Slashdot Mirror
Falun Gong Hacks Chinese Satellite
maetenloch writes: "Last week Falun Gong hackers in China were able to briefly take over the Sinosat-1 satellite and broadcast a banner for several minutes on all channels of China Central Television. This was apparently repeated several time on different channels on Sunday but so far the Chinese government has imposed a news blackout on the incident. However thanks to the Internet and the millions of witnesses, word has leaked out. Surprisingly, security on satellites can be very weak - often transponders are left on when not active and will continue to rebroadcast whatever is beamed at them. It's believed that Falun Gong used a 3 meter dish antenna mounted on a vehicle to overpower the government's uplink signal. This is not the only time that satellite signals have been hacked - there was the famous 'Captain Midnight' incident in 1986 and it's believed that Iraq has been attacking Kurdish satellite tv channels for several years. Hackers have even (discreetly) made use of the U.S. Navy's FleetSatCom satellites."
Anybody got a video clip of the feed ?
Whatever you think of Falun Gong vs. The Chinese Government, you've got to admit that this is a cool hack. The kind of thing you used to see in 'futuristicky' 1980's sci-fi movies.
Moments like this, along with the Anthrax outbreak last year, are beginning to define socio-political conflict in the 21st Century.
"Why did they cancel my favorite Sci-Fi show? I downloaded ALL the episodes!"
It has often been said that satellite security is swiss-like (as in cheese)... Hope some people wise up after this. Reminds me of a piece of news on a portuguese newspaper some time ago about free wireless network access in most of Lisbon's downtown area - I mean, what are these new age non-bearded, non-glass-wearing, non-hacker-humour-appreciative ops thinking?
Click here or here.
Criminal hackers or religious zealots?
The answer is clear.
I have been pwned because my
Hmmm. So they hacked the satelite, did they? They didn't just broadcast a stronger signal then from the ground then?
The government has been cracking down on this supposedly spiritual movement. This would surely stoke the fire even more.
I don't why they would want to do this. This is hardly a good public relations move. Smells like a childish prank by some teenagers.
No doubt the most of the Falun Gonger's are mortified by now.
"I feel kinda like god." The chinese are horrible at defacing websites. I mean come on. Can't you be a little clever and do something more exciting than "Hacked by Chinese!" or "Falun Gong is Good!"
With the internet now readily available in Beijing, it's very difficult for the ChiComs to keep news like this from the general public. I seems to me at first glance that tricks like this could be a good way to undermine a particular government's confidence in it's "right" to rule. Similar stunts all put together over many years time (e.g. Boston Tea Party) have worked in the past...
Error: Success
You can actualy see how "security" in systems has been uncautiously implemented. With all this hype in the last months since Set. 11 about security, you get government satelite signals hacked.
What is the most ridiculous is that this is some serious stuff. Everyone knows that the military are years ahead of civil society in terms ov technological advancement (OK, maybe they weaken out in a couple of things, but you get the picture). So what do you get when the power to easily interfere in satelite communications is available to civil society? Take some guesses...
Even more than the use that individual citizens could give to it (don't get me started with the "terrorist" stuff, not everybody is as paranoid about it as you american guys. People in Europe don't worry as much as you), I just think of the power that the corporations can acheive trough this.
Yeah, Detroit, Robocop, stuff. Call me insane.
Lay
Weakly typed languages will bring us armageddon
Using crime to make yourself heard makes one a "terrorist", as per U.S tradition,
and two wrongs never make it right.
As an American who always supports the civil rights of all people everywhere,
including religous freedom, I condemn this action and label it as "cheap shot",
no matter the technical-coolness factor associated with it.
Friends of Falun Gong
The Falun Gong take on the story is here:
Revealing Broadcasts Are Truly Serving the People-- From the Editors of FalunInfo.net: Falun Gong Practitioners Risk their Lives to Tell the Truth
If you would like to help out the cause, there is a page about it here:
Become a Friend- Alleviate the Suffering, End the Injustice
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
[hint for those who don't know what I mean: on a computer with a misconfig'd open proxy, this usually can be found by scanning for an open port 8080]
Because the Chinese government aren't exactly great at the whole freedom of speech thing.
Because they've been imprisoning Falun Gong members for years now.
Because Falun Gong feel that they have no way of expressing their views to the population.
Saying that, this isn't exactly a clever thing to do. I can't imagine the Government are going to take it very well. Of course, unless the government are doing it themselves to discredit Falun Gong, but that's getting a bit Ollie Stone for me...
"Falun Gong's recorded telephone message ... claimed the Government had fabricated the incident in which three Falun Gong supporters set themselves alight in Tiananmen Square in January 2001."
I believe this only the begining of China's hacking problem. An oppresive government is a breeding ground for groups like this. I only wish hacking groups in America had more politcal agendas then Yahoo or your favorite airline.
Are we very sure they weren't trying to signal AMSAT-OSCAR 7 and just missed?
Never confuse volume with power.
From what (little) I know about Falun Gong, hacking a satellite doesn't sound like something they'd do, since it's much more likely to be illegal than a sit-down type protest, and MUCH more likely to bring the jackboots down on them.
I'm inclined to think it was some other band of kiddiez that just wanted a good cover for their actions, like the "Hacked By Chinese" incidents from last year.
-----
Darwin is an evolutionary OS...
--
Apple hardware still too expensive for you? How about a raffle ticket?
Come to the University of Mars! Classes starting soon!
Obviously this was not done by anyone that would regularly visit slashdot, because clearly any self-respecting slashdotter would have used this precious broadcasting time to make a plea to Natalie Portman to go out on a date with them.
Since the media tends to label groups as "terrorist" and "not-terrorist" these days, which light do you think will shine on Falun?
Are the Falun terrorists for "hijacking" Chinese TV? Or are they rebels in a quest against the evil empire?
If Nalgene water bottles are outlawed, only outlaws will have Nalgene water bottles.
Try "Civil Rights Activists", and before you rail at me for being some so-called militant leftist, why don't you actually research the recent government reaction to the Falung Gong movement in China.
China could be considered to have an overbearing communist government. I know that I would want to hack government satalites to show my dissaproval. It would be cool if it was some sort of anti-government message. (Sort of like in Johnny Mnemonic. It would be even cooler if the hackers 3' satalite was strapped to the back of a dolphin swimming in a 10x10' wave pool! hmmm...now where'd I put that dang 3' satalite...heeeeere flipper...)
"...and when I got up to leave after our last consulting meeting, Mao Zedong said 'your fly is open'. Before I could look down to check, he grabbed my waistband and poured a bowl of hot grits down the front of my pants."
Jack Wagner. That's a great handle for a troll.
It seems to me that as time goes by and technology continues to be integrated deeper into every aspect of our lives that the population will be divided into 3 main categories:
1) Those who "get it" and understand technology on a deep level (i.e. slashdot readers et al)
2) Those who don't "get it" and just use it and hope it works
3) Those that attempt to control the two (i.e. governments and controlling corporations)
My fear is that group 3 will attempt to use the actions of group 1 to further restrict and control group 2. They can and likely will use incidents like this as ammunition to further their case. Think about it.
Considering Falun Gong's trouble with the chinese government this is a very stupid move as it gives the government more arguments in attacking and arresting Falun Gong members.
Hijacking a satellite can easily be declared as a direct attack on the government, thus pouring oil into the flames... not a very clever move.
No, terrorizing people to make yourself heard makes you a terrorist.
Sit-ins are not terrorism. (They're ususally stupid, but that's another issue.)
I fear that this incident will prove highly counter-productive to Fa Lun Gong.
For the Chinese man on the street, who might not sympathize with Fa Lun Gong (many that I know don't), an act like this marks them as trouble-makers who have clearly gone beyond passive resistance.
For the Chinese government, this incident allows them to go to the American government and claim that Fa Lun Gong is a bunch of religious cyber-terrorists. An excuse to crack down on illicit internet-cafes, rights of religious freedoms (they can claim that religion preaches terrorism), and hackers in general (ala US-styled counter-cyber-terrorism proposals).
For American policy makers, this seems similar to Al-Qaeda cyber-terrorism scenarios, where a telecom disruption might occur concurrently with a physical attack, thus disrupting the C4 capabilities of the emergency support teams.
Get real. This isn't like in "Hackers" or "Johny Mnemonic" where the good guy hackers hack TV to expose The Man.
Patiwat Panurach
patiwat@sloan.mit.edu
There are lots of satellites up there, and lots of reports of unauthorized usage, but no-one seems too upset by it all.
