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Open Networks, Closed Regimes
kris writes "First Monday has an interesting article on Open Networks, Closed Regimes: The Impact of the Internet on Authoritarian Rule, presenting evidence that The Internet may not be automatic downfall of authoritan regimes as anecdotes commonly suggest.
In their words: The authors trace Internet use in eight authoritarian and semi-authoritarian countries: China, Cuba, Singapore, Vietnam, Burma, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. They discover that authoritarian governments, far from fearing the information age, have chosen to direct Internet development in ways that bolster the state. At the same time, many regimes are struggling to cope with the potent challenges posed by new technologies. The authors encourage policy makers in the U.S. and other industrialized democracies to promote specific Internet-based initiatives that foster political liberalization, rather than perpetuating the myth of the Internet as an unstoppable "virus of freedom.""
they forgot the US
Fleur de Sel
*calls up the La-Le-Li-Lo-Lu*
the vast majority of the users, authors, etc would like the internet to be an embodiement of freedom. Freedom of speech, freedom to post whatever you want, etc. While the internet was still becoming popular, before TV commercials posted website URL's in their ad's, corporate America (or the culture that embodies it) didn't have such a vicious stake in the ground. Yes, it allowed things like Napster, for a short while.
As technology is challenging old business models (the way mp3's have suposedly challenged traditional casette and CD purchasing), it is creating an increasing number of conflicts between the information eutopia and the ruling bodies (i.e. countries) it spans.
Does anyone have an idea on what the future will look like for the internet?
--------
Free your mind.
I was making a milk shake when some uranium I had brought home from the lab fell into the blender. I had used the last of my milk, sugar and icecream on that milkshake, and all the stores were closed. So I drank it anyway. Damn, it was good.
When I awoke the next morning, my body was covered in green scales, even my pee pee. It looked pretty cool, so I jacked off a couple of times. The semen was a flourescent green that even glowed in the dark!
So anyway, as the day progressed, I noticed that I was growing. By sundown I was 20 feet tall, and by dawn I was 50 feet tall. All that growing made me hungry, so I ate the barrel-shaped Lucky Burger restaurant near my house. That was tasty, too.
Then I realized that with my new-found great powers come great responsibilities. So one by one, I tracked down and blasted the rogue LINUX programmers with my fire-breath. Then I ate them. They were okay, they needed a little pepper.
In retrospect, I'm glad this happened to me because now the world is free from those open-source, communist terrorists. Now decent, law-abiding Americans like the good people at Newsmax.com can continue the only way of life, the American way. God bless America! Remember 9-11!
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
...the ultimate mechanism to bolster repressive regimes, soon to appear at a store near you.
These tyrannical regimes, which are based entirely on force, are not going to honour the GPL license.
They'll use the open source code to plant all kinds of back doors and other spy gear on their version of Linux then make the binary compulsory to use in their countries and no one will ever see the source code.
They'll probably put a dumbed down GUI on it too.
What are we going to do - declare war on China because Linus is unhappy?
It's Christmas everyday with BitTorrent.
If you can't see the difference between true authoritarianism and things like restricting music trading or software copying.
If the U.S. were an authoritarian country akin to Singapore, Egypt, or China, it would be illegal for me to say something like "I think George W. Bush is a poor leader and should be replaced as soon as possible." However, that is not the case.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
subject says it all
It was always a myth that the world would be contaminated with the virus of US thinking.
At the time everyone was thinking about the impact the internet would have in dictatorships also everyone was saying that internet was boasting discussion about every topic possible. Free speech was bad for oppressive regimes.
Interesting it is that noone thought at the time the internet could be a major way to challenge the western regimes. It's not a bad thing (tm) per se, actually it's quite good to the world that discussion about what kind of regime is best for the world. Maybe new ideas might come up... Afterall for all it's failings democracy is the best form of government that we can come up with (quote: Winston Churchill)
Hurray for the internet.
-- Would it be acceptable to just put my name on my sig?
I'm sure he likes them there as much as he liked the USSR troops there.
As reported earlier today on this very site, the US has been e-mailling Iraqi officials in an attempt to get them to defect.
The clever thing the USA Regime has done is to fool it's own citizens into thinking thats its not authoritarian like other evil authoritarians. You see, they have worked that letting you say anything you like doesn't really hurt them, in fact, it keeps you thinking that everything is cool, so you you dont RISE UP.
