Sick of Politics

Salanis wrote: I do think expressing a political viewpoint is a key roll of art. There is always a danger in making your political point *too* current though, and loosing the value of a message. The good messages continue past the moment.

That's what you say. I'm still griping about that stupid Picasso and his stinkin' Guernica. Damn liberal pacifist artsy-fartsy crap.

GlennS wrote: I was under the impression that the civil rights movement worked out pretty well.

Listen to Rev Wright, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, etc, lately? They don't seem to think so...

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,365627,00.html said:House Subcommittee Rejects Plan to Open U.S. Waters to More Oil Exploration WASHINGTON — A House subcommittee on Wednesday rejected a Republican-led effort to open up more U.S. coastal waters to oil exploration. Rep. John Peterson, R-Pa., spearheaded the effort. His proposal would open up U.S. waters between 50 and 200 miles off shore for drilling. The first 50 miles off shore would be left alone. But the plan failed Wednesday on a 9-6, party-line vote in a House appropriations subcommittee, which was considering the proposal as part of an Interior Department spending package. With record oil prices and gas prices projected to hover around the $4 mark for the rest of the summer, Republicans have ratcheted up their efforts to open up oil exploration along U.S. coastline. But the long-sought change has so far been unsuccessful. Most offshore oil production and exploration has been banned since a federal law passed in 1981. "We are kidding ourselves if we think we can drill our way out of these problems," House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., said during the bill mark-up session. For his part, Peterson said: "There is no valid reason for Congress to keep the country from energy resources it needs." "I'm disappointed. I did not expect a partisan vote today. I felt we had a chance of winning this. A lot of Democrats have been talking favorably about my amendment. They know we have to do something. But today was an absolute show of Pelosi power, it was dealt from the top down," Peterson said later, speaking with FOX News, adding he was open to other energy solutions, including wind and solar power. According to Peterson's office, the U.S. Minerals Management Service estimates that 86 billion barrels of oil and 420 trillion cubic feet of natural gas can be found along the U.S. outer continental shelf, the area affected by the ban. ....

We're in the ME because we need oil. We have plenty of our own oil. The Dems take the hit on not using our own oil and we have to stay in the ME because of it. Oh, and note that developing our own resources has been banned since 1981! This is insane.

Hess, have you ever heard of a "Non Sequitur"?

spitfirebill wrote: If I ever need another term paper, I'm going to hire or bribe Salanis to write it.

I'm not sure if I should take that as a compliment or insult... or something else. I will take your money though. I also accept payment in tires.

wcelliot wrote:

GlennS wrote: I was under the impression that the civil rights movement worked out pretty well.

Listen to Rev Wright, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, etc, lately? They don't seem to think so...

and i think some of those people will always find something to compain about.

Anyone who says that Bush isn't violating due process and the Constitution are fooling themselves. It's very simple. The rules were written vaguely so he could lock up, interrogate, kidnap aka bullsh it rendition, as many brown people as he wanted. Also some white ones he didn't like along the way.

Those people are shipped to Syria and Turkey not because they are our friends but because torture is more legal there than it is here. We legalize torture but we call it "playing on the slip and slide" or "waterboarding". We're great at naming things something you can say on CNN without the audience gasping in fear.

Then, because due process is violated, we ensnare innocent people. It's going to happen. Due process is there to help to strain out innocent people being convicted, held, or tortured. Short circuiting that puts us in the same place we are now. The same place we were when we put all the domestic Japanese immigrants in concentration camps in WWII while every German was able to walk free.

Bush is a small minded and bigoted man. The Republican party likes that. So do some of his advocates.

Movies and other entertainment media parrot this. Some of them better than others. Syriana tackled this issue as well as Three Kings. The mire that is the middle east. I think it came off well in those. Some others, not so well. Hollywood is concerned as McCarthy's era didn't treat them well. Bush has set up the same fear mongering menace that McCarthy fostered. Just like McCarthy he is demanding that we bend the rules because this cocaine sniffing frat boy, ex-alcoholic, supposedly born again, Good ol'boy from Texas knows better than I do what's right.

Yeah. As if. The idiot can't even talk right.

How is possible that a thread titled "Sick of Politics" has become a political discussion? Man you guys are hungry for a place to debate. Take that crap out of here, this thread was about how we want to get away from it. You can't even watch a sci-fi flick made from a book published in the 60s without it becoming about today's US politics. Then, even worse, you can't come onto GRM O-T and bitch about the abundance of political crap overwhelming the media without it becoming about today's US politics.

Cut the crap guys, I want to be able to enjoy a flick about the destruction of all humanity without modern US politics involved. Is that so much to ask?

