Matt Damon Is Very Outspoken

Everyone has the right to voice his or her opinion. That is what democracy means. Matt Damon is an American so he has every right to voice his views. You may not like or agree with his views but he should (just like we are all doing here) voice his opinions.

Secondly how can anyone allow George Bush to send anyones child to war? When this man was given an opportunity to go and serve in the military in Vietnam his Daddy got him out of it. That is a known fact. Why he can stand there today and tell others to do what he refused to do is beyond me. People you are being taken for a long ride. Hold on tight.

Before anyone attacks what I have said let us refer to the first paragraph. I can say this becuse we live in a democracy. If you want to live under a dictatorship move to one of these Muslim nations that George is bent on calling evil. Oh and by the way does anyone remember OSAMA BIN LADEN. We all seem to have moved our eyes from the people who was attacked us. We are so wrapped up in Iraq we have lost focus.

On top of what Matt had to say I think that son of Jebs should be in the military right now. Let the Bush’s spare their future just like every other military family. I so understand Matt’s point. It is very good to see that there are so many intelligent people who can come to this site and share ideas. That is how we can try to solve our problems by discussing them and trying to figure our way out. Even those whose ideas I do not subscibe to I am still pleased to be able to read what others are thinking and what their point of view is. Bravo to everyone.

ME TOO you obviously didnt read through my entire post, i dont follow the president…im a flaming liberal, what i stated is not delusional it is a fact, which is simply that we can not accept 9/11 as the reason for entering into the war because unlike terrorism of the past, those who commited the actions of 9/11 were not pushing a political agenda, THUS AMERICA’S WAR IS A WAR OF IDEALS NOT OF CAUSES. The reasoning behind the actions of the “terrorist” are left unknown, thus it becomes a new form of terrorism known as silent terrorism.
and RABIBPOOCH before you comment of the ignorance of the Muslims maybe you should look in the mirror, because your classification of the Muslim and Muslim nation is an absolute stereotype, all your doing is highlighting the points which people like GW and Foxnews try so desperately to promote. The Muslim nation is a strong community which have many of the same ethics and ideals as you or me, and furthermore, the Jews have contributed a many of terrorist to the continual battle raging over there, no parties are innocent!

hey read an effin book…….if you read MY statements you would see i don’t take sides with ANY religion……

i do not accuse muslims of being ignorant in general, but real stats show that Muslims tend to inhabit more countries known to be third world and have less education …..(that is changing however with the invasion of Western Europe, although many parents send their kids back to their native country to boarding houses while still accepting government welfare from their new Western countries for having the children.)

as others have stated ….(not me) ……poverty and ignorance tends to influence the types of peope it takes to follow with such blind faith …..

………you don’t see the imams blowing themselves up……they are busy shuffling money to help train the suicide bombers

take a look at history. there have been terrible crimes committed in the name of religion ……….UNFORTUNATELY ……at this time in HISTORY there is still a large group of religious fundamentalists who believe they are fighting the moral fight by blowing up themselves AND THE INFIDELS……

Am I missing something? Is some other religious fantatical strapping bombs on themselves besides MUSLIMS?

i don’t see any Jews strapping on the bombs, or Christians ………..

if there are a BILLION Muslims and even 1% who are willing to be a human BOMB that is a SCARY… SCARY thought ………..exactly HOW MANY are there out there ?

i am NOT speaking from IGNORANCE. i am speaking from reading what is going on around the world and talking to people who live it…..

here…….try THIS one on for size ……this is in the news today and is actually one of the more TAME stories……it doesn’t compare with the one I read least week where a town passed a law making it leagl to kill the residents who fail to pray five times a day.
(forgot which country.)

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WHEN people around the world sent millions of pounds to help the stricken Indonesian province of Aceh after the Boxing Day tsunami of 2004, few could have imagined that their money would end up subsidising the lashing of women in public.
But militant Islamists have since imposed sharia law in Aceh and have cornered Indonesian government funds to organise a moral vigilante force that harasses women and stages frequent displays of humiliation and state-sanctioned violence.

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doesn’t it just give you warm fuzzies to know your tsunami donations are helping Muslims enforce sharia law in Aceh?

I love matty.

However it is a shame when the only time America get into national dialogue is when an actor says something that the conservatives don’t want to have.

We should be engage in this type of dialogue without any props

So I say YAY to matty for getting a conversation going about classism.

