Total Motorcycle Community Forums

intotherain wrote:

kali wrote:

Septimus wrote:Sixty years later, how many of us notice the anniversary of Pearl Harbor?

Don't get me wrong -- I live in NYC and people who were downtown at the time are still shaken up when they talk about it, but for everybody else who wasn't directly affected in some way, it's already the distant past.

Pearl Harbor. What a joke. After we blockaided Japan for 6 months! Starving them of food and fuel in a purposeful and succesful attempt to get them to fire the first shot. Didn't count on it being so good. All because they tried to extend their colonial rule in China beyond the boundries the West set for them in a colony sharing arraingment with the US, Britian, Russia, France. All less than a century (time moved much more slowly then) after the US forced open Japan at gunpoint with our gunboat diplomacy. And not long after Britians opium war and taking of Hong Kong. Please stop sobbing because unthinking sad sacks actually swallow their patriotism whole instead of using their god given minds to think for themselves. Do us a favor and keep this "crumb" to yourself before you infect someone else.

Not only that but the US ignored several warnings from other navies (French?) that unidentified ships were heading toward Pearl Harbor... Were the US just anxious to get in the war??

There was an interesting segment on The History Channel on this and it was a mix of miscommunication from the Japs who were going to declare war due to steel embargo, parts of the US government felt like certain details were unimportant to be filtered down etc. Hopefully they'll air it again.

kali wrote:

Septimus wrote:Sixty years later, how many of us notice the anniversary of Pearl Harbor?

Don't get me wrong -- I live in NYC and people who were downtown at the time are still shaken up when they talk about it, but for everybody else who wasn't directly affected in some way, it's already the distant past.

Pearl Harbor. What a joke. After we blockaided Japan for 6 months! Starving them of food and fuel in a purposeful and succesful attempt to get them to fire the first shot. Didn't count on it being so good. All because they tried to extend their colonial rule in China beyond the boundries the West set for them in a colony sharing arraingment with the US, Britian, Russia, France. All less than a century (time moved much more slowly then) after the US forced open Japan at gunpoint with our gunboat diplomacy. And not long after Britians opium war and taking of Hong Kong. Please stop sobbing because unthinking sad sacks actually swallow their patriotism whole instead of using their god given minds to think for themselves. Do us a favor and keep this "crumb" to yourself before you infect someone else.

My understanding is that the Japanese slaughtered more Chinese in WWII than Hitler did Jews. Please do correct me if I'm wrong here.

In war, there are few, if any, innocent nations.

Maybe what our nations did was right, maybe wrong, but whats done is done now. As for the ongoing Iraq conflict, I no longer have an opinion as to whether it was right or wrong. And until someone hands me all the intelligence information leading up to it, how can I be expected to make a reasonable decision as to whether the actions of our leaders were justifiable or not?

One thing is crystal clear. We went to Iraq to remove their president because Saudi Arabians in Afghanistan launched an attack which killed the perpetrators of said attack. Yeah, that makes sense.

We went to Iraq for pretend reasons. The president of the US took advantage of the global upset to use the furvor and anger of his angry citizenry to advance his goals from before 9-11. He planned to attack Iraq before 9-11, but didn't have a good excuse, and couldn't get backing.

So now we are up to our necks in the mess and there is not easy way to get out of it.

This from James Howard Kunstler. By the way for those of you who are not aware, you better start thinking about a little problem called Peak Oil which JK is referring to here.

This will be the last I bother you with this. If you are meant to pursue and contemplate it, you will. If not...

Now, as to the shock of Al's (Greenspan) revelation that the Iraq war is about oil -- the media and the public has got this all wrong, too. The logic here seems to be that because the Iraq war is about oil it is therefore unnecessary, optional, a mistake, an indulgence, something we should not dirty our hands in. In fact, the Iraq war is not about oil, per se, so much as it is about America's behavior here at home, about the choices we make for how we live on this continent. None of those who complain most loudly about our military presence in Iraq have advanced any proposals for reforming how we live here -- and hence for our enslavement to oil, much of the world's remaining supply of which happens to be in the neighborhood of Iraq. When these complainers start complaining about the ubiquitous acceptance of suburban sprawl and abject car-dependency -- and this includes the environmental boy scouts out there who want to get merit badges for buying hybrid cars -- then they will deserve to be taken seriously. Until then, the American people have got exactly the grinding war that they deserve. Let them whine about it all the way to the Nascar tracks, and let them console themselves with giant plastic bottles of Pepsi Cola and buckets of chicken raised on corn grown with oil byproducts.

