You are not logged in. Please register or login.
- Topics: Active | Unanswered
#231 Guns N' Roses » GN’R Cover Bands » 182 weeks ago
- Randall Flagg
- Replies: 5
I love live music, so I see a lot of cover bands when they come through town. Last night I saw a GN’R cover band out of NYC called Appetite for Destruction. Holy shit were those guys good. And their Axl doesn’t do the Mickey Mouse shit when he sings slither. I’ve seen the another cover band Nighttrain, and while very good, Appetite’s sound and energy is fucking awesome. I’ve only seen one other coverband with that kind of energy, and it was a STP cover band aptly named STP2.
#232 Re: The Garden » Current Events Thread » 183 weeks ago
It was the foresight of our founding fathers. Honestly, in the last two years it's really proven how brilliant they were. They put the power in American's hands with the first amendment, protected by the second (which is why it's so damn important, and why most countries don't understand it)...So many countries don't share the rights we have and it shows.
We have our issues, but we are really lucky.
Because they believed in it. Jefferson was first and foremost a philosopher and he believed in the notion of individual autonomy and agency free from authoritarian power. The founders knew what it was like to have "jack booted thugs" an arm's length away that could kill you or take everything you owned because the God King decreed it. We now live in an era where the average person has never known hunger or violence.
You'll get clowns who post an Aaron Sorkin video laughing at American freedoms, but at least our citizens aren't arrested for teaching their dog to give a nazi salute, calling a biological male a man, and posting the demographic information of rapists and murderers...yet.
The true irony is progressive group think is their opinion and statements on the second amendment. Biden used his SOTU speech to attack owning semi-automatic firearms with "do ya think the deer are wearing bullet proof vests" meanwhile paying lip service to Ukraine who is largely resisting Russian occupation solely through the use of the very firearms he was attacking. How successful would the German or Australian population be if the Russian military appeared within their borders? Protesting and screaming about "my rights" isn't going to stop enemy combatants from occupying your territory. Bullets sure will though. That 80 year old double barrel 12 gauge with bird shot isn't going to be very useful though.
If ever there was an example for the pros of having an armed populace, Ukraine is one hell of an example.
#233 Re: The Garden » Current Events Thread » 183 weeks ago
American media has completely abandoned any semblance of objectivity when it comes to the claims of US funded/managed bio labs in the Ukraine. I have no idea what the truth is, but I'm greatly alarmed that Republicans and Democrats whom are equally as ignorant as I am are declaring any suggestion that maybe the US was a tad naughty is tantamount to treason.
We know through congressional statements that the US was funding "research" on deadly pathogens in Ukraine in the same way the US was funding "research" on Corona viruses in Wuhan. I don't say "research" to imply malicious or devious intent, but to aptly recognize the ambiguity of the term. Of course I support understanding dangerous pathogens in an attempt to minimize their threat in the 21st century. I doubt anyone here has more vaccines than I have - how many of you are vaccinated against Hep A and B, Anthrax and small pox? But where is the line between studying how a pathogen functions and how to mitigate it, and the knowledge of how to enhance and weaponize it?
I guess what surprises me most is how quickly the media parrots politician's talking points and pushes the treason narrative. We saw this in the early 21st century when American media denounced anyone who questioned the early days of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. You'd think the aftermath of that would be enough to give everyone pause and the intellect to call bullshit when propaganda machines start accusing dissenters of treason. And you'd think after the Russiagate charade was exposed to be false through Mueller and subsequent investigations people would be even less likely to hop on the treason bandwagon, but here we are once again.
Make no mistake, I'm team America and would sign my life away again to protect this nation and its constitution. But this anti-intellectualism combined with reinforced group think is truly the true risk to American and Western exceptionalism. Western media, particularly American media, used to the the bastion of objective reporting. Now I struggle to make a distinction between what is coming out of Fox or CNN and what Russia Today is spouting.
#234 Re: The Garden » Current Events Thread » 183 weeks ago
How is it blatant communism?
Bands are private businesses that create music (eg Aerosmith) , they sell/lease it to giant public/private companies who make them famous (eg Sony Music), those businesses then make the content available to consumers for profit via publicly listed corporations that run that service platforms (eg Spotify).
Every stage of it involves non-governmental public/private ownership of assets and every stage of it is produced for profit - mostly going to giant capitalist corporations....it may be late stage capitalism even...but i can't see how it's even close to communism.
