Slashdot Mirror
China Detains Internet Essayist for Subversion
romcabrera writes: "Reuters reports that 'Chinese authorities have detained a civil servant, whose essays are banned by Beijing on the Internet, on charges of subversion'.
According to the article, China has created a special Internet Police Force which 'blocks some foreign sites and shuts down domestic sites posting politically incorrect fare'."
They take censorship very seriously over there. Frankly, it would surprise me more if they didn't detain him.
Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
Gotta have respect for a country which managed to take the best of both worlds. They got totalitarianism from communism, and greedy corporations from capitalism. w00t! Well done!
Daniel
Carpe Diem
Don't give Ashcroft, Cheney and Bush anymore ideas for Patriot Act II....
to 1984.
When anger rises, think of the consequences.
Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC)
In case anyone hasn't noticed, China is a hardline socialist dictatorship. They kill people for defying the state and send the bill for the bullets to their families. This is why American protestors really have no idea how good they have it. The "state" doesn't come and kill you if you voice your opinion on something. China's government is bad, we know this. Unless we plan to invade and liberate them then there's nothing we can do about it.
... the internet is growing faster than the policeforce. In China or at home...
DAARRRHHHHH---DAARRHHHHHHH
...for posting pictures of some of some of China's prominent loading docks to your blog.
You read subversion and think of the version control system.
pi
A massive DDoS attack was launched against slashdot.org, with 99% of all attackers in China. Chinese officals are investigating, but say there is little hoping of stopping the attack for several days, due to a government holiday. No comment could be recived from any slashdot members, as they were found huddled in their basements, crying.
SAILING MISHAP
Hmm, for some reason this reminds me of that story about Microsoft firing that pro-Mac employee.
this guy should have used freenet.
shuts down domestic sites posting politically incorrect fare
You mean like the DeCSS stuff ... ?
On a serious note, what should we expect anyway. After all politically it is a communist dictatorship. Why should be expect them to treat internet publishing different than normal print publishing ?
karma : former act as leading to inevitable results
This is sad to hear, being someone who has traveled to China several times in the past ten years it has been my experience that China has been very slowly opening up and becoming freer country. This saddens me deeply considering the progress that has been slowly made since Tienanmen Square. The internet still proves to be something that the Government is very sensitive about. Luckily there are many American Corporations who seem more than happy to help continue the cycle of information opression.
Something intelligent here.
Even in a free country where people are afraid to speak anonymously speech is curtailed...if not by the government but by the screaming mob.
We live in a country now where people who criticize the war are called traitors and put in government databases. Where visitors to our country are fingerprinted without suspicion and where people are held without charges for months at a time. Where the label of terrorist is slung around with a casualness unknown 5 years ago.
Our politics has been poisoned and this poison is eating away at our republic.
Sure China isnt free but Chinese have hope for the future all we have is fear.
It's America's fault for creating the Internet in the first place. If the 'net hadn't existed, this guy wouldn't have been tempted to write his essays, since they couldn't have been posted on web sites!
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
A few years ago people actually got crushed by tanks for demonstrating against the Chinese government?
Actually, there's no evidence to back up what happened to that student, although he may possibly have been killed.
When anger rises, think of the consequences.
Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC)
And I thank (a God) if there is one that I do.
We lead the world's technological revolution.
Our government gives money and training to the poor to help them improve their lives. If they don't use it that way, it's not anyone elses' problem.
We have on of the highest literacy rates in the world.
We have saved the asses of every other major western country at one time or another (mostly WW II).
Our short history and culture isn't by choice and was greatly influenced by much older culture. After all we were just colonies of the older western civilizations.
Our government is one of the people, not the state (unlike China).
You can actually become rich and powerful if you try.
We have the RIAA and and DMCA protecting our "digital rights". Oh wait, they both suck.
You're nothing but jealous.
GeneralKael -- Slacker Extraordinaire
A good /.ing leads to truth!
--
Well, regardless of whether or not you already knew this, because it is ongoing is precisely the reason it needs to be revisited occasionally. It is a great reminder to those in this country who think we have it so bad, and our rights are trampled on everyday, to see what others on this planet are forced to endure.
If someone doesn't keep bringing it up, the extreme left would have us believe we live in the worst country in the world, rather then the best.
Well, I can. I've got a secret surveillance camera watching him right now.
changes don't normally come from within when people get shot for saying anything against the government. Students tried making changes...Tianaman Square not ring a bell?
slashdot, news for crazed liberal socialist zealots
...that China would get that bent out of shape about version control.... Go figure.
Everyone knows commies prefer CVS over Subversion!
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
"We see a China that is stable and prosperous, a nation that respects the peace of its neighbors and works to secure the freedom of its own people. " President Bush Addresses Australian Parliament Oct. 22,2003
"The ignorant fight to win, the wise win before they fight." -Sun Tzu
what did this guy REALLY do? I mean, this is Slashdot. You can't exactly expect biased reporting. Especially when it's reporting on news reported by a biased Western news source! What exactly did this guy write? What else is he involved in? Who does he work for?
I just can't take this very seriously. It reeks too severely of "look at how evil our rival government is!" propaganda.
Changes can come from within, even when people get shot for protesting government policies. Boston Massacre not ring a bell?
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
China is simply following the example of the world's greatest defender of free speech which also secretly monitors internet useage and jails citizens for subversion.
...
Nothing new to see here, move along
I don't know if you are the one that should be arguing that point...
bull crap. Radical islamic terrorism is a disease that's over a hundred years old. Even against the U.S.A., it goes back almost a hundred years. Learn some history, I'd suggest starting with the Phillipines in 1911 with Gen. Pershing
Was first post on thread actually ABOUT Halloween stuff. Your not only offtopic, but late too. Better luck next year.
"To lead the people, you must walk behind them"
hahahah....
the parent is correct. The nasty picture has some wierd filer on it and there is a "happy halloween" picture. What better site to memorilize the death of the deamon's children during the great flood!
Why is it so hot? Where am I going? What am I doing in this handbasket?
On Bush & Ashcroft somehow... hurry up tin-foil hatters figure out a way that this is America's fault.
Um... there's a very flawed assumption here: those who oppose Bush/Ashcroft must also oppose America itself, and desire to blame America for all the world's problems. This is patently false. Rather, I hate Bush and Ashcroft because I don't hate America. Now, getting back OnT, I don't see how we, as America have caused it. You might say that I need a tin-foil hat for saying that we could be going the way of China here, but that is not the point.
#define DRM chmod 000
"Really? I live in a beautiful and small European town, with a very good standard of living."
Well, I'm not the original poster, and I don't like a whole lot of things about my country and my government, but... Replace "European" with "Iowan" and you've just described my situation.
Contrary to popular belief, most cities of the US are actually small, quiet, and rural-ish and not huge dirty, noisy, and over-populated.
Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch
"While I'm certainly no Patriot Act supporter, things like this tend to add a little perspective to a lot of overheated rhetoric, no?"
Indeed they do. They show just how bad tyranny can become, and how desperately unjust a government can become, quickly, if the tyranny is suffered by its people.
