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Read Einstein's FBI File
testcase writes: "... along with Mickey Mantel's, Elvis Presley's, William Faulkner's, Bertoldt Brecht's, the American Friends Service Committee's, etc. here. Of course the 'new FBI' doesn't collect this kind of info on citizens any more. Right? " I wonder what my file looks like.
Hey what about them Roman Catholics, hey? They also deny salvation by unsupported faith!
I fail to see the relevance of the Catholics. As far as I am aware, they make no credible claim to being Christians.
It's that off-the-road-into-the-mud lurch toward the end that really yanks my neck around and gets me off whenever I read your stuff, of course I have base lurid tastes.
My intergalactic masters have given me no instructions regarding your perverse enthusiasms.
Whoa -- true or troll, one subtly nifty story:
...
$ whois 198.110.97.37@whois.arin.net
[whois.arin.net]
Hope College (NETBLK-MICH-48) MICH-48 198.110.96.0 - 198.110.111.255
"Einstein defected from europe because he was unable to subscribe to the NAZI regime philosiphy "
He was jewish and persecuted.
"They *WERE* hypocritical euff to allow a Jew in their midst "
Actually, his radical views towards relativity had a number of academics out to get him.
Sounds like Open Source :).
Thanks motherfuckers, now I got moderated down.
You got modded down. I laugh...
Anyway, there is a way to 'check' moderators... just click the link to 'meta moderate' at the top of the page every day if you're a regular user. I do it almost every day.
zhe shi shem ma?
I'm in Linux.
Did you know there's a socialist congressman?
I hadn't heard about that, but in these times, as the United States collapses about our ears, I'm not a bit surprised.
The illogic of saying that the FBI that invaded law abiding citizens' privacy in the 60's is not the same as the FBI that does that now makes no sense.
The decade is irrelevant. My point is that the Weather Underground and the AFSC are, in effect, terroristic groups. Randy Weaver was not. The AFSC are formally devoted to undermining the principles on which this nation was founded. Randy Weaver was dedicated to upholding those principles -- even at the cost of his life, if need be.
Holding views that diverge from that of the mainstream is not illegal.
This is disingenuous. You know quite well that not all "views that diverge from the mainstream" are identical. If I fire a gun into the ground, that is harmless; if I were to fire a gun into the body of an innocent bystander, that would be a crime. Both acts involve the firing of a gun, but they are not identical. So it is with "holding views". Furthermore, none of these leftists are accused merely of holding views -- that alone could be tolerated in a free society, no matter how psychopathic the views may be -- no, the problem is that they acted on those views, and actively proselytized them. And in the case of such views as theirs, there is no good reason for the nation to allow itself to be damaged by such behavior.
You may not love your liberty, but many of us do, and we reserve the right to defend it.
Martin Luther King, Jr. may have violated adultery laws, but not federal laws. The files the FBI collected on him were not related to illegal activities, but to legal activities related to free speech.
When "so celestial an article as LIBERTY" is faced with a clear and present danger of annihilation, it is reasonable to use whatever weapons come to hand in defending it.
As another dedicated American once put it, "Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."
Did you know that Bob Barr, one of the impeachment managers, has threatened to kill the president, and has threatened to lead an armed coup?
Present your evidence, or hire an attorney. This is a very serious accusation. It amounts to treason -- a greater treason, even, than that of the criminal monster Klinton. Bob Barr is a loyal American patriot and an honorable man.
but someone moderated this as interesting, rather than Funny
It would more accurately have been labeled "Informative", but any means to spread the word is acceptable.
Yes, that's true but the violence here is inherent in the state, not in the new system. It was clear that the old system would not `go softly into that dark night' and violence would have been needed to replace it with any other system.
Perhaps violence is just inherent in any political change of state,no matter what the start and end states are.
TWW
Well what the hell did you think it was - little green men?
I am Quaker and a member of AFSC (American Friends Service Committee), . . . Guess that means I must be a 'devious radical left-winger', eh?
Obviously so.
I don't refute that many Quakers and AFSC have a lot of left-wing ideas.
I admit I'm a bit taken aback by your honesty, but I suppose you may have an ulterior motive. On the other hand, Slashdot is an environment so friendly to leftists that you probably feel no shame at all in making this admission. I won't be surprised if it even gains you some support.
Your ridiculous post lies on the basic assumption that all left-wingers should be watched by the FBI because they are a danger to the nation.
"Ridiculous"?! What, I ask you is ridiculous about being suspicious of people who are opposed to democratic government?! The USA is a democratic nation, founded on the principles of democracy. Left-wing beliefs advocate totalitarianism. Yes, you should be watched! Are you crazy?! Do you want me to hand you the knife you cut my throat with?
Quakerism is based completely on non-violence in all respects.
An absurd claim, coming from an avowed leftist. Are you going to tell me that the great leftist Stalin was non-violent? What about Mao and Ho Chi Minh? No, I think it's safe to say that leftists are very violent people indeed.
It is a way of making a political point. Much like having the deCSS code available on one's website.
Bad analogy. Putting the DeCSS code on one's website is more closely analagous to walking down the street handing out lockpicks and other burglar's tools.
Oh Jeez, thanks
Glad you enjoyed it
--80md
Or did they pull down the PDFs? Freedom of Information Act my a$$.
Communism is much like slavery... if you're part of the upper party members, you can make the lower slaves.. err.. citizens do all the work and you reap the benefits while letting the bottom half suck off a bit from your teet. Remember, the USSR? Breadlines? Starvation? Inflation? Lovely place to live.
Communism is based on mass theft. That is an act of violence.
My Friend have you read any Marx? Communism is not inherently Voilent at all. In fact Marx, in his Communist Manifesto, calls for workers to halt the machine of capitalism by refusing to work, thus crippling their employers and making a change.
I was going to use your phrasing and say "was andy illegal action taken on Ms Baker" but then I thought about who we're talking about and realised that the answer to that was "Frequently and enthusiastically!"
Admit it - you'd miss the hot grits. They're part of the furniture at /. Comfy and cosy "Oh look its a hot grits post; all is right with the world."
Calm down, its just a story. No one really believes that stuff about the old guy that lives in the sky and his kid that walks on water, right? Right?
Keynes was no rightist.
1) greed is cultural.
2) communism does not necesarily have to have a centrally planned economy.
communism is so misunderstood. not that it's perfect, but it is a very valid school of political/economic theory that is completly demonized in the corporate dominated capitalist countries.
. . . my grandparents were alive [during the so-called "Depression"] and I can tell you that you are wrong.
My parents were alive at the time, and I can tell you quite conclusively that I am entirely correct.
Please provide support if you want anyone to take you seriously.
You people always want somebody to hand you your liberty on a silver platter, don't you? I'm sorry, but I'm not distributing handouts this evening.
It is not your right to collect info, follow around, etc., people just because you don't like their lifestyle or political views.
Of course not. My personal preferences in the matter of "views" are beside the point. However, when people by their views and their actions pose a threat to my liberty, then it will become necessary to authorize incorruptible men to keep a close eye on them. In this case, the incorruptible men in question were the FBI.
A majority of the people accused by McCarthy of Communism were in fact registered, card-carrying Communists. This is an historical fact. You, once again, are full of BS.
Uh, dude. This one really is substantially true -- true but irrelevant, for reasons you've mentioned elsewhere: It's meaningless to talk about "guilt" if the act in question is not a crime. I could "accuse" you of being a member of the AFSC, and I could "prove" you "guilty" of that "crime". But that wouldn't make you a criminal.
You missed a spot.
6/8/96: joins #linux, announces "Hooray for 2.0!" and proclaims "* CmdrTaco is orgasmic!"
Later followed by the priceless line:
"<CmdrTaco> Does anyone know how I can use Lilo to boot from hdc1?"
Our keyhole bird confirms this was one CmdrTaco!Malda@198.110.97.37. End of transmission.
you obviously don't know what your're talking about. cuba has some of the best doctors in all of south america. they provide medical training for free to any country that wants it. some of the greatest doctors in the world are cuban or cuban trained. Cuba's medical structure may not be the most advanced technologically but it is FAR from terrible.
note: I do not believe Cuba is some utopian place, nor am I a communist.
With this kind of files, USA is surely not different from USSR PRC or what ever.
Oh, they got my file too?
Damn, slashdot, throw away my ip please.
In my own reading of Marx, I thought "why would he assume that there would be an eventual leveling between the master and slave?" Both he and Hegel made a mistake (IMHO)-- that there is some invisible human force (Zeitgeist for Hegel) that is constantly moving upward.
You'd think Canadians would give Napolean his due (maybe they do in Quebec) credit-- the wake from the French Revolution and the French conquest of Europe put a nail in the coffin for aristocracy, and eventually, colonies.
wtf is this chink shit?
uhmmm...john lennon was a communist
This is a lie perpetuated by communist sympathizers. Cuba's healthcare system and it's doctors are bottom of the barrel.
You seem to assume that all people who are left-wing (as opposed to being right-wing) are extremists that promote violence, communism, overthrow of the government, etc. This is not at all the case.
Wrong. It is indeed the case. Regardless of whether you yourself explicitly wish to do violence, you remain a leftist. You remain convinced that democracy and liberty are "mistakes" to be "corrected" by means of "social justice" -- and don't try to tell me otherwise, because I have seen the AFSC website and "social justice" is specifically mentioned! Well, the only means of imposing "social justice" on a free nation are violent means. You can't eat meat and sneer at the butcher. If you advocate "social justice", then you implicitly accept the violence necessary to establish it.
I absolutely guarantee you that Quakers and AFSC do not support violence.
If you sincerely believe that, then I really don't know what to say. With your every waking thought, word, and deed, you work to bring about the most cruel and murderous form of tyranny known to Man: Yet you deny that you "support violence".
Try checking out government depositories. I have spent time at Ohio State University's main library looking through the government documents and references. I never knew that China has about 16 ICMB... national missile defense system for 'rogue states' my ass...
My right to swing my fist ends at your nose.
Correct. And when the arm of your irrational belief system swings the fist of militant action such that it impacts the sacred nose of my liberties, I have a right and an obligation to respond appropriately.
I don't have 7 year old clippings around, so the exact quote escapes me, but after Clinton was elected, he commented that the president should be careful coming to Georgia, because there's a big military presence there, and they might not like him.
Oh, yeah, I remember that now. IIRC he used stronger language than you mention, too. Representative Barr is a loyal American and an honorable man. I believe that he would not have said such a thing without good reason. To compare him to leftists such as the Weather Underground is libel, and actionable under law.
It's only revolution when you start shooting. The weather underground did, the AFSC didn't.
Given the views that the AFSC holds, it's only a matter of time.
Curious...
Had Americans not revolted, how long would Britain kept them as part of its holdings? For that matter, if Britain's other colonies had not revolted, would Britain have given up its empire (and in so doing, also give Canada its independence as long ago as it did)?
And if France hadn't revolted, would the metric system have been invented? Would our satelite have crashed because of incompatabilities with the Old English system of measurements and a non-existent system of measurements? Would this satelite have discovered something really NEAT?
Do I need sleep now?
I also believe there are ways our country could be a better place (within our democracy!).
This sounds like the belief of a reasonable man! Why can't you abandon your superstitions and cultishness and join the free men who are working to make this nation a truly better place? There is a need for brave and free men. You need not renounce violence; sometimes it is necessary, and Our Lord himself directed the Israelites to engage in violence on numerous occasions.
If you are only willing to give up your devotion to destruction, you can work to make this nation great once again: One nation, under God. You can help to restore liberty to the States which have been denied it by the so-called "Supreme Court" (which was never provided for in the orignal, true Constitution, by the way) since 1954. You can work for real change. Join us. You'll be glad you did.
AFSC promotes working towards social justice through non-violent means.
Through treachery, then? Your meaning is not clear to me.
Actually, American doctors aren't that good, it's well know that Japan and Sweden has the best.
Though from what I've heard, swedish health care is in money trouble.
Nope, I'm not from the us and I can access it
> communism is cool
I cite Victor Suvurov, a Soviet spy whose main virtue is that he defected to the West: "The fact that they are communists points to their being either idiots or criminals".
I guess you are one of the idiot kind. Communism is responsible for more crimes than any other political movement in the history of the 20th century. They invented concentration camps. The horrors of Nazi Germany that still terrify most of the western world were derrived from the "Big Brother" - and who is that but the Friend and the Teacher, Josef Jugashvili-Stalin.
Stop listening to the fundamentalists bad-mouthing their "competition", and talk to a real practicing Catholic instead. Get the facts from somebody who has no interest in misrepresenting them.
The Catholic church does a lot of things that not only have no Scriptural basis, they do things that are in direct conflict with scripture. Cheif among these is placing a human being (the pope) on the same level as Christ. The catholics like to say that they consider the pope to be "the vicar of Christ", whatever that means.
Look up "vicar". Then apologize. "Vicar of Christ" does not mean "equal to Christ", and the Church has never stated otherwise.
Speaking of scripture, here's one:
Exodus 20:16
. . . This is something that does not have any basis in core Christian theology.
Pay close attention, because you're basing one false assumption on another: First, nobody considers the Pope equal to Christ. Second, our view of the Pope (which is not the view you accuse us of holding) is based very solidly in Scripture:
Matthew 16:19
And then you have the catholics worshipping saints and other humans on essentially the same level that they worship the Trinity.
You're misinformed. That statement is not factual. Praying to saints for intercession is not "worship", any more than hiring a lawyer is "worship". Again, since you're so fond of scripture, I'd like to call your attention to this little gem:
Exodus 20:16
Okay! Let's keep talking about scripture! This is fun. Most protestant churches permit divorce and remarraige, don't they? Let's see what Christ had to say about that:
Matthew 5:31
Most Protestant churches believe in salvation by faith alone, do they not? I seem to recall that Bob Jones gives this as one of his excuses for bearing false witness against the Church. Okay:
Matthew
Hmmm . . . Odd, that. Furthermore, the faith-alone view implies that it's perfectly okay to break each of the Ten Commandments every day of your life, as long as you accept Christ as your savior. Why then did God give us the Commandments? I'll tell you why: Because that's how He wants us to behave, and He really doesn't care whether Bob Jones agrees with Him or not. You may not believe this, but God is more important than Bob Jones, and when it comes to a showdown between the two, my money is on God in a KO, first round.
Looks like you're going straight to Hell, pal. Or rather you would if you weren't trolling me
. . . we need a president that will tell the truth about the cathlolics.
Yeah, you're trolling me. It was a pretty smooth one, too.
. . . the Southern plural variation th'all!
Whoa! I love it! I love it! Do Southern Friends really say that, or are you pulling our legs here? Please tell me it's true!
