hey buddy hows it going?

First on the media, I was criticizing the Main Stream Media organizations, like FOX, MSNBC, CNN and their various affiiates, and the various news papers and magizines also owned by the same corporations. The media I referred to was independant media. for which there is much documentation that you can feel free to look up for yourself.  The downing street memo had alot of coverage in the UK atleast, same with Spain and many Spaininsh outlets talking about it. The US MSM is very closed off and reluctant to educate its public about things outside of the US, mainly because the next britney spears or paris hilton story will gain them more ratings, as they see it atleast.

WW2 is one of the three nessecery wars I believe America fought, the others were guided by imperialism and putting money before soldiers and civilians. My problems with Project for the American Century is it continues the tradition of putting money before soldier and civillian(of any nationality, At least Americans seem to have a strange care less attitude when civilians die in a war zone, you hear nothing about estimated million dead Iraqi civilians, mainly thanks to the Bush adminstration policies of not counting civilian deaths in the country we were going to "liberate" becuase they threatend us with WMD's, no proof of which has been found.) You could call me an Isolationist. I tend to believe in George Washington's policies, some of which he eloquently outlined in his fare well address. Like we should only hold trade relationships with other countries and avoid being drawn into entanglements and allainces, playing off Europes history at the time. It is not the reposncibilty of the US to go in nations like cowboys to supposedly liberate(in stead of rape their land for the corporations while the US installs a puppet ruler. The US has a tradition of over throwing democratically elected leaders in favor of dictators with pro-US buisness interests. If there is truly a nessicity to liberate a country, then an alliance can be temporarily formed in the international community. I don't want the troops serving to protect to me to be put in harms way for the interests of money, and not national security(though that is how wars are usually sold, I mean you can find the same justifications and rhetoric dating back through out the history of wars).

Britains national debt is 43%.

USA is 61%.

  I knew you would come up with some sort of anti English stats. The national debt of the UK is small, the recommendation in the EU is not to exceed 60%, the UK is well within that.

  The government webpage showed that the USA average wage was indeed $38,000 and the UK's $42,000, with the UK working less hours per week.

  The big mac nonsense was childish and was not the average wage, just GDP PPP, which no government uses, just trolls like this guy.

UK national debt...43%

USA national debt...61%

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_public_debt

  The UK workers work less hours, get paid more, have more paid leave and we have no long term homelessness and little gun deaths.

  Thats why more yanks are moving to europe and few going the other way.

 In future please use stats that governments use not right wing troll stats, thanks.

 

I am interested if you have a stat for disposable income's. The big argument over here, in the states, is usually, what seems like a gross exageration, the just about all of your incomes go taxes. Also how much of a refund do you usually get. Excuse if I have confused the UK economy with another more "socialist" economy in Europe.

Taxation can be found on wikipedia under taxation, I struggle to post links for some reason on this website.

 They are similar in the Uk to the USA. Except yanks pay for health care after they get their wage and thus pay out more than the UK.

 However electronic goods are 20% more epensive in the UK than the USA.

But that extra money is VAT which pays for the poor to get health care and to make sure all citizens have a home. No long term homeless in the UK, the first major country to guarantee this that I am aware of.

Germany and France pay way higher taxes, wikipedia taxation page.

Britain is a free market with social justice. The UK struggled with this in the 70's and 80's but now are doing great, pre credit crunch.

  I guess all countries could improve though.

  On social justice the Uk is about 10 years ahead of the USA. On wages the UK is about $2.50 more per hour than the USA, and with 4.8 weeks paid elave per year we gets lots of break from work.

  However the weather int he UK is terrible and the government cannot change that.

 

 

I was in Iraq two weeks ago. I spoke to people. I visited three cities, including a front city, and I made my way into a former secret police headquarters where government officials showed mt the torture cells of old.

You can see pictures here. It's a memorial now. It's hard to find (it's in a city near the Iranian border).

http://www.me.com/gallery/#100025

Here's a street sign (I like this picture):

http://www.me.com/gallery/#100017

And pictures from a city where the war is over since 2003:

http://www.me.com/gallery/#100028

I can tell from my own experience that America fought more necessary wars (or rather: participated out of necessity in unecessary wars). The invasion of Iraq was as necessary as the invasion of Germany and for the same reasons. (I also took pictures of a gallery of pictures of Kurdish poison gas victims. I didn't put them up yet.)

Perhaps that is one of the three necessary wars, I don't know your list.

As for the media, Fox and CNN and the others; I agree with you, but perhaps not for the reason you want me to. Fox and CNN never told anyone the things that I have seen outside the Green Zone. And few people know about Iraq's history under Saddam.

