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He was a big fan of hate speech. And it worked.

He and Stalin were also big fans of censorship — are you sure, you are after the right thing?

Maybe, you ought to outlaw mustache, aquarelle painting, and vegetarianism — because Hitler was into all three — just to cover all the bases?

Thank you for being a clueless little NAZI sympathizer

Interesting. So, my claiming Communism is worse than Nazism makes me a Nazi? Are you a Communist?

Fascism is ultra-nationalism

No, it is not. Franco's Spain, for example, was not especially nationalistic. It did not attack other countries either.

typically married to religion

Another falsehood — Hitler was not religious and his Programme is indifferent about it: you could practice whatever as long as it did not threaten the State...

For the same reason as did Stalin and other Statists, historical and contemporary alike — because they view God to be in direct competition with the State in the subjects' minds. Mussolini was not religious either — reportedly, his parents didn't even Baptize him. Though he did have to seek the Church's approval, that was because it was already (and remains today) a very powerful institution in Italy. He too would've rather the citizenry adored him than any supernatural being. (Which is exactly the motivation of contemporary Statists too, BTW.)

The popular "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs," is the level playing field

It is complete and utter bullshit. The term "level playing field" means equal rights — not the equal results, that the Communists/Socialists demand.

not to conflate the philosophy of communism with the actions of Stalin

And Mao. And Pol Pot. And Kims. And Castro... Wherever attempted in earnest Communism failed spectacularly — with millions of dead and the survivors left with neither economic wealth nor human rights.

History gave us several "clean" experiments, where pairs of nearly identical peoples with very similar climate, lands, and history lived under different regimes for decades. Compare:

• Western German vs. Eastern Germany
• South Korea vs. North Korea
• Finland vs. Estonia

In all cases Communism loses — and devastates the countries affected. Like I said — the most murderous school of thought known to humanity — though still popular among ill-mannered and miseducated punks.

He was all based around the leader principle.

Are you referring to the Fuehrer Principle?

Or is there a different principle that is using the English word 'leader' and not the German version of the word.

@Anonymous Coward: "Edward Snowden talked about the fourteen eyes .. I'm free to criticize Obama heavily without fear of government retribution"

Tell that to Julian Assange. Getting framed in a honeypot sting can hardly be called no government retribution.

"The fourteen eyes aren't actively cracking down on human rights and political dissidents."

Since the Cold War is over, what do you think they spend their time doing?

Indymedia server seized in raid

"British police have admitted that undercover officers have infiltrated at least 460 political groups since 1968"

See here, the state security apparatus framing an environmental group: Activists walk free as undercover officer prompts collapse of case

Britain wasn't in Europe at that time

http://www.historylearningsite...

The dutch not only resisted the Nazis, they openly had strikes and did more to protect their Jewish citizens than virtually any other country in Europe.

Is it really Godwin's Law if it's true? Maybe like libel; it's bad, but truth is a defense (except in the UK)
http://www.historylearningsite...

The US spent a lot on color revolution efforts over the years and really wants to see some payback

Russia has spent a lot on separatism efforts in many countries after the Soviet Union, centered in Russia, had previously shipped ethnic Russians to live in many occupied countries, often after engaging in various flavors of ethnic cleansing or other mass killings. We can expect more "protection" to be needed by those Russian in years to come, and Russian aggression and occupation of those countries will always be a danger under the current Russian government.

US campaign behind the turmoil in Kiev (26 November 2004)
http://www.theguardian.com/wor...

There is a great deal that the account you reference leaves out, including government election fraud and thuggery. Lets add some more background.

Ukraine's Orange Revolution

The US really wants NATO up against Russia (encirclement, containment) - like the Soviet Union used Cuba.

Having regained its independence after a long, bitter period of foreign rule, Ukraine really, really wants to remain independent with its territory intact. By itself against Russia it is unlikely to do so given Russia's history and power, as we are seeing demonstrated now, and previously in Georgia.

