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RIAA/MPAA vs. xMule Author, EarthStation 5
Two bits of news in the ongoing battle between the RIAA/MPAA and the rest of the internet: One P2P company, apparently based in Palestine, has thrown down the gauntlet to the movie industry. Meanwhile, a developer of another P2P tool who unwisely chose to live in the USA has been shut down (mirror) by the RIAA.
Here's the full text of the article, to hopefully stem some of that tide.
0x0D 0x0A
Portable MP3/Ogg players get better every year. While I was searching the internet for a suitable present to give my SO, I have considered purchasing an iPod for my SO, what brought it to my attention was that it costs the same as a Ruger .357. Both are lovely little pieces of engineering although with a bit of thought I realised both are bad things, instead I decided to put down my first down payment on a BMW X5. Back to the iPod, is this device legal? Will those of us who use it bring the wrath of the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) down on our heads like a corporate version of Maxwell's Silver Hammer?
Music is a creative process. Today, when a musician publishes music, i.e., exposes it to the outside world, only a privileged set of individuals are able to use the music as they please (RIAA). However, the artist has drawn from the creativity of many other musicians and there is an existential responsibility placed upon them to give this back unconditionally, so creativity is fostered among people. This is why peoples using music how they like is imperative.
Consider: RIAA-bought legislators are trying to get insane bills made into law. Whether or not they succeed, there are plenty of confusing copyright protection regulations out there already, and the latest tactic the music industry is using in its attempt to slow the death of their obsolete business model is to target individual users, not just commercial CD duplicators or large-scale file-sharing networks.
There seems to be this big RIAA push to outlaw all devices that facilitate file copying. Computer operating systems, for example, all have ways to copy files, and all those new little USB memory devices are certainly handy places to stash files and give you an easy way to move them from one computer to another, even if neither computer is hooked to the Internet or a LAN.
And then there's that MP3/Ogg player. My SO has many years' worth of legally-purchased CDs, and loves the idea of being able to transfer the music on them to a small solid-state device instead of using a portable CD player and lugging stacks of CDs everywhere. But would my Stevie suddenly become a criminal if he started ripping all his CDs?
Apparently not. Yet. It seems the recording industry powers-that-be haven't gotten around to suing customers who transfer music (that they've paid for) from one medium to another to make personal use more convenient. But will this largesse on their part continue? Could my SO be at the beach one day and find himself tossed in the back of a police car if he has music in his possession for which he has no receipt on his person?
(Yes, this is one of those "slippery slope" arguments, and the idea of an innocent music fan getting arrested is as farfetched as the ideas of copyright terms getting extended by Congress every time Disney?s copyright on Mickey Mouse is due to expire.)
But it looks like the RIAA is now going after music fans who share as few as five songs with friends over the Internet.
What if my SO hands his headphones to a young friend who may not have heard a piece of 'classic rock' he enjoys? What if he shares five songs with ten friends at a party? What if he makes a compilation CD full of MP3 or Ogg Vorbis files for a friend by using a 'copyright circumvention device' like, say, his laptop computer? So far, the nasty old Internet hasn't come into play. But if my SO emails those same files to a few friends, is he suddenly a pirate?
I have given up trying to sort out all this music filesharing stuff. The only 100% safe solution I've come up with is to avoid owning any music whatsoever produced by RIAA member companies. If you look around a little, you can find plenty of interesting pieces, in almost all genres, sold directly by the artists or by small recording companies that aren't trying to make trouble for their customers.
Hopefully you'll take similar steps yourself to eliminate the risk of being arrested by the FBI or other law enf
There is no god
"Earthstation 5 is at war with the Motion Picture Association of America
(MPAA) and the Record Association of America (RIAA),"
IMHO Earthstaion 5 hasnt declared war,
they are formalising it, the war has
been on for years now.
I dont suport ppl braking copyright laws,
but i hate companys that dont allow
there arhived copyrighted matrial to be
bought...
what is the point of having copyright and
sueing left right and center and yet not
makeing it avaible for purches at a resonable
price..
some companys out there want top $ for
products 20+ years old, even anchent
computer games and the like, it sickens me.
You have 5 Moderator Points!
Which Helpless Linux zealot/MS basher do you want to mod down today?