The USA is the most powerful nation on earth economically and militarily. It is the support which the USA gives to other evil regimes that makes the USA the most authoritarian regime in the world.
It was the USA that gave Saddam his weapons and supported him for many years. It was the USA that funded and armed the taliban/Osama bin Laden. It is the USA that continues to support many a coup in South America, against democratically elected governments.
authoritarian You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. Look at definition 1:
Characterized by or favoring absolute obedience to authority, as against personal freedom.
Now, nothing in that definition makes it illegal to say that the current leaders are terrible, just as long as you do what people in authority say. Just because the United States isn't making more ornerous rules to follow doesn't mean its not an authoritarian country. Just try using "But America is not an authoritarian country as a defense in court sometime"
If America was not an authoritarian country, it would not be illegal to resist arrest or to talk back to judges.
Now, IANAL, but I don't think you can tax an illegal activity, or else Revenue Canada'd be down on East Hastings (drug riddled area) busting every dealer for not reporting income.
Isn't that how they got Al Capone in the end?
Certainly down here in New Zealand, the Inland Revenue will, and do, tax illegal revenues (prostitution, for example). So long as you're paying tax on your income whatever the source they're happy. The Income Tax Act actually has provisions for such things.
Things may certainly be different in Canada (or the US for that matter - though see the Al Capone example...) but I'd be surprised if the government was willing to forgo such a lucrative opportunity.
Nicely put.
:)
However, your chosen website being thought-control.org is a tad distracting....
So many of the comments here say that Internet leading to freedom is a myth because it hasn't worked yet. The problem is that there is no way it can work quickly. Does anyone really think that just giving someone the Internet is going to make the population of some country slap themselves on the collective forehead, and say "How dumb were we?" At best, it will take years before even relatively free desemination of information will undermine a totalitarian regime. The flow information must cause ideas to germinate, discussion to start, groups to form, and a movement to start. Just look at the Vietnam war protests. They didn't happen overnight. It took 10 years for them to develop into their full-blown power. Or even the American Revolution, that didn't happen overnight in 1776. There were years, arguably decades, of events leading up to it.
IMO, it is neither correct to say the US isn't or is authoritarian. Incidents occur, it's just a matter of scale and what the trends are. for example, here is an (randomly selected google reference) infamous example of obvious presidential abuse of power, ie "authoritarianism"
h tm l
http://www.dailyrepublican.com/clintoninsulted.
Granted, relatively minor-but not for the victims. Reality and POV change once it ceases being a theory or opinion and becomes a fact that affects someone. I am sure there are any number of millions of similar examples, the vast majority of which are relatively unknown to anyone except the victims and their immediate friends and family. Hmm, the recent story about the lost wallet and the overreaction by armed police and a family dog is an example of "authoritarianism" carried to a harmful degree. Another, ask any relative of a kent state student shot and killed or wounded, their opinion will be different perhaps. It's scale and relativity to any "incident" that would make or break an "absolute" statement.
I would say that it is more correct to say that the US right now isn't "as bad" as those other named countries, not that "they are" and "we aren't", and that "status" can change on a political whim. Right now, codified into law and challenged and upheld in a "court", all of your US alleged "born with" civil rights may be abbrogated if the executive branch classifies you as an "enemy combatant" or as a "terrorist", with no other anything required but their say-so. A "terrorist" by codified definition (one definition) is anyone who destroys governmental property or a contract. That's a rather broad brush, but it's "de law" now. And once identified as such-again, just because "they say so"-you are rather en-screwed. It used to take either a grand jury indictment to do that, with some still remaining "rights", or being caught in the immediate commission of a crime by a sworn officer. This is no longer the case. That's a pretty good example of the "trends" lately into authoritariansim. There's another one I recall, there's a doctor associated with the investigations into the waco case, he's been held without charge for over 5 years now (IIRC), and been under forced drugging. The story is, he was developing and was about to release some rather embarassing evidence. So he (Charles Thomas Sell, D.D.S, just googled for his name) got snatched up a la the gulag with their historical "psychiatric" abuses for "dissidents". The US "court" has ruled this is perfectly "lawful".
hmmmmm
I guess it just depends on where you are standing at any given point in time, and who you are, and what's going on, what "authoritarianism" really is, and whether or not some "state" can be classified as such.
