Domain: respublica.fr
Stories and comments across the archive that link to respublica.fr.
Comments · 96
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Re:Huzzah and kudos to NASA!It's not only cutting the travel time in half that is interesting, but putting some low gravity aboard the spaceship. While it may not eliminate the medical effects, it will solve a lot of engineering problems as mundane as making fluids flow in pipes...
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Deja-vuDoesn't anybody else recall a story published some 15-20 years ago, probably in OMNI, where some kid sold trade secrets to a japanese competitor, only to be busted by a honeypot trap?
The story emphasized the geek's contempt of older users and human-engineering issues; the kid was caught by an older engineer who identified his fake logins by his typing pattern.
As soon as he was identified, he was switched to a honeypot where the trade secrets were replaced by porn files. His "customers" were pissed enough to leave the kid have a very intimate explanation with a sumo wrestler...
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Re:iMacs In Movies...
Been to the movies lately? Have you ever noticed that when a movie is set on Earth, in the U.S., in the present day, whenever a character uses a computer, it's always an iMac, or some kind of Mac?
Not hard to explain: movie types are mostly mac-users in the first place, so it's only natural that they's put macs in the movies.
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Re:Here is an informative passage.
So Schumann, the guy that is supposed to testify the DeCSS can be used to decrypt DVDs never played back the movie he copied! And, deleted the copy of the movie from his HD afterwards This has to hurt the MPAA case.
No wonde the MPAA wants to make those depositions sealed!!!!
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Re:Wouldn't it be cool if:There was another story, either by Asimov or Fredric Brown, of some guys who invent a machine that, when fed a complex document, summarized it and output a simple-to-understand result.
But they made their fortune when they discovered that their machine also worked in reverse...
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All is fine, until...All is fine, until one day, somebody will, from one of the servers hosted in your bunker, post something that will run afoul of the notoriously harsh british official secret act.
Then, buoyed by the apparent immunity, somebody else will do it. Then another bloke will do the same.
This will go on until her majesty's government is sufficiently annoyed and the Royal Navy is dispatched to forcibly reclaim british sovereignty over your bunker.
What will you do?
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Re:Best quote
Unless the person who wrote this expects us to mass migrate into well structured centralized planned urban districts in order to make better use of mass transit. (I'm trying to imagine being forced by a "green" government edict out of my house and into an apartment block so that I'm closer to the subway system.)
No need for central planning to do that. The good old market forces and capitalist greet will gladly force you into a cheaper appartment when the energetic waste caused by suburban sprawl will finally fully be billed to those who adopt that lifestyle...
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Re:Wierd
A few years ago, the Southern California Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) implemented something called "pollution credits."
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"How can you sell the right to pollute the air?!? How can you auction off our lungs like so many acres of toxic waste dumps? What kind of stupid assanine idiotic people are you, rather than telling people to stop polluting, you sell them the right to pollute?"Same thing happens in Canada, who has to face the Kyoto greenhouse-gas reduction accords. Canada, in fact, pollutes far more than the US per capita (it's normal: the population in Canada is much less dense than in the US, and the public transportation system has been gutted far more than in the US, thanks to stupid federal policies that favour air transportation). So, the federal government is looking at ways to reduce air pollution.
But Québec (24% of canadian population) wants the right to pollute more, because 99% of it's electricity comes from non-polluting (well... on the short-term, it is not polluting, but on the long term, there are non negligible effects. And it's hard to beat a power dam when it comes to greenhouse gas, air pollution and thermal pollution) hydroelectric power, unlike other areas in Canada that are heavily dependent on oil, coal and gas for their electric power.
So there are some people who ALREADY pollute less than the rest, but they want to pollute MORE!!!
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Re:anti-linux bigotryReminds me of a job I had, where we were writing a contact manager program (in Forth). On lunch hours, we'd pocket a disquette with the program, and go around hunting for a computer store, then subrepitously stick the disquette in a computer and run the program.