The idea of a streaming service where one pays a monthly fee to a company and receives access to a catalogue isn't communism. But removing all physical media and supplanting it with digital media owned and controlled by a monopolistic conglomerate who decides when and if you can listen to music and reserves all rights and control of that property is communistic. It's removed the private ownership of an item and replaced it with a communal oversight and control. Whether the power center controlling that property/information is a corporation or oligarchy is largely irrelevant.
This is the point Pollux later expanded on. Sure, in a world where resources are infinite, communal access to transportation could be viewed as a good thing. We're seeing that in most of the west with concepts like Z Trip (cars you can rent for a quick ride for you non-American folks) or more common gig economy examples like Uber. So long as automobile companies can sell personally owned vehicles for a reasonable price, there is no concern. But when Z Trip becomes the only option, and we acknowledge that resources aren't infinite, it starts to become a problem.
When Z Trip gets to decide if your errand/reason for renting their vehicle aligns with their stated moral beliefs, we run into serious issues. And we see this happening at this moment with the dissemination of information. I don't give two shits for twitter or facebook, but they along with google essentially have a monopoly on information in the English language. Both social media companies have demonstrated their desire to control what information and narratives are allowed to exist. Twitter didn't want the world to know that Hunter Biden was a junkie who had done horrendous things that would make Don Jr blush, and they wanted Biden to win the election, so they banned the article from being shared on their network. Both Facebook and Twitter decided that the Democratic narrative on COVID were the only acceptable stories to be told, and would either ban or link their own inaccurate fact checkers to each article. Although economic systems aren't inherently tied to intellectual narratives, they are greatly intertwined. And communism and its stepping stone socialism (read your Marx) are largely based on the notion of the collective versus the individual that has dominated western philosophy the past 500 years. Plato was arguably the first communist, but his philosophy was much different than the communism of Marx or the various real world examples.
All of that is a long way of saying that entities who strive to have a monopoly on thought or property are dangerous and inline with the human rights abuses and disregard for individuality that the governments of the West claim to profess in their various national charters. And elements within those nations are all too eager to allow this to happen so long as the monopolies lead to increase in their political power. Berkley and San Francisco used to the bastions of intellectual individualism and free thought. Now they threaten violence if your speech/thought goes against their political orthodoxy.
So you shouldn't be surprised that when you advocate for a centralized control of resources and property, people associate that support for eagerness for communism as its defined in the philosophy books.
didn't the USA round up all Japanese citizens for a time during ww2 just incase? I don't see poor ideas and bad behaviours as evidence that there's some global plan for us.
Yes, 80 years ago the US did this. Our courts have since ruled it was unconstitutional and those harmed by them have been compensated as much as people can be compensated for a violation of personal autonomy. But your nation didn't allow non-whites to immigrate until the late 1970s and is locking up its citizens in camps at this very moment. Isn't there an island your nation maintains where it keeps all would-be economic migrants from entering the mainland? Weird that an act from nearly a century ago is your go to example rather than the current and much more recent actions of your own nation.
But more than anything it shows how weak your population is if they allow government agents to force them into quarantine camps for having an illness that is no more dangerous than the common flu to 99.9% of people under the age of 65. We can argue degrees of separation, but your government is much more closer to the "Communist" Chinese who also use quarantine camps than say the "Capitalistic" Americans who only require a vaccine if you wish to travel, shop or remain employed. I'm alarmed at both, but one is clearly more of a violation of personal agency.
#235 Re: Guns N' Roses » Slash confirms “one or two” new songs by June » 183 weeks ago
Outside running his mouth in the press, the last I heard -- and I want to get this right, but I'm pretty sure Steven admitted it -- was when he joined the band live for a couple of songs a few years back, he pulled a stunt by refusing to leave the drum set until management basically made him. It embarrassed some people and pissed Axl off.
Hence why he hasn't been invited back.
I was at the Cincinnati show when he first appeared. It was cool, but I’m no drummer and I could tell he wasn’t as good as Frank.
#236 Re: The Garden » Current Events Thread » 184 weeks ago
Randall Flagg wrote:misterID wrote:The strength of the Russian soldiers has been busted. They're getting captured by farmers. Reports are many of them are scared kids. They're saying up to 4,000 have been killed.
James wrote:This has always been assumed of course but is that still the case after this conflict? The footage and stories all across social media platforms reveal an army with outdated equipment and incompetence. Soldiers begging for food, trading fuel for liquor, leaving vehicles on the side of the road, crying or running in certain situations, list goes on.
