VICE: A news series on HBO following Bill Maher. Anyone watching?

[Cleita]

Although I have been recording it, this is the first time I watched it. It showed ghost cities in China. Apparently the Chinese are bulldozing farms and building cities with multiple high rises that no one lives in. One is supposed to be like Paris complete with Eiffel Tower, but no one lives there. Another is supposed to be like our financial district and no one lives there.

In the meantime the displaced farmers have become beggers and destitute. They showed one of the apartments and like the narrator said if that apartment were in Manhattan, it would be very nice, however, nobody lives in this high rise. Many of the buildings are unfinished, yet the building goes on because the Chinese think real estate is the way to have an economical boom. We have taught them this and probably they are going to bring us down with their building craziness because we are so in bed with the Chinese these days.

Then they had a report on the Arab Spring in Egypt and what a mess it is. It's very disturbing? I sort of wonder where these guys are coming from. I couldn't detect a political bias. Could it be that they are doing old fashioned investigative reporting? Are they just letting the facts stand for themselves? I certainly hope so and this show could have some promise.

[Archae]

1. The Arab spring is falling prey to the fundys.

We need to actively support the non-fundys.

[Warpy]

4. That's counterproductive

The reason people are falling for the fundies short term is because of extreme opposition to the west for having supported any dictator who would keep the oil flowing.

That's really what happened in Iran after the fall of the Shah, and the mad Mullahs are now living on borrowed time. They've fouled the country up fiscally as well as socially and the population is a young one. That bodes very ill for their longevity as rulers.

We'd do better to back the fundies, in other words. A lot of people will see that and realize anyone the west backs is likely not to be in their best interest.

[MADem]

8. Most of the people in Iran never lived under the Shah. He is a distant memory for the "old people."

They don't know any different. When they look at their parents' and grandparents' photo albums, they think "Shit, it wasn't so bad back then...look at dad in those platform shoes, look at mom in the miniskirt. Is that a disco they're at? Is that a bottle of Johnny Walker on the table? Day-um!!!"

I don't think we should back the fundies. We've gotten in trouble before when we've backed people who are anti-women, anti-democracy, anti-equality.

What causes the USA to get away with backing the "wrong" horse, when we do, is that our backing isn't just cheerleading--it's money, it's arms, it's foreign military and industrial sales and loans. It's advisors, coordinators, joint military education and exchanges.

We basically give the clowns that we back the means to consolidate power. If we give the fundies the means to consolidate power, we're stuck with their bullshit for decades.

No thanks.

[Scootaloo]

7. we were too busy trying to prop up the dictators to think about it

And US policy in the middle east works like this.

Fascist dictators > absolute anarchy > democracy

Easiest to control and 'work with' a single strongman. He can deliver what you want just by getting it for you, and you only have to pay him off. We supported Mubarak, we support the Sauds, we support the king of Jordan, we supported Saddam, we supported the Shah, we supported Ben Ali, and we probably would have supported Ghadaffi or Assad if the Soviets hadn'tthere first, and we support the emirs of the gulf states.

Without a dictator dancing to our tune, we prefer Somaliafication; the complete breakdown of the society into largely impotent armed factions striving against each other. It has a little higher risk due to the whole terrorism thing, but in the big picture of foreign policy, terrorism is a negligible bother. This is effectively our way of putting the nation "on ice" for later - until we can find a Karzai or a Chalabi to step in as a new dictator for us.

Democracy is unacceptable to the "western world," since a strong democracy is next to impossible ot strongarm and exploit.

[Scootaloo]

2. Vice has a lot of good stuff

They went into Liberia just after the civil war there to meet the 'movers and shakers,' they've gone on your in North Korea and the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, etc. On top of explorations of US counter- and sub-cultures, all sorts of interesting stuff.

[Warpy]

3. I understand it's quite good.

I'll have to wait until old episodes either get to regular stations or pirated on You Tube.

China's cities are ridiculously overbuilt, the builders making their billions and retiring to live like sultans in the countryside.

Fake Paris isn't the only ghost town. There's a Fake London as well and probably a few other theme cities that no one is living in.

Meanwhile the people keep being crammed multiple people to a room, often with shared kitchen and bathroom facilities.

When something gives there, it's going to give, bigtime.

[ForgoTheConsequence]

5. Vice has been around for 20 years.

You can watch and read most of their stuff at www.vice.com.

[A HERETIC I AM]

6. It's Bill Maher's baby.

He is listed as the first executive producer.

So far I've been impressed.