--80md
Catholics believe that Faith AND Good Works are necessary for salvation...
True, but they are wrong. There is no Scriptural justification for that belief, nor for any of their other beliefs. They are not Christians.
1) The great American holocaust - entire Native American tribes wiped out by violence, numbers unknown.
2) Filipino-American war, estimates ranging from half a million to 3 million Filipinos killed, most civilian.
3) Nazi Germany. Enough said.
4) Australians kill every single last man, woman, and child on Tasmanian island.
5) Apartheid
6) slavery
7) I think you get the picture.
Disclaimer: I'm not just anti-capitalist, I hate them all.
Have A Nice Day!
He is anarcho-communist, as me! :)
You have a very serious flaw in your consideration. COMMUNISM WAS NOT DESIGNED. Communism is an abortive chapter in the history of man kind. It is a sad story of men who had too little of human-kindnesse [not a typo - Macbeth]. It is an example of how a system cannot be centralized in one group of hands.
By the way, you can't compare pre-WWI Russia to USSR. It was a bad place indeed; however most of the countries at that time suffered from indusrial revolution's outcomes. See what the US became, and you'll get an idea how Russia could have been.
Dear Myddrin: Mr. Casillas is pulling your leg. Yes, I did say that I went to BJU, but I was trolling! Casillas knows it, too. I'm actually a secular humanist East-Coast liberal. Scary stuff
--80md
We're more visceral than that at my compound.
It's a very nice compound, by the way. One of the very finest!
--80md
Communism has been implemented over the past 70 years by a mirad of countries and EVERY SINGLE TIME it has failed miserably
Wrong: Nicaragua, Vietnam. Neither was (or in the case of Vietnam, is) a paradise, but neither were (is) anything like what the ahistorical orthodox right-wing view would assume.
The Truth is out there!
If we were to prevent law enforcement from tracking suspicious people in this country, then we remove the only real tool law enforcement has to prevent terrorist and criminal activites before they happen.
And how, exactly, does this tie in with their investigating the AFSC? Then you've got their investigation of Martin Luther King, which was basically digging up personally embarrassing dirt to smear him with.
If the FBI did their job as you describe, I'd have no problem with them either.
In any case, while granting it's reasonable for the FBI to keep an eye on people they reasonably suspect of being nogoodniks (as long as they don't abuse their power to conduct personal vendettas, which J. Edgar Hoover did regularly), isn't it also reasonable reasonable for us to keep an eye on the FBI?
I believe the spot we're currently in is euphemistically called "between a rock and a hard place". There's no really happy way out, but our current situation is a heck of a lot better than the alternative.
That sounds like the kind of thing I'd say
they choose to freely peacably assemble
Those who freely split infinitives will not stop at the annihilation of a few basic liberties. Your motives are clear, our cause is just, liberty shall not perish, and it's past my bed time.
I know I've been trolled, hook, line, and sinker, but I can't stop now.
Ahh, but I must
--80md
Well, how could I forget this brilliant bit of rhetoric:
Heh. You don't think I really believe that shit, right?
--80md
So don't you impose you imperialist eurocentric hegemony on me, that's my liberty's nose.
I'm running Lynx. Is anyone else having this problem?
Maybe it's a pre-emptive strike against the slashdot effect :-)
I take your comment about my "goodness" as sarcasm... All I am saying is that we should lock up people who are bent on "violent overthrow". I'm sure laws exist on the books prohibiting "plotting armed insurrection". As long as an ideology doesn't advocate violence as the primary means to an end, I believe such people should have the "freedom to" do whatever they wish.
You can say whatever you wish. You can even say white/black/orange people are superior and everyone else must die. You can also say that this country is a piece of shit and it should be violently overthrown. You seem like an intelligent guy. However, you are wrong to imply that those who say these things go to jail. It is action, not words that gets you jail time. The minute the United States locks people up for words is the minute I join the revolution and violently overthrow it.
It' something I've noticed all my life -- there's a definite correlation between intelligence, education and political ideology. Frankly, right-wingers tend to be more dim-witted. And so-called libertarians often suffer from emotional under-development -- they think like twelve-year-olds. Whereas Einstein, Bertrand Russell, Sartre, Camus, Derrida, Picasso... what great artist can the right claim? Naturally there are exceptions: Heidegger, for example, or the awful Teller.
don't you impose you imperialist eurocentric hegemony on me
It's not my imperialist eurocentric hegemony; it is the imperialist eurocentric hegemony of all of Western culture, the ultimate fount of all that is good and fair in this world. The Judeo-Christian Western European worldview is the greatest machine for the creation of wealth that the world has ever witnessed. If a few skulking infinitive-splitters must be ground beneath the wheels of progress that they may proceed, far be it from me to object.
Sounds like you could be describing our state-capitalist system: "If you're part of the upper management or property owner class, you can make the lower wage slaves.. err.. citizens do all the work and you reap the benefits..."
You say remember USSR? I say remember Brazil? These two countries began their systems at roughly the same time and in the 70 years they had to develop, you tell me which took care of its citizens better. Wealthy Brazilians have been known to go to Cuba to receive better health care.
I agree that the USSR experiment ultimately failed economically but not for the reasons you are claiming.
Of course the very act of moderating something as a troll is a reaction - which is what trolls want. The appropriate response to trolling is to ignore them, not for everyone to respond saying 'You're a troll!'.
For those who know how to spot trolls, the trolls themselves aren't the problem - it's the people who respond and clutter the space up with pointless posts.
For a troll moderation to truly work, it should recursively 'infect' all replies below it. A reply to a troll is by definition a continuation of the troll's original plan. It would of course require the moderators to know this.
Not. Is it just me, or does everyone around here seem to be totally oblivious of what trolling is? It seems like one thing you can count on, is that if a post is marked troll, it almost certainly is not a true troll. A true troll is going to be marked insightful or informative (but probably not interesting).
Of course, I should expect this from Slashdot, since they have both "troll" and "flamebait" listed as options. The options should be "troll" and "flame" -- no bait. This is how it works: you troll, then someone flames you, and then you laugh. See? Flamebait is a subclass of troll, so it's redundant. Meanwhile, we have no way to mark as post as "Flame".
Anyway, I just wanted to say that you trolls are very lame, and that's why you hardly ever get a bite.
Oh, but I guess this post counts as one? :)
Is it just me, or are you taking a huge spectrum of political beliefs, giving the entire spectrum two possible categories, and claiming all parts of a single category are bad because of their affiliation with other members of your own categorizing scheme?
Precisely! That's what trolling's all about
Obviously you're not from Eastern Europe. Or Vietnam. Or North Korea. Cuba... I could go on.
Let's be realistic here. Before communism in Eastern Europe, we had wars going on daily. After communism in Eastern Europe, we had wars going on daily. I'm no fan of communism, but you can't blame communism for the violence in Eastern Europe. I think I might be safe to say in some parts of Eastern Europe, it's now even worse.
Now, let's take Vietnam, a country I'm more familiar with. Before Ho, the Vietnamese were in a battle for independence from the French. They finally beat those funny talking snob-noses in 1954. Then America came in in 1963, upping the ante to full out war in '65. Most Vietnamese could care less about communism, they just wanted the god damn foreigners out.
By '75, we left a country so shattered that no government, be it communist, capitalist, socialist, or whatever could have recovered that country for at least 20-25 years, so naturally with the communists in power, they would look bad.
Cuba has no civil rights. It is racist as hell (making the American South looks good). However, they have the best health care in Latin America by far. Their health care rivals ours. Their doctors are world class. And their education system even betters ours. Take the average Cuban and compare his intelligence with the average American. Thank God we have natural resources and they don't or that piss-ant country would be running circles around us.
North Korea I know nothing about. Now, from those examples, it seems like the problem with communism isn't the economic system but rather the civil liberty problem. If we could have Cuba's economic system with Switzerland's civil liberties (no gun control at all:), we'd have a winning system.
Damn. Ever heard of a (P) tag?
shuddup signal 11 nobody axed you
already /.ed or just plain broken? not just trying to get to uncle albert but to some of my old neighbors in winston-salem, nc's small black panther party and others
I'd like to meet someone who is not or hasn't done something illegal.
Last year, of all the guns in America, 99.8% were not used in a crime. Private gun ownership is the ultimate balance of power. And lastly, in America, cars kill thousands more people than guns, and guns don't destroy the environment.
To apply for a job, smile into your Web Cam and recite the coordinates of any supercomputer in Langly, VA. Anyone getting with 20 feet will be "contacted for an interview."
Wow.
Replace every "communist" with "christian" and every "communism" with "christianity".
...and you still have a valid argument.
Funny that.
Screw Britain. You are the island of ugly women and bad teeth. You have no freedoms. You can't defend yourself from criminals, and even if you had guns, you probably couldn't shoot them because you are so inbred that your eyes look in different directions. You have no right to remain silent in a court of law (remaining silent is assumed guilt, I'm not joking). You screwed over the Irish and the Scottish for hundreds of years. Oasis sucks, and so does the rest of the new wave of British rock bands. You talk funny, you look ugly, and your food is downright miserable. You can't even hold your liquor without pissing in your pants. And for God's sake, you still have a Queen. You can't go to a soccer game without getting in a fight and your noses are so big you could never be boxers. Your sports are boring, you haven't invented anything cool since radar, and even that was perfected by United States. We let you have your James Bond so you could delude in yourself that you are still a world power (NOT!). The sun never sets on the British empire, right? Oh yeah, one more thing, we saved your pimply asses from Germany twice this century so at the least, you should be thanking us repeatedly.
I have to be honest and say that after reading all of this I can't be sure as to whether you are serious or not or if you are just joking or flaming or trying to trick people into responding. But on this point you're right, whether you are joking or not. The Catholic church does a lot of things that not only have no Scriptural basis, they do things that are in direct conflict with scripture. Cheif among these is placing a human being (the pope) on the same level as Christ. The catholics like to say that they consider the pope to be "the vicar of Christ", whatever that means. This is something that does not have any basis in core Christian theology. And then you have the catholics worshipping saints and other humans on essentially the same level that they worship the Trinity. This essentially amounts to idolatry and violation of the First Commandment. And these are just the little things. I'm not even going to get into the big things because they are so well-known and have been so well covered. The truth is that Bob jones is correct and that Catholics are not Christians and their salvation is very much in question. I hope that George w. Bush when he said that he did not agree with anti-catholicism was just pandering to the politically correct media and was not stating his true feelings. We need to make sure that we elect a sound Christian to the presidence, and that means that we need a president that will tell the truth about the cathlolics.
Sure... Canada. Canada has free health care and education (up till the end of high school then it's just cheap) for all citizens, plus we are a capitalist country.
Now we see the violence inherent in the system!
Now we see the violence inherent in the system!
HELP HELP I'm being repressed!
not all communism is based on a violent ideology of economic attainment. first, there is a difference in a system between its methods in attaining a goal, and its sustenance thereafter. I can think of very very few political ideologies that came to power thru non-violence of some sort. there is always some system against which change must occur, and that system does not let go willingly of its power.
now also, communism in pure theory does not in any way dictate specific political organizational movements..it requires a pseudo-democratic political arrangement in order to function optimally, and this is one of the reasons why USSR and other countries were unable to function optimally in their situation...they adopted a communist economic system, and a dictatorship politically.
thoughts and ideologies and ideas and beliefs should not be suppressed and repressed. violence by a minority against a freestanding system is inherently destructive, and such actions are understandably curtailed. but surpressing people based on thought and opinion alone is putting judgement upon those individuals..the only difficulty comes when such thought is destructive in nature, and may lead to a resulting violent action. this is why the fbi had a file on einstein...he was into communist thought...did they supress his ideas or lock him away? no. did they fear that he may be involved in some future violent actions against the state? sure. its only common sense for the state to protect itself (as you would yourself) against violent attacks. but we still have freedom of thought, and most communist thought is not inherently evil or about violence. attaining a systemic acceptance of such a drastic change in society is INCREDIBLY difficult without violence. the only other route is what we see occuring slowly here online...freedom of thought expressed in a comprehensive manner.
We live in an over-full world. you are correct if such a prospect comes into place, we will notice that we are not self-sustaining, we are propping ourselves up in an overly complex collapsing environment. we need a way to get rid of about 90% of people on earth...ok sounds evil. guess we gotta expand outwords, and start enacting china-esque birth laws.
communism is cool, stupid. free medical and education for everyone. can you beat that?
This thread is supposed to be about the sick FBI probes into the lives of greats such as Einstein. Seeing how quickly it devolves one has to wonder how the West ever won the cold war. Perhaps the key was that the dregs contibuting here will never be near Washington.
The Wall Street Journal, in 1924, reported that "No territory in the world is better worth exploitation than Brazil's". Five years later, "American businessmen boasted a larger share of the export market than their British rivals" and "New York had replaced London as the major source of new capital investment" (Joseph Smith) Serious US interest in Brazil dates from 1889, when the monarchy was overthrown and a republic established. US dominance of the Brazilian market peaked after World War II, when the US supplied half of Brazil's imports and bought over 40 percent of its exports. So I think comparing Brazil and the former USSR is one of the best comparisons that we have. And, again, it is worth repeating that since American technocrats have been directing Brazil for about 50 years, what happens there is a result of US policy. One of the results is that Brazil ranks around Albania and Paraguay in quality of life measures, infant mortality, etc.
I wasn't comparing Cuba to Brazil as I hope the above paragraph makes clear. I simply made a statement about Brazil, namely that people who had some money (being wealthy in Brazil is a relative measure) could, and sometimes did obtain health care outside of their own country, their own being inadequate. I mentioned Cuba because it is a small island with a fraction of Brazil's resources and an unprecented embargo of over 30 years who could care for all of its citizens.
And yes, the USSR traded with Cuba but only because the US refused to and pressured its clients in Latin America to do the same. Cuba made many failed attempts to trade with the US, so you are going to blame them for accepting the offer from the USSR?
