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January low political content thread January low political content thread

01-12-2010 , 11:32 AM
Hint: It is completely biased, but under the guise of telling the truth against "Western propaganda"

P.S. Any bombing anywhere in the world is reportedly done by RAW ( Indian Intelligence), the CIA, Mossad and occasionally Blackwater if your in Pakistan and the CIA,MI5, Mossad and Blackwater if your in the Middle East. You can bet on it
01-12-2010 , 11:37 AM
they had me at hello
01-12-2010 , 12:36 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by yellowbastard
Very good speech by a former US soldier who is ashamed of what he did to people in Iraq.
Goes a little lefty at the end, but yeah, great speech.
01-12-2010 , 12:49 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Borodog
Goes a little lefty at the end, but yeah, great speech.
he lost me at "racist"

which was about two words in
01-12-2010 , 01:54 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Brian J
he lost me at "racist"

which was about two words in
Yeah, it's not like anyone is dehumanizing the enemy based on race now is it.
01-12-2010 , 03:34 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by The 13th 4postle
hahahahahaha
01-12-2010 , 04:36 PM
Why are you linking to a tv miniseries video?
01-12-2010 , 04:39 PM
Interesting

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archive.../01/025363.php

Quote:
I wrote here about a very important story, which originated with Edward Pinto, a former chief credit officer for Fannie Mae, and was broken by Peter Wallison in the Wall Street Journal, that deserves much wider coverage. Everyone knows that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored entities that helped create a market for mortgage-backed securities, played a key role in last year's financial crisis. But the truth is, apparently, worse than that. It seems that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac--the U.S. government, in effect--"routinely misrepresented the mortgages they were acquiring, reporting them as prime when they had characteristics that made them clearly subprime or Alt-A...." The much-reviled Wall Street bankers relied on those representations by agents of the federal government when they bought and sold securities backed by those misrepresented mortgages.

Qualitatively, this is not quite as bad as Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme, but it is worse than anything Enron did. Quantitatively, it caused financial devastation compared to which Enron and Madoff are barely grains of sand in the ocean. So, wouldn't one expect our reporters to show a little curiosity? Silly question, perhaps: mainstream reporters don't like where that trail leads. Also, to be fair, most of them are not smart enough to understand it.

But Pajamas Media is on the case; Tom Blumer elaborates:

Quote:
Before Pinto's bombshell, we knew that Fan and Fred were used as instruments to "encourage" loans to undeserving borrowers. We knew that this "encouragement" was enforced through the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), a law originally passed in the 1970s that was "progressively" given threatening teeth in ensuing years.

We have known for some time, as described in my September 2008 column, that Fan and Fred lowered the qualifying standards for conventional and subprime loans they would buy from participating lenders roughly as follows (quoting from that column):

The credit score threshold for conventional mortgages, which had generally been 670 or more, dropped to about 630. In the real world, a score of 630 indicates that you're having trouble with your debt load, paying your bills on time, or a little of both.

More ominously, the credit score threshold for subprime mortgages, which had generally been 630 or more, fell to about 590. A score of 590 is the credit scoring equivalent of barely having a pulse.

We know that in doing this, Fan and Fred, as well as those who underwrote or bought securities backed by these conventional and subprime mortgages, were taking a huge risk by hoping that borrowers with mediocre or poor credit histories would somehow keep up with their mortgage payments. ...

Incredibly, the Pinto paragraph above takes things one step further. It's bad enough that Fan and Fred lowered the loan approval thresholds. Pinto's point is that for 15 years, they doubled down by "routinely" misclassifying approved loans, effectively telling the capital markets and the public that these loans weren't as risky as they really were. Because of this, securities backed by these mortgages carried lower interest rates than they would have if the risks had been properly disclosed. Some of the offerings should probably never have been issued or should have been given junk bond pricing. Further, misrepresented loans Fan and Fred kept on their books enabled the two entities to continually make false claims of financial health.
01-12-2010 , 04:56 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Brian J
Why are you linking to a tv miniseries video?
It is based on a book by an embedded journalist and the guys in it were signing a racist song?

The quote from the soldier in the original videowas -

"Racism could no longer mask the reality of the occupation, these were people, these were human beings."

He is clearly talking about how racism is used to dehumanize the enemy, to "rationalize" the actions carried out, to distance oneself from the actual people being effected by the war. You are on another planet if you think racism plays no part in making wars more palatable for the public, for politicians and for soldiers.
01-12-2010 , 05:07 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Not_In_My_Name
It is based on a book by an embedded journalist and the guys in it were signing a racist song?

The quote from the soldier in the original videowas -

"Racism could no longer mask the reality of the occupation, these were people, these were human beings."

