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U.S. Representatives Torpedo UN Information Summit
StoneLion writes "The United Nations World Summit on Information Society was established to 'harness the potential of knowledge and technology' and to 'find effective and innovative ways to put this potential at the service of development for all.' You'd think open source software would be a natural for many UN member countries. But NewsForge's Joe Barr discovered that the US is driving policy for the organization, and its official position is that 'using free software to achieve the WSIS goals might get in the way of an intellectual property owner's ability to make a profit'; in other words, they want to make the world safe for capitalism." We've mentioned WSIS before. Newsforge and Slashdot are both part of OSDN.
"The U.S. view is that we don't want to see government, or in this case, the World Summit, advocate one type of software over another." -Sally Shipman
When you get down to the nut and bolts all software is just 1s and 0s: there aren't different "types" at that level.
I think what Sally Shipman really means is "We want our large US software firms to continue to reap Huge profits: Open Source threatens that."
That's fine, after all it's a US delegation and they're supposed to look out for their countrymen. Now, why can't they word it that bluntly? Simple: because Open Source doesn't contribute millions to election campaigns.
Trolling is a art,
You say that like it's a bad thing. Without the efficient, industrial base proided by capitalism there would be no computers or internet to create free software with/on/for.
Sounds like another goon who isn't good enough to get a job.
Blar.
When a government, let alone a metanational body, intervenes to affect the market that is not capitalism, it is a mixed economy.
I find it mildly amusing that protecting capitalism is linked to this seeing as how our capitalist economy here in the U.S. has more than its fair share of open source development houses and they are doing just fine. I think capitalism is less to blame than big money IP special interests, they might be a better, more specific target than a particular economic system. Of course identifying the particular interests would go a long ways too....
Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree. -Martin Luther
Why must we constantly focus on profits? I suggest that the UN torpedo Microsoft for interfering with the profits of Apple, Sun, IBM, and other companies.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
make the world safe for capitalism.
When will the US gov't realize that open source is capitalistic - it reduces your costs allowing you to make greater profits.
Shh.
The is protecting the interests of its citizens, the ability to make money by learning how to program in any country, the world economy, and jobs. Software developers don't make money from developing Open Source software. Without software, hardware is useless.
Good lord, they operate by consensus?
With all the nations on the glode, with so many widely different opinions, why it god's name would they even try to operate by consensus?
The motivation behind this decision is either a) Extreme optimism or b) Extreme Stupidity. Likely, it is both.
Although, I suppose we could consider a third if you felt like breaking out the tin foil hates.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
"the UN is driving policy" and instantly reread it cause they it was wrong. Nevertheless, I am forced to agree with the opponents of the current US government and say that thier policy of intellectual protectionism to the point of intellectual imperialism is not the way to go. Japan went isolationist for a century and what did that get them? The same here, only instead of just isolating ourselves from the innovations of the rest of the world we are isolating ourselves and arresting the progres of our own innovation. There is a darwinism to nations and policies that clearly shows that nations that create policies (no matter how justified they may seem) if those current policies retard that nations sucess either those policy must go or that nations will. Laws that don't work either will collapse themselves or bring down those who attempt to enforce them. You cannot control innovation. If you try, you will fail. That is why the concept of intellectual property will colaapse. Either we must abandon are perceptions of it or face the growing threat of those who will ignore such absurd laws. Just as we can innobvate so can they and saying that we own one thought will just be laughed at by those who do not follow our laws and realize that just becuase you are the first to have a thought does not by nature give you the sole and exlcusive oweneship of that thought.
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
"in other words, they want to make the world safe for capitalism." I must have missed your point. Why is this a bad thing?
"Never tell me the odds"
First of all, I don't think that open-source software is really going to stand in the way of making a profit. By some estimates, software licenses account for only 8% of revenues in the software industry.
Second -- why is profit at the top of the list of priorities for this particular initiative? I believe that an open democracy is possible.
I don't believe in forced sharing, but I do believe that we should be allowed to share if we so desire. The wording here seems to suggest that sharing is a significant threat to selling, and that as such, it should be disallowed entirely. I realize that hasn't been said, but it's not a big stretch from his current position... I don't want to see the world start down that slippery slope.
MakePassword.com Mp3 Blog
should have read:
The first is the United States' position that profit -- or even the potential for profit -- by major corporate donors to the current administration is more important than anything else.
