there are countless other killers and warmongers who would make more accurate comparisons? The death count from the Iraq war is much closer to that of the Spanish-American war than WWII, but nobody ever compares George W. Bush to James Monroe President McKinley.
Why bother comparing the yearly flu to the 1918 Spanish flu though? Sure they both kill people, but the scale makes the yearly flu look like a minor annoyance by comparison.
Comparing Bush’s wars or Obama’s drone strikes to the sheer scale of the death caused by Hitler during WW2 is absolutely ridiculous even excluding the Jews and the Slavs hat were killed in death camps. For god sakes, the German Luftflotte killed over 400,000 Russians in one night during a bombing campaign. And you want to compare Bush or Obama to him? There are Hitler Youth who have more blood on their hands than Obama.
In 1898, James Monroe was long dead.
Muddled memory, thinking of the Monroe Docrine (arguably the foundation for the war, though).
Eh. Maybe it SHOULD be guillotine time for the wealthy. It would encourage them to indulge in a little limitation of their “I have to own the WORLD” attitude and learn to share the wealth.
I don’t know! Ask the people who did that!
I think you’re misreading my post two different ways, I mean I know people who compared Bush and Obama to various warmongers, but I don’t recall any of them focusing on Hitler to the exclusion of Rios Montt [when one of the people involved in the genocide in El Salvador was involved in Iraq]. Of course I am a survivor of neo-Nazi violence. I know I was scared of the militant nationalism after that attack, more scared even than now, and I tend to think of Nazism, the Holocaust, and the war, as the epitome of militant nationalism. I know I criticized ‘patriotism’ and militarism because of where it can lead, but I didn’t equate these, there’s a difference between bad and worst.
Um, how much does stuff cost over there? Cos that’s decent money over here in ye merrie Englandland (I’m not talking currency exchange rates, I’m basing it on beer = 3[currency unit] basic cheeseburger = 1[currency unit], and so on).
They seem to get said quite a lot by people who just created an account, but it is a little suprising to hear it as editorial comment from the WSJ.
So I had the Captain ready my main Jet and set of to my most secret island hideaway. Pity really, had Golf lined up on the weekend with the Fortesques, was quite looking forward.
A 4-year college degree can easily cost $120,000 if not more, and frankly that doesn’t get you too much career-wise these days. Rent in New York City for a two bedroom apartment in a decent neighborhood is easily $3500/month. A 3-bedroom/2-bath detached home in a decent suburban area outside of a metropolitan area is easily $300,000 to $500,000. These may be in line with UK prices, and admittedly, I think the “American Dream” middle class vision is probably a higher standard of life than that in the UK, and was probably unsustainable from the beginning, as any kind of long term or permanent model for the median lifestyle in the USA.
Actually, as soon as I’d posted that, I went, ‘Hold on. That’s not a lot of money…’
(n.b. it is FAR more than I make. I fucking wish I made 40k/yr…)