You may recall that the Ukrainians have plenty of motivation to be free of Russia since a special word is used for the crime against humanity inflicted upon them by the Soviet Union, the heart of which was Russia: Holodomo. The Ukrainian terror famine killed perhaps as many as 10,000,000 people as the police, secret police, and army were used to confiscate food and prevent people from leaving.

The Soviet Story - trailer
The Great Famine

The Soviet Union had to be contained, Russia didn't ..... or are we seeing now that it does?

Apparently your education suffered at some point.

Anti-Bush but not anti-American

In common with other surveys, this suggests that public opinion worldwide has recoiled from Mr Bush. The US President is still the leader of the free world, yet the free world is less inclined to approve of him.

Presidential Recruitment

Presidential recruitment is a major issue in American politics. The president is considered to be the leader of the free world and the chance to become America's president despite your background neatly fits in with this concept.

I will admit that President Obama and changing conditions may be altering that.

"Hitler's police state worked on the rule that if you said nothing, no harm, could come to you. If you had doubts about the way the country was going, you kept them to yourself - or paid the price".

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/nazi_police_state.htm

The First Battle of the Atlantic
British submarines in World War One
His German Imperial Majesty's U-Boats in WWI
WWI German submarine has underwater Lake Michigan grave
German WWI Submarines (Pictures)
U-boat Attack, 1916
Anti-Submarine Measures from World War I
Depth Charges

WW1 wasn't Britain and France v Germany you know. It pretty much ended due to food shortages, Turkey, Bulgaria and Austria gave up and went home, which is a pity as it was Austria who started it all by invading Serbia.

Still, the Treaty of Versailles didn't try to "keep their economy horrible", they instead demanded reparations for the damage caused by Germany's actions in expanding the war to Belgium and France. It was this that gave rise to the extremists. FYI it was Woodrow Wilson who wanted to punish Germany for the war and the American-led League of Nations was granted all of Germany's overseas colonies.

Part of the problem giving rise to nationalistic parties was the clause that Germany had to accept that blamed her for starting the war. The rest of Europe was equally devastated economically, but only Germany got blamed.

But I guess you guys know all about punishing a country for its political beliefs, or have you allowed trade with Cuba yet?

Your post is spot on up until the last sentence. While I'm not railing on you, this is more for the people who think that oil in the US is the US's oil. This is not the case.

Start taxing them at a reasonable level for using up non-renewable resources that belongs to the country.

State or government are other words that could be used in place of "country". It wouldn't change the meaning in the slightest, but I feel it takes a more ominous, but accurate, tone.

The resource belongs to whoever holds the mineral rights. If the government can claim the oil under my land, why can't they claim the food that is grown from the soil on my land? See Collectivisation:

Collectivisation was Stalin's answer to his belief that Russia’s agriculture was in a terrible state. Stalin believed that Russia had to be able to feed itself - hence collectivisation - and that at the very least the peasant farmers should be providing food for the workers in the factories if the Five Year Plans were going to succeed

Now change that to oil:

and that at the very least the oil companies should be providing oil for the workers in the cities and suburbs

Except the Chinese and American economies are too interlocked to repeat something like the that. Its hard to say what Sino-American relations will look like in the future, but I don't think the Cold War is a particularly good model.

How about a hot war? In the early 20th c., it was widely and loudly proclaimed that the economies of the great European powers were far too dependent on each other for any serious conflict to take place. They might play ego games with each other by building lots of battleships, sure, but anything worse than the occasional naval skirmish, or brief land war in some far-away colony, was unthinkable And, um, we know how that worked out.

Oh come on... We've done a lot better than that lately.

Search for Gerald Bull and read abut his super-gun project.

Or the German V3 built in 1944, that used sequential timed explosions to get greater velocity with lower jerk, and was intended to launch shells 200 km.