Interesting that when this U.N. summit was first proposed, eveyone laughed at how stupid it sounded and how pie-in-the-sky politician-makes-you-feel-good wishy-washy etc. it sounded. Now that the US torpedos it, you blame "evil capitalists and BUSH". Good riddance, open source doesn't need the U.N.
Ignoring the "Let IBM/Microsoft/DELL solve the worlds problems and give us cash!" angle, the US' stance does make some sense;
You might be threatening your burgeouning software industry/IP industry by promoting open source. Thats great if your goal for information technology is to make your companies money.
But how many countries are in the same position as the US? And how many more would actually like to leverage cheap costs of open source for immediate tangible benefit?
If the US was a third world nation, it would change its tune. IN the mean time, its business as usual.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Until we stop having this survival of the fittest idealogy, I will not be supprised by the actions of those who are top dog. Anything will be done to protect that position.
Others are of no consequence.
Using proprietary software might also get in the way of an intellectual property owner's ability to make a profit, i.e. another company. That's what happens when you make a choice between one product or another. So what are they saying, that they should only buy software if there were no competing products? That they should only buy from monopolies? Please tell us, oh wise and corrupt US representatives...
-3Suns
~~~~
The Revolution will be Slashdotted
I think the point was, that that was a direct quote reflecting the stupidity and callousness of the speaker. This is the point of the article, and a very good one.
We're not even talking about cloning AIDS drugs (which DID cost the pharma companies some real R&D $$$ after all...), but about suggesting a free alternative which was developed independently of the non-free (either sense of free (beer, speech) works here).
This is sickening. The analogue would be not allowing a charity to give away their own AIDS drugs, because the big players in pharma deserve a crack at it. Nonsense. True free markets don't actively suppress altruism...
the UN has been trying to control the internet for some time now. The US doesnt want that. What's the problem? If you want open source, then just use it: we dont have to all bend over for the UN.
But the US is the new evil[.]
It makes me very sad that people believe this. It makes me sadder that those same people are ignorant enough to equate "international community" with the bunch of dictators and human rights violators that make up the joke that is the UN. It makes me sadder still that said people who say the U.S. is evil and makes things bad for its citizens and the rest of the world somehow never give any substantial evidence of that.
Trolls: The high-tech version of those morons that scrawl obscenities in public bathrooms.
You are presumably referring to the war in Iraq, where the U.S. enforced a decade-old resolution that the U.N. itself proposed, and we did so not unilaterally, but with the help of dozens of other countries, most notably Great Britain. The war is over with small skirmishes still being fought to retain the peace, mostly against terrorists, not enemies of war. So far the most notable result has been far from "making things worse for our citizens and the rest of the world": we have captured Saddam Hussein and most of his major henchmen, and we've pressured Libya into ending it's quest for WMD... and the war was only started about 11 months ago!
So honestly, what the FUCK are you talking about?
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
in other words, they want to make the world safe for capitalism
Capitalism is an economy in which sources of production are controlled by private entities(instead of by the public/government). This shouldn't be confused with things like intellectual property rights, which isn't even a source of production, and really has little to do with wether you have a capitalist economy.
A modern day witchhunt.
Each government member is supposed to bring its own opinionto the table.
The U.S. government is entitled to think commercialware should be the only ware out there.
Fine. Other countries, if so inclined, can argue otherwise.
On the other hand, it is up to any interested U.S. citizen to disabuse his government of this lunatic option, if the citizen is so inclined. If the citizen does not care, the government will go with the easiest thing to do, which is to follow lobbyst advice.
... Shipman told me, "The U.S. view is that we don't want to see government, or in this case, the World Summit, advocate one type of software over another." ... It offends the sensibilities of corporate lobbyists whose moral compass points at nothing but the bottom line.
This is merely a continuation of the point that the USA's representatives do not want to turn control of the base portions of the Internet over to another closed international organization. As the process stands right now, the current controllers happen to be capitalist, but they also happen to exist in a free enough society that we can bitch about their behaviors and impose change through democratic processes (or semi-democratic, if you include getting a congress-person to impose some new regulation that dictates how things should be). There is no such guarantee once control leaves our borders.
Furthermore, there are a handful of governments who are turning from the IBM AIX/Microsoft Windows proprietary software systems to the open source models that Sourceforge and Slashdot staff seem to champion. But, that in no way implies once the WSIS takes over, the open-source methods would be adopted either. The danger expressed by the representatives is that a 3rd party such as the UN will be in control to dictate connectivity, and that the majority of members of that UN body are not interested in the free flow of information in the form that the USA embrases it. We see nations like China filtering content into their space, nations in the Mid-East who would be even more harsh on content flow, and would these nations be in the majority on the WSIS board, it would spell an end for the freedom of content that we have enjoyed this last decade.
