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Why we oppose the war in Afghanistan

U.S. Military Drafted Plans to Terrorize U.S. Cities to Provoke War With Cuba

American Media Uses Disinformation To Guide Policy : Corporations Have More Say Than Bush On Foreign Affairs

Is bin Laden a terrorist mastermind -- or a fall guy?

An Elevator Ride Down the Twin Towers of Inferno

The wickedness and awesome cruelty of a crushed and humiliated people

Inevitable ring to the unimaginable

"The price is worth it"

What O'connor said is true, if she even said it. That's what we are all complaining about. It would be nice to see what she really said.

US Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor says she foresees unprecedented restrictions on democratic rights in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks. She declared flatly, "We're likely to experience more restrictions on our personal freedom than has ever been the case in our country." Read the article here, or find it on yahoo etc - it was widely reported.

Do you see a check or balance anywhere in sight? I see a big blank check being handed to Congress by one of the justices on the Supreme Court, but besides that...

The debate, though, is happening, albiet not in the mainstream press. (OTOH, the NYTimes has had several stinging editorials and op-eds, all against the measures - that's as mainstream as it gets, I guess.)

On the right: see this article - and on the left, this one is the only one I can find now. Excellent reading both, and you know something is up when the Nation and the New Republic agree! Or try this one, where Sandra Day O'Connor is quoted as saying "We're likely to experience more restrictions on our personal freedom than has ever been the case in our country."

Whoa! This is the swing vote on the Supreme Court... say bye bye freedoms. Some days, I wonder where we're going, and why we're sitting in this handbasket...

Specifically I am asking because of a story I read which implied that such evidence does not exist.

[The Florida recount] has pretty much been proven a valid result.

Indeed, it has been well established that Gore won the Florida recount.

Ever wonder what happened to all those recounts various papers were conducting? Guess they never found anything interesting to report!

Oh, they found lots to report; they just didn't report it.

• The only way to prevent these attacks is to decrease the motivation to perform them. This is done by being a nicer country, and by being implacably and harshly punitive in our response to such attacks

How on earth can you reconcile those two statements?

Picture this: a Serbian faction blows up a US factory that makes the cruise missiles that killed innocent Serbian civilans. Dozens of US civilians are in turn killed in the factory. What's your response?

• While I condemn their actions, I have to agree that they are only being firm but fair, and I respect their motives.
• Arrogant bastards! How dare they! We will have our revenge.

Now. Why would it be different for any of the good, honest, family folks in any country anywhere in the world?

If you take any kind of military action in any country anywhere in the world, you will be hated and feared for it.

You can be nicer, or you can be punative. Pick one.

http://www.library.cornell.edu/colldev/mideast/fbi m.htm
http://csf.colorado.edu/pen-l/2000IV/msg03767.html
http://www.twf.org/News/Y1999/1130-SecretEvidence. html
http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/oct1999/ins-o22. shtml
http://www.fas.org/irp/news/1999/02/990222-in.htm

There are obvious biases involved, but I leave it up to you to figure out the current state of our democratic institutions.

DO NOT BELIEVE THE HYPE - Read up for yourself. (4 different links)

For those with weak stomachs, you'll notice I made no mention of goatse.cx. I hope this will be enough to prevent me being modded down again.

Quote: If they don't want their citizens to see stuff - then its up to them to filter it

I must take an aside here and mention that in the US, if 'they' don't want you to see stuff they just don't report it.
I'm going to give you a couple of links to a web site that has forced me to admit that I knew nothing about the world. The site is the World Socialist Web Site. These people have an agenda, which I find quite refreshing because once you get used to it you can quite easily learn to look past it to read the quality news and analysis beneath. There's nothing worse than the myth of of objectivism, someone who's pretending to be objective is merely hiding their opinions inside the news insidiously. Why are all those WTO protesters violent anarchists? Why can't I find information on CNN that describes why 150,000 people show up in Genoa? Besides one page that after reading other opinions elsewhere is just so much of Huxley's soma. Remember many of these people were foreign nationals who spent a non-trivial amount of money to travel there specifically to protest.
I don't believe myself to be a radical, as some may accuse me. I believe in Democracy, I believe in Capitalism, I don't believe we should all rush out and overthrow our government. The other component of government is values and that is what I read the WSWS for. I'm a Canadian so I readily identify with Socialist values and am naturally open-minded to them.
As a further aside, what about the US' last elections? This article talks about the military role is those elections and is based primarily on an article written by The New York Times. If the conclusions in the article are valid (and only you the reader can decide that) then the US has taken a step off of democracy's road and onto the road of authoritarianism.
I'm afraid of Americans.

