has anyone read the b00k “stupid white men” (without quotations 
) by michael moore?
BEST B00k EV0R!!
i actually am really glad not to live in the US, where legally voted presidents do not become presidents.
correct me if im wrong, but bush has to be stopped.
I read a good portion of the book, and it it presents one point of the view well. As is the case with any work, there are two sides to an issue. I am not sure making such a vast suggestion after reading one book by one author is sound.
Cheers!
Kirupa :rd:
you cant always choose two sides. and i AM against bush, like any austrian i know.
if something like that happened in any other country, the US would have blamed that country and the media would have protested as loud as possible. everyone would have been upset.
everything the US do is legal. how comes? i really would like to know.
Well, fair elections do not happen in many countries. If something such as this happened in another country, my bet is there would not have been as peaceful of a transfer of power as there was between Bush/Gore. There is a post in ordered about the actual votes and why Bush won, in the end, regardless of the court’s decision.
In order to make an objective argument, you should always look at two sides. One should not be unaware of the second side while presenting one point of view 
I’m not understanding your last sentence. Would it be possible for you to give me a few examples of what the US does that may be outside the bounds of the law?
Cheers!
Kirupa :ub:
well, the US have ABC-weapons. but they say other countries should not have these. they kill millions of native americans. when another country did that, a war started immediatly. the usa accuse countries like russia of supplying terrorist with weapons. but who supplied SADDAM and OSAMA BIN LADEN with weapons to fight IRAN / RUSSIAN INVADERS in afghanistan? who speaks of terrorists who blow up civilian buildings while bombing factories which produce pharmacies and shoot rockets into hotels full whith reporters (from france and germany (hm, thinking, arent that countries in “OLD EUROPE”)).
just to mention a little bit.
is the US the police of the world? why is everything they say/do correct and not against any laws? maybe because they set up the laws?
…
The US killed thousands of Native Americans in the 1800s, tried to destroy their way of life, and move them away from their native lands. If anything, in the 1900s, the US has changed its policy of culturally dominating the Native American culture to one more of accomodation. I’m not sure why something the US did hundreds of years ago, tried to correct a hundred years ago, has any bearing on the topics at hand today. I strongly doubt you will find anybody in the US who still feels justified at our treatment of Native Americans.
As mentioned in another post earlier in this forum, the US supplies numerous countries with aid for diplomatic/tactical purposes. Dimplomacy is not a 100% guarantee. On many occassions such as post-war Europe where the US Marshall Plan helped rebuild a large portion of the area there, or when Japan became a prosperous nation following a US-advised government structure, etc. the world applauds our successes. There are also times when our efforts of good will towards countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq backfire - nobody can predict such a series of events. Tis a tricky game after all 
When pharmacies produce anything but normal pharmaceutical goods…maybe chemical agents used in warfare, I do believe that there is justification in such a bombing. I strongly doubt the US would fire at a hotel on purpose. I think that there were US reporters stationed there as well. I’m not sure where you are getting the idea about the Old Europe ordeal? This is a war, and reporters are aware of the dangers of staying in a hotel which may have other dubious uses.
Would you rather be more satisfied having Saddam gas his own people to death? After all, society is partially judged by how it treats the downtrodden, the less fortunate, and the ones without a voice - even in areas where people such as you and I may not be directly affected.
Cheers!
Kirupa 
we will always say 100 years after something: “that was 100 years ago and is now over”. but at the time when it happened it is horrifying. people always forget too quick. but i will stop now because i see im the only one in that forum who thinks like that.
btw, would you elect bush?
Oh, I agree about that. It was horrible when that happened - nobody denies that. But when the country has taken great steps to correct (a hundred years ago) the wrongs they did, I just find it needless to talk about it. Yes, there are pockets in the country where Native Americans are severely economically disadvantaged. I think most of it is because of their own methods of dealing with change rather than a large-scale bureaucratic problem.
About Bush getting re-elected,…depends on who the alternatives are for the people to decide. Candidates such as Howard Dean may prove good contenders, but with Bush’s approval ratings hovering around 80%, with majority of the Democratic party voting ‘Yes’ to military action in Iraq (there are a few caveats such as Dean of course), and no real alternative solutions being provided, I would not be surprised if Bush won again.
Also, the content of both your post and my post has been repeated throughout the forums in several threads. You will see both sides of this argument presented in several pages worth of posts
“We are not alone” (ET…I think)
Cheers!
Kirupa :toad:
m’kay
Hey fishtank, I’m here! And I am on your side, not Kirupa’s…
yes Michael Moore is a very smart man, and Stupid White Men is a good book that I intend to read one day.