Your rocket technology awareness is sadly not very developed, if you think the rockets designed in US or USSR during the '50s had anything to do with the Vs, except being ... you know, rocket-ish, being pointed and having fins. Remember I did not deny that von Braun had a hand in developing US rockets after the war, just that the technology used in the rockets that got to space in them was dissimilar enough from what was put inside the Vs.

Missile technology is ancient ... arrows are missiles, you know, and rockets were used for quite a long time before WWII, and even during the WWII (for antitank weapons, for ex.) ... the bazooka was a lot more imporant, militarily speaking, than the duds that the Vs were, who only killed civilians and who took resources from the production of submarines ... I believe the Vs had a larger contribution to the defeat of the Nazis than some of the Allied nations ...

if you're an Internet worshiper, here is a link, too ... http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/america_and_rocket_technology.htm

Except such an idea is the will of the mob. Whatever is popular will pass. Whatever is unpopular will not pass. Consider things like slavery and the Civil Rights Act. In both cases, a minority (blacks) were being either exploited or oppressed by a majority (whites). In your "perfect" system, the minority can never prevail over the majority unless you can convince the majority of a "higher purpose."

How else do you expect a society to progress? When the slaves were freed, they went from one type of bondage to another. And considering the imprisonment rate of minorities, some would argue it's still in place after the civil rights act. Listen, if you don't like a democracy, the only other option is going to be totalitarianism, and you'd better drop your support of the free market.

Keep in mind that racism in colonial America was fomented by the rich, since the indentured servants and slaves and Indians realized that they were all being treated the same, and started to revolt. Racism and war and religion are the designs of the powerful, because they offer simple control mechanisms to turn the people they exploit on each other.

History doesn't exactly shine with examples of that working.

Yes, the last hundred years of American history are proof that democracy doesn't work. But not in the way you'd think.

As it is, the representative democracy that is the United States abolished slavery and passed the Civil Rights Act even though there was never a majority of the population in favor of it. Your system would've denied that.

You are lying.

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/1964_civil_rights_act.htm

Less wealth disparity? Please explain to me why it's a bad thing that somebody has more money than somebody else?

What improves the circumstances of the greater part can never be regarded as an inconvenience to the whole. No society can be flourishing and happy if the greater part of the members are poor and miserable. -Adam Smith

This is cursory and almost innate knowledge to anyone who has looked at, say, any history, at all, ever. From the Romans to the French Revolution to WWII - wealth disparity is a very bad thing.

Why should I care two damns how many billions of dollars Bill Gates has in his pocket? Does it prevent me from earning my own billion? No it does not.

It does if he spends that billion dollars making sure that the laws are written for himself and his friends, and telling you to go fuck yourself.

"Wealth disparity" is just a more slippery, fuzzy name for "wealth envy." Even though Bill Gates's billions don't hurt (or benefit) you directly in any way, you just don't like that he has them and you don't. So you despise the wealthy and dream up terms like "wealth disparity" to make you feel righteous in your hatred of anyone who has more toys than you.

It's unfortunate that you don't have a clue about what you're saying. Find one respected economist who will state unequivocally that wealth disparity can never be a problem.

And if you want to talk about "colonial" and use the US and UK as examples -- and France, Germany, and Italy as counter-examples -- then perhaps you should acquaint yourself with France's colonial history, or the German-Italian Axis powers of WWII. You see quite selective in your history, either out of ignorance or malice. I'm going to give you benefit of the doubt and assume you're just too ignorant to know better.

I usually speak in postwar terms, as does the rest of the world. If you want to live inside of a history experiment, that's okay. It's probably the only place that your ideas will have any merit.

"more people voted conservative than Labour at the last general election."

Um, sorry but that is complete rubbish. From:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/vote_2005/frontpage/4528655.stm
& http://www.le.ac.uk/mc/research/papers/mc05-1.pdf
& http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/2005_british_general_election.htm

Of all valid votes counted:
Labour got 36%,
Conservatives got 33%,
Liberal Democrats got 23%.