Your argument helps make the case for people making a continual effort to keep government in check. China since Mao is not as horrible as Russia was under Stalin, but they are dealing with many of the same problems in the same way.
The regime enjoys a great deal of support from people in China, though. Until their government can no longer provide them with credible evidence of progress and prosperity, there probably isn't anything to do. If you think a political issue is worthy to kill or die for, then by all means you should kill or die for it. But that also means you must be willing to accept the consequences. Be a Chinese dissident (or do ANYTHING that isn't expressly prescribed by the party?) well, you accept the consequences of imprisonment and/or death when you do that. Hopefully your death will not go unnoticed by others, and your sacrifice will instigate some action. Probably not though, there's a lot of inertia over there, and a whole hell of a lot of people in China think everything is just hunky dory.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
...he had used Freenet.
Damn, who runs that place nowadays? Larry McVoy?
Is this rock and roll, or a form of state control?
You have got to be kidding. Most people think of China as a Third World country that can barely feed their population. While this may be true in many areas, it's also true that they have incredible military power. The USA would probably lose any war with China.
Could you site some military statistics to back this up? First off, China could Not win a Nuclear war with the US. China has about 20 nuclear missles. It would take 124 nuclear weapons specifically aimed at the correct places to disable America's ability to function as a nation and launch their own nukes. It would take 368 nukes to destroy China, but America has thousands of nukes.
China couldn't win a war against the US, they may have more foot soldiers, but they don't have the navy, air force, nukes or technology the US army has.
If it came down to a ground war, will those starving citizens fight for their facist regime or will they lay down their arms and surrender?
Non US citizens have NO rights what so ever in our legal system. They are enemy combatants, period. That said however, we are required to treat them humanely. As one annon pointed out, they truely are lucky to even be alive. If I was in battle taking pop-shots from a raghead, they would be dead without question.
Life is not for the lazy.
Now, I love America, but I would appriciate it if people didn't justify that love by repeating FUD taught to them in grade school. There are more reasons to love America than those. For an example of what I mean by FUD, let's look at one of the parent poster's reasons: You can actually become rich and powerful if you try. Nice wish. How many people can be in the richest 1%? Well, one percent. And those people are often (not always, as in Bill Gates, who got his through a notable lack of ethics) kids of those who were powerful before. Look at Bu$h. His grandfather, Prescott Bush made his money laundering Nazi money, then passed that to GHWB, then to GWB. W has made more bad business moves than can be believed, and keeps getting rescued by Daddy Bush's money. So, if by "try", you mean have no problem with cheating, lying, stealing, whatnot, then sure.
#define DRM chmod 000
So let me get this straight. You're basically saying that we should all be glad for what we have right now and not say anything until we get to where China's at?
You're crazy.
I don't want this country to get anywhere NEAR where China's at now.
Why yes I am paranoid! Thanks for asking!
I hated Bush long before I knew there was a /.. Oh, well. So much for that theory.
#define DRM chmod 000
I simply stated that it was certainly acceptable for Slashdot to post this article as news because we need to be reminded about those in other places that have it much worse than we do.
I also stated that we are living in the best country in the world. Any problems with that, speedfreak?
And don't put words in my mouth anymore.
I hope the China Internet Police force will do something about:
chinanet.cn.net
The source of 80% of my spam.
I dought it though
* Carthago Delenda Est *
>The USA would probably lose any war with China.
I don't know about that. I think it would likely slag on for a hundred years, with no winner.
After the piss is already in the wine, I don't think nukes are so scary anymore. See, once somebody nukes LA, DC, NYC, and Des Moines once, and after that becomes part of our history and we move on from it, it won't seem so scary anymore (it won't be "unthinkable" anymore).
So the notion that nukes alone can settle a war go out the window. People adapt, and go back to living in dispersed territories, maybe. But it doesn't end WWIII (which any "US versus China" scenario probably represents), which goes on, and on, and on.
Nuclear weapons might start WWIII, but they aren't the end-of-the-world sort of destruction that we'll probably wish they were when this comes down. Rather, they'll be one of those severely annoying tragic things that you can't really do much about, like living in LA despite quakes. You can only play this trump card one time.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
...that spam can be a steganographic medium to transmit anti-regime propaganda. Maybe China will finally start doing something really good to the rest of the world.
Dear paranoid left wing extremist. (I'd call you a liberal, but they're all probably embarrased as hell by you):
If, along with getting information from "govt influenced" news of CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News...I also get my information from the BBC, NPR, and all sorts of printed media, am I still a moron?
How could Bush have a 40% approval rating if it wasn't for idiots who believe the spoonfed crap being shoveled into their heads by the media.
Apparently I'm a lot smarter than you, since you screwed up your only fact in that opinionated paranoid rant. His current approval rating is at 53% http://www.gallup.com/poll/stateNation/
Great moderating Slashdot....Someone posts a quote that makes Bush look bad and gets modded up. Someone replies with the correct quote and gets modded down.
Don't believe me? Check the link from the original post.
Sheeesh!
So, I, as a European have no rights at all in the US? You find that fair?
*scratches US from list of places to visit*.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
From my past experience with Chinese history (I'm a Chinese, from Taiwan), they have a sizable army that will do just about anything the regime tells them to do. For one, they're very good at social engineering the masses.
On another point, China is willing to sacrifice millions in foot soldiers in any war. Are we willing to lose even one-hundredth of that number?
In US, you can easily buy enough major firearms to wipe out your neighbourhood but a few little fireworks are banned.
I just came back from making a deposit in my checking account. This took rather longer than it might have. In front of me in line was a young girl and her mother trying to open a junior passbook account.
For those that don't know in America we have program to teach school aged children savings, banking and the benfits thereof. (Everyone sing, "Tupence, carfully, prudently. . ")
These poor people were unable to open said account because the child did not have a driver's license. The Patriot Act imposes certain requirements on the mere opening of an account ( a simple, contractual business transaction involing a matter of cents) even applying to accounts available to only schoolchildren.
The mother was not allowed to swear for her own child and use her own ID, even though the law makes her the legal custodian of the account.
In the opinion of the bank's lawyers only a driver's license in out state complies with the Patriot Act's requirements. Specifically even the child's Federally issued Social Security card or Passport did not comply with the Federal ID law for opening any banking account.
Recently Howard Dean and his closest associates were directed to go stand in a "Free Speech Zone" corral while on their way to a political function, because they were carrying signs that said "I'm For Dean" and this was deemed to be a protest and thus restricted for "security" reasons. The security personel were, of course, were in error, but actually the law allows this sort of behaviour. The fact that security personel can even think that supporters of the leading Democratic Party candidate, and the candidate himself, for President is "protesting" for supporting himself is scary, nevermind issues of the right to assemble and protest.
Ashcroft is promoting laws that would allow the government to take into custody, without warrant and even without a charge, anyone whom they held to be "under suspicion" and such people could be held indefinately, without representation, indeed without any necessity on the part of the government that they had done so.
There's a word for such people: Desaparecidos
Go ahead. Google on it.
