[Jack]

Here's a little something for those who believe the human race will transform itself into peaceful folk who sit around singing Kumbaya and practice sustainable living.

It's wonderful to see humanity confirming my opinions. I must remember to say thank you!

Remember - you can accomplish more with a gun than a kind word any day.

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Thousands of protesters are dead and the bodies of hundreds of executed monks have been dumped in the jungle, a former intelligence officer for Burma's ruling junta has revealed.

The most senior official to defect so far, Hla Win, said: "Many more people have been killed in recent days than you've heard about. The bodies can be counted in several thousand."

[snip]

Liselotte Agerlid, who is now in Thailand, said that the Burmese people now face possibly decades of repression. "The Burma revolt is over," she added.


"The military regime won and a new generation has been violently repressed and violently denied democracy. The people in the street were young people, monks and civilians who were not participating during the 1988 revolt.

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[Twilight]

"I can believe the monks didn't like, totally kung fu them."

(Comment overheard on bus at the weekend)

[Zardoz]

[url=http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gpFKMMJBpnwII9U5_Xl9Zx7pdLlQD8RVUCA80]Myanmar Military Unlikely to Compromise
[/url]

The Burmese army exists solely to control the people. The soldiers are paid well and treated well. They are extremely loyal to the junta.

Given that fact, it is not surprising that they respond to threats to the status quo as they apparently have once again. They see the protests as threats to the good deal they have as members of the army. They take it personally.

[bodigami]

Time for a violent revolution? Or migration?

[Gerontion]

I don't understand the OP. Are you really crowing over the deaths of thousands of people because it confirms your view of humanity? If so, that's infinitely more asinine than any number of patchouli drenched hippies.

[MacG]

Normally this kind of behavior is self-regulating since the oppressors will destroy the base they rely on, and will subsequently be undone. In the case of Burma tough, the top dogs have external incomes from oil and gas and can actually afford to destroy the entire population if they would like to do so. The only thing that matters to them is to maintain the external incomes and to use part of it to feed, shelter and arm the dumbest 5% of the young men who serve as soldiers. While using the rest (of the money) for weddings and such.

The big joker in the game is this thing with "social status" - there might be a guy or two in that junta who get a real hard-on from "social status" and would feel inclined to "save the country" and become admired heroes and all that. Memorials and statues included in the standard package. Not that the region have such an history, but anyhow...

[bodigami]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Gerontion', 'I') don't understand the OP. Are you really crowing over the deaths of thousands of people because it confirms your view of humanity? If so, that's infinitely more asinine than any number of patchouli drenched hippies.

[wisconsin_cur]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Gerontion', 'I') don't understand the OP. Are you really crowing over the deaths of thousands of people because it confirms your view of humanity? If so, that's infinitely more asinine than any number of patchouli drenched hippies.

[Zardoz]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('zensui', 'T')ime for a violent revolution?

[Jack]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Gerontion', 'I') don't understand the OP. Are you really crowing over the deaths of thousands of people because it confirms your view of humanity?

[Jack]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('wisconsin_cur', '
')And it does bring up that difficult issue of "truth." No one is assailing Jack for being wrong, just saying that what he espouses is "asinine." Sometimes truth is asinine.

[Zardoz]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Gerontion', 'I') don't understand the OP.

[PolestaR]

Jack you must have come to the same conclusion I did on 'educating' people about the truth of humanity, it's pointless. People see their values as bottomless pits of truth, even though if you asked them how they got them they couldn't give you a clear reason without using the words "good', "right" or "just" (or even sillier religious reasons).

So I've come to the conclusion you do it for entertainment, and it is funny and I would like you to continue. We should create some kind of drinking game where every time a few hundred people die in some kind of human initiated way we have a drink. Bottoms up.

[Jack]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PolestaR', 'J')ack you must have come to the same conclusion I did on 'educating' people about the truth of humanity, it's pointless. People see their values as bottomless pits of truth, even though if you asked them how they got them they couldn't give you a clear reason without using the words "good', "right" or "just" (or even sillier religious reasons).

So I've come to the conclusion you do it for entertainment, and it is funny and I would like you to continue. We should create some kind of drinking game where every time a few hundred people die in some kind of human initiated way we have a drink. Bottoms up.

[Ayame]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Jack', 'H')ere's a little something for those who believe the human race will transform itself into peaceful folk who sit around singing Kumbaya and practice sustainable living.

Remember - you can accomplish more with a gun than a kind word any day.

[wisconsin_cur]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Jack', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('wisconsin_cur', '
')And it does bring up that difficult issue of "truth." No one is assailing Jack for being wrong, just saying that what he espouses is "asinine." Sometimes truth is asinine.

[Cloud9]

Burma is a reminder of an inconvenient truth. Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. Those that would argue that the methods of Gandhi and Martin Luther King would prevail in such circumstances are simply wrong.

[Jack]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('wisconsin_cur', '
')The pursuit of truth is not asinine but truth itself is often scoffed at as if it were.

[Gerontion]

I’m not denying that vast numbers of people are wicked. That would be rather stupid, wouldn’t it? What I took issue with is your attitude, and asinine is the perfect way to describe it. Gloating over these deaths does not establish you as some kind of flinty, hard-nosed realist; if I were to skip down the street every time I heard another yank GI had had his legs blown off in Baghdad shouting "Told ya so..told ya so....told ya so...", would this establishes me as a political genius who had seen through the miasma of lies surrounding American foreign policy…or would it just make me look like a bit of a cock?

[max_power29]

I bet there are not many pivately owned guns and ammo in Burma, I don't even have to look it up.