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Since you and yours recently escaped moved out ...

If you get a chance, and feel up to it, a diary contrasting the social/cultural aspects -- feed-ins? -- to/of US militarism versus the EU based on your experience would be interesting and help to increase international understanding.

Somehow the peoples of the EU have GOT to realize how completely the US is dominated by the military-industrial complex.  (Read: predatory capitalists and their hirelings, prostitutes, and toadies in and out of politics.)  I can't do it due to my lack of social and cultural knowledge.  

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre

by ATinNM on Sat Sep 6th, 2008 at 04:14:20 PM EST
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Hey, I watched the NBA playoffs on (slightly illegal) internet broadcasts.

Jamaican TV was very fun. Banks advertising with a local accent : "Hey mon ! We got the coolest mortgage rate aroond !"

But on US channels, the amount of military advertising was sobering, with such concepts as "the Marines teamwork play of the day !" cited a dozen times a game - and the way it was much more integrated in the broadcast, with the commentators integrating the sponsors in their commentary..

Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères

by linca (antonin POINT lucas AROBASE gmail.com) on Sat Sep 6th, 2008 at 06:47:35 PM EST
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Well, they need soldiers if they're to continue.

The integration of it with the commentary just reflects how good the commentators were.  I know what you mean.  "And now it's time for the Mountain Dew Brett Favre fuck-up of the week, and for that we'll turn it over to Sarah Palin on the sidelines."

Be nice to America. Or we'll bring democracy to your country.

by Drew J Jones (pedobear@pennstatefootball.com) on Sat Sep 6th, 2008 at 07:43:34 PM EST
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Those things simply don't happen, or very rarely so, in France... Any advertisement has to be preceded by a specific jingle, among other things. And Although the military does advertise, it is quite rare.

Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères
by linca (antonin POINT lucas AROBASE gmail.com) on Sat Sep 6th, 2008 at 09:28:42 PM EST
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I've had a lot jingling 'round in my head, and I'll set it down here pretty soon as I will (unfortunately) likely hae a little time on my hands, being in LA this week for work.

You are absolutely right - it's the elephant in the room, that no one sees.

In the US, because it is such an interwoven piece of society, and so casual, there was a term for the movement towards this, after Eisenhower's failed attempt to abort the movement...they called it friendly fascism, I forget who coined the term, but it is apt, and Americans are by and large a friendly lot, in between episodes of violence, either state-sponsored (as in Iraq) or state-sanctioned (as in gun violence on the streets of the US).

In the EU, because people just don't want to believe what the US has become.

The Hun is always either at your throat or at your feet. Winston Churchill

by r------ on Sun Sep 7th, 2008 at 05:09:31 AM EST
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I fully understand time crunch.  Round here we got so many alligators we're thinking of opening up a luggage factory.  :-)

Bertram Gross  published a book in 1980 with the title Friendly Facism: The New Face of Power in America.  [Warning!  A link to the book, so slow download.  Not Suitable for Dial-Up.]  As I remember, the book came out, got some talk, and then sank like a rock.  

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre

by ATinNM on Sun Sep 7th, 2008 at 12:47:24 PM EST
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