Random Thoughts (Political Edition)

I wish NATO protesters could get a life.
 
What have they done now?
 
They're making the morning commute to work for many people very difficult as they're making a lot of road and freeway closures. I just don't get their cause.
 
I don't get the causes of many people who march for something.

Get over it. They have a right to protest something which they find troubling, and while I for one believe NATO along with the EU (under different names) kept the peace in Europe for a generation. NATO formalized American sentiment and comitment to defending western Europe from the Soviet Union. Between 1948 and 1998, NATO never went to war, either, so during the Cold War, NATO was not an agressor.

There was, of course, the issue of who were members. A lot would complain about Turkey being a member state (on moral grounds, I'd do that even today), the same goes from Greece under the Junta, not to mention Portugal. There was also the question of nations becoming nuclear targets due to membership in NATO, and of course, general anti-imperialist sentiments against the US during and in the aftermath of the Vietnam war.

In the post Cold War world, NATO has changed a lot from the organization it was, and has participated in two wars, even Kosovo was controversial, Afghanistan was actually less formally problematic regarding the NATO charter, but has become rather controversial afterwards.

So, in short, I see several good, solid reasons to oppose NATO. I do not share them (perhaps with the exception of Turkey, Turkey has so many human rights issues it's irritating), but I do understand them.

So they get to march. So does the Tea Party (I have far more difficulty understanding the Tea Party, most of their causes are either looney, irrational, based on lies and misunderstandings or just plain impossible or improbable), and so should they. It's the price we pay for freedom of speech, and it is entirely worth paying.

Who are you to tell them to get a life? They're taking time out to march for something they care about. They're participating in one of the supreme aspects of a great democracy, free speech.

I'd say they're showing every sign of being vigerously alive, thus having a life.

Wether or not their case is a consignment of geriatric shoe makers is a different matter all together.
 
I will bet that a majority of them are students or are individuals who don't have a job and are just protesting for the sake of protesting. We've seen their demonstrations over and over and over, they're all the same; violence, destruction of property, mindless chants, etc. and after everything is said and done, what gets accomplished?

Seriously? Where is the list of accomplishments from NATO or G8 protesters? Do they even have any goals to begin with?
 
This is much like the Occupy Wall Street protests. You have a number of young hippies who believe that the government should be based on a welfare state that provides for them. Instead of investing their time in finding jobs, they decide to go on these meaningless protests and disrupt the rest of us who are trying to live our lives.
 
Wizegui said:
This is much like the Occupy Wall Street protests. You have a number of young hippies who believe that the government should be based on a welfare state that provides for them. Instead of investing their time in finding jobs, they decide to go on these meaningless protests and disrupt the rest of us who are trying to live our lives.
Click to expand...

Pretty much. Meanwhile they destroy and deface things that don't belong to them so that some poor soul(s) will come and clean up after them.
 
Wizegui said:
This is much like the Occupy Wall Street protests. You have a number of young hippies who believe that the government should be based on a welfare state that provides for them.
Click to expand...
yeah because eliminating corporate rights as people, repeal the patriot act, stop the ridiculous amount of money companies give to political candidates, proper health care reform(not some watered down crap bill), education reform, and try to bridge the income inequality gab that has been getting bigger and bigger every year. What in that sounds like welfare state to me it sounds reasonable.

As for the protestors being unemployed fact of the matter is most OWS protestors have jobs http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2011/11/most-%E2%80%9Coccupy-wall-street%E2%80%9D-protesters-have-jobs/

As for violence from what I have seen it has mostly been police being violent towards the protestors (mace people sitting on the sidewalk in California , etc..) granted there was quite a bit of violence in Oakland but then again when isn't there?. if you want real violence and property destruction go look at the London riots not these protests.

(just to make it clear, I have no attended any occupy protests, but I will probably go down to the NATO protest to take some pictures.)
 
Last edited:
Wizegui said:
This is much like the Occupy Wall Street protests. You have a number of young hippies who believe that the government should be based on a welfare state that provides for them. Instead of investing their time in finding jobs, they decide to go on these meaningless protests and disrupt the rest of us who are trying to live our lives.
Click to expand...

Cellos88GT said:
Pretty much. Meanwhile they destroy and deface things that don't belong to them so that some poor soul(s) will come and clean up after them.
Click to expand...


You two need to stop watching Faux news entertainment. You have just about recited every stigma the various right wing media have tried to apply to OWS and every other protest ever. Maybe you really believe that it is all "young hippies" or the umemployeed, but if you had looked at any other source of information about the OWS events you would know different. Hell, it took me 30 seconds to find this site that has pics of old people in the crowds too.