Compare China with Taiwan/Hong Kong Compare North Korea and South Korea Compare The old East Germany to West Germany The list goes on and on. Face it..Communism is a failed idea. Anyone who could believe it works in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary is deluded
Sacco and Vanzetti were two Italian Anarchists that were railroaded into a death sentence for the murder of two men during a payroll robbery. It was the 'Trial of the Century' at the time, because lots of civil rights groups believed that they were innocent, and just being put on trial because they were easy to blame, being immigrants with an undesirable political stance. Richard Bruno Hauptmann was the one that was railroaded into a death sentence for the kidnapping/murder of the Lindbergh baby. It's widely believed now (and by many people at the time), that if he was involved in the kidnapping at all, it was only in the most tangential way, and that the real criminals went free. (He claimed that he was just storing a package for a man he met, the package turned out to contain some of the ransom money) I actually took the trouble to look this up on brittanica.com and provide links to sites, but then Netscape crashed when I hit 'submit', so now I'm retyping this, and I'm just gonna tell you to go see for yourself.
hegel wa snothing compared to nietzsche. read some of nietzsche....ANTI-STATE..then read to of marxs contemporaries....Bakunin and Kropotkin...much less heard of, but far betterminds...especially Kropotkin....(both were anarchists)alos, read some tolstoy...he was also an anarchist... Jesus was aslo an anarchist(according to tolstoy)
Hey, he's NOT trolling. Overrated, Irrelevant, maybe. Troll, no.
Any government legitimately interested in protecting itself spies... not for its citizens' best interests, but rather that of its own existence, and should be considered the eye of the state in the same sense that the military is the arm of the state for defence and offence.
This is not changed by whether a state is democratic: Churchill was the best spymaster the British empire ever had, and he was keenly aware of the necessity both of foreign intelligence and domestic counterintelligence.
The role of the FBI includes domestic counterintelligence in the US. Counterintelligence is not about determining whether a crime has been committed, but whether information vital to the continued existence of the state is going outside the state without the state's knowledge.
So Einstein was involved in communist fronted activities. Well, so what? It was (and is) the job of the FBI to keep track of such activities.
Besides, a lot of organizations that we rightly regard as acting sensibly today were receiving surruptitious communist funding or support through the USSR, the same way that dissident groups inside the USSR were receiving similar US support during the deepest, darkest days of the Cold War.
I myself as a Canadian citizen was involved in Physicians For Social Responsibility, an organization supporting thermonuclear disarmament.
However, I argued vehemently for random on-site inspections worldwide, universal disarmament and the build-up of western defences using smart delivery systems and near-nuclear destructiveness by means of fuel bombs and other, more controllable weapons. Needless to say, the organizers kept me away from the sharp instruments. Consider what Jerry Pournelle would have been like if he'd been a hippy...
Well, the morality of espionage in general was summarized by Eisenhower after the U2 was shot down over the USSR on a surveillance mission: "no more Pearl Harbors". Knowledge is power. The difference is, now you can buy your own private spy satellite photos, and the internet allows for much faster spread of information to everyone.
Secrets can be lethal.
this is the second time that you have mispelled faggot, you do realize this don't you?
Umm, D'uh, closed software is a corporate capitalist product/result. Or is Bill a Communist?
And everyone knows that Capitalism is the most effective in doing everything!!!
The rest is left as an exercise to the reader.
-- Ender, Duke_of_URL
Your country is 6x less violent than Americans.
:)
We kill each other 6x more often in *all* categories of violence (not just guns) than you do. So comparing total numbers (small country-less violent versus large country,-more violent) is just playing with numbers.
Other interesting gun facts; concealed carry people are more likely to abide by gun control laws than off-duty police officers by a factor, of like 10. Who should we be disarming? I'll go for the criminals. Especially when those criminals (cops) are more likely to shoot themselves each other, than a criminal is to shoot them with their own guns.
Practice gun control, go to the range.
-- Ender, Duke_of_URL
There is no communist policy of setting up dictators. The Russians did it because they thought it was the only way to maintain order in the beginning. Then the heads of the dictatorship decided they liked that better than communism. Russia was *never* communist.
"They're in pretty good with the UN, too." The same could be said about the US government. BTW, trying to argue that US-G is NOT "inwiththeUN" will immideatly make you an extreme rigth-wing fundamentalist madman. So will trying to argue the preciding centence, and so on.
GOOD MORNING DAVE. HOW ARE YOU FEELING? DAVE? DAVE?
Does anyone know what page of the PDF's this quote is from???
I could be wrong, but I am almost positive that Marx wrote the first step towards communism was dictatorship to weed out the 'evil capitalist influences'. To me, it read like a brain-washingm, period. Of course, absolute power corrupts absolutely. So, Russia and China never got out of phase 1. Of course I could be confusing what Lenin or Stalin said for Marx.
http://www.majesticdocuments.com
http://www.mj12.org
Read "The Iron Heel."
I always thought he doth protest too much...
Shutup you damn linux zealot.
or to DjVu?
a nice.. read....
There are as many different kinds of Christianity as there are Christians. Everyone who participates in that religion has a unique view of what Christianity is and is not.
Yes, but those who reject the basic tenets of that religion are not participating in it. The Quakers have an equal claim to being Mohammedans.
The idolatry of Bible-worship, and one particular narrow view or set of views that come from it, is not the one-and-only definitive way to come to an understanding of Chrisitianity.
So you're saying that one can be a Christian without the Bible? That's an interesting notion. Would you care to clarify?
In any case, you're trying to change the subject. I notice you make no attempt to refute my observation that the Quakers are, in fact, leftists. That's the key point here.
welcome back cmdtaco!!
And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever...
Great potential in that one. You forge someone's signature and and send of a request ( all other details of your intended victim being 100% kosher ) and hey presto! Suddenly the FBI takes a much more active interest in them.
Sounds like a really good way to arrange it so that the local members of the KKK come in for some well deserved attention. All for the cost of a couple of postage stamps and a bit of paperwork.
Confusion betweeen Quakers and Amish? A line straight out of the movie "Kingpin."
I haven't seen that one. I borrowed the confusion from real life: I've met people (mostly in New England) who really thought they were both the same group -- and who didn't seem to believe me when I explained it! I used to live in PA where there's less confusion about the matter, due (I guess) to the proximity in numbers of both groups. I also saw somebody on Slashdot make the same mistake a few months ago. So, anyhow, the AFSC bizarrely found its way into a Slashdot story, and I realized that ummm, maybe one percent, tops, of Slashbots would have any clue who the hell that was . . . So while I was trolling away, I grabbed the excuse to post a link to their site!
I don't think I'm a "thou", though, unless I'm wrong about how it's used.
BTW I just peeked at your website and it looks groovy.
thou would not be out of place in the surprisingly contentious newsgroup soc.religion.quaker
Well, sometimes you can't get consensus without kicking some ass, is how I understand it
--80md
we have no way to mark as post as "Flame".
Now, what we really need is a catigory named "Lame", so we can just mark down lame posts as such.
Anyone else think this troller is suspiciously similar to the one a couple weeks back in the Sociology, folkdancing, and now this thread on the Gaming B.A. story?
You remembered?! Wow, that's neat. Being the same person that I was then, I noticed the similarities immediately
In the current discussion, anonymous cowerd recognized me from a more recent troll -- at least I think that's where he remembered me from. I think he's referring to how, in that troll, I started claiming to be acting on orders from "my intergalactic masters". I was hoping somebody would notice. Few did
--80md
And there you find the *moral* failing of communism. In Kantian tongues, it fails to respect the person. "treat others always as ends, and never as mere means." Communism fails that test with resounding colors. "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." Free rider problem?
Communism at heart is a theory of equality of *outcome.* It is the political theory of the zero, the lowest common denominator. To quote a passage from Alice in Wonderland which fits communism quite well: "Everyone has won, and Everyone must have prize." But as the characters asked in unison, who is to give out the prizes? And as has historically been shown - a bureaucratic elite. Wherever socialism has stuck its ugly head in the worthy goal of leveling undeserved inequalities, the old classes of influence are always replaced by a new class of influence comprised of swindlers, hoodwinks, crooks, and cultural barbarians.
Derek Long
Cattle mutilations are up.
at a time earlier in this century, people were not confident in the capitalistic economy, and had not seen communisms failures firt hand yet.
Yes, and that is precisely why the FBI had to take on a defensive role against that madness. That is why people like Brecht and the AFSC had to be monitored: Because few people outside the FBI were aware of the danger.
They had, on the other hand, experienced the shortcomings of capitalism. Remember the great depression? It was a _major_ failure of extreme right capitalism.
Wrong. There was a minor stock market correction in October, 1929 (roughly like the wobbles NASDAQ has been having the last few days). The market recovered within a few weeks, and not until years later was the correction mythologized by revisionists into a "crash". The economy was fine until 1933, when FDR, having lied his way into office, dictatorially closed the banks and threw the economy into a tailspin. That was the start of the Great Depression: Government interference on a massive scale. The "history" you've been taught was, of course, written by the "victors". It is not even remotely accurate.
The effect of that revisionist history, of course, is exactly as was desired: To create the impression that capitalism is flawed.
many people were distraught at the mistreatment of the working class.
Of course they were. At that time, unions were beginning to take their toll on the living standard of the working class. FDR made the situation considerably worse when he poleaxed the economy, but the unions had already been doing their damage for years. The economic condition of the working class still has not recovered from the ravages of unionism, even though those leftist theories have long since been exploded.
I guess my point is, the whole communist witchhunt thing was (and still is to an extent) unfair and that capitalism is not perfect either.
Capitalism is not perfect, but it is without any serious drawbacks. The so-called "witch hunt" for Communists was, quite simply, an act of self-defense in an undeclared (but very real) war. The leftists won the propaganda battle, and only recently have the real facts begun to emerge: A majority of the people accused by McCarthy of Communism were in fact registered, card-carrying Communists. This is an historical fact.
So much for the "witch hunt" myth.
to this day I can show you probably hundreds of millions (billions?) of people around the world who would certainly disagree with capitalism, and embrace socialism or even communism.
And I can show you millions of homosexuals, whores, thieves, junkies, rapists, murderers, child-molesters, lesbians, drug-dealers, and the like. In your view, Communism would seem to be just one more "lifestyle choice". It's your right to believe that if you wish, but if so, it is my right and obligation to protect my nation from your actions if you should choose to move beyond words and into the realm of violence.
2000-03-15 20:10:24 Windows Me to eliminate some networking support (articles,microsoft) (declined) 2000-03-15 20:19:12 DSL subscribers see privacy disappear... (articles,Privacy) (declined) ---------------------------- This is my off-topic proof. Foreshadowing as it may be...
"Don't try to confuse the issue with half truths and gorilla dust."
Bill McNeal (Phil Hartman)
this was from earlier today: WASHINGTON, March 15 (UPI) -- There has been another "denial of service" cyber-attack against a high-profile Web site, sources told UPI Wednesday -- this time the target was the FBI's own Web page, which was taken out of action for several hours Tuesday. Premptive action on their part perhaps? OH SHIT, another DoS! quick, pull the PDFs before they steal our infoz!
IF THEY KNEW WHERE TO SEND THE FILE TO THE FUGITIVE, WHO CARES WHAT INFORMATION HE CAN GLEAN FROM IT? HE'LL BE CAUGHT WHEN HE PICKS IT UP!!! YOU STUPID FAGGET!!
Unless I'm mistaken the vast majority of the Christians on this blue planet are Catholic and Catholics believe that Faith AND Good Works are necessary for salvation...
But you probably believe like my friend GW Bush and the entire faculty at Bob Jones University that Catholics are a "cult"....
YHBT HAND!
2^5
The urban legend is that if you request to see your file and they do not have one open on you.. then they start one....
2^5
The problem there is some moderators must mark it interesting/insightful/funny to give it a few +1 scores. I believe it's only the last moderation that is put next to the subject. So the likelihood of one moderater marking it a troll as it should be has little effect overall, as another will come along and re-mark it. And it'd need three positive marks (which it has now) before the Troll marking to take it back down to Score: 2, Troll. The chances of so many moderators being in cahoots like this aren't practical. Clicking on the post number link reveals how it has been moderated.
He did. Look at this post.
In case you haven't realized by now, you fell for a very good troll.
---
Who, contrary to modern myth, was not the only socialist around at the time. So you hardly establish anything.
There were many socialists at the time trying to achieve socialist societies (i.e. societies where the workers control the means of production) by diverse means.
---
Do you really want someone investigating your life, and keeping files on who you know, your relation to them, your opinions, and so on, just so they can be sure that you are not a criminal?
If the investigator believes that some (suspicious) person *might* pose a threat to Society At Large(tm), [...]
The question is what right does the investigator have to decide what is good or wrong for society at large. In any case, government agencies like the FBI are not disinterested observers.
[...] AND the investigation is to be carried out discreetly, such that if nothing is found to be wrong, nobody will ever know, should s/he investigate or not?
Your assumption that "no one will ever know" is quite naive, I think. The discussion was about the FBI keeping files on citizens.
And anyway, in advocating this you are going against the face of documented cases of the government investigating citizens which are not suspected to be criminals. It has nearly always (if not always) been the case that a government keeps such files in order to disrupt legitimate citizen activities.
For example, where I'm from, Puerto Rico, the government kept for many years files on people just because they supported independence from the US. People who were in those files were routinely denied jobs, financial aid for education, and were harassed by the authorities. All of this culminated in the late 70s and early 80s with the ambush and summary execution of two people by the local police and subsequent cover up.
The FBI had for many years a COINTELPRO program on Puerto Rico independence, and frequently consulted the files I mention above.
---
The COINTELPRO operation in Puerto Rico was started long before FALN existed.
And anyway, the vast majority of the people who were investigated had no connection to FALN, were not revealed to have done anything illegal, and it _is_ documented that they were subject to discrimination in many accounts from part of the government and many private entities. (You can see in files that the police would, for example, secretly tell potential employers not to hire these people.)
---
---
Try pdf2ps on any well installed linux box, then ps2.... to whatever format you want.
Ice cubes are cheap?
Need I remind you that Canada is the 2nd most prosperous economic superpower in the G7 over the last 40 years [behind Japan]?
-Stu
I can buy that, but does ambition == greed?
I think the two are different, but easily confused because there's a subjective line between them.
-Stu
Could you give me an example of something that is abundant that is forced to be put under market structures? I believe that Intellectual works aren't abundant, since there's a scarcity of skill & talent in the world.
and yes, I agree about money not being a good motivatior. It is, however, a good investment allocation mechanism, which is what I was referring to. Focusing capital on talent can provide an environment where that the skills can spread and multiply among people in an organization...
-Stu
Dude, I agree that information is abundant after first created, but that's not the point.
Do you get enjoyment out of watching Bugs Bunny re-runs?
Or news stories from 3 years ago?
Or old versions of Linux (pre 0.99) ?
Or do you get enjoyment out of NEW works?
Think about it.
A lot of people are repeating the "Information is abundant" mantra without realizing that replicated information is subject to demand-side diminishing returns. As soon as everyone's "seen it", the value of information degrades in a big way.
-Stu
I don't want to go through the search and href routine right now, but there were some articles posted here probably about a year ago where a news source made some kind of comment 'about that Anonymous Coward person' and what A.C. had to say. Sheesh.