And he is cute too.

thanks JJ

well traveler I know you aren’t describing the Jawaweed and their ethnic cleansing campaign in Darfur, because those “fighters of Arab nomadic background” aren’t just dropping bombs in their bid to accomplish ethnic cleaning, they are also busy burning down and causing the destruction of hundreds of rural villages, as well as killing tens of thousands of people and raping and assaulting thousands of women and girls.

so much more NOBLE sitting in a plane and dropping cluster bombs …….dontcha think ?

Traveler: females on the battlefield cause potentially dangerous situations. Case in point: In 2003, the war just kicking off. A Marine Corps unit is crossing the DMZ into Iraq. No one is ahead of them, they are the eyes ahead of everyone. They stop for a pee break, everyone takes offensive positions. The men pee right there, the females (2 of them) require a seperate, out of sight area to do their business. This takes more time, leaving them as sitting ducks. They are nearly killed in an ambush, but thankfully make it out just prior to the attack. The unit behind them was not so lucky. This is just the most simple case.

One of my very best friends went to Iraq as a soldier. Two weeks after being there she’s pregnant and has to go home. Not great stats. THere are a lot of other reasons, safety reasons. I won’t go into them. You can’t view everything with the same rose colored glasses my dear. Things are different on the battlefield. Gender discrimination is a sad state of affairs in MOST cases, this is not one of them.

Love June’s comment ……………………

“really think the Bush twins should have to serve on the front lines
Since ALL of the Kennedys have served their time on the front lines.”

excellent. i’m sure we can count on Chelsea Clinton to serve some time in the military, just as soon as she gets her future father-in-law out of jail. Her mother, Hilary, is a pro at getting around the system. Should be no problem at all.

the military is made up of volunteers, both officer and enlisted, not a working or “fighting” class that is forced to go to Iraq. the men and women who go overseas are not the underprivileged and are not compelled to go because they have no other means to survive financially. he obviously doesnt know what he is talking about.

“For about half a dozen members of Congress who have had kids serving in Iraq, the war is far more than a matter of public policy. They debate it and often defend it — with eyes on public opinion, like almost any elected official. But they also live the war through those most dear to them.”

On paper the enlistment rate is said to be 1 1/2 times more than the general public.

OH and HERE ARE SOME REAL STATS ON THE POOR UNDERPRIVIED ENLISTED PEEPS:

“The current findings show that the demo­graphic characteristics of volunteers have contin­ued to show signs of higher, not lower, quality. Quality is a difficult concept to apply to soldiers, or to human beings in any context, and it should be understood here in context. Regardless of the standards used to screen applicants, the average quality of the people accepted into any organiza­tion can be assessed only by using measurable cri­teria, which surely fail to account for intangible characteristics. In the military, it is especially questionable to claim that measurable characteris­tics accurately reflect what really matters: cour­age, honor, integrity, loyalty, and leadership.

Those who have been so quick to suggest that today’s wartime recruits represent lesser quality, lower standards, or lower class should be expected make an airtight case. Instead, they have cited selective evidence, which is balanced by a much clearer set of evidence showing improving troop quality.

Indeed, in many criteria, each year shows advancement, not decline, in measurable qualities of new enlistees. For example, it is commonly claimed that the military relies on recruits from poorer neighborhoods because the wealthy will not risk death in war. This claim has been advanced without any rigorous evidence. Our review of Pen­tagon enlistee data shows that the only group that is lowering its participation in the military is the poor. The percentage of recruits from the poorest American neighborhoods (with one-fifth of the U.S. population) declined from 18 percent in 1999 to 14.6 percent in 2003, 14.1 percent in 2004, and 13.7 percent in 2005.

When comparing these wartime recruits (2003– 2005) to the resident population ages 18–24 (as recorded in Census 2000), areas with median household income levels between $35,000 and $79,999 were overrepresented, along with income categories between $85,000 and $94,999. (See Chart 2.) Though the mainstream media continue to portray the war in Iraq as unpopular, this evi­dence suggests that the United States is not sending the poor to die for the interests of the rich.

Conclusion

As support for the war in Iraq has declined, criti­cism of the war has translated into criticism of our nation’s troops, at least by way of criticizing the quality of wartime recruits. The November 2005 Heritage Foundation study found that recruits enlisting at the start of the war were of high quality and in many respects comparable to the youth population. This updated report’s examination of three years of wartime recruits shows that recruit quality has not declined.