But even if it were just them young hippies and unemployeed you had such a problem with. So what. The financial mess has helped destroy the economy. The unemployment rate is still around 8% and the people that should be retiring can't because their 401Ks were obliterated in the mess. So that has combined to make a storm that limits options and opportunities for those that want to work.

Occupy-Wall-Street-signs-03.jpg


actlikeamericans-6857.jpg
 
GRtak said:
You two need to stop watching Faux news entertainment. You have just about recited every stigma the various right wing media have tried to apply to OWS and every other protest ever. Maybe you really believe that it is all "young hippies" or the umemployeed, but if you had looked at any other source of information about the OWS events you would know different. Hell, it took me 30 seconds to find this site that has pics of old people in the crowds too.

But even if it were just them young hippies and unemployeed you had such a problem with. So what. The financial mess has helped destroy the economy. The unemployment rate is still around 8% and the people that should be retiring can't because their 401Ks were obliterated in the mess. So that has combined to make a storm that limits options and opportunities for those that want to work.
Click to expand...

I do not watch any fox news, never have and never will. I don't watch CNN or MSNBC for that matter either. Also I never once mentioned OWS protesters, I was talking about NATO/G8 protesters, I was in Italy when this one happened: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/27th_G8_summit#Protests and I remember it very clearly. Tell me one thing, what did the protesters accomplish during that episode?
 
The entity that they are protesting against are afraid of what they stand for. And they should be. Despite threatening them with what are all but stormtroopers and imprisonment, they can't make them go away.
 
GRtak said:
The entity that they are protesting against are afraid of what they stand for. And they should be. Despite threatening them with what are all but stormtroopers and imprisonment, they can't make them go away.
Click to expand...

Just remember who voted those people into office.
 
I am watching a bit on the events to take place in Chicago. They have 12,000 cops stormtroopers (they showed them dressed for the part) for this event alone... Paranoid much?
 
Cellos88GT said:
I will bet that a majority of them are students or are individuals who don't have a job and are just protesting for the sake of protesting. We've seen their demonstrations over and over and over, they're all the same; violence, destruction of property, mindless chants, etc. and after everything is said and done, what gets accomplished?

Seriously? Where is the list of accomplishments from NATO or G8 protesters? Do they even have any goals to begin with?
Click to expand...
First, let's get this perfectly clear, being a student is not the same as being unemployed. Most, if not almost every normal student have part time jobs. Low end jobs, paying peanuts for doing something unpleasant. Those who haven't are either the exception, or they want one. That's just the nature of the modern society. In days of yore, most students came from the few families that could afford to send them to Harvard or whatever other university or college was available, instead of keeping them on the farm milking cows and brewing beer. These days, most families, at least in the middle class, will be able to do so, or to offer enough support to finance a place at some college. Higher education is, at the very least, not limited to an elite class of person as was often the case previously in history. But most of those families can't afford to fund the college tuition, somewhere to live for their son and daughter, all their food, the social things students do (drinking, cinemas, hobbies), and still fund every other need of their children.

So the students work. It's a fact of modern life.

Wether or not they should work is a different question. How do you make good soldiers? By training. How do you provide the best possible training? By focusing all possible energy on the real needs of the soldier to become effective with his weapons in combat.

Why in God's name do we think students are different? Would it make sense to have soldiers do eight hour shifts at K-mart three times a week, or would that hamper the effectiveness of their training? The answer is, of course, obvious. Just getting that little tidbit out of my system.

What gets accomplished? I don't know if you remember this, but there has been many times in the history of the modern and the pre-modern world where people have risen up to tell the government or the establishment what they believe to be right. I am quite sure most of those events have led to few, if any, changes. Most times, it doesn't work.

But when the only thing you can do to fulfill your moral obligation to speak your mind is to speak your mind, then you speak your mind. That's a highly honorable act, and I will not let you spout your generalisations and prejudices stand unopposed.

Wizegui said:
This is much like the Occupy Wall Street protests. You have a number of young hippies who believe that the government should be based on a welfare state that provides for them. Instead of investing their time in finding jobs, they decide to go on these meaningless protests and disrupt the rest of us who are trying to live our lives.
Click to expand...
As already pointed out by my honorable debatant above this post, that's utter rubbish. Most OWS protesters are decent, hard working people, just as upstanding and valuable to society as other large groups of protesters, even as valuable as protesters that are conservative.