--
Never hit your grandmother with a shovel, for it leaves a bad impression on her mind...
Tell me about it!
Yeah, that's it. Let's bombbard a federal government agency with paperwork.
Do you pay taxes? There's a surefire way to make them increase even more.
Dumbass.
Abbie (Abbott) Hoffman, 4,101 pages.. Sweet..
That's like 40 pages of FBI records for every page of Steal This Book.
except that the /. article was posted about 5 hours AFTER that article you pointed to...
Search first, ask questions later.
You have quoted the contents of a letter sent by an anti-communist organization (the woman patriot corporation) to the FBI. This letter was sent for the purpose of causing Einstein's application to visit the US to be rejected.
Did anyone post a mirror? Slashdotted already.
I'm getting "document contained no data" now from the FBI FOIA site. Is that anyone else's experience?
Still, it is amazing what the suits-with-gun- straps will waste money on.
Jan Theodore Galkowski, (Oo) http://www.smalltalkidiom.net/ MySQL,PHP,ETL,SQL,MinGW C, and plucking the Web
Cool. I'm glad to hear I'm in good company.
Hmm, that's interesting...
"Document contains no data"
Heh.
K.
-
-- Proud descendant of semi-nomadic cattle-herders.
Typical.
Oh.. and do you REALLY use those assault rifles to hunt deer?
I got denied... :) Really. -=nft=-
"We must be the change we wish to see in the world." -Gandhi
On closer reading, the article says that the DoS attack was on Tuesday, and I've found another article describing the attack that is dated before this story was posted.
At The Register. They claim the attack was on Tuesday, but I'm not sure it's coincidence.
Most communists and socialists I know are level-headed, well-cultured people interested in the best for society.
Then you must only know theoretical communists. I definitely don't want to get into the violence discussion, as I don't think it has any relevance (does any of this?). However, I would like to point out that communism in practice kills culture, spirituality, and idealism - I don't really see how that fits with 'best for society'. Communism only works on paper, best read in a coffee shop filled with other intelligentsia (here's hoping the sarcasm isn't missed).
The suspicous activity here is the legal act of shopping in a store that sells legal products, that might possibly be used for criminal activities.
But couldn't just about any product be used for illegal activities? Would buying bolt cutters from a hardware store be considered suspicous ? Would visiting a hacker(cracker) website ? Would being black and driving a nice car?
Don't forget how gun owners are being treated in this country!
A very interesting book on this subject is Divided societies : class struggle in contemporary capitalism from Ralph Miliband (Oxford University Press, 1991).
The actor needs to have been dead for quite some time before the data is posted online. While Steve Jakson could request his own data and put it on his website, the FBI couldn't just post anyone's they wanted to. In order for his records to be online, he would have had to have been dead for years before the raid (and probably, he would need to be famous outside a small group of hardcore RPG geeks, as well...)
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Right, but my only point was that american helthcare was better then cuban, I still think that's true. America isn't that much farther from Brazill then Cuba is, whereas japan and sweeden are very, very far away.
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Wealthy Brazilians have been known to go to Cuba to receive better health care.
WTF?? If they had the money to get to Cuba, then they could probably come here, The US has the best hospitals in a lot of the world, and certanly in the americas (Rich canadians come down here for medical treatment a lot). If they had money then they could certanly come here as well, Cuba's medical structure is terrible... I seriously doubt it could be worse then the US.
Also, while Brazil has some prettybad stuff going on, They are becoming a world power pretty quickly
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
One little question. Weren't most of those countries more or less following the model of the USSR? And didn't the USSR abandon Communism "temporarily" quite early on in favor of State Capitalism?
I really don't see where all this talk about the evils of communism comes from. It's just another system. Now fascism, that's evil. And, if you think about it, all of the examples people generally give of evil communist countries are examples of fascism. These are all countries that have basically been run by militaristic leaders. There have been plenty of capitalist fascist regimes as well.
Oh, also, it seems silly to me that people keep on talking about the general misery and starvation, etc. suffered by people in the USSR. Read _any_ pre-soviet russian novel and tell me that Russians were any happier before the USSR came into being.
I'm certainly not saying that there are no problems with communism. But there are plenty of problems with capitalism as well. The "free market" of capitalism seems to be a sort of Platonic ideal that doesn't have a true incarnation in this world. The systems that are actually used are heavily propped up as well as intentionally held in check in many ways. That really is a good thing because truly unfettered capitalism would probably eat lots of people alive and then start gnawing on its own tail.
My really big worry with capitalism is, I suppose, based on where advancing technology will lead us. It's completely concievable and, I think, quite probable that someday, maybe not so far ahead in the future, it will be possible for all neccessities of life to be produced by machines with little or no human work required. Farms will be able to farm themselves. Factories will churn out processed foods by themselves, and the supermarkets will stock themselves or a person's grocery order will simply be delivered directly without need for human drivers or deliverymen. The same will hold true for clothing and other manufactured goods. It's surely possible to develop factories that not only operate by themselves but also quality check and maintain themselves. Same thing for power generation and construction. Some human supervision might be required, but we would be talking about a small percentage of the population. The trouble is that this model is fundamentally incompatible with capitalism. Aside from the teachers and doctors and policemen and lawyers, etc. what would the vast bulk of the population do for work. Would we all be working in service jobs of one kind or another just to keep a farce of an economic system running? How would things work? What could Capitalism possibly do for us in that situation?
Not that Communism would really apply either. Communism was designed with the working class in mind, but the future I envision doesn't really have a working class. There would have to be an entirely new system. Whatever the new system will be, it will be an extremely bumpy road to get there from Capitalism. Maybe we won't get there, maybe we'll just end up total slaves to a fraction of the population who own the machines (built by other machines with material harvested by machines) and the land. Maybe not, who knows. But Capitalism is not the only answer, it's just one system of many, that more or less works at the present time, but it may be outdated some day.
If you're in the Davis Square area, try a Newbury Comics - I've seen it there recently.
it wasn't out of print when i bought it online several months ago. in fact, you can have my copy if you want it, just send me email.
Hmmmm, registered as a communist when she was younger and married a Cuban "ex-patriot." I'm surprised they let her on TV, raving commie bastard that she was.
IMHO, as per
J:)
Oh well, no point in steering now.
The Quaker church was originally created as a Christian sect by George Fox durring the Reformation. Early Quakerism was very Christian -- it was formed because Fox beleived that the core Christian pricipals should be a way of LIFE, not just something you did on Sundays and before meals. Modern Quakerism is quite a bit more fractured, but that's because of the diversity that people are starting to recognise as a Good Thing. There are certainly some very strong Christian Quaker chruches, but there are also some very non-denominational churches which don't even make claim to being Christian (much like the Unitarians). Regardless, the basic principals of the Society of Friends remains strong: Strengthening community, equality of all humans, non-violent resolution, and to actually practice what you beleive.
Your claim that Quakers "reject the Biblically-based doctrine of salvation by faith alone" is ridiculous. The reason George Fox founded the Society of Friends was to put faith into action, because he felt that if one truely beleived in what they preached, it would be a constant part of their lives -- how they dealt with people, how they conducted business, how they regarded injustice and crime, how they did anything.
You can talk about how faithful you are until you're blue in the face, but unless you practice what you preach, how can it possibly be faith?
The AFSC was founded, and operates on those principals. When they speak of social justice, they're not talking about big government and a managed economy -- they're talking about the right to a fair trial, the right to not be tortured, the right to speak freely, and the right to build community. The AFSC has done more than any other organization I know of to promote non-violence and defend what I'd like to consider human rights, both here in the United States and around the world. I have even more respect for them because it is a non-denominational, non-evangelical organization -- they respect the sanctity of religion, regardless of what the religion is.
The reasons the Quakers and the AFSC were tagged by the FBI is that they don't agree with a lot of things that were established government practices at the time. Examples: communist paranoia, racism, the vietnam and korean wars, the death penalty, govermental abuses of power, the US's economic policies in 3rd world countries, and I could continue, but I think you get the point -- the actions of our government are not nessicarily in the best interests of the people, and when they aren't, chances are you'll find Quakers working to fix the problems.
Your claims of disinformation are rediculous. The Amish misconception stems from the period in the 1700s where simplicity of living was paramount in the Church. Nevermind that everyone else at the time also chopped their own wood and rode around in horse-drawn carrages (sp). Yes, the Quakers still beleive in simplicity, but most of us get our first exposure to Quakers when we read our high-school text books which seem to really enjoy talking about the "grey era" of Quaker history. Now Quakers have to spend a lot of time fighting off the stereotype.
I highly suggest that you re-evaluate your opinion of the Quakers and the AFSC. They are by no means perfect, but they're certainly not the threat you seem to think they are.
"One page had large handwriting proclaiming that "All extremists are dangerous". Many reports are written by SA (secret agent) XXXblacked outXXX."
Given that this is the FBI, I expect that the "SA" refers to "Special Agent", which is just the official title of the FBI's field agents.
When looking through all the interesting files here I was denied access to the file on author Jack London. One wonders what he must have done to still have his file sealed.
it is better to light a flame thrower than curse the darkness. -Terry Pratchett Men at Arms
-------
TOP SECRET--US Gov. required level of encryption, 8 bit
Subject: CmdrTaco
Age: Old enough to know better, too damn young to care.
Sex: Questionable. Seen with few women and some hairy men. Undertermined at this time.
Hobbies: Combing armpit hair; complaining about our bosses, Slick Willie and Bad Ass Bill; drinking Mountain Dew; playing "Quake"; toying with our demise, "Linux"
Conclusion: Rebel. Misfit. Square peg, round hole. Must be stopped at all costs. Repeat, must be stopped at all costs. HAL? HAL? Are you there? We need you Hal...
My bad. I wanted to get them both in. At least I didn't break out the Southern plural variation th'all!
-- It Came from C. L. Smith's Unclaimed Mysteries.
Confusion betweeen Quakers and Amish? A line straight out of the movie "Kingpin."
Actually, thou would not be out of place in the surprisingly contentious newsgroup soc.religion.quaker.
-- It Came from C. L. Smith's Unclaimed Mysteries.
"You are not authorized to view this page
You might not have permission to view this directory or page using the credentials you supplied."
I'm sure it's just an oversight. They do a great job up there at the FBI. The NSA too. Grossly underpaid if you ask me. Right? Right.
-- It Came from C. L. Smith's Unclaimed Mysteries.
Um, Communism != Socialism.
The Countries you talk about were Socialist, not Communist. To be truely Communist, they could not have a "leader". If they have a "leader", then they aren't Communist, but Socialist.
I can't open the Einstein files.
Have we Slashdotted the FBI???
Now we'll all get our own files, for sure....
Cara Hart chart@eNOSPAMfurn.com Systems Administrator eFurn.com, LLC. and ARITEK Systems, Inc.
well if it makes you feel better.. I consider you a threat
How we know is more important than what we know.
You are not alone.
Thanks for the link.
1000 SlashDot sigs
I dare say, I saw the words "evil" and "Miscellaneous Unsubversive" written on the pages in the files of the cattle mutilations. And that on is just funny by itself.
Why don't we just ask for it under the FOIA. ;^)
You went to Bob Jones University, didn't you?
Did you know that the Catholic Church doesn't accept salvation through faith alone? Or perhaps, that this was the issue of major debate even within the Apostles life time. Do you honestly think you have a better grasp on Chirst's teachings than someone who actually spent time with him???
Oh, and by the way, just because some one is has leftist tendances (RMS!) doesn't mean they are at "war with the United States." My god, just because I disagree with the US policy on drugs doesn't mean I am "at war" with them. In this country(The US) we are supposed to be free to believe what we want. There is also something called due process one of the original purposes of which was to protect political dissidents.
Myddrin
Uh when i try to get them it says, document contained no data...maybe they are trying to trick us!
JediLuke
JediLuke
-Do or Do Not, There is no Try
In other words the story was about the friend of a friend, or FOAF. That doesn't qualify as "really happened" beyond the usual UL doubt.
Oh, and FYI, if you have a bank account, you usually have a good means of getting papers notarized either for free or inexpensively...
FWIW, (at least in Illinois) a Notary can charge no more than $1.00 per document to notarize. (Had a girlfriend who was one for her office) So, even if you go to the local currency exchange, it'll only cost you $1.00. YMMV in other states, though.
It is by caffiene alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the beans of java that thoughts acquire speed, hands acquire
Right wing? Slashdot?
Puh-LEAZE.
These are the 'pr0n doesnt hurt kids' people. The 'money is evil' people. The 'God forbid someone make a buck (except for us)' people...
They are as right wing as Hillary Clinton (or John McCain)...
"Don't try to confuse the issue with half truths and gorilla dust."
Bill McNeal (Phil Hartman)
The Quakers pose as Christians, but they're not. They're a cult. They reject the Biblically-based doctrine of salvation by faith alone. I'm sorry, but if you reject a basic tenet of the Christian religion, you're not a Christian. I don't care if you accept the divinity of Christ and all that: It's all or nothing.
There are as many different kinds of Christianity as there are Christians. Everyone who participates in that religion has a unique view of what Christianity is and is not. So spare us the inflammatory rhetoric and stop pretending to be an authority on what constitutes Chrisitanity. Especially since you admit you're not a Christian yourself. The idolatry of Bible-worship, and one particular narrow view or set of views that come from it, is not the one-and-only definitive way to come to an understanding of Chrisitianity.
Right, but you would probably need another FOIA to find this out. The First requested FIOA probably won't say "And since Stefan Lasiewski requested his file, we put him on the special 'watch' list". -= Stefan
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
I'm sure I've got one, as will anyone who has obtained a military security clearance. A highschool buddy's dad is an FBI agent. He (the dad) did most of the background check for my clearance. I got the clearance, so he must not have found anything good. I got to see a little of the file during one of my final security clearance interviews. They had stuff back to when I was 10 years old.
I'm pretty sure it was sacco and vanzetti. Ha!
Jack Valenti and the MPAA are to technology as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone
I just read an article in the local Seattle paper yesterday on this topic. Its at http://www.seattlep-i.com/local/pot141. shtml.
Seems that a local gardening store specializes in hydroponic equipment. This type of equipment is sometimes used by people who grow illegal pot, so the police stake out the store. They follow the customers home, then check thier electric bills to see if there is any unusual activity that might indicate grow light use. The suspicous activity here is the legal act of shopping in a store that sells legal products, that might possibly be used for criminal activities.
But couldn't just about any product be used for illegal activities? Would buying bolt cutters from a hardware store be considered suspicous ? Would visiting a hacker(cracker) website ? Would being black and driving a nice car?