After fiddling a bit, we'd grab a marketroïd and ask him about the program, if it did this or that, and about what price it was.
The bullshit reactions we often got were priceless!!!
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Re:Canadian conflict and crud.
Didn't a bunch of Canadian Indians (Iraquois? Mohawk?) stage a revolt with semi-automatic weapons a few years ago?
That was the Oka crisis in the early 1990's. The Quebec government allowed a golf course to be built on some land near Oka, Que. A group of Mohawk claimed the land was sacred ground (may have been a burial ground, it was a long time ago). Mohawk Warriors showed up in support, set up
BZAPP!!! Wrong answer.
The city of OKA allowed the construction of the golf course over the ancient burial ground; a blockade ensued for a few weeks, when the Sûreté du Québec (police) was called to dismantle it. In the ensuing mêlée, an officer was killed.(By the way, Oka is the algonquin name; mohawks call it Kahnesatake. Once mohawks settled there, they gradually drove out the algonquins and hurons who lived there elsewhere).
The land in dispute around Oka is not, and never has been an indian reserve, as it is commonly assumed, and this explains the involvement of the Sûreté du Québec rather than the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (federal) normally used in case of indian revolts (such as the Kahnawake revolt in 1956 against the construction of the Saint-Lawrence Seaway - Oddly enough, the picture on the website is taken at Kahnawake; the bridge is the Mercier bridge, which was blockaded in 1990). As a matter of fact, the federal government department of indian affairs has been purposely been dragging it's feet in this matter, the more so because it helps tarnishing the image of Québec towards the world.
In Canada, indian affairs are a federal jurisdiction, so to better control them and use it against the french who want more control over their lifes. But in the OKA case, the land where mohawks have been living never had the status of reserve. In fact, that land was donated by a french religious (whose name escapes me) order to american mohawks that were fleeing the genocide perpetrated against the mohawk nation in upstate new-york, in the early 1800's, even though the mohawks/iroquois were the ennemies of the french (well, that was when they were useful to the english at war against the french - but when they were no longer useful, after the american Revolution, they were simply exterminated and driven out).
Other mohawks settled in Kahnawake , immediately south of Montréal (the site is worth visiting, being written in mohawk - see below).
barricades, and held a standoff. A second standoff took place on the Mercier Bridge. I believe those standoffs ended peacefully. Another standoff took place at the Ipperwash military base in Ontario; a group of natives claimed the land had been unlawfully taken from them. One native was shot and killed; there have been calls for an inquest into who gave the shooting order.
It is interesting to note that while in Québec, the weeks-long blockade had almost totally cut the road to some important suburbs of Montréal and thus inconvenienced untold thousands of commuters (to the point that an emergency commuter train service had to be implemented), not a single mohawk has been killed by police nor army, whilst a little band of indians in Ontario blocking a little backroad saw one of theirs shot dead by police after only a few days of obstruction. This clearly shows the inherent racism of the english and the high tolerance of the french. In fact, in Québec, 20% of the carceral population is indian, whilst in the rest of Canada, it is 80%.
As for Quebec, even the Quebecois have become sick of the separation mess. The government there has been trying to incite separtist feeling time and time again, but I don't think they're
There is no rush, it is inevitable; history clearly shows that a people's desire for sovereignty (it is not separation nor separatism, we've always been a separate nation) cannot be suppressed indefinitely.
going to pull it off anytime soon. Still, the Parti Quebecois (the ruling party) is pretty paranoid about English - ask a Canadian about the "tongue troopers" and Bill 101 sometime.
The purpose of bill 101 is to protect the existence of the french language in Québec against the onslaught of neighbouring english. The most visible effects have been the prohibition of english commercial signs, and the impossibility for immigrants to go to english schools.
The main idea there is to drive home the point that one cannot expect to live in Québec without knowing french.