Quote: If they don't want their citizens to see stuff - then its up to them to filter it

I must take an aside here and mention that in the US, if 'they' don't want you to see stuff they just don't report it.
I'm going to give you a couple of links to a web site that has forced me to admit that I knew nothing about the world. The site is the World Socialist Web Site. These people have an agenda, which I find quite refreshing because once you get used to it you can quite easily learn to look past it to read the quality news and analysis beneath. There's nothing worse than the myth of of objectivism, someone who's pretending to be objective is merely hiding their opinions inside the news insidiously. Why are all those WTO protesters violent anarchists? Why can't I find information on CNN that describes why 150,000 people show up in Genoa? Besides one page that after reading other opinions elsewhere is just so much of Huxley's soma. Remember many of these people were foreign nationals who spent a non-trivial amount of money to travel there specifically to protest.
I don't believe myself to be a radical, as some may accuse me. I believe in Democracy, I believe in Capitalism, I don't believe we should all rush out and overthrow our government. The other component of government is values and that is what I read the WSWS for. I'm a Canadian so I readily identify with Socialist values and am naturally open-minded to them.
As a further aside, what about the US' last elections? This article talks about the military role is those elections and is based primarily on an article written by The New York Times. If the conclusions in the article are valid (and only you the reader can decide that) then the US has taken a step off of democracy's road and onto the road of authoritarianism.
I'm afraid of Americans.

I like your sig, if I could I would probably have extended sig's that rotated daily to keep them interesting.

End of comment beginning of extended sig
To her Bene Gesserit eye, the people of Ix were always recognizable no matter the disguises. Basic structure of their society colored its individuals. Ixians displayed a Hogbenesque attitude toward their science: that political and economic requirements determined permissible research. That said the innocent naivete of Ixian social dreams had become the reality of bureaucratic centralism -- a new aristocracy. So they were headed into a decline that would not be stopped by whatever accommodation this Ixian party made with Honored Matres.
Despite a growing sense of doom, Lucilla forced herself to practice Bene Gesserit naivete as she reviewed her encounter with the Rabbi. Her Proctors had called this "the innocence that goes naturally with inexperience, a condition often confused with ignorance." Into this naivete all things flowed. It was close to Mentat performance. Information entered without prejudgment. "You are a mirror upon which the universe is reflected. That reflection is all you experience. Images bounce from your senses. Hypotheses arise. Important even when wrong. Here is the exceptional case where more than one wrong can produce dependable decisions."
- Frank Herbert, Chapterhouse Dune.
Dammit. I hope nobody assasinates me for this :)

I like your sig, if I could I would probably have extended sig's that rotated daily to keep them interesting.

End of comment beginning of extended sig
To her Bene Gesserit eye, the people of Ix were always recognizable no matter the disguises. Basic structure of their society colored its individuals. Ixians displayed a Hogbenesque attitude toward their science: that political and economic requirements determined permissible research. That said the innocent naivete of Ixian social dreams had become the reality of bureaucratic centralism -- a new aristocracy. So they were headed into a decline that would not be stopped by whatever accommodation this Ixian party made with Honored Matres.
Despite a growing sense of doom, Lucilla forced herself to practice Bene Gesserit naivete as she reviewed her encounter with the Rabbi. Her Proctors had called this "the innocence that goes naturally with inexperience, a condition often confused with ignorance." Into this naivete all things flowed. It was close to Mentat performance. Information entered without prejudgment. "You are a mirror upon which the universe is reflected. That reflection is all you experience. Images bounce from your senses. Hypotheses arise. Important even when wrong. Here is the exceptional case where more than one wrong can produce dependable decisions."
- Frank Herbert, Chapterhouse Dune.
Dammit. I hope nobody assasinates me for this :)

I like your sig, if I could I would probably have extended sig's that rotated daily to keep them interesting.