I am really afraid of what the government would consider suspicous. Law enforcement is made up of people, and people have their own predjudices. I'm wary of giving anyone in power free reign to act on their predjudices. It's kind of hard to define the line between valid suspicions and harrasment, but these FBI files show the government can often be clearly on the wrong side of it.
Don't forget that Friday is Hawaiian shirt day.
Alert!: Unexpected network read error; connection aborted. Damn the fbi and their unexpected errors!
And just to clear things up once and for all, I absolutely guarantee you that Quakers and AFSC do not support violence. You are simply wrong about that. I'm sorry. In fact, they, more than any other religion or even organization are absolutely opposed to violence.
Oh Jeez, thanks, what a laugh, bless you. Good night!
Yours WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net
Hey what's a VX Bomb !?
What ever it is I'm sure I could use one!
.
The problem with killing something that deserves to die is that, after a while when the menace is gone, you start to romanticize it.
This is true for 70's sitcoms, Disco, Airbrushed Customized Vans and Soviet Communism.
.
No, not really. He said the signature has to be notarized, which means you have to provide proof to the notary that you are that person. Faking or forging notarization I believe is a federal crime. And a nasty one at that. You don't want to do that, now, do you?
Yes, communism ultimatly failed, but, in a perfect world without corruption and greed, it would make for a perfect system.
This is a common aruguement about communisim. Too bad it's so flawed. For comparison:
I have a method of generating unlimited supplies of energy using 2 cans of soda and three pounds of sugar. Great idea, right? But until I actually go and prove my experiment all my argumenting that this really is a great idea is pointless, because everyone knows that my idea sucks.
Communism has been implemented over the past 70 years by a mirad of countries and EVERY SINGLE TIME it has failed miserably, taking thousands of innocent lies along with it. The power of democracy is not that it is 'the one true system' but a SELF CORRECTING system that encompasses ideas from virtualy every other political system.
Jay
-- polish ccs mirror
Just for grins, I went into the UFO stuff.
403s and 404s everywhere!
I've got the freedom, where's the information?
"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." -- Ken Olson, 1977
Too bad I can't see any of reports becuase it has been slashdotted..
I can make these machines do anything I want. Make this world anything I want it to be. Just so long as concentrate hard
The whole difference between communism and capitalism is the fact that one recognizes that evil exists and the other doesn't. The extreme right capitalism is in no way capitalism. It's communism with a few business people at the helm. Stick to the dynamics the details are just a distraction.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
Does anyone have to tools to convert these GIFfy PDF files to HTML?
_________________________
If your in the entertainment business, the paparazzi follows your life.
If your any type of political figure, the government follows your life.
Its one of those things you just kind of have to accept.
These files have been available on the net and thru the FBI site for *YEARS*...
Esperandi
Estimated time left: 1h 32 min 12 sec [1.3k of 4.95 MB Copied]
Transfer rate: 158 bytes/sec
And this is just the first of 18 parts.
This is on a T1 connection, btw. Damn, when the FBI decides they don't want to share the information they have, they sure do find a way.
Mmmm.. Donuts
http://foia.fbi.gov/unusual.htm
Right?
______________
______________
OTTERS RULE.
Just before I started writing, the post was changed to "funny". I'll agree it's kind of funny, but it's more a troll than a funny post, and "Troll" would be the most accurate categorization. (Actually, I think it deverves a "Score 2, Troll" because of the craftsmanship. This is no ordinary hot grits/Natalie Portmant post. This is a truly well-written troll.)
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed are not necessarily my own, as I've not yet had my medication today.
It is kind of scary how much infomation the Feds can assemble on one person when that person makes the Feds paranoid.
Sideshow
Hollow words will burn and hollow men will burn.
> I'd almost rather be considered a threat
You can have that.
Osama bin Ladin Laden Saddam Hussein Anthrax Plutonium Uranium VX Bomb PETN Kevin Mitnick denial service
You and everyone else who is reading this post have just been indexed by Echelon!
And if you see some van camping outside your house for 3 consecutive days, greet them from me, okay?
burp
And of course if the FBI is investigating you they are just going to hand you a piece of paper telling you that Officer Flintstone is parked in a red ford at the end of the street!
Tokyo Joe
You have yet to explain how the AFSC or the Quakers (noted pacifists) are terrorists.
This is disingenuous. You know quite well that not all "views that diverge from the mainstream" are identical. If I fire a gun into the ground, that is harmless; if I were to fire a gun into the body of an innocent bystander, that would be a crime. Both acts involve the firing of a gun, but they are not identical. So it is with "holding views".
Furthermore, none of these leftists are accused merely of holding views -- that alone could be tolerated in a free society, no matter how psychopathic the views may be -- no, the problem is that they acted on those views, and actively proselytized them. And in the case of such views as theirs, there is no good reason for the nation to allow itself to be damaged by such behavior.
Disingenuous my eye. It's trite, but so clear. My right to swing my fist ends at your nose. No one suggests that firing ranges are per se illegal, while drive-by shootings are. How can expressing your views do harm? The constitution places the right to free expression at the top of the rights enumerated. Along with the right to choose a religion that may differ from Luther's perspective on Christianity.
It is therefore impossible that Congress could create an agency with the power to invade privacy using a citizen's expressed beliefs as their only justification.
As for "B-1" Bob Barr, I don't have 7 year old clippings around, so the exact quote escapes me, but after Clinton was elected, he commented that the president should be careful coming to Georgia, because there's a big military presence there, and they might not like him. I saw a follow up where someone asked the Secret Service to look into that, and they said they questioned him, and were watching out.
As a point of fact, treason is the act of making war on the government. Saying "I plan to lead a coup" is not treason. This is that same distinction between speech and action. It's only revolution when you start shooting. The weather underground did, the AFSC didn't.
On one hand, the AFSC should be carefully watched because you, Mr. Anonymous Coward, think that a pacifist organization will become terrorists. At the same time, a man you agree threatened the safety of the president as person and as a political office is OK because you, Mr. AC, know that he "is a loyal American and honorable man."
Loyal Americans don't threaten to kill the president. Honorable men respect that people disagree, and don't threaten to harm those they disagree with. You agree that he made a threat. If he said it, how exactly is it libel? Setting aside that he, as a public figure, can't sue for libel.
The constitution doesn't say that congress shall pass no law abridging the freedom of speech unless an Anonymous Coward or the FBI thinks that speech could eventually maybe lead to revolution. The first amendment says (care of Project Gutenberg):
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Prying into people's lives because they choose to freely peacably assemble with the intention of speaking freely violates the fourth amendment:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
To choose an example at random, Eistein's records were collected because he belonged to a number of communist groups. The only revolution he caused was within physics. His rights were violated. The FBI, to quote you, "swung the arm of militant action such that it impacted the sacred nose of his liberties." His liberties, as enumerated above, were impacted by FBI agents sticking their noses into his legal actions. He didn't swing the fist, they did.
I know I've been trolled, hook, line, and sinker, but I can't stop now.
Look down the list: William Faulkner, Bertoldt Brecht, the American Friends' Service Committee. They're all leftists. Are you people seriously trying to claim that it is not the role of the FBI to keep tabs on people who are fundamentally at war with the United States? Hello?! These files are relics of a nearly-forgotten time when the FBI defended this nation. The FBI you see through these files is not the degenerate radical group now laboring to abolish the sacred liberties for the sake of which our nation was founded.
I know this is a troll. The illogic of saying that the FBI that invaded law abiding citizens' privacy in the 60's is not the same as the FBI that does that now makes no sense.
Being a radical leftist isn't illegal. Holding views that diverge from that of the mainstream is not illegal. Martin Luther King, Jr. may have violated adultery laws, but not federal laws. The files the FBI collected on him were not related to illegal activities, but to legal activities related to free speech.
That the Quakers do not believe in justification by faith alone just means that they aren't Lutheran. This is not the most common Christian belief. It was Luther's rebellion.
I know I just got trolled, but someone moderated this as interesting, rather than Funny, so I had to speak up.
I'm a leftist. I am not at war with the US. I thought that the right-wing coup that was staged is worse than anything Brecht ever did. Did you know that Bob Barr, one of the impeachment managers, has threatened to kill the president, and has threatened to lead an armed coup? This man has a Secret Service file for a reason.
PS. J. Edgar Hoover (on the list) was not a leftist.
Would you not expect this? Each document I try to access report either "Forbidden" or "Document contains no data". Go figure. Freedom of no information eh? Modern Celt
"The way you think it is may not be the way it is at all." St. Oran
If the information is freely avalible.. how come I cannot access George Orwell's information. Every time i try and access the page i get Forbidden... tell me how this is freedom of information ??
Forbidden
Your client is not allowed to access the requested object.
Maybe its microsoft stopping me.. bloody internet explorer 4... j/k
When I was a little boy I found the most annoy statements where the ones starting with When I Was a Little Boy, dont you
heh heh
P.S. Last Post!!!!
Corollary to Moore's Law: The IQ of new computer owners is declining.
...or not cause I'll get moderated down for being off-topic
"You point your finger at the moon, the fool stares at your finger."
I was wondering if they were actively logging connections and monitoring time spent at their archive.....paranoid
"You point your finger at the moon, the fool stares at your finger."
How much you wanna bet there will be an article published tomorrow quoting a DDOS attack on the FBI's Freedom of Information Act servers, perpetrated by heineous hackers?
-- Colin Cross
they may have been out there for some time, but i think it's pretty interesting none the less. thank you very much
-------
-------
"don't smoke, don't drink, don't fuck
at least i can fucking think"
Minor Threat
>I'm not so sure... They may have labelled him as
:^)
... where they led, the people would follow. [1]
>one, but since I checked last,
Since you claim to have done research, you can be the subject of my rant.
>the main tenet of
>communism is the *violent* overthrow of
>capitalist systems, even democratic ones.
The main tenet? You're referring (without realising it) to Bolshevism, the party that would eventually come to power in Russia in October 1917 (Julian calender, for the rest of us it was November).
Lenin, as the primary Marxist theorist of the day, outlined the means by which the revolutionary party should take power and transfer the system of capitalism to one of socialism. He advocated the party itself as the vanguard of the proletariat
On the other hand you have the Mensheviks, who effectively split from the Bolsheviks after the first (failed) revolution of 1905.[2] They advocated the same political system as the Bolsheviks but the means by which they intended to get there was radically different. The Mensheviks wanted to create a 'liberal bourgoisie' who, in effect, would be educated to what the party saw as the errors of capitalism and who would then obviously repent en masse.
The Mensheviks effectively had power through Alexander Kerchencky from Feb 1917 (the second revolution - the one that got rid of the Czar) to Oct 1917 (Bolsheviks). The Bolsheviks saw any collaboration with anyone who was not working class as a betrayal, hence the third revolution.
Both agreed that education of a body of people was a main tenet of socialism but they differed on who that body of people was. The Bolsheviks saw the education of the masses as the key to the imposition of the socialism, the Mensheviks wanted to educate the owners of the means of production.
Where this all falls down a little is that Russia was not then, and has not been since, a capitalist nation. Capitalism, as described by Marx, is a system where a commodity[3] is manufactured from raw materials of known value. The labour of the worker adds more value by the very process of turning the materials into the commodity. The capitalist owner of the means of production (the bourgoisie) then sells on the commodity at the new market value whilst the worker, who added the value in the first place, is kept on subsistence wages.
The only countries where you could reasonably say this situation existed in 1917 were America, Britain and Germany. Russia was still effectively a country where most of the population was enslaved by serfdom and property owners rather than by the bourgoisie.
This was recognised by the Bolshevik leaders and what they were *really* after was world revolution. After all, if you want to seize the means of production from the bourgoisie and create Utopia then the *real* pre-requisites are two-fold:
1) You need a means of production
2) You probably ought to have a bourgoisie too.
To support the new Soviet state a capitalist society with a *huge* productive capacity had to fall next. The favourite was Britain, for whom Marx formulated his theories in the first place, because of it's Imperialism[4] but without a strong Bolshevik-equivalent party leadership in Britain revolution simply was not going to happen here.
This is where it *really* goes down hill. Lenin died in 1923 and there was much hassle over who would be the new party boss. I his (fairly) famous Last Testament, Lenin wanted Stalin removed as General Secretary of the party. He saw him as an able organiser but one without much in the way of foresight. He didn't see him as evil as such, and at this stage in his career I'm not sure that I do even with all the hindsight we have today. I suspect that if Stalin knew what road he was going down when he started concentrating power in his own hands then he would never have started down it. As he had accumulated so much power, and done it in his party role rather than his state role (which would have required the signatures of the people he was undermining), he was able to surpress Lenin's Last Testament.
Stalin, who until this point had never proposed a political theory, went on to propose the ideals of Socialism in One Country. His was the more practical approach for it advocated the establishment of a true socialist state in one nation from which the workers of the world could draw inspiration.
Trotsky argued that such a system was madness. It would lead to a massive bureaucratisation as the organisational structure was put in place to create the necessary industry for progress (yes, communists do believe in progress) and was ultimately doomed to failure when there wasn't the productive or agricultural capacity to support a nation of that size. What was needed, he said, was permanant revolution. PR is basically the opposite of Socialism in One Country.
These were questions raised in the mid-1920s and it's still basically where communism is today. The communist countries in the world today are essentially Stalinist in that they see socialism in one country as a viable political theory for similarly agricultural societies. The one irony is China where the state took the role of the bourgoisie, threw itself towards capitalism and now has a *huge* working class exploited for the wealth of others. The difference between now and then of course is merely philosophical - once the people were exploited in the name of the people and for the benefit of the party apparatchiks. Nowadays they're exploited in the name of capitalism for the benefit of party apparatchiks and an ever growing bourgoisie.
Most modern communists in western nations are Trotskyists along the lines of the International Trotskyist Tendancy[5]. The irony with them is that they have a bible. In 1938, two years before a Stalinist agent put a pick-axe through his head, Trotsky wrote The Transitional Program. This is his theory on how world revolution might be attained and how the movement might beat the Stalinist burocrats by isolating them and making them irrelevant if only a genuinely capitalist country would fall... The irony comes because the opening line of the document is:
"The world political situation as a whole is chiefly characterized by a historical crisis of the leadership of the proletariat."
Still is mate, there are probably over 500 Trotskyist organisations claiming to be part of the Internationalist Tendency in the world today.
>Somehow I remember Einstein being somewhat of an
>anti-war type of individual. Maybe it's fairer
>to say that he was a socialist, or had socialist
>tendencies, without any of the violence inherent
>in either.