I have no issue with debate about who should be going into where to do whatever. I don't know the right answers. Neither do you. And worst of all, neither do the various leaders and their advisers responsible for these actions. Nobody can see the future and know what the results of various actions will be. Welcome to the Human Condition.

I do take issue with spitting on the memory of the soldiers who fought for us in previous wars and conflicts. You may not like the fact they had to fight and die for you, but they did it anyways, and telling people to forget about them and what they did is inexcusable. If they had not done so, you could not be sitting there right now, telling people to stop honoring them.

BuzZz wrote:I have no issue with debate about who should be going into where to do whatever. I don't know the right answers. Neither do you. And worst of all, neither do the various leaders and their advisers responsible for these actions. Nobody can see the future and know what the results of various actions will be. Welcome to the Human Condition.

I do take issue with spitting on the memory of the soldiers who fought for us in previous wars and conflicts. You may not like the fact they had to fight and die for you, but they did it anyways, and telling people to forget about them and what they did is inexcusable. If they had not done so, you could not be sitting there right now, telling people to stop honoring them.

thats exactly my sentiments. I am glad they fought so I didnt have to. Plus what kali doesnt understand is the draft. how do you explain those deaths of the ones who were forced into war because of a draft. I mean are you saying there were stupid because they got drafted and its their own fault? I dont think so.

BuzZz wrote: If they had not done so, you could not be sitting there right now, telling people to stop honoring them.

That is where you are wrong. Americans did not need to die in the Philippines during the Spanish-American War. They did not need to die there again in WW2. They did not need to die there in Vietnam. I understand it shakes your world view and hurts your feelings but it doesn't change the fact that my 'freedom' was never threatened and saved by these wars and that their lives were wasted. Plain thrown away. Of no value. Nothing except to provide inspiration for the next useful idiot.

For all you Canadians out there, I ask you, how is your freedom threatened by Afghanistan? It's not. Your boys, someones father, are dieing there. For what? You should be more worried about corporate America raiding your resources and raping your environment for their own profit and redneck American yahoo's material demands. Yours is a resource wealthy nation with a small population. You can all live like kings if America doesn't f#ck you first. Which they will. NAFTA will unite your taken on the cheap resources with even cheaper Mexican labor for whose profit? Corporate America and any crooked sellout Canadian politician they can purchase in the name of 'free trade'.

America, 5% of the worlds population using 25% of the worlds energy to generate 25% of the world pollution. Nothing but a bunch of glutinous pigs whose idea of freedom is entitlement to gorge on the rest of the world.

Welcome to capitalism.... Want to try communism instead? A system whereby good work is unrewarded, meaning that every worker turns lazy and does the minimum possible. Creating an unrewarding lifestyle for everyone where not much works (by the way that includes food stuff production, not just luxuries like electricity)

Democracy based Capitalism is far from perfect, but its the best we have at the moment

Nibblet99 wrote:

kali wrote:

Septimus wrote:Sixty years later, how many of us notice the anniversary of Pearl Harbor?

Don't get me wrong -- I live in NYC and people who were downtown at the time are still shaken up when they talk about it, but for everybody else who wasn't directly affected in some way, it's already the distant past.

Pearl Harbor. What a joke. After we blockaded Japan for 6 months! Starving them of food and fuel in a purposeful and successful attempt to get them to fire the first shot. Didn't count on it being so good. All because they tried to extend their colonial rule in China beyond the boundaries the West set for them in a colony sharing arraignment with the US, Britain, Russia, France. All less than a century (time moved much more slowly then) after the US forced open Japan at gunpoint with our gunboat diplomacy. And not long after Britain's opium war and taking of Hong Kong. Please stop sobbing because unthinking sad sacks actually swallow their patriotism whole instead of using their god given minds to think for themselves. Do us a favor and keep this "crumb" to yourself before you infect someone else.

My understanding is that the Japanese slaughtered more Chinese in WWII than Hitler did Jews. Please do correct me if I'm wrong here.

In war, there are few, if any, innocent nations.

Maybe what our nations did was right, maybe wrong, but whats done is done now. As for the ongoing Iraq conflict, I no longer have an opinion as to whether it was right or wrong. And until someone hands me all the intelligence information leading up to it, how can I be expected to make a reasonable decision as to whether the actions of our leaders were justifiable or not?

You are correct. And Stalin more than Hitler also.