Even though more than 80% of the population of Québec is french, immigrants have systematically assimilated themselves into the english community, since the immigration is a federal jurisdiction (the federal govenrment still does not inform immigrants that Québec is primarly french, and encourages them to speak english), and for the last quarter millenium (th e french first came to settle in 1604, thus beating the Mayf lower), the english have been labouring hard to make the french disappear from Canada (in 1760, at the time of the conquest, the french were 90% of the population; in 1867, at the time of the confederation, the french were 50% of the population; nowadays, the french are only 24% of the population). Ethnic cleansing in Canada has been quite successful: large segments of french population outside of Québec have been almost totally eliminated. In the 1880's, a whole french province, Manitoba, was forcibly repressed and turned into an english province. Ontario outlawed the teaching of french language in schools back in 1912. And, as recently as 1977, airlines pilots were susceptible to jail terms if they spoke french during the performance of their duties.
The expression "tongue troopers" is a bogeyman of the english media. The office de la langue française do not hire inspectors to report violations, but rather relies on the public to file complaints, which are then investigated by inspectors.
Another less known (and much less publicized, it would definitely shatter the negative image of Québec the federal government has consistently been trying to portray) effect of bill 101 is the protection it extends to native languages. This is why the Kahnawake website is in mohawk language: Québec has the highest proportion of native speaking their native language (over 80%) whereas in Canada, only the older generations speak the native languages, as the young have been mercilessly taught in schools that viciously suppressed any use of the native language.
Bill 101 is a very mild instrument whose purpose is to undo centuries of extremely harsh treatment.
There's some East-West tension; Alberta, Saskatchewan and parts of Manitoba and B.C. tend to be more conservative than the rest of the country. Nothing vicious; the last really ugly conflict was during the last Quebec referendum (of course).
Of course. This is the typical cluelessness that can be expected out of the english in Canada towards the french. And they wonder why the french want to go out...
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Neat!Let's all put decoy files named after litigious articles on our systems!!!!
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Re:Heh. Compare ManhattanReminds me of that story:
A guy walks in in Chase Manhattan bank and asks for a $5000 loan, and he offers his Lamborghini as collateral.
The bank guy is thilled, he takes the car for a spin around the block before heading in the underground parking garage, and then hands the guy a wad of cash.
A month later, the guy shows up, and pays the $5000 principal along with some $30 of interest.
The bank guy asked him: "While you were away, we ran a credit check on you, and we found that you're worth $50 million. Why the hell did you need to borrow $5000 for anyway???"
- That's the only way I could park my car during a month in Manhattan for thirty bucks!!!!
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Re:Regarding history lessons -- SPRINT
The SP had quite a few different divisions, including shipping, communications, et cetera.
And let's not forget about the goode ole Western Union
Which finally brought us to the...
Southern Pacific Railroad Internal Network Telecommunications ...one of the biggest three telcos in the entire world. ...
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Re:Kinda Like Sprint...How difficult is it to direct a pizza delivery guy to the cab of a freight train in the Chicago yards? You just call a pizzeria within earshot of the crossing you're stuck at, and to confirm it, you say, "go outside, and in thirty seconds, I'm gonna blow my whistle three short times" (nowhere in regulations you do have to blow it three short times)...
And if you DO have business there, railroad cops are amongst the nicest people around. They're so bored that they're happy to see new people! Social engineering galore!!!
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Re:Kinda Like Sprint...
The rail companies all had their own internal telegraph and telephone systems, since they already had the right-of-way going from town to town. Once they realised they could sell the excess, a whole new industry was born.
They still do. And they interconnect their networks toghether, as well to Bell local loops, so you don't have all those silly long-distance restrictions. Better yet, the telephone network is fully accessible trough the locomotive radios, so you can call anywhere in north america for free from locomotive cabs...It great to order pizza when you're stuck outside Chicago on a freight train, waiting for traffic to clear... (I've done a few times. Once, in 11 hours, we only moved 5 miles)...
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Re:Two Issues Here
1) You're running on the spare carrying capacity of a dedicated control system?
