Corbis, DMCA, And John Kerry Photos

Phronesis writes "Photo District News is running a story reporting that three historic photos of John Kerry from the early 1970s, including the one used for the Jane Fonda forgery, were pirated from Corbis. The photographers who own the copyright on the photos are asking Corbis to use its fancy watermarking technology to find the culprit. Corbis hopes either to track the responsible people down using watermarks, or to invoke DMCA if the watermarks were removed."

Comments

/. sums it up nicely for once

[Shakrai]

Hmm, I was going to make a comment on how ironic it would be to turn the DCMA against the rich people who are in power and would like to torpedo Mr. Kerry (or anyone who is a threat to them for that matter) but the /. subject line summed it up quite nicely: "from the forgery-and-lebel-were-already-criminal dept."

Still it would be a nice amount of irony wouldn't it? A wonderful example of what happens when you pass draconian laws -- they come back to bite you in the ass no matter how "good" your intentions were.

On a somewhat offtopic sidenote here's this quotation from the article:

"So many of the captions attached to this photograph were totally inaccurate," Skoogfors says. "At the actual event, [Kerry] was a pretty low-key player and it was only a year later that he became a leader of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War

So much for our clean 2004 election - as if any of us thought it would actually happen anyway.

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[subrosas]

Well, Kerry probably qualifies as one of the "rich people" who are in power, and he did vote for the DMCA.

He helped pass a draconian law, and when someone tried to slander him, that law's being used to help nail the people who did the forgery.

Where's the irony?

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[Cajun Hell]

how ironic it would be to turn the DCMA against the rich people who are in power and would like to torpedo Mr. Kerry

Mr. Kerry was in the Senate when DMCA passed unanymously, thus he voted for it. Would it be ironic if a law that a senator voted for, turned out to be useful to him? Not really.

And as for contrasting "rich people" with Mr. Kerry, that's a very interesting spin you have chosen.

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[Ringel]

Still it would be a nice amount of irony wouldn't it? A wonderful example of what happens when you pass draconian laws -- they come back to bite you in the ass no matter how "good" your intentions were.

You can not grant power for a specific purpose. That is not the nature of power.

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[leifm]

I know you're not really referring to the election, but politics is a lot like /. polls, when all the answers suck vote for the least offensive (CowboyNeal).

Clinton IMHO was tons better than Bush, but he still signed the DOMA and the Telecommunications Act, which if I recall correctly contained the CDA.

So DMCA proponent or not Kerry '04!

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[Anonymous Coward]

I saw the real photograph with Kerry in the same place as Fonda, but I kept look at the dude with the beard and saying "that looks nothing like Kerry, WTF are they talking about?"

Then I finally saw him in the distance, blurred a bit. So, big fucking deal.. It's not like he was sitting next to her holding her hand or something.

But in any case... Kucinich for President!!!

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[LostCluster]

So much for our clean 2004 election - as if any of us thought it would actually happen anyway.

Even if the candidates promise to keep things clean, candidates can't control their supporters. And, we've seen that even though there are tight regulations on what political groups can put out in traditional paid media, it seems like the campaign reform laws have completely overlooked the Internet, and people have discovered that if you put something contraversial on the Internet, it'll get discussed on TV for free. Even the infamous "blocked by CBS" MoveOn.org Super Bowl spot, which complied with all of the campaign law rules, got more free runs on CNN, MSNBC and Fox News during discussions of it than paid ones.

So, even if both candidates shake hands and promise zero negativity from their own people, there will be people on both sides of the ball who they can't stop that'll go negative in their name anyway. The media's going to have its work cut out trying to verify claims made by such groups this year...

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[Anonymous Coward]

My drek still got modded up, and that's what matters to a High Class Karma Courtesan such as myself.

Some day when you are a moderator, perhaps you can afford my services, as well.

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[Anonymous Coward]

For sooth! He used a Y instead of an I! LETS FLAY HIM!!

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[Anonymous Coward]

You don't think Kerry is ``rich people''? You don't think he would say something like `I would therefore urge you to move forward with the passage of "The Digital Millenium Copyright Act"' ? Oh well, someone beat me to this, but at least I've got a link here.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Kerry probably qualifies as one of the "rich people" who are in power

In fact, if Kerry is elected, he will the the 3rd richest US president ever (behind George Washington and JFK).

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[YrWrstNtmr]

Well, Kerry probably qualifies as one of the "rich people" who are in power

probably? You DO know what the F. in John F. Kerry stands for, right?
Hint, it's not Field&Stream.

And you DO know his wife's maiden name, right? A well known condiment.

Rich people indeed...

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[RailGunner]

I have a question - were the pictures presented meant to be Satire? Lampooning political figures happens all the time, though IANAL, I wonder if making satirical photoshopped images, from a copyrighted source or not, would be protected by free speech?

Now I'm not defending these images, which were clearly meant to be passed off as real, but what if... oh I dunno - say the original picture was used in a photoshop thread on fark or something - what about then?

Seems to me that this is a lot trickier of an issue then what the surface of it seems.

And finally, as far as the rich in power - no political figure, regardless of party affiliation, should be judged on the actions on it's extremist kooks.

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[techno-vampire]

I must admit that it doesn't sound like Bush's style; it sounds more like something Tricky Dick Nixon would have done. What I'd like to know is, how many of you are upset because it's wrong, not because it's being done to Kerry? If somebody put out a faked photo "proving" Bush was AWOL, how many of you would cheer?

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[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

You DO know what the F. in John F. Kerry stands for, right?

Fred? Frank? Farfegnugen? Who cares?

And you DO know his wife's maiden name, right? A well known condiment.

Ketchup? Mustard? Relish? Again, who gives a rats ass?

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[akad0nric0]

And you DO know his wife's maiden name, right? A well known condiment.

Relish? Nope, never heard of her...

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[YrWrstNtmr]

Forbes. Kerry was not poor before he married the Heinz heir.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Bush is too stupid to be Hitler or the devil.

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[DustMagnet]

Mr. Kerry was in the Senate when DMCA passed unanymously, thus he voted for it.

You are not required to vote in the Senate, but I checked and Kerry did vote yea .

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[AhBeeDoi]

And you DO know his wife's maiden name, right? A well known condiment.
What sort of condiment is Simoes-Ferreira?

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[mapmaker]

And you DO know his wife's maiden name, right?

No. And clearly, neither do you. Her current last name, which she got from her first husband, is Heinz.

I have no idea what her maiden name was.

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[LostCluster]

Mr. Kerry was in the Senate when DMCA passed unanymously, thus he voted for it.

Sorry your premise doesn't lead to that conclusion... A bill can pass unanimously by a score of 97 to 0 in the Senate. It's still unanimous because nobody voted "no", but that doesn't lead to the conclusion that all of the senators in office were present or that everybody that was present agreed, the losing 3-person side may have just chose to abstain.

What happened in the Senate is that the Senate voted by "Unanimous Consent", which is to say not one senator spoke up to object to the bill being passed and/or request that an on-the-record vote be taken. This is often done for sure-to-be-disliked legislation because nobody has to vote "yes" either.

Now, the thing is, to call for debate and a recorded vote on an issue that you're opposed to, but you're sure the other side has the votes it takes to pass is a waste of the Senate's time, and sure to make you some enemies who might start to do their best to muck up an unrelated issue that you're in favor of. Therefore, there's a downside to objecting, the only real thing you have to gain is to get your objection onto the record.

Kerry, being a Senator, is going to be confronted with a lot of questions about the activities of the Senate and when he took action and didn't take action on them throughout the campaign. Candidates who run for a higher office after ahving any legislative position always have these questions... that's why it's more common for a former govenor to run for the office, they have far fewer on-the-record actions they have to justify, and total control of their own agenda rather than having to fight other legislators for control of a schedule.

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[black mariah]

Given that it's the photographers that took the original pictures that are pissed and not Kerry, it really doesn't matter if it's satire or not.

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[lambent]

You can do whatever you want with the image of a public figure, as long as it's clearly presented as 'not true'. AND if it is indeed actually an authentic picture, the subject has little grounds for protest, and should have thought better about molesting that donkey ...

That said, and even tho the Supreme Court has ruled on this, you still have to take into consideration copyright, fair use, and legal age laws.

Of course, if you photoshopped the president riding a train crossing a bridge in front of a nuclear power plant, may heaven have mercy on you.

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[Anonymous Coward]

And you DO know his wife's maiden name, right? A well known condiment.

condiment? That's not a condiment, it's a condiment maker. Everyone's picking on you, not for what you said, but how you said it. You DO understand why?

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[minus_273]

dude kerry is richer than you think. If elected he will be the third richest president in history. Beaten only by Washington and JKF. Kerry's family owns one big multinational company. You may have heard of it, its called Heinz Foods. I think it is something that should be mentioned if you are going to talk about rich people.
Yes, i have a link to back it up
Here. Electing kerry is almost like electing Heinz foods.

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[mi]

Kerry really did participate in the same rallies as Jane Fonda -- read the article.

If there was nothing wrong in such participations, than these forgeries are definetly not libels:

libel -- (a tort consisting of false and malicious publication printed for the purpose of defaming a living person)

So, this forgery is inlikely to be criminal...

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[NearlyHeadless]

You DO know what the F. in John F. Kerry stands for, right? Hint, it's not Field&Stream.

And you DO know his wife's maiden name, right? A well known condiment.

Her maiden name was Teresa Simoes-Ferreira. She did inherit millions from her first husband, John Heinz. Kerry's middle name is Forbes, but he's not related to the Forbes magazine publishers.

He does come from a wealth family, too

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[Golias]

Sorry your premise doesn't lead to that conclusion...

Correct. However, since the fact that he voted for it is a matter of public record, there is no need for conclusions to be drawn.

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[Luscious868]

He wasn't filthy rich either, which he is now.

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[cwernli]

A wonderful example of what happens when you pass draconian laws -- they come back to bite you in the ass no matter how "good" your intentions were.

Which awfully sounds like every law that is passed is good. Which of course holds in a democracy, but not a in republic.

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[LostCluster]

Correct. However, since the fact that he voted for it is a matter of public record, there is no need for conclusions to be drawn.

Can you even prove he was in the room at the time it was brought up?

He didn't cast a vote for it, because nobody did, and it passed in a way that meant nobody had to. The most you can say is that he didn't object to it...

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[Phronesis]

how ironic it would be to turn the DCMA against the rich people who are in power

Of course, you might ask, "who owns Corbis?"

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[nexex]

he also the richest senator

but what people dont know he is controlled by big ketchup and the tomato lobby

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[Basehart]

Weird, he doesn't look rich. Maybe next time I see a picture of him he will.

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[Dimensio]

I especially like Kerry because he was one of the few who did not support DOMA.

Re:/. sums it up nicely for once

[KlomDark]

So people will be chanting "No blood for ketchup" (Or "No Ketchup for Blood" :) ) instead of "No Blood for Oil"?

Re:/. sums it up nicely for once

[nexex]

The top 5 richest senators are:

John Kerry, D-Massachusetts: $163.6 million
Herb Kohl, D-Wisconsin: $111 million
John Rockefeller, D-West Virginia: $81.6 million
Jon Corzine, D-New Jersey: $71 million
Dianne Feinstein, D-California: $26.4 million

list

so much for the 'rich republicans'

more
According to a recent article on cnn.com, there are 40 millionaires in the U.S. Senate, according to their own financial statements.

Of these, the 5 richest are Democrats. Of the dozen richest, 10 are Democrats and 2 are Republicans. The richest (Democrat) senator is worth more than 6 times as much as the richest Republican senator.

Finally, since the remaining 60 senators must be worth less than $1M each, we can compute that the 3 richest senators (all Democrat) are worth more the the rest of the Senate combined!

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[Jayjay75]

Taken rather out of context to make it sound worse.

"As you move to conference on "The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998," I write to express concern regarding unrelated provision[s] added by the House in its companion bill. These provisions deal with the protection of "collections of information," or databases.

I am specifically concerned about language contained in Title V of the House-passed bill. This language is similar to that contained in S. 2291, "The Collections and Information Antipiracy Act, " a bill introduced in the Senate that would amend current law by creating a new form of intellectual property protection for informational databases. In recent days, I have been approached by various Massachusetts- based groups and institutions with concerns regarding the potential implications of the language included in Title V.

While I am not opposed to the eventual consideration of the database legislation, I believe that the Senate Judiciary Committee has not had ample time to examine closely the specific provisions contained in Title V and their potential implications. I would therefore urge you to move forward with the passage of "The Digital Millenium Copyright Act," but to delay consideration of any database legislation until next year. This will provide the committee with the opportunity to hold hearings on the matter and to craft database legislation that enjoys broad-based support in both the public and private sectors."

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[b17bmbr]

please remember that stereotypes are the hardest things to break. and since this particular stereotype fits a nice political agenda, then it doesn't matter the truth. i for one actually would rather have a rich politician only in that (btw, i'm from calefornyah) can't be "bought". i kinda like rich pols. clinton was never rich. he was easily taken for a few million. at least the rich will more often than not vote their conscience. and, i don't want a president who identifies with "common folk". hell, i'm a school teacher. i want a person larger than life, a lincoln, a roosevelt, a reagan. i wnat a someone who is a leader, who is visionary. i don't want the president to deal with the mundane affairs. he has much bigger things. like, oh, i don't know, global terror and the future of liberal and free democratic societies. but your original point was too obvious. the best part about people who know whatthey is right, is that they never let truth stand in their way.

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[nategasser]

This remark is a fantastic commentary on US politics. That's exactly my impression of how the majority of US voters think.

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[the_mad_poster]

Is this a joke, or what? The rich vote their conscience? Have there been in-depth studies of this societal quirk that I've never heard of?

Larger than life? You want someone with their head in the clouds to lead people who are buried in shit by comparison? Global terror? Free democratic societies? Ignore the mundane? I'm sorry, but by combining those two, it's not much of a leap of faith to say you're calling domestic issues - you know.. the things that affect those of us who actually elected whatever latest asswipe happens to be "running" the country in - something that aren't within the scope of the president's duties.

You're a goon. Don't get me wrong, I respect your right to have an opinion on the subject and all... but you're still a goon.

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[aborchers]

I don't recall the argument being that Republicans were rich. It was that they are the tools of the rich...

Besides, 9 out of 10 people know you can use statistics to prove anything!

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[Chris Burke]

The media's going to have its work cut out trying to verify claims made by such groups this year...

Yeah, which is probably why they won't bother.

They didn't bother with the Kerry photo, did they?

If someone else goes through the trouble to figure out when someone was lying/faking/etc then the news agencies will report on that. But actually do investigative work themselves? Sorry, but I'm not holding my breath.

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[k_head]

It's not that the republican politicians are rich, it's that the rich by and large are republicans and they certainly fund republicans way more then democrats (yes I know there are a few exceptions).

BTW how Rich is Bush? Being from one of the elite families in the US you'd think he would be swimming in money. After all wasn't his grandfather or great grandfather one of founders of the CIA or something.

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[greenhide]

Can you even prove he was in the room at the time it was brought up?

Hmm...let's see. Let's look at your parent, shall we?

since the fact that he voted for it is a matter of public record

And here's the record.

Unless there's something seriously wrong the Congressional Record, it looks like people did vote for this one.

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[Stephen Samuel]

I for one actually would rather have a rich politician only in that ... can't be "bought".

Rich people tend to be rich because they like collecting money. I wouldn't bet my life that someone who ammassed a personal worth of $100M wouldn't sell his sister for a spare $2M.

Also: A borderline psychopath with millions of dollars doesn't have a conscience to vote by.

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[0WaitState]

So people will be chanting "No blood for ketchup" (Or "No Ketchup for Blood" :) ) instead of "No Blood for Oil"?

That depends, is Kerry going to invade Italy?

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[ichimunki]

Besides, 9 out of 10 people know you can use statistics to prove anything!

No. You can't. Statistics is a very rigorous mathematical process. Most of what you see in the media, however, is not valid statistics. Further, even if valid statistics are to be found, there almost always logical fallacies involved that direct the reader to conclusions that are not supported by the data. The most common fallacy I see is confusing correlation with causation, followed closely by the false dichotomy.

As to which party serves the rich? The way I see it, they both do.

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[TXG1112]

It seems to me, it is much easier to be liberal when one is wealthy. Why else would there be a "rich east coast liberal" stereotype? I have also observed that it is the moderately wealthy (who would like to cross over into the super-rich category), that are more likely to be fiscally conservative.

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[LostCluster]

That wasn't quite the version that became law, however. It's a close cousin but the Senate version of the bill was thrown out and the House version was the one that came back from the conference comittee and was appoved by voice vote.

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[d34thm0nk3y]

so much for the 'rich republicans'

I was suprised when I saw these numbers too, but then I realized that most people probably don't put bribes on their tax return.

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[ljavelin]

Funny, because Kerry's wealth is really his wife's fortune. And where did she get that fortune? She inherited it from her former husband, who died in an air crash. And what was he when he died? A Republican U.S. Senator!

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[Zakabog]

Oh my god! We must stop this madness right away! He might pass the KMCA (Ketchup Millenium Copyright Act)! How will I download free ketchup versions of my favorite songs online if he does this?!?!?! Oh it will be the end of the T2T (tomatoe 2 tomatoe) programs for good!

On a more serious note, yes he is very rich. So he knows how to handle large amounts of money without losing them. The nation has large amounts of money that need to be handled the right way by the right person so we don't fall deeper into debt. When you have money generally people can't bribe you into doing stupid crap (unless you really enjoy doing stupid crap.) Now what's bad about any of this? He's less likely to put us into debt because he can handle finances. And he's less likely to take tons of money from huge corporations because well he already has tons of money.

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[hexatron]

Real republicans don't become senators. They buy them. They don't become gardeners either.

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[avgjoe62]

For sooth! He used a Y instead of an I! LETS FLAY HIM!!

Don't you mean "...FLAI HIM!!"?

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[Skipio]

The thing about rich people is that they, like everyone else, look after their own interests. So, while they are harder to bribe, they are more inclined to vote for laws that happen to be beneficiary for themselves.
A rich politician is therefor more likely to be for tax cuts, limited services, etc.
I'm not saying that rich politicians don't do as their conscience tells them, just that it is a bit more difficult than otherwise.

Just think about it; would you really want Congress to be composed entirely of very rich people?

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[gad_zuki!]

>So DMCA proponent or not Kerry '04!

Exactly. The DMCA can be repealed and challenged. The dead in Iraq will forever remain that way. If Bush appoints a Supreme Court judge he/she will stay there for quite some time pushing a radical right-wing agenda. If Bush gets four more years, well... I'd rather not think about it.

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[Dun Malg]

for one actually would rather have a rich politician only in that can't be "bought". at least the rich will more often than not vote their conscience.

You're kidding, right? Rich people are rich because they place a high value on money. They've already shown their willingness to "sell out" by amassing large sums of cash. Unless you're talking about those who inherit their money [cough]kennedy[/cough], in which case they tend to be aristocratic and paternalistic because they fancy themselves "champions of the common man". Never mind the fact that they've no idea what it means to be "the common man"...

vote their conscience? [boggle]

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[SwansonMarpalum]

According to the references you provide, both nations are Federal Republics.

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[skajake]

What is even more ironic is that John Kerry will be the third most wealthy president in the history of the United States (second to John F Kennedy democrat, and George Washington) Oh... wait.... damn. That doesnt fit my argument... doh!

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[uncoveror]

Those old analog photographs are so easy to fake. It is a shame we didn't always have digital cameras.

As Dr. Marcus Von Vickersburg from The International Institute for Photographic Analysis stated, "digital photographs cannot be faked"
;)

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[kgarcia]

Oh sush. Besides, 75% of all statistics are made up on the spot, anyway.

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[Dun Malg]

i don't want a president who identifies with "common folk". hell, i'm a school teacher. i want a person larger than life, a lincoln, a roosevelt, a reagan. i wnat a someone who is a leader, who is visionary.

Lincoln didn't identify with the common folk? What Lincoln are you talking about? The man grew up in a log cabin fer cripes sake! His defining characteristic personality-wise was his down-to-earth folksy charm.

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[Dun Malg]

BTW how Rich is Bush? Being from one of the elite families in the US you'd think he would be swimming in money. After all wasn't his grandfather or great grandfather one of founders of the CIA or something.

What? You speak as if the CIA is a company and the Bush family has stock in it. It's a government agency, you knob. It was formed in 1947 by Harry Truman. GW Bush was the head of the CIA for a while, but he was rich before that.

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[Dimensio]

Either way, it bothers me that you use say DOMA. I had to look it up. I'm not sure if you are scared to say what you mean or just assume everyone knows what you mean.

I just didn't think that the Defense Of Marriage Act (which many supporters are now essentially admitting was unconstitutional from the get-go) was that obscure a reference.

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[Dun Malg]

That wasn't quite the version that became law, however.It's a close cousin but the Senate version of the bill was thrown out and the House version was the one that came back from the conference comittee and was appoved by voice vote.

The fact that he voted "yea" on the Senate version is enough to show that he was in favor of the basic premise. The fact that a couple more senators anonymously abstained later doesn't change that.

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[Anonymous Coward]

So...you're saying we should elect CowboyNeal?

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[Marvelicious]

Eh, at this point I don't need statistics outside my own tax returns. All I have to do is look at my personal yearly income.

Clinton = Lots O' money for me! Blowjobs for everyone I say!

Bush = Hey where did my money go? Time to drown myself in alcoholic sorrow!

I can find a million reasons to vote against Bush, but I don't need any past my own greed!

As for who serves the rich? Don't we all in one way or another - or did you pirate your copy of Windows? ;)

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[Anonymous Coward]

GW Bush was the head of the CIA for a while, but he was rich before that.

Ahem, thats GHW Bush. Don't get your Bush's confused (always good advice).

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[Damek]

The media verifying claims? What world do you live on?

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[fenix down]

W is the richest Bush, pretty much solely from the 15 million he made selling the Texas Rangers. Daddy Bush is in the single-digit millions somewhere. Prescott, W's grandfather, was an investment banker/millionare, but not all that impressive as far as war profiteers go. He supposedly was the one who stole Geronimo's skull for Skull & Bones. (without a skull, it's a kinda shitty secret club) The great-grandpappy Samuel was in charge of buying guns for the army during WWI and maybe-kinda Remmington used him to overcharge the army like drunken sailors.

None of them founded the CIA, George H.W. just got appointed head of the CIA for awhile.

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[e_pluribus_funk]

Lincoln Chafee is otherwise known as a RINO, ie, a Republican in Name Only.

For example, the American Conservative Union gives Lincoln Chafee a lifetime score of 42, a and a 2003 score of 35.

By comparison, Zel Miller (a democrat), has a lifetime score of 65, and a 2003 score of 75.

Also in comparison, Kay Bailey Hutchinson (R-Texas), lifetime scores a 91, and for 2003 scores 75.

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[aborchers]

Good God, man...

Go back and read the sentence again, and then slap yourself in the forehead...

It was a *joke*

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[caffeinefiend]

Don't forget the "stupid" argument. As was so well documented in a book called "Slander" it would appear Bush is not the dummy that the Democrats would have us believe! In fact, he blew away Al Gore's school record. A synopsis: Bush= A's, B's and the Occasional C Gore= A few C's many D's and a none to rare F. Oops, it looks like another cherished stereotype has been thrown to the wind!

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[1u3hr]

Mr. Kerry was in the Senate when DMCA passed unanymously, thus he voted for it.

So it was a unanimous anonymous vote?

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[KwisatzHaderach]

What sort of condiment is Simoes-Ferreira?

Aftershave. Wait. Is it a cleansing douche?

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[BillyBlaze]

Oddly, yes.

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[ichimunki]

I assume you mean the 9/10 sentence? If so, I knew it was a joke (albeit a somewhat common one). But I thought for once I'd have a little rant about it. :)

Personally I don't even trust facts. To quote my good friend Homer Simpson: "Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true."

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[aborchers]

You realize the 9/10 quote was also Homer S, right? :-)

No problem about the rant. I'm a little prone myself, especially when I see math abuse...

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[k_head]

People who run the CIA end up knowing a lot things and people. That knowledge translates to millions of dollars once your stint is over.

No matter how rich you are when you become the head of the CIA you become much richer after you leave.

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[tycheung]

AFAIK, Kerry himself is broke, although his family used to be wealthy. He just has a habit of marrying wealthy women.

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[stebalo]

Sure he was.

Theresa is the second heiress he has married. His first wife, Julia Thorne's family was worth $300 million in 1970 dollars.

John Kerry has made a career out of living off of the fortunes earned by other men.

He divorced his first wife while she was battlign depression so debilitating she became suicidal. There's a story there. At least if Newt Gingrich divorcing his cancer victim wife was worth so much ink, the circumstances of Kerry's first divroce should be worth mentionion.

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[nomadic]

Re:/. sums it up nicely for once (Score:2, Informative)

Don't forget the "stupid" argument. As was so well documented in a book called "Slander" it would appear Bush is not the dummy that the Democrats would have us believe! In fact, he blew away Al Gore's school record. A synopsis: Bush= A's, B's and the Occasional C Gore= A few C's many D's and a none to rare F. Oops, it looks like another cherished stereotype has been thrown to the wind!

Nope, it hasn't.

Slander was written by Ann Coulter. Coulter is an inveterate liar. I mean, all political pundits stretch the truth a bit, but Coulter lies shamelessly, frequently, and implausibly. She'll claim anything about anyone she hates, she'll fabricate insane facts that can be disproven in 5 minutes on lexis-nexis, and she is constantly being caught in her idiotic lies. Hell she fabricates footnotes constantly, gets caught in her lies, but nobody really says anything a) because her loyal readers tend to be on the stupider side of the species, so they eat the lies and believe them, and b) she's so much of a joke that none of her enemies wastes too much time with her. Don't believe me? See if anyone ever corroborated her little idiocy over Bush and Gore's grades. To call any Coulter book "well-documented" betrays an incredible misunderstanding about how this frothy-mouthed, right-wing, borderline psychopath works.

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[Dun Malg]

GW Bush was the head of the CIA for a while, but he was rich before that.

Ahem, thats GHW Bush. Don't get your Bush's confused (always good advice).

Good point. I keep forgetting the difference between the two... ;)

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[Dun Malg]

But for you to say that anyone that's rich is a 'sell out' is a crock of shit. I value money, yes, but only money that I've earned. Where you would disagree is in what we call work.

Oh, I'd never say that rich people don't work. Making money takes a LOT of work. I've never met a rich person who didn't work 60-80 hours a week. My "sell out" comment was kinda meant to be funny-- just trying to illustrate things in a way that the commie-pinkos could understand. :) I was mostly trying to illustrate that rich people are as motivated by money as anyone else.

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[t0ny]

In fact, if Kerry is elected, he will the the 3rd richest US president ever (behind George Washington and JFK).

sigh, I like this bullshit statement the grassroots Republican conartists are pushing out.

Lets get this straight- Kerry isnt hugely wealthy. His WIFE is hugely wealthy.

I would also imagine that, when you are talking about that kind of money, that there is definitely a prenupual agreement, meaning Kerry will not even get that money in the even of a divorce, or even most likely her death. Im sure he will get something, but my guess would be it going to her children (in a trust fund), or else some other family member.