Go read some books that weren't written by Reaganists or Thatcherites. Frankly, I find this kind of blind adherence to and aggressive advocacy of your own political policies just a little scary. You're obviously not a communist, and that's fine - I'm not either, but you use as your main argument against it the practical experiences of countries for which communism could never work. Further, you've redefined communism (without expanding on the theoretical processes you went through, or did you just make it up because you own Internet stocks?) as picking up a gun and charging at something, preferably a democratically elected political institution.
If, say, you wanted to read any of the documents I've mentioned then you'll find both them and more here:
http://www.marxists.org/
I don't say that Marxism is right, I just happen to have an historical interest, but I do say that capitalism is wrong. Any society which can alienate a broad swathe of it's own people so that a small number can pursue untold wealth according to the situation of the day has a damned cheek calling itself a society.
My own view on the Soviet Union is that a number of high minded, intelligent people who devoted their lives to liberating people from the autocracy of the Czars and the exploitation of the property and mill owners managed to lose their way and were beaten by the power hungry and corrupt at the high and middle layes of the regime. With Trotsky and Lenin gone, they were free to establish their own ruling class.
The world has changed though. We don't really have a proletariat in either of Britain or the US anymore, we've passed through that stage of capitalism into the kind of liberal bourgeoisie that the Mensheviks wanted. The means of revolution required have therefore changed but the problems involved in preventing the kind of revolutionary decay away from democratic dictatorship into personalised dictatorship and a cult of personality haven't - and I don't know of any theories for stopping that from happening that I would call workable.
>Somehow I don't think he was into storming
>washington with rifles, and setting up a
>dictatorship of the proletariat.
You seem to have confused revolution and communism when any intelligent person might realise that one is used to lead to the other.
>Those of you who claim you are communists...
>Either you don't know what you are claiming, or >you are very frightening individuals who should >be locked up.
Frightened of what? Please tell us, I'd love to know if no one else does.
Footnotes:
==========
[1] By and large they did too. After the revolution it was very much an uncertainty what would happen next. The existing Russian army, already mobilised for WWI, turned on anyone claiming to be a socialist. In addition, there were 21 foreign interventionist armies involved in the Russian civil war who, again, had been mobilised for WWI.
I for one find it hard to believe that the Bolsheviks could seize power in the middle of a world war, negotiate a peace treaty with the Germans (who could at this point have marched from the Rhine to Vladivostok with not a great deal to stop them), put in place the mechanisms which it deemed necessary to run the country - a task they got down to without delay - and fight a war against an army that by default was already deep inside it's own territory without the revolution being a genuinely populist movement.
[2] Actually, the Bolsheviks split from the Mensheviks. They had been seperate parties for some time but they all fell under the umbrella term of Social Democratic parties.
[3] Marx defines a commodity as a thing of perceived value.
[4] The highest stage of capitalism according to Marxist doctrine.
[5] After Trotsky's exile (all opponents of Stalin, once he had secured power, were either killed or exiled - Trotsky was just too famous and powerful to 'disappear') he set about the task of creating The Fourth International. This was designed to ferment revolution in genuinely capitalist countries.
In this case it really happened. I was only one person removed from the guy it happened to, I was told his name (though I've long since forgotten it). This was ca 1975, however, and a single case. I should have used a smiley. I meant the post as humor, not paranoia.
From "The American President":
"She's got an FBI file"
"Jesus christ, so what, my mother has an FBI file!"
"Yeah, but we've got art."
I agree that people get a little worked up about the very existance of an FBI file. Its a matter of whether the file notes that you were arrested as part of civil disobedience on the capitol steps and not much else, or if they have launched an investigation of you.
Ironicaly, requesting "your" FBI file is probably a great way to get one. :)
-Kahuna Burger
...will work for Chick tracts...
Despite the timestamp, I know for a fact that I read all of this at LEAST 2 years ago. Me thinks it was more along the lines of '97 or so...about a year after the Freedom of Information act was orignally passed.
signature smigmature
- James
rut ro, looks like the FBI doesn't feel like playing host to a slashdot DoS
Interesting: remove eliminating and... well, you get my drift.
Me, I associate socialists with social contracts and minimal force, and I see libertarians as the most prone to advocate lethal force. Why are "libertarian" and "gun" so closely linked in my mind, I wonder?
It's from Part 1a of the Einstein files, I'd tell you what page, but I didn't save the file, and now I can't get the damned thing to load.
These people looked deep into my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined.
Far more interesting than the file on Einstein or Mickey Mantle, IMO, is that they've got a bunch of stuff on cattle mutilation, Project Blue Book, and related X-Files type stuff. Maybe the truth really is out there.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
You mentioned that you don't like dicatorship. However, in some cases dictatorship can work very well. I mean, think about it -- how long does it take now to pass laws funding all the projects and propositions put up every two years for voting? How much of a waiting period? How hard is it for the nation to activate its military and fight back in the event of a war (not necessarily invasion)? Now think of one guy sitting at his desk, one guy who just happens to be an altruistic, competent, intelligent individual who has earned the respect of the people, who decides that there should be more funding for something or that something should be done about a situation in some part of the world. To do this he has only to say so, and his subordinates would be expected to, with very little prior thought, carry out his orders. He may have heard or asked for opinions on the subject but in the end it is his decision. Compare this to now, where any proposition has to wait two years from the last voting period to get a 75% majority vote, when much more than 75% of the people in this country (the US) are total idiots, and/or mis or uninformed of the things they are voting on -- and even if they do know most of the information is biased and comes from corporately funded ads on TV or radio. Just look at proposition 22 in California (this is my opinion, of course). Dictatorship moves pretty fast in comparison, huh? Granted, the person required for this position is right out of a utopian novel, but that is just what a perfect government (which communism, republic, socialism, monarchy, etc. all strive to be come) is -- a utopian theory. There is no such thing. Some are better or worse than others, but it is impossible to do everything right. I also read later in this thread someone mention slavery as a by-product of capitalism. And convieniently forgetting the gulags in which russian (often political) prisoners were forced to work for the State, except without the pay that our prisoners working in the US recieve. That sounds like slavery to me.
Look! Its an obvious distraction!
An investigation was conducted by the FBI regarding the famous ubergeek because of his affiliation with pinko commie linux zealots, and his perverse sexual behaviour, specifically his affinity for a hamster named 'Hemos'. CmdrTaco was was a member, sponsor, or affiliated with a number of Ubergeek organizations between 1997-2000. He also serves as a primary source of information for the right wing online news service known as 'Slashdot'.
Jailbrekr.
Feed The Need[goatse.cx]
Nonsense!
Brazil's current economic system began in 1500, while Russia's began in the 90's! USSR is not a country any longer. And a wealthy Brazilian won't have to go abroad for very good health care in 99% of the cases. And if one did, he/she almost certainly wouldn't fly to Cuba, unless we talk about some hard-core communist.
Considering taking good care of citizens, I must agree that public basic education and public health care in Cuba are probably (I've never been there) better than ours, but that's because the former USSR (a very large country) poured lots of money into Cuba (very small one) so as to have their showcase country in the western hemisphere. You can't compare Fidel's island to a country the size of Brazil, which is roughly the size of the U.S.
Maybe you misunderstood some information you may have received about Brazilian doctors going to Cuba to learn about experimental drugs and treatments, which is true and somewhat frequent, but they go to many other places as well.
And, no, I don't like wild capitalism and an economy run by corporations.
How about JFK? They have his wife, his brother, even his dad...
and so on...
Yeah, me too. I thought it might be because I'm in the UK
Nope, I'm in Brazil and I could read something. But it's not worthy, at least the UFO part, huge PDF files with pictures of microfilm enlargements (reverse video, of course) from almost unreadable material. No plain text.
I think the thing is /.ted indeed.
Thanks for the clarification.
;-)
Too often I see people in the USA justifying normally unjustifiable actions by saying "Well, the founding fathers would have done it that way." Likening the Russia VS Checnya to the USA Civil War, and universal gun ownership being good exaples...
And of course, we know that the founding fathers were never wrong.
""Of course there is. There were also British and French laws prohibiting plotting armed insurrection in the 18th century, but that didn't stop the French or American revolutions. My point is, some laws are meant to be broken, and some times, drastic measures must be taken.""
You seemed to be deluded that violence was necessary then. The peaceful loyalists to the north disagreed, and their lot wasn't any better worse. History has shown both rebels and loyalists ended up with very similar nations, numerical differences excepted. Except that the rebels ended up with far more war dead.
Seems that history shows that the revolution was for naught. 25 million happy and peaceful Canadians loyalists prove that you don't have to shoot your way out of every problem. Assuming you're American, I doubt you'd understand that.
So your argument that violence is necessary to achieve some ideological goals still doesn't hold water.
"Imagine nothing to kill or die for." - John Lennon
A good quote from a man that knew that ideology was not worth killing for.
""One little question. Weren't most of those countries more or less following the model of the USSR? And didn't the USSR abandon Communism "temporarily" quite early on in favor of State Capitalism? ""
Yes. Though they would never admit being anything other than communist. They used socialism and communism to further their despotic goals.
It was very easy for them to do this, because socialism and communism at the time generally embraced violent methods. Had communists been virulenty anti-violent from the start, it would have been very difficult for the Russian revolutionists to credibly call themselves communists.
Had nobody believed that Lenin was a communist, nobody would have followed him. (He in fact wasn't, he merely used communism when convenient, and de-facto redefined communism into the terrible monster people understand today.)
Because communists married themselves with violent methods, everything they did became perverted and destroyed.
On your other note, I agree, this is a concern. Once technology becomes sufficiently advanced, the only people who will be able to make money are either the people who own the machinery, or services that still require humans, which will approach zero.
The only way out of this, would be self-sufficiency technology. Enact a bit of socialism, and give everyone a replicator and a portable Mr. Fusion (TM) powerplant, and let them go from there. Once minimum standards are met with accessability to technology, this concern should dissapear.
I am a firm advocate for universal computer ownership and internet access.
""Who, contrary to modern myth, was not the only socialist around at the time. So you hardly establish anything.""
You are right, I am wrong. It is hardly fair to paint all socialists with the same brush.
It is fair to say that a significant, if not major portion of socialists in socialism's early history did embrace violence. At least, enough did to facilitate the violent establishment of plenty of communist countries across the world.
On the other hand, many peaceful socialists have made much positive difference in the world, and if you see in my other posts, I do give them a nod of thanks.
But again... thanks for pointing out my factual inaccuracies.
E
--Do you think Hemmingway would have written so many novels if his typewriter had been capable of Open GL hardware-accelerated 3-D graphics?
I'm not so sure... They may have labelled him as one, but since I checked last, the main tenet of communism is the *violent* overthrow of capitalist systems, even democratic ones. Somehow I remember Einstein being somewhat of an anti-war type of individual. Maybe it's fairer to say that he was a socialist, or had socialist tendencies, without any of the violence inherent in either.
Somehow I don't think he was into storming washington with rifles, and setting up a dictatorship of the proletariat.
Those of you who claim you are communists... Either you don't know what you are claiming, or you are very frightening individuals who should be locked up.
-- Do you think Hemmingway would have written so many novels if his typewriter had been capable of Open GL hardware-accelerated 3-D graphics?
There is violence inherent in socialism. My source? Karl Marx.
Karl Marx postulated the dictatorship of the proletariat, as well as the necessity of a violent overthrow of the capitalist system. The ideology of communism and socialism has been violent from the start. I don't know how selectively you read Marx, but this was spelled out in all my studies in high school, and post-secondary as well.
Thank goodness that modern socialists in most countries today have sufficiently revised their ideology as to drop the necessity of violence, and have taken to democratic means to achieve their goals. I applaud them, and wish them luck in their endeavours, regardless of my opinions on the merits of their ideology.
I take your comment about my "goodness" as sarcasm... All I am saying is that we should lock up people who are bent on "violent overthrow". I'm sure laws exist on the books prohibiting "plotting armed insurrection". As long as an ideology doesn't advocate violence as the primary means to an end, I believe such people should have the "freedom to" do whatever they wish.
However, if they are violent, as I have been taught communists and early socialists generally are, I believe our "freedom from" them is more important. Even in a democratic society, it is not unreasonable to outlaw such organisations.
A value judgement. I hope you share it.
-- Do you think Hemmingway would have written so many novels if his typewriter had been capable of Open GL hardware-accelerated 3-D graphics?
Don't you wish it was the 50's?
Give a man a fire and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
What fucking manifesto did you read? Lenin, Engels, Marx, they all knew and expected a bloody and violent revolution to overthrow the burgeois. In fact, that was the only way they foresaw the proletariat to destroy their oppressing classes and get rid of the state. In fact, if you read Lenin you will see he happily advocates extermination of everyone but the proletariat. To paraphrase Lenin in an attack against the Mensheviks: "How can we have a revolution if we aren't going to kill anybody?" (1)
And to say that the Russian Revolution had nothing to do with "scientific" Marxism is a weak copout. The Russian Revolution certainly wasn't pure doctrinaire Marxism, but believe me it was Marxist all the way (Marxist-Leninist hello?) Admittedly, it was not the ideal Marxist experiment, but it certainly throws out the idea that economic condition is the sole determinant of personal values (They had three generations under socialism, and they're problems never disappeared). Not to mention the idea of "the withering away of the state" is now laughable.
Its time to file Marxism and Leninism into the dustbin of history.
[1] "The Russian Revolution" by Sheila Fitzgerald
If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.
-Earthman
Earthman
Say it to me face w/ out wasting space...
Nah, it's the duty of the internet and major American corporations to pry into your personal life as much as possible.
It doesn't matter if the cup is half full or half empty. Whatever's inside it is evaporating either way.
And who is the acknowledged world leader, who, by direct affiliation with Communist and anarcho-communist organizations and groups, and by his utmost personal efforts, is doing most to "shatter" the "military machinery"..? ALBERT EINSTEIN is that leader. Not even Stalin himself is affiliated with so many anarcho-communist international groups...as ALBERT EINSTEIN.
...
ALBERT EINSTEIN has promoted "lawless confusion" to "shatter" the Church as well as the State--and to leave, if possible, even the laws of nature and the principles of science in "confusion and disorder" and subject to revision with every new proclamation of an "Einstein theory!"
-- Why is there blue shit all over MY shit?! -Josh in Blair Witch Project
Strange.
Yes, it failed. The reasons for its failure, however, extend far beyond just corruption and greed. Despite popular opinion, your entire communist country could be composed of people who're every bit as benevolent as mother theresa, and you'd still fail. The reason is quite simple: Central Planning doesn't work. No matter how nice the people in power (nor, for the matter, the workers)are, it doesn't mean they're going to (or capable of, even) allocating resources half efficiently.