Railroad signalling is not very bandwidth-hungry. Signal and switches operation instructions and acknowledgement of both reception and execution are extremely reduntandly transmitted (you just can't allow 0.0001% of error there, unless you don't mind picking up a 1000 ton pile of scrap metal seasoned with mangled human remains), at a very low rate (in the range of dozens of baud).
The rest of the bandwidth is used to transmit movement orders and requisitions and to track the movement of rolling stock, all things that classify as mundane data-processing tasks that are certainly as bandwith-hungry as an ICQ session.* * *
By the 1920's, US railroads were heavily "computerized", since the ICC requirements for detailed freight and passenger statistics made them good clients of ye olde Hollerith tabulating machinery companie...
Their extensive telegraph networks also gave them an early distributed teletypeprinter capability; so, in essence, railroads were at the edge of technological progress...
Railroad signalling is also an interesting logic development, in that the large "interlocking plants" controlling railroad junctions were nothing less than computers programmed to disallow conflicting train movements.
It's always interesting to study railroading history: they've been through exactly all the very same problems faced by airlines and UPS and networked companies over 120 years ago, and it is hilarious to see those who ignore history to stupidly repeat it...
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Re:Rural Internetification AssociationDo you really need 100% reliable power? Computers work with a power supply that steps down the AC power down to a voltage manageable by batteries.
UPSes are wasteful in that they step-up voltage from a battery to 100 volts, then the computer's power supply steps it back down to low voltage. Why not design computers à la laptop, that is that have batteries between the transformer and the voltage regulators?
That would be much cheaper than a run-of-the-mill UPS, and would allow for operation with unreliable power sources.
Nowadays, everything you use works on low voltage, so it comes with a cumbersome transformer. That include halogens lamps. Why not wire houses with 12 volts, which could easily be supplemented by inline batteries? Big power-hungry appliances would simply get their separate high-voltage feeds, just like water heaters and ranges and clothes dryers and strip-heaters do nowadays.
And, especially for third-world countries, this would be much cheaper and could even be run by makeshift turbines on little streams.
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Re:The one I hadNever underestimate the bandwidth of a station-wagon crammed with CDs, or a 747 full of disquettes!!!
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Re:Not suprised.Can you supply us with the source code of the program who generated that gibberish? It will be far more understandable than the gibberish itself.
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Re:Insanity.Who's the fucking clueless moron who marked that as "reduntant" ????
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Ha! Whadya expect???Whadya expect from a scumbag whose grandfather built his fortune circumventing the american (alcohol) prohibition????
That fellow is no better than Escobar's grandson.
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Delphi.Get them started with Borland Delphi.
They'll learn
:- Object-oriented programming
- Good programming habits from the start (thanks to Object Pascal)
- The event-driven paradigm that is typical of GUI programming
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Re:Sushi chef (offtopic, kinda)Lucas Gardner went once to one of those things, but the guy he went-in was never seen alive afterwards...
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Re:In theory. . .
and since Macintosh uses a less visible means of specifying file types,
Macintrash files have, in fact, two invisible 4-character extensions.
The filetype -- it contains the file type which says what kind of data is in the file.
The creator -- which identifies the application that created the file, and which should be used to work with the file.
Applications have a file type of 'APPL' and the creator field identifies the application; that is, it is what ends up in the "creator" field of files generated by this application.
Additionnal trivia: Beige toaster files are, in fact, divided in two. There is a data fork , and a ressource fork . The ressource fork contains information that can be easily edited by a resource editor program, allowing to change certain aspects of, say, an executable file, like the icons, fonts, sounds and strings it uses. The data fork contains, well... (drum roll) data... (In the case of an APPLication, it is the actual binary code. GUI details are in the ressource fork). Either (of both) of those data fork can be of zero length.
It is not a bad system, except that it is totally shielded from lusers and, although it can prevent them from doing mayhem on their filesystems, it is a royal pain in the ass to change if you don't have the proper utilities.