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[Ironica]

I must admit that it doesn't sound like Bush's style; it sounds more like something Tricky Dick Nixon would have done. What I'd like to know is, how many of you are upset because it's wrong, not because it's being done to Kerry? If somebody put out a faked photo "proving" Bush was AWOL, how many of you would cheer?

I wouldn't cheer, so long as I knew it was faked (if I thought it was true, I might well cheer... until I learned otherwise).

Frankly, I'm not thrilled with Kerry as the democratic front-runner, as I was really pulling for Dean. So I'm not upset "because it's being done to Kerry". I'm not terribly upset on the whole, really. I think that overall, at this point in the campaign, it's sort of a good thing... it might make people a bit more cynical about what they hear from the media about the candidates, and cause them to, oh, I dunno, get more reliable information, perhaps?

Re:/. sums it up nicely for once

[Ironica]

If someone else goes through the trouble to figure out when someone was lying/faking/etc then the news agencies will report on that. But actually do investigative work themselves? Sorry, but I'm not holding my breath.

Possibly...

Think about it. If Fox News ("When Reporters Attack!") "scoops" a story about something nasty in someone's closet, how does MSNBC scoop them back? If they find out that the story's a fake, and break *that* (meta)news...

Hey, this might actually lead to some self-regulation in the news media! Well, about some stuff, anyway. Of course, here in Los Angeles the top story tonight (as it has been several nights in the past couple weeks) is "RAIN! HERE! NOW! LOOK, FALLING FROM THE *SKY*!"

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[errxn]

At least if Newt Gingrich divorcing his cancer victim wife was worth so much ink, the circumstances of Kerry's first divroce should be worth mentionion.

Well, see, the problem with that is that Gingrich made the fatal mistake of doing it while being a (gasp) Republican. Kerry, on the other hand, has the good sense to at least make sure that he's a Democrat when he misbehaves, which, of course, means he gets an automatic free pass from our "objective" media.

Re:/. sums it up nicely for once

[Ironica]

He's less likely to put us into debt because he can handle finances.

I think people said stuff along these lines about the Governator before he put Proposition 57 and 58 on the ballot (It's a bad, bad thing to borrow money, and we want to do it just one last time!)

But maybe buying a Hummer isn't really demonstrating that you know how to manage your money wisely, either ;-).

Re:/. sums it up nicely for once

[Ironica]

Kerry really did participate in the same rallies as Jane Fonda -- read the article.

If there was nothing wrong in such participations, than these forgeries are definetly not libels:

libel -- (a tort consisting of false and malicious publication printed for the purpose of defaming a living person)

So, this forgery is inlikely to be criminal...

Ok, there is a picture where both Jane Fonda and John Kerry appear at the same event (though he's sitting several rows behind her). And, according to the photographer who took it, the captions that have been placed on those pictures are wildly inaccurate.

Then there's another picture, a fake, which shows Kerry and Fonda standing next to each other at a lectern at a rally. The implication there is that Kerry's activities in protesting the Viet Nam War were similar to Fonda's (which they weren't).

Not only does the photoshop job count as libel (since Kerry and Fonda never spoke at the same anti-war event), but even the publication of the *real* photograph, given the captions along with it, may be libel. Especially since, regardless of the *effect*, libel (as you have so helpfully pointed out) is about *intent*.

And then there's the copyright issue, which is a whole 'nother ball of wax. (At least the guy who took the real picture has gotten paid for all the recent reprints.)

Re:/. sums it up nicely for once

[SnowZero]

It's good to know he's not the type of person who would do anything to earn more money, and instead just married into it. I feel much better now.

Of course I'd feel even better if Edwards won the nomination, since he can actually beat Bush *and* Nader.

Re:/. sums it up nicely for once

[maysonl]

I remember reading of a (possibly apocryphal) Gallup poll which indicated that about 20% of the American public thought they were in the top 1% of wealth/income.

Re:/. sums it up nicely for once

[t0ny]

so what does that prove, that people cant marry whoever they want? just because you endorse some kind of caste system where only the wealthy can marry each other doesnt mean thats how things are done in this country. if you dislike that, go to the middle east or india- they wont let people marry outside their 'station'

Re:/. sums it up nicely for once

[kisak]

GW Bush was the head of the CIA for a while, but he was rich before that.

George W. Bush has never been head of the CIA (thank God). You are thinking of the father of the present joke in the White House, George H.W. Bush who was appointed head of the CIA in 1976.

Re:/. sums it up nicely for once

[Hittite Creosote]

Do Americans really still buy that log cabin myth? The Lincoln family owned two farms, livestock, and more land in Elizabethtown, Ky while Lincoln was growing up.

Re:/. sums it up nicely for once

[kisak]

An interesting piece about politicians grades in the New York Times, gives a rare acknowledgement to Dan Quayle since Dan actually had a C+ average while Bush only managed a straight C. But the one everyone forgets about is Cheney who flunked out of Yale twice. I wonder if Cheney manages to spell potatoe.

Re:/. sums it up nicely for once

[kisak]

so much for the 'rich republicans'

What I remember is that the republicans are accused of having policies that are made to protect the rich while being harsh on the weakest in the soceity. That the average democrate are richer seems to show that they have more sense of handling their own economy while still having moral clarity on how the government policies have to be shaped to also protect the poor. This possible interpretation fits well with the record of Bush and Clinton on taxes, economy and employment.

Re:/. sums it up nicely for once

[kisak]

If somebody put out a faked photo "proving" Bush was AWOL, how many of you would cheer?

I guess the republicans would have cheered since they would finally get proof that the democrats are as dirty as they are.

Since you bring up Bush's AWOL, compare how Clinton was treated because he used the chance he had to not get sent to Vietnam. Compare that with how Bush is treated for using daddy to get out safe of the war he supported, then taking an AWOL and getting paid for it.

Re:/. sums it up nicely for once

[MonkeyDluffy]

Gore's Grades Belie Image of Studiousness - His School Transcripts Are a Lot Like Bush's
By David Maraniss and Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, March 19, 2000; Page A01

An excerpt:

Gore arrived at Harvard with an impressive 1355 SAT score, 625 verbal and 730 math, compared with Bush's 1206 total from 566 verbal and 640 math. In his sophomore year at Harvard, Gore's grades were lower than any semester recorded on Bush's transcript from Yale. That was the year Gore's classmates remember him spending a notable amount of time in the Dunster House basement lounge shooting pool, watching television, eating hamburgers and occasionally smoking marijuana. His grades temporarily reflected his mildly experimental mood, and alarmed his parents. He received one D, one C-minus, two C's, two C-pluses and one B-minus, an effort that placed him in the lower fifth of the class for the second year in a row.

-MDL

Re:/. sums it up nicely for once

[Gleef]

John Kerry's mother is Rosemary Forbes. My understanding is that she is somewhat related to the Forbes magazine publishers. This would, of course, make him related. It doesn't matter, he was born to a rich family, and became richer through marriage.

Bush, too, is quite rich.

None of this changes the fact that I think Kerry poses less of a threat to our future than Bush, and might even try to do some things I agree with if he becomes President.

Re:/. sums it up nicely for once

[theophilosophilus]

Slander was written by Ann Coulter. Coulter is an inveterate liar. I mean, all political pundits stretch the truth a bit, but Coulter lies shamelessly, frequently, and implausibly. She'll claim anything about anyone she hates, she'll fabricate insane facts that can be disproven in 5 minutes on lexis-nexis, and she is constantly being caught in her idiotic lies. Hell she fabricates footnotes constantly, gets caught in her lies, but nobody really says anything a) because her loyal readers tend to be on the stupider side of the species, so they eat the lies and believe them, and b) she's so much of a joke that none of her enemies wastes too much time with her. Don't believe me? See if anyone ever corroborated her little idiocy over Bush and Gore's grades. To call any Coulter book "well-documented" betrays an incredible misunderstanding about how this frothy-mouthed, right-wing, borderline psychopath works.

Sounds like an all out attack, I'll cede you the point if you can back up your claims. I'd rather see evidence than accusations.

Not that I care much, but your post seems to be one of those, "I'm right and your wrong" statements that stifles our democracy by choking off the dialog we so desperately need.

Re:/. sums it up nicely for once

[mi]

Not only does the photoshop job count as libel (since Kerry and Fonda never spoke at the same anti-war event)

My impression from the article was that they did speak at the same anti-war events -- just not at the one alleged by the forgery.

Kerry certainly gave speeches at other such events, and did throw the ribbons from his medals to the Capitol's stairs (other participants threw the medals themselves, BTW).

There is no denying, Kerry actively participated in the anti-war movement, so the forgery is only lying about a minor thing -- about a particular and event in the anti-war history.

Lastly, I wouldn't be surprised if it was someone on the Democratic side to make the forgery and "leak" it. Republicans did not need it -- there is plenty of genuine material. But by leaking the forgery to the press and then "discovering" it, Kerry's campaing artfully switches attention from the real issue (Kerry's past pacifism) to the forgery.

Re:/. sums it up nicely for once

[kharchenko]

Sadly, Hitler was not taken seriously, even though the insanity of his intentions could be clearly seen from Mein Kampf (his book). Germans considered him a joke and did not concern themselves with his increasing popularity.
It doesn't take much brains to screw things up - just hand power to people with interior motives. Next thing you know, they'll be starting wars and convincing public of the necessity of their crusade.

Re:/. sums it up nicely for once

[errxn]

That may or may not be true, but it is wholly beside the point. What is hypocrisy and what is not should not be up to the media to decide. The point here is that there were two very similar actions that were taken by two people of very similar stature, and these actions were treated very differently by the media. That, dear AC, is the definition of 'bias', whether you believe it or not.

Re:/. sums it up nicely for once

[IceAgeComing]

No. You can't. Statistics is a very rigorous mathematical process.

It is a rigorous tool, but I would claim that the problem is that it can be used selectively. The media's abuse of statistics is not always confusion. It is also a matter of deciding what statistic to compute, which is controlled by unconscious bias.

Re:/. sums it up nicely for once

[lacrymology.com]

i for one actually would rather have a rich politician only in that (btw, i'm from calefornyah) can't be "bought"

Are you joking?!? Rich people can't be bought? LOL what a farce. I suppose incredibly rich people NEVER want MORE money. -m

Re:/. sums it up nicely for once

[dave420-2]

Rich people are more greedy than poor folks. Rich people are easier to buy. Look at bush. He's not wantin' for nothin', yet he's in EVERYONE's pocket. the slut.

Re:/. sums it up nicely for once

[deman1985]

I'm actually quite surprised with the number of obvious liberals hanging around on the Slashdot comment boards. In my experience, such people tend not to be the most tech savvy, and this is why democrats are the ones signing ridiculous laws into effect like the DMCA. This is also why I've been relatively happy for the past four years since I've not had to worry about quite as much BS. I'll be one of the first to admit that Bush isn't the sharpest one out there. He's made some pretty stupid remarks and some bad mistakes, but, personally, I know that we're a hell of a lot better off now than we would've been with Gore or some other democrat running the show. Think about it. All of you complain about Bush's mistakes, but just think about how much worse it would be with more of these DMCA and trusted computing-happy democrats running the show. When it comes down to it, I don't particularly like Bush either. If there were an alternative choice who was actually half-way popular, then I would vote for them, but Bush is the lesser of the two evils who actually stand a chance of winning.

Re:/. sums it up nicely for once

[dave420-2]

Oh please tell me that was a joke...

The US media is right-wing, not left. You can't even question that. Look at the Fox network with O'Reilly et al... Captions like "Deaniacs" and "March Madness" (for the anti-war protests) demonstrate how "objective" the US media is. They claim to be reporting news, but 90% of their show is pure opinion, splattered in the image of a news show. Imagine The Onion, but written by unfunny fascists. That's the state of the US media.

You'll notice how the media in the US doesn't show Bush in a bad light, ever. Seeing as the man can't speak properly and has a tendency for war, you'd think people would be questioning his ethics just a tiny bit, but no. The news channels are too busy calling democrats names and patting themselves on the back for another piece of extraordinary professional journalism.

Here's a good example: Bush's AWOL trip... The US media didn't contemplate, even once, the mere possibility it could actually be true. They put it down to "commie pinko left-wing anarchists" stirring up trouble and left it at that. If they were truly objective, they would have tried to do some research. Oh no - that's too much like real journalism.

I bet you're one of those people who calls the BBC biassed, right?

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[nomadic]

My point was simply that relying on Ann Coulter for any kind of accurate information is folly.

Gore's and Bush's transcripts were similar; neither did especially well, and Bush certainly didn't "blow Gore out of the water". The story is here.

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[JimFromJersey]

you are from california and a teacher ... and you want another Reagan?!?!!? Be careful, with thinking like that you are liable to find yourself blackballed from teaching and exiled from the PRC (Peoples Republic of California) ;)

Re:/. sums it up nicely for once

[techno-vampire]

Yes, neither side has clean hands in this type of thing. Personally, although I dislike Clinton, I have no problem with his using his studies to avoid service. That's what the deferrment is for.

Re:/. sums it up nicely for once

[Mindcry]

Even though this is getting way off topic, I live within 20 miles of DC and have the pleasure (or whatever you'd call it) of being able to see Coulter on TV almost weekly (between meet the press, various c-span shows etc), and from all personal accounts she does reek of all out zealotry... I checked a couple pages of one of her books out of curiosity and there was quite a bit of flawed logic throughout what I read. I also believe she said something along the lines of "kill all the arabs in the world" after sept. 11, which would help prove how reasonable she can be...

I'm by no means a liberal in any way, but I can't honestly believe anything she says, even though some of it probably has at least a tiny grain of truth...

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[errxn]

The US media is right-wing, not left. You can't even question that.

Sure I can...what are you basing this observation on? FOX News? Sure, they probably do lean to the right, there's no denying that, but they would also happen to be the exception to the rule. In any case, you certainly can't paint with as broad a brush as you would like.

O'Reilly? Say what you will about him, but there's an important distinction here. His show is obviously an opinion-based program, much in the same vein as a 'Crossfire' or 'Hannity & Colmes', and is not about reporting the news.

You'll notice how the media in the US doesn't show Bush in a bad light, ever.

Yeah, I guess I was just imagining this whole flap about his National Guard service. I guess I didn't really see that press conference where his press secretary was bombarded with the most inane questions imaginable about it. Did you hear about the accounts from the men who served with him during that time, who claim that he was a great aviator and did his duty very well? Did you hear that he actually signed up to go to Vietnam, but wound up not going? Not if you didn't dig for these stories. Are they true? Who knows? Are they as newsworthy as the things that the media are focusing on. Gee, you would think, but apparently our "right-wing" media thinks otherwise.

Meanwhile, did you hear about the sex scandal involving John Kerry and an intern? Barely. Is this true? Who knows? Is it newsworthy? Gee, you would think, but, again, apparently our "right-wing" media thinks otherwise.

As far as the "Deaniacs" moniker, correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the "Deaniacs" come up with that one themselves?

The BBC? Honestly, I can't say that I've watched it enough to form an opinion, so I'm not going to call them anything other than British.

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[b17bmbr]

yeah, it is hard to listen to the teachers at lunch. today, i was listening to a group saying that the government should fund all drug research through universities and not let pharmaceuticals exist. ay carumba!!

Re:/. sums it up nicely for once

[dave420-2]

The fact that a self-proclaimed news channel has regular cooking spots speaks volumes about their professionalism.

It's OK for a channel to be right-leaning, but they have to come out and say it. Otherwise, they're passing off right-wing ideas as unbiassed, which they are by their very definition.

"Deaniacs" or not, their captioning of the anti-war marches as "march madness" sums up my argument completely.

CNN isn't much better, by the way. Neither were any of the local TV stations I've seen.

This whole Bush thing has been given one hell of a slant. You can't judge a station's coverage by what you see, but by what you don't. They're not putting any effort into investigating claims of Bush's AWOL. The fact that numerous $10,000+ rewards for any evidence supporting Bush's claims haven't been taken doesn't seem to register. Sure, they'll report something verging on negative about Bush when they have to (it would be eerily suspicious of them to not, which I'm sure they're well aware of), but they don't seek to question his leadership, just to question those who question it.

They're also incredibly US-biassed, too. Being a journalist requires you to step away from your personality, including your country. To be truly impartial, you can't call yourself "an American" when you talk about the US/Iraq war. Just doing that adds bias to everything they say. If they're so professional and unbiassed, why did every single news reporter have a US flag on?

Arguing US media is anything but pandering to whoever throws them cookies is absurd. They're funded by sponsors, who have agendas. Them not defending those agendas means they go out of business. It doesn't take a trained chimp with a harvard degree to realise they're not impartial.

Re:/. sums it up nicely for once

[SnowZero]

So you've proved I make mistakes when I write in a hurry, while conveniently ignoring facts. Now that I've had some sleep, let's play the anal-retentive grammar game. We'll start with your grandparent post:

so what does that prove, that people cant marry whoever they want?

Incorrect capitalization, "cant" is not a word, it's spelled "can't". (1)

just because you endorse some kind of caste system where only the wealthy can marry each other doesnt mean thats how things are done in this country.

Again this is missing proper capitalization, and "doesnt" isn't a word; It should be spelled "doesn't".

if you dislike that, go to the middle east or india- they wont let people marry outside their 'station'

The sentence is missing capitalization, and "middle east" is a proper noun and should also be capitalized, as well as "india".

Now, we can move on to your current post:

If anything, I would say Im one of the biggest proponents of free enterprise than the majority of people on this website.

First, "Im" should be "I'm", but at least you are now capitalizing sentences. Second, it is grammatically incorrect to say "one of the biggest" followed by "than"; You can't express both group membership and comparison at the same time. You probably meant to say "I would say I'm a bigger proponent of free enterprise than the majority of people on this website." or alternatively "I would say I'm one of the biggest proponents of free enterprise on this website." Briefly addressing content, this says very little because half the people on Slashdot are Socialists but don't realize they are. Well, some are Europeans who do know, so kudos to them.

No, I figure Cheney only serves the rich because he is a member of the Old Boy Network, just like Bush.

Just like Kerry's wife, and his buddy Edward Kennedy. Notice that Edwards' name doesn't come in here. In fact I notice that you never even once brought up Edwards. Do you even know anything about him, or are you just a fan-boy of the current front runner? I wonder if you supported Dean before. I don't want to vote for Bush, so I don't think its wrong want the Democrats to come up with a better choice than someone who's been inside the beltway since 1969.

If you want to spew half baked ideas, you will have to do it against someone far less certain on the basis of their political ethics than myself.

Of course that isn't clear, as the only thing you've contributed to this whole discussion so far is saying roughly "I imagine that there is a prenuptial agreement" (Notice I can spell prenuptial correctly, which you spelled as "prenupual"). The rest has been trying to defend views you don't bother to elaborate. Although, it seems that you like Kerry, and clearly don't want anyone to spoil your idealistic image of him. You also seem believe (albeit incorrectly) I am a Republican. Going back to grammar, several style guides consider the use of "myself" where "me" is appropriate to be incorrect. By sheer force of use however, it has become accepted. You seem to be trying to do the same with dropping capitalization and the apostrophe. Are you a fan of e. e. cummings or something?

Health care isnt going to get 'fixed'

Hence my use of the word "want". If you instead ask me to predict what would happen, I'd say that Edwards' plans if given a chance would improve things, while Kerry's would make things worse. Of course, we can argue about whether Bush's "big government plan" is even worse than Kerry's, but I'd rather try for one that has a chance of actually helping. Call me an idealist.

There is way too much money being thrown at Congress for things to ever change.

And leading them all in the U.S. Congress is John Kerry. Of course you'll just point out that G. W. Bush is earning a l

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[caffeinefiend]

Unfortunately, your libellious depiction of Coulter is just that. This argument is completely fallacious, and based completely on your political views. Coulter's book is amazingly well documented. All that needs to be done is to look at her SOURCES in the back of her book. Each controversial fact is linked to a definate source (i.e. the New York Times, or in this case, official documents). I would not be surprised if you never read the book, but rather spewed recycled hate on her. So, in essence, her "idiocy" over Bush's and Gore's grades were corroborated, and documented, and checked by the Publisher, etc. etc. Please, please, please don't rush to judgement on issues that you are not fully informed of!

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[superyooser]

There are many myths about Abraham Lincoln, but he really did grow up in a one-room log cabin.

Pretty Funny

[firstadopter.com]

I think we're going to see more of this in the future. Remember the famous shark in san fran harbor pic?

Re:Pretty Funny

[wankledot]

This is nothing new. The technology is to the point now where it's nearly flawless unless you have the orginals and can say "OK, here's the source." But the same kind of photo doctoring has been going on for as long as photos have been taken. It really doesn't take a very high quality photo to publish it in the paper, and have it look believable.

The fact that people believe it without question is what's makes it continue to this day... and that's never going to change. I doubt that it will happen more in the future.. it happens a lot now!

Re:Pretty Funny

[c0dedude]

Actually, no, I don't, could you post a link?

Re:Pretty Funny

[Anonymous Coward]

San Fran Shark Link...

http://www.snopes.com/photos/shark.asp

Re:Pretty Funny

[robbkidd]

The technology is to the point now where it's nearly flawless unless you have the orginals and can say "OK, here's the source."

Except that the originals need to have some matching characteristics, especially direction (if not quality of) lighting. Anyone with a decent set of peepers should have at least noticed something wrong with this particular photograph.

Without any investigation of photo sources, the viewer can tell the lighting on Jane doesn't match the lighting on Kerry.

Re:Pretty Funny

[jpnews]

Sure, but what's to prevent the reverse from occurring? What if, for instance, John Kerry really had been there, and a 'doctored' image was used to prove he wasn't?

It cuts both ways.

Re:Pretty Funny

[Evil Pete]

Though if you look at the doctored photo in one of the links you can see that Kerry is in sunlight that is coming from the left and behind the camera. Whereas for Fonda the light is coming from the right and behind her, also the light for Fonda is more diffuse. This is one of the classic 'first look' tests you have to do to check photos, people often get things like the lighting, shadows etc wrong. Though with digital it doesn't take that much effort to fix that either.

Re:Pretty Funny

[Ironica]

Sure, but what's to prevent the reverse from occurring? What if, for instance, John Kerry really had been there, and a 'doctored' image was used to prove he wasn't?

Like a really, really, REALLY long panoramic photo showing that he's several miles away at the same moment?

Re:Pretty Funny

[Mr_Silver]

I think we're going to see more of this in the future. Remember the famous shark in san fran harbor pic?

If you like this sort of thing, check out b3ta which is dedicated to the art.

Watermarks

[Cajun Hell]

If the infringers took the photo illegally and digitally removed the watermark, Croan says that in itself is a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

No it isn't. (Though passing along such a derivative work may indeed be a violation of copyright.) Unless the watermark effectively limits access to the picture (and obviously, it doesn't), I don't get how DMCA applies at all. DMCA is a nasty law, but it's not like it reads, "Thou shalt not do anything we don't like."

That aside, though, this is a neat use of watermarks. Much better than that stupid the-watermark-determines-the-restrictions crap that the music companies were playing around with, a while back.

Re:Watermarks

[Shakrai]

No it isn't. (Though passing along such a derivative work may indeed be a violation of copyright.) Unless the watermark effectively limits access to the picture (and obviously, it doesn't), I don't get how DMCA applies at all. DMCA is a nasty law, but it's not like it reads, "Thou shalt not do anything we don't like."

Are you sure? Many companies (*cough* MPAA *cough*) use watermarks so they can figure out where leaked material came from. This is hardly new. Back in the golden days before PCs existed sensitive government or corporate documents were watermarked so if leaked you could figure out by whom.

Didn't MPAA also sue that screener under the DCMA for attempting to remove their watermarks from the screening films he leaked? Would they not be able to do this?

Re:Watermarks

[GMFTatsujin]

it's not like it reads, "Thou shalt not do anything we don't like."

Are you sure about that? It's in the fine print. Really fine print, as it turns out -- it's in microtext in the dot over the second "i" in "millennium."

Re:Watermarks

[lynx_user_abroad]

I don't get how DMCA applies at all.

The other part of the DMCA says stripping copyright information or other identifying marks from a copyrighted work in an attempt to avoid proper attribution is also a violation.

It's in that part none of us got really upset about because most of us (even those who "pirate" regularly) still think the creator should get credit (just not control).

Re:Watermarks

[Anonymous Coward]

> Are you sure?

How hard is to figure out? A watermark isn't an access control device, it's a tracking device

As for the screener guy, the obvious thing to do would be sue him for regular copyright infringement and for cracking CSS. Not for removing watermarks.

Re:Watermarks

[Salsaman]

Actually, it is a crime under the DMCA, section 1202. There was an article on this very issue on groklaw.net. All they need to do is say that a watermark is copyright management information.

Sec. 1202. Integrity of copyright management information

. . . (b) REMOVAL OR ALTERATION OF COPYRIGHT MANAGEMENT INFORMATION- No person shall, without the authority of the copyright owner or the law--

(1) intentionally remove or alter any copyright management information,
(2) distribute or import for distribution copyright management information knowing that the copyright management information has been removed or altered without authority of the copyright owner or the law, or
(3) distribute, import for distribution, or publicly perform works, copies of works, or phonorecords, knowing that copyright management information has been removed or altered without authority of the copyright owner or the law,

knowing, or, with respect to civil remedies under section 1203, having reasonable grounds to know, that it will induce, enable, facilitate, or conceal an infringement of any right under this title.

In other words "Thou shalt not do anything we don't like."

Re:Watermarks

[jdgreen7]

That's funny, but luckily the government just decided to standardize on a specific font size for official documents.

See, reading Slashdot does make us smarter sometimes... :-)

Re:Watermarks

[ArseneLupin]

Unless the watermark effectively limits access to the picture (and obviously, it doesn't)

I somehow get the feeling that this isn't what lawyers mean when they say "effective". Or else the entire sentence would be redundant: either the protection is effective, in which case it cannot be removed, thus how could the accused possibly have infringed, doing something that is impossible.

Or, the accused did indeed remove the protection, thus proving it was not really effective, and it wouldn't apply.

In reality however, the word "effective" is more or less just decoration, just like the "technical effect" in European patent law. Don't rely on it to get you off the hook!

Re:Watermarks

[The_K4]

Not to mention he DIDN'T remove the watermark, that's how he got busted!

Re:Watermarks

[mattdm]

Would taking a screenshot of a photo displayed on a website be stripping out the watermark?

Not if it's halfway-decent technology, it wouldn't. It's a *watermark*, not some sort of metadata in the headers.

Re:Watermarks

[MoonBuggy]

It really is getting bad when Red Dwarf provides possible scenarios to new laws.

Re:Watermarks

[TwinkieStix]

CSS? Didn't the film come off of a VHS tape? Macrovision perhaps?

Re:Watermarks

[G-funk]

ANDY: Which one was Rimmer?
RIMMER: (Smiling) Me.
ANDY: Ohh, he's amazing, in't he?
RIMMER: You can say that again.
ANDY: How long did it take you to suss him out, then?
RIMMER: Ahh, I had him sussed right from the beginning.
ANDY: Really? You found the Captain's message right away?!
RIMMER: (Taken back) _What_ Captain's message?
ANDY: The one that's hidden in the microdot in the 'i' in Rimmer's
swimming certificate. Well, that's the clue, isn't it? Rimmer having
a swimming certificate and not being able to swim!
KRYTEN: That's a clue?!
ANDY: It's a blatant clue, isn't it?