I've lived in Saudi Arabia and Singapore, and anyone who mentions them both in one breath is insane. Saudi Arabia is a society where religious police patrol the streets looking for and beating people who don't go to prayers, who keep their stores open or use pay phones during the 5 daily prayer periods, or who are women and show their ankles or noses. It's a country where government agents hang around in the mosques listening for rabblerousers, who are summarily dragged off for interrogation.
Singapore, on the other hand, is basically what you get if you combine the social conservatism and corporate-centricity of the USA with the ridiculous libel laws of the UK. It's far closer to the USA than it is to Saudi Arabia.
And the big difference is, in Singapore, people want it that way. They have one of the world's highest income levels, they have safety, they have long life and good health, and they have enough freedom not to feel stifled. One of the greatest achievements is that there's basically no sectarian trouble despite significant Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, and Hindu populations all sharing a small and dense space. Any number of polls has turned up time and time again that the vast majority wouldn't change a thing.
Singapore is effectively a one-party state. In part that's because only a minority have wanted change. It's also because the PAP is aggressive in its use of libel action to silence non-member candidates who make too much noise.
Personally, coming from a tradition where freedom of expression is a cherished core social value, I find that uncomfortable. But it doesn't change the fact that it works for Singapore. And it's not the sort of country where people would feel like they couldn't complain to me because they'd get taken away by the secret police.
Anyway, by conflating these - though the material online was too thin to really be able to get to the bottom of their evidence - they seem to elide over the likely fact that the internet's open expression is a far greater threat to a regime like Saudi Arabia, which is unpopular anyway - than to one like Singapore's. Without relatively complacent countries like Singapore and UAE to soften the mix, I doubt their thesis would stand. Additionally, the inclusion of countries like Burma and to some extent Vietnam, where internet is a non-factor in general society, clouds their point further.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
I've had this argument with my wife:
"You are in denial"
"No I'm not"
You are in an authoritarian country that is managing a 250,000,000 person Truman show. Let the record show, I for one have been wondering about this weather.
"All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke
Let the record show, I for one have been wondering about this weather.
Do you think the chemtrail conspiracy theories have any truth to them?
And again in terms of small countries which have embarrassed the US - Vietnam is another example. It's almost beyond belief that a US-funded study would call Vietnam's government authoritarian. What would they call the puppet government they tried to prop up from the 1950's on, where memoes and even Eisenhower's memoirs say the US leaders didn't want an election in Vietnam because they knew the anti-colonialist/imperialist candidates would win? And before that the Western leaders (US, France, England etc.) were trying to keep it a French colony.
I'm tired of having the faults of only the countries who US leadership feels is not to their liking at the moment pointed out. I am an American, but I often think leaders who are criticized in the corporate press (Chavez, Lula) are better people than the ones glossed over. I find more common cause with the working class people like me in these countries than I do with the owners of the press and elite of my own country frankly. As the Bible says, check out the log in your own eye before pointing out the speck in someone else's.
Will the world standardize on English
Or will the world standardize on a simple language with only 120 words?
Will I retire or break 10K?
I'm so glad JonKatz didn't write this, or he would have turned it into the most insufferable mishmosh of buzzword-splattered crap imaginable.
To maintain the living standards of a generation ago with lower pay
Nobody is trying to maintain the living standards of a generation ago. That is because they would be forgoing personal computers, DVD players, compact discs, microwave ovens, cellular telephones, contact lenses, modern automobiles, FM radios, VCRs, video games, cable television, and cheap long-distance phone calls. Everybody wants a higher standard of living than a generation ago.
Face it - the poor are getting richer. Less buys more. Consumer debt comes from the fact that expectations are growing faster than wages, not that purchasing power is lower.
The average inflation-adjusted wage is lower than it was thirty years ago, but the standard of living has risen, even for the poorest.
All employees must wash hands before seeking equitable relief.
That's right, there are several ways to do this. One the most obvious here is to choke it off. Two, regulate content. Three litigate - and yes litigation particularly international law is a weapon of warfare in the 21st century. Four pick your truth, this is the corporate option. Don't lie, just limit what you tell the truth about.
I'm not shocked that the mindless radicals here make obligatory statements about the US "wahtaboutda US !!!" But if you think there is oppression here then you faux Che wannabess really have to live in a poor country. I have and it deeply and truly sux, there is no comparison.
