*still fails to see how the whole media issue relates to the topic of the thread*

*does not feel the need to defend her morals on this site*
That being said...use of illegal drugs is ILLEGAL. That means, that when you use these illegal drugs, you are knowingly breaking the law. I'm fairly certain that most people would agree that breaking the law does not equal "conformity to the rules of right conduct" (the definition of morality found on dictionary.com).

quote:

The only thing that makes drugs bad is the use people make of them. Criminalizing an inert chemical composite is plain stupid, and is only an evasion mechanism used to avoid the responsability of the people that misuse them.

I really have to agree with speed here. Sorry.

Seeing you are an enlightened being would you please let me know what is morally correct and what isn't?

You SEE, from my point of view, hiding from drugs, demonizing them, and being intolerant on any isues regarding them is hypocritical when you are willing to claim that morality is your guideline. As I made rather clear in my post on the matter, drugs are simple chemical composites, chemical composites aren't bad, plastic isn't bad is it? if you burn it and inhale its fumes you'll get stoned though, but no one hates plastic regardless of it's capacity to mess up the human mind through it's incorrect use.
Demonizing drugs is the common attitude of those who have no comprehension on the matter.
As a whole, the drugs are bad attitude is just a product of media manipulation of the information that is accesible to the public.
Drugs are not bad, they're not good either, they simply are. just like plastic, cleaning fluids(on wich you could also get stones), glue, etc...
The only thing that makes drugs bad is the use people make of them. Criminalizing an inert chemical composite is plain stupid, and is only an evasion mechanism used to avoid the responsability of the people that misuse them.
Isn't that horrible on your precious moral scale? Not accepting responsability?

quote:

That was horrible. Shame on you for making such a bad pun. ...I still laughed, though.

why bother make an inteligent response to a stupid remark? I don't feel the necessity of proving anything when confronted with a watermelon seed that rhyme's with speed


That was way off topic.


To get back on the subject though, I recomend reading War Made Easy by Norman Solomon. The book analize's the role played by the media in the current state of affairs. Before claiming bias, you should atleast try reading a chapter(you can download the book in PDF format on emule or any other p2p client) and refuting anything said in it. I've tried to criticize some points I don't agree with, but so far I've found most of the evidence and information to be extremely well sourced, and in most cases, irrefutable. A great read that helps put war and mid east issues into a better perspective for those that don't have acces to non US media.

quote:

...and you can't replace inteligence with fruity remarks

That was horrible. Shame on you for making such a bad pun. ...I still laughed, though.

quote:

You prove weakness when you aknowledge words, especially regarding drugs, are enough to provoke you.

No. I prove morality when I acknowledge that words are enough to make me lose all respect for someone.

meagan stfu, i allready made clear that my grammar issues derive from me being a US citizen living abroad, thus my knowledge of the language isn't as good as that held by the rest of you.
Regardless, you undoubtedly understood what I said anyway, but instead of responding to the content of my post you made a snide remark on my grammar.

Now, on the failure(of both of you) to find relevance to what I wrote.
What I posted was actually quite relevant to the debate, so far Hydrok has attempted to disqualify everything I have added to the argument by labelling biased and heavily influenced by anti-americanism in European culture. My response to this conveniently provided statisticall figures that give a pretty good idea of US media behaviour, thus rendering his sources useless, and consequently discrediting his claims of me being biased. I further mention his military affilitation, as it is rather shocking to me that no one questions his views based on this.

quote:

You cant grow peaches with a watermelon seed. Speed.

...and you can't replace inteligence with fruity remarks

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For example, when people attempt to argue about the war on the supporting our troops thread, and discussing which illegal drugs they would and would not recommend trying.

thats reality for you, if you enjoy your bubble I suggest stay inside it and let others decide what suits them best. You prove weakness when you aknowledge words, especially regarding drugs, are enough to provoke you.

quote:

Originally posted by Maya:

quote:

Too late, I am really wondering who the real elitist here is.

yeah I guess I'm a hypocrite.

the reason I said I wasn't going to bother arguing with you though is because I knew you'd get all annoyed and it wouldn't get either of us anywhere but whatever.