Re:Watermarks

[jpmjpm1]

Actually, the DMCA doesn't apply because you CAN'T remove a watermark, unless you have the original image! If you had the original image, why would you send out the one that has a watermark in it??? You would get caught...that would be stupid.

Watermarking an image is pretty basic signal processing (go talk to your EE friends about it). You add a small amount "noise" to the signal (in this case, an image). This "noisy" image is then sent to people. To prove where a watermarked image came from, you subtract the original image from the watermarked/noisy image and you get the noise that you added. You compare this to your records and see who you you gave that noise pattern to.

The problem with removing the watermark is that you don't know what noise was added, and there isn't a way to find out, unless you have access to the original. Another way of putting it is that A+B=C. If you only know C (the watermarked image), you can't find out what A and B are! (unless you know A (original image) or B (noise you added).

Re:Watermarks

[pla]

The other part of the DMCA says stripping copyright information or other identifying marks from a copyrighted work in an attempt to avoid proper attribution is also a violation.

But that implies intent to do so, which considering the very nature of this "crime", will basically take an outright confession to prove in court.

When PS'ing (or Gimping, just to avoid argument) an image, you usually separate it/them into a number of layers, perform a few affine transformations, possibly some non-linear enhancements to make the different sources match, then glue them all together, perhaps apply a weak smoothing filter, then finally save it in a lossy format (ie, jpeg).

If Corbis uses a watermark that will survive that, they need to change their core business away from photo archiving - I can think of at least two **AA groups that would pay handsomely to use such a resilient proof of ownership in their media.

So, I would say that the claim that anyone intended to remove the watermark will hold no water in court. Just an advanced-amateur doing a cut-and-paste digital image workup would tend to remove any trace of a watermark, purely by coincidence. The person who made the Kerry/Fonda picture in question may well not have even known Corbis uses watermarking (I'll admit, I didn't until this story), yet I have little doubt they managed to passively remove it.

Re:Watermarks

[Dun Malg]

The other part of the DMCA says stripping copyright information or other identifying marks from a copyrighted work in an attempt to avoid proper attribution is also a violation.

They'd really have to show intent to get a conviction there, as the woatermark (by its nature) is essentially invisible. Likewise, a company cannot shrink a bunch of company secrets down to a microdot, put a copy of the microdot inside every pen in the supply closet, and then take every slob who walks off with a Bic Medium Point Black and charge them with corporate espionage. The removal of copyright information provision is there to punish those who intentionally remove it so as to obfuscate their crime.

Re:Watermarks

[Dun Malg]

Actually, it is a crime under the DMCA, section 1202. There was an article on this very issue on groklaw.net. All they need to do is say that a watermark is copyright management information.

Not carefully the following words in the statute:
"intentionally...knowing...having reasonable grounds to know..."

Section 1202 leans heavily upon the perpetrator knowing the copyright information is being removed. Tough row to hoe with watermarks, being that they're hidden.

Re:Watermarks

[tklive]

not true always...
removing the watermark!= getting back original unaltered image.

removing the watermark= getting an image without watermark.

as you said in many cases even moderately strong watermarks are impossible to identify without access to originals , but there are cases where a good judgement can be made / a series of standard operatio0ns carried out to significantly alter/remove most common kinds of watermarks...

Re:Watermarks

[lommer]

What's to stop a holder of a watermarked image from just adding even more noise on top of the image. Sure, it would degrade image quality a bit, but then so does the original watermark. Then, when the noise pattern in the distributed image is compared, it wouldn't match. Now, IANAEE, so it's possible that there are algorithms which can detect the underlying first layer of noise originally applied, or that obscuring the watermark would unacceptably degrade the signal, but it otherwise seems like a pretty simple way to defeat the process to me.

As well, aren't there signal processing algorithms which can remove noise from an image? Sure it won't be anywhere near matching the original, but all it has to do is change the noise signal enough...

Re:Watermarks

[Ironica]

No it isn't. (Though passing along such a derivative work may indeed be a violation of copyright.) Unless the watermark effectively limits access to the picture (and obviously, it doesn't), I don't get how DMCA applies at all.

Here's a possible interpretation. (IANAL,BIP1OTV)

Subparagraph A of Title 17, Section 1201 of the US Code, added by the DMCA, states: " No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title."

Corbis allows digitally watermarked pictures to be viewed by anyone. They allow access to un-watermarked copies only to those who create an account and log in.

If the perpetrator of this clearly heinous act* removed the watermark, which is a device "effectively" controlling his access to an un-watermarked image, he has violated this section, and is guilty of a crime.

But there's a loophole. Under subparagraph B, "The prohibition contained in subparagraph (A) shall not apply to persons who are users of a copyrighted work which is in a particular class of works, if such persons are, or are likely to be in the succeeding 3-year period, adversely affected by virtue of such prohibition in their ability to make noninfringing uses of that particular class of works under this title, as determined under subparagraph (C)." This is designed to prevent the use of the first provision against those engaging in fair use.

So if the watermark was removed by someone who would be (or will be in the next three years) allowed to copy the non-watermarked picture under fair use, DMCA (theoretically) doesn't apply. But it's up to the Librarian of Congress (never occurred to me that the Library of Congress has a Librarian, but it's a big "duh" now that I've seen it in law) what classes of works would be unfairly burdened under fair use by this prohibition, and that is to be updated every three years (hence the "succeeding three years" clause).

*Said facetiously.

Re:Watermarks

[danila]

Have you ever downloaded an image from Corbis? Have you RTFA? I may be wrong, but it increasingly seems they are talking about visible watermark that say "Corbis" right on the image. And the article says you only need to get an account to get non-watermarke? images. I have an account and all it took was an e-mail address and a minute of my time. Now I can use the huge collection of Corbis images for free. No watermarks.

Of course, the free images are low-res, but still they are extremely useful (unless you need to do quality printing). And needless to say, if I ever need to do quality printing, I know where I will head to buy the images...

Re:Watermarks

[surprise_audit]

Would it not be possible, with a certain amount of effort, to use Photoshop or The Gimp to remove the visible watermark? Or at least, to reduce the visibility? I don't know, I'm not a photo-editing guru...

As for the non-visible-watermarked images, those could still have the noise kind of watermark added when you download them, couldn't they? Mind you, that would be even easier to defeat - print the image then scan it back in. That should introduce a sufficient extra noise component to mask the noise watermark... If ultra-paranoid, fiddle with various settings (color, contrast, brightness, etc) before scanning.

Re:Watermarks

[danila]

It definitely should be possible, but I never really needed it too much. There likely are some tools to remove visible watermarks and this surely can be done in Photoshop manually if you have enough sample images.

You are right regarding the hidden watermarks, though. Corbis images have DigiMarc. DigiMark watermark in particular is retained even when you cut a part of the image as small as 100x100, but is removed when you reduce the image to 50% of the original resolution (or enlarge to 200%.

But such watermarks can probably be removed even without scanning. There are various software tools and techniques (some links and further info). Of course, it is kind of pointless, since if you use my copyrighted images, it is quite easy to prove, if necessary.

I just tried and here is a simple (but tedious) method of manually removing the DigiMarc. Open the image in any image editing programs (make sure not to pay for those that refuse to open scanned dollar bills). Cut it into many pieces (smaller than 100x100 or narrow and long). Digimark will not be read in such small images, so you can easily overwrite it with your own watermark. Do it. Embed your own watermarks in every piece. Combine the images together. Check out if it works. If it doesn't, check out parts of the image. Locate those stubborn places that still show the old mark. Repeat the procedure on them (cut and embed your watermark in each piece). After a while the image will contain your own watermark and will still look pretty much the same.

Damn that photoshop

[ArmenTanzarian]

TotalFarker's give a collective "yeee..." and pull at their shirt collars.

Re:Damn that photoshop

[Auckerman]

TotalFarker's give a collective "yeee..." and pull at their shirt collars.

I was just thinking that. Didn't this job origionate from a Fark PS contest in the past few weeks?

Re:Damn that photoshop

[bludstone]

Wouldnt they be protected under parody laws?

This is why John Stewart is still a free man :)

Re:Damn that photoshop

[Senjutsu]

Wouldnt they be protected under parody laws?

Standard IANAL bit.

It would protect him or her from libel, but not copyright or DMCA violations.

Re:Damn that photoshop

[double-oh three]

And with this PS contest, they are clearly in violation of copyright. Look at all those photoshopped pictures of celebrities!

Re:Damn that photoshop

[Jeremy Erwin]

I think you need to read Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music (92-1292), 510 U.S. 569 (1994).

Parody is a defense against copyright infringement, however, the infringing work must qualify as a parody.

Re:Damn that photoshop

[ArmenTanzarian]

I imagine to actually get pictures from this site, you have to sign some long dealy that probably gives away your soul in the small print.

Re:Damn that photoshop

[Jeremy Erwin]

oops, I mean "allegedly infringing work".
Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.

Re:Damn that photoshop

[Jeremy Erwin]

How is that Parody?

Not a bad forgery.....

[BWJones]

Yeah so this is the problem with folks who don't ask questions. A quick examination of the forged image reveals differing light angles. However, other than that, the forgery (based upon an interpretation of the low resolution image from the link) is pretty decent. The cut lines are well concealed, and the brightness has been rather nicely matched. Of course the highlights in her hair have been darkened to match the background of trees and such, but here is(are) my question(s)..... 1) Who would be stupid enough to obtain a copyrighted image in a forgery attempt? 2) Unless this is an attempt by a right wing organization to discredit Kerry, why waste your time? Especially when you are lying?

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[GNUguy]

I don't think this is that good of a forgery, the first thing I noticed was a blur on his cheek and collar. That was a red flag that it was a forgery to me. The blur didnt look natural, it looked like it had been done with a blur tool to hide something. Low and behold, it was, it was used to remove the watermark. Geez people. you can do better than that can't you? =)

-G

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[BWJones]

the first thing I noticed was a blur on his cheek and collar

Yeah, I agree. I saw that just after I pressed the "submit" button and was trying to write up some text when the screen refreshed with your post.

Low and behold, it was, it was used to remove the watermark.

Exactly. You superimpose the images and the blur registers perfectly with the watermark.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[Bender Unit 22]

As far as I understand, the fight to be the president now revolves around same sex marriages.
It seems to me that no-one has high thoughts about the voters.
As an outsider, these American elections seems rather silly and I have never understood why the public allows this circus which seems to be all about avoiding important national issues.
But then again, that might why explain the low number of people voting.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[theghost]

Jane Fonda is an actress who was a vocal critic of the Vietnam War. In 1972 she visited the capitol of North Vietnam. Many people branded her a traitor for visiting with the enemy of the United States while the US was still at war with them. They gave her the nickname 'Hanoi Jane' because of her actions. Some people still harbor great animosity for her for this.

Note: Her visit occurred in 1972. The real picture of her and Kerry at the same rally was taken in 1970.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[An. (Coward)]

Jane Fonda's a two-time Oscar-winning actress who organized opposition to the Vietnam War, going so far as to travel over to Hanoi and make radio broadcasts on behalf of the communists, with the intention of demoralizing the soldiers fighting there. For this, leaving aside the question of whether the war was moral or not, many Vietnam veterans have never forgiven her and consider her a traitor.

The forged photo is a nasty attempt to smear Kerry's reputation through a fabricated guilt by association.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[shark72]

"But could someone explain the Jane Fonda thing? What did that forged photo purport to show?"

Many people consider Jane Fonda to be a traitor.

That's why this forgery is significant: it isn't some innocent and harmless Fark-style "let's put him with Barney the Dinosaur and make a funny image." It was designed to instill hatred of the candidate by associating the two. The rationale is likely that while the fact that both protested the war might not be enough to convey a sense of guilt by association, it might make all the difference in the world by providing a photo of the two speaking together.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[EverDense]

Sorry, HANOI Jane.

Brain turning to mush.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[techno-vampire]

She did mnore than that. She sat in the seat of an AA gun and said that she wished she could shoot it against an American B-52. If we had declared war, it would have been treason as defined in the Constitution. Those of us that were serving their country in Vietnam in those days still remember.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[wwest4]

I remember vaguely seeing some footage of her sitting (smiling?) near a VC or NV artillery emplacement while it was firing, presumably at Americans. Imagine someone having pulled that in Iraq or Afghanistan. They'd be public enemy #3 faster than you can say Gitmo.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[Skjellifetti]

But could someone explain the Jane Fonda thing? What did that forged photo purport to show?

Jane Fonda is an actress, daughter of Henry Fonda, formerly married to liberal media mogul Ted Turner and also to SDS activist Tom Hayden. She was an opponent of the Vietnam War who made a trip to North Vietnam at the height of the war thus earning the sobriquet "Hanoi Jane." The political right in the U.S. hates her guts. By placing John Kerry with Fonda, they seek to make Kerry appear as a left wing traitor.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[YrWrstNtmr]

"very vocal", as in donning parts of an NVA uniform, and posing for pictures at the controls of a NVA AAA gun.

"very vocal", as in lying about the treatment of US POW's.

"very vocal", as in christening her son Troy after a Viet Cong hero, Nguyen Van Troi, who later tried to assassinate SecDef McNamara.

"very vocal", as in "I would think that if you understood what communism was you would hope, you would pray on your knees, that we would someday become communists." - Jane Fonda, MSU, 1970

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[fishbowl]

http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/weekly/aa1 10 399.htm

For the record, I think the US should have gotten out of Vietnam the day they hit Diem; I'm quite happy that Lyndon Johnson is dead, and I'll be happy when Robert McNamara joins him in hell.

I don't think Jane's a hero, but I wish the pro-war folks could come up with something better.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[sfjoe]

Well, at least she got closer to the VietCong than George Bush.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[techno-vampire]

Let's go back to 1972. One of the two candidates was well known to be a devious, underhanded, dishonest trickster, the other was considered honest and honerable. Alas, the honerable one was also preceived to be an incompetent flake that couldn't even make sure his running mate had no skeletons in his closet. Which one won? Not George McGovern, that's for sure! If you're not sure you can beat your opponent on the issues, use character assassination. There's lots of us 'Nam vets out there, ready to vote. Making us believe he sided with Fonda might be all it took to swing the votes. Imagine how it might be in Britian, let's say, if somebody made it look like an important politician in an election had been a vocal opponent of the Fauklands incident.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[fatboy]

She was a prominent anti-war protestor.

I am also a non-US'ican, but I believe it has
something to do with Jane Fonda touring North
Vietnam, and reporting how nice the people were
to her.

I think it was the video footage of her laughing and giggling while sitting in the N. Vietnam gun touret that pissed everybody off.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[That's Unpossible!]

The political right in the U.S. hates her guts.

Ummm, no, more than just the political right hate her guts. Anyone ever associated with the military hates her guts. Any (informed) patriotic American probably hates her guts.

You see, she did not just "make a trip" to N. Vietnam. She ENCOURAGED them to shoot down Americans. She visited an anti-aircraft battery that was used to shoot at/down American planes. She encouraged the enemy to continue fighting, and encouraged the Americans (over the radio) to essentially "give up." She even asked to pose in videos with American POW's, and some of those POW's later testified that they were tortured if they did not want to appear in the videos with her. Like a previous poster said, if war had been officially declared, she could have been executed for treason. As it stands, most people who know all the facts consider her a traitor to this day.

This is why any photo showing Kerry at an anti-war rally with her is extremely damaging to his campaign. This is also why Jane Fonda has been trying to distance herself from him in recent interviews, because she knows she is so hated it could torpedo the Dem's campaign.

Here is some more info from Snopes.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[2short]

I'll take a crack at it...

Jane Fonda was also a prominent opponent of the Vietnam war. Some people think she went too far, to the point of actually supporting the North Vietnamese (I'll not go into whether this was actually the case, as I don't know or care). So by linking Kerry with Fonda as closely as possible, they try to say Kerry is a wacko like Fonda. All without going into the fact that Kerry made a principled stand against the war only after serving in that war with considerable distinction.

Frankly, I don't think this approach has much traction. The rabid Fonda-haters are all on the right-wing fringe anyway. I would hope that for most Americans, having opposed the Vietnam war in the considered way Kerry did makes you look smart. You'd have to be pretty out there to say that in retrospect the Vietnam war was still a good idea when Kerry came out against it. I think it just makes it obvious that his critics on this issue are fully in the "all independent thought is treason" camp.

Anyway, a lot of people opposed the Vietnam war, and at this point, most people probably think they were right to do so. The demographic that still thinks of Vietnam war protesters as hippie-commie-pinko-scum is pretty small now, and they're not voting for Kerry anyway, so I don't see this fake photo mattering much.

On the other hand, there are plenty of real pictures of current members of the Bush administration being all buddy-buddy with Saddam Hussein...

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[demachina]

Karl Rove was investigated by the Republican party in 1972 for using a flase ID to break in to a Democratic opponents office to steal their stationary and then used it to send out thousands of forged invitations to one of their events offering :

"free beer, free food, girls and a good time for nothing."

Sounds like Rove knows how to party too.

Also in 1972, this being the year of Watergate and Nixon's rampant dirty tricks, George W. Bush was working on a now famous campaign in Alabama, which is where his National Gaurd record turned especially mysterious. In the campaign the Republican's sliced together audio recordings of the Democratic opponent to make it appear that he was a strong supporter of busing to force desegration, a position that would have doomed him, this being the South in 1972, if anyone had believed it.

http://www.southerner.net/blog/awolbush.html

I'm not saying the White House had anything to do this but they are experienced.....

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[muleboy]

Hahaha! "If we had declared war". Lucky for her, then, that the Vietnam "police action" was a twisted interpretation of the Constitution. If there had been strong support for the war, there wouldn't have been a problem getting the Constitutionally required declaration of war.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Making us believe he sided with Fonda might be all it took to swing the votes. Imagine how it might be in Britian, let's say, if somebody made it look like an important politician in an election had been a vocal opponent of the Fauklands incident.

Doesn't work, I'm afraid. Most Britons don't give a damn about what some politician thought about a minor war twenty years ago. A sizable proportion of the population believe that Britain should never have intervened in the Falklands in the first place, despite the indisputable good effects of our intervention in its undermining of the Argentinian military junta.

More to the point, one of the fundamental differences between Britain and the US is that nobody over here would even consider bringing up a politician's military record - most of our politicians don't even have military records.

Now, their opinions on the recent Iraq farce might well swing the next election, but that's a bit of a different matter...

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[justins]

She did mnore than that. She sat in the seat of an AA gun and said that she wished she could shoot it against an American B-52.

Sure she did.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[cyril3]

Unless this is an attempt by a right wing organization to discredit Kerry, why waste your time? Especially when you are lying?

Who the heck else would have done it. Seriously, who else did you have in mind.

1) Who would be stupid enough to obtain a copyrighted image in a forgery attempt?

There are two equally plausible answers to that question.

1. The Rights attitude is 'If you tell a lie often enough with enough conviction, people will believe it'. In the end the masses find it difficult to believe that their leaders would blatently lie to them.

2. Have you ever read www.townhall.com forums. And it's one of the saner ones. Some of those people with a copy of photoshop would knock these things out every day if they could.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[AhBeeDoi]

Two words: Human shield

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[TFloore]

"very vocal", as in "I would think that if you understood what communism was you would hope, you would pray on your knees, that we would someday become communists." - Jane Fonda, MSU, 1970

This is a fun little quote.

It's all in the meaning and persprective.

"understand what communism was" meant as "if we could stop having conflicts and actually work for the good of society instead of individual gain (i.e., stop being human)" that's maybe not such a bad thing, when referring to idealistic communism, which doesn't work in the real world because people don't work that way. But you can (try to) stretch it to "improve humanity so we become better as a race" which is a nice goal. Capt Picard keeps pretending that has happened in ST:TNG. (Yet he likes having the biggest guns...)

"someday become communists" as "accept that humans are flawed and this crazy system will never work, but we should do it anyway"... well, I'd hope no one would honestly support such a position. But humans being human... God-given right to be stupid, and all that.

==

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[boomgopher]

Sure she did.

Not sure about what she may have said, but looks pretty acurate to me:

Jane in AA carrier

(Why this image is hosted on "bikerchicks4u.com", I have no idea.)

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[solarrhino]

From Snopes

(Finally, in an interview in 2000, almost thirty years after the fact, Fonda admitted: "I will go to my grave regretting the photograph of me in an anti-aircraft carrier, which looks like I was trying to shoot at American planes. It hurt so many soldiers. It galvanized such hostility. It was the most horrible thing I could possibly have done. It was just thoughtless.")

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[Anonymous Coward]

"if war had been officially declared"

How shocking of her to protest the fact the United States government killed millions of Vietnamese civilians, drowned their country in the deadly Agent Orange and the President accidentally forgot to declare war. Not to mention that the pretext for this illegal non war was the Tonkin Gulf incident. It was claimed North Vietnamese gun boats fired on a U.S. destroyer off the coast of North Vietnam. The Johnson administration neglected to mention that North Vietnamese didn't actually fire on the destroyer and were in fact attacking South Vietnamese boats that had been attacking their coast.

Fonda's actions may have been a little over the top in going to North Vietnam but she didn't wage an illegal war that killed millions including 50,000 Americans while the U.S. government did. I think I would take Fonda over LBJ, McNamara, Nixon and Kissinger any day.

If you were really an American patriot you wouldn't blindly support the proposition that its OK for the U.S. to kill anyone it feels like, whenever it feels like it.

The first two Al Queda in for military tribunals are up on war crimes charges for killing civilians and attacking civilian objects (buildings). If that were the criteria for war crimes then the U.S. has been a war criminal for most of its history, it was called strategic bombing in the second half of the 20the century.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[Skjellifetti]

Ummm, no, more than just the political right hate her guts. Anyone ever associated with the military hates her guts. Any (informed) patriotic American probably hates her guts.

Um, I used to be associated with the military. I'm more informed than most Americans (probably including yourself) and am pretty damn patriotic. I don't really want to refight the Vietnam war here, but the behavior of the U.S. government and military during that war towards those who chose to dissent was at least as shameful as what Jane Fonda did. That war, and the stupid "anyone who opposes our enemies is our friend, no matter how evil they are themselves" mentality still haunts America today. Like it or not, 9/11 happened because our illustrious leaders thought (and still think) that fomenting military coups in Guatemala, Iran, and Chile, helping Saddam Hussein against Iran, shipping weapons to Egyptian and Saudi dictators, etc, etc, etc is good foreign policy. Our leaders (of both Republicrat and Democan parties) speachify about all of the great things (capitalism, freedom) Amerika offers, but simply cannot grasp the hatred that those actions have provoked among the have-nots of the world who hear the speaches but end up on the receiving end of American bullets when they try and put those American ideals into practice in their own nations. It is sometimes very hard to be a patriotic American, and Fonda's actions have to be seen in that light.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[rjelks]

Actually, both Bush and Kerry have said that they oppose gay marriage. I'm sure I don't need a link to show Bush's stance, but here is a story on Kerry's. Apparently, he's been flipping around based on public opinion. Man, I wish we could get a candidate that people could really get behind. I guess I'll have to go third party on this election.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[That's Unpossible!]

I'm sorry, which part of my reply made you think I agree with our government on all issues, don't condemn them for their stupid actions over the years, etc? We are talking about Hanoi Jane and the treason she committed in the Vietnam war. As was just pointed out to me, you do not even have to be officially at war with a country for it to count as treason, as per the Constitution.

What she did was flat out disgusting.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[techno-vampire]

Really? I checked the Constitution and found this:

Article V, Section 3:

Clause 1: Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

This was put in to prevent people from being charged with treason just because the government didn't like what they'd done, as had happened a number if times in Britian in the "bad old days." Because we had not declared war on North Vietnam, and Fonda didn't do anything but talk, what she did was not treason, although it could be argued that morally it was. (That's another question that I'm not getting into.)

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[cjpez]

lol... Have you seen the bikerchicks4u.com page when you click on the link from Slashdot? Hilarious.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[Skjellifetti]

I'm sorry, which part of my reply made you think I agree with our government on all issues, don't condemn them for their stupid actions over the years, etc?

Vietnam was one of those stupid actions. It is real hard to get worked up over Jane Fonda when the nation we were defending at the time was a right wing military dictatorship that was as anti-freedom as you can get and especially when that war and similar actions have created as much ill will towards the US as they have.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[That's Unpossible!]

Unlike you, I have no problem getting worked up over a person that causes harm to our soldiers, those men who were bravely carrying out their orders. It isn't as though Hanoi Jane caused harm on the people that most blame for the Vietnam war... she harmed our soldiers, that is the crime of what she did.

the nation we were defending at the time was a right wing military dictatorship that was as anti-freedom as you can get

Blow things out of proportion much?

For one thing, both Johnson and Kennedy were Democrats. The war started and continued with them in office. The right wing you loathe, in Nixon's presidency, ended the war and even reduced tensions with USSR and China.

As for dictatorship, as far as I know, three presidents were elected by the people during that war. While there were atrocities committed by certain parts of the government (such as the national guard at Kent), it was not some sort of conspiracy to end free speech, as you can plainly see with all the huge, relatively peaceful anti-war protests that were carried out in America by free Americans.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[Mr. Piddle]

As far as I understand, the fight to be the president now revolves around same sex marriages.

No, this is a superficial take on it. The real fight is about Freedom, where Bush thinks it is perfectly okay for the federal government to take it all away. The federal government simply has NO business regulating marriage. There is no debating this, because the debate was over with the ratification of the Constitution over 200 years ago.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[Mr. Piddle]

Not to mention that the pretext for this illegal non war was the Tonkin Gulf incident.

??? I thought it was the century and a half of French occupation and the incompetence of the British and Americans to manage Vietnam in the critical years after Japan's surrender in WWII.

There are no simple answers about Vietnam. Who's at fault? Let's see: France, Japan, China, the USA, Britain, Russia, and who knows who else. Vietnam was one big fucked up mess.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[Skjellifetti]

Er, it was Eisenhower who sent the first advisors to Vietnam. Nixon could have ended the war in 1969/70 on just about the same terms he got 4 years later. Lots of American soldiers died during that time, far more than Jane Fonda killed.

While there were atrocities committed by certain parts of the government (such as the national guard at Kent), it was not some sort of conspiracy to end free speech, as you can plainly see with all the huge, relatively peaceful anti-war protests that were carried out in America by free Americans.

Killing college kids who disagree with your policies seems like killing free speech to me. Any idea how many of those peaceful anti-war demonstrators still have FBI files?

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[k_head]

"What she did was flat out disgusting."

It was less disgusting then carpet bombing cambodia and dropping agent orange on civillian populations.

Big whoop, she said bad things about americans if that makes her evil then the whole world is evil.

Going on an undeclared war and killing hundreds of thousands of human beings on premise of lies is OK with you but protesting against it not? If anybody should be jailed for treason it should be Mcnamara and Nixon.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[k_head]

Don't you think people who sent you to kill and die without declaring war deserve to be tried for treason more then Jane?

How many people is Jane Fonda responsible for killing? How many is Nixon? How many people did you kill while you were over there?