End of comment beginning of extended sig
To her Bene Gesserit eye, the people of Ix were always recognizable no matter the disguises. Basic structure of their society colored its individuals. Ixians displayed a Hogbenesque attitude toward their science: that political and economic requirements determined permissible research. That said the innocent naivete of Ixian social dreams had become the reality of bureaucratic centralism -- a new aristocracy. So they were headed into a decline that would not be stopped by whatever accommodation this Ixian party made with Honored Matres.
Despite a growing sense of doom, Lucilla forced herself to practice Bene Gesserit naivete as she reviewed her encounter with the Rabbi. Her Proctors had called this "the innocence that goes naturally with inexperience, a condition often confused with ignorance." Into this naivete all things flowed. It was close to Mentat performance. Information entered without prejudgment. "You are a mirror upon which the universe is reflected. That reflection is all you experience. Images bounce from your senses. Hypotheses arise. Important even when wrong. Here is the exceptional case where more than one wrong can produce dependable decisions."
- Frank Herbert, Chapterhouse Dune.
Dammit. I hope nobody assasinates me for this :)

So Russia has a former KGB thug as president and Berlusconi controls the Italian telecracy. Big deal, they still don't lock up and kill their population in the same numbers as you do. Think about it: three strikes and you are out! No judgement, automatic punishment. This is about the worst travesty of judgement that's currently in place. Most absolute dictatorships have more consideration about individual cases than you guys have.

I'm sorry to attack your country in this way, but you do have some serious problems that you people don't seem to be taken seriously. You contain 25% of the global prison population in your country, yet you dare to claim that your rights are stronger than in most countries. It might be such on paper, and you might be more free to speak up, but this kind of freedom seems to be used more as a way to shut you up (!) than as a way to influence how your country is run. You've got freedom of speech, but you don't have a right to be heard.

Anyway, this became more of a rant then I intended. It is just that I am really upset about this case. I just returned from a trip to the US, and as usual I'm happy that I returned in one piece. I need to go to the US from time to time for research purposes, but I am always rather frightened that some stuff I did that was totally legal in the countries where I live would be held against me in the US. This case again proves that this paranoia is quite rational.

As I am not a US citizen, I do not have any rights to change anything in your country, although your power and attitude does influence what I can do. So I'm asking you guys to not sit back and relax reading your bill of rights but to stand up and try to do something with your alleged freedoms. If you think that such a thing cannot be done, please stop ranting about your freedoms as with that attitude you show that you do not have the freedom you think you enjoy.

I'm a foreigner (an alien as your government likes to call me) and all I can do is to try and prevent some of the US laws to become law in my part of the world; this because corporate America is backed by the US government to make the rest of the world more like the 'land of the free'. I'm trying to prevent this at my end, I hope you guys will try to make your corner of the world a better place.

Yes, he won the first count, and then he won the next 35 or so recounts.

No, he didn't.

Hold on... "I'm the next president! I'm the President!" (Repeat 3000 times).. Now I'm the president!

Doesn't work if you just do it yourself; you've got to get the media to do it with you. Not to mention the Supreme Court.
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#/usr/bin/perl
require 6.0;

Good for them. I'm glad to know that when our guys are acting like jackasses they at least are careful enough not to hit someone else.

Except, of course, when they're not...

Consider a corporation that produces an AIDS cure, patents it, and sells it for oo-gobs of money which would make it difficult for those from poorer countries to get a hold of it. Now imagine that somehow you were able to figure out a way that people with the right materials could create the cure on their own without as much cost.

I think you could have used a bit of your own advice.

Ah well, I suppose I should respond to some of this.

Good question. How exactly did he steal it?