Could it be that the value of the data to be hacked is not worth the effort, so the actual amount of hacking activity is low?
There was some TV news reporting recently that the US reconnaissance planes over Kosovo were uplinking their camera shots to a satellite that rebroadcast without scrambling.
The US military type that was interviewed said that they were aware, and that the data was unclassified so no need for encryption.
Those with the right dish on the roof can pick up quite a few unscrambled transmissions from news gathering teams uplinking to satellite. Again noone worries too much because the info is seldom much use.
Denial of service attacks like the one in China were quickly rectified, and I'm sure the Chinese government embarrassment will quickly pass.
If there was a security problem with satellites, military or otherwise, we would have seen many more high profile attacks before now.
They could have hacked the satellite and broadcast some decent programs.
Anybody fancy making a similar effort as regards ITV? (preferably Saturday evening about 7 o'clock)
From my Autobiography - "Lifestyles of the Sad and Desperate"...
This does not sound like something that Falun Gong would do. From what I have read, they are a spiritual movement involving meditation (qigong). However, since freedom of speech is greatly restricted in China, I suppose it is possible.
Or perhaps the Chinese Gov't did it themselves...but if that were the case then they probably would not have barred it from the news, and instead would have condemned Falun Gong and promoted a "strike-hard campaign" against them.
I agree with the others, I wish they had picked something better than "Falun Gong is Good!"...that sounds very childish and would not be in their interests (?)
Comment removed based on user account deletion
all your satalite are belong to us!
*go ahead, mod me down, but you know it had to be said! and if I didn't do it, then maybe you would have. Think about that one....
Watch the news lately?
You need a FREE iPod Nano
...were all terrorists! And we celebrate their pictures everywhere...even on our money! I agree with you that change can only happen by sending polite and eye-pleasing greeting cards!
Oops. That comment was supposed to be under:
Falun Gong (Score:0)
by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 03, @10:01AM
You need a FREE iPod Nano
"The human rights and democracy centre said an antenna with a diameter of 3m could disrupt reception for hundreds of kilometres."
When the "Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy" is being sourced for broadcast disruption capabilities, it makes you wonder exactly what this organization does!
I imagine the Chinese Communist Party bigwigs are choking on their rage. Nothing is funnier than scorned authoritarians (at least when you are out of their reach, like me).
, 46 00187%5E15322%5E%5Enbv%5E15306,00.html
http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204
Falun Gong hijacks Chinese TV
Catherine Armitage
JUNE 29, 2002 MILLIONS of Chinese television viewers got a shock this week when Falun Gong propaganda was beamed into their living rooms as members of the banned sect hijacked one of China's main television satellites.
ADVERTISEMENT
And in Beijing, surprised residents answered their phones this month to find a recorded Falun Gong message, up to five minutes long, attacking the Government's anti-Falun Gong claims point by point.
The hacking incidents highlight Falun Gong's sophistication and audacity as the group attempts to fight back in China and overseas.
The satellite broadcast, in which a banner reading "Falun Gong is good" replaced normal TV viewing in Shandong province on Sunday night and again in prime time on Tuesday, is among the group's most daring moves since it was banned in 1999.
Chinese security sources told The South China Morning Post that most of China Central Television's 10 channels, and another 10 provincial channels sharing the Sinosat-1 satellite, were interrupted on Sunday night.
The Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy, based in Hong Kong, said the Falun Gong banner appeared on TV screens in Yantai city, Shandong and Laiyang county twice last week, in some cases for up to 15 minutes. The centre said it had confirmed the incidents with local security authorities and television stations.
A spokesman for the Yantai security office in charge of dealing with Falun Gong said it had received complaints from the public. "They said a blurred image appeared on their screens for between 10 and 20 seconds," an official said.
A news blackout was enforced on the mainland and security officials and TV stations denied all knowledge of the incidents yesterday.
Hong Kong media said Vice-President Li Lanqing, responsible for the mainland media, had ordered an investigation into the hacking. After the Falun Gong broadcast, millions of TV sets in remote and rural areas went black as the authorities tried to trace the source of the interruption.
Officials are reportedly perplexed as to how Falun Gong had the knowledge and equipment needed to intercept a satellite broadcast. There was speculation sect followers had equipped a vehicle to avoid notice.
The human rights and democracy centre said an antenna with a diameter of 3m could disrupt reception for hundreds of kilometres.
Similar incidents occurred in January in Chonqing, Sichuan province, in March in Jilin province where Falun Gong leader Li Hongzhi was born and in Harbin in April. In these cases the targets were cable TV stations. More than 20 Falun Gong members were arrested over the March hacking and face up to 15 years in jail if convicted.
Falun Gong's recorded telephone message - sent to an unknown number of Beijing residents, and probably further - claimed the Government had fabricated the incident in which three Falun Gong supporters set themselves alight in Tiananmen Square in January 2001.
The recording also said sect followers were beaten and tortured in prison, and invited listeners to follow prompts to hear more information or Falun Gong songs.
There are two types of people; those who divide people into two types of people, and those who don't.
All things aside, in the US at least, what is the punishment for a private individual or a company hijacking a satellite signal? With this in mind, is it more cost effective for a company to do it themselves or pay a fall guy an inordinate sum to hijack a satellite and enter a plea of guilty, or to legitimately buy superbowl commercial time :)
I know, it wouldn't work, the bad press that followed would be bad for most companies, (then again it might work for a beer company, or maybe apple computers...) but it is a fun thought.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
They key idea here is the notion of attacking civilians. I don't see what's hard about this to understand
Then, when people peacefully protested about the banning of "football", they were arrested and some of them were taken to detention camps. Then the government started using propaganda to demonise "footballers" as a bizarre cult who encourage their members to kill themselves.
What do you do? You can't participate in "football", and you can't tell you fellow citizens that the government is wrong about "football" because they a) control all the media, and b) aren't afraid to arrest anyone who supports "football". In these circumstances, you might even argue that it's reasonable for you to attempt armed rebellion against this totalitarian regime.
Now, what these guys have chosen to do, by comparison, is the most non-violent thing they could do to press their case - they've temporarily hacked the TV system to tell people that they don't sacrifice newborns by the full moon and that the government is being unreasonable and paranoid.
What kind of militancy is that?
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
All Your Satellite are Belong to Us.
In Soviet Russia, Chuck Norris will still kick your ass.
IMO, the definition of "Terrorist" is not "Using crime to make yourself heard", but "Using crime to create fear and TERROR." - A key part of the word TERRORist.
Terrorists use violence to make themselves heard, not generic crime.
Using crime to make yourself heard is either simply immature (generic vandalism), or is activism (The civil rights movement, a key part of which was civil disobedience.)
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Me chinese, me play joke... me put pee-pee in your coke.
Don't be fooled by Falun Gong. They hide behind their sham-of-a-religion to promote an overthrow of the current government. Their leader is a coward and a phony who should be dragged out and shot.
The greatest Kung Fu. They are unbeatable.
There is nothing new here. This is an old "stronger signal override" trick.
These arn't the hackers you'r looking for. You can go about your business. Move along....
Funny, what do you think happened during our war of independence? Surely all of our soldiers in the war were terrorists. I'm sure had the events taken place a few hundred years later you would see us doing similar things as you see here.
The soldiers for the US War of Independence were not terrorists. They were declared combatants fighting for an open and stated (albeit new) government entity and represented the majority opinion of its people. It was a militia. It was open war. They were not attacking civilians. They were attacking military targets to end a conflict.
Also, by the definition of today, The Boston Tea Party would be considered Grad Felony Vandalism, Grand Larceny, and Conspiracy to Commit Grand Larceny. Hardly terrorism. Terrorist try to kill innocents. Early Americans killed tea. People were not killed until around the time that British troops took Boston over. Until the ARMIES showed up, there was precious little killing going on other than protest killings in Boston and other nearby areas.
The idea of a terrorist is based specifically on the definition of a combatant (soldier). It is in the Geneva Convention. Read up. The definitions are specific. Falun Gong deserves to not be called terrorists for this... crackers, yes. Terrorists? NO.
I would say that both of the posts are incorrect, upon the definition of a terrorist alone. The purpose of a terrrorist is to incite fear through the act of attacking innocents or government agencies through stealth and subversion.
Pasting a message up on television across China is hardly a terrorist act by definition, because it neither attacks innocents or creates fear and widespread panic. It is a plea to change the policies of the government, not an attack on that government or its citizens. The message was NOT DANGEROUS other than stating its views.