When you die do you think God will judge you more harshly then Jane? Do you think God will punish somebody who was trying to end bloodshed more then somebody who was comitting bloodshed?

That's a question you should ask yourself.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[Rayonic]

Yes, lots of boo-hooing about the bombing of Japanese cities, but little mention of the Rape of Nanking, among other atrocities. I guess only Americans can commit "evil" acts, eh?

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[Rayonic]

but she didn't wage an illegal war

The Vietnam War was a lot of things, but "illegal" wasn't one of them.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[AoT]

except you are talking about Leninism/Stalinism/Maoism the Marxist based political systems which have mostly failed. Cuba isn't doing to bad.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[k_head]

Right very vocal and that's all. It's not like she took up a gun and killed anybody or dropped napalm on civillians.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[Rayonic]

> The rabid Fonda-haters are all on the right-wing fringe anyway.

Incorrect. Anyone even slightly familiar with the story and even vaguely patriotic probably hates Jane Fonda.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[mesocyclone]

And Fonda was already working at getting soldiers to desert before 1970.

Kerry was an officer in VVAW, which was a radical anti-war organization. He provided false testimony before the senate, testimony which significantly aided the enemy, and which was used against our POWs. Many of the most famous, false sound-bites about the Vietnam War are from that speech. Kerry was such a phoney that he didn't even write the speech (although he pretended that it was spontaneous).It was written by one of Robert Kennedy's former speechwriters (Kerry was connected to the Kennedy's when younger).

That speech, hyped by the press, led Americans to believe that US Soldiers routinely (even gleefully) engaged in atrocities as a matter of course. It implied that every Vietnam Vet was a basket case because of the horrible things they had done.

It was based on the infamous Winter Soldier "Investigation" - which was funded by Jane Fonda. In that "investigation," many "veterans" testified to having witnessed or committed atrocities. Subsequent investigations showed that many testifying had never been to Vietnam and others could not possibly have seen the atrocities they witnessed. Congress caused two investigations to be undertaken to investigate the claims and to prosecute those who committed the atrocities, but with immunity given to those at the Winter Soldier Investigation. Not a single confirmed atrocity resulted. Kerry was a fraud then and is a fraud now. Just as Benedit Arnold was a war hero who turned on his country, so is John Kerry.

In the "Operation Dewey Canyon" demonstration, Kerry "returned his medals to the government" by throwing them on the Capitol steps. When someone years later noticed them proudly displayed in his office (he became proud of his service when it became politically advantageous to do so), he admitted that he had thrown someone else's medals! Also in that demonstration, veterans set up encampments on the mall and slept there. Kerry was one of the organizers, but while the others slept on the mall, he slept in a luxurious Georgetown apartment.

BTW, the reason Fonda was not tried for treason was not because war was not declared. It was because the political will to do so was lacking. Ultimately that lack of will lost the war.

Just as almost all of us who went to Vietnam would love to have Jane Fonda executed, we are not exactly fond of John Kerry's betrayal of American troops who were still in the field after he returned from his own short tour.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[techno-vampire]

No, I don't think the leaders that sent me to Vietnam should be tried for treason because what they did doesn't fit the Constitutional definition of treason, nor do I think it should. I don't know how many people Hanoi Jane is responsible for killing, but I could make a good guess how many lives she helped ruin by making soldiers out to be horrible people that deserved to be spat upon, hated and discriminated against. Trying to end bloodshed by encouraging people to kill the soldiers of your own country is a rather contrived piece of twisted logic, and isn't something she, or anybody else should be proud of. Much of the trouble we vets have had ever since can be laid at her door, and because of that, among many other things, I think God will judge her far more harshly than he does me.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[mesocyclone]

Jane Fonda was an idiot. She was also a traitor to her country.

The Vietnamese haven't forgotten. Read Taking cover with Ha Noi Jane" in a 2003 Vietnam News Agency article.

Quotes:
"I believe in Vietnamese culture," she told me, "and I believe that you will win."

She was unable to hide her joy when the Vietnamese documentary studio presented her with a video camera that had been used to capture the crimes of the American forces, and the unailing resistance of the Vietnamese.

Her presence in North Viet Nam that grim winter, when the sky burnt red with explosions and anti-aircraft fire, was crucial in awakening the American peace movement. Jane will soon turn 65 but in my mind she will always remain a slender young woman, clad in traditional dress and a helmet, standing in the Temple of Literature and singing as yet another fleet of bombers made its way towards the city

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[mesocyclone]

No, we understood why we were fighting that war, although many today who rely on revisionist history may not. Most of us volunteered. Polls show that the vast majority of us are proud of our service and would go again.

We knew we could win the war, not expecting that the draft dodgers and anti-war activists would stab Vietnam in the back.

We know that 100,000 Vietnamese were summarily executed after we left, that hundreds of thousands more were sent to concentration camps (where many more died), that millions of Cambodians were murdered by Pol Pot, who was an ally of the North Vietnamese, that today Vietnam is one of the remaining Communist totalitarian societies on earth, and that millions of people, including former Viet Cong risked (and often lost) their lives and those of their families trying to escape their communist rulers by boat.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[Scudsucker]

This is why any photo showing Kerry at an anti-war rally with her is extremely damaging to his campaign.

How the hell can it legitimatly damage his campaign, when his "closest" association with her was being 10 feet away at the same rally? FOR SOMETHING FONDA DID 2 **YEARS** AFTER THE PHOTO WAS TAKEN? Anyone who buys this needs to take a starring role in "Friday the 13th: Jason kills all idiots". I don't think thats what you're saying, but it sad to think that anyone would take this seriously.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[mesocyclone]

or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.

That's exactly what Hanoi Jane did. And there were more than two witnesses to that act.

She is a traitor. It's really quite a simple concept.

I would point out that Tokyo Rose didn't do anything but talk, and she was convicted of treason.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[Scudsucker]

And how is this different from all the nasty attempts to smear Bush?

Um, because those attacks are based on things that Bush and his staff have actually said and done?

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[Vess V.]

Have you ever heard of the Ho Chi Minh trail? (That is not a rhetorical question.)

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[mesocyclone]

His association with Fonda was much deeper than that. She funded the "Winter Soldier Investigation" and Kerry was present at that and used the results to create his lying speech given before the U.S. Senate. She was a major contributor to Vietnam Veterans Against the War, while Kerry was an officer thereof.

The picture is only misleading in that Kerry is so far away from her.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[mesocyclone]

By itself, it doesn't mean much.

Check here if you want more facts showing how closely they were allied. Follow some of the links.

Kerry was a Benedict Arnold, except Benedict Arnold saw much more combat and did much more for his country before turning on it.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[Dun Malg]

I inadvertently blockquoted the one aspect of the story about Jane Fonda in Vietnam that's provably untrue (stupid homebrew clipboard app). What SHOULD have been pasted there follows:

To add insult to injury, when American POWs finally began to return home (some of them having been held captive for up to nine years) and describe the tortures they had endured at the hands of the North Vietnamese, Jane Fonda quickly told the country that they should "not hail the POWs as heroes, because they are hypocrites and liars." Fonda said the idea that the POWs she had met in Vietnam had been tortured was "laughable," claiming: "These were not men who had been tortured. These were not men who had been starved. These were not men who had been brainwashed." The POWs who said they had been tortured were "exaggerating, probably for their own self-interest," she asserted. She told audiences that "Never in the history of the United States have POWs come home looking like football players. These football players are no more heroes than Custer was. They're military careerists and professional killers" who are "trying to make themselves look self-righteous, but they are war criminals according to law."

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[Dun Malg]

I'm quite happy that Lyndon Johnson is dead, and I'll be happy when Robert McNamara joins him in hell.

Don't forget Kissinger! The filthy bastard...

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea, yea, yea it was just an accident you posted a bunch of right wing propaganda designed to trash Fonda. We will all believe you from now on.

I hate to break it to you but according to the military tribunals forming in Guantanamo it IS a war crime to kill civilians and target "civilian objects". So, by the U.S. Governments own definition when B-52 bomber pilots bombed civilian's they did became war criminals. Not entirely their fault, they were just following orders. If they are enlisted men they are a little less culpable than ranking officers.

I hate to break it to you both sides in wars commit atrocities like torturing prisoners. Three national gaurdsmen including a women were recently found to have been torturing Iraq prisoners and were discharged and were facing charges last I heard. She was stripping them, repeatedly kicking them in the nuts and encouraging everyone else to do the same.

If you want to see some real war crimes look up the Tiger force. It was a unit of the 101st Airborne that apparently roamed Vietnam in 1967 massacring civilians:

http://iht.com/articles/114376.html

" The probe substantiated 20 war crimes by 18 soldiers and reached the Pentagon and White House before it was closed in 1975"

The investigation may well have been killed by none other than Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney:

According to the Blade, "It is not known how far up in the Ford administration the decision [to bury the cases] went," but it is worth recalling whom the leading actors were at the time: the Secretary of Defense, then as now, was Donald Rumsfeld, and the White House chief of staff was Dick Cheney.

Americans, as a people, need to stop operating under the delusion that American soldiers never commit attrocities and their enemies always do. It is simply propaganda. In the middle of a brutal war Americans can be just as brutal as the next nationality.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[demachina]

Perhaps you would care to cite which parts of his speech were a lie. Its pretty lame to just say he was lieing but not say how. Here is his statement though don't let the fact get in your way as you slander him:

http://www.richmond.edu/~ebolt/history398/JohnKe rr yTestimony.html

My Lai is a well documented massacre.
The atrocities he described are in line with those that were committed by the 101st's Tiger Force.

http://hnn.us/articles/1816.html

The Tiger Force investigation was suppressed under the Ford Administartion in 1975 when none other than Donald Rumsfled was the Secretary of Defense and Cheney was Chief of Staff.

Are you accusing Kerry of being a Benedict Arnold because he told the truth about atrocities by American troop when he should have been a good soldier and covered him. There simply isn't any parallel to Benedict Arnold who was giving plans to fortifications at West Point to the British. As for impuning his combat record, all I can say is he was wounded 3 times and he sure as hell has a better war record than George W. Bush who was partying in Texas and Alabama during the war. I'm not fond of glorifying war records but since you are slamming him:

November 17, 1968:
Kerry arrives in Vietnam, where he is given command of Swift boat No. 44, operating in the Mekong Delta.

December 2, 1968:
Kerry gets his first taste of intense combat, and is wounded in the arm. He is awarded a Purple Heart.

January, 1969:
Kerry takes command of a new Swift boat, completing 18 missions over 48 days, almost all in the Mekong Delta area.

February 20, 1969:
Kerry is wounded again, taking shrapnel in the left thigh, after a gunboat battle. He is awarded a second Purple Heart.

February 28, 1969:
Kerry and his boat crew, coming under attack while patroling in the Mekong Delta, decide to counterattack. In the middle of the ensuing firefight, Kerry leaves his boat, pursues a Viet Cong fighter into a small hut, kills him, and retreives a rocket launcher. He is awarded a Silver Star.

March 13, 1969:
A mine detonates near Kerry's boat, wounding him in the right arm. He is awarded a third Purple Heart. He is also awarded a Bronze Star for pulling a crew member, who had fallen overboard, back on the boat amidst a firefight.

After the third wound the Navy rules encourage people to transfer to a desk job.

It is truly sad that American's seem to think their soldiers never commit atrocities while all their enemies invariably do. Some percentage of all soldiers snap when they are trained to kill, ordered to kill and do kill.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[techno-vampire]

Much though I'd like to agree with you, alas, she isn't. Unlike Tokyo Rose and Axis Sally, she didn't say what she did during a declared war, and that makes a difference. Without a war, there's no enemy, and without that, no treason.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[k_head]

Where in the constitution does it grant the president to commit armed forces without declaring a war and getting the permission of congress?

"I don't know how many people Hanoi Jane is responsible for killing, but I could make a good guess how many lives she helped ruin by making soldiers out to be horrible people that deserved to be spat upon, hated and discriminated against. "

And you think this is worse then dropping bombs on villages? You think maybe dropping bombs on villages and napalming a country ruins a few lives too?

"I think God will judge her far more harshly than he does me."

Depends. How many people did you kill?

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[k_head]

" No, we understood why we were fighting that war, although many today who rely on revisionist history may not. Most of us volunteered. Polls show that the vast majority of us are proud of our service and would go again."

So what? You think God will care that you wanted to kill people and that you were proud to kill people? You think God cuts you a break because you volunteered to go to another country and kill people there who never attacked you or your country?

"We know that 100,000 Vietnamese were summarily executed after we left, that hundreds of thousands more were sent to concentration camps (where many more died),"

Mmm. They killed hundreds of thousands of people. That means they are evil. You killed hundreds of thousands of people. That means you are evil.

God does not give you a pass because somebody is more evil then you. There are lots of people more evil then you but that does not excuse your actions. You will be held responsible for every life you took, every baby that grew up without parents because of you, every kid missing a leg because you left mines laying around, every deformed baby and old man rotting from cancer because you dropped napalm on their village.

Go ahead, feel better about yourself because you are not the most evil person in the world. But realize this you are evil, more evil then 90% of the people in this world who manage to get through their lives without killing anybody. The vast majority of humanity would be disgusted if they killed somebody not proud.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[techno-vampire]

None. I was on a ship on the Gun Line, not involved with the gunnery except for (as most everybody was) carrying shells and powdercases during resupply. And, however many NVA my ship killed, I'll bet we saved more American lives, and that's all that matters to me.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[Dun Malg]

I hate to break it to you both sides in wars commit atrocities like torturing prisoners.

*whooooosh!*

You missed my point entirely. I didn't defend US actions, nor would I ever be inclined to do so. I pointed out that Jane Fonda was mindlessly defending a bunch of brutal scum solely because of her dislike for the other brutal scum they happened to be fighting against. I don't much care for simplistic "enemy of my enemy is my friend, particularly if they say they're anti-US" posturing.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[mrdrivel]

I guess I'll have to go third party on this election.

Good news for you! Nader running again. And all of you people said voting for a third party candidate had would have no impact...

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[k_head]

Thou shall not kill is the first commandment.

SOme people who enjoy killing have chosen to interpret this very simple sentense to mean thou shall not murder.

even if that was true when is invading a country and killing it's residents not murder?

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[Skjellifetti]

I have no problem getting worked up over a person that causes harm to our soldiers, those men who were bravely carrying out their orders.

The German soldiers who invaded Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, France, Benelux, Denmark, Norway, and Russia were men who were bravely carrying out orders, too. Yet what they did was neither moral nor right. Individual soldiers are as responsible for what happened in Vietnam (and all wars) as their leaders. Remember the old slogan "Suppose they gave a war and nobody came?" Those soldiers each individually chose to fight in an unjust war and having made that choice they are fair game for those who found that choice to be morally loathsome. Or does the right pay service to the concept of individual responsibilty only when welfare mothers are involved?

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[k_head]

" None. I was on a ship on the Gun Line, not involved with the gunnery except for (as most everybody was) carrying shells and powdercases during resupply."

Great you only helped other people kill. That means you are less evil then the people who did kill but more evil then the people who did not help anybody kill.

" I'll bet we saved more American lives, and that's all that matters to me."

Most Americans (like you) believe that American humans are worth more then humans of other countries. This moral relativism of course is not valid from a biblical christian view where god loved every human being and created all of them with souls and freewill. You believe that killing vietnamese was OK as long as you saved Americans.

I should point out one thing to you though. Americans went to vietnam willingly. They went there to kill. They could have stayed home if they wanted to and no American would be killed. They could have pulled out earlier and less americans would be killed.

You could have saved even more americans by fighting to end the war early. War protesters saved more american lives then you did. Even if they shortened the war for a month they saved more lives then you did.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[Dun Malg]

Um, it's my understanding that story is bullshit. -1 Troll plz.

It is. It was a copy-paste error on my part. Note my correction, posted below my original post, came as soon as the 2-minute timer would allow. My fault. Didn't preview.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[techno-vampire]

That's right, I was there willingly, becaused I believed in what we were doing: trying to prevent a totalitarian dictatorship from taking over a people who didn't want it. And, after people like you persuaded our government to pull out, the totalitarians took over and killed or imprisioned their enemies.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[stephanruby]

The Vietnam War was a lot of things, but "illegal" wasn't one of them.

According to Robert McNamara, the then Secretary of State, everyone in a War commits Crimes against Humanity, but only the winners get to decide who gets convicted.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[Dun Malg]

I haven't seen you make a point.

Sorry, thought it was clear. My point was that pointing out the unconscionable action of JF does not make one an apologist for US policy.

punctuated with a bunch of vicious name calling like: "Shut your pie-hole, fuckwit"

(shrug) I have a particular disdain for AC posters who say "If you were really an American patriot you wouldn't blindly support the proposition that its OK for the U.S. to kill anyone it feels like, whenever it feels like it" when the person to whom they are replying said not one word in support of the US government position in Vietnam. Knee-jerk politicos bug me. I don't mind the "US == bad" stuff; hell, I agree with 99.9% of it. I just get annoyed with the unilateral belief in "anti-US == good". Bad people are bad, even if they're fighting other bad people.

My main point is Fonda might have gone overboard but there was at least some validity to some of the argument she was trying to make.

The validity of her point has no bearing upon the defensibility of her actions. Encouraging war is uncool no matter which side you decided is "better".

There isn't much you can defend about the action of the the U.S. Government during that period and she showed some guts in giving the U.S. government the finger for it instead of meekly waving the flag and cheering them on.

Guts? Giving the government the finger? Who gives a crap? While I applaud her assisting the efforts to end the war in the US, encouraging the north vietnamese to kill US draftees because one opposes the policy of the US Government is the act of a ignorant, self-righteous dolt. If you're looking for real protest heroes, try Daniel Berrigan, Quang Duc, and Rev James Lawson.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[Ray Radlein]

It was when I heard that very joke (" Q: What's the difference between Jane Fonda and George Bush? A: Hey, at least Jane Fonda went to Viet Nam!") circulating on various veterans' boards and sites that I realized just how much trouble Bush is in with veterans. When veterans compare you unfavorably to Jane Fonda, even in a joke, something's going on.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[AoT]

but it isn't failed, and its a hell of a lot better than nearby haiti, or haven't you noticed?

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[Anonymous Coward]

Fonda's actions may have been a little over the top in going to North Vietnam

That is not "a little over the top," but traitorous.

The "illegal war" that you moan about, but fail to correctly identify, was the war of aggression launched by the Communists of North Viet Nam to conquer South Viet Nam. The Communists of North Viet Nam repeatedly violated cease fires, peace treaties, international law, and the Geneva Convention. Why you feel sorry for them is a mystery, unless that is where your sympathies lie.

If you were really an American patriot you wouldn't blindly support the proposition that its OK for the U.S. to kill anyone it feels like, whenever it feels like it.

If you were a decent human being you would protest the war of aggression by the North. Isn't the best protest to make a protest against the first aggression, not against those who come to the aide of those who are attacked? Isn't that like blaming the victim? And how do you think South Viet Nam fell? It was from a conventional invasion of South Viet Nam by the North Vietnamese Army using tank and infantry divisions, and plenty of artillery. After capturing the South, the Communists killed large numbers of people, and imprisoned many others. For a taste of the things to come you only have to look at the battle of Hue in which the Communists executed about 3,000 people that we know of, due to mass graves, and left several thousand more missing.

As to the Law of War, if you actually knew anything about it you would know that civilians are not absolutely priviliged from harm. It is unfortunate, but that is the way it is. No magic shields, not fantasy charms of protection. That is part of what makes war so terrible. Part of the reason for that is it is well known that some will try to exploit the priviliged status of civilians by using them as "peace shields" or putting arms and supplies in civilian areas. Sadly, once again, there was no outcry when Saddam did that, although a few luck ones lived and emerged a little wiser.

I find the sensitivities of the left about war revealing: there was no protest against Iraq in Europe or the US when Iraq invaded Kuwait, captured it, and incorporated it into Iraq. There were howls of outrage against war when a large coalition of nations went to war to remove Iraq from Kuwait and free the people of Kuwait. Viet Nam was much the same. No outrage about the invasion and war of aggression by the North, but howls and outrage when the US and other nations helped to defend South Viet Nam. That pattern repeats in other times and places. It reveals the moral bankruptcy of the left.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[Ironica]

The federal government simply has NO business regulating marriage.

Well...

For one thing, if the federal government has NO business regulating marriage, then they never could have compelled all states to recognize each other's marriages (effectively ending anti-miscegenation laws).

Second, a lot of things the federal government does regulate (i.e. taxes) are dependent on marriage and its legal definition.

So there is justification for a *limited* amount of federal rulemaking on marriage.

What the federal government has NO business doing is legislating religion or morality. Protecting the "sanctity of marriage" is a patently illegal concept under the first amendment. As a matter of fact, as far as government recognition is concerned, marriage cannot have any sanctity at all, as that would be making laws respecting an establishment of religion (sanctity is a thoroughly religious concept). Only churches are in a position to protect the sanctity of marriage, and of course churches have always had the right to deny any couple a marriage under their own rules for whatever stupid reason they come up with (but they have never had a right to deny *other* entities, including the government, the ability to legally marry people).

Until someone comes up with a non-religious reason why same-sex couples shouldn't be legally allowed to marry, there's absolutely no way such an amendment can be passed without repudiating a chunk of the first amendment and a century or two of case law.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[Ironica]

If we had declared war, it would have been treason as defined in the Constitution. Those of us that were serving their country in Vietnam in those days still remember.

Those of you who have served our country in Viet Nam were among those sitting on that lawn with her at that protest. John Kerry was one of them.

It's one thing to say to people who have never fought in a war that they don't know what they're talking about protesting it (on the other hand, you could say the same about those who support wars when they've never been through it). But once someone's been there and done that, who are you to say that what you learned from it is more valid than what they did?

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[Ironica]

Unlike you, I have no problem getting worked up over a person that causes harm to our soldiers, those men who were bravely carrying out their orders. It isn't as though Hanoi Jane caused harm on the people that most blame for the Vietnam war... she harmed our soldiers, that is the crime of what she did.

Hm. To say that Jane Fonda did harm to our soldiers that were sent by the US Government to protect a foreign nation sounds a little like saying someone who threw a lit cigarette into a raging forest fire committed arson. They were hurt by the opposing side (unless it was a friendly fire incident) because we sent them over there for that purpose. Out of the 50k American soldiers killed, you'd be doing well to demonstrate that her actions were responsible for even a handful.

"the nation we were defending at the time was a right wing military dictatorship that was as anti-freedom as you can get"

...
For one thing, both Johnson and Kennedy were Democrats. The war started and continued with them in office. ...

As for dictatorship, as far as I know, three presidents were elected by the people during that war. While there were atrocities committed by certain parts of the government (such as the national guard at Kent), it was not some sort of conspiracy to end free speech, as you can plainly see with all the huge, relatively peaceful anti-war protests that were carried out in America by free Americans.

Erm, you missed an essential element in the parent's statement: the nation *we were defending*. Notice that the Viet Nam war happened somewhere else entirely, not in the US. The folks that elected presidents, dealt with Kent State, and were exercising their free speech rights weren't in the right-wing military dictatorship he was referring to.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[Ironica]

Anyone even slightly familiar with the story and even vaguely patriotic probably hates Jane Fonda.

Of course, we could come up with all sorts of examples, and you would be able to say "no, slightly *more* familiar than that" or "no, slightly *less* vaguely patriotic." Nice wiggle-room you've left yourself.

I'm wishing my dad was alive to weigh in. Not only was he a professional historian his entire career, he was also awarded a Purple Heart in Korea, where he served in the Marines. He didn't talk a lot about war or politics, but from the little he did say it was clear he didn't support what our country did.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[k_head]

You were an idiot for believing what your govt told you. Suckers like you are a dime a dozen.

Think about what you are saying. If you didn't go to war and kill hundreds of thousands of people and make millions sick and destitude a totalitarian govt would have come in end killed their enemies. You went in, killed lots of people and the totalitarians came in and killed their enemies anyway.

You made it worse by going in. If you didn't go in then less people would have died.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[danila]

When Darth Vader killed the Emperor, he betrayed him. But still his betrayal was ethical. When USA attacked Vietnam, supporting the US was unethical, supporting Vietnamese was ethically right.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[danila]

And, however many NVA my ship killed, I'll bet we saved more American lives, and that's all that matters to me.
Do you think it is all that matters to God? "There is no Jew, no Hellene", like St.Paul the Apostle said. You are an excellent example of the hypocrisy and perversion of the modern American Christianity. As for carrying the shells, blood is still on your hands, remember the Pilate.

P.S. There is no god, obviously. But you are still a murderer. And a retard to boot.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[danila]

I am not a Christian (because it is silly to believe in things that do not exist), but according to what I've read, the original Jewish word in that commandment actually meant "murder", not "kill". But after a few translations the original meaning transformed, which actually suited modernised Christianity better.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[Tiedottaja]

Like it or not, 9/11 happened because our illustrious leaders thought (and still think) that fomenting military coups in Guatemala, Iran, and Chile, helping Saddam Hussein against Iran, shipping weapons to Egyptian and Saudi dictators, etc, etc, etc is good foreign policy.

Yeah. All they are trying to do is to make the world a better place for the children. It's sooo obvious.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[Asic Eng]

Unless this is an attempt by a right wing organization to discredit Kerry, why waste your time?

Because some people will become aware of the fake, but not of the fact that it's a fake. Some people might turn out for Kerry because they find out it was a fake, some against Kerry because they believe the fake. If the net result is fewer votes for Kerry, then the fake was successful.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[kisak]

Those of us that were serving their country in Vietnam in those days still remember.

You should also remember all those rich kids that used their connections so that they did not need to serve their country, people like Bush, Cheney, Delay, etc etc

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[mikelieman]

Just a comment or two on this letter. If President A.W.O.L. was training SOOO hard at national air-defense while protecting us from a swarm of nuclear bombers crossing the Mexican border, why didn't he bother to apply any of it to DOING HIS FUCKING JOB AS PRESIDENT.

Why was U.S. Airspace so easily penetrated and used by hijackers. We have systems in place to prevent hijacking, deal with hijacking, and protect our airspace.

Why, during President A.W.O.L.'s watch, did EVERYTHING fail so horribly? Seems like he knows NOTHING about air-defense, national defense, OR actually protecting the homeland.

It's more evidence he shirked his duties, and did NOT serve with Honor.

That being said, maybe the Air National Guard should worry more about GUARDING THE NATIONS AIR.

This preoccupation with hyping how they "were the pathfinders in showing that the Guard and Reserves could become reliable members of the first team in the total force, so proudly evidenced today in Afghanistan and Iraq" GOT THEM TO DROP THE BALL ON 9/11. The Air National Guard, DIDN'T.

They AREN'T DOING THEIR JOB HERE! Why would I care for them to join "The Big Boys?" Failures, Failures, and More Failures, and they're off shooting up other countries.

Why didn't the Air National Guard fucking get off the ground, do their DUTY, DEFEND OUR HOMELAND on 9/11?

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[The Desert Palooka]

On the other hand, there are plenty of real pictures of current members of the Bush administration being all buddy-buddy with Saddam Hussein...

Help.

