[redmenace]

US isn't free
you obey and consume and die.
we have managed to keep the same gov't only only because the west ingeneral has bevome more "stable."
Now I must go finish my Coca-Cola and finish my business management studies.

[Drew]

u know, normaly, hit and run "statements" are reserved for ghetto assasinations

mind clarifing/backing up you statement?

[redmenace]

sure people are controlled by the authority. have you ever read the prince, you ought to. people are manipulated by politics in general. It is just something I have really awaken to recently.
hehe my 600th post.

[redmenace]

I don't mean to turn this into a political debate. So just ignore my previous post. However I will strongly  suggest you read the prince.

[Grey Wolf]

99% of things done by the government are to manipulate you. Pork barrel spending, for example. Rather than spend money on that, they could lower the income taxes, primarily for the middle class. Not for the upper class, since they're already rich, and not for the impoverished, since, IIRC, they don't actually have to pay taxes. But both sides in Washington are too afraid to even think about cutting any government program, no matter how useless or unwanted, for fear of losing any of their precious political base.

[Rictor]

redmenace, you didn't turn this into a political debate, it was a highly political topic to begin with.

The trouble is, very, very few people are citizens anymore. Being a citizen means being involved in politics and caring about the issues. When the Constitution was writen, it was intended that people do their civic duty by participating in politics. It was considered a privilege and an honour.

Now, watching CNN once a week is about as political as people get. And they base their entire political and social understanding on what some guy on the tube says. Thats bull****.

You watch TV and vote once in four years and you think you're doing your part. And if that information that you recieved on TV happens to be wrong, or if its very heavily spun, oh well, such if live. And sometimes, instead of Aaron Brown or whatever talking head happens to be on, the President makes a speech. Oooh, aaah. But its the same problem. People just accept what he says as fact, and then their entire view of the world is based on that. And if its a lie, or if its misleading, too bad. This pisses me off to no end.

One problem is that you have career politicans who just switch places. It was never inteded to be that way. The way the system was devised, it would work something like jury duty. If you are intersted, you run for a local office, and you spend a few years in there. But thats it. That was intended to be the end of it. If you have people who's enitre life is spent on politics, they can't be trusted because they are so disconneted from the world around them.

What I'm getting at, is that instead of the entire country controlloing the power, you have a very small group who wield ultimate power. Politicans, lobbyists, CEOs, media moguls. The rest of the people are considered to be, and I'll use Noam Chomsky's term here, the "bewildered herd". They're too stupid to know whats best, so they have to be told what to think and what to believe. You have to lie, and use propaganda and manipulate, because if left to govern for themsleves, they would only mess things up and it would be a disaster. Thats is the mentality which the powerful few follow. Thats how they justify their actions to themselves.

So, instead of having a dictatorship of one, like Stalinist Russia, you have a dictatorship of a few hundred. And they all pretty much share the same views, so there is a certain level of cooperation. No one, Deomcrat or Republican or whoever, they don't want this power to be snatched away from them. So, though they compete for power, no one wants to destroy the system whereby the few have ultimate power.

And thats the problem. The bewildered herd is blinded by flags and slogans and rhetoric, so that they never realize that they are not in control. Its nice to think you live in a democracy, but if so much of the power is controled by so few people, and you have conflicts of interest left and right, then sorry to say but its just a more complex form of dictatorship.

[Xelion]

OLAF was created to replace the old fraud office UCLAF, which was accused of covering up abuses by the disgraced Santer Commission. Many UCLAF staff were transferred to OLAF.

wtf do they think the world is coming too.... people aren't total dumbarses! Changing the name of a commission and keeping many of the original staff doesn't mean they have a clean history. Its pitiable that the government would go so low as to do things this way…

I think most politicians are over-confident and so up themselves they assume they'll never get caught over corruption, and when they get close to it they use methods that are inhumane to rid the person(s) that discovered the information. Perhaps there should be stricter penalties for such pathetic acts of crime.

[SadisticSid]

Hooray for yet another reason to rid the world of the corrupt power-mongering disgrace that is the European Union.

[Rictor]

The European Union is the only thing standing between the world and unchallenged US rule. You're just bitter cause there's another power on the block who is shaping up to be as big as you.

That, and their policies are way more progressive than America's.

Perhaps America could get away with looking like the "nice guy" when they were being compared to the USSR, but now that its the US and EU, you look like as empirialistic and power-mongering as the Soviets did.

[Taristin]

Perhaps a name change would help?

"The United European States of America"?

[Drew]

Originally posted by Rictor
The European Union is the only thing standing between the world and unchallenged US rule. You're just bitter cause there's another power on the block who is shaping up to be as big as you.

That, and their policies are way more progressive than America's.