However... we (US Citizens) often forget that we are lucky to have been born in a country where you are allowed to have opinions that may go against our current government leaders, and you don't worry about it and can speak them openly.
In China, stating your views can get you killed.
You need to read Stratfor, and maybe some Foreign Affairs magazine.
Fulan Gong originally had no political aspirations at all. Mostly just a self help group drawing on an odd collection of Chinese cultural traditions.
But then the communist gov't decided there were too many of them (and a huge number of them were party officials themselves) and decided to repress them.
All attempts to change the opinion of the Chinese gov't have failed, leaving the multitudes of followers with a choice:
1. Disappear
2. Foster regime change
Since most members were part of the emerging middle class it is not surprising to see the kind of sophisticated hacking taking place. At least one hacking team has been caught and disappeared into the Chinese prison system. Which just shows that this group is far more sophisticated and robust than any had thought. They must have several teams out there. They are not just hacking satellites either- but also hijacking cables.
Most of the attacks have taken place in North Eastern China- The Rust Belt of China. This area has the highest unemployment of the Nation, and has seen many demonstrations against the Gov't in the past several years. Again, this shows the sophistication of the group's planners and reveals their goal: change the gov't to one that will allow for freedom of expression and religion.
As for comments by people calling them zealots and criminals, I'd take this lot over the lot of Zealots and criminals that has been running China for the past 50+ years any day!
China is a great place (lived in Taiwan and Asia for 5 years), but the communists have done tremendous damage to Chinese culture (most notably during the Cultural Revolution)
Does that help you understand?
"The human rights and democracy centre said an antenna with a diameter of 3m could disrupt reception for hundreds of kilometres." "
That's ok, a Pringles can is all I need.. to take over the world!
Whoever stated that signature sizes should be limited to one hundred and twenty characters can just go ahead and kiss my
Gee, what are they going to do? Ban them and then torture them in jail?
Comparing them to Al-Qaeda is ridiculous.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
China? What?
Did anyone notice the mispelling of FleetSatCom in the linked article? It must be creative interpretation performed by Jimmy Crack...
Well, you have to admit this does have other possibilities. Perhaps Chuck Barris should be contacted to see if he'd like to host the Falun Gong Show...
(I wonder if I'm going to lose karma points for that one...)
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The chinese openly admit to censorship, restrictions on individual rights, etc.
Here in the US, we are every bit as much a police state as china is, however we claim to be the freest place on earth. (richest sure, but the freedom is an illusion)
Here we curtail civil liberties in "defense of freedom". Here we have a working massive fingerprint database, and a credit database that says if you are a good person or not, which furthermore you cannot argue against.
Our government has huge monitoring systems which silently listen to communications all over the world combing for information.
We have a War department that is called "The Dept. of Defense" which has been waging nearly perpetual war for 50 years across the globe.
We have huge witchhunts for the enemy of the day "communists" "child molesters" "terrorists".
The scariest thing is that it all arises without rigid central control: we censor ourselves to further our careers.
The doublethink in the USA is getting pretty scary.
It has often been said that satellite security is swiss-like (as in cheese)...
Much like their air-traffic control systems.
Remember, You are unique...just like everyone else.
I doubt this was a computer hack, just a RF hack.
I am assuming that the Chinese are using a simple analog transmission over the transponder without any CA (conditional access/security).
If you have a big enough dish and enough power, you could get the transponder to lock to your carrier and get rebroadcast. The picture would look crappy, but it can be done.
There's no great defense against it other than implementing a secured digital transmission system where the IRDs (integrated receiver/demodualtors) do not have analog reception capability.
All the Falun Gong needed was an Earth Station anywhere in Asia that could see the bird and was willing to transmit. I doubt it was done from inside China. They'd know where all the 5+ meter dishes are in China and who was working them.
Information warfare of this type has a bit of a financial barrier to overcome to engage in, but once on the offensive, it is quite tough to defend against. The Soviet Union and Cuba were unable to stop the US radio and TV propaganda broadcasts throughout the cold war, no matter how much they spent.
nuclear iraq bioweapon encryption cocaine korea terrorist
Rent this classic... Used Cars (1980, Kurt Russell, et.al.).
This story had better not get Slashdot put onto the "Great Firewall of China" hit list......
:-)
Seeing how I am reading this in China, I think the filters are doing overtime due to all the F-words
After you read the pro Falun Gung websites (L. Ron Hubbard couldn't ave done a better spin job) check out some slightly different perspectives:
http://www.skepdic.com/falungong.html
One of Falun Gong's biggest critics is Siminam. He was a pro-democracy protestor who was jailed by the Chinese government. He understands oppression - the Falun Gong is very abusive and opressive. Ignorant Americans who support it aren't doing any Chinese people favors.
Fa = Rules, methods, ways
Lun = a wheel.
Gong = a closest term in English is 'breathing excise', this is exactly the same word 'kung' as in the popular term 'Kungfu'. Of course, Gong always refer to prolong practice which will eventually lead to ultima goal of getting harmony with the Universe. Some people would consider practising 'Gong' as a method of making themselves stronger, to fight better, etc.. In fact, there are a lots of different 'Gong' in Chinese's history.
I'm not a memeber of Fa Lun Gong, and I really not in position to speak for them, but to my best of the knowledge, their 'Gong' is strongly related to religion as the 'FaLun' is an equipment being used by the monks of Buddhism. The 'FaLun', in buddhism, is a symbol of the Universe.
FaLun Gong, thus, is a 'Gong' to practise in order to build a 'FaLun' within your own body.
Their theory seems so unrealistic to me.
"76% approval ratings." is not "0.76 * 285,000,000 Americans" approval.
;).
But both will be "flagged" as approval rating by sondage institut like nielsen.
Rating approval are made on 2000 , maybe 5000 if the institut of sondage is rich people of various socio culturel class and age etc...
Then they extrapolate that it represents the population of the US. No need to say that population sampling may be something correct to do when the sampled population can be characterised as representative. But there are a lot of example out there that shows such sampling are easily skewed depending on the question.
Example : "Do you approve Bush's politic against al quada in Afghanistan" might get a 99% rating, where "do you approve all of preident Bush's political decision sicne its first day in white house" ? Might get 20%
Other factor comes in because human aren't answering machine but people with feeling and different experience, and "mood". Proof : sondage rating hours before the election are extremly often different than the final election result.
Morality : don't citate statistic. But the rest of your counter argument were correct.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
USA PATRIOT defines domestic terrorism as activities that attempt "to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion".
Dictionary.com defines "coerce" thus: By that definition, Falun Gong are terrorists. So are all of us that marched on federal buildings attempting to use "pressure" to "compel" the DOJ to free Dmitry. Which serves as a good example of one of the many things that are wrong with USA PATRIOT.
Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the terrorist party?
ehintz
Well, i don't know anything about French Gruyere. It's sure true that Swiss Gruyere (which is the original one) doesn't have holes...
But there are dozens of different kinds of Swiss Cheese! Many with holes, many without.
The most common Swiss Cheese is called Emmentaler and in fact has huge holes...
You might check out emmentaler.ch
You know, since 9/11/2001, I've been thinking about this tactic, and the distinction between "terrorist" and "freedom fighter" (depends on who gets to write the history books), and I've come to the unsettling conclusion, that, as a retaliatory move, so-called terrorist attacks against civilians, particulary voting-citizens in a democracy, are perfectly reasonable and acceptable, as far as war goes.
Consider, that in a democracy, the electorate choses the government. Are they not responsible for what that government does? I suppose one could argue that "I didn't vote for them!" but unless you oppose the democratic electoral system, you accept it's results regardless of how you cast your ballot. I can't see how someone can enjoy the freedoms supposedly associated with a democratically elected government, without accepting responsibility for what that government does. In fact, the very mechanics of democracy smack of power without responsibility. Somehow, attacks against the civilian electorate seams to be the only way to ultimately keep their governments in check.
Now, before you get all hot and seething, recall that I said retaliatory attacks -- there is no justification for the initiation of force. And yes, this just shifts the argument from oppressed vs. oppressor to initiation of force and retaliation to same. But I think that is a useful transformation, nevertheless.
I'm sure that most Americans see OBL's alleged attacks as an initiation of force, but the counterargument is that they are retalliation against a U.S. presence in Saudi Arabia. To decide which is closer to the truth requires an examination of the nature of that presence, and whether it is consistent with principles of liberty espoused by Americans on their own soil: it would be hipocracy to condemn something domestically, while accepting or encouraging it remotely.