Most countries are signatories to one or more copyright treaties that commit them to recognizing and protecting international copyrights. They are therefore more or less prohibited from allowing the explicit breach of copyright declared in this PR release.
But who is responsible for enforcing copyright in an occupied country? Palestine has been recognized by the UN as an occupied territory, with Israel as the occupying power. With little real power, is the Palestinian Authority still supposed to enforce copyright restrictions? Or is that for Israel to do?
The same situation would apply, I assume, in Iraq. America is the occupying power, so I would think the same criteria should apply as in the Israel/Palestine situation. There is no true Iraqi government to enforce copyright, but on the other hand it seems a bit absurd to think that American laws should govern Iraq.
Interesting situation....
I am concerned about any program, any piece of hardware, any treaty, any law that treats me as a consumer, not a citizen
Their company page (http://www.es5.com/company.html) says:
"Our group is made up of many people, Jordanians, Palestinians, Indians, Americans, Russians and Israelis. Some of us are Jewish, some Christians, some Hindus and other of us are Muslim.
Believe it or not, we all love and respect each other.
We all work and play together. Our families on many occasions eat at the same dinner table. We trust each other and are very close friends with each other. As a group, the most important thing in our life is our children, our families and love ones and of course our friends. "
IMO The Earthstation 5 dudes are pretty arogant and naive to to think that their foreign location prevents the RIAA from taking action. Since they are in Palestine and outside the US borders, I would imagine that the RIAA has a carte blanch to unleash mercenary hackers/crackers upon their servers. I really doubt the Israeli gov't will do anything to protect them.
And now that I think about it...Israeli-US relations...bulldozers...the apache strike-helicopters are probably powering up even as I write this.
Provided this whole thing isn't some kind of hoax of course.
Other then that, I haven't bought cds since 2001 (And those were just second-hand jazz cds). I have all the music I want, and none of the new music is very interesting. Oh, except for Ben Verdery (really cool guitar), but that isn't RIAA owned, he's independant.
I'm not a speaker, but AFAIK "Ras Kabir" is arabic for "large head"
definately a pseudonym.
What's more, with the fighting in the west-bank over the last two years,
I doubt that people there had time to run any OS project, let alone one with "15 million active online users" cocurently. Especially entertainment-oriented.
This "declaration of war" is probably a hoax, and I wouldn't be surprized if kooky conspiracy-theories actually turn-out true in this case
(BTW, I'm not much of a speaker, but AFAIK "Ras Kabir" is arabic for "large head" definately a bad pseudonym )
Working for necessity's mother.
The crap that the MPAA/RIAA put out in the last couple of years. I'm all for rewarding good film-making, but I want my money back for the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. I'd like my time back too, but since no one has found a way to re-imburse time...
Seriously, I've been taken in by too many 'previews' of movies, thought 'this looks good', gone to see it, then wished I had not. Feels like I'm getting conned half the time. I'll buy DVDs, I'll pay to see good movies, but since I can't actually see a movie before I pay for it (unless I 'aquire it') what choice do I have?
None, and that's exactly what the MPAA wants. Text message that.
All the people who say "Don't buy CDs or go to the Cinema etc" are fooling themselves, the more they don't spend on the industry they are just proving the Record/Movie association right!
I still buy CDs/DVDs and goto the Cinema, why they hell wouldn't I? watching a Film at home isn't the same as the Flicks, I don't care what TV you have. When LOTR Two Towers came out my and 15 of my mates went to see it at the Odeon London Leicester Square (Biggest Screen in the UK) Us and the other 2000 where in that screen, man, what an experience.
The Industry will learn that they can still make good sales with P2P if they just lower their price, not shut down the networks. I've downloaded moveis that I would NEVER buy, I wouldn't have bought them even before P2P was around, so the RIAA or whatever can't claim that for every movie we download they are losing that much money, cause thats a stupid statement, are they saying that in my house (5 students) we would have spent like 10000 on movies?!?!?! yeah get real. Don't deprive yourself to prove a point that's counter-productive
I spent ages trying to think of sig, but never did
Hrmmmm. From your sig " I'm gonna drink 'till I reboot! - Bender, Futurama" I would also have to add that given the media consolidation happening with large corporations owning music, movie, television, newspaper and internet companies, you might have to swear off your Futurama as well.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Not that I'd de-advocating this sort of stance. I'd really prefer that my money not go to these money-grubbing [NAUGHTYS].