I'm forgetting my Liberal Lines, now do we like Saddam or not? I mean I know I was supposed to be angry about taking him down, yet here I feel I'm supposed to be angry for administration people meeting him.

so...confused...

oh and Vets (who Kerry is trying to portray himself as very much one of with his band `o brothers (kerry did serve though)) care VERY much about this. When a campaign is making a big deal about someone being a war hero, it's a bit suspect when that war hero became part of the faction that spit on soldiers when they got home...

That matters alot to the vets I've heard talk about. Nearly to tears in fact.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[cyb3r0ptx]

...saying you wish you could kill amaricans who are out there risking there lives for your freedoms should leave you hanging form a tree in the rose garden

While I agree that Hanoi Jane's actions were treasonous, I seriously doubt that fighting in a Vietnamese civil war was protecting our freedoms.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[jsebrech]

It was never enough to be a totalitarian dictator to be declared an enemy of the US. Lots of totalitarian dictators go unharmed even today.

This is how I understand the history of the vietnam war:

- Before WWII vietnam was in french hands
- During WWII the japanese conquer vietnam from the weakened french to fortify their position
- After WWII the french make an official request in the potsdam conference to get their pre-WWII colonies back, this request is granted
- Britain and China make a deal to clean out the japanese from vietnam, britain will do the south, china will do the north
- Neither country is interested in actually ruling the country though, and once the japanese are cleaned out in the resulting power vacuum ho chi minh declares a provisional communist government. He tries, and fails, to get US recognition.
- The french move back into vietnam and start a war with the viet minh (ho chi minh's forces). They team up with the remains of the japanese leadership in the south to do this.
- The US starts aiding the french (they had promised vietnam to the french)
- in 1954 the french are conquered by the viet minh and withdraw from vietnam
- the geneva conference on indochina is held. Vietnam is divided into north and south vietnam. The north is given to the viet minh, the south is given to the remains of the japanese leadership. It is hoped to eventually hold elections across all of vietnam to reunite the country. From here on out, both north and south are ruled by totalitarian abusive regimes.
- There is an unwillingness to reunite the country, and the US fears a war between communist north vietnam and capitalist south vietnam will lead to vietnam becoming communist entirely and starts giving military aid to south vietnam.
- An unofficial war breaks out between south and north. No open hostilities happen, but a lot of people get killed behind the scenes.
- The us keeps ramping up military aid. Ships are sent. Among them USS Maddox.
- The maddox ends up in hostilities with north vietnamese forces. The maddox escapes mostly unharmed. The official story is the north vietnamese attacked the maddox, unofficial accounts vary. North vietnam is given an official warning.
- American ships open fire on perceived north vietnam enemy ships posing a threat. The media blows this out of proportion. It is still unclear whether there were actually real enemies shooting back. As a response to this second incident, congress passes the golf of tonkin resolution authorizing the use of force in defense of US forces
- With US forces able to fight back, the war quickly escalates and the vietnam war starts in earnest. US political leadership has proclaimed they won't let communism take hold of south vietnam and thereby preclude a US withdrawal from south vietnam without political harm.

So. The reason for fighting north vietnam and backing south vietnam was NOT a totalitarian dictatorship. South vietnam wasn't any better than the north. The vietnam war was a result of the US fear of communism resulting in ever intensifying military aid to south vietnam, which set a fuse on a bomb that eventually went off.

It wasn't about preserving democracy, it was about preserving capitalism.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[justins]

Not sure about what she may have said, but looks pretty acurate to me:

Yes, it's the quote that I'm more skeptical about, not the picture. I mean, she's a peacenik, or she goes around talking about how she wants to shoot down airplanes, but BOTH seems unlikely.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[fizbin]

oh and Vets (who Kerry is trying to portray himself as very much one of with his band `o brothers (kerry did serve though)) care VERY much about this. When a campaign is making a big deal about someone being a war hero, it's a bit suspect when that war hero became part of the faction that spit on soldiers when they got home...

It's good to finally see someone with actual evidence of Vietnam protestors having spit on returning vets. And I'm glad to see you put to rest the idea that a significant part of the Vietnam anti-war movement was composed of former Vietnam veterans. I also like how you've noticed the very strong emphasis that his campaign places on him being a decorated veteran, despite the fact that doing so wouldn't actually help him much among Democratic primary voters.</sarcasm>

For what it's worth, the one Vietnam vet. I actually know (my father-in-law) doesn't care one way or the other. Hamburger Hill taught him how those in power screw the enlisted man, and Watergate showed him how they screw everyone else. He hasn't voted since, so any political news is just that much noise on the TV before the game comes on.

Now, most of the non-Vietnam vets I've talked to at church do think it matters, but less so than Bush's apparent inability to know whether or not he's in the military. (Hint: the president is not military - that's part of the point, that the military is not in charge - even Eisenhower never wore the uniform while President) Of course, if you only listened to those vets who are active in the local American Legion outpost, you'd hear a different story.

Incidentally, you do know you're just being bizarre about the Saddam remark, right? I mean, there aren't actually people on the right who can't grasp the difference between not wanting to commit American forces to toppling a dictator (and the subsequent national rebuilding) and actively wanting that dictator to stay in power. Are there?

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[The Desert Palooka]

Perhaps I too should have used the sarcasm tag? Nah, I understand the difference.

Anyway, my concern is this. Kerry is making a huge deal about his service. In fact he won't talk about much else. He wrote a letter to the president that the president was challenging his patriotism when he brought up Kerry's voting record (specifically in the area of defense). Kerry is getting by on who he isn't, Bush. What annoys me is that no one really has pinned down who he is. I can respect people coming home from a war and being changed. Even doing and saying stupid things (such as lying to a court about what he witnessed in vietnam). But to say you can't bring up these things because you may be questioning one's patriotism is silly. I would have a lot more respect for the man if he'd just say what he is and be definate about the issues instead of being on both sides of everything and shouting "I'm not Bush!" for a campaign.

Just say, "yeah, I got home, I was changed, and I was against the war." Take some freaking responsibility. But rather it makes any matter to the Vets, or Democrats, he's too busy trying to bury his past in this "I was in Vietnam!" stuff.

Anyway, as far as evidence for spitting, no one has any for or against it. No matter, take it as a figure of speach if you will.

Either way, one can't make broad statements, the vets you've heard talk about it don't care so much, the ones I have were often fuming or disturbed.

I'm just concerned about this propped up false image. And if what you said about no one caring is true, then for what?

To me it becomes a question of character. To me that's more important than anything in a president.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[bellings]

You're free to buy cheap Nike shoes made by
Vietnamese children in sweatshops, asshole. If you don't agree that sending American Boys to kill and die for the Freedom for the Consumer is a worthwhile cause, then you're either a traitor or a terrorist. Either way, you deserve to be publically hung by the neck until dead.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[dave420-2]

Yet, there's nothing wrong with those B52s dropping napalm on villages, because the US army was too piss-poor to clear them of enemy troops, killing innocent men, women and children in the act? Wasn't all of America pissed off on 9/11? Where's the difference?

That's the thing - she had a point. The US was running rampant over SE asia, killing indiscriminantly. Napalming towns, opening fire at groups of people from helicopters, etc. The US is full of hypocrisy. If you were a real American, you'd hate America for some of the things it does. Unfortunately, you're smoking the patriotic pole, and won't say a damned word against them for fear of being "unAmerican". The irony is delicious.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[dave420-2]

And the US were handing out candy in Vietnam, I suppose...

That's the thing about American hypocrisy - it's so blatantly obvious to the rest of the world.

On 9/11, America grieved for the thousands of innocent people killed in NY. In the Vietnam war, however, the US killed many times more innocents, and glossed over it completely. The US used napalm on entire villages, killing thousands. They used helicopter-based machine guns to mow down farmers in the paddy fields. Jane Fonda didn't like that, but because it was the US gov't doing the bad stuff, she was branded a traitor.

It seems every American associated with the military can't think for themselves, and sees the US as infallible, and a bastion of decency. As it is, it's a bastion of doing whatever the fuck it wants, screwing over people who can't defend themselves in the process.

I've got more respect for Jane Fonda than Bush, any day.

America is the land of the hypocrite, and home of the blind. You're living proof.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[Mr. Piddle]

The government's fallacy here is one of direction. The government can recognize marriage in tax forms, for example, because it is very common. However, the government really does not have the right to limit marriage. What the government really should do is recognize groups of people who choose to become a family. The definition of a family can range anywhere from a single lone human to communes of dozens, whether or not they are actually related. What good ol' Georgy boy wants to do is regulate and limit human culture in the USA based on his own narrow bigoted views. The fact that he has the support of the Bible Belt proves only the "tyranny of the majority".

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[techno-vampire]

It's one thing to say to people who have never fought in a war that they don't know what they're talking about protesting it (on the other hand, you could say the same about those who support wars when they've never been through it). But once someone's been there and done that, who are you to say that what you learned from it is more valid than what they did?

True. I feel Kerry had more reason to protest than Fonda, because he'd been there. Of course, I'd much rather he'd struck to the truth. I don't say that those who didn't serve had no right to protest, but I do say that if you weren't there, you can't really understand how we feel about the protesters and what they did to us.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[techno-vampire]

If you really believe what you say, there's no point in my trying to explain the truth to you. However, I might point out that in late '72, the NVA came across the border with more armor than the Germans sent to the Battle of the Kursk Sallient. (This, counting German and Soviet troops, was the biggest armored battle ever.) They failed and they got nothing back. We (Yes, I was there at the time.) smashed it all with our armor, artillery, air strikes and Naval bombardment. They came to the negotiating table because they couldn't win any other way, and we left only because the protesters persuaded the government that we couldn't win and were losing a war we'd really won. Only after we cut and ran were the communists able to take Saigon.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[techno-vampire]

I can see that you've clearly run out of facts to argue and have descended to ad hominem. That is, instead of arguing against me, you're trying to insult me and make people think I must be wrong. Candidly, I have no worries about how I will be judged when the time comes, because I know that my heart is lighter than the Feather of Maat and I need not fear the Devourer of Souls.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[techno-vampire]

Yes, there were American troops committing atrocities. Yes, they were found, tried, convicted and punished. There were also NVA members committing similar atrocities, and none of them have ever been called to account. If I have to hate a country, I'd rather hate one that ignores war crimes rather than one that tries to stop them and punishes its own soldiers for committing them.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[i]

..and You killed the men in Vietnam. And the women.

And the children.

God Bless U.S.A

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[hesiod]

> When USA attacked Vietnam, supporting the US was unethical, supporting Vietnamese was ethically right.

Neither of those are true. Neither of them are untrue, however. Regardless, sitting in an Anti-Aircraft gun and saying that you would like to kill an American flying above you is ethically wrong. It would have been just as ethically wrong to say you'd like to kill a Viet Cong flying above you. Although for VCs to fly, they would have had to have been thrown.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[hesiod]

> Have you seen the bikerchicks4u.com page when you click on the link

Yes, and I liked it so much I Emailed the author and told him what a fucking idiot he is.

It says they're reporting me for linking to their page -- If I am visiting, chances are pretty damn good that I didn't do the linking myself. If you're going to make a joke, even a really really really bad one, at least make some sense. Using a minimal amount of logic told me this guy has none.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[2short]

But note I say "rabid". By which I mean those that not only hate Fonda, but instinctively condemn anyone who appears in a photograph with her, or who ever agreed with her about a particular issue, even if for different reasons.

Personally, I'm slightly familiar with the story, and I consider myself at least vaugely patriotic. But I don't hate Fonda. If anything, I pity her for having been so stupidly naive. Mostly, as noted, I don't care.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[danila]

Well, saying anything cannot be wrong, especially if it is true (don't know whether she really wanted that, though). As for flying, Russians seemed to do the job quite well. VCs were more efficient in the jungle.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[danila]

I didn't attack you personally, I just pointed out that Americans are no better than other people in the eyes of [non-existing] Allmighty and that to commit the sin you do not have to kill someone with your own hands.

So the "murderer" was justified, according to your own religion. As for calling you a retard, that was not an ad hominem attack. I did that simply because I truly think that most Christian (and other religious people) lack something very important under their skull. May be you do not fall under the medical definition of retarded, but by being a Christian you prove that you have low intelligence. Nothing personal, it wasn't really your fault.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[2short]

"I'm forgetting my Liberal Lines, now do we like Saddam or not?"

Nice turn around, since it's Republican administrations that both aided Saddam and spent a lot of money and lives taking him down. Myself, I've never liked Saddam, and I'm not angry about taking him down. I am angry that we propped him up in the first place.

Can you show me any evidence that Kerry "spit on soldiers when they got home". Or are you arguing "Kerry opposed the war" + "Some people who opposed the war spit on vets" = "Kerry spit on vets"? That's about the level of logic I'd expect from a member of the faction that broke into the Watergate building...

I'm sure there are some vets who will dislike anyone who opposed the war. But while the vets I know might have some choice words about Jane Fonda, you don't want to be in the room if someone mentions Robert McNamara.

Do conservatives really want to make a big election issue of comparing the records of Kerry and Bush during the Vietnam era? I can only imagine the Kerry campaign would be thrilled by this posibility.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[k_head]

And how do you define murder?

For example in the context of this thread is it murder to invade a country and kill some people there.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[k_head]

So in other words.

We went there, we killed lots of people, we left. After we left the bad people came in anyway and did bad things.

If the purpose of us going there was to prevent bad people from coming in and doing bad things then we failed miserably. In fact we caused more suffering then if we simply had stayed out of it.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[techno-vampire]

Let's see: in order to prove you weren't using ad hominem attacks, you use another. Right. Oh, and by the way, what made you think I'm a Christian? I'm not.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[techno-vampire]

There's much truth in what you say. I'm not sure if we really caused more suffering than we prevented, but that's something that can't be known.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[danila]

It doesn't matter how I define it, what matters is how ancient Jews defined it. According to my limited understanding, murder was somewhat similar to what you legally call a murder today. But they realised that there are many cases in which you need to kill people and those legit killings were not murders. :) The point is that the commandment didn't prohibit all killings.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[danila]

Sorry if was mistaken. You were replying to k_head and may be your comment about god didn't reflect your personal beliefs, but the language of his question. If you do not actually believe in some God and do not believe also that he will judge her more harshly than he will judge you (i.e. your answer was just rhetoric), then my comment was in fact an ad hominem attack and I retract it.

But if you do believe that some god (christian or otherwise) will judge her for her stunt more harshly than you for assisting in many killings, than you are in fact stupid.

You are right, though, that technically the leaders didn't commit treason, but that's basically because it is usually defined by leaders themselves. As for Jane, there is nothing bad about opposing the actions of your country if you think they are wrong. If she had actually helped Vietnamese kill some American soldiers, she would technically commit a treason, but ethically she would be on the same ground as you are. Even better, she would be defending a country from an agressor, while you were that agressor, so her hypothetical action would be more morally correct.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[dave420-2]

The fact you admit to being able to hate an entire country for the actions of a few shows just how intelligent you are. Seriously. How on earth can you think like that? Anyway, if you want to hate a country for ignoring war crimes, look no further than the US.

The entire American campaign was an atrocity, not just a few "loose cannons". They weren't "found, tried, convicted and punished". The US systematically, not accidentally, dropped thousands of tons of napalm on villages. Imagine if a foreign power did that to the US - you'd be spitting mad!

America ignores more war crimes than any other country, by far. You don't think so, because they tell you everything you know. They leave out the bits where they get their hands dirty. The US military has no regard for human life. It demonstrates this every time it goes into war.

America is so over-run with supposed patriotism that the act of speaking out against something American is regarded as unpatriotic. You don't have a problem with that?

America lords itself as a bastion of democracy and freedom, yet has hundreds of people illegally imprisoned in Cuba. If another country had US citizens imprisoned without a trial or access to legal defense or their national consulate, America would be in an outcry. Once again, the rules America imposes on other countries don't apply at home.

The new American Dream -> Hypocrisy. By the bucket.

Proud?

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[techno-vampire]

If you're basing your claims on the Bible, you should know (If you've read it, and not just the Unauthorized Christian Appendix known as "The New Testemant.") that The Lord does not forbid warfare or killing during a war. Second, opposing the war was not treason. Going to the "enemies" country, making speaches supporting them and otherwise giving them aid and comfort would have been if war had been declared and they were, in fact an enemy. However, I'd like to point out that we'll probably never agree on this and going back and forth is getting a tad pointless.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[techno-vampire]

I don't say that I hate North Vietnam, or the current government of Vietnam. I've put that behind me decades ago. I do dispise certain people for their actions, some of whom claim to be good Americans, but that's personal, not political. As far as America's conduct in war goes, you seem to have a very unusual idea of what it is or should be. I suggest you read a good history of war, read how the Greeks, Assyrians, Mongols, Romans, Crusaders, and other classical people behaved, and ask yourself if they would have done less than we did, the same, or even more if they'd had the equipment. Compared to what the American military could have done they were very restrained.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[Minna Kirai]

To say that Jane Fonda did harm to our soldiers that were sent by the US Government to protect a foreign nation sounds a little like saying someone who threw a lit cigarette into a raging forest fire committed arson.

There is a specific allegation that Fonda, after meeting with US POWs, revealed to the guards their unauthorized attempts to smuggle out messages, which subjected them to corporal punishment.

I cannot say if there's a factual basis to the claim (it may be just a rumor), but if true, it would consitute a specific act of harming one or two US soldiers (not harming the war effort as a whole, which was beyond her ability). Even if true, it would be insufficient to make a legal case for treason against her.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[Minna Kirai]

Unlike Tokyo Rose and Axis Sally, she didn't say what she did during a declared war

Those two names are more myths. Learn a little history!

The women who broadcast in English from Japan (none was ever called "Rose") were blatantly pro-American, which is obvious by listening to any of the tapes.

Without a war, there's no enemy,

And if there's no war... then killing hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese is what? Some people say that killing a "non-enemy" is "murder".

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[Minna Kirai]

The point is that the commandment didn't prohibit all killings.

The commandment didn't prohibit anything at all. The entire sentence "Thou shall not commit murder" is 100% content-free.

A "murder" is a killing that has been forbidden (by the government or whoever's in charge). So forbidding murder equates to "Never kill someone without government permission" -> "obey your secular leaders" -> "once something's been approved by the government, it's no longer immoral".

OTOH, if someone declares himself a "Christian", then you can get into the juicy New Testament bits where it unambiguously states that killing humans is wrong, regardless of military context.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[danila]

Why shouldn't we agree? I agree with almost everything you said in this post, with a few exceptions. First, I think aid and comfort is too vague to be a useful definition. For example, giving a wounded enemy soldier first aid is definitely not treason in the spirit of the law. Similarly, giving a speech in Vietnam about how you hate your own stupid country should not be, IMO, considered treason. Whether it actually is, is of course, to the courts to decide.

Second, I stick to my opinion that if you are religious (judging from this post, probably a Jew), then you are most likely extremely stupid (even if you and your close friends do not think so). Again, this is not your fault, although you can fix it if you have the inclination or if you are lucky.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[techno-vampire]

For a little more info, check out this site on her. Yes, there was a "Tokyo Rose," yes, she did broadcast propaganda and yes, she did twist it to help the Allies. Axis Sally was an American model and actress living in Germany that broadcast for the Germans, served time in prison after the war and spent the rest of her life as a music teacher.

As far as your other question, I could ask the same thing about Korea, the Japnese duing the "China Incident" or the British during the Sepoy Muntiny. However, this discussion has gottern out of hand and off topic and I'd be just as happy to let it die.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[techno-vampire]

Interesting that you seem compelled to insult me, even though I've been carefull not to treat you with anything other than respect, even though I dislike your opinions. Is it that you're so sure you must be right that anybody that disagrees is either stupid, evil or both? Please try to seperate political opinions from personalities. You;'d be far more able to persuade people if you didn't start off assuming them to be ignorant, moronic devils.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[danila]

Yeah, I've noticed that too. You have my respect for being polite and not replying with anything harsher than putting me on a foe list. :)

Politically our views are different, but I can understand your views. I can't agree with them though. I value human lives of people about the same, regardless of their nationality. You, apparently value American lives at least 100 times more than the lives of the foreigners (see the VC/US casualties). To me this is quite repulsive, but I can understand why you think so.

As for my insults, there are a few reasons:

- semi-anonymous forums tend to let people behave more openly. I would definitely be polite to you in person
- closely linked to that is the fact that insulting other people can be lots of fun sometimes and can lead to exciting flamewars. Unfortunately, it doesn't work when the other side refuses to participate, by being polite like you were. No fun for me. :(
- even though your Slashdot user identity (i.e. that part of you that I have direct communication with) was/is quite rational, polite and possibly smart, I tend to generally view most of religious people as stupid.
- I don't think that everyone who disagrees with me is always evil/stupid. However, in some cases I actually am so sure to think in such way. Some examples are religion, UFO, evolution, dinasaurs, Moon landing, etc. Again, I might be wrong in a handful of cases and a few people holding opposing beliefs might be genuinly smart, but misled only in this particular case. But from the game theory point it is worth to presume they are idiots and act accordingly.
- as for persuading, I know that most people can't be persuaded, because they have serious reasoning problems and are generally stupid. Whether this is the case for you, I don't know, but the optimal strategy is to presume it is so at the slightest suspicon.

As one so eloquently put it "While you may on rare occasion fail to give a fair shake to one who deserves it, you free up years of your life that would otherwise be wasted on imbeciles."

Please, tell me, what are the chances (realistically) that I can, by being polite and presenting the most strongest arguments, persuade you that your so-called Lord doesn't exist (and never did) and killing Vietnamese people was wrong and the soldiers fought for the unjust cause? I tend to lean to the opinion that in order to safely harbour the religion and shauvinism memes you need to be able to easily ignore strong arguments.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[techno-vampire]

- as for persuading, I know that most people can't be persuaded, because they have serious reasoning problems and are generally stupid. Whether this is the case for you, I don't know, but the optimal strategy is to presume it is so at the slightest suspicon

And now you see why I put you on my foe list. Anybody that prefers to think of others as stupid until proven otherwise is a foe to all I stand for.

Please, tell me, what are the chances (realistically) that I can, by being polite and presenting the most strongest arguments, persuade you that your so-called Lord doesn't exist (and never did)...

You can't, because you can't prove a negative and this is a matter of faith. I find it odd, however, that I have faith, and believe that the God I believe in accepts the fact that taking life is sometimes justified, but you who believe (without proof) that He doesn't exist are so opposed to it. Mind you, I respect your belief; I just find the paired juxtiposition interesting.

I avoid ad hominem and insults in my arguments because I have decades of experience in debating positions on Usenet and in various fanzines and genzines. In those fora, you either stay rational or lose respect. I'd rather keep respect, both from my opponents, and myself.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[mesocyclone]

Most of the reports that Kerry gave came from phoneys who "testified" at the "Winter Soldier Investigation."

Furthermore, Kerry stated that these atrocities were policy and were common. That is incorrect and a slander on his fellow servicement.

I know of nobody who denies that American soldiers committed atrocities. I know of one atrocity that is being investigated in Iraq right now. But Kerry painted the atrocities as being a normal American way of war (it wasn't) while never even once mentioning the vast level of atrocities (against Vietnamese) carried out as a specific matter of policy by the Viet Cong. That selective use of false information constitutes siding with the enemy. It was pretty successful, too, since several of the false memes (the permanently damaged Vietnam vet, the routine use of atrocities) rapidly became the standard view.

Benedict Arnold had a fine combat record (much more significant than Kerry's). But Kerry did end up in combat, did do the things you mentioned.

Although many vets that I know (including many that were on Swifts) are questioning the level of awards he received, I think that is not appropriate or important.

What counts is what he has done since the war, and what those of us who served most dislike is his aiding our enemy through the skillful use of propaganda (which, by the way, he didn't write - the speech was written by a professional speechwriter), his consistency in voting against the defense of our nation, and his general dishonesty.

I noticed that my previous postings on this subject, some of which had detailed links and new information, we marked as trolls. That's pretty pathetic.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[mesocyclone]

Are you not familiar with the concept of "Just War" - it is a Christian concept.

Evil depends on motivation and circumstances.

I personally killed nobody, but only for lack of opportunity and need.

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[mesocyclone]

No, the Winter Soldier investigation was not accurate. Investigators, who were seeking to prosecute those responsible for the war crimes "revealed" in that investigation were unable to substantiate a single one. Neither was a reporter who looked into years later. But in the process, it was discovered that many of those who testified had never served in Vietnam or had not been at the place where they testified the atrocities took place. I assume you are familiar with the false Vietnam Vet syndrome?

Contrary to your theory about the "interest of the military" - military lawyers love to go after people who commit atrocities. There were over 200 individuals convicted of atrocities in that war. Furthermore, most soldiers will themselves report atrocities. Don't forget that Me Lai was stopped by other soldiers who came on the scene. Of course, that there were atrocities that were never unveiled is obvious and undeniable.

But Kerry was talking about something much stronger than that. Have you listened to his speech? Have you read the whole thing? Can you explain why he fails to mention the routine atrocities the VC inflicted on villagers?

You are right that when the enemy chooses to hide amongst civilians, it increases civilian casualties. And it makes people jumpy. That is the fault of the guerilla and their cynical tactics.

However, "committed nationalists" is not an adequate description. There were some committed nationalists in the VC and the NLF (many of whom were sent to prison camps by the North after the end of the war). But after 1968, the VC consisted almost entirely of NVA troops, not Southerners, who preferred the corrupt and autocratic regime of the south to the corrupt and totalitarian regime of the north.

I am currently reading the autobiography of one of the founders of the NLF. He states this in his book (not that it wasn't already widely known among those who studied that war). He, btw, was not a communist, but was used skillfully by them. It is also clear from the book that the North controlled the VC and NLF from the very start of those organizations. In fact, a number of the VC were former Viet Minh who were ordered to remain in the south (during the population exchange) to form the core of the "rebellion" controlled by the north.

Communist subversion typically involves cooperating with rebels of all political stripes, and then, at victory, killing, imprisoning or just disempowering the non-communists. This is exactly what happened in Nicaragua, for example, where a broad based movement overthrew Somoza, but when the smoke cleared, the communists held all positions of power. Many of the leaders of the contras had been non-communist members of that movement.

Regarding the delusion of eventual victory... Do you respect the opinion of General Giap, the commander of the enemy troops throughout the war? He stated that the US could have won simply by invading Laos and cutting off the Ho Chi Minh trail. So don't tell me about delusions. Furthermore, cutting off the supply line at Hai Phong Harbor, which Nixon did, had the same effect.

Furthermore, as Tet '68 showed, it was not folly to think that the US could win a guerilla war in the jungle. We had done it before and so had the British. In Tet '68 (and two subsequent major campaigns by the VC that year), the Viet Cong were almost completely wiped out. They lost half of their total force just in Tet (even though the press, in their idiocy, portrayed Tet as a VC victory). The VC expected the population to rise up with them, but the population didn't want to have anything to do with them.

Put yourself in the place of a Vietnamese peasant. You have your village and your land. You have your lifestyle. You know, from what had happened in the North in the mid '50s, that under the Communists you would become part of a collective, have to change your entire way of life, spend much of your time participating in re-education sessions, and have absolutely no freedom of speech. Under the Southern regime,

Re:Not a bad forgery.....