Tea Party rallies haven't disrupted anyone, eh? Bullshit. In terms of disrupting traffic and transportation, the wars on terror and drugs have probably done more damage than all protests in the US since 1900, without anything to show for it.

Cellos88GT said:
Pretty much. Meanwhile they destroy and deface things that don't belong to them so that some poor soul(s) will come and clean up after them.
Click to expand...
Yeah, let's generalise some more. Let's talk about decent people who care about stuff like they're a bunch of drunk idiots trying to win a litteral pissing contest.

Cellos88GT said:
I do not watch any fox news, never have and never will. I don't watch CNN or MSNBC for that matter either. Also I never once mentioned OWS protesters, I was talking about NATO/G8 protesters, I was in Italy when this one happened: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/27th_G8_summit#Protests and I remember it very clearly. Tell me one thing, what did the protesters accomplish during that episode?
Click to expand...
I do remember one thing about that G8. The Italian police decided to go on television talking about how many body bags they'd bought. That sets the tone. We had some large "evil" summit in Oslo some years ago, one of those that should have drawn thousands of anarchists hellbent on fucking up everybody's day.

And they did come. But our cops did something clever. They didn't get out in visible force with riot gear trying to look scary. They stood there in normal uniforms smiling as the protesters marched. Some idiots in black with balaclavas tried to stirr up trouble, but as the mass of protesters saw the police as friendly and non-threatening, they didn't get carried away by it, but instead used their own mass to contain and control the idiots. There was some trouble, but it was miniscule.

Had the need arisen, the police could have trippeled their numbers in a matter of a minute, riot gear and all.

Anyhoo, I digress. The G8 protesters didn't accomplish anything. Partly because there's a hard block of very stupid young idiots in Europe who believe in direct action. They're as moronic as all such pipsquits tend to be. And they fuck it up for the normal, peaceful protesters, for the people who own shops and for everybody.

Do you really think the average G8 protester would piss on the black block if they were on fire? You can't believe that, you're not that stupid.

GRtak said:
I am watching a bit on the events to take place in Chicago. They have 12,000 cops stormtroopers (they showed them dressed for the part) for this event alone... Paranoid much?
Click to expand...
Chicago has moronic history when it comes to public order policing, so I'm not holding my breath.
 
I remember the 1970s where we were told that by 2000 we would have so much leisure time the problem would be to fill it all.

I do not think that the people saying that had in mind loads of people on the dole, or working ridiculous hours with no advancement or pay rise for year after year now did they?

Just as in a similar way people who implemented the action on drugs (in this country at least) has caused 70% of crime to be drug related and the people who want drugs can obtain them very easily thought that would happen, or did they (Cobol74 goes into conspiracy theory mode)?

Funny how things turn out.

/Edit It has been my observation that Governments do not do complicated very well. If the policy is only as well thought out as a 5 yo could manage then they are happy. Rarely you get stuff a 9 yo understands but any older than that they throw their hands up and say - too difficult. Or as it was once any Minister has three baskets for the paper work on his/her desk, in, out and too difficult.
 
Last edited:
Don't forget that the Drug War has also caused other crimes to get ignored and that has made things more dangerous for us all.
 
nomix said:
First, let's get this perfectly clear, being a student is not the same as being unemployed. Most, if not almost every normal student have part time jobs. Low end jobs, paying peanuts for doing something unpleasant. Those who haven't are either the exception, or they want one. That's just the nature of the modern society. In days of yore, most students came from the few families that could afford to send them to Harvard or whatever other university or college was available, instead of keeping them on the farm milking cows and brewing beer. These days, most families, at least in the middle class, will be able to do so, or to offer enough support to finance a place at some college. Higher education is, at the very least, not limited to an elite class of person as was often the case previously in history. But most of those families can't afford to fund the college tuition, somewhere to live for their son and daughter, all their food, the social things students do (drinking, cinemas, hobbies), and still fund every other need of their children.

So the students work. It's a fact of modern life.

Wether or not they should work is a different question. How do you make good soldiers? By training. How do you provide the best possible training? By focusing all possible energy on the real needs of the soldier to become effective with his weapons in combat.

Why in God's name do we think students are different? Would it make sense to have soldiers do eight hour shifts at K-mart three times a week, or would that hamper the effectiveness of their training? The answer is, of course, obvious. Just getting that little tidbit out of my system.

What gets accomplished? I don't know if you remember this, but there has been many times in the history of the modern and the pre-modern world where people have risen up to tell the government or the establishment what they believe to be right. I am quite sure most of those events have led to few, if any, changes. Most times, it doesn't work.