Bryce

Except that, SF is notorious for being a vessel for examining potential ramifications of social and political issues, or placing significant issues against a different background that allows us to examine them through a different lens.

Think: George Orwell, R.A. Heinlein, Frank Herbert, Ray Bradbury, Philip K Dick, Orson Scott Card. Crichton is not known for being apolitical.

Salanis wrote: Except that, SF is notorious for being a vessel for examining potential ramifications of social and political issues, or placing significant issues against a different background that allows us to examine them through a different lens. Think: George Orwell, R.A. Heinlein, Frank Herbert, Ray Bradbury, Philip K Dick, Orson Scott Card. Crichton is not known for being apolitical.

Did you read the book? Watch the flick? The damn book is about humans destroying humanity, not politicians destroying humanity. It's definitely trying to make a point, but the point isn't that GWB is trying to keep you down.

Bryce

Recently re-watched Starship Troopers. Silly, half-watchable flick, with all the political sophistification one would expect from an angry teenager.

I'm just sick of all the Obamaniacs in D.C. We had cheering crowds blocking sidewalks a few months ago, for god only knows what reason. Kinda silly given he wasn't even in town, nor was it D.C.'s primary - weird. I'm not even really sure why they keep harping on about change or Iraq. Most people who come here for politics never would serve and life is pretty cushy, if a little more expensive than a decade ago, in this region.

I read Andromeda Strain a long time ago. I did not watch this movie. I seem to remember the climactic fear in the book was that the political/military machine was making a snap decision on how to control a crisis that they didn't understand, and their rash decisions needed to be averted by a single dude on the ground. Crichton's writing has been less about blatant politics and more about the fear of technology running amok without guidance of morality.

About the only thing the movie Starship Troopers has in common with the book were the names. Read the actual book. It's one of Heinlein's three best philosophical works (the other two are "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" and "Stranger in a Strange Land"). It is practically a treatise about the purpose and need for the military. It also presents an interesting model for a semi-plutocratic Republic wherein full citizenship is only granted to people who have voluntarily taken on roles that demonstrate a willingness to put the needs of the society over your own personal needs (such as military service).

Dr. Hess wrote: Re: Civil Rights Movement. Yeah, and how has that worked out for them?

Um... a 1/2 black dude is the Democratic presidential nominee--picture that happening back in 1963.

Dr. Hess wrote: We're in the ME because we need oil. We have plenty of our own oil. The Dems take the hit on not using our own oil and we have to stay in the ME because of it. Oh, and note that developing our own resources has been banned since 1981! This is insane.

My understanding is there's plenty of oil out there, it just can't be refined fast enough. Drilling more oil won't help the issue without building more refineries. Unless the government is going to force "Big Oil" to do that, all drilling will do is let them profit for a longer period of time.

wcelliot wrote:

GlennS wrote: I was under the impression that the civil rights movement worked out pretty well.

Listen to Rev Wright, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, etc, lately? They don't seem to think so...

You can't be serious.

I'm pretty serious but I don't think they are....

Did you read the book? Watch the flick? The damn book is about humans destroying humanity, not politicians destroying humanity.

Ummmm, NO, the book is not about humans destroying humanity. It's about an unknown infection agent from SPACE destroying humanity, and humans are unable to stop the infection despite the best scientists and doctors trying to do so.

That's why it's called The Andromeda Strain.

Duke wrote:

Did you read the book? Watch the flick? The damn book is about humans destroying humanity, not politicians destroying humanity.

Ummmm, NO, the book is not about humans destroying humanity. It's about an unknown infection agent from SPACE destroying humanity, and humans are unable to stop the infection despite the best scientists and doctors trying to do so. That's why it's called The Andromeda Strain.

Towards the end though, wasn't the military wanting to nuke the lab to eradicate the virus, and one buy had to stop it because they realized the radiation would make the virus thrive, and the explosion would propagate it?

To the kind Dr...

We really need to put this terrorsim thing into perspective.

Counting the ones lost in the wars, how many lives have been lost to terrorists in the past, say 10 years? Does 10,000 Americans sound fair? 4000 in Iraq, 1000 in Afganistan, 3000 for 9/11, and just for error- 2000 more?

So, 10,000 American lives lost- terrible, right? Over 10 years. Right?

We loose OVER 40,000 Americans in driving accidents EVERY YEAR. So over that 10 year time span, 400,000 Americans lost their lives.

Sounds like we need a "War on Car Accidents" if we are basing all of this on American lives. Or at least send drunk drivers to Gitmo, since they are the equivallent to holding an RPG and just pointing it....

According to the CDC, over 600,000 Americans lost their lives to heart disease in 2005. Should we have a "War on Heart Disease"? Diabetes lost 75,000 Americans- "War on Sugar"? Should we send sugar beet farmers to Gitmo?