It doesn't matter if the firewall is closed source or open source, I don't want a firewall blocking a nation from my content.
Open Source Intellectual Property (in the form of Copyright works) has owners too and they have the right to make a profit. Unfairly excluding their work from use restricts their ability to make a profit from their work, for example by selling consulting services, or add ons or their skills and services in general. Let's not pretend that OSS is anti-capitalist or in any way incompatible with capitalism. It is another component in what should be a free market where EVERYONE including free software authors should be allowed to compete on a level playing field. If the U.S. government has forgotten this or has sold out to lobbyists representing vested interests then we need to make the case for Open Source and Free Software clearly without muddying the watters with silly statements about making the world safe for capitalism.
Watch out for your implicit double standards: The US is every bit as dodgy as the rest of the world.
Well, first off, when the government grants a person an unnatural monopoly on copying things, it is anything but free market. But second off, this really touches on something that has been bothering me about America lately. The path to wealth comes about by making freedom an end in itself, not greed.
If I pointed a gun to your head, took 10K, invested it, made 20K, and then gave it back to all your friends and took the credit for it - then technically speaking the group would better off financially, but they wouldn't be better off overall because they would have lost controll over their own destinies in the process. IMHO, this is what is happening to the USA. We have lost our financial freedom even though technically speaking we are wealthier than ever.
Free (as in libre) software is not mutually exclusive with capitalism. Ask RedHat. Or IBM. Or any number of companies that develop free (again, libre) software and make a profit (or, at least get a return in dollars) while operating in a capitalist system. The opponent here isn't capitalism. It's closed software and closed development methods. Of course the US (and a number of other countries, I assume) wants to promote capitalism. But it can do that and also promote free software.
Hey guess what? There other countries with nukes that have broken UN resolutions and get sold arms by the US!
Sure, the war in Iraq may have a positive outcome, but that doesn't mean anyone's intentions were honest.
The US never learned how to do diplomacy. There's just too much of the schoolyard bully inherent in the attitude.
I laugh at your silly karma.
Good to see the ol' US of A fighting for democracy in every corner of the world. Yep - you can have democracy any way you like it, as long as you have it OUR way.
With each breath in, a flower somewhere opens; with each breath out, a flower withers away. In between lies beauty.
Capitalism is not a guarantee to make a profit. I find Open Source just as Capitalistic as Closed Source is. Open Source projects, for the most part, lose MONEY in developement, and expect no profits, as a direct source of selling said projects.
Instead, projects are developed and funded by people to USE those projects to create profits as a SIDE benifit, and those profits are not tied directly to the developement or use of those products.
Let us take a big corporation that spends $$ on an "Office" product. They do so, not because "Office" makes them money directly, but because it helps them make money. Big Corporation realizes that it can take a percentage of $$ money spend on licenses, and apply it to an "Open source" project and even direct the project to include features not found in "Office" and end up with a product that is immeasurably better than the original "Office".
Big Company #2, #3 etc all start to realize the same thing, it becomes CHEAPER and BETTER than the original "Office", and each contribute. It actually because Cheaper in the long run to fund Open Source than it does to pay licenses for each new version of "Office".
The company who originally created "Office" (copied actually) complains about "Anti competitive behaviour" and "profits" are only trying to protect that which is not rightfully theirs (the right to profit).
To me, protectionism doesn't work. It is trying to protect the buggy and whip industries as cars start becoming ubiquitous.
I am all for monopolies, as they create other opportunities for innovation. Microsoft is a monopoly and I don't have a problem with it, because THAT is exactly what fostered Open Source.
If STANDARD OIL wasn't broken up, we might actually have ALTERNATIVES to hydrocarbon fuels today. In a free and open society, Monopolies are short lived, because people find OTHER WAYS of doing the same thing.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Capitalism is an economy in which sources of production are controlled by private entities(instead of by the public/government). This shouldn't be confused with things like intellectual property rights, which isn't even a source of production, and really has little to do with wether you have a capitalist economy.
This correct. 'Intellectual Property Rights' are government sanctioned monopolies. The exact opposite of capitalism.
