Food for thought

[jaba]

http://www.jsalloum.org/planet.html
(SFW)
Ill let you make your own judgements on this one...

 

[Will]

Needs Quicktime to view. :/

 

[Bullitt]

A nice little piss take at the ol' yankee doodle dandees.

Whilst not everyone can be tarred with the same brush I think it partly rings true, just how many films showed arabs/iraqi/palestinian characters in a negative light compared to those that showed them in good light? Surely this influences the general view...even games, look at C&C Generals and the GLA. Whilst most rational humans take it with a pinch of salt and simply ignore it there are many who are susceptible to influence.

I think the clips that strike home for me are the parts with the guy ranting about turning your tv off. This suggests (and what I firmly beleive) that the media influences people, it leads them. They don't objectively report news, everything is bias - albeit in subtle, most likely unintentional ways.

And this is true in many areas, take today on the lunchtime news for example - 'scientists report that women are catching up to men in terms of sprint speed' OMG HOLD THE PRESS! They might even catch up within 150 years, guess I better pop down the gym in prep for the almighty man vs woman race. The tone seemed to suggest this is a bad thing, a threat to the domination of man over women! Reaffirming sexual discrimination in society? I wouldn't want to make that judgement but i'd certainly say it's possible.

Anyway hmm, yes ban the media

 

[Frizz]

Err, racist, unfunny bile?

 

[nath]

Racist to whom?

Not to Arabs, as it's a satar demonstrating how poorly middle easterns are represented in western media.

Not to Americans because it's not really about americans - it's about the media. Don't tell me we're not allowed to critisize that anymore...

So who?

Also, I found it pretty interesting - not amusing but it really makes you realise just how often you see middle eastern people portrayed in an incredibly negative light in the media.

 

[Mazling]

I'm not waiting to be told about another dictatorship which *just happens* to have popped up out of nowhere, and how evil it is and etc, before I can hate something.

Check out www.indymedia.org (and the local links) for a contrast. Fine, it may be anti-gov't anti-corporate stuff, but not without reason. Interesting how this stuff doesn't make it to TV news, and some random disaster does.

 

[Gengi]

I was quite enjoying the site linked by Mazling, then I discovered I need help.
Please can someone direct me to the appropriate place so I can have the daemons of chauvanism driven from me. It was fine the people of Yapa Alpa deriding trade treaties, the raids on pirate radio stations, all intersting and informative. Then, a couple of articles down, a bit about violence against womyn, I was on the verge of agreeing, indulging in a bit of self emasculation, obviously as in a previous post about the SWAPpers being male obviously makes me a violent rapist, till the womyn irritated the living shit out of me by their spelling.

Later

Gengee

 

[Damini]

Has anyone seen the trailer for the new film from the South Park Team? I think its called TEAM AMERICA: WORLD POLICE. Strangely along the same lines as this.

 

[Tom]

http://www.beecy.net/frank/

 

[Tom]

Three and a half years jail for refusing to go to Iraq,
A greek-navy sailor was sentenced to 3 years and 4 months imprisonment, as he refused to embark with the crew of the battleship "Navarino" on a mission relative to the Iraq war, during May 2003. He gave the following statement prior to his refusal:

"Acting on the basis of my conscience, I refuse to take part or contribute by any means in the relentless slaughter of the Iraqi people. I refuse to take part in a war that is not ended, as even now after its official end people and among them many children are being killed. Even if this war is officially finished, many more are to come, as war is necessary for the expansion of the dominance of the ruling powers. I declare my immediate resignation from the Hellenic Navy, which is a mechanism that promotes inhuman practices through orders and hierarchy and acts as a means of extortion and repression of the movement and the uprisings of the people. My refusal is also the minimal act of solidarity due to the Iraqi people and to the peaceful sentiments of the Greek people."

Does Greece use national service? If not, then what the fuck did this guy expect? Idiot.

 

[Will]

Greece
As of 2004, Greece (Hellenic Republic) has a mandatory military service of 12 months for men. However, it is developing a professional army system, and it is widely expected that the mandatory military service will be cut to 6 months by 2008 or even abolished completely. Greek soldiers fire a gun during the first two months of their service. Although women are accepted in the Greek army, they are not obliged to join as men are. Soldiers have some free health insurance and medical support during their army service, including hospitalization costs. They receive a salary of approximately 9 euros per month.

 

[Tom]

Thats fair enough then. I hate these people who join the army, only to 'act with concience' when their time comes.

 

[nath]

Um, why? You think that if you join the army you should follow your countrys orders through absolutely anything? What if you feel that what your country is doing is totally wrong and you can't be a part of it? "Oh well, I joined up, I guess I'll have to go along with the massacre of countless innocent people".

Perhaps Iraq isn't as bad as that, but then who draws the line and where?

 

[Tom]

You can't get around the massacre of 'countless innocent people'. Thats a part of war. If you join the army, yet somehow expect to avoid this when you're called up, then you're a fool (not you nath, I mean anybody). If I was targetting missiles, or dropping bombs on legitimate targets, it would of course disturb me that innocent people were going to die, but I would consider it my moral duty to carry out my orders. If my commanding officer was ordering me to bomb a housing estate for no other reason than to inflict terror on the populace, I'd think twice.

But, our armies (including the US) no longer carry out indiscriminate actions like this (AFAIK). Weapons are much more accurate now than they ever were, leading to fewer civilians being killed.

Anyway, this guy didn't want to join the forces in the first place, so fair dos to him.

 

[nath]

I didn't mean collateral damage, I mean when they disagree with the war fullstop. What about the nazi's invading of poland - would you have a problem with volunteer soldiers of the german army who decided that they didn't want to be a part of that?

 

[Tom]

I don't think you can compare the actions of a fascist government with those of a democratic government.

I just wish there were more honesty in the world. When will it become acceptable for a politician to say 'yeah a large part of it is to do with oil reserves'? I realise this, most other people do, and yet I don't have a problem with it. I also realise that attempting to stabilise the area will be to the ultimate benefit of us all (if it succeeds, and people need to take a long-term view on this, not just the immediate problems).

 

[nath]

Well lets not get in to whether the war in Iraq was justified or not, been there - done that. But you seem to accept that if the war is totally unjustified and - well, just wrong, then it's ok to object to it and not be a part of it.

Who draws the line, who's to say this war was ok and had this soldier been a volunteer he'd be wrong to opt out of this conflict.