I'm not trying to lessen the losses of 10,000 Americans due to Terrorism or the War on Terrorism, as that loss is truly horrible. But to subscribe to taking away rights based on the simple phrase "All Men Are Created Equal" in the name of saving American lives.... You could do better than that.

Eric

That doesn't mean the book was about humans destroying humanity. It was about a bug from space. The movie was a twisted half version about humans setting up the lab to destroy humanity, the opposite of the book which had the lab set up for the purpose it was used for: In case a bug from outer space came in. When the movie was made, there was, as now, a very anti-American military Hollywood slant on everything.

And Gamby, Barak Hussain Obama is half European and half African, raised by the European side of his family that he threw under the bus to try to save Rev what's-his-face, abandonded by the African side of his family. Are you going by that old racist standard of someone 1/16 black is black or some such BS?

gamby wrote: Um... a 1/2 black dude is the Democratic presidential nominee--picture that happening back in 1963.

Gamby stated that Obama was 1/2 black. And I believe the question was, could a man of his lineage have become a presidential candidate before the Civil Rights Movement.

And if we go back to your earlier question about when has not shooting gotten an aggressive force to back down, I have another better example: India. Brits ain't there anymore. I'd have to say Ghandi's tactics worked pretty well.

Dr. Hess wrote: When the movie was made, there was, as now, a very anti-American military Hollywood slant on everything.

In the '70's I would agree that Hollywood had an aggressive anti-military stance.

As of now I see it more as an anti-current government stance. That includes that idiot from Texas as well as the current do-nothing Democrat led congress.

I see a very pro-military stance in some media. A pro stance stating "These military folks are following orders that they have no choice in. We blame the politicians sending them to die for false reasons"

I don't mean this as a blanket statement. There are some movies that are most def'ly anti-military. The majority I see move past blaming the armed forces for current wars. Most are smart enough to realize it's a rich man's war and a poor man's fight.

Freaking politicians. Hiding themselves away. I mean, they only started the war. They shouldn't have to go out to fight and die. That's a better job to leave for the poor.

OH LORD YEAH!

Salanis, pointing to one or two successful people post civil rights movement is not the point. I know a black neurosurgeon who is quite successful, one of the brightest people I've ever worked with and who I respect a great deal. Pointing to him or BHO and saying "See, black people are much better off today" is not an accurate statement. If you wish to really look at it the results, here they are: Today, a person of color can eat at any restaurant that they can afford. They also don't have to sit in the back of the bus. That's it. 50 years of "movement" and that's the net result. I guess the restaurant industry is happy with that outcome, but in general, I would say that the black population today is no better off than before. Poverty is probably worse today, something like 10-15 million black babies have been murdered in the name of "freedom," the black family structure was totally wiped out, the public education system they are forced to go to is completely useless, at one point, black children were being bussed from one black school to another black school, etc. I would not call that a success. I would call it a massive failure.

There was a lot more to Ghandi than what was in the movie, too.

Duke wrote:

Did you read the book? Watch the flick? The damn book is about humans destroying humanity, not politicians destroying humanity.

Ummmm, NO, the book is not about humans destroying humanity. It's about an unknown infection agent from SPACE destroying humanity, and humans are unable to stop the infection despite the best scientists and doctors trying to do so. That's why it's called The Andromeda Strain.

So...how did the "unknown infection agent from SPACE" get to earth? In a capsule made (by humans) specifically for catching stuff to turn into bio-weapons and bring it back to earth. And then once the thing is spreading it was going to be nuked (by the humans), which would just make the problem worse, rather than using the scientific method to figure the thing out and beat it with science rather than brute force. This is all humans doing the dirty work, homeland security and friends weren't the cause of this. One could argue that the gubment was behind it even in the original book, but even then it doesn't have to be so specific as the TV movie, pointing out Homeland Security a few dozen times. I thought one of the big themes was that humans brought this problem on, it didn't just happen.

Bryce

I think race is just an easy thing to point to for social ills. I think basic socioeconomic status is much more a cause of those issues.

It takes a lot of energy and will to move up in socioeconomic status. Few do it. Many blacks and other minorities just start off with the handycap of coming from a lower class that it is difficult to rise out of. There is not a formal institution of racism that is preventing people from bettering themselves purely based on the color of their skin.

Would you think anything of having a black college professor teaching white students? Or a black manager supervising white workers? I wouldn't. How about a black and white couple marrying?

On that note, today is also the anniversary for the first legal interracial marriage in this country.

And my point with Ghandi is that you don't need to be armed to resist effectively. I believe you made a statement about how that's "never successful" or how "no one has done it" or something like that.