--fatboy
He's just pointing out that they're shady creatures of dubious nature. He wasn't saying the U.N. was any worse than the U.S., but that they both lack any true grounding in any respectable morality.
In the sense that it's used here, making things "safe for capitalism" is a bad thing. When the government gets involved and uses it's might to shift or sway the market playing field, it's almost always a bad thing. Open source software exists and functions quite well in a free market. If it beats out more traditional software companies, it's because it out competed them in terms of value given per cost demanded.
Open source is not inherently communistic, nor is it a threat to capitalism. It's simply a threat to particular companies, just as new innovations are always a threat to older companies. Even if particular companies die, the market itself will hum along just fine.
"The legitimate powers of government extend only to such acts as are injurious to others." Thomas Jefferson.
This isn't helping capitalism any... Open Source is part of capitalism, government is not. When government tries to protect any entity, be it a corporation or a sector, its no longer capitalism, its the American System of Mercantilism has established by Henry Clay (and furthered into the US by Abraham Lincoln).
Remember, Open Source is free market driven as well. The customer may pay nothing, but they also may want to pay for closed software so they receive some sort of guaranteed support or whatever it is they want. Just because software is free doesn't mean that there is no cost to run it.
Government picking closed source over open source really doesn't help capitalism any. In a truly capitalist society (The US is NOT capitalist in any way), open source can compete freely with closed source. Indian programmers can compete with American ones.
Government mandated monopolies do not make capitalism safe.
-I am an elective eunuch.
I'm amused how the same people who push the point of view that free software should be allowed to compete with pricey software are the ones who say that cheap foreign programmers should not be allowed to compete with pricey american ones.
But NewsForge's Joe Barr discovered that the US is driving policy for the organization, and its official position is that 'using free software to achieve the WSIS goals might get in the way of an intellectual property owner's ability to make a profit'; in other words, they want to make the world safe for capitalism."
... a slashdot post.
Where does it say that it's the offical position of the US that 'using free software to achieve the WSIS goals might get in the way of an intellectual property owner's ability to make a profit'? It's Joe Barr's interpretation, and the second half of that is the posters interpretation of Joe Barr's quote. I would like to see more quotes and references. The article is a lot like
"The software companies have gotten fat and lazy. Open Source came at them from left field and they still can't figure out how to honestly fight it. That's why they go crying to the politicians after contributing money to their campaigns.
This is a good point. I think it reflects the general laziness on the part of behemoth corporations with establish streams of revenue. Take Disney for instance. Every time the Mouse's copyright (Steam Boat Willy for goodness sakes!) almost comes up for expiry, another copyright extention gets past. Disney knows it's in hot water, especially lately because it hasn't had a mega-hit since the Lion King.
But it's not just Disney. If Linux really, and I mean really became a threat to Microsoft it would come down to either Microsoft ceasing to exist as it does now or Linux being made illegal (or tied up in the courts 'till forever). My guess is on the latter. Few people seem to point out (that I see, anyhow) that all this talk about innovation is total crap. Established corporations don't really want to innovate, because that costs money! Why innovate when you can just throw lawyers at threats to your revenue stream? This has been going on since (at least) Edison when he forced all the movie producers to move out to California to evade patents on motion picture equipment.
Linux will just have to do what it does best and no one else really wants to do -- innovate. Innovate damn well, too. Microsoft's $250-something billion market cap. is one heck of a freight train to derail.
The US is every bit as dodgy as the rest of the world.
That's a dangerous and blatantly wrong statemnet. It shows that you probably have never seen the darker side of a totalitarian regime. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to say that the US are any good (read the parent post, first paragraph). I'm just saying that there are much worse and less humane governments around (North Korea anybody? Cuba?).
Comparing CIA to Czech STB is laughable. Has CIA ever run concentration camps? Where people worked in uranium mines? To sell uranium to USSR?
Spied on people? Give me a break. Do you have a clue what consequences it had for the people involved? If they had relatives still in the Czech rep. they lost their jobs, their kids weren't allowed to go to Universities. The fact is that you British (just guessing that you are) live in such a sheltered world it's remarkable. If you lived in a Commnist country for 9 years you'd know better.
BUT, my original point was that the US has no better (or worse) moral grounding than the UN for anything.
Right, "advocating freedom of choice", which is exactly why the US is blocking this summit from even happening. Because, like, you know, "advocating freedom of choice" should only happen when everyone promises not to discuss any alternative choices. In the US, this is called "freedom", in the rest of the world, this is called "bullshit".