If one comes to the conclusion that OBL was legitimately retaliating against an unwelcome occupation of a non-democratic nation, and not initiating an attack for no other reason than to frighten, and one accepts that the electorate of a democracy be held responsible for their government, it stands to reason that they suffer whatever retaliation is meeted out in response to the actions of the government they elect.
Now, how does this relate to Falun Gong?
In order to label them terrorists, they would have to (a) attack so-called civilians, (b) that do not democratically elect their government, and so can't be held responsible for it's actions.
About the only citizens that can't be held responsible for the actions of a democratically elected government would be those that can't vote: children, the incompetent, and the incarcerated that have been stripped of their voting rights. Specifically targetting such groups would probably deserve the "terrorist" moniker, regardless of the provocation.
You could've hired me.
yay team! :)
I can't believe my inane diatribes make it to +5 and this just has one mod.
Please, I volunteer, return my +2 to the karma pool and raise this comment high
for all to see.
So do we--you've heard of the Constitution and the bill of rights, no? In the interest of protecting individual rights and freedoms, we repress other individual rights. Freedom is no illusion, it is a careful, careful balance. The difference is that I can go to court and challenge _any_ law that I perceive to be too restrictive, and I can win! It happens every day. Some might argue that the system's out of whack right now, but...
scariest thing is that it all arises without rigid central control
Exactly! It's brilliant! We control the extent to which our freedoms are suppressed, sometimes in the interest of safety, sometimes because of FUD, but always because we have chosen. And no doubt, the pendulum swings a little extreme one way, we see the error of our ways, and it swings back too far the other way. It's just human nature.
waging nearly perpetual war for 50 years
Rome went to war much longer--was it a police state? So did Britain--police state? You digress here, methinks.
BTW, I've been to some peaceful demonstrations, in our nation's capital and other places, and no tanks and soldiers have ever shown up, shot large numbers of peaceful demonstrators, and covered the numbers up. That kind of thing just can't happen here; part of the beauty of our system is that horrible things like Kent State can happen and be displayed by the media, to become a forum for the public to discuss for the next hundred years. How did the public discussion go in the People's Republic after that little incident in the Square? There are some bad trends in the US right now, but I do NOT think you can draw similarities between the States and China.
Considering Falun Gong's trouble with the chinese government this is a very stupid move as it gives the government more arguments in attacking and arresting Falun Gong members.
This is a valid point. Except that the government doesn't need any more "arguments" they ARE attacking and arresting Fulan Gong members. At this point Fulan Gong's options are to surrender/recant or counterattack. Fulan Gong has decided to attack (You are right this WAS a direct attack), attempting to undermine the government and agitate for reform or a change of regime. Whether it is "stupid" or not really depends on how important their beliefs are to them (which is subjective) and on their likelyhood of success (which is hard to know).
In FG's favor totalitarian dictatorships are powerful BUT also brittle, if FG can use these propoganda stunts to undermine the populaces confidence in, and loyalty too, the government they have a decent chance of success. The tienanmen square student protests had to be put down by troops from remote regions ignorant (aside from government propoganda) of the protests nature and it's goals. They did this because the government feared the local, more informed and sympathetic troops, might not prove loyal. Even so there was some indication that the government feared opposition from some military units - remember the footage of TANK BARRIERS at major intersections. (rather useless against pedestrian protestors). Remember also the troops in Romania just a few years before who not only refused to fire on a similar protest but joined the protesters and toppled the government.
By broadcasting their protest throughout the provinces Fulan Gong may create a situation where the government has NO troops whose loyalty is assured by their ignorance.
Banner advertising is _SO_ 2000.
(-:
S
Tell you what: why don't you find a message board in China and you can post a similar screed about China. How long do you think you will have to live? A day? A few years in a "reeducation" prison?
Posting a message in china saying that chinese do not have a large degree of personal freedom isnt a big deal. (If you go on to say thats bad, then it would be)
I love listening to people post anti-American screeds on a server located in America, claiming that America is the land of censorship.
The type of extreme reaction provoked from you demonstrates very well the self-censorship im talking about:
I promise that I'll send flowers to your next of kin.
Veiled threat, or subconscious slip?
Big deal. A few years ago some Russian Hackers took control of the contries gas Pipeline network. Gasprom the gas monopoly was pissed as hell. Now that was a hack! These guys couldn't even take over the entire signal.
Does anyone know if a video clip exists of the Capt. Midnight broadcast? Anyone taping HBO with their fresh new betamax vcr that night?
Channel Zero by Brian Wood is a great graphic novel that has a subplot similar to this.. Just change the setting to NYC under Giuliani, and the Falun Gong to a totally disaffected super-hacker-chic trying to wake-up the general populace to the insanity and brutality of the city government.
The recent political philosophy work "Empire" by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri cites this condition as a hallmark of the new world order of Empire, centered of course in America, but nonetheless active in all sovereign governments working by or towards the power of capitalism. In the long run, China probably qualifies here.
Note their characterization, and how it compares to the Falun Gong and to Channel Zero:
"[These events] are educational lessons in the classroom of administration and the chambers of government -- lessons that demand repressive instruments. The primary lesson is that such events cannot be repeated if the processes of capitalist globalization are to continue. These struggles, however, have their own weight, their own specific intensity, and moreover they are immanent to the procedures and developments of imperial power. They invest and sustain the process of globalization themselves. Imperial power whispers the names of the struggles in order to charm them into passivity, to construct a mystified image of them [e.g. slashdot], but most important to discover which processes of globalization are possible and which are not. In this contradictory and paradoxical way the imperial processes of globalization assume these events, recognizing them as both limits and opportunities to recalibrate Empire's own instruments. The processes of globalization would not exist or whould come to a halt if they were not continually both frustrated and driven by these explosions of the multitude that touch immediately on the highest levels of imperial power." [Empire, Pp. 59]
Self-Censorship is NOT avoiding things you dislike (in this context at least), what I mean is when you decline to say what you mean and when you dont stand up for what you really believe in and succumb to the groupthink around you.
Reasons for doing this are fear (will they send you death threats, are they watching me?) and prudence (if I dont go along with everyone else then it will hurt my chances for social advancement.) Even worse is when you speculatively promulgate a viewpoint that you dont really support.
Unofficial reprisals tend to be just as intimidating and effective as official ones.
Being able to talk about these phenomena without being ostracized is the first step towards fixing them.
FreeSpeech.org
I say Rock On Falun Gong! We're talking about a sect of people who have been imprisoned, harassed, tortured, and killed because of their beliefs. While they may have broken the law, they managed to make a statement without hurting a single person. I always though it was a good thing for oppressed people to speak out with hurting anyone.
ROCK ON!
>As for comments by people calling them zealots >and criminals, I'd take this lot over the lot of >Zealots and criminals that has been running >China for the past 50+ years any day!
Maybe you would, but not the majority of people living in China. Most people in China DO NOT support Fulong Gong especially after the burning incident. (A mother burned herself and her kids to death.) China is one of the few truly atheist country in the world thanks to both the culture and the Communist Party. People do not want it to become a religous and cult-like nation.
>China is a great place (lived in Taiwan and Asia >for 5 years), but the communists have done >tremendous damage to Chinese culture (most >notably during the Cultural Revolution)
YES, you are right. However, many of the positive changes in China is also the result of this despotic regime. Instead of having two parties argue over issues that never get resolved, the Community party can simply do it. Of course it is a two-edged sword but it is definitely possible to be positive.
at least that what the linked article implies and what most kurdish sources believe ...
... makes no sense of Baghdad to bother with those guys ... [at the time, 1996, they were the only Kurdish satellite station, now they're three] ...
...
MED-TV is a satellite service aimed at predominantly norther and western kurdistan [the part that lays in turkey]
the fact Turkey broadcast Hezbollah martial music [islamic fundamentalist] was a pretty thin ruse
Bill Maher makes joke about 9/11 tero's, result: show canceled.
Judges rule pledge unconstitutional, result: recieve death threat while congress recites socialistesque pledge upon capitol steps. (they seemed disingenuine at best)
Some big news channel owner notes that the jews are killing more palestinians than vice-versa, result was scandal+ near removal of the channel from some places etc...
things like that, pretty common really.
Time Out of Mind
r u12130 1.shtml
c le s/anderson.html
Time's favorite terrorist.