The estimate for mean household income of recruits increased every year from 2003 through 2005. The poorest areas continue to be underrep­resented, while middle-class areas are overrepre­sented. Although the richest income brackets are underrepresented, the difference between the recruit and population proportions for these brack­ets is less than 0.25 percent. Overall, the distribu­tion for recruit household incomes is very similar to that of the youth population.”

RabidPooch Says:

December 18th, 2006 at 2:37 pm
hey read an effin book…….if you read MY statements you would see i don’t take sides with ANY religion……

i do not accuse muslims of being ignorant in general, but real stats show that Muslims tend to inhabit more countries known to be third world and have less education …..(that is changing however with the invasion of Western Europe, although many parents send their kids back to their native country to boarding houses while still accepting government welfare from their new Western countries for having the children.)

as others have stated ….(not me) ……poverty and ignorance tends to influence the types of peope it takes to follow with such blind faith …..

………you don’t see the imams blowing themselves up……they are busy shuffling money to help train the suicide bombers

take a look at history. there have been terrible crimes committed in the name of religion ……….UNFORTUNATELY ……at this time in HISTORY there is still a large group of religious fundamentalists who believe they are fighting the moral fight by blowing up themselves AND THE INFIDELS……

Am I missing something? Is some other religious fantatical strapping bombs on themselves besides MUSLIMS?

i don’t see any Jews strapping on the bombs, or Christians ………..

if there are a BILLION Muslims and even 1% who are willing to be a human BOMB that is a SCARY… SCARY thought ………..exactly HOW MANY are there out there ?

i am NOT speaking from IGNORANCE. i am speaking from reading what is going on around the world and talking to people who live it…..

here…….try THIS one on for size ……this is in the news today and is actually one of the more TAME stories……it doesn’t compare with the one I read least week where a town passed a law making it leagl to kill the residents who fail to pray five times a day.
(forgot which country.)

********************************************************

WHEN people around the world sent millions of pounds to help the stricken Indonesian province of Aceh after the Boxing Day tsunami of 2004, few could have imagined that their money would end up subsidising the lashing of women in public.
But militant Islamists have since imposed sharia law in Aceh and have cornered Indonesian government funds to organise a moral vigilante force that harasses women and stages frequent displays of humiliation and state-sanctioned violence.

*******************************
doesn’t it just give you warm fuzzies to know your tsunami donations are helping Muslims enforce sharia law in Aceh?

traveler Says:

December 18th, 2006 at 2:41 pm
Just Sayin’:

Why not? You state that most people in the military are there out of a sense of duty, why not females also? Don’t they have just as much a right to die for their country as a male? Just as much a right to fight for their country? I agree that not every woman could do it, just as not every man is suited to that job either. But there are women in this country that are excellent soldiers and can hold their own on the front lines. More so than most men. I don’t think we should be judging who can or cannot do a job. I’m a female mechanical engineer and I’m often judged as not being capable of doing the job because of my gender. I will not judge someone else the same way.

I thought we as a society had moved beyond silly gender-role stereo-typing.

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Are you for real?

my god, are people actually using the term anti / pro brangelina… is this now the equivilent to republican / democrat, labour/liberal…is the world now divided up between people who are for brangelina or against…why was this term even used in a thread that has absolutely nothing to do with BRAD PITT OR ANGELINA JOLIE, some people actually don’t relate that couple to the war Iraq, or maybe that is just me

Let me re-write something:

Truth, honour killings are a feudal aspect of a particular segment of Society found around afghanistan and pakistan, it is not practised in Malaysia or Indonesia. And I don’t believe it is practised in Libya or Turkey for example, though, things may have changed of late.

lylian Says:

December 19th, 2006 at 7:05 am
Let me re-write something:

Truth, honour killings are a feudal aspect of a particular segment of Society found around afghanistan and pakistan, it is not practised in Malaysia or Indonesia. And I don’t believe it is practised in Libya or Turkey for example, though, things may have changed of late.

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oh and by the way….these so called “honor killings” are occurring in Islamic settlements in Western Europe…..those settlements in Western Europe where the Muslims are living and not assimilating. I bet I wouldn’t have to dig too far to find proof for you. sure …..they may have been part of what was happening in afghanistan and pakistan in the past……..but as the Islamic religion moves into Western Europe, and it has done so at an ALARMING RATE, (through illegal immigration and family unification programs)……so do the traditions.