Central planning doesn't work? That'd be news to people in Russia whose economy even by capitalist standards (GDP, industrial output, etc...) has totally collapsed since "communism" has collapsed. Not to mention other indicators of life quality, like say life expectancy, suicide rate, etc... I don't understand how central planning failed when it built up a peasent economy into a superpower, launched the first sateliate into orbit, and produced a highly skilled and educated workforce. Just what are you measuring as economic success here? If you compare Russia to a country with equivalent population, resouces, industrial development like say Brazil in 1917 then Russia actually looks much better by comparison. It also fought two world wars to boot...
And BTW the country was called the "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics" USSR, not "Union of Soviet Communist Republics" so not even they claimed it was communist.
And as far as allocating resouces efficiently, markets hardly do that well. I mean markets don't allocate labour efficiently (unemployment), and will do things like allocate more resouces to building Bill Gates mansion than to developing drugs for diseases that people without money have. Even perfectly efficient markets (which don't exist) create incentives for producing scarcity, pollution and unsafe products and working conditions.
I'm not a communist (I'm an anarchist) so I obviously don't believe in central planning (I like decentralized, democractic, computer aided, bottom up planning). Nonetheless to say central planning doesn't work is just factually wrong. I never understood how right wingers claimed the USSR was a big threat while at the same time saying its economy didn't work...
it looks like a paper with some stains from the greasy fingers from that fat secretary who always tends to steal the food that is being delivered to the "elite" FBI members.
Slappy
http://foia.fbi.gov/alpha.htm foia == freedom of information act, right? So I get "HTTP Error 403 - Forbidden Internet Explorer" .....
-- ted russ http://www.arach.net.au/~ted/mydynes/ http://www.arach.net.au/~ted/myblogs/
Does somebody want to mirror the Einstein files? The FBI site appears to have taken them all down.
I actually tried it once. Just send a letter to the FBI (any reasonable approximation of their address) and request information on you, pursuant to the FOIA. They're required to respond within (15?) days and send you whatever they can within (60?) days. They black out sensitive information like the name of undercover agents. I assume there are also loopholes where they don't have to give a fugitive information on how close they are to catching him. It's a simple process, though.
The major risk is discovering how uninteresting you are.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Yeah, me too. I thought it might be because I'm in the UK.
...will soon grow again, due to the Slashdot Effect. All of the documents I tried either came up as "Document contains no data" or "Forbidden".
...
Taco, Commander
Section 1, Paragraph 1
Due to posting article on rebellious website Slashdot.org, FBI web servers experienced a Denial of Service attack. This individual is to be treated with extreme suspicion and caution. See also "Yahoo", "E-Bay".
Communism is a political theory that posits a series of inevitable revolutions of the working class, each time resulting in a fairer society until you finally get to a completely fair communist state.
So no, the final state is not a violent one.
But the path to that state is violent.
Communism is frequently confused with Stalinism which presents itself as being communism while really being a philosophy of violent revolt winding up with a form of totalitarian government that will claim to be communist...
Regards,
Ben
My usual seat in the cluetrain is at A HREF="http://pub4.ezboard.com/biwethey.ht
They wanted to forge a signature to get someone ELSE'S FBI file.
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
-- Except the papers have to be notarized....and Notaries require ID. So unless You're good buddies with a Notary (and they won't mind losing the power of notary, and getting thrown in Jail along with you), it's a bad thought.
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
Ok, this is probably going to guarantee that if I ever do request my own file there'll be something in it :)
But, With so many people asking how to rquest their files. And so many people worried about the UL that requesting your file creates one if you don't already have one....
Why don't we test their ability to deal with a paper based DOS attack? Ok, that's pretty harsh language, but imagine what they'd do if even 50% of the people reading this site sent in requests. They'd be overwhelmed. Sure the net effect would be to just slow down the response to our requests, but it could be interesting to watch them try to open that many new files.
I'm not trying to suggest anyone actually do this, and I know I woulden't try to organize it. But as a gedankenexperiment (that's a lot tougher to spell that I though, and I though it was two words...any arguments see www.m-w.com). it's deffinatly something interesting.
--- Juggle juggle@hitesman.com
--
--
"Insert witty quote here."
Actually, no. If you look at countries which have survived communism, they've typically done far worse than they would have been. No where is this more evident than in East Germany. Both East and West Germany had very similar demographics prior the entrance of Communism, but immediately after the fall of Communism, East Germany was a good 50 years behind, both economically, socially, and technologically. Or ummm, not quite as evenly, Hong Kong to its neighbooring China. Or Romania...I could go on. Russia produced very little in the way of technological innovation. In fact, they were so incapable and inefficient, that they even had to steal most of their military technology from the US. Their space program was the result of _huge_ expenditures, it was far from efficient, and can be regarded as an aberration, and it was quickly outdone by the US.
To compare the USSR to Brazil though is a major oversight. South America is too new and underdeveloped, and it is also poorly situated. Contrast this with Russia, which has tons of resources, neighboors Europe (the developed world), a pre-existing educated class, etc.
Furthermore, it is unreasonable to expect instant results in Russia just because the laws allow for capitalism. There is more to a modern capitalist society than just the legal mechanisms. You need a society in which you can depend on certain things, such as your suppliers not cheating you, your shop not getting robbed, etc. The fact of the matter is that Russia was always a highly corrupt place, and communism only increased it. You combine the lack of the ability to trust even the police, and workforce that is too accustomed to Communism (read: highly inefficient and unproductive), and you're going to have real problems. Despite all the failings though of modern day Russia, it will likely improve, whereas Communist russia was living on borrowed time and borrowed money--it was bound to fail.
As for the rest of your arguments, I don't have time. Perhaps later tonight....
(Oh, and FYI, if you have a bank account, you usually have a good means of getting papers notarized either for free or inexpensively...banks maintain their own notaries for the use of their customers and such.)
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
Um, no. Contrary to what opposing propaganda may claim, communism is about economic equality. It isn't about violence.
But in The Communist Manifesto:
In depicting the most general phases of the development of the proletariat, we traced the more or less veiled civil war, raging within existing society, up to the point where that war breaks out into open revolution, and where the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie lays the foundation for the sway of the proletariat.
And that is just the most blatant one I could find in a second. Check out the manifesto yourself. A simple search for "violent" should do the trick.
As someone else has already pointed out, Marx is only saying that he feels that the "violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie" is inevitable; he isn't advocating that it take place. He definitely isn't asking his readers to go and do it themselves. In any case, Marx has already turned out to be wrong about other things, and even the most rabid communist doesn't consider his works to be infallible.
To the editors: your English is as bad as your Perl. Please go back to grade school.
My really big worry with capitalism is, I suppose, based on where advancing technology will lead us. It's completely concievable and, I think, quite probable that
someday, maybe not so far ahead in the future, it will be possible for all neccessities of life to be produced by machines with little or no human work required.
Farms will be able to farm themselves. Factories will churn out processed foods by themselves, and the supermarkets will stock themselves or a person's grocery
order will simply be delivered directly without need for human drivers or deliverymen. The same will hold true for clothing and other manufactured goods. It's
surely possible to develop factories that not only operate by themselves but also quality check and maintain themselves. Same thing for power generation and
construction. Some human supervision might be required, but we would be talking about a small percentage of the population. The trouble is that this model is
fundamentally incompatible with capitalism. Aside from the teachers and doctors and policemen and lawyers, etc. what would the vast bulk of the population do
for work. Would we all be working in service jobs of one kind or another just to keep a farce of an economic system running? How would things work? What could
Capitalism possibly do for us in that situation?
Not that Communism would really apply either. Communism was designed with the working class in mind, but the future I envision doesn't really have a working
class. There would have to be an entirely new system. Whatever the new system will be, it will be an extremely bumpy road to get there from Capitalism. Maybe
we won't get there, maybe we'll just end up total slaves to a fraction of the population who own the machines (built by other machines with material harvested by
machines) and the land. Maybe not, who knows. But Capitalism is not the only answer, it's just one system of many, that more or less works at the present time,
but it may be outdated some day.
Yes. Specifically, all current economic systems assume that the economy is a zero-sum game, and that work is a fact of life. With sufficiently advanced technology, that's not the case.
So, when self-replicating, intelligent machines come to being, the concept of an economy will become obsolete in and of itself; no one people will need to work at all in order to support a luxurious lifestyle. Sounds great, eh? Not quite.
As the authors of Beyond Humanity, Earl and Cox, point out, this kind of thing will put humanity into a large-scale "Seinfeld", where everyone has everything they want, but no one has anything to do. Eventually, Earth will bore us, and space isn't much interesting either for a bunch of hairless apes in slow ships. In essence, barring miraculous invention of faster-than-light travel, we have really nothing to do but sit around and stare for a few million years more (and maybe pray to a few gods while we're at it). Or maybe we'll just find another excuse to fight amongst ourselves.
The alternative? Mass uploading of the human race into nano-engineered immortal superbodies, making cybergods of us all. With all the time in the world in our hands, we can all go do whatever we feel like doing, with nothing to hold us back. Think big - think exploration of all the galaxies, Dyson spheres, pyrotechnics with supernovae, computing with neutron stars.
Now that sounds fun.
To the editors: your English is as bad as your Perl. Please go back to grade school.
VX is a type of nerve gas.
When I visit http://foia.fbi.gov/alpha.htm, I get:
Freedom of what? Maybe I need to file a formal FOIA request in order to view the page.
I particularly like Page 23 (part 1a) of Einstein's file, where a guy named "J Edgar Hoover" writes :
"[...] the files of this Division, therefore, contain no information relative to the activities of Dr. Einstein in the United States in connection with the Communist Party. [...]"
:)
I can't download the files because my host is misconfigured - you can't do a reverse dns on my IP address.
If they won't let you download the files without checking who you are first, what do you think they're doing with the web log data?
(sending this quick before the fbi DOS'es my machine...)
Preferential Voting: easy as 1-2-3
I bow before his enlightenedness.*grovel, grovel*
Dude, its still pretty cool and I'm betting that at least a couple slashdot readers haven't seen it. Maybe you should post somewhere else and leave us lOsers to our non-news.
Thank you.
I wonder what my file looks like.
It's probably white, black, and dark-green, Rob.
*rimshot!*
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
Einstein on the bomb:
"Science has brought forth this danger, but the real problem is in the minds and hearts of men. We will not change the hearts of men by mechanisms, but by changing our hearts and speaking bravely. When we are clear in out heart and mind -- only then shall we find courage to surmount the fear which haunts the world."
The Army Weekly Intelligence Summary #81 said of the American Crusade to End Lynching (which Einstein co-chaired with Paul Robeson) "in the view of some of the endorsers, this crusade had all the earmarks of another Communist attempt to instill racial friction"
If you look there are some X files available to all you paranoid types. http://foia.fbi.gov/unusual.htm . It seems that Rosewell was just a weather balloon. . . Right
---- aut viam inveniam aut faciam
There is a difference between, say, investigating someone and creating a database of all your tax returns and W-2s, or all the "letters to the editor" you have written to the NYT. But it seems like a small one to me. If all you're doing is collecting information on those electronic bits that I make public, I think that's fair. If they're applying a subversive filter on that info, I think I'd be a bit pissed.
The LAPD was caught wiretapping phones in LAX looking for drugs. They got a warrant, and tapped
150,000 phone calls. Of course they made hundreds of drug arrests, but the vast majority of the calls were made by law-abiding citizens. I believe that monitoring citizens for unamerican activity is unfair at any level. Think of it, it's not really a "karma" rating. Look at it more as the "Slashdot Subversiveness Scale."
J. Edgar (or whoever answered the letter) kept einstein from being harassed by some local sheriff. Being thought of as a communist was pretty bad news.
Jack Valenti and the MPAA are to technology as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone
Uhh, I know this site says it's *news* for nerds. But can't an article be posted for it's conversation generating ability, rather than it's timeliness? This article could be a jumping off point for some interesting discussion, regardless of how fresh it is.
Don't forget that Friday is Hawaiian shirt day.
Want to work at Transmeta? Hedgefund.net? Priceline?
Can your IM do this?
First of all, I am Quaker and a member of AFSC (American Friends Service Committee), so I probably know better than you do about what Quakers and AFSC do. :-) Guess that means I must be a 'devious radical left-winger', eh?
First of all I don't refute that many Quakers and AFSC have a lot of left-wing ideas. SO WHAT???? Your ridiculous post lies on the basic assumption that all left-wingers should be watched by the FBI because they are a danger to the nation. What the hell!? It is not the FBI's right to bother people with different political ideas. As far as I can tell, it is the FBI's job to prevent illegal acts, violence, etc. Quakerism is based completely on non-violence in all respects. Quakers do not support ANY type of violence. AFSC, in fact, teaches courses on non-violence not only for holding protests, but also to inner city children to use in their own lives, for example. Quakers and AFSC do not allow for violence at all in their methods. They also do not promote illegal activities. A few Quakers do choose to take non-violent protest to the extent of participating in "non-violent civil disobedience". This is not something that is harming the country. It is a way of making a political point. Much like having the deCSS code available on one's website. Just because a person or organization has different political ideas from your own, does not mean that they are trying to harm the country, provoke violence, etc. Your comments about AFSC (and others, for the matter) posing a "clear threat to the welfare of the nation" are entirely lacking support.
Just a couple other minor things to clear up so you can better understand Quakerism:
Quakers don't try to become confused with the Amish. What a ridiculous accusation!? Why would any Quaker do that! The confusion comes from the fact that Quakers believe in "living simply", which does not mean without things like electricity. It just means trying to avoid excess so that the excess can be given to those who need it. Perhaps some of the confusion also comes from a certain company that likes to put pictures of Amish or Quakers from many many years ago on their oatmeal boxes. ;-)
I'm not going to bother arguing about whether or not Quakerism is a branch of Christianity. Does it really matter??? It is a religion. Who cares if it is a branch of some other religion? I can tell you though that no one is trying to confuse you about whether or not Quakers are Christians. Its just that many Quakers do believe in the divinity of Christ and do consider the bible an important source, so they consider themselves Christians.
--
The shareholder is always right.
S(h)elf Help Guide - The Smart Lifter's Handbook by Gabor Caime and Gabor Ghone
(It says, "If you paid for this book, you might learn something! If not, take it back -- you don't need it." Probably commercially smarter advice than "steal this.")
Check it out here:
How about JFK? They have his wife, his brother, even his dad...come to think of it there are no ex-pres's. I doubt they are immune to the FBI nosing around, maybe they just don't want to tell us about our elected leaders?
Francis Hwang
Do domain names matter?
VX is a deadly nerve gas....