By Ramesh Ponnuru
December 13, 2001 12:05 p.m.
http://www.nationalreview.com/ponnuru/ponnu
Is this really the best moment for Time magazine to celebrate the work of a terrorist? This week's issue profiles seven "thinkers exploring new ideas." Among them are Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, the authors of the much-discussed recent tome Empire.Time's profile mentions that Negri is "living under house arrest in Rome," but leaves this minor biographical detail unexplained. The missing explanation is that Negri was associated with the Red Brigades in the 1970s, and is believed to have had a hand in the kidnapping and murder of Italian prime minister Aldo Moro. Indeed, he is believed to have called Moro's wife to taunt her just before Moro was shot dead.
But hey, water under the bridge, right? The trouble is that Negri, now joined by Hardt, is still an apologist for terrorism. Not that you'd ever guess that from Michael Elliott's profile. It merely has the authors "reaching back to early Marxism and forward to postmodernist literary theory." (Now there's a marriage that one would expect to yield all sorts of useful ideas!) In fact, they are proud to call themselves "communists."
The great "new idea" that they are lauded for having is that globalization is both liberatory and destabilizing. By making this point they have allegedly "cut through one of the most tedious debates in contemporary politics." Please. The argument is utterly banal. The spin that Hardt and Negri put on the idea, meanwhile, is the same one that orthodox Marxists always have. (Hardt even told the New York Times that Negri and he "don't think of this as a very original book.") Remember, Marx viewed capitalism as a positive historical development, a necessary way station on the road from feudalism to communism.
Armed with this analysis, Hardt and Negri commend Islamist fanaticism-along with riots in Los Angeles, Seattle, or just about anywhere else-as a form of resistance to capitalism that will help move the world to a higher stage. "Insofar as the Iranian revolution was a powerful rejection of the world market, we might think of it as the first postmodern revolution." As for terrorism, they put the word in sneer quotes.
What on earth came over Michael Elliott? He's not usually an idiot.
The Ineducable Left
Brian C. Anderson
http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0202/arti
Copyright (c) 2002 First Things 120 February 2002): 40-44.
The far left's disgraceful response to September 11--it has temporized about terror, embraced moral equivalence between the Islamist fanatics who killed thousands of innocent Americans and the military actions of the democratically elected U.S. government, and even blamed the U.S. for the atrocity--shows that its hatred of democratic capitalism and, more broadly, Western civilization itself remains fierce more than a decade after the collapse of socialism. The intensity of this hatred will come as no surprise, however, to anyone who has paid attention to the praise that the academic left and its sympathizers in the liberal media have been showering on one of the most pernicious books published in recent memory: Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's encomium to anticapitalist revolutionary violence, Empire.
This forbidding five-hundred-page book of political and social theory, which ends with a surreal celebration of "the irrepressible lightness and joy of being Communist," is that rare commodity: a genuine academic bestseller. Its publisher, Harvard University Press, has gone through ten printings and has sold foreign translation rights to at least ten nations across the globe. Upscale bookstores have a hard time keeping it in stock. Everybody is talking about it.
Small wonder, given the eye-popping reviews it has received. Postmodernism guru Frederic Jameson of Duke University calls it "prophetic" and "the first great new theoretical synthesis of the new millennium." Slavonian philosopher Slavoj Zizek celebrates it as "nothing less than a rewriting of The Communist Manifesto for our time" (this, needless to say, he deems a good thing). "Brilliant," "erudite," "extraordinary," "an amazing tour de force," "irresistible," "revolutionary," "a work of visionary intensity"--left-wing intellectuals have exhausted superlatives describing it. The liberal press has been just as enthusiastic. The New York Times, in a glowing write-up, crowns Empire the "Next Big Idea." Time breathlessly commends it as "the hot, smart book of the moment." The influential British weekly the New Statesman gushes that Empire has "turned conventional thinking on its head." Not since Michel Foucault's history of sexuality started appearing in English translation two decades or so ago has a work of high theory produced such palpitations on the left.
What's all the excitement about? In part, it is the book's grandiose ambition that has generated the buzz. Hardt and Negri seek to update Marx's Capital for the era of economic globalization. In doing so, they plunder every imaginable recent source of academic foolishness, from postcolonialism to Queer Theory to French post-structuralism, and wed it to Marx, Lenin, and even Mao, making the book a kind of up-to-the-minute manual on how to get tenure in today's university. Empire's pages brim with the science-fiction-like neologisms that typify much contemporary academic writing: "agentic," "biopower," "deterritorialization"--words that give those who wield them the sense of gaining Shaman-like access to hidden realms. Unlike most leftist writing since the fall of communism, which has been dourly pessimistic, Empire is also brashly optimistic, heralding the revolutionary dawn of a utopian postcapitalist age.
But the deeper reason for the zeal, I think, is the unusual biography of Empire's Italian coauthor Antonio Negri. The book's glossy jacket matter-of-factly informs us that he is "an independent researcher and writer"--and an "inmate at Rebibbia Prison, Rome." In addition to having a career as an influential political philosopher, with widely-translated books on Spinoza and Marx to his credit, Negri is a convicted terrorist.
In 1979, the Italian government arrested Negri, at the time a political science professor at the University of Padua, and accused him of being the secret brains behind the Red Brigades, the Italian version of the Weathermen in the U.S. or the Baader-Meinhoff Gang in West Germany--left-wing groups that during the 1970s sought to overthrow capitalism through campaigns of terrorist violence. Italian authorities believed that Negri himself planned the infamous 1979 kidnapping and murder of Aldo Moro, the leader of Italy's Christian Democratic Party. Just before Aldo's execution, his distraught wife got a taunting phone call, telling her that her husband was about to die. The voice was allegedly Negri's. Unable to build a strong enough case to try the philosopher for murder, Italian authorities convicted him on lesser charges of "armed insurrection against the state."
Negri's theoretical work was in keeping with his terrorist activities. He had become the leading voice of Italy's ultra-Left by advancing an inventive reinterpretation of Marx's Grundrisse that located the agent of social revolution not among the industrial proletariat, largely co-opted as it was by capitalist wealth and bourgeois democratic freedoms, but among those marginalized from economic and political life: the criminal, the part-time worker, the unemployed. These dispossessed souls, Negri felt, would be far quicker to unleash the riotous confrontations with the state that he saw as necessary to destroying capitalism.
Facing thirty years in prison, and after much legal wrangling, Negri eventually fled to France, where during the mid-1980s he became chums with philosopher Gilles Deleuze and other radical thinkers, lectured at the University of Paris (meeting his American coauthor, Duke literature professor Michael Hardt, who was his student there), and wrote a host of books and essays, including paeans to the "politics of subversion" and a bizarre meditation on St. Francis of Assisi as a proto-Communist.
Then, a few years ago, after nearly two decades in exile, an unrepentant Negri returned to Italy to serve a reduced sentence. The book-jacket claim that he is currently an inmate at Ribibbia is wildly exaggerated. In fact, Negri serves his time under partial house arrest at his lovely book-lined apartment in a tony Rome neighborhood. He must sleep there at night, but he is otherwise free to come and go as he pleases, and regularly receives fawning journalists and academics seeking the master's wisdom.
Negri's criminal past grants Empire a veneer of revolutionary authenticity and gives readers predisposed to feel it an agreeable frisson of danger and transgression of bourgeois conventions. Negri "brings with him the glamor of murder," acidly observes writer David Pryce-Jones. Few things are more alluring, he adds, to the armchair radicals of academe and the New York Times.
What is the argument, such as it is, of this strange book? For Hardt and Negri, "Empire" is "the sovereign power that governs the world"--a new "capitalist mode of production." It is, more concretely, the global market. At the pinnacle of Empire is the capitalist power par excellence, the nuclear-bomb-wielding U.S., "a superpower that can act alone but prefers to act in collaboration with others." Among those others: the G-8 nations, the Paris and London Clubs for Growth, and various nongovernmental organizations that seek to expand economic exchanges among states. The vertiginous market forces these political and economic bodies have unleashed are destroying the old imperialistic nation-state and creating in its stead a new transpolitical global order where economic considerations trump all other concerns. "In its ideal form," the authors write, "there is no outside to the world market: the entire globe is its domain." Quoting Polybius, Hardt and Negri draw an explicit parallel between the new Empire's continent-spanning reach and Rome's mastery of the Mediterranean world in Antiquity.