You're right, Ashcroft isn't a Nazi, but that's rather like saying you've just been eaten by a leopard, not a panther.
Think things can't get worse? This is America, after all. Well, I would argue that protections that this can't happen in America if the very protections that are designed to prevent it from happening are held to be void.
I would also suggest you Google on leopard+spots+change.
KFG
God Bless America, with the worst crime levels in the first world
Except for Sweden, New Zealand and Denmark. In fact, the US has about an average per capita crime rate as the rest of the world, according to the UN
God Bless America, where "democracy" means a rich, white male as President
Who serves by the will of the population, is limited in the length of term and whose powers are tempered by two other branches of government. A president who transfers power peacefully, something that has been done every four or eight years for over two hundred years. Incidentally, America is a democratic republic. When did China have its last free presidential election?
God Bless America, the biggest consumer of the world's natural resources
Actually, the "problem" is a first world issue, not an American issue. Per capita, America is not a leader. Look to Japan.
God Bless America, so happy to violate international laws
Riiiiiight. Let's see. America violated international law by...uh...hmmm. By...hmm. Oh, you mean by invading Iraq? The one that appears to be authorized by UN Resolution 1441? Hmmm...
God Bless America, where "freedom of speech" means race-hate groups like KKK
Yes, and the ACLU and the Sierra Club and the NAACP and Greenpeace and any other organization that criticizes the government. Freedom of speech is not freedom to act. You clearly do not understand what freedom of speech means. To limit one organization's speech because you do not agree with it is to open the door to limit anyone to make the same claim about any organization. Of course, China doesn't have that problem. When you disallow freedom of speech, you only have to worry about the hate groups that keep quiet.
God Bless America, and its massive and ever-growing poverty gap
America's poverty rate in 2000 was the lowest in 26 years. It has only slightly increased, from 8.7% to 9.2%. Recently, NPR reported that instead of people spending vast periods of time in poverty, they tend to move out of poverty in a period of a few years, but others, due to a variety of reasons, move into poverty, again, generally, to move out in a few years. This, of course, is in contrast to China's poverty rate...11.2% in urban areas, darn near 100% in rural areas.
God Bless America, with barely 300 years of dire history and culture
The world's oldest, continously functioning representative democracy. America has managed to overcome, in less than 300 years what China, with over a thousand years of history has not.
God Bless America, all its appalling "sitcoms" with no grasp of irony
OK, I guess I can accept this as a strike against America...
God Bless America, with the highest obesity levels in the developed world
One of the pitfalls of freedom of choice is that one is free to make personal choices that are bad for you.
God Bless America, because corporations should be allowed to run amok
Actually, corporations are not allowed to do that. A tiny bit of research will show you that in the end, they do get caught.
God Bless America, wasting billions to attack foreign countries
Like Tibet? Like Nepal?
God Bless America, and thank God I don't have to live there.
And the final difference between the US and China? In the US, nobody has to live here!
-h-
Actually - just scratch the grandparent poster off your list of "people who know wtf they're talking about."
WTF? I really dislike bush (an understatement), but this is ridiculous - especially after someone pointed out the true quote.
Pronunciation: (")dis-'tO-pE-&
Function: noun
Etymology: New Latin, from dys- + -topia (as in utopia)
Date: circa 1950
1 : an imaginary place where people lead dehumanized and often fearful lives
(from www.m-w.com)
Imaginary place? You haven't been living in Patriot Act America for the last for years, have you partner? We have U.S. citizens held on U.S. soil without charges and access to lawyers all on the say-so of the Selected President* declaring them enemy combatants. We have hundreds of foreign nationals detained on a off-shore base for an undefined period of time, declaring them to not be prisoners of war so that they receive none of the protections of the Geneva Convention. And we have the Ashcroft "Justice" Department figuring out new ways of taking the measures of the Patriot Act and applying them to non-terrorist prosecutions.
. . .indeed without any necessity on the part of the government to inform anyone that they had done so.
I'm tired. I've been standing in line at a busy bank. I'm going to go have a cup of coffee and a lie down, thank you very much.
KFG
Even better, they're co-opting our principles and burying them under the banner of the Party. For example, (and I don't know the source) but a generation of Chinese citizens believe that the 'free-market' (or rather the trans-literated version of the word) was exclusively invented by China's storied leaders. Despite The fact that their 'free-market' is a gross distortion of the Smith/Ricardo/Keynes school of economic principles, they have been liberalizing many of the formerly closed segments of the business world. And really:
- China has a large population of young, unemployed men.
- Using these men in an Internet Police Force is better than, say, in the Chinese standing army.
- Communist Governments have more resources when its people do better in commerce.
- The world outside China is on the order of four or five billion people.
- The Internet Police Force members could earn quite a bit of cash if they, for example, started an programming company that sold software to a few of these five billion people.
- Again, communist governments like productive (i.e. revenue-generating) citizens.
I'm not an expert, but do the gains of 'protecting' citizens at a loss (the IPF members need food and stuff... and they don't create income) outweigh becoming an international powerhouse? I certainly don't think so, and in the spirit of the free-market, I'm sure they won't for much longer.I thought that making posts on Slashdot was considered free speech? Otherwise, why hasn't Bush shut down Slashdot for anti-Bush comments?
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
In the US, nobody has to live here!
Until we reinstate the draft, anyway...
-insert a witty something-
Non US citizens have NO rights what so ever in our legal system
For an example of some rights, please see the Bill of Rights at http://memory.loc.gov/const/bor.html , which seems to apply to People, not Citizens.
"Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures...
Amendment V
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury...
Amendment VI
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed..."
So it would seem you're wrong.
If I was in battle taking pop-shots from a raghead, they would be dead without question.
Me, too. But none of the folks being held is accused of firing a shot. Have some of them commited crimes? I'm sure of it. But they are not being handled well.
Obviously, you weren't paying attention to this previous discussion about what's wrong with the Patriot Act.
My uncle came to US when he was 35, working as a genitor for an office building. His networth is now in the range of several million dollars. How do you explain that? Maybe by "try" it means working hard, living below your means, and making wise investments (real estate is a good investment, $2000 gaming machine is not).
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
Cry me a river. You could have been born in China, India, South America, or anywhere in Africa. You're in the richest 1% of the world's population almost by default by just living in the U.S.
The per capita income in China is under $4000.
I trust the Justice Department to give each one of those detainees a fair and balanced trial.
I don't think the justice department is at all involved. I think it is strictly a DoD event now. If it was up to the Justice Department, they couldn't hold them like they are.
Oh, and when do you suppose they'll get that trial? It's been more than 2 years without so much as a charge.