I don’t think the Russian ground forces are trying to displace and shoot civilians. Putin wants to rule the Ukraine, he doesn’t want to create more insurgents by murdering parents. How many buildings does Russia need to level in Ukrainian cities before people beg the violence and siege to end?
I don’t see a version of this ending where Putin is still President/alive and Ukraine isn’t ultimately under his control. He’s absolutely pulling his punches at the moment. Yes, Russian ground forces aren’t as supplied and equipped as the US/UK/AUS soldier. But I don’t believe the goal here is to Blitzkrieg to Paris. Putin’s winning this war and slowly occupying and controlling all major cities. If Kiev is not completely sieged or occupied next weekend, I’ll be shocked.
Both the Ukrainians and Russians are putting out propaganda according to the DoD. Neither side has killed as many as they’re claiming. We’re losing visibility into Russian state media, but so much of the Ukrainian “victory” is pure fabrication. The “Ghost of Kiev” western media was pushing, complete bullshit. The Ukrainian soldiers who told the Russian Navy to “go fuck yourself” in a refusal to surrender before being blown up? They were taken alive and Russia now controls the island.
Point being Russia is on the path to victory here where they can take over the Ukraine with minimal infrastructural loss and civilian casualties. If the tide were to turn, Russia wouldn’t be pulling its punches and could level entire cities in hours.
Hopefully the sanctions cause the Russian oligarchs to feign concern for Democracy and remove Putin. But I don’t think that’s likely.
With gas prices and oil costs going through the roof, how long until every day citizens in every western nation start bitching about those prices, and fickle politicians turn their coat. It was no more moral to abandon Afghanistan and allow the Taliban to take over than it is to allow Russia to take over Ukraine. So the idea our leaders are righteous and defending democracy from autocrats is complete bullshit. Weeks ago Germany was full bore ahead with the Nord Stream and refused to export weapons to Ukraine. Italy didn’t want banking sanctions via SWIFT. We’ll see how long the solidarity lasts and how much pain western powers are willing to inflict on their people in the hopes a tyrant will abandon his effort to reform the Russian empire.
Dude, they have leveled a lot of shit that are civilian buildings. Please don’t start that narrative that Putin is being ultra careful not to piss off or kill the Ukrainian citizens. Some are saying rapes are happening. We have seen the bombs.
SG, I guess the experts saw my post and agreed with me!
#237 Re: The Garden » Current Events Thread » 184 weeks ago
https://www.axios.com/scoop-biden-offic … a0a4e.html
Kind of hard to knock Germany when our own administration is fighting to to prevent a ban on Russian oil being passed in Congress.
#238 Re: The Garden » Current Events Thread » 184 weeks ago
Randall Flagg wrote:misterID wrote:The strength of the Russian soldiers has been busted. They're getting captured by farmers. Reports are many of them are scared kids. They're saying up to 4,000 have been killed.
James wrote:This has always been assumed of course but is that still the case after this conflict? The footage and stories all across social media platforms reveal an army with outdated equipment and incompetence. Soldiers begging for food, trading fuel for liquor, leaving vehicles on the side of the road, crying or running in certain situations, list goes on.
I don’t think the Russian ground forces are trying to displace and shoot civilians. Putin wants to rule the Ukraine, he doesn’t want to create more insurgents by murdering parents. How many buildings does Russia need to level in Ukrainian cities before people beg the violence and siege to end?
I don’t see a version of this ending where Putin is still President/alive and Ukraine isn’t ultimately under his control. He’s absolutely pulling his punches at the moment. Yes, Russian ground forces aren’t as supplied and equipped as the US/UK/AUS soldier. But I don’t believe the goal here is to Blitzkrieg to Paris. Putin’s winning this war and slowly occupying and controlling all major cities. If Kiev is not completely sieged or occupied next weekend, I’ll be shocked.
Both the Ukrainians and Russians are putting out propaganda according to the DoD. Neither side has killed as many as they’re claiming. We’re losing visibility into Russian state media, but so much of the Ukrainian “victory” is pure fabrication. The “Ghost of Kiev” western media was pushing, complete bullshit. The Ukrainian soldiers who told the Russian Navy to “go fuck yourself” in a refusal to surrender before being blown up? They were taken alive and Russia now controls the island.
Point being Russia is on the path to victory here where they can take over the Ukraine with minimal infrastructural loss and civilian casualties. If the tide were to turn, Russia wouldn’t be pulling its punches and could level entire cities in hours.