Economic globalization, Hardt and Negri assert in Marxoid language, has meant that a handful of rich folks are getting richer and more powerful at the expense of the vast majority, who grow "always more exploited," more abject, more "proletarianized." The new global order claims to promote peace, they charge, but in practice it is "bathed in blood." Any time Empire senses a danger to the circulation of commodities, whether it's Islamic "terrorists" (the scare quotes are Hardt and Negri's) or Mexican revolutionaries, out come the guns and missiles to deal with the threat. Today's Empire, like its Roman predecessor, is a brutal pacifying force.
What makes Empire truly insidious, the authors believe, is that people internalize the ways of life it promotes. Citizens of prosperous liberal democracies only seem to be free. In reality, say Hardt and Negri, they are subjects of terrifying "societies of control," consumed completely in the "rhythm of productive practices and productive socialization." Capitalism, in short, creates capitalist men and women, brainwashed automatons buying what the market says to buy and dutifully trudging to work in the "social factory." "The great industrial and financial powers," the authors warn, "produce not only commodities but also subjectivities": individuals whose very "needs, social relations, bodies, and minds" respond to the market's call.
Yet, all is not lost. Even as Empire seduces, Hardt and Negri hold, it is sowing the seeds of its possible destruction. Gestating within the womb of economic globalization is a "counter-Empire," led by "the multitude"--the authors' stand-in for Marx's proletariat. The multitude are all those that don't fit neatly into the global capitalist economy. Have-nots across the planet, the anti-globalization movement, the L.A. rioters, Latin revolutionaries, inner-city blacks, drug addicts, anti-family women, drag queens, body piercers, Islamic radicals, and anyone else who rejects bourgeois values--together they constitute the nomadic "against-men" of the multitude. Just as the Christians of the late Roman Empire colonized its spiritual universe from within, so the multitude will overcome the new Empire. The political task of the third millennium, the authors believe--they're not vulgar historical determinists, they stress, so political action is essential--will be to help bring this multitude together so that it can forge "an alternative political organization of global flows and exchanges" that "will one day take us through and beyond Empire."
What will this "alternative political organization" look like? Hardt and Negri, like their intellectual god father Marx before them, remain mostly silent about the postcapitalist world, but they do offer a few provocative hints. Global citizenship will be one key feature. "The cities of the earth will become at once great deposits of cooperating humanity and locomotives for circulation, temporary residences and networks of the mass distribution of living humanity--an end to borders and nations," Hardt and Negri prophesize. A second aspect will be "absolute democracy," in which the multitude directly manages and organizes economic, political, and social life. No more will private property--"a putrid and tyrannical obsolescence"--pit man against man. Free access to and control over "knowledge, information, communication, and affects" will be a matter of course. A final characteristic: equal compensation for all. Hardt and Negri call it a "citizenship income."
The counter-Empire is possible only after modernity--including the universal solvent of global capitalism--has dissolved the certainties of all earlier ages. Hardt and Negri's multitude is a Promethean power, born with the modern age's emancipation of the human will from the moral constraints of religion and human nature. "Today there is not even the illusion of a transcendent God," the authors proclaim. "The mythology of the languages of the multitude interprets the telos of the earthly city, torn away by the power of its own destiny from any belonging or subjection to a city of God, which has lost all honor and legitimacy." Human nature is a mirage too. We must embrace our "post-human" identities as monkeys and cyborgs, Hardt and Negri aver. "Humanism after the death of Man," the authors call their stark vision of man as demiurge. The multitude represents an "uncontainable force," an "excess of value with respect to every form of right and law." Beyond good and evil, it will "create and recreate" the human world in a "secular Pentecost." Hardt and Negri, dreaming of Communist Supermen, view the American Declaration of Independence and the Marx-inspired revolutions of the twentieth century as anticipatory signs of the coming liberation.
These epochal transformations will require a cleansing bloodletting. "The new barbarians" of the multitude must "destroy with an affirmative violence and trace new paths of life through their own material existence." Hardt and Negri's language bristles menacingly at the multitude's bourgeois enemies: "Who wants to see any more of that pallid and parasitic European ruling class that led directly from the ancien régime to nationalism, from populism to fascism, and now pushes for a generalized neoliberalism? Who wants to see more of those ideologies and those bureaucratic apparatuses that have nourished and abetted the rotting European elites? And who can still stand those systems of labor organization and those corporations that have stripped away every vital spirit?"
The success of Empire is astonishing when you cut through the jargon and see exactly what it says. Hardt and Negri fall prey to every destructive error that has characterized radical antibourgeois thought, of the left and right, from Lenin to Heidegger to Foucault to Islamism. Though the book seems on first inspection to be something new, it is really very old news.
Like their radical predecessors, Hardt and Negri fail to think politically--fail to explore the real possibilities and dangers of political reality and take measure of the lessons of history. Though the authors say they want to mine the "dense complex of experience"--a praiseworthy aim for any political thought--a reader of Empire will wander through hundreds of pages of arid theory before he encounters a flesh-and-blood political actor or a real decision or historical event or institution. The book, like much contemporary political theory, is inhumanly abstract. The same abstraction was abundantly evident when Hardt appeared on The Charlie Rose Show. To the host's commonsense questions, Hardt could only respond in hallucinatory theory-speak. To anyone unfamiliar with the latest academic buzzwords, he sounded like a space alien. Rose seemed--justifiably--completely befuddled.
Inseparable from the failure to think politically, Hardt and Negri, like the rioters endlessly disrupting World Trade Organization meetings, offer no evidence to support their basic charge that economic globalization is causing wide-scale planetary misery. Predictably, this past summer, as the G-8 meeting got underway in Genoa, Italy, the New York Times chose these two "joyful" Communists to write a lengthy op-ed extolling the virtues of anti-globalization rioters.
The truth about globalization is exactly the reverse of what Hardt and Negri assert. Globalization is dramatically increasing world prosperity and freedom. As the Economist's John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge point out, in the half century since the foundation of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the world economy has expanded six-fold, in part because trade has increased 1,600 percent; nations open to trade grow nearly twice as fast as those that aren't; and World Bank data show that during the past decade of accelerated economic globalization, approximately 800 million people escaped poverty.
Needless to say, economic globalization isn't without its downside. As I've argued in these pages (see "Capitalism and the Suicide of Culture," February 2000), it can--there's no necessity at work--amplify and disseminate some of the less attractive aspects of today's libertine culture. But on balance, as neoconservative sociologist Peter L. Berger has suggested, the empirical evidence proves it far preferable to any alternative economic order we know of. It has profoundly diminished human suffering.
If Hardt and Negri's depiction of global capitalism is mendacious, their hazy alternative to it--absolute democracy, open borders, equal compensation--is apolitical utopian nonsense. How would such schemes actually work? Hardt and Negri never say. Do they truly think that "annulling" private property and eliminating nations, if it were somehow possible, would be liberating? Wouldn't it lead to a totalitarian increase in political power, as in the old Soviet Union? But then Hardt and Negri seem to look back fondly on Lenin and Stalin's dark regime. "Cold war ideology called that society totalitarian," they complain, "but in fact it was a society criss-crossed by extremely strong instances of creativity and freedom, just as strong as the rhythms of economic development and cultural modernization." To which one can only respond: Have they never read a page of Solzhenitsyn? Moreover, as filled with admiration as Hardt and Negri are toward the Soviet Union, they are contemptuous toward the decencies and the humbleoften not so humble--freedoms of democratic capitalist societies.
Along with this utter failure to look at political reality, Hardt and Negri share another ugly characteristic with Lenin, Franz Fanon, and many other antibourgeois thinkers: a totalitarian style of thought that substitutes rhetorical violence for reasoned argument. For Lenin, disagreement with the revolutionary line (as he defined it) was heretical. Differences of political vision or even pragmatic disputes were not open to moderation through debate, as in the liberal democratic tradition, but deserved only insult--and in practice, ruthless elimination. Hardt and Negri's violent verbal attacks on Western capitalists--"putrid," "rotting," "parasitic"--could come right from the pages of Materialism and Empirocriticism (or, for that matter, from one of Osama bin Laden's terrifying manifestos). After September 11, the authors' illiberal, terrorist language seems obscene.
Hardt and Negri's contempt for the bourgeois men and women who go to work, attend Mass, raise their kids, and generally live respectable, productive lives is itself contemptible. Who do these two men think they are? How did they free themselves from the "society of control" while most of us fritter away our lives, drones in the social factory? Empire's elitism is an updated version of the Marxian notion of a revolutionary vanguard, another terrible idea that helped spawn the political monstrosities of the last century.