Political changes are generational things. In the United States, the civil rights act was passed in the mid-60's, and real change in the South is just happening now, as this comment is being read. In this particular case, it had to wait for the diehard bigots in congress and in the electorate to die off. Freedom in the Soviet Union took a similar change of leadership, over a similar length of time.
There are two general cases that need to be considered, those being "rich" countries and "poor" countries. In those countries where sizeable chunks of the population are starving, changes of politics are quite secondary to the average citizen (though perhaps they should not be, in the long run). Adlai Stevenson expressed it well when he said, "A Hungry Man is not a Free Man." These people have no time to be interested in the internet, though even here, the internet will make changes over the long haul.
In countries where hunger is not the primary motivating force, changes will come faster. One can see the ripples even now -- spend some time in Hong Kong and look around. In some of the most repressive theocracies on the planet, voices for change are being raised, and one of the primary ways we know about them is through the internet.
Have patience; revolutions that happen overnight tend to be accompanied by copious quantities of blood. With any luck, things in many of these places may happen as they did in the Soviet Union. One day, we may wake up and notice that tyrants are becoming yet another endangered species.
Don't take life too seriously; it isn't permanent.
You have two choices when it comes to your freedom: you defend it or let it be taken away. The Internet will not destroy the PRC and end the Chinese gulags, prison labor system, etc. Guns will. The PRC will probably go to war with the US and most of Asia over Taiwan, the PRC will in the end get it's ass roasted by the immensely better equipped, trained and more dedicated ROK, ROC and USA militaries. In the end it will be an armed coup by Chinese Liberals that brings about the end of the tyrannical PRC. That's just an example. You can apply that to any country listed here. When the government has a lot of armed thugs ready to kill civilians who say no you don't beat them by posting your discontent online, you win by getting your gun and ammo and banning together with like minded people. Yes, I am a "gun nut." I don't believe in banning or restricting anything short of a M60 or grenade launcher.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
40% will be first posts
"We have got to make Stan understand the importance of voting, because he'll definitely vote for our guy." - South Park
While it's all too chic right now to bag on the US and the UK for their positions on the upcoming war on Iraq, the Patriot Act, and other debatable topics, I hope everyone takes a deep breath and realizes that the very fact that we are debating these topics proves the openness of these societies.
And I ask, what are we talking about, Openness, ala Glasnost, or Authoritarinaism? Let's all go to the article for a definition:
When elections and legal opposition parties are present but elections are rigged, rules are manipulated, or power is wielded so that there is no real competition for elected office, the political regime is best described as semi-authoritarian...
I suppose the competition in the US and the UK between two eternal and indistiguishable parties makes a choice. In theory an elected person can make a difference too. All you have to do is convince people that you are correct by presenting proper facts to back your opinions. Hmmm, how to get past the government/industry controled mass media that can twist anything anyone ever said or did Could it be that the internet can provide that alternate less controled route of truth in public debate? Or will the internet just get bowled over by established interests and become another outlet of bullshit?
Let's see, using the Clinton sex scandal as an example. Do you remember anything more than the name Monica Lewenski? The name you should remember but will have a hard time finding in print is Paula Jones, the real story sunk under a cartoon of an old man screwing a willing but mentally unstable intern. I take an excellent serries of articles from Vanity Fair and the New York Times as my baseline of, "the truth.": Jones was assulted in a hotel shortly after taking a job , repeatedly harrased, denied promotion and bothered. Later, the American Spectator published and article claiming she had consentual sex with her accoster. She appeared in public presuring him for an appology and a retraction, which were never recieved. Her cause was taken up by others who wished to damage Clinton's political credibility and punish a real wrong. A case was built up showing a patern of behavior of Clinton towards women who worked for under his authority. Clinton's efforts to quash the investigation included payoffs and perjury. The purgury was caught on tape and the whole thing led to impechement which failed to remove Clinton from office. A little google searching finds mostly BS, much like the stuff shoveled out by the AP and networks at the time: the Lewinski Cartoon.
First the searches
Now what you see:
While the details are there, it seems obvious that those details are still difficult to find, even for a relatively informed person. Despite the best efforts of Google and others to organize and present valid and useful information, it seems that the internet can be manipulated by simple flood. Other facts, which draw less public attention, are easier to obscure and burry.