"Even if everybody started going nuclear, the political repercussions of launching nukes are too great for any US president to risk losing the next election over. "
People start launching nukes then there won't be anymore elections. You are preceding under a false assumption: that things will go on as they do now once a nuclear war begins. Things won't. You want to know what the world will be like if we went to war? Think the video clips from the game Fallout (specifically, the intros.) No one is going to give a rats ass over republicans or democrats, it will be a war that affects us all DIRECTLY and will be not about the future, not about another country, it will be a war about survival, plain and simple. Us or them. None of this illegal war garbage. Probably no adherence to the geneva conventions either. The united states would out of necessity due to its lack of population turn into a militaristic state (not a militaristic dictatorship) where everyone would be part of the military, every industry and all the resources would come under government control, and rights would by necessity be eliminated. The causilties would be massive, tens if not hundreds of millions, and the economy woudl becoem a government controled institution to be rationed like everything else. If the chinese struck first with nukes, that is the way it would be. We would launch at china before thier nukes even got to us and by the time they hit we would all be part of a vast military.
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
greedy corporations from capitalism
There is no such thing as greed. It is a completely subjective notion that has no objective means of measuring it.
Is it greedy to buy a 29 inch television when you could have bought a 27 inch television and given the difference to someone who "needed it"?
If so, then is it greedy to have bought a 27 inch television when you could have bought a 25 inch television...?
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
My uncle came to US when he was 35, working as a genitor for an office building. His networth is now in the range of several million dollars. How do you explain that? Maybe by "try" it means working hard, living below your means, and making wise investments (real estate is a good investment, $2000 gaming machine is not).
Maybe, but do you want me to start going on about single mothers working 2 jobs just to stay alive, and get deeper in dept? You can always find an exception, but people like your uncle are not the rule.
#define DRM chmod 000
Quite the contrary. American protesters DO know how good they have it. That's why they try to preserve it by exercising their rights.
This attitude that people should just be grateful for what they have, is exactly the same attitude they use in China to keep the populace in line.
It's a very "conservative" point of view... yet it has nothing to do with conserving our liberty.
Does it not worry anyone, then, that the US is allowing so much of our manufacturing to be shipped overseas to oppressive countries? Would you want to have to go to war against the Chinese to defend your liberties armed only with tools they let you have?
Dog is my co-pilot.
How long until we have one in the US?
We wouldn't want to be left out after all.
My subtext is just a figment of your imagination.
Precisely. We nuked ourselves with above-ground atomic tests on our own soil for decades. We're still here. The areas were habitable within 10-20 years.
We're a big nation. I still miss my Twin Towers, and when we get nuked, I'll miss the city that gets hit. Bacterial infections can kill cells, but the body adapts, responds, wipes out the enemy, and survives. The enemy can kill individual citizens, but the nation adapts, responds, wipes out the enemy, and survives.
Just as in WW2 - we have an industrial capacity unequalled the world over, and our nodes of production are sufficiently widely distributed that it can't be destroyed (and can barely be disrupted) with the loss of a few nodes.
The use of nuclear weapons in a direct military confrontation between the antagonists of World War IV (the Cold War) likely would have meant the end of our civilization, because both sides really did have the capability to annihilate the other. As such, WW III was fought through proxy states, and some of the leftovers (from both sides) left the mess that led to WW IV.
World War IV is unlike World War II in that both sides are likely to have some nuclear capability at some point during the conflict. It's unlike World War III in that there will be no balance of power. Consequently, World War IV is much like World War II in that the only difference nuclear weapons will make in World War IV will be to drastically shorten the length of the war.
We didn't start this war, but if the enemy acquires and uses nuclear weapons, by God, we'll end it.
D'oh. Next time I'll use Preview. WW4 is our current war. I was referring to WW3, not WW4, when I mentioned the Cold War.
I swear to all that is good: goatse.cx has a Halloween Theme today:
You know what is really sad and pathetic: you actually check that site often enough to find out that they have a Halloween theme...
Just when I had almost repressed the horrid memory from my mind...
"When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon
Under our new W-Ashcroftian Overlords, it's already here.
"Really? I live in a beautiful and small European town, with a very good standard of living. You think I really want to switch this for some crime-ridden noisy polluted corrupted place in America?"
My favorite cities in Europe are Edinburgh, Leipzig and Pisa. Erfurt is also nice. In which city (or town) do you live? Paris in the summer is never "noisy" or "polluted." (London is never dirty. Who needs trash cans?) Have you ever been to the US? Where?
I like to travel and I like Europe. I also like the US. I happen to think that the US is great (just get rid of W.) and so are many countries in Europe. (I have not visited Asia yet.) If you live in Europe, you probably have relatives who helped the National Socialists in the 1940's. If you live in (former) eastern Europe (e.g. Leipzig), YOU may have helped the secret police. If you live in the US, you might have relatives who slaughtered native Americans or Chinese immigrants or supported concentration camps for Japanese-American. Every country has "dirty laundry"; try to clean up your own before attacking another country or its people.
It's true that my uncle is not the rule but interestingly enough, my mother was a single mother who worked 60+ hours. I'll have to say that I have a better life than she did due to her hard work, and hopefully, my children will have better life than I will have in the end.
Besides, I doubt that 99.99% (if not 100%) of slashdotters who complain are single mothers. And women who became single mothers due to their own fault (sleeping around without any protection, my wife's friend is a prime example), they have no one to blame but themselves.
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
Try to use "Search" here on Slashdot and see what you can find for "Subversion".
Less is more !
That's goes against freetrade and the WTO would slap us with a a violation.
Just as you're free to protest the war and label the government as evil conspirators, supporters of the war are free label you as traitors and troops-haters.
free speech != speech that you agree with.
I'm not wild about the war in Iraq either, but I do think that both sides need to lay off the rhetoric. Whatever or whichever way this nation is trending, we are not, repeat not, in any way shape or form subject to the type censorship demonstrated in this article.
Radical islamic terrorism is a disease that's over a hundred years old. Even against the U.S.A., it goes back almost a hundred years. Learn some history, I'd suggest starting with the Phillipines in 1911 with Gen. Pershing
If I remember my military history correctly, the 1911 uprising led had nothing to do with Islamic Militantism (most of the rebels were Catholic) and everything to do with Phillipine Nationalism. The issue was Phillipino Independance and the expulsion of the American colinizers.
Aguinaldo was not successful, but he did gain the respect of General Pershing who admired his leadership abilities and the strengths of the rebels as worthy adversaries. The US later named a military base after Gen. Aguinaldo.
At least that's the version I was taught by the U.S. Navy, but you know what a bunch of "liberals" those military guys are.
Read, L
I have fond memories of running a WWIV BBS. So it's cool.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
...don't be suprised if you come out smelling like one.
That's what I thought.... Pretty clueless... I know that citizens of the United States have rights where I live, and I have been to the US and I'm pretty sure I have some rights there. ;-)
Only "some" of course
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
The Bush administration has as much control over the domestic media as the Chinese do, they're just better at not letting censorship become an issue.
Your mind is as corrupted by a polarized world view as many of the Americans you decry. People, blinded by ideology (that is either popular or runs against the grain) calling themselves "free", you see it all the time. It is a cliche. Ironically, many of the patrons of this store in New York City - called Revolution Books - would likely agree with you because they are similarly mislead and ill informed.The store does not even have a website because they are luddite leftists; mistrustful of technology. But, they are affiliated with an organization that is online: The Revolutionary Worker. Both organizations owe their ability to disseminate the leftist view to liberties that are essential to American life.