Admission is the first step to rehabilitation.

quote:

Too late, I am really wondering who the real elitist here is.

yeah I guess I'm a hypocrite.

the reason I said I wasn't going to bother arguing with you though is because I knew you'd get all annoyed and it wouldn't get either of us anywhere but whatever.

quote:

Originally posted by Maya:
riiiight hydrok...you seriously need to RELAX, stop getting so pissy and take a chill pill or something! I'm not gonna' bother arguing with you because, well, there's no point and I know you'll just get all nasty so...

Too late, I am really wondering who the real elitist here is.

riiiight hydrok...you seriously need to RELAX, stop getting so pissy and take a chill pill or something! I'm not gonna' bother arguing with you because, well, there's no point and I know you'll just get all nasty so...

quote:

Originally posted by Maya:
sorry meagan, calm down I'm not trying to pin anything on you. I just find it kind of annoying that instead of commenting on anything speed actually said people just made remarks that were completely unrelated.I don't find his mistake to be such a big deal but hey that's just my opinion. (so sorry for bitching at you it was more of a general statement towards your and hydrok's response)


what led me to post that comment is the fact that no one has actually made a sole comment on what speed was pointing out

Well gee, how about this? What did Speed say that was even worth my time to comment on?

quote:

Originally posted by Maya:

quote:

Originally posted by Meagan87:
WERE!!!

You WERE using a word incorrectly throughout your entire rambling. It's WERE, not WHERE.

(Not actually seeing any relevancy to the rest of the post, I will leave my comments at the above.)

just what I was pointing out in my thread in randomosity...

Stop being an attention whore!

sorry meagan, calm down I'm not trying to pin anything on you. I just find it kind of annoying that instead of commenting on anything speed actually said people just made remarks that were completely unrelated.I don't find his mistake to be such a big deal but hey that's just my opinion. (so sorry for bitching at you it was more of a general statement towards your and hydrok's response)


what led me to post that comment is the fact that no one has actually made a sole comment on what speed was pointing out

Oh noes, I mispeled sum werds in my setnences! Whut evr will i do? Sumone sav me frum my horible grammer and speling!

Granted, that's pretty bad, but I think we can deal with homophones (or quasi-homophones in the case of "where" and "were") if we can take the meaning from the context it's used in. We're all educated teens; that shouldn't be too hard to do.

But really, you need only jump on someone's back if they're using leet-speak or something. Leave it alone if their only offense is using "there" instead of "they're", or something similar. No one likes a nitpicker.

It is not fair to pin that on me, and you know it.

There are very few instances where I have ever yelled at a newbie, and I have been justified in pretty much all of them. (For example, when people attempt to argue about the war on the supporting our troops thread, and discussing which illegal drugs they would and would not recommend trying.)

In this situation, I found that he had made the same wrong word choice a total of eleven times and I felt compelled to point it out. (If for his knowledge if nothing else.) I then included the fact that I didn't see where his post did anything to forward his argument.

Finally, I did not direct any of my comments towards Speed on the sole basis that he is a new member. If anyone else on the site had made the same error over and over again, I would have been one of the first to point it out. I'm sure many of the regular members would agree with this assertion.

Next time, look at who you are directing YOUR comments towards.

quote:

just what I was pointing out in my thread in randomosity...

She was commenting about his grammar. Not because he is a 'newb'

quote:

Originally posted by Meagan87:
WERE!!!

You WERE using a word incorrectly throughout your entire rambling. It's WERE, not WHERE.

(Not actually seeing any relevancy to the rest of the post, I will leave my comments at the above.)

just what I was pointing out in my thread in randomosity...

WERE!!!

You WERE using a word incorrectly throughout your entire rambling. It's WERE, not WHERE.

(Not actually seeing any relevancy to the rest of the post, I will leave my comments at the above.)

