Author Topic: The Summer of Love  (Read 36405 times)

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Xavier_Onassis

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Re: The Summer of Love
« Reply #180 on: July 21, 2008, 08:25:10 PM »
We are also great in arts and science and freedom , but being militarily powerfull allows us to make our choices for ourselves and so facilitates our freedom to become great in any respect we care to.

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If we were really all that great in science, we would not have to import over half our scientists and engineers.

In the Arts, we obviously excel at film, especially in the technical aspect. In terms of content, we make some pretty dumb crap.

We used to be better at freedom. Now everything we write on the internet, everything we say on the telephone can be monitored without our knowledge and with impunity. Try to fight for your right to take a bottle of shampoo on a plane and see just how free you are. Apparently, we are not free to board a plane if we wear a t-shirt with a cartoon picture of a gun on it. We are free to protest our president's stupidity and incompetence from a cage that is not within his hearing distance.

Our military costs far too much, and deprives us of money that could be used for things we really need, like medicine, housing and even food. Or do you really think we need the Osprey for defense? It seems better suited to killing our own Marines.
 

"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."

Michael Tee

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Re: The Summer of Love
« Reply #181 on: July 21, 2008, 11:31:25 PM »
<<In NATO -free Eastern Europe on the other hand ,Prague failed to spring. Their Soviets ruled with a heavy hand and were practically in a permanent state of invading.>>

Who did the Soviets actually invade after WWII?  Hungary.  Czechoslovakia.  Chechnya.  Afghanistan.

Who did the U.S.A. actually invade after WWII?  Dominican Republic.  Grenada.  Panama.  Viet Nam.  Afghanistan.  Iraq.  Should we count Cuba (Bay of Pigs?)  Lebanon. 

Of the two superpowers, which one REALLY was "practically in a permanent state of invading?"

<<If the West had seemed to be weak I think Stalin would have taken more territory , so might Kruchev or Brezhnev , we can only guess based on what they did where they could get away with it.>>

Really?  Can you also guess on what additional countries the U.S. would have invaded, had the Soviets seemed to be weak?  Based, of course, on what the U.S.A. did where they could get away with it.

Plane

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Re: The Summer of Love
« Reply #182 on: July 22, 2008, 08:29:55 PM »
<<In NATO -free Eastern Europe on the other hand ,Prague failed to spring. Their Soviets ruled with a heavy hand and were practically in a permanent state of invading.>>

Who did the Soviets actually invade after WWII?  Hungary.  Czechoslovakia.  Chechnya.  Afghanistan.

Who did the U.S.A. actually invade after WWII?  Dominican Republic.  Grenada.  Panama.  Viet Nam.  Afghanistan.  Iraq.  Should we count Cuba (Bay of Pigs?)  Lebanon. 

Of the two superpowers, which one REALLY was "practically in a permanent state of invading?"

<<If the West had seemed to be weak I think Stalin would have taken more territory , so might Kruchev or Brezhnev , we can only guess based on what they did where they could get away with it.>>

Really?  Can you also guess on what additional countries the U.S. would have invaded, had the Soviets seemed to be weak?  Based, of course, on what the U.S.A. did where they could get away with it.

The Soviet Union is indeed weak , and our military has shrunk since their fall.

Xavier_Onassis

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Re: The Summer of Love
« Reply #183 on: July 23, 2008, 04:14:46 PM »
Of the two superpowers, which one REALLY was "practically in a permanent state of invading?"


The US did not invade militarily. The US invades by promoting Marlboros among schoolchildren, selling one cigarette at a time, during lunch hour in the middle school playground, from a small three-wheeled truck thing. I have seen this many times in Santo Domingo.

The US invades by selling name brand clothing in countries that have no name brands. The clothes are madee in China, but the brand is Tommy Hilfiger, Jordache, Lee Jeans, whatever.

The US invades with Protestant fundie preachers.

The Soviets had nothing to sell other than ideology.

Still, the US sent troops to the Dominican Republic in force, and then took Latin American troops from nearly anywhere in for training at the War College of the Americas.

"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."

Michael Tee

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Re: The Summer of Love
« Reply #184 on: July 23, 2008, 04:27:27 PM »
<<Still, the US sent troops to the Dominican Republic in force, and then took Latin American troops from nearly anywhere in for training at the War College of the Americas.>>

The U.S. invades when it has to, but mostly gets local muscle to do its dirty work - - the Batistas, Trujillos, Somozas, Duvaliers, Pinochets, Suhartos, etc.  That way they get to suck the lifeblood out of their victims and don't have to take any responsibility at all for the atrocities, tortures and murders needed to keep the profits streaming in to the heartland.  That's also why the worst of the British are ten thousand times better than the best of the Americans.

Xavier_Onassis

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Re: The Summer of Love
« Reply #185 on: July 23, 2008, 06:47:59 PM »
I don't think the Brits are so pure, either, nor are the French, particularly in Africa.

All businessmen love monopolies. Most governments love businessmen.
The Chinese may be Communists, but they like pushing their wares abroad, too, and reaping natural resources, like oil in Sudan.
"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."