The idea that internet will defeat tyrany is preffaced on the simple fact that tyranies support themselves with lies and lose all foundation and support when the truth is known and repeated. The internet may yet be able to provide the truth with a forum, but it can be discredited, drowned and otherwise removed even in relatively free situations. Here in the US, the internet is under attack and the attackers have the government's blessing. As you and my ability to connect to the internet as peers goes away, the likelyhood of impartial third party reporting goes. This is happening, despite the internet and few people care.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Er, what exactly did you check? They are indeed related or else there would be no point in being ethical.
Wow. Talk about a big tent. Of the groups you mention that were even contemporary with each other, many have disagreed, some violently.
For example, guess who was the main opponent of "rabid abolitionism" in the 1840s and 1850s? The answer: the Democratic party, also known as the "anti-Federalists". The "Federalists" (resurrected as the Whig party) were the ones who tended either to anti-slavery (in the North) or, at least, compromise (in the South). And when the Whig party self-destructed, we all know who took their place: the Republican party, who finally brought slavery to an end.
As usual, the "us vs. them" mentality gets it wrong. When people disagree with us, they are not our enemies; we simply disagree, and strive to get the people behind our view instead of theirs. Political subversion is sexy, but no one wants a political subversive in power, not even you; they tend to be very poor leaders because their paranoia tends to get in the way.
I live in Singapore (though I'm not a citizen), and sure, they have a lot of strange laws (importing chewing gum is illegal, you can't spit in the streets and blah blah) it's not at all illegal to critizise the government, and even if the same party has won the elections for the last 38 years, Singapore IS (now) a democracy (the oposition got around 40% last election if I'm not mistaken). You really notice this around national day, when people who don't like the current government happily tell you about how crappy everything is :)
And anyway, no-one really cares about the no spitting/eating-drinking/chewing gum/jaywalking-laws you hear so much about. If you eat a burger on the MRT (supposed to give you a $500 fine) the worst thing that actually happens is that they put a message on the speakers saying "eating and drinking is not allowed on the stations and trains". And if you only knew the spitting habits of the chinese... It's fucking gross, you sometimes wish they DID punish people for it ;)
Same thing in Hong Kong by the way, now part of China. A lot of people don't like china one bit and are not at all afraid to talk about it...
You would be better off with something along the lines of: First they came for the mathematicians who thought up the algorithm. Then they came for the coders who implemented it. Then they came for the guy who linked to it via his website. Then they came for me, the user -- and there was no-one left to speak for me.
The subject line says it all. Apparently the author, unable to think in spans of longer than ten years, concludes that the internet isn't a tool for freedom because every oppressive regime that doesn't have at least one internet-connected computer hasn't collapsed on itself already.
The internet isn't a violently intrusive tool. If it does contribute to the downfall to repression it'll do so slowly and insidiously, over the course of decades. Since most nations of the world had either no connection or a negligible connection to the internet back in '93, no conclusion can reasonably be reached as to its effect.
The book is bullshit, pure and simple. No one is in a position to say much of anything on the topic, and won't be for at least another 20 or 30 years.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
Big Brother is watched by you!
The authors encourage policy makers in the U.S. and other industrialized democracies to promote specific Internet-based initiatives that foster political liberalization, rather than perpetuating the myth of the Internet as an unstoppable "virus of freedom".
The internet is an 'unstoppable "virus of freedom"'.
I can say fuck you and doesn't matter who is reading. This is what I want to express right now, without your intervention. Freedom? I've got plenty in cyberspace. Much more freedon than in the "real world".
In the RW democracy works, but the internet isn't a society. The internet doesn't intend to organize the chaos which you live in, instead, it shows you more and more chaos.
Such disturbed enviroment can not be "political".
Having read the article thoroughly, this startling news shows the flaws in the brewing Open Source Zeitgeist that is gripping the software community. Have you considered that providing software for free to countries such as China is essentially tacit support for oppressive regimes?
Far-fetched? Think about it: With MySQL, the People's Army will now be able to do multiple queries on their tables of democratic activists in Olog(n) time instead of lengthy searches in card catalogs. The bureaucratic overhead previously allowed activists enough time to flee the country. How about building cheap firewalls so the people can't get the unbiased reporting that CNN provides? Or using Apache to publish lists of Falun Gong people to their police forces instantly? I doubt that never crossed your minds when you were coding away in your parents' basements. Consider putting that little thought in your mental resolv.conf file.
