My point about the brainwashing is, you're all brainwashed.

Was it really all that hard to get? I have to be more to the point and a little less verbose.

You see, 'they' are brainwashed by thier media (I thought I made that clear by stating that they see news about Bush being a terrorist 24/7) and we are brainwashed by our media.

These people fight for a cause they believ in with the tools they have at hand.
Just as we do.

The hatred these people have for us I only mildy understand. I really don't know why they do but I know they do.
The frustration I fully understand. I fully understand that frustration and desperation will make you do things you normally wouldn't do. That's why I understand why these people attacked civillians. Oh that and BECAUSE THEY SAID THEY WOULD KILL CIVILLIANS!!
Hmmm... I do understand why some Americans are surprised. I mean the bad guys have actually come forth a number of times and claimed that they would kill civilians and urged others to do so. So when they actually do kill civilians, it should come as a surprise. :/

After reading through this thread again real quick, I think most of you get the impression that I also understand why these people put the dead people on display and danced around.
I'll make this clear right here. That I do not understand. That's ****ed up no matter who you are or what you are trying to do or say.

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To artificial life, all reality is virtual.
HTP
babble, babble, b!tch, b!tch, rebel, rebel, party, party.

Evad, so if I say "I'm going to murder a baby for what i believe in!" no one could blame me for doing it? Your argument does not make sense. Read my other post.

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This is basically as irellevant as My Lai, but it came to mind just now.. as i recall from my history courses, the Italians did pretty much the same thing to the corpses of Mussolini and his lady after they'd been killed, beaten, put on public display and all that.. though i'm sure that'll wind up being taken as another way for people to equate the US with rampant xenophobic fascism..[/tangent]

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[Blue Mink Bifocals !] [fsck -Rf /world/usr/] [<!-- kalimonster -->] [Capite Terram]
"You'll have to face it, the endings are the same however you slice it. Don't be deluded by any other endings, they're all fake, with malicious intent to deceive, or just motivated by excessive optimism if not by downright sentimentality. The only authentic ending is the one provided here: John and Mary die. John and Mary die. John and Mary die." -Happy Endings [Margeret Atwood]
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[This message has been edited by Dormouse (edited April 01, 2004).]

Yep. Sick stuff, and Mussolini wasn't even that bad, i don't think (forgive my mid high-school education if I am incorrect) when compared to some others alive at the time. At least he was guilty of SOMETHING, though, these civilians didn't do a thing wrong. People always have and always will do these kinds of sick things, but that doesn't mean it's okay, you know? :/

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WOOSH|-----@%

A better way to have said this would have been "everyone is brainwashed", instead you excluded yourself.

Tis tis

Oh man. LOL!! How hard is it to get the point I made.

OK, here goes one more time.

So you might understand this a bit more I will start with the west.
America bombs Sadaam because he is evil. America knows they will kill civilians but they know it is for the greater good and for a cause they believe in. America is at war after all. These things happen.

Over to the other side, a different culture, and the underdog.
The bad guy takes his defense budget of $50US/yr. and attacks the Americans in some sort of retaliation whilst making the claim that, "There are no civilians in this war, all Americans are combatants." The attacks on Americans are due to the fact that we are at war and for some reson they see all Americans as combatants. They are fighting for thier cause in this war.

Bob, does that not make sense?????
How many times do I have to re-type this before you say, "I see what you are saying Evad but I don't agree with it."

These people are fighting for a cause. It doesn't matter who struck first. We think they did but they think we did. No one will ever know.
When someone is fighting for a cause you must understand that (like the starving people in China that eat the babies to survive. Thier cause is to live even though the means is quite revolting and seemingly inhumane (see what you do when you are starving before you pass judgement (everyone has something they are against either morally or legally until they are faced with it))(I use this example because you said something about killing babies)).

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To artificial life, all reality is virtual.
HTP
babble, babble, b!tch, b!tch, rebel, rebel, party, party.

None of think we are brainwashed. I like to think I keep an open mind on these matters. That's why I don't trust our governments to tell us whats actually happening, so I look to other sources. :/


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To artificial life, all reality is virtual.
HTP
babble, babble, b!tch, b!tch, rebel, rebel, party, party.

Way to go Evad, you just justified the entire rational for the Germans behind the holocaust.

We shouldn't have tried to stop them, we should have tried to understand them more! Riiiight....

The holocaust wasn't a fight or a war. It was an attempted genocide. Originally the German government just wanted the Jews out of the Fatherland. When no one would take them, they started sending them to camps. When the camps got full, they started killing them. :/
The Third Reich was the cause.