I said *in essence*, Bush is just figure head after all. You can you look at many things, including Florida election policy which favored wealthier areas with voting equipment. Disenfranchisement of minority voters. The unelected right-wing majority of the supreme court which intervened to stop vote counting, and ultimately ruled against vote counting. All of this added up to in essense of a right-wing coup, and an attack on democratric rights.

If this is not enough for you, you can also look on the World Socialist Web Site. They have examined the issue in great depth. You don't have to agree with their politics, to see the reality of what happened.

What, you didn't see all the news shows with people claiming that Bush's election was a fraud? If the networks were cooporating, or even just idly standing by, they wouldn't have gone on about it for weeks (and months, now).

As for the "pundits", I didn't see any serious dissent. There were some remarks made by timid liberals, but that's about it. As for the news media, the overwelming theme was that we should want this election to be over and accept the result no matter who was victorious. Disenfranchisement was played down, as was the decision of the supreme court.

Two things: First, Fascism was Italian nationalism. I don't see much of that here.

Fascism is not Italian nationalism, although Mussolini who coined the term was Italian and Fascism is nationalistic. I think the best definition is from Mussolini himself, you can read it here. To sum up, facism is a nationalist government with a strong dictatorial leadership in perpetual conquest.

Second, historically in our country, it's been the left-wing group that's aligned itself with socialism. Look at the social reformers of the 1920s, specifically the unions. While unions were necessary then, they often proclaimed socialist beliefs and intents.

I have no disagreement here, although just to note the union leadership from the 30's on have allied themselfs with the capitalist Democratic party.

The natural follower of socialism is communism, which is simply socialism applied to politics. The government owns everything and decides what is right for the people. While the claims of communism are that the government will eventually dissolve itself, I don't think that's ever happened. Communist governments just turn into dictatorships or oligarchies.

I think you have a misunderstanding of communism. Communism is a utopian society, the modern conception hasn't yet existed. When communists talk about the disolving of the state, they are talking about a world-wide phenomenon. The beginings of this can be seen in globalization. Yes, socialism is one country has been tried (Stalin, Mao, Castro), and it has failed for the most part. However, to even attempt socialism in one state is to go against socialism, which is the international struggle for the working class.

It's funny you mention oligarchies, because that is precisly the form that our "democracy" has taken on. In essence the supreme power resides in those few who have the lion's share of wealth.

Now we all know how honest and altruistic large companies are.

Heck, even Bill Gates has recently donated 100 million dollars to aids research. The obvious arguement is that we should not criticise them for the good they do. Bill Gates has obviously been a benefactor of the computer community, and so we should not criticise him for possible errors. He has done so much good.

That statement will obviously send people screaming out of the room. ;-)

The real question is the question of the devils bargin: How much do we excuse in the way of possible errors or abuse because of the possible benefit?

an example from another area of life: a very elderly elderly person is placed into a nursing home. Someone is named as the guardian. the idea is to self off property to help make the remaining years comfortable, because they are beloved family. And the argument is made to loot the property for personal gain instead of helping this person. This is something that happens, I have seen an interesting varient of this.

How much should you be able to profit from the mis-fortune of others?

I have no problem with the meeting of costs, and even some small profit to help a little with future development. Sadly once in the coffers, the bean counter types take cover, and will disperse the funds according to other principles

So how often should we shoot the messenger? Even the infamous Evil Overlord's List has the famous rule:

"32.I will not fly into a rage and kill a messenger who brings me bad news just to illustrate how evil I really am. Good messengers are hard to come by."

Now we all know how honest and altruistic large companies are.

Heck, even Bill Gates has recently donated 100 million dollars to aids research. The obvious arguement is that we should not criticise them for the good they do. Bill Gates has obviously been a benefactor of the computer community, and so we should not criticise him for possible errors. He has done so much good.

That statement will obviously send people screaming out of the room. ;-)

The real question is the question of the devils bargin: How much do we excuse in the way of possible errors or abuse because of the possible benefit?

an example from another area of life: a very elderly elderly person is placed into a nursing home. Someone is named as the guardian. the idea is to self off property to help make the remaining years comfortable, because they are beloved family. And the argument is made to loot the property for personal gain instead of helping this person. This is something that happens, I have seen an interesting varient of this.

