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Of course, I'm talking about the rural country side states with more cows than humans. And there are quite a few.. enough to get Bush back up and running.

Yeah, they should never have given cows the right to vote god damnit.

[rant mode]
It's strange... the situation in this world and reality in general mirrors this thread in many ways. Whereas some people can look at the way western democracies are run and step back in horror, to most people it's pretty inconsequential stuff compared with the everyday problems they face - love/sex/social life, job/career, and in many cases basic survival and making it through the day.

Of course, the ironic thing is that the fucked up situations in our lives are a direct/indirect result of governmental actions - that's certainly something I can say about the UK, and in my limited experience of the US, I could say the same thing about it too. It's nothing new - this is what Marxist thought is based on (appreciating Marxist philosophy does not automatically mean I'm a Communist by the way, far from it) - the culture of a government inevitably filters through to the general population. You can see this in terms of corruption (corruption exists in all governments.. it's just that the western world is much more adept at hiding it) and economic philosophy - I think most businesses find it so hard to survive on honest terms, that the only way to survive appears to be to fuck people over like everyone else. You just need to fuck people over more times than you get the same done to you. It's a quietly desperate situation for a lot of people.

The main point I would like to make is that all the people who complain about the lies of western governments can't really preach about this stuff until they've taken direct action. By direct action I don't mean going on an anti-capitalist rally etc. Do they actually peel the system's fingers from around their own necks by stopping responding to advertising and other forms of propoganda? Do they stop buying alcohol/tobacco/drugs and stop watching TV? Do they stop using people as stepping stones to get the material things they want? And can they do all this at the same time as avoiding turning into heartless, loveless beings? These are the real questions people need to ask themselves rather than speculating about the specifics of the current global situation.

I don't think anyone in this world would doubt, deep down, that the world has always been run by power-hungry, depraved and amoral/immoral thugs. The real challenge is to free yourself from their system while still living your life to the fullest potential. The ways in which you can do this are infinite. Sometimes, it's more important to free yourself mentally than to free yourself physically. If everyone in this world stopped *consuming*, the situation would be pretty strange, in the short-term at least. The economy would disintegrate; there would be no cool new music toys, apart from anything else. However, could it lead to a better way of life? Who can tell. Could any of us even deal with a world like that? A total revolution of physical reality... how could any of us cope with that if we can't even revolutionize our minds?
[/rant mode]

In a way I think Bush and the "Terrorists" have a similar quality and that is the need to seek revenge. There is nothing worth killing for. People are somehow brainwashed into thinking that they have this land and they are a part of a team and it is us against them. I will never fight for any nation because I think nationality is a stupid concept. The same goes for religion which is just superstition. I think people are the same everywhere and I don't see how being born in an area makes me a brother of some people while the folks living across the border are not a part of the clan.

Nice post d4rkr3z1n =P

2 good reads (for anyone and everyone that hasn't read them):

1) Plato's cavern allegory in The Republic

2) Machiavelli's The Prince

And yeah, I've stopped watching TV, except for the odd South Park/Simpson/Family Guy episode .

And CNN for the haircuts, man they must have the Devil himself doing their haircuts. Completely mindboggling.

An interesting article here from Speigel which, I think, shows the level of US "strategic vision" against the rather less ambitious European outlook.

The intro:

"Germany loves to criticize US President George W. Bush's Middle East policies -- just like Germany loved to criticize former President Ronald Reagan. But Reagan, when he demanded that Gorbachev remove the Berlin Wall, turned out to be right. Could history repeat itself?"

The article:
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/interna ... 78,00.html

I would recomend MIT linguistics professor Noam Chomski's, books. He does an excelent job explaining the US government actions. Howard Zinn's "A people's history of the USA" is another good book coming from a WW2 soldier. Even Jon Stewart's (he's jewish) book, America: The Book offers some good pointers on US government.
These are all books articulating what we most know but can't point out as eloquently as they do (partly because we have not spent the most of our lives doing just that, speaking or writing). And obviously this government is not shy to use violence to attain its goals while the entire population is kept mellow and pacifist under a hypocritical religious cloak.


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: BingoTheClowno on 2005-02-28 11:15 ]</font>

Noam Chomski's cool without the politics too. Very big figure in the field of linguistics and cognitive science, and even artificial intelligence. Actually, I didn't know he had anything out on American politics..

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: kensuguro on 2005-02-28 11:11 ]</font>

damning evidence from a lunatic.....
http://www.infowars.com/mastersofterrorvideo.htm

Just remember and look into that Skull&Bones sign!