Actually, let me restate something I've said earlier in this post. Most patrons of this store are quite informed and passionate about learning from alternative news sources. But what many of them fail to realize is that a Barnes and Noble sized store that serves as a clearing house for alternative information could NEVER repeat NEVER exist in a country like China.
I am not "Ra Ra" president B0sh or our government. What I think is precious, sacred and unique to the Earth are the foundations of our culture which holds freedom of the individual as a virtue. THAT is why stores like Revolution Books don't have armed gunman storming in, shooting the proprietors and patrons and shutting its doors.
Quod scripsi, scripsi.
for those who say we shouldnt be complaining about our state of affairs, you're still wrong, because here's the thing, if people dont outcry every time we lose our rights, pretty soon, we'd be in the same position as chinese citizens, also, people protest to prevent things from going that far, because if you let the government get an inch of our rights, they'll grab that inch and yank the rest of our rights out from under us and laugh at us.
bull crap. Radical islamic terrorism is a disease that's over a hundred years old. Even against the U.S.A., it goes back almost a hundred years. Learn some history, I'd suggest starting with the Phillipines in 1911 with Gen. Pershing
and of course, the US of A had a god-given right to colonize there as well, right?
There are a huge number of yeast infections in this county. Probably because we're downriver from the bread factory.
Haha... after several months there downtown Chungking is an 'interesting' place indeed!
-- Alchohol is a hard drug. Cannabis is a soft drug.
I have tried this several months ago. Very very few nodes can be contacted (though many have been tried) even after several hours of attempt to use, so I think they are probably blocked. Anyway, I think it is not really that hard to filter out Freenet traffic, because IIRC the header is unencrypted anyway.
"We have on of the highest literacy rates in the world."
Spelling rates certainly aren't as competitive. Check out the statistics, please.
You're a fool to give the Chinese government credit for suppresing their own people.
If the open source community was really so much in love with the idea of freedom, they'd be hard at work challenging Chinese restrictions and helping the Chinese people find ways around them and, ultimately, to eliminate the blocks and elect their own government.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
"And those people are often (not always, as in Bill Gates, who got his through a notable lack of ethics) kids of those who were powerful before." Actually I believe that Bill Gates is in many ways underrated in these discussions. I could mention a couple of things: - Bill Gates really is so rich since he is so smart. There might be a lack of ethics involved, but his intelligence should not be underestimated. Don't you just wish that you could have done the things he did? He just understood the chance did it first. - Bill Gates has certainly boosted the social image of all types of geeks and nerds. Previously such persons were just the losers. Hey, now we have the chance of being rich and admired! - As you mentioned, he has no old family money etc. It's all his. All from his own abilities as a capitalist. Now, don't misunderstand me. I think that Bill Gates is a capitalist oppressor who should be overthrown. I just mean that you should never, ever underestimate your enemy. After all, he wouldn't have so much money and power without some extraordinary intelligence or some other good quality?
Don't be silly. Ask that coworker if he could call a public meeting to work towards the defeat of the Communist Party of China. Ask him if could put up a website campaigning for the release of political prisoners, automonomy for the Muslim sections of western China, and free elections in Tibet.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
The DMCA?
You've got to be kidding!
You're comparing the DMCA to the the one-party totalitarian regime in China?
I don't see any U.S. Army troops and tanks on the streets killing people who steal CD's. Do you?
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
The point is this:
There is no Slashdot in China.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Well, even though you didn't have the courage to reply with your name, I'll answer your complaint.
You're right, China didn't spend billions invading Tibet. That's because Tibet couldn't fight back. My point was not that China spent billions to invade (incidentally, the US did not spend billions to invade Iraq - the billions are to rebuild the country after the previous regime raped its infrastructure), but that China invaded a country that posed no threat to it, other than being a vocal critic of its form of government.
I did not say that the US accomplished everything that China has accomplished...I said that it has overcome the things that China has not been able to overcome - a totalitarian regime that does not represent the desires of its people.
History and culture come with time. If being a young nation is something to be critical about, then there are plenty of countries to pick on. Given that the US is a country of immigrants, an excellent case can be made that our history and culture goes back to the middle ages of Europe. While that's not several thousand years of Chinese history and culture, I'll also point out that Mao Tse-Tung's government did its damndest to wipe out China's history and culture. Really, you don't think that the Cultural Revolution was about getting back to their historical roots, do you?
The document that I linked to does indeed show reported crimes. I agree, it makes third world countries look outrageously safe. But if you consider the reports from developed countries, you'll find that those statistics are quite accurate. And, after all, the comments that I made and responded to were about crime in the developed world.
The point is that the parent post stated that "at least China is better than America", a patently ludicrous statement, given that the arguments backing it up are, for the most part, wrong.
-h-
If your a citizen of the US and help out the enemy, then you are branded as a traitor...and treason is punishable by death durring warfair if I'm not mistaken. So, if your an enemy of the US in a militaristic (conventional really), you've instantly lost your citizenship. No how our legal system offically anounces that is beyond me. There has to be some official form of motion by the courts from what I understand.
Life is not for the lazy.
Pick up the sword and free the many from the powerful few.
of course, we really need to bitch slap our own government first, but that's a post for another topic.
The US has been shifting from a manufacturing economy to a service economy little by little for 50 years. Services are now what makes the US economy tick. The US manufacturing sector share of GDP has shrunk from 25% to 16% since WWII, despite amazing rises in US exports & GDP, as well as the fact that the US has a lower unemployment rate than China or most European countries. The US does not need to "defend" manufacturing. Only high value-add manufacturing remains in the US, and we do fine.
While China's exports have grown dramtically recently, Chinese imports from the US have been steadilly growing each year as well.
Trust me, the world will be a better place when everyone has a Western standard of living. Chinese GDP per person has quadrupled since the 70's, now at $4,400/person/yr, China now has the second largest economy in the world.
Of course, there is that whole Lenninist government thing. I believe it will go away, and in fact, most people would argue that Beijing's control over the country is falling away rapidly. A big change will happen in China in 20 years, especially as GDP per person approaches $10,000/yr.
Change "gentoo" to "linux" and it works even better!
Change "linux" to "windows" and the circle is complete!
and
Hell would be cascading mandelbrots of Vicious Cycles...
--
"The only clear view is from atop the mountain of our dead selves." - Peter Carroll
Actually, the USA has been tested, the Korean War, AKA the Forgotten War. It should have been named the Chinese War, since the Chinese sent the PLA across the Yalu River when the North Koreans were defeated. It's amazing that they pushed the USA and the UN halfway out of the Korean peninsula before the USA could stop them.
Interesting note since we're talking about nukes: MacArthur had intended to use tactical nukes on the PLA. Truman reined him in and replaced MacArthur.
Thanks. I had a good laugh at that!!
In fact, you have one of the lowest literacy rates in the western world. 65th to be exact, behind countries such as Mongolia, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
You are probably forgetting the 12.1 million American children that live below the poverty line. But, that doesn't form your picture-postcard Fox news view of America, so forget about it. Ignorance is bliss.
