Bulletin Board of Bad Behavior

Also... I HIGHLY respect Johnny Depp. Remember this is the kid who quit 21 Jumpstreet because the show glorified narks and everyone on the set was putting stuff up their nose.

I feel sorry for his wife after he made Edward Scissorhands.

"Somehow I doubt ... whatever the case ... that Bush cares about his poll ratings in Berlin, Paris, Rome, or Lisbon."

Yeah right Myke, he probably doesn't care, but maybe he should, because he is going back to the hated UN and asking all them fern gubments to help him with his nasty $1 billion per week Iraq habit.

The fact of the matter is that governments in Berlin and Paris elected to not support the war because they knew it would be immensely unpopular at home. Governments in Rome and Madrid elected to support the war despite its domestic unpopularity because they knew they would get special ass-kissing treatment from the US, and would have to send but zero soldiers into combat.

Your government, in contrast, started a stupid, useless and criminal war because it had the support of millions of people like you. that, pal, is the reason why the majority worldwide dislikes the US right now -- not all the people, but the government and those like you who support it. perhaps you yourself should stop whining and deal with it.

The vast majority of people in the USA support the Gulf War 2 or whatever we're calling it this week. These are the same people who thought Vietnam was a mistake.

Why was Vietnam a mistake you ask them?

Not because we killed millions of innocents to save hundreds of dictators... but because we were too soft on them and that's [why] we lost.

I wanted so badly to insert the word "why" in your last sentence....

Sloth so loves to exaggerate. Geez ... the US "... killed millions of innocents to save hundreds of dictators ...". C'mon, man. Back that up! But alas ... you can't. Our government is not perfect. Nor is any other. But damn ...

I clicked on the link I believe Brett provided. It's a follow-up article to the Depp thing. He came out shortly after his comments hit the media and was quoted to then say " the inaccurate and out of context misquote was virulently spreading in the news. Taken in context, what I was saying was that, compared to Europe, America is a young country and we are still growing as a nation. It is a shame that a metaphor I used was taken so radically out of context and slung about irresponsibly by the news media. There was no anti-American sentiment. It fact, it was just the opposite. I am an American. I love my country and have great hopes for it. It is for this reason that I speak candidly and sometimes critically about it. I have benefitted greatly from the freedom that exists in my country and for this I am eternally grateful."

I have no problem with that. It's almost exactly the point I've tried to make over and over. Criticize all you want. Everyone has that right. But why turn it into a hate fest? I've criticized this and other countries before but you've never heard me taking severely personal pot shots at Gerhard Shroeder or Jacque Chirac. They are not Germany and France. They are simply their current leaders.

When having a debate or difference of opinion, why must it always turn into a serious name calling session around here? Also, if you're going to be virulent in your opinions, why exaggerate to the point where your opinion seems completely out there. For instance, to quote Sloth, who, to me, seems always to really stretch things ... "[the U.S. government] which committed genocide on the native population of 20 million, enslaved people from Africa, developed and tested nuclear weapons on a live population of "japs" inclduing woman and children, and prizes cheap oil above its own children's lives." Yes, genocide was committed on naitive americans. I am very cognizant of that considering my grandmother is naitve Cherokee. Yes, slaverly was a horrible thing. Yes, dropping the a-bomb was devastating to civilians. All occurred at least 60 years ago. Why do you quote such things to back up your hatred of the U.S.? Should I bring up the Kaiser Wilhelm and Hitler every time Germany does something I don't like? Talk about Stalin whenever the Russians curb civil rights? Looking at things threw such a narrow scope simply does nothing to validate your opinions. And please do remember that they are just opinions. We all have them. Doesn't make any of them facts in the Encyclopedia Brittannica.

Martino ... I don't whine about not being like or my government not being liked. About that I don't much care. If I'm ever to be accused of whining around here it would be about the true imbalance of opinions and how dissenting opinions are looked upon. I was under the initial impression that Pax was all about the free exchange of ideas with diversity of thought and personalities. Was I wrong? It seems sometimes in actuality that if you do not fit into the get-on-the-bus mold that is advocated, you're really shunned to the point you fade off of the board. It's like everyone really, in essence, to be accepted around here must like the same sorts of music, booze, lifestyle, books and have the same political views and ideologies. Otherwise ... it's insults left and right.

I disagree with people alot where I live and I don't tow the line here either. Does that make me a bad person? I certainly don't think so. I'm not going to dump on an entire nation whether it be here or in Europe just because I don't like the current administration no more than I'm going to hate on someone just because they are more liberal and conservative than myself. Why do some people take that tact around here?