And yes The US is trying to police the world, and by doing actions and going against people who do the same actions. Therefore US is a hypocritical nation. And no Bush did not get elected by the majority, he got elected by the Supreme Court. US is a fascist state in my opinion.
I haven’t read this thread yet, but I will.
FishTank: I read the book. It took me 1 day. I couldn’t put it down. I too am against Bush. Actually the entire Bush family, they are all crooked. However, all politicians are, but sometimes we are lucky and we get the lesser crooks. In my opinion, Bill Clinton was a great president. Our economy was doing great, there wasn’t much war going on. Then our whole country flipped out because he cheated on his wife…
I think that the media is actually to blame for the majority of problems in this world. They always show one side of every situation and that pisses people of. I dunno, I have to go eat with my family I will post more later. I just wanted to let you know that I love Michael Moore and that book is awesome. I do agree with Kirupa however, that it only shows one side of the issue. Be back later.
CG: The US is not facist. Our government is just stupid. We need a good president, not one that is only looking out for his own needs. Hopefully when the next term comes around we will get someone better. That is the risk you run when you cycle thru presidents every four years. Sometimes a bad one will get thru.
Fishtank:
Look, there are people who think like you in this forum, so keep presenting your ideas. This is a debate, and just because kirupa disagrees, doesn’t mean that you have to stop.
However, personally, I wish you were more informed about this issue. Kirupa clearly knows more about this than you do, and he’s going to crush you in any argument.
You’re making comments about one particular side, and just because you read a book, you feel like you’re informed enough to have a stand about the war. Personally, I feel like Michael Moore is Pat Buchanan’s mirror image. They’re both extremists, and you know what, extremists are never completely right.
Why did we fund Saddam Hussein? Back then Hussein wasn’t a particularly evil man in the eyes of the world. He had managed to achieve a balance between religious groups, he had formed a secularized state - which is something unseen in the rest of the arab world, and he preached religious tolerance. He gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to christian churches, both in Iraq and in the US. He invaded Iran because Iran’s new government was composed by religious extremists, and he feared that the new government would pose a threat to the balance of his country. Extremists in power are never good, and that’s why the U.S. supported him.
As for supporting Osama, if you don’t know why already, you shouldn’t even be making the claim that the U.S. is hypocritical.
One of the things that people miss, is that the level of involvement the United States has in the world fluctuates with each administration. People keep saying “Oh, the US did this, and the US did that evil thing” but you have to remember that the US that was then is not the US that is now, or the US that will be in the future. Yes, the US killed Indians, but those in power were different back then. It’s not like it was Bush who went out and killed the Indians. More recently - Reagan did some seriously bad things, but it was because he was a cold war president - times were different. Next came Bush, he did some bad things, but not as much as Reagan. Then came Clinton, who at first wanted to decrease the level of involvement in the world, but at the end, he had to literaly throw himself into the world stage. Next comes Bush, who wanted to limit the role of the US in the world (partly because he didn’t know crap about foreign affairs), but Sept 11 hugely changed his role.
One of the things that you have to realize is that the United States doesn’t want the leadership role it has. Ever since the days of Monroe americans have pushed for an isolationist policy. The problems of the world aren’t american problems. However, globalization has changed this. During the first half of WW2, the US didn’t give a **** about the Nazis and the Japanese. Not their problem. That was England’s and China’s problem. But then the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, and suddenly it became America’s problem.
After WW2 came the cold war. It was the Russians’ expressed intention to have communism around the world. The Russians INVADED countries. They encouraged communism in China, they gave military aid to communists in North Korea and North Vietnam. They tried to invade afghanistan. They oppressed East Berliners. It was some scary sh*t. They were doing pretty bad stuff, and americans at the time had to do some pretty bad stuff of their own to counteract.
And now about this Iraq war. Are we the police of the world? Unfortunately, yes. Why? because we’re the the only ones with any kind of influence. Things that happen abroad directly affect what happens with the U.S., simple as that. The GNP of the US is greater than the next 11 countries combined. The US spends more money on the military than the rest of the world combined, and we barely spend about 4% of the GNP on it. The US is the only country with enough influence to solve the Israel-Palestine conflict, and the US is the only country with enough power to topple an evil dictator like Saddam Hussein.
But yes, most of the time we do things out of self interest. The first gulf war was ENTIRELY about oil. You think first Bush gave a crap about the kuwaitis? No. However, Saddam Hussein was conducting a war that was raising oil prices considerably, and that affected the US. The US was the only country powerful enough to solve that problem.