Hardt and Negri's final delusion is their cartoon version of the modern world as completely secularized. Tell that to the Islamist fanatics who made bombs out of planes, praying to Allah as they died, or to the friends and relatives of those they killed who have crowded into churches and synagogues seeking meaning and solace for their suffering. For both good and ill, as André Malraux predicted, the twenty-first century clearly will be religious, not secular. Hardt and Negri believe that something decent will arise from their lawless atheism. But why assume justice will prevail from such nihilism, when everything we know from history--the wounded history of the twentieth century above all--says that it results invariably in the law of the jungle? Without morality and the rule of law, the powerful simply feel free to rape and pillage; the weak can only tremble and hide.
Apolitical abstraction and wild-eyed utopianism, a terroristic approach to political argument, hatred for flesh and blood human beings, nihilism: Empire is a poisonous brew of bad ideas. It belongs with Mein Kampf in the library of political madness.
Do Empire's many fans really believe their own praise? Does Time really think it's "smart" to call for the eradication of private property, celebrate revolutionary violence, whitewash totalitarianism, and pour contempt on the genuine achievements of liberal democracies and capitalist economics? Would Frederic Jameson like to give up his big salary at Duke? To ask such questions is to answer them. The far left's pleasure is in the adolescent thrill of perpetual rebellion. Too many who should know better refuse to grow up. The ghost of Marx haunts us still.
For all its infantilism, the kind of hatred Hardt and Negri express for our flawed but decent democratic capitalist institutions--the best political and economic arrangements man has yet devised and the outcome of centuries of difficult trial and error--is dangerous, especially since it's so common in the university and media. It seems to support Islamist revolutionary hopes, the increasingly violent anti-globalization movement, and kindred political lunacies. September 11 has reminded us of the fragility of our freedom and prosperity. But the continued influence of the far left, which some mistakenly dismiss as inconsequential, can weaken our collective will to protect ourselves from our enemies. Why fight for a political and social order that is so contemptible?
The journalist Andrew Sullivan, writing in the Wall Street Journal, argued that one consequence of September 11's terrorist assault will be to discredit permanently the views of those who, like Hardt and Negri, despise democratic capitalism every bit as much as the Taliban does. I hope he's right, but I'm not so optimistic. After all, Empire is the "Next Big Idea" after a century in which more than 125 million people lost their lives because of antibourgeois political movements. A few thousand murdered Americans may not be enough to end the hold the radical left still has on elite culture.
Brian C. Anderson is Senior Editor of City Journal, author of Raymond Aron: The Recovery of the Political, and editor of On Cultivating Liberty, a collection of Michael Novak's social and political writings.
Smoking is an expensive, slow, and unreliable method of suicide.
me chinese, me play joke, me hack satelitte h0ax.
I don't disagree with your points. However, I have come to the conclusion that there are really two kinds of freedom.
The first kind of freedom is what we have in the USA. It is the freedom of the majority to be able to change things when the majority is dissatisfied. The American colonies didn't have that under british rule.
The second kind of freedom is personal freedom which we no longer have (or maybe never really had) in the USA. This is the freedom to do whatever I want as long as it hurts no one. For example, prostitution hurts no one, but is illegal in the USA except in rural nevada. Gambling used to be illegal most places (because it was morally wrong), then the majority of americans decided it was morally okay and now we have it just about everywhere. The war on drugs is really a war against a minority of US citizens and has more in comon with a "war on high prices" than a real war.
Freedom of religion? You have the freedom to practice some religions, but not others. For example, if you are a mormon and part of your religion involves polygamy, you are forbidden from practicing it. Why? Only because the majority of americans are against it for no reason that is obvious to me.
Alcohol used to be illegal because it was "morally wrong". Now it is okay. (I guess God changed his mind.)
Slavery used to be legal. Jim Crow used to be legal. Jim Crow only changed because the majority changed their minds. Slavery was only outlawed because the civil war was going on so the south didn't get to vote on it.
If you are an atheist, you are basically demonized by the majority and by the current government. I can't turn around without some bozo telling me about Jesus. (Guess what, I have heard your stupid ideas already - get a clue.)
There was a time when there was "voluntary" prayer in school. My father was severely beaten regularly after school for not participating in this "voluntary" prayer.
That's all Christians are - a gang of thugs who will use whatever violent, branwashing techniques they can to further their idiotic ideas.
I would be for respecting their freedom if they would respect mine, but they won't and they never will. That's why we must use any means necessary to fight christianity - the enemy of thinking people.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
Couldn't they have thought of something better then "Falun Gong is good". I can imagine the scene now "Crap Wong, I'm on the Sat what should I post?"
God bless 'em!
Hope US intelligence agencies are capable of doing that to Chinese satellites.
Wasn't the Republican Party founded with the objective of coercing the policy of the southern states in the USA to abolish slavery?
In '93 I was working for Eutelsat. We had no end of trouble over this sort of "hack", because the bits of the recently broken-up USSR couldn't agree on who the new owners of transponder space were. Generally whoever shouted loudest (at GHz frequencies) got to be rebroadcast. It's impossible to see who has done it either - it's completely invisible from the ground. Our only approach was like the UK pirate radio stations in th eearly '60s - watch the broadcasts and chase anyone who placed adverts with them.
Direct broadcast satellites are surprisingly simple. They don't even understand the signal, they just amplify and retransmit a slice of bandwidth. They're really no more than flying mirrors with a bit of gain.
As to the switching on and off business, then satellite operators are terrified of sky-side switches. Although there's a lot of kit that could be switched around, none of it ever is, owing to fear of a switch failure (and the service callout charges are pretty steep).
"Bow to Shredder! Tonight I dine on turtle soup!"
I used to work at a facility that had a C-Band uplink for live programming. The satellite operators regularly left our signal up after I signed off the transmission.
:P
;P I was more worried about them sending us a bill than the cops showing up.
:)
I took the opportunity once to plug my playstation into the uplink (shortly after the PS1 was released) and broadcasted my (poor) gaming technique across north america for a while
Nothing illegal though - For all I know the guys in the operations center were watching my game
It's still very cool to be able to punch out a signal 30,000km into space and back. It's even more cool when that signal is your new videogame system
"Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence." - Charles de Gaulle
You would rather that the mother and her kids were disappeared into a prison? Did it ever occur to you that the story is Government Propaganda?
Play Command HQ online
Most Chinese poeple probably don't want thousands of Fulong Gong members arrested and killed, either.
Play Command HQ online
Your own quote says "To force to act or think in a certain way by use of pressure, threats, or intimidation."
Where in delivering a unilateral, broadcast, and undirected message do you find pressure, threats, or intimidation?
To claim that this is terrorism is just more WTC "terrorism everywhere" inflation hysteria. We need the word to mean what it means, and you ain't helping.
The parent post is drivel, but the responder would surely fight for their right to post such drivel. In some dictatorships the parent comment might land you in jail by itself.
Experiment!
hi. is there a way to get a personal international paypal account without credit card information ? F**KING DESPERATE !@#
Hacking was beginning.
What happen?
Someone set up us the uplink!
We get signal!
What?
Main screen turn on!
How are you gentlemen.
All your comsat are belong to us.
This concludes the 9,238,973rd reiteration of Zero Wing, though perhaps if the banner repeated "All Your Comsat Are Belong To Us!" on every network, it would have been much, MUCH funnier...
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
No, most Chinese don't care about Fulon Gong. Why should they? The vast majority of Chinese are destitute poor and are far more worried about getting food than free expression. But there are large numbers of Chinese out of work, and mostly due to bad management and corruption in the Communist gov't. It is in these areas the Fulon Gong are concentrating their campaign.
As for the burning incident, there is quite a bit of debate over this. But assuming these people were Fulon Gong believers, does it mean the whole group is evil? Saying so is like saying just because there is one evil person in a group that ALL the people in the group and the group itself is evil. Any number of examples can be shown that disprove this utterly. Like any kid wearing a black trench coat and playing DnD must be planning to shoot all his classmates and teachers and making sacrifices to Satan. Out of maybe a million members (Fulon Gong I think claims more like 10 million) the Communists have come up with a handful of dubious examples. Compare that to the repeated examples of corruption that have been reported despite the Communists attempt to repress that information.