If Pax is really about diversity in all aspects of the word and if everyone doesn't want things to get 'dull as dishwater' ... lighten up! Agree to disagree! Accept others even if they don't agree with you and kiss your ass! Then go have a beer.

myke

1. The Vietnam War cost the United States 58,000 lives and 350,000 casualties. It also resulted in between one and two million Vietnamese deaths. The amount of casualties is impossible to estimate.
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/modules/vietnam/index.cfm

From Twentieth Century Atlas...

Vietnam War: Most historians of the Second Indochina War concern themselves primarily with the American Phase of the conflict, 1965-73; however, many do not specify whether their estimated death tolls cover only this phase of the war or the whole thing. An asterisk(*) indicates that the number seems to cover the entire conflict rather than just the American Phase, but check the "Sources" section to see exactly which years are covered by each authority:
South Vietnam military: 185,000 to 225,000 (Britannica) or 220,357 (Lewy) or 223,748 (Summers; also 3 April 1995 AP) or 224,000 (Kutler, Olson) or 250,000 (Clodfelter, Grenville*) or 254,257 (Wallechinsky*) or 650,000 (Small & Singer) [MEDIAN: 224,000]
North Vietnamese military and Viet Cong: 500,000 (S&S) or 660,000 (Olson) or 666,000 (Lewy, with the possibility that as many as 222,000 (1/3) of these were actually SVN civilians mistaken for VC) or 666,000 (Summers) or 700,000-1,000,000 (Wallechinsky*) or 900,000 (Britannica; Grenville*) or 1,000,000 (Clodfelter) or 1,100,000 (Tucker*, Official VN* [1954-75]) [MEDIAN: ca. 875,000]
South Vietnamese civilians: 250,000 (Olson) or 287,000 (Clodfelter = 247,600 war deaths + 38,954 assassinated by NLF) or 300,000 (Kutler; Summers) or 340,000 (Lewy's estimate, with the possibility that an additional 222,000 counted as VC (above) belong in this category) or 430,000 (The Sen. E. Kennedy Commission, according to Lewy, Olson) or 522,000 (Wallechinsky*) or 1,000,000 (Britannica [in both North and South]; Eckhardt; Grenville*) or 2,000,000 (Tucker*, Official VN* [N&S, 1954-75],) [MEDIAN: ca. 476,000]
North Vietnamese civilians: 65,000 (Kutler, Lewy, Olson, Summers, Wallechinsky) by American bombing.
USA: 58,000 (Britannica) or 58,153 (Wallechinsky*) or 58,159 (Kutler) or 47,244 KIA + 10,446 other = 57,690 (Olson, Summers, 1961-80) or 56,146 (Lewy: 46,498 KIA + 10,388 other + 719 MIA) or 56,000 (S&S)
South Korea: 4,407 (Lewy, Olson, Summers); 4,687 (Wallechinsky); 5,000 (S&S)
Philippines: 1,000 (S&S)
Thailand: 351 (Lewy, Olson, Summers, Wallechinsky); 1,000 (S&S)
Australia: 469 (Lewy, Summers, Olson [w/NZ]); 492 (S&S); 494 (Wallechinsky); 520 (AWM)
TOTAL: 1,216,000 (military only, S&S) or 1,312,000 (Summers) or 1,353,000 (Lewy) or 1,520,453 (WHPSI: S. Vietnamese only, 1965-75) or 1,637,000 (Olson) or 1,721,000 (Kutler) or 1,749,000 (Wallechinsky*) or 1,800,000 (B&J, 1960-75) or 2,058,000 (Eckhardt) or 2,163,000 (Britannica) or 2,500,000 (Grenville*) or 3,000,000 (1965-75, Chomsky* (1987)) or >3,100,000 (Tucker*; Official VN*)
[MEDIAN of TOTALS: ca. 1,900,000] or [TOTAL of MEDIANS: ca. 1,710,000]

What's your point? Is there anything in that post that informed anyone here of something that wasn't already known? You quoted casulty figures from a quagmire of a war that ended over 30 years ago when most of us were really young and some here weren't yet born. You hate the U.S. as a nation. You especially hate the current administration. Do you have anything new or original to add at all? Seriously. I could open up a book and quote all kinds of figures making a country seem whatever way I wanted it to ... good or bad. Doesn't mean anything though. Live in the here and now. Be objective. Realize that no republic's leaders make that country. The US has stepped in potholes in it's young history. Granted. But so has virtually every other nation on the planet (except maybe Canada?). I could quote all kinds of wonderful things that have happened here as well. It's all balanced. We are neither reallyall good or all bad ... but it could be alot worse. Go live in North Korea. So ... why do you go on and on about the same thing without doing anything about it? If you hated your wife, you'd divorce her, right? See the analogy??

myke

Huh?