[Scudsucker]

Check here if you want more facts showing how closely they were allied. Follow some of the links.

Uh-huh. And of course if its on the internet, it must be true! I could make a page and site the words comming out of my ass as proof that George Bush is taking it in the ass from Michael Jackson, and it would be about as reputable as the page you sited as "evidence".

lebel?

[petabyte]

from the forgery-and-lebel-were-already-criminal dept.

I believe it's "libel"

Re:lebel?

[good soldier svejk]

No Lebel.

Volunteering

[lukewarmfusion]

"Pardon me. Would the person responsible for forging the photos, removing the watermarks from the source images, and distributing a libellous claim please come to the Principal's office? Thank you."

Wait a second...

[LostCluster]

Corbis hopes either to track the responsible people down using watermarks, or to invoke DMCA if the watermarks were removed.

If the watermarks were removed, the DMCA won't be able to help much, they'll have a hard time figuring out who did the forgery...

Re:Could it be?

[Gherald]

A bad law used in a decent way is still a bad law; the ends do not justify the means...

Ha!

[Anonymous Coward]

Get ready for the greatest game of smoke and mirrors you've ever seen....

It's gonna be a big one this time folks. The bushies will do anything to stay in power...and they will get it. I have an immense sense of dread, but there seems no stopping them, unless the media stops being their personal servant.

In some ways, it's better than any sport... If only it didn't have such a vast impact on the rest of the world.

If Bush gets re-elected, I'm seriously considering moving to either Europe or Canada. The man simply has no idea what it takes to create a sustainable society. With his current plans, I won't get a cent from the gov't after retirement age (Or my retirement age will be 90 yrs). I'll be a slave to my job until I die (or be homeless) if I remain in this country.

And yet all his rich friends and Cheney's friends get our hard earned money in the form of "tax breaks." It's a sick system.

Re:Ha!

[jwthompson2]

... get our hard earned money in the form of "tax breaks." ...

"Are you stoned or just stupid?" -Dogma Since when can a person get back money they never paid in the first place. I know there are ways to do this with other taxes outside of income but seriously, when did you ever know anybody who got back more income tax refunded than they paid in, that doesn't happen to anyone I know. Tax breaks allow you to keep more of your money, the fact that we take money from a bunch of people and then give it to those who don't pay taxes in the form of social programs is the real sickness in the system...

Re:Ha!

[avgjoe62]

The original poster was wrong. They don't get our money in the form of tax breaks, not by a long shot.

They get our money in expensive, no-bid contracts to rebuild a country that they used our tax dollars to destroy in the first place...

Re:Ha!

[idamaybrown]

Don't let the screendoor hit you in the butt when you leave....

Re:Ha!

[jwthompson2]

That I can't disagree with. All of Iraq, save that we actually got Saddam, has been an exercise in idiocy. I think that getting rid of Saddam by itself was worth something, but not the loss of lives we are suffering every day over there.

Re:Ha!

[Mr. Piddle]

when did you ever know anybody who got back more income tax refunded than they paid in

It's called the Earned Income Credit. Poor people with ten kids can go to H&R Block, pay $100 to have their return professionally prepared, and, then, get $3,000 back from ol' Uncle Sam.

It is a welfare program via the IRS, which goes on top of food stamps, housing subsidies, all the other tax credits and breaks, school lunch discounts, heating fuel subsidies, etc. The government already does a lot for the poor, yet they keep on wanting more. They all could be given suites at a Carribian resort and still complain that their drinks are too expensive.

I keep reading...

[cartzworth]

...infringers - don't they mean thieves? Oh wait, this isn't an RIAA related article.

Who?

[JohnGrahamCumming]

/. please explain some of these difficult to understand terms: I mean I know what GIMP, DMCA, MP3, PARC, DSL, DRM, DVD and NSA mean, but who's this John Kerry and this Jane Fonda?

John.

Re:Who?

[uberdave]

Well, Jane Fonda is an actress. I'm in the dark about who John Kerry is. This is the first I'm hearing about him.

Why does this bring to mind...

[Alzheimers]

"or to invoke DMCA if the watermarks were removed."

My co-worker had a blown up dilbert strip on his cube wall, about how well qualified MCSE's were to provide tech support...the middle box had the now-infamous quote:

"I SUMMON THE VAST POWER OF CERTICIATION!"

Why does this quote bring that one to mind?

Open-Source Watermarks?

[kruczkowski]

Does anyone know if an open-source (cheap) watermark solution exists?

I like to take photos and post them on my site, but I would like to also have them watermarked in case someone takes the photo and starts making money of it.

I looked into the one that comes with Adobe products, but it was way to expensive. Something like $75 for 10 photos.

Just wondering what options are avalible...

Re:Open-Source Watermarks?

[mustangsal66]

Um... take a few minutes and use GIMP

Re:Open-Source Watermarks?

[LostCluster]

This level of watermarking needs to be done every time an image is downloaded. The whole point is that they want to embed the IP address the image was sent to along with the timestamp so that there's enough to take a subpeona to the ISP to find out under what ISP account it was downloaded.

That might not get us down to what person did it, but it very certainly would narrow the number of suspects into a very tight group...

Re:Open-Source Watermarks?

[gnu-generation-one]

"Does anyone know if an open-source (cheap) watermark solution exists?"

Look at ImageMagick (or Image::Magick for Perl people) -- it lets you add text to an image from the command line, among many other things.

For websites, ImLib lets you modify images from within PHP, but it's probably easier to batch-process them if you care about your webserver's CPU usage.

Re:Open-Source Watermarks?

[powerg3]

The GIMP's plugin is called Digital Signature. Looks pretty neat.

Re:Open-Source Watermarks?

[Glytch]

You could simply not publish the entire photograph. Leave a quarter-inch or so around the edges where the crop won't make a difference in the photo. If it comes down to a copyright battle, you can always show the original image in court. Unless the infringer is a genius with Photoshop, and makes some lucky guesses about the size and contents of the missing border, you're pretty much guaranteed a victory.

The best thing about this is that it doesn't require any special software, works for both film and digital, and is dirt-cheap to do. It's not the most technically advanced solution, but anyone can do it.

Re:Open-Source Watermarks?

[alienw]

You can subpoena a proxy's records very easily. Proxies are usually not intended for public use and if they allow it it's generally accidental. Even if the proxy is in another country, the administrator might give out the information necessary to prosecute an abuser.

Re:Open-Source Watermarks?

[dave420-2]

Unless they were using a webcache, in which case it could be tens/hundreds of thousands of people... :-P

Well they do have a history of lying

[Anonymous Coward]

Iraq for example. As well as job creation (Where are those 3.6 million jobs bush was talkin' about a while ago?) Also, witness Rove/Bush's strategy against other candidates, like McCain, where they mercilessly decimated him in South Carolina with accusations he had a black baby, etc. It's not just the repubs either; both sides are guilty of lies. It's all part of the game. We just like to believe our government is all nice and happy and gets along fine together in a big fluffy friendly world.

Sorry to rain on your parade...

Re:Well they do have a history of lying

[YrWrstNtmr]

Well they do have a history of lying

They, meaning politicians in general, not just Republicans.

Re:Well they do have a history of lying

[RetroGeek]

Where are those 3.6 million jobs bush was talkin' about a while ago?

No, no, no, you mis-understood.

He was talking about lost jobs.

Re:Well they do have a history of lying

[TimboJones]

Seen on a conservative-funded billboard on I-5 in Washington:

"Politicians and diapers need changing for the same reason."

Re:Well they do have a history of lying

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, actually, this particular Republican administration + congressional leadership does seem to take lying to new heights. I mean, describe a policy initiative or campaign statement they've made which is *not* substantively based on various lies?

Lowering taxes on the rich will stimulate the economy? Even Bush doesn't believe that one, according to his ex-Treasury secretary.

Bush "volunteered" for Vietnam? Yeah, volunteered for Palace Alert 7 days before the program was scheduled to terminate, knowing that you needed minimum 500 flight hours to get in, at a time when Bush had ~300.

"Healthy forests initiative"? That's right, increased logging of mature fireproof trees will reduce fire danger.

Clean air act? Bwah-ha-ha. Up there with increased arsenic in the drinking water.

Drilling in ANWR will reduce American oil imports? Total projected output is 2% of American consumption. I'm sorry, but 2% isn't statistically significant.

No Child Left Behind Act? Nice piece of paper, but no funding.

Teen sex abstinence program? Programs don't work, but do ship money to right-wing christian charities. Best way to reduce teen pregnancy is to increase the price of beer.

Invade Iraq as revenge for 9/11? Um, Osama's supposedly in the Pakistan/Afghanistan border region, where are troops got pulled out of to invade Iraq.

Department of Homeland Security will make us safe? Then how-come it's employees don't have civil service protection, thus making them even more vulnerable to political pressure to fake up intelligence to satisfy the white house? 9/11 was possible because in 2001 it was politically incorrect to bring up intelligence regarding the Taliban being run by Al-Queda--after all, Enron and Unocal wanted to build a gas pipeline across Afghanistan.

Re:Well they do have a history of lying

[hsidhu]

Where are those 3.6 million jobs bush was talkin' about a while ago?

You mis understood he said 3.6 jobs, and they were created for him re-election campaign.

Re:Well they do have a history of lying

[Damek]

Yes, but - more specifically - Republican presidential administrations do have a half-century history of lying in ways that greatly damage the country. Watergate, Iran-Contra, WMDs. I can't think of any comparable lying by Democratic administrations. Granted, there have been more Republican administrations, but face it, either the Democrats are better at it, or they've really only been lying about sex from time to time.

Or perhaps I need to be educated about the equivalent great controversial Democratic lies...

Re:Well they do have a history of lying

[Damek]

You're right about that; although back then I think there were people in the military-industrial complex who were egging that on a bit. But you're right.

Re:Well they do have a history of lying

[mesocyclone]

You really believe that the US lied about WMDs?

I would suggest you present some evidence of that.

Start by explaining why every intelligence agency in the world though Saddam had WMDs.

Add on the fact that his own generals thought that their flanking units had chemical weapons ready to use.

Then add on the prohibited programs and material that David Kay found, including three long range rocket programs (which are useless without WMD warheads), an active ricin program, botulin reference strains hidden in a home refrigerator at the orders of the Iraqi secret police, laboratories in secret police safe houses.

Then tell me again... Bush lied about WMDs?

I would argue that nobody in the world, including those in Iraq, knew that Saddam had only a few WMD's, and everyone had very good reasons to believe he had and was ready to use military stocks of WMD's.

Now... if you want democrat lies..

Let's see... Bill Clinton (I never had sex with that woman" - a lie under oath)... We will have our troops out of Kosovo in one year (they're still there)... We are now safe from nuclear war because both sides have their missiles targetted at the Indian Ocean... etc, etc,

Lyndon Johnson lied continuously about the Vietnam War (remember the Gulf of Tonkin incident)?

Jimmy Carter... well, he just screwed everthing up without bothering to lie.

John Kerry lied about US policy and atrocities in the Vietnam War.

Re:Well they do have a history of lying

[demachina]

OK. Bush lied about WMDs, and while I'm at it he lied about Iraq's ties to Al Quaeda before the war!!

If he didn't lie then he is dumb as a post and that should disqualify him to be President too.

In his state of the union when he told America Iraq was pursuing Yellow Cake he didn't technicly lie because he said "British Intelligence says" but he did decieve. The fact is all of the documents that were the basis of this claim were badly and obviously forged and everyone who'd seen them knew this. Rice and the NSA had been told on numerous occasions these claims were bogus but this deception occured anyway.

The state department's intelligence agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency and elements within the CIA repeatedly insisted there was no creditable evidence to establish with any certainty that Iraq still had WMD's.

Its a well known fact the Wolfowitz and Rumsfled established a special projects office, a new intelligence agency under Wolfowitz's direct supervision whose goal was to mine all the intelligence that made a case for war and for WMD's in Iraq and to downplay all the intelligence that suggested there was not. Presumably this office was formed because the Defense Intelligence Agency whose role it usurped wasn't giving them the answers they wanted. Much of the best intelligence this office used was single source coming from defectors associated with Chalabi who had a vested interest in getting the U.S. to attack Iraq. In other words the defectors lied about the WMD's and Wolfowitz and company were so eager to believe that they made no attempt to corroborate. Wolfowitz has since publicly admitted WMD"s were just the excuse everyone could agree on when in reality the goal was entirely about a regime change and finding justififaction for it everyone would buy. WMD's were ideal since they evoked the greatest fear and its impossible for a country to prove they don't have them.

If you recall Bush and Cheney repeatedly used rhetoric that suggested that Iraq might have nuclear weapons soon and that we would find out about when there was a mushroom cloud over our cities. Iraq's nuclear program was simply nonexistent since at least 1995. The country that was doing the most to put nukes in the hands of rogue nations and terrorists was our close allie Pakistan. North Korea, Iran and Libya were all farther along than Iraq but we haven't invaded them yet.

You will be hard pressed to find any creditable expert who will agree that the famous aluminum tubes Iraq had were for gas centrifuges. They simply weren't built for it so they probably were rocket tubes. If you want to see some fine centrifuge parts check out the ones the Pakistani's were manufacturing in Malaysia and selling to the highest bidder.

Cheney as recently as a few weeks ago was still contending the mobile vans that were discovered might be used for biological weapons. There is simply no evidence that is the case. They were for manufacturing Hydrogen. There was no traces to indicate they had been used for biological weapons and they weren't particularly suited for it any more than any other big tank you could point to.

The administration repeatedly said "WE KNOW" where the WMD's are. In fact the U.N. inspection team was desperate for the CIA to tell them where the WMD's were. The little intelligence the CIA gave to the U.N. inspection teams was worthless garbage. The Democratic chairmen of the intelligence committee this week is suggesting that Tenet was in fact lying about the intelligence they had on WMD's when the U.N. inspectors were in Iraq and what he gave the U.N. inspectors. The CIA had no creditable evidence on the location of WMD's in Iraq and they also declined every invitation to go in and show the world where they were though they were repeatedly saying "WE KNOW" they have them. The CIA declined because A) they didn't know where they were and B) if they did there has zero interest in actually finding or destroying them until after the invasion. The U.S. wanted to i

Re:Well they do have a history of lying

[Ironica]

where they mercilessly decimated him in South Carolina with accusations he had a black baby, etc.

Oh, now, that wasn't a lie, that was just a mix-up! They were thinking of Strom Thurmond.

Re:Well they do have a history of lying

[kisak]

They, meaning politicians in general, not just Republicans.

But some politicians are bigger liers than other. And republicans seems to have a big lead at the moment.

Re:Well they do have a history of lying

[Minna Kirai]

Start by explaining why every intelligence agency in the world though Saddam had WMDs.

That's a line repeated by a lot of pro-Bush editorialists in the past months. It's partly false, and partly an oversimplification.

You see, there's WMD, and then there's WMD. Experts on WMD actually call it CBN (Chemical, Biological, and Nuclear), and they understand that chemical weapons score a distant third in potential for mass suffering. Historical research has shown they barely surpass conventional explosives in lethality (often falling short of TNT's destructiveness). Saddam might've had a little, but not enough to worry about.

The falsehood Bush can be accused of is not "Iraq has WMD", but "Iraqi WMD will threaten US citizens within a year".

Since the US funded Iraqi chemical weapons in the 80s, there was a reasonable expectation some of that capability had survived. But those weapons couldn't consitute a threat to the US, as Bush claimed. Since there was no threat, and no reason to believe there was a threat, the claim of "pre-emption" is false.

Of course, there were plenty of good reasons to remove Saddam Hussein. Above all, it was agreed that getting rid of him would improve life in Iraq and security in it's neighbors. But just prior to being elected, Bush swore that US soldiers would be used only for straightforward military conflicts, never for "nation building" jobs (which is where our troops are dying today). Ironically, Bush had painted his disdain for policing other countries as the strongest position distinguishing him from Al Gore on foreign policy topics.

By reversing on a campaign pledge, he has betrayed everyone who voted for him. (Runs in the family!). Gore told the hard truth about tough jobs the Armed Forces would face, honesty that prehaps contributed to his loss.

including three long range rocket programs (which are useless without WMD warheads),

Conventional warheads on long-range missiles have proven themselves to be quite useful over the past 60 years.

an active ricin program, botulin reference strains hidden in a home refrigerator at the orders of the Iraqi secret police, laboratories in secret police safe houses.

Why would we add in things you just made up from thin air? If any item on that list was real, these accusations against Bush just wouldn't be happening.

I would argue that nobody in the world, including those in Iraq, knew that Saddam had only a few WMD's,

I knew that. I informed the Pentagon, and posted on Slashdot too. We knew that Iraq had, at worst, a handful of low-effectiveness chemical weapons, and nothing biological or nuclear.

John Kerry lied about US policy and atrocities in the Vietnam War.

To deny that US military conduct in the Vietnam "Police Action" was atrocious suggests either deep ignorance or total misanthropy.

Re:Well they do have a history of lying

[mesocyclone]

In his state of the union when he told America Iraq was pursuing Yellow Cake he didn't technicly lie because he said "British Intelligence says" but he did decieve. The fact is all of the documents that were the basis of this claim were badly and obviously forged and everyone who'd seen them knew this. Rice and the NSA had been told on numerous occasions these claims were bogus but this deception occured anyway.

You are confusing the specific bad intelligence about Niger with what Bush actually said, which was that Iraq was seeking Uranium in Africa.

If you are so convinced that there was a campaign to make up WMD's when it was known that they didn't exists, please explain why these same conspirators didn't salt a bunch of VX agent somewhere in Iraq, and then "find" it? It would have been easy to do, and would be entirely consistent with the behavior of somebody who was lying. But instead, they did not do this. Every action they took is consistent with an organization that believed that there were weapons, and more importantly (from a strategic standpoint - remember Iraq was referred to as "the battle of Iraq" not the Iraq War for a good reason), they were consistent with the concern that in the future Iraq would have those weapons and use them against the US through terrorist proxies.

The state department's intelligence agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency and elements within the CIA repeatedly insisted there was no creditable evidence to establish with any certainty that Iraq still had WMD's.
Citation please.

Nobody could establish with certainty anything that Iraq had or didn't have. The fact is that they did have active WMD programs, and there is evidence (of course, not conclusive) that they transported WMD's out of the country just before the war. The CIA believed (as Tenet said) that they thought so. The British thought so. Even the French thought they did! Which is not surprising since many of Saddam's generals thought that it was available, and they and our SIGINT heard orders to use them.

Its a well known fact the Wolfowitz and Rumsfled established a special projects office, a new intelligence agency under Wolfowitz's direct supervision whose goal was to mine all the intelligence that made a case for war and for WMD's in Iraq and to downplay all the intelligence that suggested there was not. Presumably this office was formed because the Defense Intelligence Agency whose role it usurped wasn't giving them the answers they wanted. Much of the best intelligence this office used was single source coming from defectors associated with Chalabi who had a vested interest in getting the U.S. to attack Iraq. In other words the defectors lied about the WMD's and Wolfowitz and company were so eager to believe that they made no attempt to corroborate. Wolfowitz has since publicly admitted WMD"s were just the excuse everyone could agree on when in reality the goal was entirely about a regime change and finding justififaction for it everyone would buy. WMD's were ideal since they evoked the greatest fear and its impossible for a country to prove they don't have them.

Citation stating the goal of this office, please? And Wolfowitz has not admitted any such thing, he has said that WMD's the best single issue. One also has to deal with Saddam's behavior, which was entirely consistent with having WMD's. There was every reason to believe that Saddam had the weapons, and no reason to believe that he didn't. The military (Rumsfeld's organization, btw) was so concerned about the weapons that they required troops to have MOPP equipment and wear it, and there were numerous alerts.

If you recall Bush and Cheney repeatedly used rhetoric that suggested that Iraq might have nuclear weapons soon and that we would find out about when there was a mushroom cloud over our cities. Iraq's nuclear program was simply nonexistent since at least 1995. The country that was doing the most to put nukes in the hands of rogue nations and terrorists was our close al

Far too many suspects right now...

[LostCluster]

Kerry's not even officially the nominee yet, just the most likely nominee since he holds a very large lead over the surviving competitors. Therefore, it's a bit far to assume that this came from a right-wing zealot, it just as much could have come from somebody who is overly zealous in supporting another Democrat.

It's highly unlikely that this came from anybody's official campaign, but somebody who really doesn't want Kerry to win for whatever reason makes sense to them. It'd be nice if there's a digital watermark somewhere in the picture that can unmask whomever was involved...

Re:Far too many suspects right now...

[meta-monkey]

I don't think it was ever meant to be serious. The only places I saw the photo were on humor web sites.

Re:Far too many suspects right now...

[Steve B]

For that matter, it could be a Kerry ally seeking to discredit the real photo linking Kerry and Fonda by distributing a fake and making it famous enough that people will simply assume that both are fake.

AG Ashcroft ...

[burgburgburg]

has declared that this investigation has been indefinitely been put on hold for reasons of national security. Furthermore, the original photographer has been relocated for his own protection to Guantanamo Bay, along with representatives of Corbis and anybody else who makes trouble, see!

On free speech and fair use

[onyxruby]

I don't think this would be covered under free speech as a fair use application. Instead this could be construed as defamation or slander. When these cases have come up in court before, the defining standard always has been that it must be obvious that the picture is either satire (Hustlers famous example of some evangelical priest) or being used to illustrate a political point (W with horns on his head or some such).

In this case what was done was not obvious until the original photographer looked at the picture and said "that's not right" and even he had to look at his original to be sure. It's certainly a good enough photoshop that it would easily fool most people who will give this only a scant few seconds before concluding Kerry did associate with Fonda. Since it depicted him side by side with Jane Fonda, with no way for the public to readily know it was a forgery, the only intent has to be slander.

Re:On free speech and fair use

[spun]

You mean libel. Slander is spoken, libel is in print. Libel will be hard to prove. You can easily prove the picture is false, which is one criteria for libel. However, showing that the author actually meant harm, and that harm actually occured will be difficult. Much easier to get the author on copyright infringement.

Re:On free speech and fair use

[Uncle Gropey]

Since it depicted him side by side with Jane Fonda, with no way for the public to readily know it was a forgery, the only intent has to be slander.

If this photoshopper had put Kerry standing next to Capt. Kangaroo, would you still say the intent had to be slander? How is falsely putting someone standing next to someone else slanderous?

Re:On free speech and fair use

[dcam]

IANAL (BTFMA, But Family Members Are)

In my country (Aus), something is libelous if it lowers your opinion of the person. However it is not actionable if it can be proven:

1. That it is true
2. That it is in the public interest.

I far prefer our laws to US laws.

Re:On free speech and fair use

[Elektroschock]

I don't quite understand why it is important to show or to deny that there was a Kerry - Fonda link. She is not Ussama BenLaden I guess.

What's the problem with her?

And how is this associated with the lost Vietnam war? I don't understand the issue.

Do the research... or find someone who has

[hwapper]

Ever notice it's the same gullible people in your address book that forwards info like this on time and time again; cause we all know EVERYTHING on the Internet is true.

Have we gotten so lazy that we can't check it out on snopes first? It's not like I'm asking you to go get a book or anything that labor intensive. They're on the freaking Internet fer crying out loud. If you have the time to hit the forward button you have the time to check snopes!

no george's pretzel habit is funded by my taxes

[Anonymous Coward]

put that in your pipe and choke on it.

Copyright violation?

[gpinzone]

If the "culprit" is caught, I could understand him being sued for libel. However, all that aside, isn't this a derivative work protected under the Fair Use clause? The perp could say "I was making a politcal parody like those pcitures of Bush next to Saddam or Osama." Didn't we already have a Surpreme Court ruling about this kind of stuff thanks to Larry Flynt?

Re:Copyright violation?

[tverbeek]

IANAL, but as I understand the law, this probably qualifies as parody under Fair Use. Not very good parody (i.e. it's not particularly funny or insightful), possibly fraudulent, and certainly libelous, but Fair Use nontheless.

Re:Copyright violation?

[cybermace5]

But, it didn't have Jane Fonda holding Kerry in a headlock and giving him a noogie.

Re:Copyright violation?

[gpinzone]

If it qualifies as parody, then it can't be libelous. Perhaps the person who created will say, "I only sent that to a couple of friends. I never meant it to get out." Yadda yadda.

Re:Copyright violation?

[Skyshadow]

The perp could say "I was making a politcal parody like those pcitures of Bush next to Saddam or Osama."

Did you see the picture in question? It seems extremely unlikely that a reasonable person could take it as a parody because it is carefully created to appear original and was apparently presented as the genuine article. It was meant to be taken as an original work, not as a satirical offshoot of an original work.

Re:Copyright violation?

[cyril3]

If I was John Kerry and that was your defense I would be soooo looking forward to the court case.

Re:Copyright violation?

[Tsu Dho Nimh]

"all that aside, isn't this a derivative work protected under the Fair Use clause? " No. "Fair use" doesn't cover creating fake photos for political purposes. This was carefully altered to appear real, and was presented as if it was real.

Re:Personal Photos

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the person who takes the picture gets the copyright (unless a work for hire).
However, some states do have laws that regulate the use of a person's image, especially with regards to endorsing some product. So you can't take that picture and put it on Kerry-brand penis pumps in California, for example.

Re:Why do I imagine...

[Anonymous Coward]

because you are too close minded to think it might have been another democrat or an indepdendent?

What about the National Enquirer?

[kellman]

LOL, if whoever doctored these pictures is liable for libel charges, isn't the Nation Enquirer, Globe, et.al. also liable for libel. They have doctored pictures of famous people in there magazines every day.

On a side note, doesn't John Kerry look like Jay Leno in that profile?

Re:What about the National Enquirer?

[EvilTwinSkippy]

The trick with them is that they doctor photographs taken by contract photographers. They own the copyrights to the images.

Background On Photo from Guardian

[ackthpt]

Not necessarily. Heard that it was helping Kerry soften his pro-Iraq war support.

That would seem ironic, considering it's apparent origins:

From the Guardian

Ms Fonda is reviled by many Vietnam vets for her wartime visit to Hanoi, and the image was widely aired over the internet by a fringe group of Vietnam veterans who have pursued a vendetta against Mr Kerry for years.

In less than a week, the forgery travelled from a message board on a rightwing website to a Vietnam veterans' mailing list to mainstream organisations. Two British national newspapers - the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday - used the photograph in editions on Friday last week and at the weekend.

Re:Background On Photo from Guardian

[Anonymous Coward]

In this day and age, who circulated the image certainly does not imply who generated the image. It only takes one person with photoshop and the email address of a "hot-head" to seed and get things going.

Certainly anyone thats covered Kerry for awhile would know where he's disliked.

Re:Background On Photo from Guardian

[sybert]

The first, legitimate, photo first appeared on newsmax.com after several stories describing Kerry's anti-war activities had already appeared. The photo was not a discovery but a confirmation of the Kerry-Fonda connection, just like the Dean scream was a confirmation of known instability. I could write one thousand words about their connection, but the picture takes up less space.

The only time I've seen the fake on any right-wing website was on Drudge showing the photo as a fake. None of the standard conservative sites got fooled by or used the fake photo. That the NY Times would use the fake photo is ... predictable.

Re:Corbis Owner

[LostCluster]

Corbis's own page about itself admits that Bill Gates founded the company.