Perhaps America could get away with looking like the "nice guy" when they were being compared to the USSR, but now that its the US and EU, you look like as empirialistic and power-mongering as the Soviets did.

just cuz we took out saddam hussien? Its dumb to compare us to the USSR, 1) we dont have any other territory then we got 150 years ago, 2) we havent "eradicated" 22 million people in gulags keeping ours

[Rictor]

Hmm, lets see

Military bases in 130 foreign nations.
Economic dominance via the WTO, IMF and World Bank.
Wars every few years, none of which were legal under both domestic and international law.
Support for dictators and tyrants acting as puppet governments to further US interests.
A complete disregard for international law or opinion.

This all amounts to one simple truth; Empire.

[Drew]

Originally posted by Rictor
Hmm, lets see

Military bases in 130 foreign nations.
Economic dominance via the WTO, IMF and World Bank.
Wars every few years, none of which were legal under both domestic and international law.
Support for dictators and tyrants acting as puppet governments to further US interests.
A complete disregard for international law or opinion.

This all amounts to one simple truth; Empire.

thanks for summing up the clinton administration for me.

[Ghostavo]

You mean that the US haven't been in a war since the clinton administration? Or that it doesn't have all those bases now? Or that it didn't disregard international law and/or opinion recently?

Right...

[Rictor]

Actually, thats every administration since the end of World War 2. Clinton and JFK and other Democrats just put a smily face on the reality of the situation and everyone was fooled.

[SadisticSid]

Originally posted by Rictor
The European Union is the only thing standing between the world and unchallenged US rule. You're just bitter cause there's another power on the block who is shaping up to be as big as you.

That, and their policies are way more progressive than America's.

Perhaps America could get away with looking like the "nice guy" when they were being compared to the USSR, but now that its the US and EU, you look like as empirialistic and power-mongering as the Soviets did.

You are absolutely wrong. The EU has always been a cash funnel from its member states' taxpayers that feeds into either the pockets of corrupt individuals or insane administrative overheads. It has no other function than to impose unnecessary (and in the UK's case, unfair) regulations which are completely regressive and distort the market in key areas. If Blair or anyone else promised secession from it I would seriously consider voting for them.

[Flaser]

Sid, it won't pay off being an EU member while Eastern European Countries (like us Hungarians) are joining the community. These economically and socially beat down countries desperately need money - or more properly investment.

That money is going to come from your pocket.

Why do it?

That's the only way you can create a greater and more enduring economy that can stand up to the US.

So either pay up and kick some sense into the continent or be content with being a ***** to the USA.

In the long term the whole Union could benefit from itself - 'til then its gona cost a lot for the advanced western countries.

....and BTW Hungary is already a no.1 source for engineers throughtout the continent (not the only or the 1st, but among the leading ones) and your countries had jack**** to pay for their education (your 1st diploma is still free of charge here).

[SadisticSid]

Originally posted by Flaser
Sid, it won't pay off being an EU member while Eastern European Countries (like us Hungarians) are joining the community. These economically and socially beat down countries desperately need money - or more properly investment.

That money is going to come from your pocket.

Why do it?

That's the only way you can create a greater and more enduring economy that can stand up to the US.

So either pay up and kick some sense into the continent or be content with being a ***** to the USA.

In the long term the whole Union could benefit from itself - 'til then its gona cost a lot for the advanced western countries.

....and BTW Hungary is already a no.1 source for engineers throughtout the continent (not the only or the 1st, but among the leading ones) and your countries had jack**** to pay for their education (your 1st diploma is still free of charge here).

That kinda describes the whole mindset of the EU - 'create a greater and more enduring economy that can stand up to the US' - and 'kick some sense into the continent or be content with being a ***** to the USA'.

The only way 'we', as a continent, could create a competitive economy to the US, is to abolish the kind of bollocks regulations, money-grabbing corruption, and market-distorting policies that the EU thrives upon. The best, most free economy is the one which is constrained the least. This, compared to the EU philosophy of interfering in EVERYTHING, is why your statement is such garbage.

[Flaser]

You could be right - but the less constrained market will crush us eastern countries, and never actually help us out of the **** the soviets and our own lazzy socialist asses has left us in.

Take the IMB for example in my own country - they estabilished a HD manufacturing facroty only to move on 2 years later to Romany 'casue the workforce is almost for free over there - meanwhile they were given a chanve to not to pay even a cent of tax for setting up business here in Hungary and creating job opportunities.

You may be right about jackass politicians and corrupt bureocrats in the EU, but some kind of inertnational unified European overseeing is necessary, 'casuse the companies will screw us big time if countries have to deal with them on their own.

[aldo_14]

I like the EU.  

Anything the tabloids are against == good.