If that does not concern you ( which it probably doesn't, since the lashout.org paradigm is publishing articles about how not to pay for things ), consider something else. When China eventually goes to war with Taiwan, we want to be able turn their command and control facilities into the computing equivalent of a train-wreck. One of the advantages of Windows never mentioned in the article is the ability of Microsoft to remotely deactivate Windows XP in the case of a national emergency. Thanks to GNU/Lunix, Taiwan will be on a collision course with the mainland in the near future.
Which throws into question Mr. Stallman's motives. A known proponent of socialism, the Chinese government and RMS are natural allies. Could it be a back door to Stallman's dream of an über-Socialist United States? We may never know for sure. Next time you consider contributing to an open source project, ask yourself this question: don't you want to make sure your work isn't used for nefarious purposes? Will you risk having blood on your hands?
Want some gum?
I can see the point your making, but it's important to remember that gum per se is not banned in Singapore. Only the sale of gum is and even that saw some last minute legal loopholes assigned to it during the recent US-Singapore trade talks. (Wasn't too bothered about the details; perhaps a Singaporean can fill in here)
But about the parent's point about Singaporeans wanting it that way. Actually in most multi-party democracies, the incumbent government is more likely to retain its power rather than lose it. (India is one notable exception of course, reason being its political diversity). So, I'd say it's more to do with, what I call as 'political inertia' and a lack of viable alternatives to the incumbent rather than Singaporeans "wanting it that way". The vast majority of any population, you'd have to remember, is usually politically neutral, preferring to get on with life rather than give in to ideology.
The rest of the parent's comment is spot-on of course. I've been to Iran (which presumably has the same, or more amount of authoritarianism as Saudi Arabia) and to Singapore, and yes, the two are not in the same league. Much of the Singaporean government's authority stems from a largely paternalistic attitude that both the government and the public at large seem to play along with. It's not quite written in stone although fear of the government is, arguably, perceptable.
Conformity in Saudi Arabia and Iran, OTOH, is largely through the Moral Police and its legal system.
More than mere navel gazing.
U.S. oil companies will get to drill only if the new government lets them, which would probably be decided years after the new government is established.
Furthermore, the U.S. DOESN'T NEED Iraqi oil, and it is fucking ridiculous to make these stupid claims like you have made. The U.S. gets less than half as much oil from the Middle East as any European country. I could make the claim that EU politicians that are against war in Iraq are against it because they get cheap oil from Iraq with the food for oil program, much moreso than the U.S. does. Perhaps they are affraid of that going away!
The U.S. has very little to gain from war with Iraq, except the extermination of a dictator who tried to assasinate a former U.S. president.
Do I support war with Iraq? You bet! Why? To give the people of Iraq freedom! No other reason is there that I care about.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Man, I thought your message was great. It summarizes the Imperialistic view of US. I am powerful. They are not, but they can get nuclear devices and blackmail me. I will not let that happen or the other countries will find out that I am just a bully ( though a very strong one ). So I'll beat them to a pulp while I can and give their riches (oil) to my friends or to ones I can control.
On a second thought, I can't say exactly what I am thinking, so I will say that I am doing that to save those poor souls that live in that country, even though I'll forget about them the minute I overthrow their ruler.
And I am saying this as someone who has spent a great deal of money fighting these things, and who believes the future of the American economy depends on fighting these things.
But comparing the U.S. to totalitarian regimes is absolutely ridiculous.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
That was my idea, they stole it! Except my premise was backwards: the networks are closed like the governments.
Wherever you go, there you are!
I used to think that propaganda was limited to totalitarian regimes and not applied *here*, but this is not the case. The recent events in North Korea have have started a propaganda machine here in North America that is ridiculous: we see marching military parades, weapons, rockets fired (presumably able to carry nuclear warheads), people chanting for their leader with closed fists in a Hitler-style "heil". I am sure that these shots are not fake, yet they don't tell the whole story, and hence lead to *misinformation* due to it's sneaky censorship.
Remember how South Korea was portrayed during the World Cup in Soccer last summer? Culture, food, dance... Quite different from the current stream of one-sided information. The Koreans (both South and North) still consider themselves one people, although they are politically split, and I can understand very well why they're pissed at the US propaganda of recent weeks.
If you are't ethical, then you wont have any power, and will eventually die. It is ethical behavior that brings power.
No I am not contradicting myself. If I was arguing that the subjects of those in power were particularly ethical then I would be. Also you seem to be equating wealth and power. The lack of ethics of people below is the only reason these people are in power. Becasue of this their power is tenuous at best.
