BF2S Forums BF3s Book Club

Last edited by Uzique (2010-07-19 14:48:18)

Uzique wrote:

that's good. im genuinely sure he did.

i just mean... i don't know how to explain... just the general-summary of the book made it seem like some big all-american patriotic hand-on-chest affair, when really you probably know yourself the reality of the war is a lot different and your boys are pretty much left out there to rot for nothing. not meaning to sound disrespectful at all but im sure you can see how the book comes across as a bit of a propaganda-victory for everyone that's pro-war and pro-military. it's making money and making some tenuous-point out of somebody's personal tragedy. i don't like that so much.

kinda like people that write/sell books about rape or child-abuse in their life. i just feel like they're taking advantage of somebody, somewhere.

Uzique wrote:

read my posts and get a clue.

degrading? to who? the publisher that wants to make money off the fact a guy lost his legs? ya well fuck them and all the rest of the 'book industry' that wants to cash-in on some poor guy's bad fortune and turn it into some big top-seller that they promote and make money from. if you don't have a problem with that then GFYourself for not having any common decency.

honestly do you not know how the publishing industry works or something? the guy wants to write the book - i said that's great, and im intrigued if it makes a good read. my problem i said is then with all the agents and publishers that see an easy-buck to be made here out of an 'american hero' - a story that can be politically spun to represent a propagandist victory for the US operations. it's exploitation.

Last edited by JohnG@lt (2010-07-19 15:20:29)

Dilbert_X wrote:

Just finished 'Liars Poker'.

Anyone who currently believes the 'free market' is the cure to the world's woes should read this and 'The Big Short'.

Last edited by JohnG@lt (2010-08-18 18:45:02)

Dilbert_X wrote:

I don't see greed, or capitalism, as 'wrong' at all, they drive the world in a way that communism or pure socialism can't.

Pure unfettered, unregulated, ethicless short-termist capitalism fails equally however.

Dilbert_X wrote:

If it were based on profit the customers made then fine.

Last edited by JohnG@lt (2010-08-18 20:14:00)

Dilbert_X wrote:

JohnG@lt wrote:

Dilbert_X wrote:

If it were based on profit the customers made then fine.

Why? The profit realized by the customer is entirely irrelevant. He doesn't work for the customer, he works for his company. If he blows up a customer, it means decreased future profits for his own company because he will lose that account. That's his motivation.

'His company' is ostensibly working for the customer, hence he should be working for the customer.
Depends on whether they're trading as banks, merchant banks, investment advisors or just trading on their own account - something often hidden from the customer - I wouldn't go to a company if I knew their objective was to offload their unwanted garbage onto me, nor would most other people which is why these organisations hide it.

AussieReaper wrote:

About to start reading the Isaac Asimov "Foundation" series.

JohnG@lt wrote:

Sure, and if they're reckless and blow up enough accounts they earn a bad reputation and eventually go under. It works itself out. Blatantly ripping people off only works for so long.

AMERICAN journalist Joe Bageant does not have a very high opinion of his fellow countrymen. "Americans don't even have the IQ of a chicken any more," he says.
Not that he lives in his homeland any more. Outspoken Bageant, arguably America's most famous self-proclaimed redneck, has retired to Mexico.

He will be in Australia next week to launch his new book about the dumbing down of America. He says he has chosen this far-distant offshore launch of Rainbow Pie: A Redneck Memoir  because Australians read books more and make better audiences than Americans.

The picture he draws of contemporary America is not pretty. The prognosis he projects is not good. And Australia, he warns, is not far behind.

Bageant has made his fame, if not fortune, from his redneck grassroot origins amid America's gun-toting, unemployed white underclass. His profile popped up through acerbic and witty blogs and he was soon dubbed a "gonzo journalist".

Just as his first book, Deer Hunting With Jesus, which is about America's dirt-poor factory and farm workers, is being turned into an HBO television series, he launches this new one, lifting the lid yet further on what makes redneck Americans tick.

Rainbow Pie: A Redneck Memoir  tells of how Bageant flew the redneck family coop - thanks to the fact that he loved to read.
Bageant's premise is that Americans are swinging further and further to the right because the country has been taken hostage by semi-literacy.

"Nearly a third of our population is illiterate or barely literate and cannot read predatory car loans, mortgage documents, or credit card agreements," he says.

They also cannot read about what is happening in their own country or the rest of the world, Bageant says. "The most they get is grabs on TV," he says.
Hence, he says, their descent to the IQ of chickens.
Bageant now sees the political process as a "televised popularity contest with a whole lot of people who are already sold out".

"We (Americans) only have one party and it is a party of business. It has two faces, Republican and Democrat.

"There are 2000 pages of the healthcare Bill because it says specifically who gets what piece of the cake," he says. "The Australian Government is not that different."

But we don't have the massive underclass America has created - one that is growing with the economic collapse.
Meanwhile, there is the tragedy of diminishing education and semi-literacy, which remains the unseen enemy.

"Semi-literacy endows its tribe with the surety and conviction of those who don't know what they don't know, rendering them blustering, happy idiots who haven't the slightest notion of anything beyond appearances," Bageant says.

JohnG@lt wrote:

Dilbert_X wrote:

JohnG@lt wrote:

Sure, and if they're reckless and blow up enough accounts they earn a bad reputation and eventually go under. It works itself out. Blatantly ripping people off only works for so long.

Which is like saying the police shouldn't worry about catching murderers because they're bound to get lynched eventually.

Think I'll get this.
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/worl … 5907968844

So is this guy any good?

Never heard of him. Two things: One, people are always lamenting and glorifying the past. Even during the Age of Enlightenment it was still the monied class that was educated while the poor toiled in the fields. And secondly, education is free. Whether it's attending public school, attending college on a scholarship or via the GI Bill, or even going to a public library, it's available. If someone gets ripped off due to their own willful (because it is certainly voluntary) ignorance I don't have an ounce of sympathy.