It's somewhat relavant here on Slashdot... that a Gates-owned company is trying to bring down the hammer on somebody who tried damage a democrat with a lie.

Moral of the story... faked photographs are art, but using a faked photograph as proof for an event that never really happened is a big no-no.

Re:Corbis Owner

[wankledot]

Yes, Gates himself owns it.

Re:Could it be?

[stinkyfingers]

Maybe the law isn't as bad as made out to be. Over the long-term, maybe more good will result than bad.

I seriously doubt it, but I'm certain I wouldn't first person to be wrong.

Re:Shouldn't be hard to find cuplrit

[Anonymous Coward]

For some reason I don't think this is in anyway endorsed by the Bush camp. I think GW wants to get past the whole military service thing because of the controversy about whether he completed his national guard service or not.

An awful lie by right-wing nuts!

[Just Some Guy]

They're just trying to smear him by associating him with Jane Fonda.

Oh, wait, only one of the pictures of them together was forged, while the other has been verified.

I think it's interesting that the media is following the forged photo and completely ignoring the fact that the man claiming now to be pro-military and bragging about his service record has been proven to be one of Hanoi Jane's fellow protesters. Granted, she was not yet personally, directly responsible for killing American servicemen, but I somehow doubt her claims that she suddenly had a radical change of heart between the time they were hanging out together and when she starting partying in North Vietnam.

Re:An awful lie by right-wing nuts!

[xTown]

The real photo is not a picture of them together. It is a picture of them in the same place at the same time. Yes, there's a difference--Kerry is basically background in that picture; he's not talking to Hanoi Jane, he's not looking at her, nothing.

I attended a Republican convention once. One of the many speakers was Pat Robertson. By your logic, I therefore believe everything that Pat Robertson believes. Pete DuPont spoke at the same rally. By your logic, Pete DuPont and Pat Robertson therefore have no differences.

Re:An awful lie by right-wing nuts!

[Trickster Paean]

1. The event where they were actually together (1971) happened before Jane Fonda went over to Vietnam in 1972.
2. At the time that Fonda went over there, Kerry publicly decried her actions.
3. There is no evidence that they really knew each other personally other than as passing acquantainces.

Re:An awful lie by right-wing nuts!

[belmolis]

There's no reason that Kerry should change his mind or disassociate himself from Jane Fonda. He came back from service in Vietnam convinced that the war was wrong and became prominent in the anti-war movement. There's nothing wrong with that. I too opposed the war then, as did, eventually, a majority of Americans. Nothing has happened to change my mind, and I see no reason that Kerry should change his. But whatever one's take on the Vietnam war, Kerry never did anything in any way improper. Even if you don't approve of Jane Fonda's trip to Hanoi, the fact that she and Kerry participated in the same rally does not reflect on Kerry. The anti-war movement, like any large movement, involved all sorts of people united only by their position on that issue. The fact that some may hold even more extreme views or distasteful views on other issues or be criminals doesn't say anything about the others.

Re:An awful lie by right-wing nuts!

[joehill48]

I think it's interesting that the media is following the forged photo and completely ignoring the fact that the man claiming now to be pro-military and bragging about his service record has been proven to be one of Hanoi Jane's fellow protesters.

Everybody already knows he protested the Vietnam war after he came home from it carrying a number of medals. It's not even remotely a secret. As far as I understand, he's still proud that he protested that unjust war.

Also, it's pretty funny that the Right Wing thinks trying to associate him with Jane Fonda will get anyone outraged besides the Right Wing itself, which already hates him anyway. Most Americans associate Jane Fonda far more with her exercise video. If they get outraged about anything, it'll be about her role in the fashion trend of wearing those silly belts along with the leotards.

Re:An awful lie by right-wing nuts!

[Rupert]

Ever notice how there aren't any photos of G. W. Bush protesting anything? Has everything that has happened since he reached the age of majority met with his approval? And if so, how come things are such a mess now?

And all it shows is that he was at a rally against an unpopular war, in which he had fought, at the same time as a soon-to-be unpopular actress. It's not like he was shaking hands with Saddam Hussein.

Re:An awful lie by right-wing nuts!

[shark72]

"I think it's interesting that the media is following the forged photo and completely ignoring the fact that the man claiming now to be pro-military and bragging about his service record has been proven to be one of Hanoi Jane's fellow protesters."

On the contrary, it's been well-reported in the media that John Kerry was a war protestor. It's not something he's trying to hide.

The issue for some people is that this isn't being made into that big of a deal -- after all, there were millions of people who protested the war, including Buddhist monks who set themselves on fire in protest. After all, the Vietnam era was a divisive time our nation's history. For those people who are concerned that it his stint as a protestor isn't the big news that it should be, this forged photo is just the ticket to get the word out.

Good luck with that, by the way. There are a lot of former war protestors out there, and a lot of them vote.

Re:An awful lie by right-wing nuts!

[KaiserSoze]

I can only hope that you have never been in the same physcial area as a "bad guy". What if you stood in the same airport terminal as an al-Qaeda member. Oops! You're a terrorist, by your own demented logic.

Re:An awful lie by right-wing nuts!

[mooman]

You didn't read the story below the picture. He's not the bearded guy "positioned inches away from her". He's several rows behind her... so your "sitting in his lap" comment is incorrect. Kerry was just sitting in the same crowd as her...

Re:An awful lie by right-wing nuts!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes it is, you ignorant fool.

Go to the snopes link, that was provided for you.

John Kerry is *3* rows back. And off to the side. He's lucky to be in frame, for fuck's sake.

They both attended the rally. They both spoke at the rally. That's about it.

In fact, every fact I just regurgitated for you came from the provided snopes link. Which I'm totally convinced you didn't follow or read.

Way to be a Slashbot and make ignorant claims on shit you have no clue about. Not even low Slashbot IDs are any indication of clue.

Re:An awful lie by right-wing nuts!

[TwoStep]

Did you even read your own link? There were thousands of people at that protest and there was no particular link between Kerry and Fonda. She hadn't even gone to Vietnam at the time that pic was taken!

Twostep

Re:An awful lie by right-wing nuts!

[urbazewski]

I just looked at the photo --- I couldn't even find Kerry without the caption! He is not "inches away" from Fonda, he's a blurry face in the background a row or two back.

Or did you think that was Kerry with the beard and groovy choker?

Re:An awful lie by right-wing nuts!

[fireduck]

Have you even looked at the picture? He's positioned inches away from her. To get any closer, she would've had to have been sitting in his lap.

Have you even looked at the picture? If we're going to be picky about things, the caption for the photo clearly states "John Kerry appears in the background of the photo directly above Jane Fonda's head, sitting about three rows behind the actress." Three rows away from someone is not mere inches, nor almost in her lap. I'd guess he's maybe 10 to 15 feet or more away. I've been in crowds like this at various outdoor concerts, and would be hard pressed to identify a person sitting 3 rows from me...

But, if we're going to stoop to this level, we might want to mention Donald Rumsfeld who goes around greeting axis of evil leaders like they were long lost friends.

Re:An awful lie by right-wing nuts!

[xTown]

Have you even looked at the picture?

Of course, but all these other guys kindly pointed out exactly what I would have said. To reiterate, he is in the background in that picture. It is indeed a "two people in the same crowd" story.

To say that he's "inches away" is like looking at a photograph of the pre 9/11 New York skyline and marveling that the towers were "just inches apart".

Re:An awful lie by right-wing nuts!

[micromoog]

Granted, she was not yet personally, directly responsible for killing American servicemen

Please go on. I'd love to hear how the rest of this crackpot theory affects your credibility.

Re:An awful lie by right-wing nuts!

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, actually he did give testimonials about Americans raping, killing and torturing innocents, but he gave no names and cited no specific incidences. If someone needs to be tracked dowm for war crimes and he gives no help finding these people, that's improper. The other possibility is that he lied, that's improper. No matter how you look at it, he did something improper.

Re:An awful lie by right-wing nuts!

[Just Some Guy]

Do your own homework. Here's a start.

Re:An awful lie by right-wing nuts!

[Tarnar]

Happy now?

I hardly see the difference this makes, I don't post on here with my account, for my own reasons. I've had max karma ever since the karma kap came into effect.

Signing your name isn't half as important as being right. I post AC all the time on here & I'm regularly modded up. I don't have to justify my existance to another 'coward' but I will, because I believe in anonymous posting.

Yours truly,
chickenshit

Re:An awful lie by right-wing nuts!

[micromoog]

I'm quite familiar with the "Hanoi Jane" incident. However, I'm not familiar with the part where she was "personally, directly responsible for killing American servicemen". That's a pretty heavy accusation, regardless of your opinion on what she did.

Re:An awful lie by right-wing nuts!

[Dirtside]

If you went to a Republican convention with Pat Robertson I could hold that against you. Hang with me here. I think Pat Robertson behavior is not acceptable and by attending an event with him as a speaker, you are condoning him his actions.

What if I'm a reporter who's been assigned to attend the convention? What if I'm a Democrat who wonders why Republicans believe the things they believe, and want to get an "inside" view of the Republican mindset? There are countless reasons someone could go to a Republican convention featuring Pat Robertson as a speaker, without agreeing with anything Robertson said, or "supporting" him in any way.

I suppose you could say he "supported" Robertson in the sense of simply showing up -- a larger crowd implies more support, after all. But that's not the same thing as going because you want to support him, and going because you have some other reason.

Re:An awful lie by right-wing nuts!

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Silly, the guy with the beard and the choker is Emmanual Goldstien!

Re:An awful lie by right-wing nuts!

[extremecenter]

It's to Kerry's benefit that the media are following this story, since he has some skeletons in his closet that are very serious. If the public comes to assume that things damaging to Kerry are hoaxes, it helps his chances. It really wouldn't matter much if he had appeared on stage with Jane Fonda. Clinton protested the war too. But Kerry accused US servicemen of atrocities and war crimes, and that's documented in his Congressional
testimony. It looks like this photo was just a prank, but I'm sure Kerry would like people to believe that records of his testimony before Congress are just hoaxes too.

Re:An awful lie by right-wing nuts!

[Just Some Guy]

Actually, that came from a CNN article about objectively rating humor. It's still available online.

I don't know why, but that line cracked me up. It was a very Gary Larson sort of thing.

Re:An awful lie by right-wing nuts!

[joehill48]

And you are obviously too young to know anything about what was going on during the Vietnam war.

Well, Anonymous Coward, I do know that we killed on the order of 2 million Vietnamese people. That's genocide by any rational measure. Tortured a fair number of them as well, according to the first-hand testimony of a large number of troops, prominently including those who testified in the Winter Soldier Investigation. All that makes anything that the Vietnamese did to our troops invading their land pale in comparison.

And as a matter of fact, I actually know a number of Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Learned a fair amount from them. And they know from first-hand experience what our country did to the people of that country.

Re:An awful lie by right-wing nuts!

[jlanthripp]

I do know that we killed on the order of 2 million Vietnamese people. That's genocide by any rational measure.

There are still Vietnamese people alive. Virtually all of the ones we killed were from North Vietnam, which was in the process of invading South Vietnam. They were pointing guns at Americans and/or South Vietnamese people, carrying the guns to the people who were using them to wage a war of aggression on South Vietnam, or performing military support services for said people doing the gun-pointing. It's called war.

Since there are Vietnamese people still alive, then by definition genocide did not happen. Genocide is defined by The American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, as "The systematic and planned extermination of an entire national, racial, political, or ethnic group." Defensive war != genocide.

Oh, and at the end of that, when the Paris Accords were signed, the United States began its immediate withdrawal of all military personnel. North Vietnam, on the other hand, promptly disregarded everything in the Paris Accords apart from the sections dealing with the United States' withdrawal. Article 15 was the part most thoroughly shredded, especially section B. That's the part about respecting the demilitarized zone seperating the two nations and not crossing it to invade South Vietnam.

If you want to find a criminal party to the Vietnam War, you may wish to start with North Vietnam - it was the initial aggressor, it was the nation which completely disregarded the Geneva Conventions with respect to the treatment of POW's, it was the nation that used weapons banned from warfare by the Geneva Conventions, and it was the side that blatantly violated the peace accords that were supposed to end the war within hours of signing them.

Re:An awful lie by right-wing nuts!

[joehill48]

Virtually all of the ones we killed were from North Vietnam, which was in the process of invading South Vietnam.

Your assertion that there are two Vietnams is ridiculous. The Vietnamese people are ONE nation, ONE people. "North" and "South" Vietnam were artificially created by occupying colonial powers. It was the VIETNAMESE who were fighting the defensive struggle to force the foreign occupiers from their land. WE and the FRENCH were the aggressors invading a foreign country where we didn't belong. Claiming the Vietnamese were the aggressors turns reality absolutely on its head.

Since there are Vietnamese people still alive, then by definition genocide did not happen.

By your definition, genocide didn't happen to the Jews in WWII, didn't happen to the Armenians under Ottoman Turkey, etc., either. Your misinterpretation of a schematic definition from a dictionary conflicts with how society has actually used the term historically.

Re:An awful lie by right-wing nuts!

[jlanthripp]

By your definition, genocide didn't happen to the Jews in WWII, didn't happen to the Armenians under Ottoman Turkey, etc., either.

You are correct. Genocide did not occur. Attempted genocide did. Had troops been ordered to shoot any Vietnamese person on sight, or to round them up into extermination camps, attempted genocide would have occurred in Vietnam too. They were not so ordered, so it did not occur.

I think I know who did it

[AppyPappy]

I saw it when it first came out. It was a joke. It was an answer to a request by someone to find a picture of Fonda and Kerry. It was basically a Fark.

These goomers need to relax and find another vendetta. Otherwise, Fark is going out of business.

Re:I think I know who did it

[dasmegabyte]

Fark is going out of business

Oh no! What will I do without their crummy photoshops, porn links, and retard jokes ?!?!

Re:I think I know who did it

[EvilTwinSkippy]

I dunno, maybe start my own.

Re:Shouldn't be hard to find cuplrit

[Moofie]

Because any time your political opponents do something that shouldn't be illegal but is, that's a win for democracy!

Right.

What about the National Enquirer? OJ Simpson case

[adzoox]

Good point, but this does raise some questions as posed in the OJ Simpson case. He claimed that the photo of him wearing Bruno Mali size 14 shoes was a fake and it doesn't prove at all that Bruno Mali shoe prints (size 14) found at the crime scene are related. His defense team said the pictures were doctored. This really reduces the credibility of video and photographic evidence in the court room. This marks a day coming that the guilty get away with anything so long as they have access to money and technology - oh wait - that already happens.

Just a thought

[HarveyBirdman]

I think it's interesting that the media is following the forged photo and completely ignoring the fact that the man claiming now to be pro-military and bragging about his service record has been proven to be one of Hanoi Jane's fellow protesters.

I'm no Kerry fan, but is it possible that was then and this is now? Can a man not change over three decades?

Re:Just a thought

[Just Some Guy]

Sure. Any time he's willing to public declare that he does not share Jane Fonda's views, I'll be happy to consider his statements. To my knowledge, this has not yet happened. If not, why?

Frankly, I don't care what politicians did when they were younger, because well all do a few dumb things. I would like him to at least acknowledge that he had poor choice in friends at that point.

Re:Just a thought

[Guy Innagorillasuit]

Of course she wasn't "Hanoi Jane" at the time of the picture, she visited Hanoi 2 years later. Nor was he friends with Fonda, they were both speakers at the same rally.

Re:Just a thought

[Just Some Guy]

Of course she wasn't "Hanoi Jane" at the time of the picture, she visited Hanoi 2 years later.

I mentioned that in my original post.

Nor was he friends with Fonda, they were both speakers at the same rally.

So the hung out with the same groups, sat near each other at rallies, and shared the same political convictions. They may not've been living together, but that's a little closer to the devil than I'd like for someone running for Commander-In-Chief.

Re:Just a thought

[Dirtside]

Yeah, I don't get why Democrats bother with that old stuff, when they can just hold up his record as President -- pissing off most of the rest of the world, sending hundreds of Americans to die in a pointless war, wasting billions of dollars, trying to eliminate the First Amendment (aw, heck, the whole Constitution really). What's a little coke and abortion compared to a man doing his damnedest to make everyone hate him?

(Not that any other president has been much better, really. Just less egregious.)

Re:Just a thought

[Dirtside]

So the hung out with the same groups, sat near each other at rallies, and shared the same political convictions.

Your leaps in logic are truly staggering. They sat near each other at one rally, before Jane went to North Korea. They definitely shared one political conviction: the war in Vietnam was a bad idea. (Later on, Jane revealed her stupidity about it, but at the time, no one, including Kerry, could have known what Jane was planning to do.)

Therefore they believed exactly the same things (despite the fact that Kerry decried Fonda's actions when she went to North Vietnam). Right. What planet are you on? (And lest you think my bias is showing, I'm not voting for Kerry in the primary here in California.)

Re:I claim "Artistic Expression"!

[RazzleFrog]

Which is why I am voting for Al this year.

Onion check

[Anonymous Coward]

I went to theonion.com to see if they were part of the spoof. Found nothing, but they have the funny headline:

"School Flies Deceased Nerd's Underpants At Half-Mast" [with picture]

We get no respect even when we are dead.

Re:Interesting

[Blic]

Parody and "pranksters" is one thing - no one lost any sleep over this one or the pic of Dubya wearing the One Ring - but this is different. This was passed off as a legitimate AP photo to news organizations complete with fabricated story.

And if you RTFA (I know, this is Slashdot) it's Corbis going after them for copyright violations, not Kerry.

The story is about capitalism

[DangerSteel]

If you read the article to the end the photograph's owner states that he is making a substantial amount of money from the photograph's recent use on some news websites, etc. He is glad he copyrighted the photo's so he gains materially. I don't think he gives a rat's ass about who did the caption changes etc, as long as he gets paid for the use.

I think other forces are concerned more about who is in the picture and the way it was used.

Two Kerry photos, one real, one fake

[Stonent1]

Real

Fake

Why would Corbis need to look for the offenders ?

[unfies]

Why on earth would they send Corbis out to find the person(s) responsible for pirating the picture(s) ? If my picture gets used in a local news paper, and then someone posts that picture on the internet, I'm sure as hell not going to insist the news paper discover who did it. Silly martians, stupidity is for humans.

and the DMCA STILL isn't useful...

[cats-paw]

once again an excellent example of the absurdity of the DMCA.

If the picture is being reprinted without permission then it's copyright violation.

If the modified pciture is being made to appear as fact then it's libel (or is it slander ?).

The DMCA is once again demonstrated to be unnecessary.

Re:and the DMCA STILL isn't useful...

[molarmass192]

The DCMA reference is with regards to removing the watermark from the Corbis images, not reprinting or modifying the image itself. The DMCA (which I dislike btw) has that famous provision for tampering with security devices, which I guess can be applied to watermarks without an overly broad stretch.

Re:interesting

[HBI]

If I actually had, it would be appropriate, no?

If not, then I could see the complaint, but it wasn't like he hadn't been speaking on the same podium with Ms. Fonda at times.

Sounds like some redefinition of the past is being attempted here.

Re:Could it be?

[Gherald]

Have you read this?

How does a watermark work?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it visually embedded, or just embedded in the file? If it's just embedded in the file, then if I just take a screenshot while I have the image displayed and crop it, won't I have a non-watermarked version? And this is against the law????

Re:Interesting

[henrik]

Kerry isn't liberal.

Interesting Corbis info

[Jaguar777]

From the overview page at Corbis.

Founded by Bill Gates in 1989, Corbis is headquartered in Seattle, with offices in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, London, Paris, Dusseldorf, Vienna, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, and Tokyo.

Just throwing out that tidbit of info for the tin foil hat crowd. ;)

Re:Interesting Corbis info

[Crash6-24]

So you are saying that Bill Gates owns history? We aren't allowed to see an historical picture unless we pay the owner?
I thinks it's time to shorten copyrights. Say, make a patent and a copyright last the same time....

Belgian hacker found responsible...

[Channard]

Apparently the trail lead to the account of one Beorge Gush - investigations continue.

First thing I thought of when I read that...

[schon]

Why does this quote bring that one to mind?

s/DMCA/the Name of God/g :o)

Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Meoward]

Just off the top of my head, another thing: Doctoring photos as such is more than mere libel during a political campaign. The US actually does (again IIRC) have laws on the books for such smear tactics.

Someone help me out here, but there was a politician whose campaign in the 1940s (or 1950s) tried to frame his opponent with a photo of Joseph Stalin. A photo of Stalin was placed alongside that of the opponent, and the border between the 2 was blurred, and alongside one of the other guy. The border was blurred, and presto.. a photo of a conference between Stalin and a sitting American politician, just in time for the average voter.

The fallout from this particular incident, I believe, caused considerable flak back then.

Of course, nowadays we're much more sophisticated.

We just take a picture of Osama Bin Laden and (now ex-)Senator Max Cleland, stick them on the telly, without any editing whatsoever, and add a sinister voice-over to scare the sheep...

Where the blame should lay...

[BradySama]

That's a good point - in fact, the media outlets that didn't even bother to check this bad looking picture out *really* have to be seen as the bad guys here. The whole 'check your sources' thing has to hold once you get past the tabloids. Bad journalism, plain and simple. Taking ANYTHING straight off the web - without independent confirmation of the facts through existing sources and contacts is pretty irresponsible. Any of us can freely editorialize and satirize on the internet, and that's great (I'm doing it now)... but this is like when the Chinese republished the Onion's story about the US Capitol renovations - as fact!

Re:Where the blame should lay...

[ackthpt]

That's a good point - in fact, the media outlets that didn't even bother to check this bad looking picture out *really* have to be seen as the bad guys here. The whole 'check your sources' thing has to hold once you get past the tabloids. Bad journalism, plain and simple.

Good thing the BBC didn't show it on the radio...

Re:Interesting

[LihTox]

According to the article, it's not Kerry but the original photographers who are going after the pranksters. Do you know something we don't?

I hear that...

[enrico_suave]

the guy in the WTC 9/11 tourist pics (examples) is sueing too!

No word yet if admiral ackbar has rights to his likeness used in thousands of "it's a trap" photoshops on fark/SA.

e.

Re:I hear that...

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Every time you use a cliche, god kills a kitten.

Think of the kittens.

Re:I hear that...

[finse]

Oh won't someone think of the kittens!

Re:Interesting

[td]

It's not Kerry going after them, it's the photographers (and their agents) whose work was misappropriated. In any case, Kerry wouldn't have standing to object on copyright or DMCA grounds. He might have a libel case, though.

Re:Why do I imagine...

[Blic]

So much for the conservative sense of humor... =P

In any case, I'd say the whole Jane Fonda connection isn't that much of an issue for liberals - it's more of a conservative fixation. As such, it struck me as an (amateurish) attempt to damage his image on a national scale given his standing as the front-runner for the Democratic nomination.

Rove is dirty and ruthless, but I don't think he's that stupid. Suspicions point to the right, but yeah, it could have been anyone - I was just trying to be funny...

1. Grab stick
2. Remove from ass

^_^

Re:Interesting

[sfjoe]

I think it's a little scary how Kerry is going after the pranksters.

Kerry has to go after these cheap shots hammer and tong. Michael Dukakis made a big mistake in not fighting back against right-wing smear campaigns. Kerry won't repeat that mistake. Get ready for a very dirty campaign.

Doctored Photos commonplace?

[donutz]

Great. I guess that means this probably isn't a genuine photo of Osama bin Laden on the surface of Mars.

And it's all digital photography there...so much for trying to get an original negative or print!

Re:Interesting

[khendron]

It's not not Kerry going after them for libel. It's the photographers, and they are trying to protect their copyright.

Here's the guy who did it.

[1729]

Sheesh, 2 minutes on google and I found the guy who did it. A user called "registered" unleashed it on a message board www.freerepublic.com:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1075317/p osts

(Scroll down to post 47.) The original link was at:

http://members.aol.com/registered/private/freep/ke rryfonda.jpg

though it's gone now. "Registered" admits elsewhere on the board to creating the photo.

Re:Here's the guy who did it.

[proj_2501]

a freeper did it? gee, there's a surprise. one of the few web forums i can't visit without wanting to nuke the site from orbit.

Re:Here's the guy who did it.

[Salo2112]

Registered does a lot of parodies. I have seen much of his work - he's funny. I think if push came to shove, he would be ok on this basis alone.

Re:Shouldn't be hard to find cuplrit

[bonch]

Good thing Kerry voted for the DMCA, eh? Or he wouldn't be able to chase down these people "smearing" him.

Evil, evil Jane

[fm6]

Unless this is an attempt by a right wing organization to discredit Kerry, why waste your time? Especially when you are lying?

Well, it certainly is a right-wing attempt to discredit Kerry. No one else would think that associating Kerry with Jane Fonda would discredit him. To the Right, Fonda is that Bitch Traitor Who Went to Hanoi. But to mainstream America, she's just a has-been-actress who made some fitness videos.

And from that point of view, the photo isn't really a lie. True, Fonda and Kerry never actually stood on the same platform. But they both opposed the war, and that makes them both traitor-liberal-bleedingheart-(add your own insult here). It's a rhetoric based on stereotyping people you disagree with. Stupid, but standard political practice these days.

Re:Evil, evil Jane

[techno-vampire]

But they both opposed the war, and that makes them both traitor-liberal-bleedingheart-(add your own insult here).

Not so. Kerry didn't go to Hanoi, Kerry didn't broadcast speaches designed to harm soldier's moral, Kerry stayed here and worked within the law for what he believed in. I have no respect for Hanoi Jane, but I do for Kerry.

Re:Evil, evil Jane

[LostCluster]

And in fact, the "real" picture happened before Jane Fonda went to Hanoi... if John Kerry has the ability to make decisions based on events in the future, then he definitely should be elected!

Re:Evil, evil Jane

[paiute]

Not so. Kerry didn't go to Hanoi, Kerry didn't broadcast speaches designed to harm soldier's moral, Kerry stayed here and worked within the law for what he believed in. I have no respect for Hanoi Jane, but I do for Kerry.

Kerry didn't stay here. He was on the Mekong in a thin-sided aluminum boat. A lot of the time, his mission was to draw automatic fire from the shore. He was sent home after being wounded three times.

Re:Evil, evil Jane

[techno-vampire]

At that time I was too busy with my studies at a Class A school at Mare Island Naval Base before going on a WestPac and serving on the Gun Line. I had much better things to do than listen to people like that.

Re:Evil, evil Jane

[fm6]

All of which is neither here nor there. To the true-red-white-and-blue right-winger, Kerry and Fonda are not individuals. They're stereotypical left-radical-hippie-dogooder-peaceniks. That's all they need to know.

But why do I have to explain this? It's all encompased by a single word I used in my previous post. If you didn't understand it, you can always look it up.

Re:Evil, evil Jane

[techno-vampire]

Thank you. I had resons not to like his politics even before this and now I know what type of back-stabbing worm he really is. I hope the Bush campaign publicises this so that people will know just how bad he is and how foolish the Democrat Party is to back him.

Apropos posting.

[erik_fredricks]

Am I the only one who finds it ironic that this article directly follows the one announcing Gimp 2.0?

Just wondering...

Re:Apropos posting.

