[QatzelOk]

TV has created a society that is keenly aware that not everything you see or hear is to be believed.

That's right.

It has created a society that believes fabricated mythology rather than its five (actually many more) senses. It has implanted the naive fantasy life of children into the mature adult brain.

General Electric owns the History Channel.

[Godstud]

TV has created a society that is keenly aware that not everything you see or hear is to be believed.

Did you even read that statement?
If anything, TV has helped create a more questioning society that is more likely to disbelieve things without actual proof.

It has created a society that believes fabricated mythology rather than its five (actually many more) senses. It has implanted the naive fantasy life of children into the mature adult brain.

This is nothing more than your own paranoid? opinion.

Someone has to own the TV channels. It doesn't mean in any way that GE actually censors or alters material.
Do you have proof that information is altered to make people susceptible to GE's diabolical world domination plans and to make people in the east all look like evil people set on our destruction?

It's the nature of both the publishing industry and of war reporting to skew data to fit into a narrative the war's "winners" feel comfortable with

Absolutely opinion and without any proof, whatsoever.

War reporting is to report FACTS about war, even if those facts might be contrary to popularity. Did you ever see some of the stuff televised from Vietnam? Right there is proof contrary to your OPINION. The reporting went completely against what the US wanted the "narrative" to be, which would have been "US winning! Story at 6:00!".
Talk to a war reporter some time about this and see their response if you tell them their job is only to "skew data". I can imagine you'd get quite a heated response to this accusation.

Yes... on the internet people can say what they want and claim nonsensical opinions as fact. Until time as I can find any proof to back your claim then history is pretty safe from intense scrutiny & disbelief.

/discussion

[Smilin' Dave]

Dave, all of history is written with an agenda. It's the nature of both the publishing industry and of war reporting to skew data to fit into a narrative the war's "winners" feel comfortable with.

I realize you want to believe that the numbers in our history books are simply raw data

Just a note: Statistics are collected at the time of the conflict (so they were not history) and are for internal use by governments, hence the motivations you list for falsifying them don't make much sense. Note I also didn't state statistics all come from history books (history books are not data, but information). Census data for example is published seperately.

So not only are you ignorant about WWII, you don't even understand research, information systems or how governments function administratively. But hey, your lack of knowledge just means you can trump it with "common sense"

[QatzelOk]

Statistics are collected at the time of the conflict (so they were not history) and are for internal use by governments, hence the motivations you list for falsifying them don't make much sense.

Statistics are easily configured into winning formulas that ignore certain characters of the accepted numbers. For example, a statistic pie chart will list auto production figures without including the nature of the cars being produced. For the sake of the narrative structure of the pic chart, only one type of information may be represented.

To call this kind of one-dimensional statistic construction a "proof" is to forget how complex the human mind is (and how even more complex is the reality around it).

[Smilin' Dave]

You seem to be missing the point so just to clarify:

For example, a statistic pie chart will list auto production figures without including the nature of the cars being produced.

Thats information, not data. The pie chart is a method of presenting the data.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data#Meani ... _knowledge

[QatzelOk]

I realize that, Dave. We all do.

But raw data is meaningless. That's why it's called "data."

So to think you've expressed something by presenting raw data - even if it's presented on an easy-to-visualize pie chart - is like believing in numerology.

Do you believe in numerology, Dave? That numbers each have their own essence?

[RabbleRouser]

I don't even know were to start. No, Raw data is useless until analyzed and then based upon agendas or prior beliefs can be manipulated consciously or unconsciously to fit into ones perfect model of the way things are. So 100 different people could review the same data and all come to different conclusions. This isn't new it's the fallacy of humans and our inability to know everything. However when you debate, you presents you're view and facts to back it up and Qatzel I haven’t seen that yet. I have read interesting theories and conjectures but to say that the Allies started WW2 without offering proof (which yes proof can be subjective) objective information you're premise holds no water.
This is how I see what you are saying. America Elite's started the Cold War cause it won it, America and Russia elites started WW2 (I do not say France or England because they were ruined in this war and the only true winners were the US and the USSR), American elites started WW1, German Elites started the Franco-Prussian war, The Northern Elites started the US civil war, the allies elite's started the Napoleonic Wars, The French elites (who were all mostly murdered) started the French Revolution, The American Elites started the America Revolution and so on and so on. I can draw any conclusion that I want, lets say the American Revolution...I say that England started the war and won it because afterwards their arch rival France overthrew their monarch and thus English Elites profits, I know their is allot of Data out their that say's otherwise but because Data can be manipulated my logic is better suited then any facts.
Vietnam as you said was started by the US but they lost, but not really because the Elites really won. The problem with all this is that I can change and manipulate any fact or when I cant I can completely discount it by saying that some greedy Elitist control all the facts, now nothing can defeat my argument because everything can be countered to fit into my view of things. Isn't this exactly what the elitist are doing? Anyways outstanding Topic.

