1267: Crimes Against Humanity

[Keith]

"It's so much more serious for me now."


Jesse Joyce

Greg Giraldo

[Bucho]

When Jesse and Keith started doing that thing they do where one of them says something comically ridiculous and the other one plays the straight man and tries to explain the first guy is wrong I damn near couldn't contain myself from punching the air with joy. Whatever Jesse's not proficient in he is definitely proficient in being fucking hilarious with Keith. Why isn't that on his resume?

[Jo_Culprit]

There's something really brilliant about Jesse Joyce episodes, he adds this different flavor to the mix that makes the show that much better.



on another note Jesse's website has a very brooding/lone man, lost, against the world feel to it

[Junkenstein]

It's that black and white set of pictures he chose for it. i like that, not a fan of gooofy comedian websites.

[Dean from Australia]

With the acknowledgement of the history of experimentation by the US on Guatemalan mental patients back in the 1940's, is America going to offer those victims or indeed the nation of Guatemala reparations for these crimes against humanity?

I was drawn to this article on the Huffington Post in the aftermath of the Sanchez sacking, written by a guy who is obviously a good mate of Sanchez. Regardless, he illustrates quite effectively, the barren nature of the news media landscape in America right now. By extension, his observations could well apply to many Western countries news industries where news has become more of a side show than a serious concern.

Jesse Joyce - superb as always.

[Blitzgal]

Regarding Nazis and how they must have had "irregular folds" in their brains -- sadly, that's really not the case. It's kind of scary how easy it is to manipulate people into doing horrible things:

In the Stanford Prison Experiment, half of the students were made prisoners and half were made guards. Within days both sides had been so consumed by their roles, with the prisoners becoming inconsolable and the guards taking sadistic pleasure in harming them, the experiment had to be ended early and this lead to a review of the ethics of such experimentation on people.

In the Milgram Experiment, a person is instructed by an authority figure to apply an electric shock to someone (who is actually an actor who is in on the experiment). They found that regular people are so willing to obey a person in authority that they will give a seemingly fatal jolt of electricity to an innocent person.

Jesse argues that the Holocaust is part of the German people's "sheep" qualities, but that is ridiculous. There are genocides happening in the world right now, with normal everyday people slaughtering each other in their efforts to conform to the status quo. That's what's so terrifying. People in authority are able to get the public to do horrible things.

And then it's usually the people at the bottom who are made scapegoats when their actions come to light:

[Sphincterrific]

At, around 13:15 Chemda tries to bolster a commenter's argument that there is some kind of moral-equivalency between slavery in the US and Germany under Nazi rule, stating that the "world war happened before slavery." Precisely which world war preceded the US civil war and the abolition of slavery? More importantly, how did Jesse let that pass without his head exploding, covering the studio in icky gooey brain-fold mess?

[BrianAlt]

Jesse Joyce's comments on Greg were very sad and touching. A tear came to my eye.

[Junkenstein]

The Stanford Prison Experiment is an amazing example of perfectly normal people turning to sadistic brutality under particular conditions.

As for Abu Grahib, it's a controversial case. I can already hear people chanting "yeah, torture those sand niggers", but seeing Errol Morris (one of the last completely detached and unbiased filmmakers on earth) "Standard Operating Procedure" gave me a great view on that situation. The most infamous pictures were done after very harsh moments in the conflict, when the soldiers were fueled with rage and pushed by the others. Also most were posed as some sort of brutal frat-like prank. When they got out, it was a politiclly weird moment and they were used to scape goat the soldiers, where actual and worse torture is hidden.

Personally, i can say with no doubt in my mind that if i found myself in the Abu Grahib situation i would've done the same as the soldiers.

As for nazis.... The high ranking generals and hitler who actually made the decisions were probably under a mixed influence of mental illness and misguided ideas. But the soldiers did what soldiers do. I would probably have done the same in that case too.

And no, i'm not justifying it. i actually think that any german, civilians included, who contributed to nazism should be exterminated. But i also admit that if i was under that circumstances, i wouldnt have been a courageous rebel.

[Blitzgal]

Originally Posted by Junkenstein

And no, i'm not justifying it. i actually think that any german, civilians included, who contributed to nazism should be exterminated. But i also admit that if i was under that circumstances, i wouldnt have been a courageous rebel.

Yeah, that's my basic point. And Chemda says the same thing in this show -- she doesn't know what she would have done. I just wanted to point out that we shouldn't be too comfortable with this idea that the German citizens were uniquely evil, because that makes it that much easier to not recognize atrocities that are going on in other circumstances. Average human beings are capable of some pretty horrific things.