Now this gulf war. Weapons of Mass Destruction? Please, give me a break. I don’t feel threatened by Saddam. But hey, maybe the president knows more than I do. I know however, that every single piece of evidence shown to the UN to justify the war has been discredited. So maybe this war is about oil too. Maybe this war is about getting lucrative contracts, maybe it’s about exercising our military might, and maybe it’s a ploy to distract people from economic problems. Maybe it’s not about liberation, or about american safety. But you know what, SO WHAT? The value gained by the US in waging this war doesn’t begin to compare to the value gained by the Iraqi people without Saddam. We’re committing murder? Mass genocide by killing civilians? If I asked you how many people this war has killed, and how many people Saddam has killed, would you be able to answer that? I’ll answer it for you:
Civilians killed by the US: 2000
Civilians killed by Saddam: 100,000 to 200,000
Now, if you propose telling me that the people of Iraq are better off with Saddam in power, I can’t have any respect for you, and the best opinion that I can have about you is that you’re ignorant.
Now, how come we’re liberating the Iraqis, and not the North Koreans, the Vietnamese, the Ruwandans, etc? Because of our democracy. Half of the people in the US think we should police the world, and half of the people think we shouldn’t. And the leadership (not necessarily right now, but throughout the years) has been divided around this issue. We police the world in a half-assed way. And that’s why they hate us.
I think you’re right in hating Bush though, he’s an ignorant, ignorant man, he’s an idiot with the economy, he’s cut the education budget, and he has no diplomatic skills. And his election shows how ignorant Americans are about politics and foreign policy. He lied to the UN, made a mockery of it, and at the end, when no one wanted to play, he said: i’m going to do it anyway. Instead of saying: “ok, we’re going to get rid of a bad leader”, he said “we feel threatened, and he might have WMDs.” Diplomats around the world describe relations with the US as “humiliating.”
But I’m all for spreading democracy around the world. I’m all for killing bad leaders. Everyone in the world should have the right to an education and the right to elect their leader. And sanctions by themselves don’t work (ie. Cuba and North Korea), diplomacy by itself doesn’t work (ie. Israel and Palestine). But it’s only a combination of diplomacy and force that works. In this case, Bush forgot the diplomacy part.
See how I made my arguments? They’re not entirely rhetoric, and they’re supported by numbers and facts. Can you do that?
"CG: The US is not facist. Our government is just stupid. We need a good president, not one that is only looking out for his own needs. Hopefully when the next term comes around we will get someone better. That is the risk you run when you cycle thru presidents every four years. Sometimes a bad one will get thru. "
I agree with the election problems. That’s what I really hate about Bush. He might even push the election to 5 years. I hat it when they do that. And he could get elected again, hopefully he won’t get elected again."
“Now this gulf war. Weapons of Mass Destruction? Please, give me a break. I don’t feel threatened by Saddam. But hey, maybe the president knows more than I do. I know however, that every single piece of evidence shown to the UN to justify the war has been discredited. So maybe this war is about oil too. Maybe this war is about getting lucrative contracts, maybe it’s about exercising our military might, and maybe it’s a ploy to distract people from economic problems. Maybe it’s not about liberation, or about american safety. But you know what, SO WHAT? The value gained by the US in waging this war doesn’t begin to compare to the value gained by the Iraqi people without Saddam. We’re committing murder? Mass genocide by killing civilians? If I asked you how many people this war has killed, and how many people Saddam has killed, would you be able to answer that? I’ll answer it for you:”
Ha, the problem is that US keeps doing this bad things for its own good and keeps killing innocent civilians.
Civilians killed by the US: 2000
That’s a really really bad number. I mean that it should be higher. Especially with Iraq. Do you know how many Iraqi women children were killed by Sanctions? In which the British and American forces bombed Iraq almost everyday before the war? I will tell you how many they killed…
First lets start with a simple quote.
“I think it is a very hard choice. But the price-we think the price is worth it.”
-U.S. Secretary of State Madeline Albright, when asked about U.S. sanctions killing half a million Iraqi children.
60 Minutes, 5/12/96
Now, lets continue…
1.5 MILLION
The sanctions have killed more than a million innocent Iraqis lavaboy. And 1 million is alot, don’t you agree?
Don’t forget when they drop depleted uranium on water treatment facilities causing Iraqis to get cancer. Surely you cannot justify this.