As for the Communists being such a good influence on China I would seriously take to task if I had the time. China is much more backward than it could have been had it had competent leadership. Ask any person that lived through some of Mao's attempts at modernization, The Great Leap Forward or the Cultural Revolution. I have many mainland Chinese friends here in the States. None of them "dissidents," but not one excited about the idea of ever going back to China to live. And the reason is they lived through some pretty hard times caused by incompetent Communist rule. Some of the coastal cities are experiencing growth, but certainly not the kind of growth seen in the Asian tigers. Gosh, the anecdotal stories I could tell! Suffice it to say that Communism has killed much of the entrepreneurial spirit found in Chinese everywhere but under communist rule.
I really think you are misinformed if you think Communism has been good for China. Sort of like the myth that Chinese never eat greasy food (It doesn't take long after getting off the plane to have that myth dispelled!)
PEACESAT is a satellite system which provides communications to the scattered communities of the South Pacific. These days it uses the old GOES-7 weather satellite with Ku band uplinks.
Back in the 1970's PEACESAT used some of the ATS series. They were some of the first geostationary satellites. Their uplink and downlink frequencies were either side of the 2 metre ham band (144 and 148 MHz). Obviously NASA intended that cash-strapped Pacific nations could modify ham FM transceivers. The antennas were five element Yagis. It was relatively easy to listen in to the downlinks with a ham receiver (no scanners in those days).
In 1975 I began to notice that a paging transmitter (in Vancouver I think) would sometimes be rebroadcast. Their paging frequency just overlapped the PEACESAT uplink. Now if a paging transmitter could be rebroadcast, there was no security on the uplink.
I made a minor modification to a TRIO TR2e transceiver (with a simple FM mod) to expand the transmit range. This was a crystal/VFO-type AM transmitter, not the synthesised units hams use today. Just to be sure, I installed a crystal inside the uplink band.
With two 8-element Yagis I found that I could easily get into PEACESAT and listen to my voice on the downlink. A couple of mates were enlisted and they also heard my transmissions from distant sites, proving that I wasn't kidding myself.
The most difficult part was aiming the antennas, but I just went over to Sydney University and copied the elevation and azimuth bearings of their PEACESAT station.
Through library research I discovered that NASA controlled the satellite through a series of 72 audio tones. I was tempted to get a signal generator and try to take over the satellite, but technical diffciulties and my miniscule sense of responsibility prevented this interesting experiment.
I wouldn't be surprised that someone could do the same on a 200MHz system like the US military's satellites.
I'd like to clear up a few misconceptions and give you all an idea of why the Falun Gong practitioners went to such great lengths to broadcast their message.
Falun Dafa otherwise known as Falun Gong is a body and mind cultivation practice
system based on the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance. Falun Dafa is totally free of charge (there are no membership or tuition fees), it's open to the public (people from all races, religions and age groups are welcome) and it's free from any political, religious or commercial motivations. The practice was opened to the public in 1992. In a period of about a decade over 100,000,000 people joined the practice, over 70,000,000 practitioners are based in China.
In 1999, Jiang Zemin banned the practice of Falun Gong. He feared the number of practitioners threatened the communist parties power. This is unfounded as practitioners are only interested in being good people in all situations and have no political motives. Practitioners have had their homes stormed by police and have had all Falun Dafa related meterials removed from their homes. Some have been sent to re-education camps where practitioners are subjected to extreamly harsh and inhumane treatment daily. Many practitioners have been assigned to mental institutions where they a forced to take strong medication that has in many instances caused brain damage, paralysis and in some instances death. Over 100,000 practitioners have been sent to labour camps and over 1000 (a conservative esitmate) have been beaten and tourtured to death. All media access has been blocked from China making it extreamly difficult for practitioners to inform the outside world of the desparate situation in China. In China you can be arrested and beaten simply for holding a falun dafa banner in public. There would be a public outcry if a government in a western country persecuted its people in such a manner.
This broadcast was simply a desparate messure taken in a desparate situation to let the worlds people know the immense scale of the persecution of Falun Dafa Practitioners in China.
I have recieved great benefit from this practice and hope that many more
people can experience the same.
Please take a look at our website - http://www.falundafa.org
Please take a look at the main text of Falun Dafa, 'Zhuan Falun' - http://www.falundafa.org/eng/books.htm
I thank anyone who takes the time to read this message.
--glad to see someone like yourself find this and post here. WAY too many americans, especially young people, have no idea what is going on in the world despite a smattering of alledged "news" they might see on TV. And WAY too many americans are prefectly happy to watch the slave system in china go unchecked, move their factories there, and support the dictatorship with their cash and their personal eforts. We have IT people who supposedly value "freedom" selling them even more command and control hardware and software and helping them become even worse dictators.
I call those people blood sucking blood money profiteers, no different than helping any other dictotship someplace else. Despite hundreds of billions in "free trade"money going to china from US and western businessmen, they are NO new additional freedoms in china, no "quid pro quo" towards this vague "democracy", because the chinese dictators have no desire for this to happen, and kill as in dead people who go against them.
On this our national day representing freedom, I call On all USians reading this to reflect on what is really going on here. Certainly more important than the latest video game release. certainly more important than whether or not you can get your hands on the latest "music" MP3. certainly more important than whetyher or not you have a 64 or 128 bit video card.
The chinese people deserve to be FREE as in FREE. The same as us, same as everyone. NO ONE should be supporting the dictators there, that includes the industry giants like intel, motorola, etc. Boeing airplanes, shame on you. Pick a fortune 500 company, "business as usual" with tyrants, money is just a commodity that according to them has nothing to do with pain and suffering-as long as it's some "foreigner" suffering, back to doom and quake and baseball.
As the factories close here, as the record bankruptices continue, as the chinese military builds the largerst war machine the world has ever seen, people won't care until it's "too late".
No one has any intention of invading mainland china, no one, no place. Yet, china has the fastest growing military in ther world, it's accelerating twen years for every 1.5 or 2 years in any western nationa. A dollar there is the same as 100$ here in what gets done on building this war machine. headlines right now I'm looking at, israel selling them drone attack devices, china getting 8 more submarines, on and on. they are an agressor nation that at some time will expand outward, due to oil requirements, water requirements and population pressures. Ignoring this will not make it "not happen".
We can learn from history or repeat it.
Good luck to you and yours inside of mainland china, I expect our government to be a lot more like yours soon, rather than the reverse.
In case you were wondering, name calling does not necessarily make you insightful, or even particularly interesting. Try to actually construct cogent arguments next time, and maybe more people will listen to you. Calling someone ignorant or retarded does not necessarily make it so.
Well, your second attachment says why:
"But the continued influence of the far left, which some mistakenly dismiss as inconsequential, can weaken our collective will to protect ourselves from our enemies."
People take it seriously (both for and against it) because it's an influential book, because a lot of people look at our politics and don't like them, and it hypothesizes why our they work the way they do, and how they might develop.
Of course it's a leftish book. Kissinger's "Diplomacy" is a rightish book, with as much damning critique from the other direction (to counter Negri's terroism claims above, consider the accusations against Kissinger for war crimes in Vietnam). But it's missing the point to derride either of these for their influence. A critique of them should be directed at their content.
I posted because this book, along with the comic I mentioned, presciently capture the spirit of the Falun Gong satellite hack.. both help identify the amazing subversion of such an act. It's hard to conceive of the forces at play when subversives take on government, especially in such a massive event; so, I'm thankful to to have help in thinking about it and thought I'd spread the word.
The same is true for the Sep. 11 attacks. They were a catastrophe beyond my comprehension at the time. To have some way to understand them is helpful. The mainstream media dwells on the attrocity, whereas I want to understand their history. Why did they happen? Will something like this happen again? Who really wins/loses?
Empire gives a context which makes sense, especially compared to the "American" point of view that the perpetrators are "evil" and are "our enemy". That's the kind of gross nationalistic simplification that allows us to enter war instead of just ensuring security. I knew on the day of the attacks that the real risk was retaliation. We totter on the brink, and nobody wants to reason.
So anyways, Empire is a good read so far.. I'm about halfway through and as an undereducated political philosopher, it provides not only a compelling perspective of the world of Empire, but also synthesizes many pieces of European political development since Medeiveal times. As to whether or not it's correct.. well, I'm a computer scientist, and almost everything they say doesn't hold water in my book. In fact, I'm inspired to test out their ideas with some simulations (e.g. fmc.sf.net)
Ato u will find a very comprehensive, just recently published, publication on Falun Gong.
www.faluninfo.net/compassion4/compassion.pdf
y
Regards,
Hannu
A Falun Gong practitioner from Finland