Also, although some polls (which are only estimates) did indeed put Conservative support among young people as the highest of the major 3 parties, adding up the votes of the two 'left leaning' parties (i.e. Labour & Liberal Democrats) shows far more young people voted for 'left leaning' parties rather than 'right leaning' parties (as is consistent with general political attitudes of younger voters in most western countries).

Hm, well it seems there are as many sites who claim the poem is about the Plague as those who claim it isn't. I suppose I could instead mention Roald Dahl's book, Danny, the Champion of the World, which singularly failed to create a generation of pheasant and salmon poachers, instead?

I did discover how to build fire balloons after reading that book though. Much fun.

Using a Nazi tactic to protect people from unacceptable speech. The main difference being that in Germany, at the time, it was hate of the leader of the state, an individual, that was banned, rather than hate of a group of people.

History, for those that refuse to learn from it, will repeat itself. Speaking of history repeating itself, why can't the UK repeat some more useful history, like the 5th of November?

It's nice to know that people's view of China haven't changed in 50 years. US Education system is doing it's normal bang up job.

That Britain link should have been this, sorry.

if the BushCo regime can scare enough tech companies away from US soil then he can be king of a country of peasants since EVERYTHING will be turned into a service sector job where many work for the rich few. Hmmm.... sounds like this has happened in history before!

Well, Mao did try The Great Leap Forward, but as expected, it was a great step backward.

What would you use the front windsheild piece on the TIE fighter model for other than a tie fighter?

True. But then there was a 'phoney war' and they didn't do any fighting until they were attacked in France.

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/phoney_war.ht m

Anyhow, I still think they left it dangerously late.

I agree with the direction of your post; I don't like the PATRIOT act any more than you do.

But I think you should leave the Puritans out of this.

For one thing, they were 17th century, not 15th ... which meant that they were removed from a lot of the judicial excesses of the Middle Ages. You want to talk about disproportionate punishments? Try trial by combat. That was mainstream justice in the Middle Ages

For another thing, the Puritans had nothing on the Anglicans for harsh penalties. How about the death penalty for theft? It was common practice in Elizabethan England.

For another, the Witch Trials in Salem were chump change compared to the witch craze in Europe. The Salem Puritans hanged 17 for witchcraft, from Feb. 1692 till Jan. 1693, until the governor with the support of a prominent pastor (Increase Mather) put a stop to it. In Europe, between 15,000 and 60,000 women were BURNED AT THE STAKE for witchcraft. The Puritans were creatures of their times, but certainly no worse and probably a lot better.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_resistance
2. http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/french_resist ance.htm

Got a cite for that?

I'm not necessarily disputing anything you're claiming; however, neither is it at all clear that what you've said is actually true. In particular...

> There were no limits to the power we could project.

I think you're underestimating the remaining power of the other industrialized nations at the end of WWII. Even by D-Day, Britain had enough military might remaining to take responsibility for as much of the assault as the USA.

If you look at this link, for example, you'll see that while the USA was well-supplied with equipment, it was severely undermanned for dreams of world conquest. At the end of the war, there were about 1100 divisions available to the countries most involved, of which less than 10% were American. Moreover, this link suggests that the USA didn't enjoy such a dominant position in equipment after all; for example, the USSR was producing more tanks than the US by the end of the war.

Given the numbers and logistics involved, your assertion of the manifest ability of the USA to "roll over" the rest of the world seems...optimistic.

Sadly the ones who can don't believe in democracy, because it dilutes their power to act decisively. An elected leader will always flip-flop to (aka respect) the nation's wishes (that's democracy) or else he has all the makings of a world changing dictator.

Remember Hitler was voted into power by a majority vote... In 2050 you might hear the same about George W .

Check those URLs! Sorry forgot that one:

Facts on German vs. Polish cavalry.

Hitler Youth, to be accurate.

How about the B-29 and the TU-4?

In the last free election in Germany, the Nazis got about 32% of the vote if memory serves, this being in 1932.