Bollocks. The term "Enemy combatants" was created in WW2 as there were no existing laws to cover sabotage agents on American soil. It was required to allow the procecution and execution of some spys, Japanesse IIRC.
Bush's lawyers soured the US legal history documents to find something that would allow them to hold people without trial, without loosing face. "Enemy combatants" hasn't ever been used since WW2, apart from Bush recently.
If I was in battle taking pop-shots from a raghead, they would be dead without question.
Most of them weren't arrested in battles. Those who fought got killed by your soldiers, hey, if you shoot a gun at me, I'd make a point of killing you myself! ;-) Most of the detainees were arrested at home/work etc, often on the words of other Afgan's with grudges to bear. Remember the phrase innocent until proven guilty?
yes, those were the main issues, as you say. I was referring to some lesser known ones (that have even spawned some untrue "urban-legeneds")
no, and that's a very weird thing, the Phillipines declaring an independent government in July of 1898, but later that year the U.S.A. "taking it over from Spain" by treaty and for $20M.
No, you don't see that. What you do see is people getting bankrupted, blacklisted, jailed, and left with a life not worth living. In some cases, if you violate the Patriot Act, run afoul of Homeland Security, or have your profile flagged as "suspicious" (US Gov Matrix has been resurrected), your life is turned into a huge steaming brown mass. Having your name ruined and being consigned to a life of poverty in the US is worse than death in many ways. It's torture in every sense of the word, especially if it all begins when your human rights to "fair use" of creative works for personal enlightenment and enjoyment get trumped by legislation that's basically rooted in fiscal policy. DMCA is censorship for financial reasons, whereas the Patriot Act is sensorship on an political-ideological basis.
And occasionally somebody's executed (Patriot Act here, not DMCA). I think the last time I looked, Amnesty International reported that on 7% were truly and completely innocent. I'm not sure at what percentage of innocents executed it becomes State-sanctioned murder to "encourage" others to stay to the rules without question, but I'm sure there's a number when it does... They say that China is bad because it executes innocent people, well, wake up, they kill innocent people in America too, all the time. And of course there are the locked-up non-citizens in Guantanamo. Left there to rot because they [presumably] have a different point of view than American policy makers. Think "re-education camp" here.
I see these as slight variations on a theme. All governments do these things to the citizenry, and try to say it's necessary to keep peace and order. But it never is, really, the true agenda is to create an environment where wealth can be ammased by a few at the expense of the many. True, some newly established post-revolutionhary governments have given momentary respite (like the US for its first 80 years or so of existence, and France too, at about the same time and duration). It's not that I don't like America -- it's the same as every other government on Earth before it -- I am not a fan of any of them. Man dominates man to his injury, a wise man once wrote about 3,000 years ago. This will always be true.
Perhaps the most deeply unsettling phrase I've ever heard is "America -- love it or leave it." It is the chant of the profoundly ignorant.
"Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956)
"Lenin was a fascist."
Actually i think that the difference between national socialism and stalinism isn't that big. A little bit different propaganda, that's all. Basically Stalin was just a faithful apprentice taking the ideas of Lenin to a new level.
Then again we can discuss the different types of communism, possibilities for a truly democratic communism etc. Blah blah blah, then again we could think about utopias where pigs can fly and people never die.
I quess that they haven't got the basic ingredients for democracy there.
Ok, you can impose democracy on a country which has the basic ingredients for democracy, an educated public and which has been liberated from a basically totalitarian government, such as Germany after WW II.
But think about Iraq? Democracy there might really mean a theocratic government such as Iran. The majority of the people might really choose that.
And what about a place like China? With countless millions of basically uneducated people? What would it become? Who knows? Maybe a complete chaos?
This is really good. After US has invaded China we really don't have to worry about neither country anymore.
Please just try to limit the nuclear holocaust to these two countries...
"Tiananmen square was on par with Waco."
Maybe you should start the "Invade and Liberate" (tm) with a parachute drop of several million religious right-wing nuts into China then?
"Why not drop some bombs on them too for quelching freedom..."
Think about the positive sides of nuclear war. We could have another dot.com boom around year 3000, so many slashdotters could get rich!
And on the positive side after the EMP there would be no electronics, so your jobs wouldn't migrate to India after all! Isn't that great!
So, i say, let's start a war! A nuclear war! At the gay bar!
"Unless we plan to invade and liberate them then there's nothing we can do about it"
Man fuck! Why do you give a flying fuck about "fixing" other countries? As we all know, America technique is to "build public support through media, invade & bomb like crazy, and put spin doctors to handle questions later on".
Go here: http://www.holocaustnow.org/main.html. And see how many fucking people die while big companies benefit. I mean there are more people dying in your country using guns(25,000/year according to "Opera"), alcohol, tobacco, etc.
Let me tell you one thing and one thing only: US never invades a country for morality/beliefs. Go read your history - such as why US invaded Cuba. Anything against the 'interest' of US and it's private industries will be met with "Shock & Awe".
If you believe your country is there to fight for you on the international front, then my friend you are the biggest fool of all time, who doesn't even read American history books and see otherwise. Hell, you prolly believe all the crap news agencies spew out these days with a daily 'Al queda' report.
"China since Mao is not as horrible as Russia was under Stalin, but they are dealing with many of the same problems in the same way."
;)
Russia was not as bad after Stalin as it was under Stalin... What is your point here?
And usually it is called Soviet Union since it included a lot more than Russia/Russians.
The point is that when you treat them that way you are not giving the world an example. After all, USA _should_ be an example of democracy for the rest of the world.
Though you haven't been after circa World War II. Sad but true. Where are the Americans who liberated Europe today?
I just read the story about killer viruses, i thought that it meant computer viruses... I was a bit confused.
If there is free speech there most likely are trade unions etc.
That would mean gradually higher workforce costs.
Then you wouldn't need to export jobs to China anymore.
The whole point of moving jobs to China is that there is no free speech in China.
First off,
NO ONE EVER WINS A NUCLEAR WAR!!!!
It's not the WWII now, once some zealots launches a nuclear weapon into another nuke capable country, then both are losers. This is just common sense and need not to be explained further. I really have no idea how the Slashdot crowd could augue "who wins a nuclear war" by looking at who gets more nukes, this is so naive.
And then half (or even better, whole) of the Earth is scortched.
Do you think the anyone would win a war by killing everything else on his home planet?
"The use of nuclear weapons in a direct military confrontation between the antagonists of World War IV (the Cold War) likely would have meant the end of our civilization, because both sides really did have the capability to annihilate the other. As such, WW III was fought through proxy states, and some of the leftovers (from both sides) left the mess that led to WW IV."
What do you mean?
There never was a world war in the sense of WW I and II.
There is no world war being fought currently. What we are seeing is that USA irresponsibly and maniacally trashing up some unsympathetic but helpless third world regimes. (And begging for the UN to bail them out after they started the whole mess... Thank you mr. Bush!)
This is not a very good situation, but it is really far from a world war, ie. most of the major powers of the world trying to literally wipe eachother out. Basically these might be similar to colonial wars.