He is clearly talking about how racism is used to dehumanize the enemy, to "rationalize" the actions carried out, to distance oneself from the actual people being effected by the war. You are on another planet if you think racism plays no part in making wars more palatable for the public, for politicians and for soldiers.
Racist song, ok. Ah, so it's "zomg racist!" to sing "hijabs falling to the street." Gotcha. I love the way the meaning of that word gets expanded.
01-12-2010 , 05:15 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Brian J
Racist song, ok. Ah, so it's "zomg racist!" to sing "hijabs falling to the street." Gotcha. I love the way the meaning of that word gets expanded.
Wait, you really think this doesn't happen?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Not_In_My_Name
He is clearly talking about how racism is used to dehumanize the enemy, to "rationalize" the actions carried out, to distance oneself from the actual people being effected by the war. You are on another planet if you think racism plays no part in making wars more palatable for the public, for politicians and for soldiers.
01-12-2010 , 05:21 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Brian J
Racist song, ok. Ah, so it's "zomg racist!" to sing "hijabs falling to the street." Gotcha. I love the way the meaning of that word gets expanded.
lol, hajjis, not hijabs. Look it up. I don't think you have to be flyfw () to construe signing songs about killing "hajjis" as racist.

Also, that was clearly used as a semi-snarky illustrative video, you just ignored actual point I was making.
01-12-2010 , 05:54 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Brian J
Why are you linking to a tv miniseries video?

Generation Kill: Devil Dogs, Iceman, Captain America and The New Face of American War (Hardcover)


or if you prefer less Rolling Stone bull%$#4 and a more of a strait up historical read you could read

One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer


They both cover the same events but One Bullet Away is far better

Last edited by Huehuecoyotl; 01-12-2010 at 06:00 PM.
01-12-2010 , 06:03 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Not_In_My_Name
lol, hajjis, not hijabs. Look it up. I don't think you have to be flyfw () to construe signing songs about killing "hajjis" as racist.

Also, that was clearly used as a semi-snarky illustrative video, you just ignored actual point I was making.
yeah sorry, ears here one thing and fingers type something else. I don't get the whole racist thing tbh and the overuse of that word is a pet peeve of mine when people should be using words like bigot or prejudice. If a guy sings about hajjis falling to the streets and then turns around later and helps dark skinned muslims (which happened quite a bit if I remember the articles correctly) what does that mean? Can he be a racist?
01-12-2010 , 06:21 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Brian J
yeah sorry, ears here one thing and fingers type something else. I don't get the whole racist thing tbh and the overuse of that word is a pet peeve of mine when people should be using words like bigot or prejudice. If a guy sings about hajjis falling to the streets and then turns around later and helps dark skinned muslims (which happened quite a bit if I remember the articles correctly) what does that mean? Can he be a racist?
Yes. Clearly. I can give a whole bunch of people throughout history, undisputed racists, who showed compassion and empathy towards the targets of their racism. Many slave owners, for example, were fairly benevolent towards their slaves, educating them, giving them health care, doing much to improve their living conditions. That doesn't change the fact that they were racists.

Racists aren't psychopathic monsters. They are still human beings. They can still show love, tenderness, kindness and mercy to those their racism is directed towards. There are many different kinds of racism, and people are racists for many, many different reasons. Some people are intentionally racist. Some are racist due to the institutions they function in, some are racist because of social or cultural pressures. Some people are even racist because it makes it easier to perform actions which would be psychologically difficult for them to undertake against someone they viewed as "equal" or "human." Maybe bigoted or prejudice is a better choice of words, and maybe there are better words to choose, but racism will do just fine for me thanks.

I'm not saying this is confined to the war in Iraq, and it's certainly not confined to the USA. You'll probably find this kind of situational/institutional racism in pretty much every single international war in history and even many civil and class wars. It's just an inevitability of taking hundreds of thousands of guys from one country and sending them to fight and hundreds of thousands of guys in another country.
01-12-2010 , 10:14 PM
Al Sharpton kickin the crap out of Hannity and Coulter tonight.
01-12-2010 , 10:34 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Brian J
he lost me at "racist"

which was about two words in
He says the military uses racism to get the soldiers to carry out their shameful deeds against the innocent people over there. I hear neocons talk like this all the time. People in the military should be ashamed of themselves as well as all of the "arm-chair warriors" that support them.
01-12-2010 , 10:43 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by cres
Al Sharpton kickin the crap out of Hannity and Coulter tonight.
Quote:
Yes we remember Preston Blake, a man with faith no man could shake. A strength no man could break. A character no man could fake. For goodness sake, let's eat some cake.
.
01-12-2010 , 10:55 PM
Harold Ford

...in 2006:

Quote:
COLMES: Why would you change your view? You were pro-choice at one time. What happened?

FORD:Let me say this. No, no. I was not pro-choice at one time.
Today:

Quote:
FORD: I am pro-choice -- have always been since I entered politics almost 15 years ago...Any assertions to the contrary are false.
This is going to be a tough nut for Gillibrand to crack imo.
01-12-2010 , 11:02 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by DVaut1
Harold Ford

...in 2006:



Today:



This is going to be a tough nut for Gillibrand to crack imo.

Wait, is this the dude that was on The Today Show the other morning?


Edit:



n/m. That's the dude.
01-12-2010 , 11:05 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by DVaut1
Harold Ford

...in 2006:



Today:



This is going to be a tough nut for Gillibrand to crack imo.
Coincidence that Ford's pro-choice position suddenly solidified after attending that party at the Playboy Mansion?
01-12-2010 , 11:07 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bigdaddydvo
Coincidence that Ford's pro-choice position suddenly solidified after attending that party at the Playboy Mansion?

      
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