In January '33 Hitler was appointed Chancellor by the President (Hindenburg). The Reichstag fire was staged shortly thereafter and new elections were called for. The Nazis only got 45% of the manipulated vote (the Communists and one other party were outlawed by Hindenburg prior to the election, but still got tons of votes). This was sufficient, however, to give him over 50% of the Reichstag seats and thereby pass whatever legislation he liked. The Enabling Act was passed shortly thereafter cementing his dictatorship.

My point is that Hitler was never elected by the German people. It was more of a coup d'etat, aided and abetted by an ailing and possibly demented Hindenburg who died in January 1934.

Nice summarized link

> Of course, your post ignores the history of the past 40 years.
Of course. As required by the context of my post.

> In 1964, Lyndon Johnson pushed the Civil Rights Act through
> Congress, and {effectively and eventurally} ceded the South
> to the Republicans.

The bill's predecessor was from the Eisenhower Republican presidency:
From here:
The Civil Rights Act of 1957 was introduced in Eisenhower's presidency and was the act that kick-started the civil rights legislative programme that was to include the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act

Lyndon Johnson helped water it down, but later drive through the 1964 act with Republican help - a necessary step to end the evil that was threatening to tear America apart:
...
The bill didn't pass unhindered. There were doubters in Congress and it also had to overcome the longest obstruction in Senate history. Its final passing owed much to Kennedy, who had won over the Republican minority before his death.

And from here:

Let's interject some logic here: if southern racist Democrats became Republicans, how could (and would) they vote FOR the Civil Rights Act? It's a well documentable and easily proved fact that the majority of Republicans voted for the Act, thus the majority of Democrats voted against it. Since Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Act, Democrats fraudulently received and are now drowning in their self-gratulations.

Maybe the remaining Dixiecrats who remained with the Democrat Party had no desire to hang with nigger-lovin' Republicans, and gladly stayed where they felt comfortable.

> While these folk are by no means a majority, even in most
> Southern states, they are numerous enough and influential enough
> to command a lot of attention and wield a lot of power.

As the page above contends, the Democrats don't really have a lot to be proud of:

I contend racist Democrats remained with the Democrat Party, racists like J. William Fulbright (Bill Clinton's "mentor"), Robert (KKK) Byrd, and Senator Albert Gore, Sr. who like those of their ilk voted against the Act.

Perhaps bigots gravitate a bit more to the Republican party and are a bit harder to detect there -- given the Republican's sympathy to "traditional values" and the current republican emphasis on minimizing government affairs. But the party isn't racist: as you know, Colin Powell and Condi Rice can be described as having traditional values, but are black and in power nonetheless.

The Republicans are better for America than the Democrats.

> democrats are the party that defends Jeffersonian ideals,
> the republicans are the party of the Whigs, who were
> originally rich land owners

Hmmm .. time for some history friend:

From here:
the rise of the anti-slavery Republican Party in 1856 put an end to the Whig coalition. The Whigs' lukewarm position on slavery, supporting the Compromise for the sake of holding the Union together, appealed to neither side of the increasingly polarized debate: Anti-slavery Northern Whigs deserted the party for the Republicans, while pro-slavery Southern Whigs defected to the Democrats.

Now from here:
The modern Republican Party was born on March 20, 1854 in Ripon, Wisconsin as an outgrowth of the dissolved Whig party, choosing the name to recall to mind the founders; no matter that the aims were now different. ...
In the beginning largely a regional party of the Midwest states, the Republican Party's major issue was opposition to the spread of slavery to the western states. ...
The Republicans therefore became strongly identified as the party of Lincoln, the party that freed the slaves, and the party that won the war. As a result, few Southerners joined the Republicans for over a hundred years-the memory of losing the war provided a strong impetus to remain with the Democrats.

More here:
Continuing to take advantage of their majority, Republicans proposed the 14th Amendment, which became part of the Constitution in 1868, stating: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

And here
Historically, the party has supported

The abolition of slavery
The right of free speech
Support of women's suffrage ...