But when the only thing you can do to fulfill your moral obligation to speak your mind is to speak your mind, then you speak your mind. That's a highly honorable act, and I will not let you spout your generalisations and prejudices stand unopposed.


As already pointed out by my honorable debatant above this post, that's utter rubbish. Most OWS protesters are decent, hard working people, just as upstanding and valuable to society as other large groups of protesters, even as valuable as protesters that are conservative.

Tea Party rallies haven't disrupted anyone, eh? Bullshit. In terms of disrupting traffic and transportation, the wars on terror and drugs have probably done more damage than all protests in the US since 1900, without anything to show for it.


Yeah, let's generalise some more. Let's talk about decent people who care about stuff like they're a bunch of drunk idiots trying to win a litteral pissing contest.


I do remember one thing about that G8. The Italian police decided to go on television talking about how many body bags they'd bought. That sets the tone. We had some large "evil" summit in Oslo some years ago, one of those that should have drawn thousands of anarchists hellbent on fucking up everybody's day.

And they did come. But our cops did something clever. They didn't get out in visible force with riot gear trying to look scary. They stood there in normal uniforms smiling as the protesters marched. Some idiots in black with balaclavas tried to stirr up trouble, but as the mass of protesters saw the police as friendly and non-threatening, they didn't get carried away by it, but instead used their own mass to contain and control the idiots. There was some trouble, but it was miniscule.

Had the need arisen, the police could have trippeled their numbers in a matter of a minute, riot gear and all.

Anyhoo, I digress. The G8 protesters didn't accomplish anything. Partly because there's a hard block of very stupid young idiots in Europe who believe in direct action. They're as moronic as all such pipsquits tend to be. And they fuck it up for the normal, peaceful protesters, for the people who own shops and for everybody.

Do you really think the average G8 protester would piss on the black block if they were on fire? You can't believe that, you're not that stupid.


Chicago has moronic history when it comes to public order policing, so I'm not holding my breath.
Click to expand...

Students for the most part are young an idealistic, their beliefs do not adhere well to the real world due to its complexity.

As for the riot gear argument, I agree but that has nothing to do with the discussion at hand.

If the protests were peaceful there wouldn't be any issue but history has shown that protests can go from peaceful to violence rather quick.
 
GRtak said:
You two need to stop watching Faux news entertainment. You have just about recited every stigma the various right wing media have tried to apply to OWS and every other protest ever. Maybe you really believe that it is all "young hippies" or the umemployeed, but if you had looked at any other source of information about the OWS events you would know different. Hell, it took me 30 seconds to find this site that has pics of old people in the crowds too.

But even if it were just them young hippies and unemployeed you had such a problem with. So what. The financial mess has helped destroy the economy. The unemployment rate is still around 8% and the people that should be retiring can't because their 401Ks were obliterated in the mess. So that has combined to make a storm that limits options and opportunities for those that want to work.
Click to expand...

Just because I have conservative views does NOT mean that I watch Fox News. Standing around and protesting all day is probably not as productive as going about and actually trying to find a real job, as tough as it may be. While I will agree that I was stereotyping when I was generalizing OWS protestersto be hippies, stereotypes exist for a reason.
 
It's part of the human development, that you leave home, start your own life, develop your own opinions, get your own experiences, make your own mistakes, socialize with like-minded people, take a stand, fight for your convictions and act out some stupid stuff, before you finally mature into a normal, independent person.
Sure, it might lead to dead ends and there are errors on the way but it's the normal way a life goes and with most people it leads to them becoming normal, mature and reasonable in the end.

At least that is how it goes in the enlightened parts of the world.

With some forum members, though, I have the strong feeling, that they're still living at home, recieving pocket money while being in their mid twenties and are being breast-fed the opinions and views of their conservative parents and their society, rather than going out into the world, explore it and develop their own views. That's why they sound like a rambling 80-year-old, who hasn't left his home for decades, instead of a young twen with his life still in front of him.
 
Last edited:
Wizegui said:
Just because I have conservative views does NOT mean that I watch Fox News. Standing around and protesting all day is probably not as productive as going about and actually trying to find a real job, as tough as it may be. While I will agree that I was stereotyping when I was generalizing OWS protestersto be hippies, stereotypes exist for a reason.
Click to expand...

You are right, stereotypes do exist for a reason. Some narrow minded individual keeps repeating them over and over again. You are also asumming that there are not causes that are worth the efforts of protests.



Oh, one more thing. Protesting can be hard work. You should try it sometime.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top