I suppose it could be desirable to have a filesystem that allows you to have as many forks on your files as you want (did I hear somewhere that Windoze NT has something like that? Or is it Novell?), but in my opinion, nothing beats the simplicity of a "flat file" filesystem such as we enjoy so much on Linux.
However, I still don't dislike the concept of embedding file type information and whatnot within the directory entry/fdn.
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What do I thnk?This is the Final victory! The lowly adaptable geeks have finally conquered the mighty slow-moving Dinosaur Pen Big-Iron!!!!
Let's celebrate!!!
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Re:Sigh! This again.
As I've said before, the ONLY way to have censorship is to allow the individual to select what they're censoring. That way, it becomes free choice, rather than outside force.
Then, it is no longer censorship. Censorship is something done by a third party to prevent information flow from A to B. But when B decides NOT so see some information, it is only choice, not censorship.
[...]
IMHO, it's less a product of Government Thinking, and more a product of the dysfunctional, extremely co-dependent idiots Americans decide to vote for. You've no-one to blame but yourselves.The problem is that the whole world is stuck with the shit those morons want.
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Re:discussed in congress -- see CSPAN
[...] and instead recommended draconian laws to resolve the issue. From memory:
- Criminalizing the creation of all viruses or self replicating programs -- even for research purposes.
- Making "hacking" a federal crime with severe punishments
- criminalizing THE HIRING of "white hat hackers" so that anyone who has EVER been convicted of "hacking" will be permanently barred from employment in the computer industry.
- Of course they recommended against any corporation hiring "hacker" security firms and recommended that these organizations be criminalized.
In whole, the entire subcommittee hearing appeared entirely designed to further the cause of McAffee Associates and Microsoft, while recommending insane laws plainly unnecessary to further the cause of Internet security -- but they certainly do benefit the witnesses.
Nah, the whole hoopla looks like it's designed to let incompetent sysadmins and suits keep their cushy jobs...
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Re:Internet Was Anarchy
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Not surprising...
France was one of the few nations in the group that adopted a more intelligent long-term view.
It's not surprising; after all, it is from France that the concept of human rights (as opposed to " property owner's rights ") comes from...
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Re:Never answer email containing legal threats
To be sure, Slashdot's confrontation with M$ would have proceeded on the dead tree medium sooner or later, and the exchange of paper wouldn't have changed very much about the essential issues. But Roblimo could have bought himself a couple days to cool heads at Slashdot and talk to the lawyers, while the M$ lawyers would have been essentially idle, sitting expectantly in front of their Outlook clients and gradually losing their patience.
Hopefully, in the meanwhile, someone will send them a few love letters!!!!
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Re:Somebody MOD this up!This opportunity is well worth the gamble. Lets fight on the seas and oceans.....we will NEVER surrender!
Just move
/. abroad...
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Re:rot12 the specs?Sure, since de-rot13ing is no different than translating them from binary ASCII into binary bitmaps onto the screen you're reading them.
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Not on topic, but...
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Re:Illegal to produce software to circumvent licen
Focusing on point (c) for a moment: Does this mean that as soon as this licencing agreement was written, WinZip (and other zip extraction tools that can bypass the licencing acceptance code) suddenly became illegal?
Not at all, since the DMCIA says " [...] devices SPECIFICALLY to circumvent copy-protection"...
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Re:noticed this tooDitto for today, around noon EST.
Traceroutes petered-out somewhere near Chicago.
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Re:Not quite fair
I like this analogy. Cars are created as safe as possible because if they weren't, car makers would be sued into the ground and then some.
Puuuuhleeeze, kids, can you read " Unsafe at any speed ", by Ralph Nader? You'll seem much less ignorant.
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Re:Not quite fair
That trick of overwriting the jpg file with the script killed our technical publications department.
Hopefully, this time, somebody will be fired for buying from Microsoft...
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Well...Well, it gives astronomers a new bone to chew on...
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Re:We are creating "corpratism".