But think on this for a second. These idiots don't even have a NODDING acquaintence with common sense, or even REALITY. All they'll see, and yammer about, when sales plummet is "It's filesharing!" "It's texting!" "It's freedom of speech!"
No matter what, they're utterly incapable of believing tha that their sales dropoffs are actually due to:
Need I go on?
In short, no matter what people do, or do not, buy, the likes of the MPAA and the RIAA will merely blame-shift so they don't have to accept responsibility for their own [NAUGHTY]-ups.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
1. Wonderful press release, kick the MPAA/RIAA where it hurts.
2. Web site not slashdotted.
3. 40kb/sec download of the software. Exactly what kind of net pipes do they have running into Jenin? Maybe download.es5.com is located somewhere else...
4. None of this "we're just technology providers" bullshit. No, this is theftware at its best. Hey, the US has paid billions to help the Israeli state bomb the Palestinians into the stone age, it's not surprising there is not huge local support for US "intellectual property".
The software was apparently developed in Russia, financed by Arab and Israeli businessmen. It appears to use UDP rather than TCP/IP, which is a neat idea when you are sending redundant chunks of information around, and SSL for security, which may or may not be really secure.
The whole thing may be a hoax, I am downloading it to a test machine to try right now.
At last, someone with the guts to sock it to those bums at the MPAA and RIAA. Yeah!!
Ceci n'est pas une signature
Lives are arguably not profitable. Copyright is.
E5? First of all there is P2P software that is made by Israelis like iMesh and SoulSeek.
Second, E5 seems like a hoax, Ras Kabir? It means Big Head if i'm not mistaken, not quite your regular Palestinian name. So it is a nick/pseudonim, fine, but all these absurd press releases about P2P software and wars on RIAA make it seem a little funny. Has anyone tried the E5 software? Does it do what they say, or is it just another Kazaa Lite?
I'm afraid to try it because I'm running Windows, and you know what might happen if you take software from strangers...
Hey! Stop telling the truth! We all want to stay in our happy little LaLaLand!
...Yes, Hollywood DOES have the right to make money. ...
No they don't. They have the right to TRY to make money by making movies that people want to see. They have no right to expect a profit if they make crap, no matter how much they spend making the crap.
This is getting more and more ridiculous, now we get supoenad *before* anything happens. What the heck happened to 'innocent until proven otherwise'?
Let me ask you something; how can we call the US the 'free capital of the world', or 'a place where personal freedom thrive' when one can be pretty much condemned because of the connontations and possible uses that the piece of software one wrote *might* have?
Who are we as individuals when we support and raise our stand to *free the world of tyrans* overseas, when we let this type of things happen @ home? Yes, I know. Two totally different things. The consequences of having a tyran as a ruler are definitely not the same than having a corrupt and money driven institution that proposes and passes laws; but the underlying principle is the same. Freedom, of any kind.
It saddens me as a developer that you can't even deign to write a P2P add without the assumption that it will be used for sharing copyrighted materials and thus shut down by the RIAA/MPAA.
/. Boycotts are simply too small to have ANY effect at all.
Newsflash: most P2P file-transfer apps are used for copyright infringement. Blame the users and Napster--but you still have to live with it.
(Oh, and if you are just working on P2P, take anonymnity out of the picture and RIAA will probably leave you alone. P2P isn't bad, but anonymous P2P is almost certinaly so.)
I urge everyone reading this to be very diligent in your boycott of buying new music or going to see movies.
Bah. If I care about how the law is going, I'll write a letter.
A really good buy/sell secondhand site is www.secondspin.com
( I know, shameless plug. )
Used CDs:
a) Are cheaper
b) Don't send money to the RIAA
I haven't bought a new CD in many years. I have bought used though.
half.com rocks.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Well, if it should be illegal to just think about using or creating p2p software because it can be used for illegal actions, shouldnt that apply to other areas as well or not at all?
I would presume that you can use a gun to do things that are much worse than what you ever could achieve with Kazaa (RIAA might disagree)..
Then again, while we are at it: you could speed in a car, or drive drunk and kill somebody.
Point being the obvious: I dont care if piratism is illegal, it should be, its just that today its easier to pirate music than to buy it, so, it is pirated. The fault for that lies with the industry, but its still not justifying piratism.