Severe laws do not produce a peaceful society.
The U.S. has not acquired any land since Hawaii was added as a state almost half a century ago, and that was just a few volcanic islands in the middle of nowhere.
Now, let's tackle the second part of the definition. There are two kinds of influence that the U.S. has on the world: intentional and unintentional. I propose that the "imperialistic" actions you perceive are mostly the result of unintentional influence.
The U.S. never set out to be World Cop. This is the key to understanding that the U.S. is not imperialistic. Newsflash: Big things influence little things. That's the natural order of things. Big stars radiate more light and heat (in general) than small stars. Big planets have more gravity than small planets. The effects are not "intended" to be good or bad. The U.S. is simply the 20-pound catfish in a fish tank of minnows and can't help but affect and influence almost everything that goes on. You throw a boulder in a pond and it causes ripples over the whole pond. The boulder isn't trying to take over the pond; it just has natural, benevolent (yet big and possibly harmful) effects on its environment.
But besides the fact that the U.S. can't suppress its natural influence, the world has essentially told it that it has a responsibility to influence and shape the world for good, because it is the only superpower left. The U.S. tries to do what's best, but whenever it talks about doing something, it's dammed if it does and it's damned if it doesn't. There's no way it can satisfy all the hundreds of countries in the world. It would go crazy if it tried. Just look at the U.N., a bureaucratic monster paralyzed because it has 191 members and as many different agendas.
It's natural for some of the minnows to be spiteful of the Big Fish. It's like the people who hate Microsoft (richest software co.), Red Hat (biggest Linux co.), AOL (biggest ISP), Bill Gates (richest man), Israel (most prosperous Middle East country), NY (most prestigious state), and Time Warner et al (biggest media co.). Some of this disdain is well-founded IMHO. But why not sit down and consider the GOOD effects that some of these entities have had and are having? The U.S. has failed and stumbled many times, but I believe that it has positively influenced the world more times and in greater ways than any of us will ever know.
The U.S. has not acquired any land since Hawaii was added as a state almost half a century ago, and that was just a few volcanic islands in the middle of nowhere.
After first obliterating the islands' government. Following a model China (somewhat sucessfully) and Iraq (without sucess) attempted to emulate. The US has also tried several times to turn Puerto Rico into a US state, absolutly no chance of it becoming an independent country.
As I understand it (and I haven't really studied it so I could be wrong), this was mostly an unintentional consequence of the huge influx of American immigrants. Quite simply, the ratio of Americans to native Hawaiians was so huge, that it was just inevitable that it would become a U.S. state.
I'm curious. I'd like to ask an old Hawaiian: Are you better off now than you were 50 years ago? Hawaii has more and higher paying jobs, more technology, higher per capita, better roads, better transportation (airports, boats), better weather forecasting (important for such secluded islands), better seismography, and all the constitutional rights, freedoms, and privileges that go along with being a part of the free-est and most powerful nation on earth.
The US has also tried several times to turn Puerto Rico into a US state, absolutly no chance of it becoming an independent country.
I don't think Puerto Rico wants to become an indepedent country. You see, the U.S. is letting their citizens leech on itself. Puerto Ricans can get some of the benefits of U.S. citizenship (social security I think, among other things) without having to pay taxes. AFAIK, they have no incentive to become an independent country. Dependence is too comfy.
As I understand it (and I haven't really studied it so I could be wrong), this was mostly an unintentional consequence of the huge influx of American immigrants. Quite simply, the ratio of Americans to native Hawaiians was so huge, that it was just inevitable that it would become a U.S. state.
Very similar to the way in which China treats Tibet... Anyway had the US complied with it's treaty obligations this would have been irrelevent.
I'm curious. I'd like to ask an old Hawaiian: Are you better off now than you were 50 years ago? Hawaii has more and higher paying jobs, more technology, higher per capita, better roads, better transportation (airports, boats), better weather forecasting (important for such secluded islands), better seismography,
What makes you think they wouldn't have achived this on their own? The Hawaiian Kingdom was doing perfectly well as a modern country before the US decided to take over.
and all the constitutional rights, freedoms, and privileges that go along with being a part of the free-est and most powerful nation on earth.
Considering that the Hawaiian Contitution grants more or less the same rights and freedoms as the US Consitution there is hardly anything to gain. In the process Hawaiian citizens lost the ability to self govern and the international community lost a valued member.