How much should you be able to profit from the mis-fortune of others?

I have no problem with the meeting of costs, and even some small profit to help a little with future development. Sadly once in the coffers, the bean counter types take cover, and will disperse the funds according to other principles

So how often should we shoot the messenger? Even the infamous Evil Overlord's List has the famous rule:

"32.I will not fly into a rage and kill a messenger who brings me bad news just to illustrate how evil I really am. Good messengers are hard to come by."

http://www.wsws.org/articl es/1999/mar1999/cosm-m17.shtml

Edwin Hubble realized that galaxies were rushing away from each other at a rate proportional to their distance, i.e. the farther away, the faster the recession

http://www.science.n asa.gov/newhome/headlines/ast25may99_1.htm

"According to a survey published April 3 in the journal Nature, 40 percent of all scientists believe in a personal god who answers prayers, 50 percent believed in personal immortality, and 85 percent believed in god in some sense or other. Moreover, those trained in the hard sciences like physics and chemistry were more likely to be religious than those trained in disciplines such as anthropology and psychology."

http://www.wsws.org/news/1997/apr 1997/hg-a7.shtml

I'm unable to get a direct link to Nature, because they don't carry their 1997 back issues. I'm tired and going to bed :) so I grabbed the first page off Google that mentions the Nature study. The above source is relevant although I do not agree with it, but I think everyone should see it.

If you're going to do unpopular activities, don't flaunt them in front of the authorities. This applies in the United States too, by the way.

The difference is that unpopular but not illegal activities don't get you killed or imprisoned in the U.S. Sure, at some times the record has been better than others, but if you espouse an unpopular view point you can still remain a free citizen in the U.S.

Inalienable rights? You don't have nearly as many as you think you have. You've got exactly as many rights as you can get for yourself.

I couldn't agree more, actually. But the government of the U.S. is constructed to recognize the rights of citizens and to guarantee them as far as possible through the courts and the executive branch. The government of China doesn't seem to recognize any rights for its citizens other than the right to be a cog in the machine.

I'm glad to see the citizens of China fighting for their rights, and I wish them the best of luck. If you're happy living under a totalitarian regime, at least try not to get in the way of a real people's revolution.

In China, nobody anti-government gets heard because (a) most of them don't care, and (b) the government doesn't like that sort of thing (who does?). In the States, nobody anti-American gets heard because EVERYBODY doesn't care. There's no question about where I'd rather be.

I hear plenty of anti-American sentiment on this forum every day. Sure, maybe most people don't want to hear it, but the government does not stop the speakers from saying it. Whether anyone is listening or not is really an orthogonal issue; if your viewpoints make sense to people, in a free society you will gain listeners. How much anti-Chinese sentiment would a China-based /. be allowed to post? It wouldn't stay up for even a week, I imagine.

Oh, yeah, there's an entire PSB division monitoring my Internet activity, and I have to wear a fucking tinfoil hat all the time to keep the mind control beams out. Give it a break, alright?

Here's a sample:

• Internet crackdown in China
• Silencing the Net (scroll down)
• The Cracker War on China - see paragraph three for example - the PSB are watching you.

Oh, really? How lofty is a society where everybody acts like it's a police state because they damn well don't care whether it is or not?

What part of the U.S. are you from? I don't recall there being any police state around these parts. I've never had a problem complaining about the government, contacting my representatives to complain, getting letters published in the newspaper, etc. Sure, things aren't perfect and there are constant threats from groups that don't believe in civil liberties, but on the whole people over here worship whatever they want to, speak their minds whenever they feel like it, and complain about the government like it's going out of style. Doesn't sound much like China of late, does it?

No wait - don't agree with me, you wouldn't want to be "subverting the state" on the Internet, now would you?

While everyone seems to agree that there is alot more wealth these days, few people understand that it is enormously concentrated in the hands of a disgustingly rich few while most of the world struggles to survive. This is accellerating and first world workers are beginning to feel the pinch as well. If you care about such things and aren't mindlessly opposed to such "commie-think" read on.

