I'd like to apologise to Angelus for creating a new thread in response to a locked one, but I spent quite a while typing this out only to find that the thread had been locked by the time I was ready to post. Feel free to lock this and block me or whatever, I just felt like I had to respond to Trace's post.
Hello! I'm Adam. I don't usually have quotation marks surrounding my name, but I'll forgive Trace using them just this once, seeing as it was all done in good-faith by such a polite, respectful, and courteous member of the (rhymes with "aurum").
Are you trying to put one over on me?
Nope. Honestly, when I was saying all that I was just responding in my own personal way to what she was telling me. She didn't give me any names, nor did I know that she was transcribing me. (If I did, I probably wouldn't have called her darling at one point, and I wouldn't have referred to an email I just sent her whilst speaking to her as "There, I sent it".)
So what I said was not an attempt to put one over on any particular board members, more just my responses to different things that she had said. My argument was "weak" because I wasn't trying to make a factual argument that would stand up in formal debate. More just informally addressing points she brought up. Obviously in an informal phone conversation with your girlfriend, you don't exactly have the mechanism to individually cite everything you say.
It seems to me like you're pretending that the USA isn't completely enveloped with propoganda
Wait, what? Straw man, surely. And besides, considering I specifically mentioned how the US media tends to overstate both the importance of the Pacific theatre,
and US involvement and importance in the European theatre, I'd hardly say that I'm singing the praises of American media here. One thing I didn't mention at the time as it isn't really relevant, is that this same bias exists in the US school system as well, which focusses quite a lot on American history (which is a good thing), but nowhere as much as it should on world history. But for this discussion, that's neither here nor there.
Don't political commentators say bad things about the president when he HINTS that America may not be quite so good as American people think? Hm?
If you're referring to (for example) Obama's "cling to guns and religion" quote, then it was mostly Fox News who did that, and many other things ("terrorist fist bump", Bill Ayers, secret Muslim, not really American e.t.c.). You'll find that most Americans who aren't themselves viewers of Fox News would probably consider it to be propaganda just as much as you or I would. Likewise you will often find that those who
are viewers of Fox News will feel the other stations are anti-American, traitorous, wanting America to fail, and other such nonsense. If you want an example of
actual (in my opinion) propaganda, you need look no further than
Bill O'Reilly,
Michelle Malkin,
Rush Limbaugh and the like.
Propoganda is the foundation of the country's national pride.
Again, only if you're talking about Fox News. There are many Americans who don't really watch much news at all, or who watch news from alternative sources (let's not forget that even BBC News is broadcast in America now), yet still feel plenty proud of their country. Many of them are anti-war (or at least against the Iraq war), yet still love their country. Yes, there are going to be people influenced by the media they consume. You'll find the same thing here in the UK with the idiots that read the Daily Mail genuinely thinking that forrens are destroying the country and all that. On a related subject, did you know that of the viewers of the Daily Mail website, American visitors are
almost double the percentage of British visitors? So while you see the most sensational American stuff and assume that all of it is like that, they see the Daily Mail and think that all British newspapers are filled with such trash.
Yet, "land of the free, home of the brave" and its sickening likeness continues to be played
Assuming you're talking about The Star-Spangled Banner, then what alternative do you suggest? They should suddenly
stop playing the national anthem? Why? Because some British guy doesn't like the lyrics? You know, there are some people who find the British national anthem to be sickening and imperialistic and so on. Should we stop playing our national anthem for them? Of course not.
The USA paint themselves to be the good guys
Well of course they do. What nation paints themselves as the bad guys? I doubt Robert Mugabe is keeping himself up each night scratching his head trying to work out how to fit an accurate course on "Human rights in Zimbabwe" into the curriculum.
and yet... ["America Sucks" video]
Yeah... a quick word of advice. When you want to persuade someone round to your point of view, try not to do it with a video that insults their compatriots. If someone says "hey, you should watch this video!", and the video is called "Britain Sucks!", it's not going to be starting off on the right foot. When that same video is just a series of emotionally-charged video clips one after another, with a list of accusations against your country, which concludes with video footage with audio enabled of by far the biggest terrorist attack in your nation's history, and you're even less likely to be persuaded. For all this talk about propaganda, that video could probably be classed quite easily as the same. More on this in a bit.
Not only is that a good indicator of American propoganda
It is? That video doesn't once talk about American propaganda. If anything, that video could easily be classified as
anti-American propaganda. Imagine now, in these Al-Qaeda training camps, what kind of videos they must be showing to these people to make them hate the West. Let's imagine the training of the London bombers. Obviously this is all conjecture, but what do you think they were shown? Balanced videos examining the pros and cons of United Kingdom foreign policy? The good humanitarian work that the British military has done contrasted against unfortunate incident's in the nation's colonial history? Probably not. They're probably shown a compilation clip of dead people and dying people with accusations of illegal military operations, all topped off with a clip at the end which leaves an emotional message with them.
I say "accusations" simply because I am no expert of history, and I do not have all the time in the world to research every single claim in that video. The video doesn't provide sources (and nor does the description), and I can't be expected to do all the research myself. That said, I am personally aware that at least some of the claims in that video are true, having seen a few references to events I was already familiar with.
But so what? The first event described in that video is in 1953, almost ten years after World War II. So why bring it up in a discussion about World War II? You say it was to say that Americans are "poor international strategists, throughout history". And the military history of our own country is immaculate, isn't it? And besides, it
still has no relevance to the topic of discussion.
No facts are cited. How can I argue this? It's just your word versus mine, if we go down this road.
Assuming by "your" you weren't suggesting that Stazie herself had written this herself (I make this assumption only because you've been such a courteous guy when dealing with Stazie in the past) and you were instead referring to me, as has been said she was merely transcribing me in an informal discussion. It is very difficult to cite facts over the phone, and if we paused between each sentence while I emailed her proof of all claims then our nightly discussions would last many times longer than they currently do.
And besides, what's wrong with things that aren't based on facts? Let's not forget that up until now your comments have included such fact-based posts as:
- "since when were Canada and Australia in World War II?" (Pretty much since the start. Indeed Australia declared war on Germany the very same day as the UK did)
- "The US Armed forces, and American government, were self-righteous brutes"
- "I was attempting, and succeeding, in telling truthes about [the US] army and government."
- ""[The Star Spangled Banner]" and its sickening likeness continues to be played." (no facts cited to show it's sickening!)
- "the US Americans being poor international strategists, throughout history"
I never said that. I said that Britain would win more slowly without US American involvement.
As I mentioned, I wasn't given any specific names. That was more me commenting on general opinions in America and in the UK.
Anyway, stop holding such a stupid grudge against Scylla simply for some light-hearted comments in the 24/7 (3 is right next to 2. Easy typo to make) thread. You're coming across like a (rhymes with "clucking") (rhymes with "cat").
Also, Jaws is undeniably better than Flipper.
Flipper shares a name with these:
Whereas Jaws shares a name with this guy!
Look at him! He's like a posh, blinged-up Tommy Cooper! You wouldn't want to get into a fight with him! But the flippers on a pinball table? He'd just munch right through it. So would Jaws the shark come to think of it. And assuming that Flipper the dolphin has no more abilities than Ecco the dolphin, then I doubt he'd be able to win in a fight to the death with Jaws.