The sanctions were intended to prevent Saddam Hussein from squandering the money on non-social issues; that worked well? It’s not the US’s fault that Saddam decides to starve his own people while he builds more palaces. I’m sure the gold ornaments that adore a single room in his palace could have saved a few hundred impoverished Iraqis.
So, Saddam actually was directly responsible for about 100-200k deaths and another 1.5 million indirectly…right? :ub:
Cheers!
Kirupa :rock:
CG, one of the things that you could have talked about is who made that estimate, and how they made it. Estimates like that are NEVER scientific. There’s NO way, absolutely NO WAY, of checking that every single one of those deaths was a direct effect of sanctions. And the response by Albright is not an admission that those numbers are right. (Madeline Albright was HORRIBLE with questions… one of the things that people don’t know). But ok, lets say the numbers are right. One of the things you could have said as well is how many children have died as a direct result of Saddam’s rule?
And get this. It’s not the US responsibility to keep those kids alive. It’s not. It was Saddam’s responsibility, and as kirupa said, money he could have spent on medical equipment and health care, he spent on palaces. 1.5 million kids didn’t die because of sanctions. They died because of Saddam Hussein’s negligence. We don’t have a responsibility to trade with Iraq…
Have you even considered the damage done by Saddam Hussein to his people?
Anyways, I’m going to point you to this thread:
http://www.kirupaforum.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=21045
WOW, must say im estonished that so many people think the same way.
i agree with you that the media, especially the mass media, is a big problem. this propaganda going on isnt good, they should think about what makes a good reporter or whatever they think they are. yous said:
Civilians killed by the US: 2000
Civilians killed by Saddam: 100,000 to 200,000
where do you know from?
from the media. which basically all belong to 2 or 3 big firms, which pay a lot of money to a certain party to support it in times of election. this party later makes laws. but these laws are good for these firms, they wont get any problems. one hand washes the other. they write: “2000 died”, with that they help this so called “PRESIDENT” (with quotations) to do his propaganda: “this war will be short, not many will die” or something like that. No one can say something else, because everyone believes media.
thats why i want you to think about the things written in a newspaper. quite often they want to tell you a certain message. they do not always lie. i do not want to say that. but you should try and read the message between the letters.
what i also would like to say: please read “stupid white men”. you do not have to believe everything, but you could try and see the opposit of what they tell you…
one more thing: i do not like saddam hussein or any of his ministers or sons or cusins or whoever he spent his life with.
Well, these figures are not provided by just 2 or 3 organizations. Many news groups around the world echo similar numbers (give or take 1000). There are numerous books that go pro/against various issues - Michael Moore is an interesting figure apart from his writing so his book gets a lot of credit. I would strongly urge you to read Slander by Ann Coulter, Bias by Bernad Goldberg, or any numerous political/media bestsellers.
Now, if one book one reads is able to provide a footstone for one’s opinions - imagine how much more interesting it would be if one were to read several books from several points of view. As lava presented in another thread, both sides of an issues should be painted - shooting the “messenger” because its views contradict what one believes is clearly not the best method of resolving any issue.
Also, this war was short…
Cheers!
Kirupa :rambo:
ok, this could go forever like this: one says sth, another one replies saying the oposite.
here i go: :beam:
newspapers and tv/radiostations are informed by news agencies, usually one per country. thats why all tell the same numbers.
another thing i do not like: the us-stations and newspapers were told to not show pics/vids of GI-POWs. but media should inform. :x censur (dont know how to write it in english) is one of the things that should be stopped too (just to start another discussion 
)
Hehe so true - the pendulum of right and right never stops swinging
Many TV stations here were shown pictures of GIs and POWs - a less risque version at least. If not on the broadcast, the Web sites of the respective news organizations had them viewable. We were not shown some of the more disturbing images of bodies piled up (whether ours or not), but a lot of that could have been found on the internet shortly thereafter.
A lot of the data for the entire world comes from agencies such as Reuters, Bloomberg, Associated Press, etc., but then again these agencies are truly international and have reporters from various other countries working under them. Overall, wouldn’t you say that the number of casualties on both sides were a lot less than what one would have expected?
Censoring is an issue that needs to be dealt with. With many people simply getting on the internet and getting the video clips from other foreign outlets, there is no real need to censor the material. But, some of the items such as the Daniel Pearl execution (after which I felt a little queasy after watching it) may need to be kept away from the news - it was probably too disturbing.
The other side of that would be that the families of those POWs may need to be informed first. So there are both pros/cons to the need to censor or decensor (is that even a word?) the more disturbing aspects of war coverage.
Cheers!
Kirupa 
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