Most likely there will never be a real world war again. If there were it most likely wouldn't mean the end of human race, it would mean that a smaller group of survivors would live a really dark and hard existence for thousands of years.
Maybe your viewpoints are understandable from the other side of the Atlantic, but from my point of view I can only say this: OMG! You ARE mad!
"After the piss is already in the wine, I don't think nukes are so scary anymore. See, once somebody nukes LA, DC, NYC, and Des Moines once, and after that becomes part of our history and we move on from it, it won't seem so scary anymore (it won't be "unthinkable" anymore)."
In the end it might not matter so much whether your city is ruined with one big bomb or thousands of little bombs. You could utterly destroy a major city with world war II era bombers as well, as has been historically proven.
What I am worried about is all of the major cities being blown up at the same time, with nice side-effects such as radiation, nuclear winter and EMP. That could really hurt!
It's rather rare to see actual facts on America vs China type of discussion here in Slashdot.
But frankly if US (people and governement) would learn to check its own internal state of affair , own crime rate, and so on, before looking at its near and far neighbourghs, maybe such stuff like the totally democratic patriotic act, dmca, percent of murder (yeah not reported crime) per 100000, drug, poverty would be less blatantly spring to the eye of foreigner about US flaw.
In other word : do not point finger because not only you aren't perfect , but also your so called liberty of expression, many times amount to say what is "accepted" by the majority in fear of getting isolated in a community.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
I followed your link, being an Australian. What I found there disturbed me greatly.
The speech transcript acccurately gives Bush's words on the day and lists in brackets the parliament's responses where said (eg. Hear, hear etc). However, what non-Australians may not know is that there were two outbursts from Senators Brown and Nettle (both from the Greens Party) during the speech.
The disturbing part of this self-censroship of the Whitehouse is that whilst the Speaker's comments on the outbursts are written verbatim, the Senators' comments are merely posted as "audience interruption" Not once, but twice (one for each Senator's comments). Bush's smart arse reply "I love free speech" is even included, but the reader has no context in which to place this remark as the comments that forced this remark are non-existent in this transcript.
This is, quite simply, unacceptable. Read the transcript as it stands in the parent poster's link.
I have tried to no avail to locate a full transcript of that speech INCLUDING the remarks by Senators Brown and Nettle. If anyone has such a link please post it here so that people may know what exactly was said.
Erasing comments because they don't suit the image you wish to portray is so Orwellian it beggars belief that we live in a society of free speech.
I plan to do something about this though - I'm running for election next year here in Australia, and if I get elected one of my aims will be to provide uncensored transcripts of everything said in parliament, not just that which suits the governent's agenda.
http://www.users.on.net/grypen/politics/
If you are Australian please peruse my site and support my effort if you like what I have to say.
Visceral Psyche Films
Good point, but to invade US you cannot tell your soldiers to go on foot, right. Naval force of China is so weak, S B Chan of Taiwan could sit comfortably talking ( or practicing ) independence everyday.
> ...I also get my information from the BBC, NPR,
> and all sorts of printed media, am I still a
> moron?
Ah, you do know that the BBC is a state broadcaster, don't you? And that the UK government (and BBC paymasters) is the USA's biggest fan?
Note that I'm not necessarily accusing the BBC of bias - merely pointing out that you can't rely on state-owned media to give you an alternative to pro-state media.
I have *no* comment on whether you're still a moron.
This is where the serious fun begins.
From the article atn d_01 .htm
http://www.democracy.org.hk/EN/aug2000/mainla
He angered authorities by operating a website, www.6-4tianwang.com, which published information on human rights and corruption in China, including the June 4, 1989 Tiananmen killings in which hundreds of unarmed civilians were shot.
So, check out the guys www site:
http://www.6-4tianwang.com/
Its now a reposity for on-line Viagra, etc. So now Viagra-sellers (who seem to occupy so much of my in-box these days) have taken over a www site from a Chinese democracy protester who could be facing a life sentence.
Are there no depths to which these guys will not stoop?
"You lied to me! There is a Swansea!"
Aside from the "a thousand years of history" thing (either chalk up 5000+, or talk PRC and put up 54 years--yeah, give that young-country argument again, ya' freaks. We trump most current nation-states in current incarnations, hands-down), I do believe I agree with everything else posted.
Having lived in China teaching English in the North, I really challenge folks who speak so freely against the U.S. or even the current regime in power to set up shop in ANY other country and do the same to the powers that be or the state structure there. Then come bitch about how "oppresive" the U.S. is. The 'States were attacked, and actions were taken. Debate the efficacy of such policy actions, not their reason for existence or the motives of those who enacted them.
If the U.S. is so "oppresive," why must we so constantly hear such shrill whining about freedom of speech issues on sundry websites and from sundry organizations? Wouldn't an oppressive state (like, say, oh, a state discussed in this thread somewhere...) legitimately apprehend or otherwise detain individuals of such divergent opinions and fully censor their speech?
Fight the xxAA's and MonopoliSts of the world, instead of alienating a regime that could help fight the good fight if properly reasoned with. (If the Dark Forces' lobbyists are working the lawmakers, advancing their interests, and you don't have lobbyists doing likewise, guess who's viewpoints influence policy, ya' Mensas?) The access is there. Use it not to attack and blindly criticize, but to advance your interests.
Yrs.,
JYW
We have saved the asses of every other major western country at one time or another (mostly WW II).
If you are referring to Britain in that statement, consider what would have happened if the USA did not support the UK in WW2..
1. Unaided, the UK could have either fallen to the Nazis, or become neutral.
2. The Nazi's may have been free to concentrate their full force on the USSR, and could have beaten them.
3. Later, futher empowered by the slave economies of the east, in collaberation with Japan, they could have beaten and enslaved the USA.
In fact aiding the UK in WW2 was an act needed for mutual survival..
"You lied to me! There is a Swansea!"
Go back and reread my post. I'm not talking about the arrest of protestors. I'm talking about peaceful protesters getting the shit kicked out of them by US marshalls. There have been tanks on US streets, and I do know it and you would too if you didn't believe everything you were spoonfed. Using violence to suppress dissent is not somthing foriegn to American soil. There's a long history of it in this country.
News organizations are not obligated to put anyone on the air for any amount of time.
Of course not, and again you're missing my point and responding to a different argument that you had in a different time and place. There are a lot of people who operate under the assumption that because we have 'freedom of speech' that the news presented by the media is accurate and balanced and this isn't true. It isn't true in China. It isn't true in America. Chinese don't know about the recent protests that happened in their country. Americans are given a spun version of the major protests in the US. What happens is entirely legal in both countries. That was my point about the subtelty of American censorship. I never once claimed that 'freedom of speech' entitled everyone to be heard. I claimed that the journalistic ethic of presenting different sides of the story has long since gone out the window and as informed consumers of information we should recognize this when listening to the news. The information most people are exposed to is as biased as the information given to people living under dictatorships.
Freedom and democracy? These are not binary yes-or-no things.
Ludicrous and naive. Of course you must be free to have a democracy, and, of course, if you have no democracy you are not free.