.0000001 mg per square meter.
if you have ever seen the move "the Rock" its
the stuff that was being used.
Nasty shit...has a maximum safe level of
something like
very deadly. The patent for it was declassified
in 1975...yea.
Only 1 known death from VX...a Japanese cult
member who had left the cult. The cult mixed
up some VX and killed him with it.
(I am told by friends who were in the military
to not believe that he is the ONLY known death...
just the only publicly known one)
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
All the good stuff that should be in these documents has been censored. What a pity. Freedom of information act my ass. It should be the Denial of information act. Anything interesting is not in these documents.....what did I expect anyway.
I just downloaded and read the Lennon files and the Roswell file. Roswell is exactly one page long reporting that a suspicious weather baloon with an attached hexagonal radar device was found and being transported to a military base, it also notes that major networks are picking up on the story...thats it.......
Lennon's files is many pages (~80?) and has lots of pages left blank claiming it was covered in some other document, many others have a lot of black ink applied. Whats left? Lots of analysis about groups planning to organize peace concerts, lyrics from Lennons songs at these concerts, discussion as to whether or not he was illegally bugged, his afiliation and philanthropy to a new leftist organization planning a rally at the republican convention, newspaper articles, reports on what John said on the Michael Douglass show, that he does "narcs", etc etc.
One page had large handwriting proclaiming that "All extremists are dangerous". Many reports are written by SA (secret agent) XXXblacked outXXX. I can't believe these secret agents actually spent their time reporting on Lennon's peace efforts.
If anyone finds some really interesting stuff in here please note the page number of the PDF of interest so we don't all waste an hour trying to find the juice.
no sig.
Only cryptic to people who can't read Russion.
- tokengeekgrrl
"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions
Yes, you are innocent until proven guilty under the law, that doesn't mean that the FBI can't be suspicous of you. They had a hell of a time finding any evidence against Al Capone, but they were still pretty sure that he was a gangster. So long as no legal action was taken on Ms. Baker, I see no constitutional issue.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
Maybe you should think twice. I heard a story (a long time ago) about a guy who had been active as a student in the '60s. When the Freedom of Information Act was passed, he sent a letter to the FBI asking for his file. They sent him back a xerox copy of the letter.
Looking down the list, I noted the absence of both Steve Jackson and Loyd Blankenship. Although these documents are indeed interesting, I find them more interesting for who's omitted, rather than who's listed.
These people looked deep into my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined.
I hope whoever wrote this wasn't taken seriously. I wonder if all the files have language like this. Wonder what they have to say about Bill Gates, Linus Torvalds, Tim O'Reilly, etc. (listed in no particular order, of course)
These people looked deep into my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined.
I'm quite sure the FBI has their own files on these gentlemen. Perhaps even you & I fall under their scrutiny. To their credit, they knew better than to participate in such a raid. At the risk of being redundant, let me quote from The Top Ten Media Errors About the SJ Games Raid
My point was merely that these files (such as can actually be opened) don't seem to be opened until the principals are deceased. They don't contain any useful information, no revelations, nothing really that can't already be found in history books. Fun things to read there, but nothing enlightening, certainly nothing about the people we know they consider to be truly threatening.
These people looked deep into my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined.
Of course the 'new FBI' doesn't collect this kind of info on citizens any more. Right?
Of course not. That's the NSA's job now.
Look down the list: William Faulkner, Bertoldt Brecht, the American Friends' Service Committee. They're all leftists. Are you people seriously trying to claim that it is not the role of the FBI to keep tabs on people who are fundamentally at war with the United States? Hello?! These files are relics of a nearly-forgotten time when the FBI defended this nation. The FBI you see through these files is not the degenerate radical group now laboring to abolish the sacred liberties for the sake of which our nation was founded.
Can any rational person doubt that the American Friends Service Committee is a radical leftist organization? The so-called "Society of Friends" (better known as the Quakers) have managed to disinform the American public to the point where most of us get them mixed up with the Amish (to whom they bear no resemblance, believe me), but that's just clever propaganda. Look at their web site. Follow the link above and see for yourself. They describe themselves as "committed to social justice". I think we all know enough about left-wing cant to recognize that as a committment to paternalistic big-government interventionism, a managed economy, affirmative action, gun-control, and all the other crap the left wants to chain us with. Not only that, but it looks like they're in pretty good with Iraq, huh? They're in pretty good with the UN, too.
The AFSC has been involved in more left-wing causes in the last century than any other known group, including the infamous Students for a Democratic Society -- another deviously misnamed radical left-wing cabal.
The Quakers pose as Christians, but they're not. They're a cult. They reject the Biblically-based doctrine of salvation by faith alone. I'm sorry, but if you reject a basic tenet of the Christian religion, you're not a Christian. I don't care if you accept the divinity of Christ and all that: It's all or nothing. Now, I'm not a Christian myself and I really don't care if they worship John Belushi, it's all the same to me -- but they are lying when they claim to be Christian, and lying is a problem for me. What are they trying to hide? It's clear enough from their web site.
As for the others, Brecht was a well-known, life-long German Socialist and a professional propagandist through the medium of his plays. He's a favorite of left-wing academics to this day, for that reason alone. His work is utterly worthless except as left-wing propaganda. None of his plays were produced in his lifetime, and none have been produced since except in left-wing drama departments of Eastern colleges. When he was alive, he languished in utter (and well-deserved) obscurity.
William Faulkner was a leftist as well. Throughout his whole life he was involved in liberal and "progressive" causes such as integrationism and Federal intervention in the domestic affairs of the States.
All of these people posed (and the AFSC still poses) a clear threat to the welfare of this nation. Had the FBI neglected to maintain files on them, that agency would have been sorely remiss.
None of this, of course, has any bearing on the rogue agency which the FBI has since become. Nowadays they have entirely given up their legal and moral obligation to monitor (and occasionally neutralize) threats to this nation. Instead, they spend their time harrassing and killing innocent, law-abiding citizens at Ruby Ridge and elsewhere. The FBI of today is not the FBI which kept a close eye on Bertolt Brecht. The FBI of today is itself a danger to this nation.
Times have changed.
This is unless, of course, everyone on slashdot requests their FBI file, in which case you throw their data way off. But just to warn you.
David E. Weekly
David E. Weekly
Code / Think / Teach / Learn
h4x0r for
Glad to see some of this stuff is becoming available online. But I have a bigger question (only applicable to folks in the US, of course):
As a US citizen, how do we find out what all information is legaly available to us from our government? Is there any kind of faq, detailing the ways you can get types of info like this from the government (electronic, or not)? Like where to research declassified documents, and anything else that can be gotten under the foia? It is kind of sad--I'm a legal, voting, US citizen, but I have no idea what I am entitled to in terms of information.
Can some informed individual help me out here?
This sig is false.
Yes, it failed. The reasons for its failure, however, extend far beyond just corruption and greed. Despite popular opinion, your entire communist country could be composed of people who're every bit as benevolent as mother theresa, and you'd still fail. The reason is quite simple: Central Planning doesn't work. No matter how nice the people in power (nor, for the matter, the workers) are, it doesn't mean they're going to (or capable of, even) allocating resources half efficiently.
You might very well find some who romanticise Communism. However, they're generally outsiders who don't know diddly about economics, and less yet about history (read: the actual realities of communism). I've known a few people who've survived communism, and damn few have happy tales to tell, from both inside and outside the US (including IN some of those ex-communist countries). Thousands lost their lives trying to flee countries like this, how many truely capitalist/republic-democratic nations have this hanging on them? Furthermore, have you ever travelled to any one of these communist countries? Virtually everyone I know, including myself, has been struck by one thing, the utter lack of vitality. Yes, they're poor, everyone knows this, but that can't be it. You don't see the same thing in Mexico, India, or other even poorer societies. Nor can the argument be made that it's just the cultures, that it'd be the same without communism. But witness East/West Berlin, there was (and still is to some extent) a night and day difference. In other words, there is something about communism that sucks the life right out of a society, and it ain't just economic failure!
The "witchhunt", although "bad", was not just a figment of McCarthy's imagination. There is TONS of evidence (read more FOIA documents if you dont believe me, or KGB interviews, etc) the KGB setting up shop in the US, with the intent to disrupt the US economy, and many other things. They did, in fact, have a massive number of important people in their pockets, spies, informers, etc. McCarthy represented a very real fear, and not totally unconfirmed fear either. Congress, the FBI, etc, had evidence then, which the general public is just beginning to some of it lately (from sources such as FOIA, ex-kgb, etc). McCarthy, despite his abuses, was, atleast in part, allowed as much slack as he was, because of the danger.
That being said, McCarthy was wrong, he went too far, by trampling on far too many innocent lives, and violating certain constitutional rights. But in the desire to smear McCarthy, you're doing no one, other than perhaps card carrying communists, any favors by forgetting (or ignoring) these simple facts. The bottom line: McCarthy was more than just a product of some minor (or even major) distrust of Communist/Socialist philosophy, it was fear of the USSR--don't confuse the two.
Also, remember: The mere fact, that, there is SOME irrational fear of Communism, doesn't make it benign. There is very strong empirical evidence, and intellectual, economic, philosophical, etc. arguments against it.
This link (connected with Amelia Earhart's dissappearance) is especially amusing:
http://foia.fbi.gov/earhart/earhart1.pdf
--
grappler
Vidi, Vici, Veni
This may have happened, or it may just be just an urban legend. All I can do is cite my own experience: When I asked for my own FBI file a couple of years ago, they told me they had no files matching my name. Maybe they did, and were lying, or maybe they started a file based on my letter, and lied about it. Or maybe FOIA requests out of curiosity are common enough these days that making one is no longer considered suspicious behavior.
I have to admit being a little disappointed about not having a file (though I'm currently appealing the CIA's refusal to confirm or deny the existence of any files on my grandfather). The implicit meaning of this, of course, is that the FBI thinks I'm powerless enough as to not bother monitoring -- I'd almost rather be considered a threat.
Francis Hwang
Do domain names matter?
First, type up a letter to both your Local FBI office, as well as FBI Headquarters.
Say in the letter you want to request any information being held on you on behalf of the Freedom of Information Privacy Acts. Word it professionally, so it's easily understood.
Within 4 weeks you should get a confirmation paper that they've received your request:
[X] This acknowledged your Freedom of Information-Privacy Acts (FOIPA) request submitted to the FBI.
After 6 to 8 weeks (maybe sooner) you'll get a packet (if applicable) with your info.
Unfortunately, the FOIPA doesn't apply to certain information, so anything they don't want you to see gets blacked out.
Some facts (From the FBI FILE FACT SHEET) BEFORE you send off for your file:
- The primary function of the FBI is law enforcement.
The FBI does not keep a file on every citizen of the United States.
- An FBI identification record or "rap sheet" is NOT the same as an FBI "file" - It is simply a listing of information taken from fingerprint cards submitted to the FBI in connection with arrests, federal employment, naturalization, or military service.
Oh, and another thing to remember: If FBI HQ doesn't have a file on you, check with the field offices near you, or where you've lived.
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
I'll try to pose a question here. An... ethical (cue ominous music) question.
:-)
Is it ethical to investigate people apart from their connection in some crime? I "suspiciousness" enough cause to warrent a full-scale investigation, or does a government agency need more focus to perform such operations and remain in the ethical right?
The immediate reaction is often "no! just because somebody looks sort of suspicious is no reason to invade their privacy (and perhaps trample their rights)!"
OTOH, what is the harm in a little investigation, assuming no overt action is taken? Isn't it better to "know" that so-and-so is either a criminal or not? If the investigator believes that some (suspicious) person *might* pose a threat to Society At Large(tm), AND the investigation is to be carried out discreetly, such that if nothing is found to be wrong, nobody will ever know, should s/he investigate or not?
More importantly - why?
I'm really not sure. That's why I ask.
And yes, I know where rec.philosophy.ethics is.
I know that under the Freedom of Information Act we have the right to request any documents that They (TM) have on us, and They (TM) have to give them to us. I assume that you'd have to talk to the agency who was keeping the files, but I've never tried it out... Has anyone out there done this/know how it might be done?
"Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
Found this under Josephine Baker
The famous nightclub entertainer was thought to be involved in communist activities, however, no evidence was ever found that proved otherwise.
I've read it again, and again, and I still see something that baffles the constitution.
Murphy(c)
Or maybe it's just me....
You've got to read pages 22 and 23 of the first Einstein document. To get to page 22 you read 21 pages of wild, filed accusations, more or less to the effect that Einstein is sort of a super-Lenin who could conceivably destroy this Fair Republic should he ever step foot across the border, so no, NO, NO he must NEVER be permitted admission to these blessed United States. There's a letter from a mad professor at Princeton which claims that Relativity has a (left-wing) "metaphysical factor and if that is the case it can have no physical validity whatsoever." 21 pages thus far of 92 in document number one of twelve. Them's a lot of pages, folks.
OK! On Page 22 the Sheriff of Ventura County California send a letter to J. Edgar Hoover, asking for reassurance:
Several of (Einstein's) admirers in this County have approached me and asked me to establish if possible definitely whether or not there is any basis for these statements (that Einstein is a Communist). These particular people are very good Americans and do not care to allow their children to idolize him if he is of this character."
To which the Director replied:
Dear Sheriff:
I am in receipt of your letter dated April 24, 1934, with reference to Communistic activities to this country on the part of Dr. Einstein.
There is no Federal legislation in effect at the present time under which so-called radical or Communistic activities are subject to investigation on the part of this Division, and the files of this Division, therefore, contain no information relative to the activities of Dr. Einstein in the United States in connection with the Communist Party.
I regret that I am unable to furnish you with the information desired. Inasmuch as Communist activities are handled by local law enforcement agencies, it is possible that the New York City Police Department may have some information concerning the subject matter about which you inquire.
Sincerely yours,
J. Edgar Hoover
Director
Now wasn't that a lovely lie? God Bless America.
Yours WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net
UNITED STATES CONFIDENTIAL FILE:
FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
PERSONAL FILE OF: ROBERT MALDA (A.K.A. CMDR TACO)
BORN: GRAND RAPIDS GENERAL HOSPITAL, APRIL 1, 1976
IMPLICATED IN: CONSPIRING TO OVERTHROW GOVERNMENT BY SUBVERTING SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT PARADIGM.
SUMMARY OF ACTIVITIES:
CONCLUSION: Probably conspires with Osama bin Laden and uncaptured Unabomber (not scapegoat Kaczinsky) to undermine and overthrow U.S. Government. EXTREMELY DANGEROUS. Proceed with caution as to not throw target into hacking fit. Possible revelation to public of location of ECHELON HQ.
- passion