I see you are from the UK. Then you know of the Great Game. Most yahoo Americans do not. You also know it was the Brits that drew up the borders of the Middle East with France. And I assume you know that the dreaded Taliban are a faction of the Pashtun tribe that is a distinct group of people that were purposefully divided by British geographers and oil men by drawing the Indian (now Pakistan) border down the middle of them. That this has been a part of Western colonial practice for 300 years. That it was purposefully done to promote weakening chaos and controllable failing state structures throughout the Middle East and Africa. That this is the cause of their resentment and fighting. That it was designed to be this way by the West to facilitate control and resource extraction and profit.

This is what we die for. This information is freely available. That one does not know or understand these things is the definition of stupidity.

To die for this is a waste. To promote it directly by advocating it (war) or indirectly by mouthing ritual platitudes (support the troops, honor the heroes) is moronic.

Nibblet99 wrote:Welcome to capitalism.... Want to try communism instead? A system whereby good work is unrewarded, meaning that every worker turns lazy and does the minimum possible. Creating an unrewarding lifestyle for everyone where not much works (by the way that includes food stuff production, not just luxuries live electricity)

Democracy based Capitalism is far from perfect, but its the best we have at the moment

Capatilism?

You think the West practices capatilism? Capatilism is when investors pool their capital to risk in profit making investments. One pays someone else a fee, interest, to use their money. We have a system that creates previously nonexistant money threw the act of borrowing. Pure fiat monetary inflation creating money out of ones debt.

Think about what you and a bank do to make a profit and how much that profit is.

You can risk your money in a business and more often than not fail and go broke. Or risk it in the bond market for about 5% per year average. After taxes on profits your real return is about three and a half percent. With inflation running three and a half to seven percent a year you actually lose money. That is why government bonds are know as 'certificates of confiscation. Stock market returns average 6-7% over time. Again subtract fees, taxes on gains, and inflation to understand why the masses will never get rich in the stock market.

Now banks take your savings, in the old days that would be gold or money, and paid you a small percentage not to store it but to lend it out. Your $100 got you 3% in a federally insured passbook savings account guaranteed to never lose your money. Again subtract 1% for taxes and 3 1/5 - 7% to inflation and you still lost purchasing power on your nominally increasing savings account. But the bank, through the Mandrake System of fractional reserve banking, is allowed to lend an amount of money, THAT DOES NOT EXIST UNTIL IT IS BORROWED INTO EXISTENCE, 9 times the value of its reserves, which is your money that is sitting in there bank. Now the bank, actually the person signing a loan form, creates $900 of credit that is loaned at 7-21% depending if the money goes to a mortgage or credit card debt. So let us take the average % charged on loans by the banks - 14%, and multiply that by the $900 they created and lent against your original $100 deposit. $900 x 14% = $126. In 1 year the bank makes $126 off of your money and pays you $3, of which Uncle Sam takes 28-30 percent income tax leaving you 2 dollars and 10 cents.

But wait, there's more. The inflation that ate away at your purchasing power allowing you to only buy $95 worth of last years goods at this years higher price of $102 and 10 cents, it came from the $900 created from your deposit. Money that did not exist before your deposit is now chasing the same goods and services that your money is. Any increase in an economies money supply that does not increase the production of goods and services manifest in that economy as price increases. The increase in prices is not greedy businessmen arbitrarily increasing prices because they are evil. They are passing along price increases to them that they are suffering the same as you.

The bank has screwed you twice. It paid you 3 lousy dollars on your 100 dollar savings and it created the inflation that decreased the purchasing power of your money with your own money.

Chew on that for a while then we can consider what happens to our $1000 economy (your $100 + $900 of loans) that is required to return $126 to the bank the 1st year in interest alone, PLUS, $143.64 the second year (exponential interest growth, interest on interest), PLUS, $163.75 the 3rd year, PLUS, $186.68 the 4th year, PLUS, $212.82 the 5th year, PLUS, $242.61 .... in 5 years the banks interest take from a real economy of $100 (your savings) plus the added $900 of money that did not exist before it was loaned, is $1075.50. AND that does not include the original $900 in principal that the borrowers borrowed, the banks term, but really created as loans! In 5 years the banks take on YOUR $100 savings is $1975.50! And the bank paid you for the privilege of using your money to make this profit? $100 at 3% compounded annually is 115.93. And don't forget to pay your taxes on your massive $15.93 cent gains, and remeber your inflation loses over 5 years.