That is not what the official position of the organization is. It is the article writer interpretation of the position. The quotes do not surround anything the official said but are part of a sentence in the article where the writer gives his interpretation of the official position.
Ann Coulter would be proud of your effort. But I'm going to hold /. to a slightly better standard than that.
I agree with the article but don't see the value in bad arguments.
Well, we took a stable (albeit ruled by a ruthless dictator) country with a viable economy and some semblance of order and ripped it to hell under the guise of protecting America. The goal wasn't to remove a bad man... There are plenty of bad men running countries, many of which we put there. The goal was to protect Americans.
Nukes? None... WMDs? None... Terrorism? Well, there wasn't terrorism until we wiped Iraq clean of any and all army or police. Now the infamous Al Queda is flooding into the country killing scores of Iraqis almost daily. And those 'small skirmishes' have killed more American soldiers than the pre-"Mission Accomplished" war. We'll end up spending a few hundred billion by the time we're done. The rest of the world hates us to the point where the UN is going to ask us to get the hell out. And two weeks before we started dropping bombs on this wanker who we swore up and down had WMDs and was desperately trying to kill Americans, he offered to let our own FBI come in and perform inspections... unfortunately, he had no proof of having weapons he really didn't have so that was obviously insufficient.
What the fuck you ask? The administration lied to Americans playing off their fears and sympathies to fight a war of preemption drastically changing America's position in the world and squandering any good-will towards us. Hundreds of Americans have died. Thousands of Iraqi civilians have died. Iraq is now a hotbed for terrorism so bad in fact the UN is having meetings behind our back looking for ways to get us the hell out. And our federal coffers are draining to the tune of 500b a year. Oh yeah, and Osama... a real threat to national security, no idea where he's at. What the FUCK?
LilMikey.com... I'll stop doing it when you sto
Now that looks to me like oss/free software is in there. and personally I guess I'm inclined to be pleased that it's there at all, rather than bitching that it's not how 'we' might like it.
And then declaring the entire ting to be a failure.
Which is why I don't rely on 'pundits' such as Barr, Perens or FSF to do my thinking for me.
Anyone who's expecting oss/free to be some major plank in a guidance document under the auspices of the UN is either dreaming or stupid.
As for what the US position might or might not be frankly I don't care. Foreign policy is an arcane art at best, and if the US doesn't often fairly represent *my* views in FP, well I don't think many nations' FP's come much closer.
So for my $0.02 (yes, US) I'm glad to call this a (limited) win and go back to doing what I do which is software and engineering and occasionally bitching out / voting out the pols who can't figure out their ass from a hole in the ground. but ultimately they don't matter I do, I do stuff I make stuff, I write stuff and I'm happy enough to leave the politicing to others.
Linux is Linux, if One need clarify their dist: <Dist>/GNU Linux
bsds are of course just BSD
Why should software be any different from sugar?
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson wants more time for conclusive scientific study as the United States recommendations to the World Health Organization, which has the temerity to come out with outlandish and controversal dietary recommendations such as eating less sugar and more fruits and vegetables.
Other sugar-producing nations in the Americas are falling into line with this policy view. (Although I can't understand that they're very happy with the US subsidies to its domestic sugar producers.)
For those old enough to remember, this "needs more scientific study of direct causal relationship" was trotted out by the tobacco industry for a long time to combat U.S. governmental efforts to label cigarette packs.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
...and while all the countries on that list aren't dictators, France and Germany sure seemed to have an affinity for Saddam Hussein. Their official position was that the Baathist regime was the only legitimate government for Iraq. So, you bet, there are lots of dictatorships and dictator-friendly countries on that list (especially if it will put a thorn in the side of the US).
I've got all the Karma in the world, so you people can mod me down all to shit. I don't give a fuck. I'm tired of the words "international community" automatically being assumed to mean loving benevolent progress here when frankly, the UN and the so-called international community are a collection of gutless whining leftist states. When that's the case, I LIKE unilateral U.S. action.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
You might be threatening your burgeouning software industry/IP industry by promoting open source.
Interestingly, Oracle, IBM, Novell and other software companies who promote linux don't feel as you do - perhaps there is a fatal, obvious flaw in your argument?
Protoplasm. Quiet Protoplasm. I like quiet protoplasm.
Remember: the last president, son of the former head of the secret police, was appointed by judges appointed by his father, after an election whose results and (mis)management was widely contested. Saying "it can't happen here" doesn't make it not happen.