But: Dont illegalize tools that may be used for both good and bad, they are only tool, and as I said, I can think of things much worse and harmful than a p2p application..
Still, an UDP based network requires known servers or points of contact. Even if those change, they're still targets that can be traced and attacked. ES5 is a step in the right direction towards anonymous file sharing, but it's not quite there yet.
Does everything include nothing?
They are anti-establishment. Their software is the epitome of ideals held by hackers everywhere.
From the article:Earthstation 5 also has a FREE multi-user Voice and Video chat system,
FREE Dating system, provides FREE video streaming of first run movies, FREE
ten SEX channels, FREE live Sporting events, and will be releasing soon a
Voice over IP application providing FREE local and international telephone
calls to its users to communicate with each other.
They are attacking the old bricks-and-mortar businesses, in an attempt to force them to change their ancient business practices. And good for them! Information wants to be free, but content doesn't have to be. These companies had better start releasing their music/movies/services to the unwashed masses in a proper and timely manner or people are going to do it for them.
Is anyone else paranoid enough to envision ES5 as a front set up to download clandestine malicious programs to the boxes pulling down the files from their site?
/paranoid
I'm no fan of the MPAA, or the Israli Government, and I don't want to add fuel to their arguments to shut down P2P, but, doesn't anyone worry about connecting to a renegade server in Palestine? Doesn't it seem too easy?
"Creativity is allowing ones self to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep" - Scott Adams
Just for your personal reference: There is no such country as Palestine. Sorry. It's nowhere on the map. The country to which you are referring is called Israel.
That's what happens when 2 groups of people argue over imaginary friends.
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
For the "sake of curiousity" I decided that I wanted to check this site out. Particularly the claim of providing first-run movies (I'm not interested in wasting my money on The Hulk...hey I got the text page telling me it sucks, remember?). I don't know if it's the bandwidth constraints of refugee camps or the serious slashdotting but the movie stop for two minutes of buffering just about every 20 seconds.
u lk-384.wmv" , Target = "")
Frustrated, I whipped out my trusty copy of ASFRecorder. Imagine my surprise when it failed to connect! First time that has ever happened to me. So I whipped out my trusty backup copy of ASFRecorder that was recompiled with a Windows Media Player User-Agent string. That didn't work either! This was bizarre. I'm watching the video play right now (albeit poorly) in WMP but ASFRecorder with the exact same user agent is getting connection closed. I try HiDownload, again, failed, even with the same agent string! What is going on here?
The entire thing is SWF based so I download an evaluation copy of SWF Scanner and decide to see what URL I'm actually going to. Low and behold, what is this?
on (unLoad) {Get URL("mms://stream.es5.com:1755/es5/movies/The%20H
What the hell is with that blank "target" paramenter? Can anyone explain that? I have a feeling that is the problem. ASFRecorder only takes a URL, there is no place to specify a target. Ditto for HiDownloader and Windows Media Player. I confirmed that if I type the stream location into Media Player, it fails to connect. But, if I make an ASX file that links to the stream and includes the blank "target" parameter, it works!
Okay, now it's gone beyond trying to see if The Hulk is really as crappy as everyone says. This is a mystery, and I'm hoping someone here can figure it out.
In short, streaming file plays in Windows Media Player but it seems impossible to capture this stream using any of the tools available. Is there a solution? And why would these boneheads at war with the RIAA/MPAA bother to sabatoge downloads to begin with?
- JoeShmoe
.
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
I can't help but to wonder what their policy would be on locally (as in Palistinian/Israli) produced content, and how ES5 is percieved by those in the entertainment industry over there. Do they support it, believing it will help spread their product to a greater audience, or are they also against it, believing it will stifle their efforts?
I've been boycotting the music industry since 1996, not because of the RIAA, but because I don't care about music enough to buy it
That's not a boycott. That is just you making a choice. It is the same as me, a non-smoker, saying I have boycotted the tobacco industry. If you're not in the market and you don't buy then it is not really a boycott is it.
We can argue all day that the music industry sucks and the bands all suck but when the bands sell out concert venues in 30 minutes then someone must like them. But why aren't their CD's selling? In 1983 I'd pay full price for a Billy Squire tape for a couple good songs. In 2003 I don't have to. Is P2P to blame? Hell yes. It might be hard to prove using sales figures. You can't look at a pile of receipts and figure out why there are more or less but when you look around at the popularity of P2P, the volume of files online, and the volume of comments HERE and other places as to why people trade there is your proof that P2P is hurting the industry.