[QatzelOk]

but to say that the Allies started WW2 without offering proof

I didn't say "the Allies" started WW2. I said "the winners" did.

Canada was one of "the Allies" and what did we ever win? The right to "not speak German?"

[Smilin' Dave]

So clarify for us Qatz: Exactly who started WWII, and provide proof. Everything else is contingent on this point, even by your account.

If you have clearly stated this elsewhere in the thread and I have missed it, quote it.

[RabbleRouser]

World War Two was started by the Allies because they knew they had a huge military and political advantage

That was you're first post on this thread Qatzel. So yes you did say that the Allies started WW2 but I guess you didn't define what Allies entail. You're logic of stating that war's are started by this elite segment of society ,that virtually always win, we don't know about them starting it because they cover it up it with their own propaganda, falls into this circular quagmire of false premises that would take the vast resources of these ghost elites to pull us out from. But for a fairly fun intellectual discussion it is intriguing.

You said earlier that wars are almost always started and won by the strongest side. Because the stronger side has more power (I will define power as a combination of material, economic, manpower, military tradition, and will) it is able to defeat the weaker side. What is missing in this gross over simplecation of warfare. Warfare in it truest essence, war for war sake, both sides would contribute maximum effort to defeat their enemy. But since no war, ever, has had two sides contribute 100% because this type of contribution would completely devastate the victor while destroying the loser. The wars that we have fought have been a percentage of this total power with different areas being more prevalent than others ie: country A might have high material and economic power but country B has a higher will. But Country A has the most power so it will prevail...in an abstract world. In our world no body brings their total power to bear, for a multitude of reason; war is not final, war stem from war's in the past, with everything being transitory. So country A the most powerful will bring a fraction of it's power to bear on the weaker state, from not wanting to exert all resources, knowing they have other enemies, or the lack of will from it's population plus many more. However Country B may be in a fight for it's life were it views this war as a direct threats to it's very existence. So country B will exert more of it's power and this percentage may be greater than the stronger side. So the stronger country wins. Vietnam is a great example were one behemoth fought a very weak country and was defeated. As you can see relative power has very little to do with war but the actual power that one bears upon it's opponent. So power p doesn’t equal v. Reference: Clausewitz On War.

Next to say that the elites are the ones who start wars...well how can you disagree that the ones in power are responsible for starting war's. However since they do not fight (in current wars all past wars had very high percentages of the elites or their offspring in thier ranks)these wars but the general population. Before the general population goes to war it must want to go to war, unless, as you saw earlier that nation cannot bring power to the fight. At this point I will take liberties with you're argument and assume that you will say that the Elites the use propaganda to galvanize their people. Which I would say is true but some of the times the people galvanize themselves. Now the Elites who won the first war but lost the second war would have their lie from the first war exposed. But it's not the case, but to follow you're line of thinking this would mean that the elites form every country are in cahoots together....which means conspiracy. Now how much resource is required to cover up this conspiracy? How can the Allied elites cover up the war? Not vague references but specific way's how they covered it up. I know this will probably take 4 pages but I am very interested in learning something I may not know. Who are these elites? Do we even know who they are? And if we cannot name them then how do we know what they are doing? It would take a huge infrastructure to pull the wool over everyone’s eye's so they must have non elites running this pony show because how can a very small minority of people (let me emphasize very minor) run everything at once? They can't so the would need some of us commoners to work this out, who are these people and why haven’t they ever in the history of man blown the lid on this conspiracy? And lastly why do the elites let you post this stuff on the web? Because they know about it or they don’t, which if the do not then they obviously cannot control all information and the truth would be know and if they do then they are obviosly not as concerned about stiflling the herd as you say?

[QatzelOk]

Exactly who started WWII, and provide proof.

The people who started WWII aren't likely to be public figures. They use public figures as scapegoats though.

Canada won nothing in WWII. In fact, Canada lost many of its most promising young males.

To talk about the Allies being "winners" is to follow the post-war propaganda text as if it were reality - as if industrial death was some kind of football game that boys like to play. The winners were the people who gained something from WWII. And that doesn't include Canada or Canadians. So Canada - according to my argument - is not likely to have started WWII.

Though there may have been some Canadian passport-holders involved in starting it.

[Smilin' Dave]

The people who started WWII aren't likely to be public figures. They use public figures as scapegoats though.

So, what, you don't know who they are?

[Unperson-K]

So, what, you don't know who they are?

He wants to say the Ashkenazi Jews but he won't. Qatz knows the rules of this forum far too well to indulge in his anti-semitism: he simply hints at it with a degree of mysticism that would shame a Byzantine theologian. Hence his allusions to 'financial elites' throughout this thread.

It has created a society that believes fabricated mythology rather than its five (actually many more) senses. It has implanted the naive fantasy life of children into the mature adult brain.

Given that the Second World War happened over sixty years ago, which of my five senses am I to rely upon to provide me with information on it? All that we can know about the war has to come from texts and each and every text has its power relations.