Why your statements may work in a idealistic world, it doesn't cut it in the real world. For example...
Pharmaceutical company A spends 10 billion dollars in R&D to create a cure for cancer and does not patent it for the good of the world...
Idealistic world: Other pharmaceutical companies allow company A to recover it's cost and even let it make some profit for the hard work before copying the drug.
Real world: Other companies copy the new cancer drug and sells it a hundred times cheaper then the company A does as they have no need to recover the R&D costs. Company A goes bankrupt.
IP rights is like a tool. It itself is neither good (like GPL) or evil (like SCO). It's all about how you use it.
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
What I don't understand is why people here think that "protecting capitalism" is a good thing.
If capitalism is such an efficient economic formation, why does it require such protectionist policies (such as employed by US)?
This situation is not unique to the software industry. US representatives actively protect IP rights of large multinational pharmaceutical companies, which is, without a doubt, a major factor in AIDS pandemic in Africa. Another industry that will not make without the help of US politicians is biotech.
US, WTO and World Bank have been pushing similiar policies for many years and US policy on WSIS is just their logical continuation.
What confuses me is the seeming inability for administrations to resort to more rational compromises instead of steamrolling everything.
In the Disney/copyright case, it would have made much more sense to tinker with the copyright renewal process than to extend all copyrights accross the board, including the ones that nobody cares about anymore. There used to be a perfectly good copyright renewal process, described here, that was amended to provide "automatic renewal", probably to cut down on administration costs as much as everything else.
For whatever reason everyone's now decided to focus on simply extending the copyright term for everything instead of requiring those who actually still want to enforce their copyright to actively say so. This means that lots of derelict and abandoned work is simply disappearing because projects such as Project Gutenberg aren't allowed to save them.
You generalise in saying that moral ground is not neccesarily higher ground, or something equally vague. It is more objective to focus on the specific issues rather than doing a generalised comparison based on some shady figures in the UN or wherever. The issue discussed here is free software not moral ground. And in this case, the UN stands on _higher_ moral ground than your so-called equally moral US does.
Sorry, US policies are not misguided. They do exactly as they are intended.
Its US intentions that are misguided.
You forgot the fourth way - create it. This is what America does so well, and what socialists do so poorly, perhaps because they buy into blather like yours.
But NewsForge's Joe Barr discovered that the US is driving policy for the organization, and its official position is that 'using free software to achieve the WSIS goals might get in the way of an intellectual property owner's ability to make a profit'; in other words, they want to make the world safe for capitalism."
/.ers, disagree with the statement that OSS gets in the way of profits. OSS certainly requires a different business model to generate revenue, (duh) but from an economic perspective, it isn't any better or worse than proprietary software.
Obviously, Capitalism is the economic system which works the best i.e. it provides the best chance for a given nation to operate on it's production possibilities curve (yeah...econ101) and therefore provide the highest standard of living for the people.
I, like most
I do not however like the negative spin that you are putting on Capitalism. Achieving a decent standard of living with plentiful food, medical care, and economic and political stability cannot be achieved as well with any other system; Capitalism has emerged as the clear winner. Degrading this most efficient system because it's not always associated with your views on software licensing is just foolish.
I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
> Has CIA ever run concentration camps?
I don't think its _run_ by the CIA, but Guantanamo Bay certainly qualifies as a concentration camp, and the CIA was certainly responsible for choosing the destination for many of its occupants.
"Iraq, the situation there is not especially comparable to that of Pakistan"
I agree with this statement a 100%. what Pakistan was doing was a hundred times more dangerous than what was going on in Iraq. Pakistan 's Khan was shopping working nuclear bomb designs and manufacturing centrifuges in Malaysia for sale to the highest bidder, which could easily have included terrorists. North Korea presumably has nukes now thanks to Pakistan so we have a really dangerous unstable regime with nukes thanks to Pakistan. Is there any evidence anyone has WMD's thanks to Iraq?
Iraq doesn't seem to have had any nuclear program since it was dismantled in the mid 90's. They certainly weren't real cooperative with the U.N. over time but as Bush was rushing to war they were cooperating with all the U.N inspections. Iraq offered to let CIA agents come in and find all the weapons the Bush administration claimed were there and claimed to know where they were. If this was really about WMD's the CIA would have just gone in, found the WMD's and proved their case. They didn't. This was about taking down Saddam and the fact he was trying to fully comply with inspections was an inconvenience as Bush/Cheney rushed to war. There is NOTHING Saddam could have done to comply with the U.N. to stop the invasion.