Hey, I don't think the republicans are flawless - they have corrupion in there - but they seem more principled overall than the Democrats. The Democrats _seem_ to sway much more with what they assume is popular opinion.

You start to disagree with me, then you say exactly what I said, but with a slightly different choice of words. Why are you arguing with me when we agree so much?

When I hear "real loonies", It conjures up an image of drugged out vegatables confined to white padded rooms in straightjackets. A "real loony" is someone that's born with most (if not all of) his/her screws loose.

Fundamentalists are a much scarier breed. They live amongst us, and we don't know who they are. They have only 1 or 2 loose screws, which might not manifest itself ever, or they may wake up and decide to shit on your lawn, to take away your rights, or to kill you for something THEY believe in.

Why are you arguing with me when we agree so much?

I think I'm doing a fair ammount of both arguing and agreeing here :)

What? I'm a Scotsman. We, with the English, Welsh and Northern Irish, elected Tony Blair. He signed Kyoto. The citizens of the US elected Bush, who wouldn't. So they're your leaders, presuming you're in the US.

Actually, I'm Canadian, and I'm quite scared because my gouvernment is a) so passive and b) so economically dependent on the USA that we may end up with no choice other then to support them in the stupid things they do.

As to whom the citizens of the US "elected", we may never really know. The USA electoral process is way, overly complicated. The president is often NOT the guy that most people vote for.

Er, yes, the Queen is the head of State, and the Government (Prime Minister and Cabinet) set the agenda, but under the unwritten British Constitution, Parliament is supreme, and can basically do what the hell it likes.

So Parliament is in charge. Period. (As I am told they say in America).

Chuck

Just because it doesn't have a constitution all in one place, doesn't mean that it doesn't have one. See

How many of those Spitfires and Hurricanes were in the skies in 1940?

True, I was taking the total number ever made, though there is a reason for that. The reason being, is that I cannot find any source whatsoever that indicates that P40s were used as fighters against German planes in the Battle of Britain. There were the 140 P40s from France, but I have no idea how many were ordered from the US, or, indeed, if any were. So instead, I compared the total number of P40s used by Britain in comparison to the total Hurricanes and Spitfires, as that was the only statistic availiable.

There were approximately 600 Hurricanes and 300 spitfires at the start of the Battle of Britain according to these statistics. And Wikipedia and other sources reference the Hawker Hurricane as accounting for 70% of kills.

So all I can say for certain is that the P40 accounted for less that 30% of the downed German planes. Also, unless you can find something, there seems to be no reference at all to the P40s ever being used in combat, and no statistics to how many were used. Surely, if the P40 was so important, at least some mention of it could be found.

In short, it was the Hawker Hurricane that was responsible for the majority of German losses, and not the P40 (I have no idea where you got the idea the P40s turned the course of the battle).

However, it was not really the superiority of the planes that won the day. The Messerschmitt Bf109 was probably superior to the Spitfire, the best plane the British had at that time, and German pilots generally had greater experience in the air. What swung the tide was the short range of the Messerschmitts (they could only stay over Britain a scant hour, whilst the Spitfires and Hurricanes could stay up all day), and, of course, radar. Britain had the best radar capabilities of the war, which meant it could concentrate it's outnumbered pilots to give local superiority. Interestingly, Germany didn't believe Britain had radar at all, at first. Apparently, a large blimp was sent near Britain at the start of the war, to listen out for radar signals. British radar operated at a wavelength of 10m, whilst German radar operated at 50cm, and so the German blimp, looking for radio waves on the 50cm scale, completely missed the signals.