Again, you're completly missing my point. Imagine for a moment that the two major parties could automatically put their candidates on the ballot, but a third party had to get 10,000 signatures. Would this be an effective barrier to democracy, in that candidates would not have a fair chance to compete on a level playing field? Yes, it would. You could push this requirement up as high as you wanted. Maybe you need signatures from 10% of the citizens to get your name on the ballot. You still technically have a democracy. But the higher you push this number, the less representative your democracy would become. And in many states, after Ventura's election in Minnesota, the number of signatures a candidate needed to get a candidate's name on the ballot was raised. In other words, American democracy is becoming less representative.
You want to talk ludicrous and naive?
Think for a moment about how ineffective third parties have been at the national level. Do you really, honestly believe that everyone capable of political leadership is packed into one of those parties? The legal barriers to getting a third party candidate on the ballot are enormous and only those people who radically disagree with certain mainstream policies and have enormous capital, political or otherwise, are willing to run. So you get nuts like Perot or Buchannan. To get on the ballot in a majority of the states requires time and money which would otherwise be devoted to campaigning. Party candidates automatically get their names on the ballot. How is that fair? And if some candidates have barriers that other candidates don't, is your democracy as representative as one which dosen't have this restriction.
If the two parties agree, your vote is not irrelevant. It just means you're in the minority and you lost.
This is an unsupported assumption.
After Perot and Ventura, many states enacted new barriers to third party candidates. Was this because people the majority of voters wanted them to 'stop the third parties! stop the third parties!' No. It wasn't. It was because the parties themselves, acting as institutions and powerbrokers in their own right, were looking out for their own interests. Third parties may be good for us, but they're unequivocally ba
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
Unfortunately alot of people forget that free markets are not about markets, but about freedoms. When you secure the appropiate freedoms, then the markets will take care of themselves as people use those freedoms to persue their goals, interests, and can persue financial gain justly.
Strong industry and an oppressive state is a formula for a Hitler like government every time. Any time an economey grows, you always have social strife and struggle, but unlike western countries - China has no internal checks and balances to keep the government from freaking out. It could very easially become a militant police state.
The ONLY check and balance China has is the USA - and frankly we are not doing our job. While I dont think we should block trade, we need to be ready to force the issue with Tiawan and Hong Kong and make investors who invest in China sign off that their investments are not and will not be secured by the US government. We should openly discourage foriegn investment, and need to persue any policy that makes them economically weaker and us economically stronger, and knock off the copyright and intellectual property bullshit (the culturial open sharing of knowledge is one of the few counterbalances there). We should have underground networks that smuggle chineese disadents out, and we should have lots and lots of favorable treaties and agreements with India to offset the Chineese threat. Now that we more or less got Pakastan off Indias back, we should encourage them to be the force that counteracts China.
All of you jump to the same conclusion: "China is a hardline socialist totalitarian dictatorship and all of it's citizens must hate it there!" (1) we don't know anything about this 'cyber dissident', what sort of dissident was he? Was he funded by the CIA? If a 'dissident' is placed in a country to spread literature by a foreign nation it is a legitimate target for arrest. Any country would arrest such a person. The U.S. randomly arrested the Cuban Five and thousands of arabs basedo n loose connections. (2) China is half socialist (public ownership of production) and half a market economy. It's economy is not totalitarian in any sense. The Politburo is impereable. It seems to have set up some nice barriers around it's bureaucratic apparatus, but, there still exists democracy from the local up to the central committe level. (3) If you noticed, when thousands marched in Hong Kong, the Chinese government backed away from their new law, in the United States, when hundreds of thousands protest against a war, nothing happens.
So kids, everyone still think its a good idea to provide powerful operating systems etc. to people who jail citizens over nothing? "Red Flag Linux for the People! Well, except the ones we shot because they whined, eh?"
Good idea for the Chicom government to be able to make clusters? And use 'em for nuclear explosive research? I'm thinking no.
Maybe some fertile minds should think about that little problem, eh? Exploding Linux for Chinese missile labs, run a nuke simulation on it and it burns up your CPUs. Make the bastards WORK for their WMD's!
I was referring to some lesser known ones. (that have even spawned some untrue "urban-legeneds")
What "urban legends" are those? What "lessor known issues" are you speaking of? And how does that justify your equating Aguinaldo's attempted revolution with "Islamic Terrorism"?
And you should be careful what you think of as "Urban Legend".
The US government subsidised the Taliban government through the 1990's, the U.S. backed Mujahudeen supported itself in part by exporting Hashish during the 1980's, and the organisation known as Al-Q'aeda was created to funnel donations (largely from Saudi Arabia and the U.S.) and weapons to terrorists that were fighting against the Soviet Occupiers in 1984.
If you want to talk about Iraq, then we have US intelligence operatives acting as advisors during Saddam Husein's solidification of power during the 1970's, his recieving of subsidies and weapons from the U.S. after his execution of his opponents in 1978, and the US backing both Iraq (publicly) and Iran (more privately) during thier war during the 1980's. The criticism of France for selling Hussein's government weapons is misdirected as those were NATO approved arms deals that were paid for mostly with subsidies from the U.S.
How about Iran? Perhaps the most telling thing about the Ayatollah Khomeini's "anti US stance was that one of the first things he did was arrest and execute 4000 "communists" that were listed on a CIA communique as "enemies" of Democracy. The Shah of Iran had been losing power throughout the 1970's and it was believed that only a coup would prevent Democratic reforms that the U.S. intelligence community believed would make Iran vulnerable to becoming communist.
To get this back on topic, yes, the Chinese government is much morerepressive and authoritarian than the U.S. government, but the US Intelligence community is and has been up to it's ears in the business of supporting terrorism (look up the "Iran-Contra" affair). The same people who back these activities also have been known to support the idea of censorship, and have been known to implement spin on the media through direct control of various media empires and actors unions. Look up the "Music Coporation of America" scandal and the Church Commision hearing documents from the 1960's.
Read, L
Thanks for the link, but that one basically mirrors the official White House one in that it doesn't transcribe Senator Brown or Nettle's comments, it just lists them as interjections.
I'm after a link that shows what those two Senators said (I believe it was an anti-war commentary, but I didn't get a clear line from TV).
This is my point - nowhere does it give the Senators' actual remarks, thereby effectively censoring their speech (in parliament no less!). Thanks anyway.
Visceral Psyche Films
media control and the machinations of states have profound effects on those of us fortunate enough to live in liberal democracies, but the impact is nothing like what the government in Beijing does to its populace.
are we democracies somewhat hypocritical? yes, but short of threatening the lives of various government officials, I can literally say anything I want. I'm doing that right now, in fact, with impunity.
If English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for everyone else.
Wow, I'd really like to know why this got modded down to "troll"..
Yesterday I could not access /. directly, later I could via a SSL proxy. (though now I can access it again.) I wondered why. /. permanently.
I appreciate greatly that slashdot can say what the Chinese gov. is unhappy to hear. but I worried that if stories like this are a little more, the China gov. would block the
-- forgive me my poor Engl...