The point is... you accused me of exaggeration and the numbers prove me right. Everyone seems to estimate between 1 and 3 million dead just from the North Vietnamese. It's hard to feel sorry for the American dead... just like it's hard to feel sorry for the dead Nazis who invaded France, Poland, etc. However since I am a "liberal" I can see that these poor stupid kids were duped by older evil men into thinking they were killing people for Christ or glory or for something worthwile. Most soldiers become soldiers out of economic necessity and then get brainwashed into thoughtless killing machines.

I think an apology is in order here... if not to me than to the 1.5 million innocents who died in rice paddies by the naive US stormtroopers of death. Your ignorance of the facts is astounding and after I proved the numbers you say that "we weren't even born yet". That is worse than Lyotard's revisionism.

And now... well we're sure as hell born now... and the same old shit is going on. Americans killing people they don't understand for Christ. And yes... the people are fighting back... which used to make them "gooks" and now makes them "terrorists". Makes me sick. I am such a coward. I should go over there and try to help them. I like beer and pizza and breathing too much.

As for Canada... they gave us Brian Adams which has to equal something of an international atrocity. I couldn't listen to Ryan Adams for a whole year because of the similarity of the names. Take that you hosers up there who feel so smug in comparisons to us. Name five good Canadian rock bands.

McCutcheon... why don't you put Jonny on the Bus? I spent my summer making Pax Acidus interactive and the only one who has tried it is good old Marky... and even he posted Mickey Mouse.

Sloth ... you DID exaggerate. You said that the US has killed millions of innocents to prop up "hundreds of dictators". The only thing you could put up as proof are statistics from the Vietnam war which wasn't even part of the discussion. Everyone knows that was a horrible event. No one is saying otherwise. So was the slaughter of the Tutsis by the Hutu majority in Rwanda just a few years ago, along with forced female circumcision in much of northern Africa, the burial of a woman up to her neck and subsequent stoning to death for having a baby out of wedlock .... etc etc ETC. You simply are of a one track mind. Not being a soilder doesn't make you a coward. Having no sympathy for soilders that died in a political conflict they had no control over ... I don't know what to say about that.

You have not proved anything right by quoting what you did. I can bring forth as many good things the US has done as you can bad. Same for France, Germany, or wherever. .... Your opinions don't come across as less substantial to me because of your lableing yourself a "liberal" especially considering how people around here call me that. Your opinions are often laughable because you often spout them in a one-sided juvenile manner. You call names. Curse people you don't really know. State the obvious. All of your views boil down to one thing - you hate your country and wish you were somewhere else. Fine, then get off of your ass and move. Simple solution.

Whenever I get into a debate on whatever subject, I try to be well informed, reasonable, and balanced when forming my own points of view. Sloth, you are unable to do that. You look at things from a harsh ideological slant in a comparable manner to Rush Limbaugh on the right. That makes your opinions predictable to the point when one asks 'why bother?'. It doesn't matter what is going on in this country, you'll find some reason to hate it. No matter what good happens, you'll look at the bad. Whereas if France suddenly became a conservative theocracy, you'd probably convert.

You're going to be a very bitter senior citizen.

myke

PS - If Martino does something that pisses me off, should I hate all Germans? If Julien calls me a nasty name, should I then hate all of the French? Russia has did some nasty things in Chechnya ... should I now despise all Russians? And what about Slobodan Milosovic ... he certainly comitted Genocide (among other things) ... and the Serbs did help ignite the first world war ... should we all rise up in our derision of all Serbs? I think not. I could continue pointing out examples to try to back up what I'm trying to get across, but I doubt it'd do any good. You're blinded by a cool hatred that I can't fathom. Like I said, doesn't really matter what I say or what the US does or how good or bad the Iraq situation finally ends up, you'll look at the negative regardless. You know nothing else when it comes to the US. Funny, though, how you don't do the same when looking at other nations who have had some seriously bad things happen at the hands of their governments as well.

It'd be nice to actually see objectivity here more often ... without prejudgement. Good & Bad everywhere.

in my first post, i wasn't talking about johnny depp

"Why was Vietnam a mistake you ask them?

Not because we killed millions of innocents to save hundreds of dictators... but because we were too soft on them and that's [why] we lost."

I am going to be a very bitter senior citizen if everyone has the reading comrehension of Myke.