Slashdot Mirror

There was a transition in public thinking in America from the 1960's to the 1980's (Reagan was a big force in this movement) that government could do good for the public to a belief that anything the government does could only do things badly (inefficient, red tape, bureaucracy, fraud-infested).

It's also a matter of scale, and ease of communication. Consider this: if 1 person out of a thousand has a problem with the way the government is doing something, that's almost 300,000 people. In other words - if 99.9% of the population thinks that some action taken by the government is a good thing, there will still be almost 300,000 people who may think it's a bad thing. For comparison, the NAACP - a fairly inflential force in US national, state and local politics - has around 500,000 members.

Thanks to modern communications - TV, radio, phone, fax, email, blogs - it's ridiculously easy for even a few thousand motivated individuals to 'get out a story'. So, you end up with no government program, action, or activity that can ever be viewed as "good" or "bad". There will always be a fraction of the populace that can, and will, make a case that opposes the majority view; and modern communciations more or less ensures them the opportunity that their point will be heard, even if it is disregarded by the majority.

Except that nigritude actually has to do with blackness (at least the color), whereas the more vulgar sounding "niggardly" has nothing to do with color or race. However, contrast the neologism negritude which is about blackness in racial terms.

I think it's IBM that when you are downloading a new BIOS for your ThinkPad or whatever, you actually have to type "agree" for the installer to make the boot floppy with the new BIOS image on it.

What I'm not understanding is why don't we DOS their lawyers, by asking a LOT of technical questions about this "agreement." Like call the 800 number and tell them you have a question about para. 14, line 8 in the online agreement, and you'd like some clarification. Then send certified mail asking the same thing.

It wouldn't acomplish much, but it would make some poor schmuck's day at the office more miserable. Schadenfeude or whatever you call it. It would also be cool to know if there could be such thing of a write-in slashdot effect.

By the way, did you know that when you call AA to book a flight, you could be talking to a prison inmate? I feel warm and fuzzy just thinking about telling convicted felons the exact dates I won't be in my home.

doesn't gas its own citizens

Article II of the Genocide Convention also expressly prohibits
involuntary sterilization as means of "preventing births among" a
targeted population. Yet, in 1976, it was conceded by the
U.S. government that its ÒIndian Health ServiceÓ (IHS), then a
subpart of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), was even then
conducting a secret program of involuntary sterilization which had
affected approximately forty percent of all Indian women of
childbearing age. The program was allegedly discontinued, and the IHS
was transferred to the Public Health Service, but no one was
punished. Hence, business as usual has continued in the ÒhealthÓ
sphere: 1990, for example, it came out that the IHS was inoculating
Inuit children in Alaska with Hepatitis-B vaccine. The vaccine had
already been banned by the World Health Organization as having a
demonstrated correlation with the HIV-virus which is itself correlated
to AIDS. As this is being written, a Òfield testÓ of Hepatitis-A
vaccine, also HIV-correlated, is being conducted on Indian
reservations in the northern Plains region.

God Bless America.

You know, China doesn't exactly hold a monopoly position on atrocities to its citizenry.

Funny. If my post had been references to Scientology (the new American-made religion) it would have been rated +5 Insightful.

Anyway, since the parent brought up the subject...

[Richard Bell, Chairman of Kenya's ISP Association said,]"This is exploitation... These networks are raping Africa of half a billion dollars a year."

I think that the fairness of the current setup has already been discussed sufficiently.

What I want to point out is the incendiary language used by the quoted speaker. This is pretty funny coming from a continent where the victims of rape are subject to execution.

Kenya, the speaker's home country, has a lot worse problems than high telco charges. Of course, it's a lot safer to complain about the telcos than one's own miscreant government. Especially when that government, unlike the telcos, will actually kill and rape dissidents, and does so on a wholesale basis.

This article is a completely non-critical piece of crap, as is the accompanying slashdot write-up.

A better summary would be:

Africa sucks, it's their own damn fault, and the rulers like to use the West as a scapegoat.

Here's another! From Africana.com

And here's an excerpt:
Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, declaring that slaves in all states and portions of states still at war with the federal government were free and would remain so. While taking care to exempt border slave states and the three Confederate states that the Union controlled, Lincoln nevertheless endorsed the idea of recruiting freed slaves and free blacks for service in the armed forces. The Emancipation Proclamation technically freed no one, because Lincoln's authority was not recognized in the Confederacy.

...but I have realized one thing... Just don't post anything that anybody might question, because you'll get stomped by the closed mindedness. Oh well.

No, the fact of the matter is that the USA was 'screwing over' Latin America well before the Cold War gave us a more plausible excuse. Check your facts next time you spout off about American superiority.

PS. I'm an American too and I'm not exactly proud of all the things my country has done in the past (and continues to do to this day.) We are not neccesarily "the good guys." We are an empire like any other, which happens to carry the biggest stick at the moment.

Fun fact of the day: the term 'gook' did not come out of Korea or Vietnam -- American Marines were using it to refer to natives of Haiti as far back as 1915.

---

i'm just wondering how bad things (privacy, human rights) could be after 4 years under a very, very conservative president

Why do people still seem to think that conservative republican = bad for civil rights? Republicans helped CREATE civil rights in this country. Matter of fact, during the early struggle for freedom, Republicans fought for the civil rights of African Americans.

"This vision competed with the Democratic Party's politics of "redemption," which promised the restoration of white hegemony and "home rule" for Southern states" --Civil Rights Movement or Black Freedom Movement

Even Al Gore's father voted against Civil Rights legislation. Why do you people continually assume that a Democrat is better than a Republican for Civil Rights?

No, it's art. (BMA website is here) I think it's time to hand the guy a couple copy of windows for positive use.)


CY