Looks like somebody woke up on the wrong side of the rock.

You cant grow peaches with a watermelon seed. Speed.

sorry for such a long absence, work has kept me too busy to post as much as I'd like

You need to get back in touch with reality, American media does not report facts accurately, it selects what it believes fit for the american public. Corporate interests prime on this issue.
An interesting example would be the statistics deriving from the pre-war media campaign to boost support for the invasion.
All broadcasting networks during late 2002 and early 2003 openly admited they trusted the Pentagon and the Administration as accurate sources worth reporting, and due to this,
they would commonly treat official governement reports as factual news. This clearly conflicts with the principles of journalism.

Now, on those statistics:
Particularly noticeable was the clear unquestioning push for war that the US media made as a whole.
Through fall and winter 2002, the media often had "expert intervention" on it's prime time shows regarding war. Experts invited largely consisted in Retired Generals, Military industry Lobbyists, Highly conservative Republican and Democratic Senators, And in general, people with close ties either to the administration itself, or to the military segment that provided the hardcore backing for the intervention.
Percentages derived from this give some pretty clear figures.
To give some accurate figures, of all sources aired during the first 3 weeks of the invasion on six television networks evening shows(a total of 1617), two thirds(64%) where pro war. 71% of American sources where war supporters also. Antiwar voices totaled 10% out of the 1617, with only 3% of them being American.
The remaining 26% mostly corresponds to street interviews with people that where undecided on the matter.
Now, what can we deduct from this?

First of all, an average american watching the evening news was between 2 to 3 times more likely to see/hear a pro-war opinion than an anti war one. When seeing a pro war opinion it was probably coming from a media apointed expert, but when seeing a anti-war opinion, it probably came from a street source.
Out of all the american sources interviewed and given air time, 71% where clearly pro war, whereas only 3% where anti war. That means that an average american was around 24 times more likely to see a fellow citizen suport the war, than oppose it. Remember these fellow citizens where all "experts".
Another interesting fact is that, out of the 10% that opposed the war, a majority(7%), where foreigners, this clearly was portrayed to give more weight to the perception that the whole world opposed us, and thus create cohesion in society. Also, out of that 10% of opposition, 3% of the sources where Iraqi, thus the media tried to transmit a sense of equality between American and Iraqi opposition the war. The purpose of this is obvious.

As a whole, the media was quite clear about it's alignement. Official Reports where the same things as News, and a majority of sources interviewed had a clear right wing inclination.
What does this mean? It means that everything you can say, quote, or elaborate, based on US media reports is void.
You see, a large part of the media has close ties to the american military industry, and thus, it allways portrays Israel in a friendly manner, due to it's obvious economic interests.
My perception of the world is not biased at all, rather it is much wider than yours, as I have acces to media sources that don't hold corporate interests in the Israeli conflict, whereas as you have admited, you rely on american media for information(or disinformation, both terms are equal in this case).
You also seem to give little value to the fact that you study in a military adjoined ambient, wich is so utterly biased it's unlikely it has no effect on your views.


Altogether the only thing i can say on your views on the matter is that they're full of shit, I have no intention of being disrepectfull, but you are so clearly aligned with the military posture that I can't take anything you say seriously. Your utter trust of the military and the american media fall's in line with the perception that managed to get us into the war in the first place.
European media isn't biased towards anything, European media just states facts without editting them. You don't get videos of Palestinians and Iraqis suffering in the US, and in the real world wich you seem to consider biased, there is a lot more of this suffering than the american media has ever shown. There is no huge Anti-American plot cooking up here, there is no constant attack on american ideals and interests. those ideals and interest are just regarded as incorrect for a series of reasons, many of wich i have exposed in my posts.
Please, if you still find fault in this, just go straightforward and say that America is Right and the rest of the world is Wrong, because that is what your opinions and posts ammount to so far.



My statistical source is Norman Solomon, look him up on wikipedia is you wan't a listing of his books.