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To artificial life, all reality is virtual.
HTP
babble, babble, b!tch, b!tch, rebel, rebel, party, party.

[This message has been edited by Darth Evad (edited April 01, 2004).]

I did slightly misunderstand your point, and I understand now. And I don't agree with it.

Just because they're a different culture doesn't mean we can't blame them. I mean, believe me, i'm the most understanding guy I know, I'm almost always the guy reminding people to put themselves in the other peoples' shoes and not to judge. But there is a limit. And I'm not commenting on who is right or who is wrong by any means.

However, let me make a comparison to get MY point across: They believe that all americans are combatants. That is quite obviously NOT the case. As a result of this belief, they intentionally kill civilians who are no direct threat to them. We (america, in general) feel this is wrong. Correct? Correct, this is all fact (as far as i know, i may have slipped) that we can both agree on. BUT, the fact that this is due to their cultural or religious or whatever-influenced beleifs does NOT make it okay. Remember, everything is relative, and relative to our culture, it's wrong. And also remember (since this is such an uncommon and highly effective debate technique ) that the germans believed that the Jews should all die or leave, and they did some horrible things to effect that. It wasn't all germans, and neither is it all iraqis, so i feel the analogy applies in this case. That doesn't make it okay. Everything is relative, but that doesn't mean everything must be accepted, if you understand my meaning...

I hope that clears up my views. Opinion disclaimer and all that.

"I see what you are saying Evad but I don't agree with it."

Also, calm down, it's not ALWAYS entirely the reader's fault if he doesn't understand the writer's position. I should know, most of my posts are horribly hard to decipher.

[Edit: Haha, I should have guessed that the analogy would get used in the few minutes i was typing it up. Oh well, at least I tried to justify it. Feel free to tear it apart. Just because they were killed because they couldn't figure out what else to do with them hardly, no, does not at all make it any better.

I don't think the fact that it was or was not a war has anything to do with this particular part of the discussion, since we were discussing how you can't judge another's beliefs. (i think? again, correct me if i misunderstood)]

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[This message has been edited by BobTheMasher (edited April 01, 2004).]

Why does everyone keep telling me to take it easy or to calm down? We are all JK players (at least I still hope so) and having a little debate here.
I am always calm. Always.

Anyway, although I know nothing of thier culture or way of life, I go blindly putting myself in thier shoes by looking at what the west has done to them over the past 100 years and I just feel sorry for them and completely understand thier frustration.
I know it's wrong to kill civilians. They don't. But I understand thier stance.
As much as I think Bush and his cronnies are fools, I give them the credit to know that they are wise enough to understand these people also.

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To artificial life, all reality is virtual.
HTP
babble, babble, b!tch, b!tch, rebel, rebel, party, party.

Sorry, it was all the question marks after "does that not make sense".


Yes, I do agree, I mostly understand the frustration and their position. I don't know my history very well at all so I can't point out specific examples, but I've gotten the gist of it quite well, and i do feel sorry for them. and I'm glad we can agree that killing civilians is wrong. I can't say I TRULY understand their belief that killing civilians isn't wrong, but i understand the fact that that's the way it is for them.

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[This message has been edited by BobTheMasher (edited April 01, 2004).]

Evad, Flexor: I do watch the BBC... What part of "voraciously absorbing information from many different and disparate international news sources" didn't you understand?

And guess what? the CBC is no more or less inclined to angling a news story to the perspective they wish to portray it from as Fox News is.

The great thing about TV news from the producer's point of view is that it allows you to force a tunnel vision view of a story onto your viewers. Show them only what you wish them to see.

Flexor, you made statements that amounted to prejudice and bigotry.

Here's the original point of contention:

Despite major differences in opinion about a specific war, or forgein policy, Our cultures are essentially identical in regards to issues of racism, intolerance, dead bodies, and the desecration of dead bodies. Yes, Montreal and Phoenix are that similar in mindset.

Here's you initial response to me on this very point:

As I stated previously, I do indeed watch the BBC. But I have yet to see a segment where BBC reporters film a group of Americans in the street engaged in overt displays of racism towords Arabs or Muslims, let alone a propensity towords dismemberment and desecration. I propose that you have a rather distorted view of your southern neighbors...

Someone else took issue with you on this same point. Your response to them was:

The words "fact" and "probably" don't usually fit well together in the same sentance. And your fact is probably pretty far from the truth. the proportional number of Americans do not engage in overt racism or desecrate corpses. The burden of brainwash is at your end of the rink, sir.

Further clarifying your position on this subject:

Well, is it a fact or a vague estimation? What logic? Pretzel logic?