Hopefully the sanctions cause the Russian oligarchs to feign concern for Democracy and remove Putin. But I don’t think that’s likely.
With gas prices and oil costs going through the roof, how long until every day citizens in every western nation start bitching about those prices, and fickle politicians turn their coat. It was no more moral to abandon Afghanistan and allow the Taliban to take over than it is to allow Russia to take over Ukraine. So the idea our leaders are righteous and defending democracy from autocrats is complete bullshit. Weeks ago Germany was full bore ahead with the Nord Stream and refused to export weapons to Ukraine. Italy didn’t want banking sanctions via SWIFT. We’ll see how long the solidarity lasts and how much pain western powers are willing to inflict on their people in the hopes a tyrant will abandon his effort to reform the Russian empire.
Dude, they have leveled a lot of shit that are civilian buildings. Please don’t start that narrative that Putin is being ultra careful not to piss off or kill the Ukrainian citizens. Some are saying rapes are happening. We have seen the bombs.
I didn't say they hadn't, please don't be like the other poster and invent arguments to attack. I’m aware of what has happened and what can happen. If you think this is “war”, you don’t have a clue what war is. It’s terrible that any of this is happening, but this can be so much worse. Neither side is claiming injuries in the 5 digits yet.
Ukraine is taking volunteers SG. You seem to really have a grasp on this conflict and are eager to encourage assassinations and conflict escalation. You should consider going over there and standing up for your beliefs and values. Then you could verify all these claims as either true or propaganda. I know you’re not the kind of guy to advocate for war and then not offer yourself up as a soldier. It’s just like call of duty, I promise.
#239 Re: The Garden » Current Events Thread » 184 weeks ago
The strength of the Russian soldiers has been busted. They're getting captured by farmers. Reports are many of them are scared kids. They're saying up to 4,000 have been killed.
This has always been assumed of course but is that still the case after this conflict? The footage and stories all across social media platforms reveal an army with outdated equipment and incompetence. Soldiers begging for food, trading fuel for liquor, leaving vehicles on the side of the road, crying or running in certain situations, list goes on.
I don’t think the Russian ground forces are trying to displace and shoot civilians. Putin wants to rule the Ukraine, he doesn’t want to create more insurgents by murdering parents. How many buildings does Russia need to level in Ukrainian cities before people beg the violence and siege to end?
I don’t see a version of this ending where Putin is still President/alive and Ukraine isn’t ultimately under his control. He’s absolutely pulling his punches at the moment. Yes, Russian ground forces aren’t as supplied and equipped as the US/UK/AUS soldier. But I don’t believe the goal here is to Blitzkrieg to Paris. Putin’s winning this war and slowly occupying and controlling all major cities. If Kiev is not completely sieged or occupied next weekend, I’ll be shocked.
Both the Ukrainians and Russians are putting out propaganda according to the DoD. Neither side has killed as many as they’re claiming. We’re losing visibility into Russian state media, but so much of the Ukrainian “victory” is pure fabrication. The “Ghost of Kiev” western media was pushing, complete bullshit. The Ukrainian soldiers who told the Russian Navy to “go fuck yourself” in a refusal to surrender before being blown up? They were taken alive and Russia now controls the island.
Point being Russia is on the path to victory here where they can take over the Ukraine with minimal infrastructural loss and civilian casualties. If the tide were to turn, Russia wouldn’t be pulling its punches and could level entire cities in hours.
Hopefully the sanctions cause the Russian oligarchs to feign concern for Democracy and remove Putin. But I don’t think that’s likely.
With gas prices and oil costs going through the roof, how long until every day citizens in every western nation start bitching about those prices, and fickle politicians turn their coat. It was no more moral to abandon Afghanistan and allow the Taliban to take over than it is to allow Russia to take over Ukraine. So the idea our leaders are righteous and defending democracy from autocrats is complete bullshit. Weeks ago Germany was full bore ahead with the Nord Stream and refused to export weapons to Ukraine. Italy didn’t want banking sanctions via SWIFT. We’ll see how long the solidarity lasts and how much pain western powers are willing to inflict on their people in the hopes a tyrant will abandon his effort to reform the Russian empire.
#240 Re: The Garden » Current Events Thread » 184 weeks ago
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/democr … ter-racist
Better than 44 Democrats filibustering sanctions on Russia just a few weeks ago. I'm sure your concern and objectivity won't be impaired.
3/213 vs 44/50