I was never in an army (but I applaud people who fight for my life and freedom), but I have been in two wars. One as a visitor trying to learn about the causes, and one as a target, studying in a university in northern Israel when a Lebanese militia switched from firing rockets at border towns for a few years to firing rockets into Haifa for a few weeks. (Nothing much happened. The entire north of the country was evacuated and leaflets were dropped in southern Lebanon before bombing raids urging them to do the same. Unfortunately they didn't. I assume Hizbullah wouldn't allow them to flee.)

And as I said I grew up in American-occupied territory.

So please don't tell me about which wars were "necessary" and which were not and America's morality unless you have some experience to add useful information to your opinion. I have seen what America's enemies do to people, and I have seen what America does to her enemies after victory. I have been there, in Germany and Iraq; and I have seen war, luckily from safe places because I tend to follow evacuation orders and don't drive towards the front line in a front city.

(A Peshmerga lieutenant told me not to tell people further south that I was Jewish. But as I said, I know what America's enemies do to people, and especially to Jews. So the warning was unecessary.)

Anything else?

You should have been in Albania during that time. Hundreds of thousands of Kosovar refugees camped there.

How did you deduce that there was no ethnic cleansing? Couldn't see the refugees?

And yes, I am happy about every bomb that hit Germany and helped decide the war faster.

Millions of people were dying, with thousands dying for every day that Germany hadn't surrendered yet. It was similar with Japan, just their victims were Chinese rather than Jews, Poles, Russians, and others.

BIG time.  SSA wages are cut off around $97k, so you are just averaging the low end of the totem poll.

That depends on what you are calling wage.  And it is apparent you are not representing the US wages accurately.  WHy?  WHy Lie if the UK is so much better?

It was faked.

They do.  And then not all earnings (Capital gains are not SSA taxed, so they are excluded as are interest income and other forms of income). SSA is simply where the tax is coming from, and that will change, but since the politicians want to maintain the illusion of a "retirement" account, it probably will never reflect the true wages in the US.

Leauki/Dr Guy

While what you guys said was very interesting and had a lot of useful information (that you for it), there was only one thing tht actually had me convinced this blogger was already getting off on the wrong foot.

Right off the back this person did not even bother to understand the article itself and began to make comments based on what he assumed the topic was about (and you know what they say about people who assume). After his very ignorant comment, he continued to use the "anit English" debate as a way to throw people off from his blunders. But in the process he completely missed the point of this article:

and

In other words, to compare the US to any other country and vise verse would be pointless because the US was meant to be what it is based on what the people wanted just like Germany, China, France, Great Britain, Russia, Iran, etc. are what they are based on it's people. To claim that Britain is somehow better does not make sense because this person is looking at things based on his perseption of how things should be rather than how they are and how they work fine based on the people in each country.

I don't think they are really blunders as such. I think that people like him are simply not used to digging deeper. They believe the first thing they are told by someone who is not (they think) the establishment. That's enough to make them feel as if they saw through the propaganda.

It is obvious our visitor didn't bother to find out what "average wage index" actually is before he used it to back up his opinion. It is also obvious, to me at least, that our other visitor (or were they the same?) read the number "one million" somewhere and never did do the maths to figure out if the number could be true.

The "not the establishment" part is important. Most people want to be both rebels and safe. People WANT to follow those who are "brave" enough to resist the establishment, follow those who are rebels and who outsmart the more powerful.

The rebels are those who protest on the streets. The establishment are those who walk among them, trying not to be identified as having an opinion not shared by the rebels.

I think that's where it comes from. It's a cheap way to tell yourself that you understand the world better than other people. But it collapses when you meet people who care and are capable of reading sources and have time to waste.

That too. But if we can make him understand that "average wage index" is not the same as "average wage", I think we have achieved something.

Plus I learned something. I finally understood how so many people believe that Europe is richer than the US. I was always wondering because their statements totally contradicted the numbers I knew. Now I know. They didn't dig deep enough and used numbers without knowing what they mean.

Hehehehe.  I remember getting 4 Deutschmarks per dollar!  I guess the US has just about withered away since the that is ancient history.

Just as an aside, and to the point of the article (since it predated my tenure here at JU), I have to agree with Brad.  What Brad is saying is not "that is bad and we are good", just that we are very different.  ANd something I have maintained for many years (having had the great opportunity to live in Europe for a few years) after examining why we see the world differently.

  WWII.

  North america did help the UK as did the soviet union but only when they were attacked. The UK had to buy equipment from north america to help the europeans and soviets fight hitler, the americans gave nothing.

  If the UK had sided hitler or lost the Battle of Britain then the americans would have gone under or done a deal with hitler. Either way the brave stand of the British is the main reason the world has freedom today.

  Freedoms.

  Could someone explain what freedoms US citizens have that UK ones don't?

  In the UK we have a guarantee of accomodation and as we invented the free market we can start businesses at will.

  All I can think of is that yanks can own guns which came from the English bill of rights but the British over turned this stupid law.

  In the UK we get health care as a hum right, thats important.