The following is an extract from the recent Nick Beam lectures that can be read here.

In the recent period a flood of information has been published showing the staggering growth of social polarisation on a world scale. The wealth of the 475 world billionaires, for example, is now equivalent to the combined incomes of more than 50 percent of the world's population, some 3 billion people. And this amassing of riches is proceeding at an accelerating rate. The number of billionaires in the United States alone has increased from 13 in 1982 to 149 in 1996 and has increased since then. According to the 1998 United Nations World Development Report, the three richest people in the world have assets exceeding the combined Gross Domestic Product of the 48 least developed countries, the 15 richest people have assets worth more than the total GDP of sub-Saharan Africa and the 32 richest more assets than the GDP of South Asia. The wealth of the richest 84 individuals exceeds the GDP of China with its 1.2 billion inhabitants. And what of the majority of the world's people? Of the 4.4 billion people in so-called developing countries, almost three fifths lack basic sanitation, one third have no safe drinking water and one quarter have inadequate housing, while one fifth are undernourished, and the same proportion have no access to decent health services. Between 1960 and 1994 the gap in the per capita income between the richest one fifth of the world's population and the poorest one fifth more than doubled, increasing from 30:1 to 78:1. By 1995 the ratio had risen to 82:1. In 1997 the richest one fifth of the world's population received 86 percent of world income, with the poorest fifth receiving just 1.3 percent. More than 1.3 billion people are forced to subsist on less than $1 per day--a life-threatening situation. According to the UN, out of the 147 countries defined as "developing" some 100 had experienced "serious economic decline" over the past 30 years.

Thanks for the warm fuzzies.

Over here we've had the Demon Usenet-hosting debacle to cope with and I'm not happy that an ISP should be liable for anything other than equipment and service provision. As soon as you get governments, courts and corporations involved in the 'Net, you've got problems - all the innocence of one's student days is over.

If you want an example of the sort of depth of argument that does the rounds nowadays, check here.

DU-enhanced weapons are like Lite Nukes minus the Giant Mushroom Clouds and the guilt; the reason the guilt isn't there is because there doesn't seem to be much reportage or discussion about it. See No Evil, etc. It will take widespread news footage of deformed babies and livestock, and mutant produce before that discussion will begin, and then Americans may just choose to ignore it unless it happens on their own soil. And it has, in a way -- Gulf War Syndrome and health problems in post-Gulf offspring may well be related to DU; if there's a ground war in Serbia, the NATO troops may be exposed to the radiation, leading to Who Knows What?®

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I believe the stories about Bush's affair, but it was in poor taste to try to make it into a campaign issue, since FDR, JFK, and Eisenhower (his affair took place before he was in office) were let off the hook until well after the affairs occurred - in fact, they were all dead before their sex lives became public knowledge.

And what about all these allegations of the Chinese stealing our technology? And these allegations that the Clinton Administration did nothing for over two years upon learning of it???? Coincidence???? I don't think so.

The guy was a Reagan-era hire, wasn't he? And hadn't he already done enough by the time Bubba came to town to warrant arrest? The fault may lie with the various FBI directors, rather than any president.

See? I told you I could do better than just the liberal media (though they *are* liberal).! :-)

That's nothing compared to the various Murdoch connections, the Starr/Olson connections, the Starr/Goldberg connections, the Dwayne Andreas Bal Harbour mafia... There's a big vacuum in Big Media where liberal or left-wing views should be (e.g. the moderates who populate "the left" on Crossfire are a mush-mouthed nonentity). I think the liberalness left when Dan Schorr went to NPR; apparently nobody bothered to turn out the lights :) The vast majority of journalists frame a story from a conservative point of view. If you want to see the (often vast) difference between mainstream media and left-of-center views, check out FAIR and their ERR, or even the unfortunately-named World Socialist Web Site, which, despite its name, covers some of the nooks and crannies overlooked by the Big Boys. And then go wash their lefty ick off of you :)

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