As Wolfowitz has said since, WMD's were just a convenient pretext for invading. It was one everyone could agree on.
Laying WMD charges against a country is a delightful rationalization for aggressive warfare. Its a charge you can lay against ANYONE. All you do is say "WE KNOW" they have chemical or biological weapons. Its impossible for the accused country to prove they do not no matter how much you inspect them. If you don't find any you just say, "They must have hid them really well". After all little vials of Anthrax can be hidden anywhere.
@de_machina
The CIA? Perhaps you could look up the School of the Americas, and see how many people in South and Central America have been exterminated by the CIA's pet dictators. Heck, here's a giggle: go to Chile and start telling people the CIA are a swell bunch in no way comparable to, say, the KGB. If you're lucky, you'll just get a verbal reality check, not a punch in the mouth.
This is not capitalist vs socialist or communist. This is about the public money being spent on something that cannot be controled by the public. Even Microsoft can be made to understand that when a public office buys a software product, the public buys a service that must be public for the good of the public. The government should not spend more money than absolutely necessary (that's a laugh) this means that if a PDF reader is bought from Adobe, there must be a way to read PDF files even if Adobe goes under and the software becomes unavailable for the new machines, possibly for a different OS in a few years. PDF should be an open standard, at minimum, at best Adobe would give the government the source code for the sold software.
In a government, where it is everyone's money, these money must not be wasted, and many times buying closed source software could become a waste.
So, get with the program, you, proprietary corporations, if you want to sell to governments - sell open source software.
This is not about communism vs capitalism, this is about your money.
You can't handle the truth.
Correct.
But to take your point a step further, don't forget that the UN really is just an extensin of US foreign policy. The US has ( and uses regularly ) its right to veto any motion that doesn't suit their 'national interests'. Of course a select few other countries also have a right to veto motions, but:
a) it only takes one veto-happy country to ruin it
b) all countries with veto rights are right behind US foreign policy.
Do a google search on the number of resolutions calling for the Israelis to back out of the 'occupied' territories that the US has vetoed.
Baby Bush was right when he said that the UN is irrelevent. It is. It's as irrelevent as the statement that the US's real concern is democracy.
The only chance for international equality lies in demolishing the UN and replacing it with a true world government that is elected directly by the people.
They should talk directly to the Open Source community, not the US Government Corporate. We don't need Government permission.
:v)
Vik
On the other hand, if you have some secret intelligences (hopefully of better quality than those the intelligence agencies had), please share around. I'd be most interested in hearing about it.
Since you are one of those people who believes that coporations never pay (or very little) taxes, I sugggest that you go ahead and form a coporation (you can do it in most states for around $100-200) and not pay taxes for the rest of your life. After all, big tax cuts only benifit the coporation so why not take adventage of it? I'm willing to bet that you'll end up behind bars instead.
Take cancer for example. Have you hear of Immunogen? It's developed by British Biotech, not University of So and SO. How about TAP? By SmithKine Beecham.
Beside, I spent a couple of years serving in the student government and learned that many schools are run like a corporation, riddled with politics.
And taking about the defense contractors and knowledge not making back to the public, were do you think that Internet came from?
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b) all countries with veto rights are right behind US foreign policy.
Cause Russia, China, and France haven't disagreed with us on anything lately. :P
The free world should unite and do this to the US.
No, they shouldn't.
What would that accomplish?
"First lesson," Jon said. "Stick them with the pointy end."
Ill reply to this.
The USA is MORE dangerous than the rest of the world, that simple. Mod me flamebait/troll or whatever, its your loss if you stamp on the voices you most need to hear. The USA right now is the single greatest danger to lasting world peace. What frightens the rest of the world is that until you start your next civil war and root out the fascists in your camp the rest of us are powerless, because nobody is going to fight your army face on. We are conting on you ordinary Americans to restore your contry to the exemplar of peaceful democracy and freedom it used to be. If you don't have the strength to do this now it will only get more painful and difficult in the future. Once it reaches the America vs Rest of the World stage its the end for everyone.
Also get over the ideological crap. This isn't about protecting Capitalism. It's about looking after the special interests of a few thousand of the very rich and well connected. America is becomming a very non-capitalistic society. Capitalism implies opportunity not a totalitarian boot in the face.