I'd also imagine that Bletchley Park had quite a bit to do with it. The Battle of Britain is particularly interesting, from a technological point of view, in that it was won almost entirely through intelligence, from radar, and, presumably, by listening in on German reports. The forces commited to Luftwaffe to Operation Sealion outnumbered British aircraft 4 to 1. In addition, their pilots were generally better trained and had more experience. And yet the Luftwaffe were defeated, primarily because British forces knew exactly where they were going. German troops were almost flying blind, whilst the RAF knew where each and every German squadren was.

You're right, the Lend-Lease Act was signed in 1941, but that law codified a practice that Roosevelt had basically implemented by executive fiat for years.

That said, the majority of planes in the Battle of Britain were British, at least on the side of the allies. Also, do you have any source for that? I can't find reference to the US allowing deferred payment on governmental suppies before the Lease Lend act.

There was one isolated incident where 50 old US destroyers were exchanged for the use of several British naval bases, but apart from, that, I can't find much.

Again, if you think that practice was not critical to Britain's war effort, I believe Mr. Churchill would disagree with you.

Well, later on, almost certainly. Churchill tried many times to convince Roosevelt to aid Britain, and, of course, to enter the war. In the end it took Pearl Harbor to get the USA into World War II.

However, I doubt that US involvement was a prime factor in the defense of Britain in 1940.

We do have a constitution, it is just an unwritten one.
It's not one document, but several written at different times, such as the Magna Carta, as well as case law and other things.
More information.

Actually, it wasn't an air force tactic per se (though it did involve aircraft), but rather a combined force tactic developed by Hans Guderian in order to take advantage of the then newly developed battle tanks. You can find a bit more information here.

You left out the part where, the very day Israel declared its independence, it was attacked by Syria, Iraq, Egypt, and Lebanon, without provocation.

It's long, long overdue. It era of political and economic mismanagement that started with Mao's Great Leap Forward has long come to an end. In recent times, thanks to the influence and investment of Hong Kong and Taiwanese businessmen, China is finally industrializing rapidly. (Yes, Taiwanese businessmen are more than willing to work with mainland China's government if it will mean more profits -- especially in the semiconductor industry). China's government leaders are taking a more lax approach to capitalism as long as it means they profit in the end.

China has the labor, the resources, and is rapidly gaining the expertise to rival and surpass even the Japan of the 1980s. When I was in Japan two years ago, my class's economics professor was expressing concern over the increasing willingness of the Japanese to buy Chinese products, knowingly or not, because it was becoming impossible to distinguish between them in quality. This speaks very well of their growth in all areas from textiles to electronics. As a sign of their development, you should know that China's preparing to send men into space and has a moon shot on the table for the future. They've already got unmanned Shenzhou capsules being sent up and tested for eventual manned missions to space. This is not just the propogandistic chestbeating of a country totally incapable of achieving this goal.

It's just inevitable that China will become the industrial powerhouse of the 21st century. All that can happen at this point is that their growth might be delayed. America economic, military, and political planners are all preparing for this one way or another. One of the reasons that we push IP so much is that we need our IP business sectors to be able to carry us in the future when our manufacturing sectors fall behind. The writing has been on the wall since the 80s about this.

What an amazingly weak argument! Is _everyone_ supposed to be an arm of the law. People receiving unemployment benefits, people on welfare, people who drive on the interstate roads, people with federally-backed home loans and bank accounts, and on and on, all should become the enforcers of copyright violations by others? Perhaps you should rethink your position.

Reminds me of the "Red Army" in China, doesn't it?
See here for more about the Red Army.

This is not something that should be allowed by US citizens. It must be fought at all costs!

-dave-

Use BearShare for all your p2p, movie, and MP3 needs!

Here's one credible referance, "Confound & Destroy - 100 Group and the bomber support campaign" by Martin Streetly:

"During the 1930s, as Europe prepared itself for a seemingly inevitable war, Britain and Germany began the practice of 'seeing' with radio energy. Radar, as this branch of electronics would later be known, was not new; the principle had been laid out by a German, Christian Hulsmeyer , in a patent of April 1904. "

This whole situation is so Thirty Years War it's not funny.