The thing is, on the political front, people are so afraid of "the New World Order" and concerned about protecting the "sovereignty of nations", that the notion of having multinational governmental bodies with real teeth (i.e. enforcement power) is just not possible these days. I have no idea why people think it's ok to have multinational companies but not multinational governmental bodies. It doesn't make any sense to me.
Er... There are plenty of "multinational governmental bodies" arround (say, the European Union, and it's predecessors, like BeNeLux, the Comecon), and some others have been around for centuries (say, like Canada, the United States of America, the Confederatio Helvetica, the Deutsche Bundesrepublik, France, the United Kingdom, Italy and the Holy Germanic Roman Empire) that their individual constituting nations or states often have blended together to the state of being unrecognizable...
Multinational bodies are not necessarly a panacea, especially in those where one nation dominates others; those who are were founded for very specific purposes that, often, has been outlived...
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Re:What else is new?For the benefit of those who do not live in the U.S. of A., can somebody summarize what is the millionnaire game show and what is the hoopla about it being "suppressed"?
Thanks in advance.
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Re:Yeah?
Am I suggesting that people are incapable of making good cost-benefit analyses, and should be protected from themselves? No. The way to stop this is through education, through making sure people can see the consequences of their choices as consumers and making them relevant at the moment money is being plunked down.
Given the way the public education system is being gutted by government cutbacks (less taxes = less money for the State), it is clear that the bourgeoisie has NO INTEREST that the population be properly educated, since then they will not as eagerly purchase the ofren useless and many time dangerous goods peddled to them...
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Re:America has a lot to answer for
Why is it that America has proven to be the ideal breeding ground for the current corporation-driven global economy that has gotten so out of hand? If you look at all of the major issues that come up on
/. about 95% of them are birthed in the US. How did the nation which prides itself on its God-given rights to freedom come to end up in such a state?I think the "American Dream" has a lot to answer for. The dream of gaining wealth and possessions through the mechanisms of capitalism is one of the core national beliefs of Americans, and it pervades every part of their culture. Beneath its hope-filled surface, it subliminally encourages people to put themselves ahead of others, to work against them to better oneself, and to treat every opportunity in life as a means of making more money for yourself.
Looking at the history of England, one shall not be surprised of this. When the magna carta was signed in 1215, it was just a few barons stripping the king out of some of the power he had over them. Over the times, when the king got at odds with other aristrocrats, the latter would often revolt against the king and depose and behead him, say, à la Cromwell.
To this, add the fact that the british isles are rather poor in natural ressources, and that the custom divided estates unequally amongst sons, it is not surprising that plenty of people sought fortune overseas; at the death of the family head, most of the estate was passed to the eldest son, forcing the younger ones out so seek fortune elsewhere. Thus the british mindset is deeply oriented towards commerce, be it legitimate or outright plundering.
Huge private concerns were formed, with the sole objective of sucking dry the wealth of newly "discovered" territories. Those concerns were strictly private corporations belonging to a few shareholders, and they had their own armies and were granted godlike powers on those territories attributed to them. The Hudson's Bay Company (founded in 1670 and still thriving) was one of those concerns who delivered it's own law upon the natives of what is now northern Canada. And, unsurprisingly, that law made sure it got wealthier. Never mind that suddenly, millenia of Cree hunting traditions and customs became suddenly illegal, simply because they did not send every pelt into the coffers of the Hudson's Bay Company... A similar outfit ransacked India...
The Reformation had something to do with it, too. When you have to struggle mightily to make a decent living (just keep the house reasonably warm in winter and dry under the rain) under a harsh climate, when some (catholic) bozo comes along (from sunny southern Europe) and says that you should share your wealth with the poor, you're quick to give him the boot. Never mind that the scatholic prelates suck the wealth out of the people, what hurts the most is the pocketbook. This is why the english mindset loathes "compulsory charity" (what one would nowadays call "taxes for social programs") and explains the popularity of private charities to whom you give only if you want.