Personal knowledge and experience? Please, clue me in. We're you stuck on a street in Buffalo, surrounded by a gang of Americans who were ready to burn and dismember a corpse at any moment? Because if not, you're being a bigot.

People become so intolerant of other's viewpoints and opinions, unable or unwilling to accept the validity of dissent that they reduce the humanity of dissenters - even entire nations - into a crude caricature of underinformed, racist, evil idiots.

"People" not "Quebecians" Notice the difference?

[This message has been edited by Rhettman (edited April 02, 2004).]

Then you must've simply missed some reports or haven't paid enough attention to how differently things are presented.



Precisely. Outside or 'neutral' news sources have no reason to twist or filter the facts.



If you think that, then you probably don't understand them.




Not dismemberment or desecration of bodies. You have to concider the fact that this occurs in america - where there is currently no external military presence to be viewed as hostile or invading. But the attitude is very much there. As I suggested, if you haven't seen it, then you probably just missed it, or maybe you don't watch it enough. Murders, beatings, rapes, other forms of discrimination.



So my vocabulary isn't perfect.



And you know this because you haven't seen any evidence of it, right?




Oh of course, a culture that generally doesn't give a rat's *** about america and the war on iraq has brainwashed me by fabricating fake stories and putting them up in the news just for the heck of it.



Pretzels are tasty.



I'll let you know that I have a number of arab friends who were frequently harrassed by americans, sometimes violently, but mostly verbally, who's families have moved up north partially for that reason. The high school I went to had a large concentration of immigrants of arab origin, so I've heard alot of stories. I also have known a very large number of americans over the internet, and I can tell you with certainty that this sort of attitude is rather common.



Did I say all americans were like that? The point I was trying to make is that there's a bunch of underinformed, racist idiots everywhere, INCLUDING AMERICA, and not just in those arab countries. And I was adressing those people who think the whole town should be nuked just because of these people - who do not represent majority.

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When bread becomes toast, it can never go back to being bread again.

[This message has been edited by Flexor (edited April 02, 2004).]

[This message has been edited by Flexor (edited April 02, 2004).]

[This message has been edited by Flexor (edited April 02, 2004).]

Exactly my point through this whole thread.
Although you've only posted twice in the last 6 posts, I was directing my comments more to those who just don't seem to listen. That's why I've been telling them constatnly to watch another news source. They're being brainwashed with the exact same drivel 24/7.
At least they may get a different perspective if they watch another news source so they may start to ask questions. :/

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To artificial life, all reality is virtual.
HTP
babble, babble, b!tch, b!tch, rebel, rebel, party, party.

Given the generally rampantly hair-trigger vitriolic responses to vritually anything even remotely American or religious or whatever, i'm not entirely certain that i /want/ to get brainwashed by the 'non-biased' 'objective' news sources you so recommend. [As i think we had concluded that whatever you watch you get brainwashed by it]. Information /will be/ presented as biased and subjective and with somme sort of agenda or whatever, that's the very nature of something /being/ presented by biased prejudiced irrational non-objective humanity.

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[Blue Mink Bifocals !] [fsck -Rf /world/usr/] [<!-- kalimonster -->] [Capite Terram]
"You'll have to face it, the endings are the same however you slice it. Don't be deluded by any other endings, they're all fake, with malicious intent to deceive, or just motivated by excessive optimism if not by downright sentimentality. The only authentic ending is the one provided here: John and Mary die. John and Mary die. John and Mary die." -Happy Endings [Margeret Atwood]
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Damn Straight. You think we are so much different from Germans or anyone else in this world? Think again. Here's a disturbing study done on our own soil that shows that when a person is told that someone else will take the responsibility for your actions, humans will do almost anything, including shocking someone until they pass out, perhaps die. http://www.unc.edu/~pmeyer/General_Publications/Hitler.pdf - PDF
http://216.239.57.104/search?q=cache:WBXl1_3c54gJ:www.unc.edu/~pmeyer/General_Publications/Hitler.pdf+Philip+Meyer+If+Hitler+Asked+You+to+Electrocute+a+Stranger,+Would+You%3F&hl=en &ie=UTF-8 - HTML

So yeah, I think you should try and put yourself in their shoes.

I do not condone the killing of innocent civilians and the subsequent mutilation of their bodies. I do not condone mass genocide.
I believe that those people who put ordinary humans into situations of this kind are wrong and should be stopped, whether its a person told to turn on the showers so a room full of Jews will die, or told that if you crash a plane into a building no harm will come to your soul or your family...
It's disgusting.

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Daddy, why doesn't this magnet pick up this floppy disk?