This post will probably be modded as troll or flamebait but it is pretty close to the truth.
'Same speed C but faster'
The RIAA is trying to kill the first sale principle so they can collect royalties each time a CD is resold. They have enlisted Garth Brooks as a high profile spokesman for this unholy crusade. To him, I say, "Sorry Garth, that would be giving you and the label way too much control. You are not being robbed because you were paid the first time. Get over yourself, you pretentious twit!"
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
Has anyone seen the source code of this? How do we know that it isn't a trojan, and thay the whole thing isn't an attempt to gain control of a portion of the world IT infrastructure?
Thats right, their web site says they are a group of multinationals, and all good friends. Its a good thing you can trust everything you read on the net...
Now, I agree that his situation sucks. But when practically all your own life depends on an internet connection, how come you don't have some safeguards in place, like a second connection, even if it's a modem one?
My work isn't online, but here I have 4 computers, an UPS, and another one that I'll buy because I'm running out of capacity. I can also dig out my old modem if I ever need. If you depend so much on something, you have to take some care and make sure that you won't lose money while you look for some place that still sells AT supplies, or something like that.
They have a sales contact listed on their website but what are they selling?
How can they afford to give away FREE everything with no Ads or Spyware? What is the catch?
Please don't tell me that not everything is about money because it is.
- SR
I'm downloading it now, going to run it under virtual PC (which I could care less if it trashes the fake test "PC" I use to try out stuff that might have worms or viruses) and see how it works. I'll see if their claims of the IP being untracable are valid as well. If they are using a central server, then it could be, but then that gives them a central place to shut down.
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
Also, you do realise that violent crime in your country has dropped year on year in the last 10 years? So why exactly do you need all this weaponry?
I could care less about having a gun for my personal civil protection. The chances of me getting to a firearm before a criminal shot me are next to nothing. But the fact of the matter is, we don't trust our Government. That's why America was founded with so many checks and balances; one of which being the people shrugging off a tyrannical government. I believe it was either Jefferson or Washington who said that it was essential for a people to revolt every so often so as to keep the government clean and honest. I don't know that I necessarily agree with that, but the truth is, we want to have the ability to protect our rights (if it ever came down to it.)
That is why I believe in the 2nd amendment. I don't care that it's a sport, I don't care that it "protects" people from criminals (which I don't believe justifies the many more deaths as a result of illegal gun violence each year). I just want to make sure that, if it ever came down to it, I, or my children, or my children's children would have the means to do what they need to do if the situation were to call for it. I don't mind gun control. I'll lock my guns up in 3 safes and bury them if I have to. But I want to have access to a firearm if it were needed.
Paranoid? Probably. But I'd rather be safe than sorry. Like someone else stated: I value my liberty over security. The Patriot Act, gun banning, etc, etc, while potentially keeping me safer draw perilously close to trading my freedoms for a little more "safety".
I'd rather be free and fighting (or dead) than safe and a slave.
...with his visit to the Al Aqsa Mosque. And he's fighting it with my tax dollars, killing Palestinians and Americans like Rachel Corrie.
Someday there'll be a US administration that doesn't blindly follow Israeli fundamentalists and their ethnic cleansing agenda ("Israel as a Jewish state"). When that happens, right-wing Israelis will regret their past irresponsibility. I, for one, can't wait.
People don't download the crap. They don't even download the good stuff to avoid getting crap. They download to avoid paying.
It has nothing to do with not paying and everything to do with convenience. It is simply more convienient to spend a day downloading a movie than it is to go buy a DVD for $20 at a store. Rather than trying to sue everybody (which wont work) they should make their offerings better than what you can download for "free" (nothing is free unless your time is worthless). Make the downloads reasonably priced, with guaranteed quality and reliablilty, and you won't lose that much to p2p. Maybe Apple should open another iTMS: iTunes Movie Store.
Agreed, I really wish the government would give up the crusade against tobacco companies. As far as I see it, let the stupid people kill themselves. It gets them out of the job market and reduces overcrowding. Of course, the other part of that needs to be that, if you get cancer from smoking (e.g. you are a smoker and get lung/throat cancer) you are denied any sort of socialized medical care, you decided to run the risk, I don't need to be paying for your bad choice.