Later, when the Industrial Revolution got in full swing, the bourgeoisie gained power because the new industrial endeavours needed capital to be implemented, and those traders who plied the seas, amassing huge fortunes, were the most naturally placed to supply that capital, instead of the degenerated, inbred, sedentary aristocrats who toiled the same unchanging estates.
Over the times, the bourgeoisie increased in importance, and with it, came political power. Members of parliament were elected solely by the wealthiest property owners (it is not until the beginning of the XXth century that all "commoners" earned the right to vote), so it is not surprising that a strongly capitalist mindset got firmly entrenched in the government.
In the United States, Revolution separated the colonies from England, and brought with it a strong mistrust of Government. Hence the long string of rather ridiculous "checks and balances" that insure that no one can gain "too much" power; well, at least, that's what the "founding fathers" had in mind.
The infant United States of America was a fresh country, but it was still laced with the strongly english trading mindset, and that mindset permeated profoundly the emerging institutions. Industrialization was not possible without paramount attention given to property rights, especially more so that the legislatures were firmly in the hands of the bourgeoisie; thus, it is perceived to be extremely natural to kill somebody in order to protect property.
The small population only had, for models, the successes of the bourgeoisie (which was, by the way, and still is very competent at hiding it's failures - unless when they end-up in politics), and this, too, became part of the mindset. Thus, most people in the US aspire to be his own boss...
Then, came the XXth Century, pass two big wars and two communist revolutions that shook the universe, threatening the sacro-sanct property rights to an extent never seen before!!!
Fresh from a struggle against fascism, the United States was on the defensive, being threatened by a former ally. Followed an unprecendented buildup of military power that sucked dry the ressources of one of the eventual belligerents, and practically bankrupted the other.
Then communism fell. It naturally became the villain, and any idea that was leaning towards the left was immediately suspect. After all, it would lead to oblivion, no? More than ever, the trading mindset got even more entrenched throughout society. The only goal of commerce being profit, it was clear that anything has to be oriented towards profit, and to the maximum amount of it, please. Since one distrusts the government, one shall not look to it for relief, but rather to what one can do for himself.
And this is a godsend for the most powerful of people, because in a democracy, if you can lead those who have the power (the people) to believe that having less government is good, eventually, those citizens will want less government and vote accordingly. Because less government means more free-hand to do whatever you want, that is, profit... After all, since government naturally leans towards communism when it is not working towards property rights, it has to be the ennemy, no?
This is why, in the last 20 years, croporate power has risen so much: they are reaping what they sowed in the minds of people: less government. Less interference in their profit-making business, while the people receive the crumbs and applaud in the process, as they are led to believe by all the things thrown at them by the bourgeoisie to numb their minds that everything is the best that can be...
It's a classic magician trick: while the left hand does the trick, you have people watch the right hands. So, when the superbowl plays, no one think of what the big corporations do to increase their power and wealth even more.
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Hmmmm... D�j�-vu...
In fact, in "Screwtape Letters," one of the devils etches out what could be the Corporatist Marketing Manifesto: "Allow no preeminence among your subjects. Let no man live who is wiser or better or more famous or even handsomer than the mass. Cut them all down to a level; all slaves, all ciphers, all nobodies. All equals. Thus Tyrants could practice, in a sense, "democracy."
Geeee!!! Sounds like big bad ole communism (tm) to me!!!
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What happenned to the Vogons???Since the Fall of Communism(tm), what happenned to the Vogons who were obviously running communist regimes? Did they transfer into running the Big Corporations That Aspire to Rule the World(tm), thus explaining their recent rampant Big Brotherism(tm)???
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At least, the judge isn't french...It's a good thing that Judge Pedro Valls Feu Rosa isn't french, because he would be dead...
("Feu xyz") means ("The late xyz")...
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Rejoyce!I have made a mirror of the webpage, salvaged from my Netscape cache. And since it is offshore, it won't be pestered by copyright lawyers.