Along these same line, I would like to see "drugs" legalized, including hard drugs like heroin and cocaine. Start selling them cheaply, and let people overdose themselves.
My personal view on it is, this is just a bit of chlorine in the gene pool.
And for those who are wondering, no this is not meant to be sarcastic, I really do believe in letting people kill themselves in new and intersting ways.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
CD's don't always cost about $20. Sure, I can go to the record store in the mall and pay that or and I can go to places like Target, Borders, Best Buy, etc and pay $3-$7 less for the same CD, maybe even less online. I don't see that as the industry sticking it to the customer. There are other factors involved there. Consumers need to be smarter. Not all stores sell at list price. Don't pay $20 for a CD that you can get for $14 down the street.
'Same speed C but faster'
google group has some interesting things to say on 'earthstation5' An example. http://groups.google.com/groups?q=earthstation5&hl =en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&selm=fnhggvoeut4ubuk5g2q d0rdqu4piuev8ob%404ax.com&rnum=7
>IF I HAVE A GUN YOU ARE LESS LIKELY TO TRY AND COMITT A CRIME AGAINST ME
;)
That would only be the case if (a) all criminals KNEW you had a gun (so a concealed weapon, or one in your nightstand, wouldn't be a deterrent) or (b) all criminals knew EVERYONE had a gun (so they would take the trouble to wear bulletproof vests, sneak around more and be brazen less, plan to grab hostages as quickly as possible so that you wouldn't shoot, and so on).
Either way, crime wouldn't go down...in case (a), crime for YOU would go down, but up for other people*, and in case (b) crime would not go down, the nature of it would merely change to suit the new circumstances**.
*this becomes a "blame the victim" argument eventually, by the way -- the way that the "I drive an SUV to protect my family" justification becomes the "I don't worry about killing another family who owns a small car, they should have bought an SUV, too!" argument, which fails because satisfaction of the argument requires everyone else to own an SUV, at which point SUVs cease to provide any practical advantage.
**Consider the "chipped" ignition key, wherein a computerized key is required to start an expensive car. Thefts from parking lots for these vehicles went down, but carjackings (where key and owner are both present, often with tragic results) went up. It didn't stop the crime, it just changed the nature of the crime, in this case arguably for the worse. Unless all carjack victims own guns.
Apparently because of some loophole in the Canadian Copyright Act of 1998, it just might be legal for us Canadians to share music. http://techcentralstation.com/1051/techwrapper.jsp ?PID=1051-250&CID=1051-081803C
I submitted this article yesterday but, not surprisingly, the mods even less objective than meta-mods. :)
Once the industry tracking organizations demonstrate that the money spent on entertainment has simply shifted to organizations not involved with the *AA organizations, it's all over.
No more piracy as an excuse, and a bunch of companies we don't like will be forced to find new business models or die under new management or in the case of the record companies, new owners.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Among them: Gypsies, Farsis, Ba'hai, Cossacks, Burakumin, etc., etc. So why is it that we only ever get to hear about the trials and tribulations of the Jews? I for one would like to watch one, count 'em, one news broadcast that wasn't all-Israel, all-the-time. You'd think they could talk about the Chechens or poor Kashmiris just once in a while out of sheer boredom with the subject of Israel and Jews/Palestinians.
So why is it that we are always bombarded with Israel? Is it because they're a major oil-producing nation? uh, no. Is it because they possess some natural resource that is of vital importance to the strategic security of the United States? uh, no. Is it because they are a major trading partner? uh, no. Is it because they are strategically important to the U.S. military, as in major American bases are there? uh, no. Is it because Israel is an incredibly populous country? uh, no. fewer people than the greater Cleveland metro area, actually. Is it because they're an extremely powerful country? uh, no. never have been, never will be. Is it because they're an embattled democracy? Well, gee, so is Columbia. So is India. BFD. We don't get to watch anything about them in the news though, do we? In short, there is no good reason why the entire populace of the world's only superpower should be plagued with incessant whining about a country that most people couldn't care less about.
I recognize that all 1.5 million Jews in this country might care very intensely about Israel. Fine, go obsess on your own time. The other 250 million plus of us just wish you'd shut the hell up.