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Nah, tight fisted neocons just use a cracked copy of photoshop.

Re:Interesting

[bonch]

You don't think Kerry's camp is encouraging this?

Re:interesting

[theghost]

He's proud of his anti-war activism, but "Hanoi Jane's" actions are in a whole different category. Lots of people who respect and agree with his anti-war position still label her a traitor.

This is more along the lines of those who link the Bush family to Hitler.

Re:Personal Photos

[donutz]

However, some states do have laws that regulate the use of a person's image, especially with regards to endorsing some product. So you can't take that picture and put it on Kerry-brand penis pumps in California, for example.

True. Better make and market your Kerry-brand penis pumps somplace less well-regulated, like Russia.

one real

[ayeco]

and of course, the story of "fake" makes people think this is a fake, too: It's not.

Re:one real

[qtp]

Wow, he must be only twenty or thirty feet away, in a crowd, no less.

If anyone reads anything into that pic, they're really reaching.

Of course the guy's at a peace rally. Unlike the majority of the people there, Kerry had an actual understanding of war, and actual combat expiriences that led him to protest the war after his return.

The realness of the other photo in no way discredits Kerry as a candidate, or as veteran. He was one of many Viet Nam veterans who had the balls to speak out against the war when he returned.

A lot of crap is comming out from the right-wing chickenhawks who are beginning to realize that this is a candidate who served in some of the worst combat zones any vet has seen, and earned a Bronze Star, a Silver Star, and Presidential Unit Citation while doing so. The guy has a dislike for the intelligence community and has gone after them before.

Real or not, I'm pretty sure those pictures are not going to make a whole hell of a lot of difference.

Nuts or no-nuts? Does it matter?

[gosand]

They're just trying to smear him by associating him with Jane Fonda. Oh, wait, only one of the pictures of them together was forged, while the other has been verified. I think it's interesting that the media is following the forged photo and completely ignoring the fact that the man claiming now to be pro-military and bragging about his service record has been proven to be one of Hanoi Jane's fellow protesters. Granted, she was not yet personally, directly responsible for killing American servicemen, but I somehow doubt her claims that she suddenly had a radical change of heart between the time they were hanging out together and when she starting partying in North Vietnam.

I find this all very interesting, I hadn't even heard of these photos before now. But being anti-war is not bad, IMO. War *IS* bad. There may be a time and a place for war, but it sure as hell better be for an irrefutable reason. (not just for vindicating your daddy's bruised ego) And even though Kerry voted for the DMCA, I would still rather have him as the President over the clown we have in there now. As much as I hate to say it, I can live with the DMCA - I am not sure I can live with another 4 years of Bush.

Not Bush's Style?

[Anonymous Coward]

Where were you when Karl Rove started pushing for Bush? ALL of his campaigns have this element. Remember what happened to McCain in the Alabama primary in 2000?
Not his style my ass.

Re:Not Bush's Style?

[welshsocialist]

The AC is refering to the 2000 South Carolina GOP primary were polls were conducted asking SC voters how they would have felt if McCain had fathered an illegitimate black child. There's more at this blog posting.

Bill Gates..

[greenskyx]

Not that this is too important, but I found it interesting that Bill Gates owns Corbis... (see this month's forbes magazine)

Re:Interesting

[Blic]

Personally I don't think it's a big enough issue for him to care that much about it, but I doubt he'd discourage such action.

The biggest "Doh!" is that the photographer who took the pic of Kerry is a "professor of journalism ethics" at UC Berkeley, and I doubt he's too pleased that his photo was stolen and used in a forgery.

You could go one step further and make some assumptions - that a UC Berkley professor who photographed an anti-war rally might possibly be slightly leftward leaning and have a political motive in pursing this... =)

Original Article

The lone dissenter was...

[skwang]

Mr. Kerry was in the Senate when DMCA passed unanymously(sic), thus he voted for it.

FYI, Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wisc.) voted against the USA PATRIOT Act.

Re:The lone dissenter was...

[damiam]

PATRIOT != DMCA

Veterans Protesting Against A War? Of course!

[MooseByte]

Just Some Guy wrote:

I think it's interesting that the media is following the forged photo and completely ignoring the fact that the man claiming now to be pro-military and bragging about his service record has been proven to be one of Hanoi Jane's fellow protesters.

---

What makes you think one cannot simultaneously be pro-military and yet still protest against a war?

I always find it amusing when "chickenhawk" civilians criticize veterans who protest against a war. As if the chickenhawks could even conceive of what these men and women have gone through.... Here's a hint: It's probably a little different than the "Ahnold" action movies you were weaned on.

Re:Veterans Protesting Against A War? Of course!

[Just Some Guy]

It's probably a little different than the "Ahnold" action movies you were weaned on.

It's a lot different then the action movies you've grown up on. In fact, when I was serving in Somalia, the situation was closer to "Blackhawk Down" than "Stripes".

Re:Veterans Protesting Against A War? Of course!

[MooseByte]

Just Some Guy wrote:

It's a lot different then the action movies you've grown up on. In fact, when I was serving in Somalia, the situation was closer to "Blackhawk Down" than "Stripes".

---

Well that's nice. I was serving in SWA/Kuwait a few years prior to your stint. When Bush Sr. realized that going into Baghdad would result in a dangerous power vacuum that could lead to a fundamentalist Islamic state. Not to mention civlian casualties and general chaos.

I'm pro-military. I'm vehemently against the current debacle launched in Iraq. And I can definitely see where a Vietnam vet coming home just might have something to say about how pointless that war was.

So again there, Mr. Somalia: What makes you think one cannot simultaneously be pro-military and yet still protest against a war?

Re:Veterans Protesting Against A War? Of course!

[Elektroschock]

Military power shall be used when it makes sense.

this is no pro or contra.

I believe the Iraqi war was not justified, but that's my European view. The main anger in Europe was the anti-liberal attitude of the US Goverment against its European allies. They made a for against the US out of a strategic decision based and didn't present a real case.

Military is an instrument of the government. I don't understand why it is important for US citizens to "support the army". Soldiers are no subjects, they are objects of government policy.

Inches away?

[burgburgburg]

Have you looked at the photo? Kerry is not bearded guy immediately behind Jane. He's not the other two guys behind her with sunglasses. He's not the vet in uniform to her right. He's three to four rows back (at least). The shot, taken with a telephoto lens, shows that he wasn't close enough to be in focus in the shot. He's recognizable (barely) because of his teeth and that squint thing.

And that's the best real photo that you got. Hence, the outright forgery.

Not gonna RTFA, but....

[Archfeld]

If they were pirated, does that not imply someone has to make a profit or use for a NON fair use purpose ? IE NOT poking fun at his retangular face in the time honored form of Satire ? So if someone profited, who ? and get a subpeona for records, businesses keep them, and you are only protected if operating under good faith, buying from the back of a van implies you KNEW it was stolen. If they can't point to someone who profited how do they justify/support the piracy angle. Sounds like a valid issue, but another place in which the terminally stupid piece of legislation previous known as the DMCA will be mis-applied to everyone NOT a CONSULTING LAWYER for either party or firms involved....

At what point does construct of stupidity, layed on a ground of venal greed, to a philosophy of deniability become a solid doctrine to manage society by/with ?

I should have been born wealthy, or too stupid to appreciate the difference...

You mean...

[bonch]

Unless this is an attempt by a right wing organization to discredit Kerry, why waste your time? Especially when you are lying?

Lying about this?

Nobody "placed" him anywhere...he was really there

[bonch]

www.snopes.com/photos/politics/kerry.asp

Money will Make It Happen

[4of12]

IIRC, a veteran that opposes Kerry's presidential run because of the Senator's anti-war activities upon returning from Vietnam was actively seeking photos showing the two together.

The same creative outfit could produce other works of art worthy of the Weekly World News that would prove profitable:

• Lt G. W. Bush jogging a marathon in 100 degree heat in Alabama with 5 other Guard officers during the summer that no one else reports seeing him;
• genuine picture of Osama's disembodied head resting on bloodied contract, signed by Saddam, for delivery of WMD to al Qaeda! (Hurry, supplies limited!)

Re:Interesting

[ArseneLupin]

We just take a picture of Osama Bin Laden and (now ex-)Senator Max Cleland, stick them on the telly, without any editing whatsoever, and add a sinister voice-over to scare the sheep...

Yeah, Bowling for Columbine had that kind of stuff too!

Just put up a picture, then a newspaper with everything blurred, but the sentence "48 hours after", and then another picture from a year later. Technically not a forgery, but people will still end up believing that both events were only 48 hours apart, rather than a year...

Voting record

[bonch]

Checked his Senate voting record lately?

Re:Voting record

[henrik]

Not much liberal politics in the USA. Both Republicans and Democrats has conservative (right) politics. And other parties are pretty non-existant when it comes to Congress seats.

Correct...

[Orne]

John Kerry served in Vietnam, and afterwards appeared in several protests against the war, most famously throwing (fake) war medals back over the fence of the White House. At roughly the same time, Jane Fonda was protesting by propagandizing for the North Vietnamese, using her celebrity status to help draw support the communist government there. Many of my father's generation who served in the military see her as committing traitorous acts, so this doctored photo invokes a very strong reaction by linking Fonda and Kerry.

I find it interesting that while the two never personally met, they both engaged in protesting with roughly the same intensity against the government. After learning that the photo was doctored, many uneducated voters may discount Kerry's years of protests, and might actually think he supports the military.... Should be interesting in the fall.

Re:Why would Corbis need to look for the offenders

[88NoSoup4U88]

Free advertising : That's a valid reason nowadays :)

DMCA for watermark removal?

[aber]

The whole point of watermark technology is to provide proof of origin or ownership, by providing a mark that is very hard to remove. This tech is valued on that sole premise: if I find my watermark on something, I can prove it's mine.

If someone can remove your watermark technology, to sue them (under the DMCA or whatever) is to admit and certify that your own technology is crap.

Not to mention the possibility that the watermark wasn't there to begin with...

Re:DMCA for watermark removal?

[Arioch_BDV]

Does Corbis *sell* the technology ? i think no.

If Adobe compromised there PDF-pseudoprotection in court, their are compromising the stuff they sell. And yet they did.

What's wrong with Corbis.

Also 95% of people in our brave old world does not like thining, since it's hurts sometimes.
And they will believe in any Oprah-blessed nonsense, even about absolutely unbreakable software, that was cracked by malicious vandal. :-)

Next thing you are going to tell me...

[mark0]

... is that Kerry wasn't in Barbarella, either. Liars. All of you.

Might be very important

[phr2]

Bill Gates is a heavy Republican contributor. Suppose it turns out that the fake photo was circulated by some Republican operative, say Karl Rove. If Bill owns Corbis, don't you think the investigation would stop awfully fast, before the public got informed?

Re:Nobody "placed" him anywhere...he was really th

[ipjohnson]

What does being rich have to do with his ability to be president?

Re:interesting

[HBI]

Well, perhaps if Prescott Bush had appeared on the same podium as Hitler, this might have more relevance, but that never happened. Kerry _did_ end up on the same podium as Fonda - while the one pic is a forgery, the other one isn't. Disavowing this is going to take a bit more than refuting BUSH=HITLER did. :-)

Just another scandal in a scandal-laced election season - and I am afraid Kerry is going to get pelted with most of the mud, given that he has so much available from his antiwar days and time in Congress.

Re:interesting

[HBI]

Poor AC doesn't like the mud hitting his fair-haired candidate.

Get used to it, it's going to be a LOOOONG campaign season otherwise.

Re:Nobody "placed" him anywhere...he was really th

[bonch]

It affects his ability to connect with the "folks." Do you really want the 3rd richest President in the nation's history after a Republican like Bush?

There are endless stories online from unbiased sources about Kerry's rudeness to people as a senator--including the classic "Do you know who I am?" question when cutting in line at restaurants.

On the watermark details

[AlienRancher]

I dont think Corbis is using invisible watermarking in the traitor-tracing mode. As I recall they use Digimarc to embed copyright ownership. That is, the watermark is batch embeded once for each picture and basically says "(c) Corbis 1999" and maybe (big maybe) an image number so they can find it in the database. So finding who did it tru watermarking is definitely on the FUD department.

Edwards?

[InfiniteWisdom]

I vote for an Edwards supporter. This thing is silly enough that I'm sure it'll blow over by November.... but since John Edward's fate is going to be decided on tuesday....

Re:Nobody "placed" him anywhere...he was really th

[wass]

Kerry is mega-rich, influenced by special interests, and voted for the DMCA. Why aren't we voting for Edwards again?

Then go vote in the Democratic Primary in your home state! Why are you assuming slashdot is a collective we anyway?

I'm registered as independent, so I can't vote in the Democratic Primary. Personally, I'm going to vote for Kerry or Edwards, whoever gets the nomination, at the presidential election in November.

LEAST offensive?

[fleppir]

We are talking about the same Cowboy, aren't we?

Re:Nobody "placed" him anywhere...he was really th

[RickHunter]

You aren't voting for Edwards or Dean (both of whom would actually have a chance of winning) because the Republicans told you not to. They told you Kerry was winning, and that you should vote for him because of that, and you believed him.

Guess Democrats are just as stupid as the rest of the sheep, eh?

What if they paid for the use of the photos?

[Spacepup]

I am not arguing that the news story with the fake image is libel.

However, can the DMCA still be invoked if Corbis were paid for the use of the photos, thus legitimatly removing their watermark? If so where does fair use come to play? It would be nice to know since I have purshased the use of a few electronic images from Corbis.

Not many...

[Goonie]

If somebody put out a faked photo "proving" Bush was AWOL, how many of you would cheer?

If it was faked, "we" (by which I mean Democrat supporters and the untold millions outside America willing them on and wishing they could help) would be peeved. Not because we have any sympathy for Shrub, but because it would be unhelpful to the ultimate goal - replacing him with somebody else, and believe me, the left is really, really focussed on the ultimate goal at the moment.

Oh, and as far as dirty tricks go, as far as a lot fo the left is concerned the Bush administration (maybe not Bush himself, whom they regard as a lazy oaf who gets told what to do by Rove and Cheney) doesn't need any lessons from the Nixon administration. Heck, it seems like half of them were in the Nixon administration.

Re:interesting

[theghost]

The other shows two people in a crowd at the same protest two years before her trip. Saying the two are in the same boat because of that is like saying Lenin and Stalin were cut from the same cloth.

I wouldn't expect to see Bush come out clean either, given the doubts about his own military record, the allegations of drug abuse, the accusations of insider trading, the fact that he has completely abandoned the conservative principles of states' rights and small federal government, his erosion of church/state separation, usurpation of congressional power, charges of obstructionism in the 9/11 probe, misuse of intelligence, misuse and censorship of science, and the leaking of a CIA agent's identity. But remember, he's a uniter, not a divider.

No one is getting out of race without a being covered head-to-toe in brown goo. Still, it would be nice to have a candidate who at least appeared to have a soul and had a snowball's chance of winning. Politics suck, but they're better than tyranny.

Why forge it in the first place?

[nadamsieee]

There is a real photo of Fonda and Kerry at a 1970 anti-war rally in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania (which they both spoke at).

Huh?

[k_head]

Bush Style? This man is ruthless when it comes to campaigning. Of course he uses henchmen to spread the hate speech so the stink does not get on him but everybody knows who is in charge.

Just recently his administration reffered to the teachers union as a terrorist organization.

Not his style my ass.

Re:Huh?

[MidnightLog]

... but everybody knows who is in charge.

Yep. Karl Rove is in charge. And this is his style.

Re:Huh?

[Ironica]

Just recently his administration reffered to the teachers union as a terrorist organization.

Hey, I was in 11th grade during the UTLA strike of 1990... I can see how they'd make that mistake! ;-)

(I support unions and think teachers are generally underpaid, but I tend to be disgusted by anyone who will slash tires in the name of a cause. Unless the cause is freeing opressed air from rubber prisons.)

Re:Huh?

[kisak]

Well, a Canadian official called Bush a moron, and a German justice minister likend Bush's political methods to those of Adolf Hitler ... I can see how they'd make that mistake! ;-)

But both these politicians were fired because they did not know where the line is for what heads of governments can say in public, even if it is just a joke or clumsy choice of words made at a small event. If this administration has some decency they should fire that Education Secretary who thinks it is OK to compare the people he works for to al-quada and other murders.

Re:Huh?

[dillon_rinker]

If you support unions, then you support violence against those who own the means of production. Where do you think unions came from? How do you think they gained power? Why do you think they were allowed to persist? Violence and the threat of violence.

Now, I'm not saying it's WRONG to support unions; violence, in the end, is the ultimate form of persuasion. If oppressors will not listen to peace, then you either accept oppression for yourself, your children, and your grandchildren, or you fight back.

Re:Huh?

[Ironica]

Where do you think unions came from? How do you think they gained power? Why do you think they were allowed to persist? Violence and the threat of violence.

Uh, no, actually.

Where unions came from was the exploitation of individual workers by companies. They *lost* a good deal of power by violence... check out labor legislation around the Molly Maguire era, and you'll find that there were NO rights at all, and that many elements of union activity currently protected by labor law were forbidden.

Where their power came from was the *economic* threat of labor unrest and strikes. The Wagner Act was passed not because unions were violent and hurting people, but because strikes threatened the stability of the economy and production. Then the pendulum swung the other way, with the post-WWII strike wave which brought us the Taft-Hartley Act, and limited the powers of unions... again to ward off economic instability.

They are allowed to persist in part because the law protects them, and in part because they are losing power in an increasingly global economy, so they cause less of a threat to the well-being of businesses.

In the 20 weeks of the supermarket strike here in SoCal, there's been one violent incident... some guys jumped some picketers. In the MTA strike that lasted five weeks through October and November, there was lots of name-calling, but no violence at all.

If you consider withholding factors of production (i.e. labor) in order to cause economic damage to be violence, I guess your statement was correct, but your definition of violence seems a little more broad than is strictly speaking practical.

In other news....

[telstar]

In other news, Ben Affleck has invoked the DMCA in order to have himself removed from the movie "Daredevil". Affleck contended that he never agreed to be part of a movie lacking dimension or direction, and suggested that the movie was assembled of footage from his everyday life.

Re:In other news....

[EvilTwinSkippy]

Wow, I didn't see that one coming.

Lying is the hallmark of the amateur

[hey!]

You know, unguarded cynicism is as naive as unguarded credence. It's just less embarssaing to be caught wrong.

There are other options besides lying, including redirection. Eisenhower was a master of this. When press asked him a question which he had a good reason not to answer, he used to launch in a rambling war story (literally a war story) that would have everyone in the room chuckling, nodding sagely, and none the wiser.

The thing is, lying is not really the hallmark of the sucessful politician; changing the subject is. When done skillfully, as Ike did it, people don't even realize their question hasn't been answered. Lying is the mark of an amateur, it's way too risky. Bush lied about WMD, and now he's catching hell. However, he's learning and doing a pretty good job at changing the subject to Sadaam's nastiness -- a documented and undeniable truth, and he's getting some traction.

Penis... hehe- uhh.. funny... equals... parody?

[Ayanami Rei]

QED

Re:Penis... hehe- uhh.. funny... equals... parody?

[Jeremy Erwin]

Funny does not equal parody.

The germ of parody lies in the definition of the Greek parodeia, quoted in Judge Nelson's Court of Appeals dissent, as "a song sung alongside another." 972 F. 2d, at 1440, quoting 7 Encyclopedia Britannica 768 (15th ed. 1975). Modern dictionaries accordingly describe a parody as a "literary or artistic work that imitates the characteristic style of an author or a work for comic effect or ridicule," [n.12] or as a "composition in prose or verse in which the characteristic turns of thought and phrase in an author or class of authors are imitated in such a way as to make them appear ridiculous." [n.13] For the purposes of copyright law, the nub of the definitions, and the heart of any parodist's claim to quote from existing material, is the use of some elements of a prior author's composition to create a new one that, at least in part, comments on that author's works. See, e. g., Fisher v. Dees, supra, at 437; MCA, Inc. v. Wilson, 677 F. 2d 180, 185 (CA2 1981). If, on the contrary, the commentary has no critical bearing on the substance or style of the original composition, which the alleged infringer merely uses to get attention or to avoid the drudgery in working up something fresh, the claim to fairness in borrowing from another's work diminishes accordingly (if it does not vanish), and other factors, like the extent of its commerciality, loom larger. [n.14] Parody needs to mimic an original to make its point, and so has some claim to use the creation of its victim's (or collective victims') imagination, whereas satire can stand on its own two feet and so requires justification for the very act of borrowing. [n.15] See Ibid.; Bisceglia, Parody and Copyright Protection: Turning the Balancing Act Into a Juggling Act, in ASCAP, Copyright Law Symposium, No. 34, p. 25 (1987).

--J. Souter (Campbell v. Acuff-Rose)

Here's a dillema -

[JimmytheGeek]

Suppose you were on the scene at the My Lai massacre, when American troops were murdering civilians. Would it be treason to urge them to stop? No. Would it be treason to use force to try to stop them? Maybe. Would it be wrong? Certainly not. Chief Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson ordered his crew chief to "open up on the Americans" if they fired on Vietnamese civilians he was shielding with his helicopter.

If you view the Vietnam War as one big massacre, you have a moral obligation to do what you can to stop it. That view is one reasonable people could hold. The U.S. dropped more tonnage of bombs on agricultural N. Vietnam than on Nazi Germany and Japan. The B52 crews Hanoi Jane was hoping would be shot down were following lawful orders and yet perpetrating massacres. It's a problem.

I have a lot of respect for the troops. I have no respect for the current CIC. If my own brother were shooting civilians, I'd stop him if I had the chance. Would you stand by just because of the uniform?

Re:Here's a dillema -

[Elektroschock]

That's war! I don't understand why you dig in the events of My Lai? Because they knew it was wrong?

It was good old murder. But when you drop a bomb you don't view your "civilian casualties".
This cleans the same old dirty business.

10 000 killed Iraqis so far because of a US premptive strike? Well, you have to pay a price for freedom. I opposed the war, because they didn't present a case and we saw the strong bias in the US media and Government,.

War means killing civilians, and it onnly becomes a war crime when it is intentional.

The US perform very well in increasing the efficiency of warfare.

Re:Here's a dillema -

[jsebrech]

A massacre is a specific act that occurs in a specific place at a specific time. It has specific victims, and specific criminals who conduct it. Trying to paint the entire war as a massacre is nonsense. It also trivializes real war crimes, like when the VC executed between 3,000 - 6,000 civilians in Hue after capturing it during the Tet Offensive. That was a real war crime in the "dig a mass grave, line them up, and shoot/stab/choke them" school.

So, in your opinion then, the nazi concentration camps could not be declared a massacre, since the murders there were committed at different places, different times, and by different people.

From the dictionary:
massacre: The act or an instance of killing a large number of humans indiscriminately and cruelly.

Re:Here's a dillema -

[dave420-2]

Amen to that, brother.

People are blinded by the flag. They think to be patriotic means to take everything the government tells you. They couldn't be further from the truth.

Jane Fonda stood up for her beliefs. The same thing the founding fathers did for America, yet because she's on the other side, "patriots" call her the traitor.

American Patriots need to learn the true meaning of the word. At the moment, they're anything but patriotic.

Re:Here's a dillema -

[dave420-2]

It's a war crime when you don't try to stop innocents being killed. The US doesn't try, ever. They kill anyone, even themselves. They view anyone non-American as a second-class human, with a bulls-eye on their chest.

Conspiracy theory run amok.

[hey!]

The simple fact is that there is no incentive for a Democrat to do this forgery.

(1) It is not likely to have a significant effect in the primary; it simply hurts Kerry in the general election. In the general election all the other candidates' partistans will be supporting Kerry.

(2) The Democratic primary is for practical purposes over, or very close to it. Right now its about delegates, platform, and VP/cabinet positions.

(3) Edwards is angling for the VP spot; Dean probably for a cabinet position. At this point they want to see Kerry elected.

If you want a credible conspiracy theory, then the only Democrat who this makes sense to do is Kerry himself. It won't hurt him in the primary, and it is bound to be exposed as a fake by the time the general election comes around. The obvious source (and therefore the least likely source) for the forgery would be the Bush campaign, so it hurts Bush the most, presuming the source of the fraud is never found.

But, if you think about it, it makes no sense for the Bush team to do be the source of the fake: Rove wouldn't be so stupid. He'd release the photo on the eve of the election, not almost a year before.

That said, even that is not a very credible theory. If we ever get to the bottom of this, it will turn out to be either a lone right wing kook, or a simple case of monetary fraud perpetrated on a right wing kook who won't want his name associated with the picture at all.

War Crimes Testimony - Yeah, and...?

[MooseByte]

extremecenter wrote:

I'm sure Kerry would like people to believe that records of his testimony before Congress are just hoaxes too.

---

Hmmm. I'll bite. What could possibly be wrong about someone testifying re: war crimes?

Or is it "unpatriotic" to discuss My Lai and Son Thang? It isn't a crime if it's done to "Them"?

Re:War Crimes Testimony - Yeah, and...?

[extremecenter]

There's a lot wrong with what he said. If these incidents are true, then he was bound by law and duty to report them to his commander. He never reported anything (he just waited until he was back home and made sweeping allegations), and failing to do so was both immoral and illegal. . If false, then he is guilty of slander of the worst sort. In fact he claimed that atrocities were commonplace, which means he was slandering his fellow servicemen and disgracing his country.

Re:War Crimes Testimony - Yeah, and...?

[MooseByte]

extremecenter wrote:

"If these incidents are true, then he was bound by law and duty to report them to his commander. He never reported anything (he just waited until he was back home and made sweeping allegations)"

Who says he never reported them? Let's take a look at that document you linked to (Kerry's testimony). "I would like to talk, representing all those veterans, and say that several months ago in Detroit, we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged and many highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes commited in Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but crimes commited on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all leves of command." Seems to me like there were plenty of vets in agreement there. And referencing the full awareness of officers at all levels of command.

"In fact he claimed that atrocities were commonplace, which means he was slandering his fellow servicemen and disgracing his country."

According to the concensus of 150 fellow veterans referenced above, atrocities were commonplace. Why would that be slander?

Re:War Crimes Testimony - Yeah, and...?

[jlanthripp]

According to the concensus of 150 fellow veterans referenced above, atrocities were commonplace. Why would that be slander?

Wow, a whole 150? Tell the other 2,593,850 active duty military personnel stationed within South Vietnam between 1965 and 1973 that we don't need their testimony. Tell those who were captured that their captors were the true victims - actually, you can't tell all of them, because 1 in 6 were killed in captivity by those poor downtrodden victimized North Vietnamese communists. Tell the families of the 2,338 soldiers who still haven't been accounted for that their sons and fathers and husbands were murderers and torturers.

Disagreeing with a war is one thing. Slandering the names of brave men and women who put their fucking necks on the line every goddamned day so you can sit back home and carry a picket sign is disgusting. Yeah, you'll find some not-so-nice ones in there - show me a city of 2.5 million without a few criminals. You paint them all with the same brush and for that you should be ashamed.

If there is a hell, I'm sure there's an extra warm spot in it reserved for Hanoi Jane and her ilk. She should be tried and shot for treason. I'd gladly pay a year's salary to be in that firing squad.

Re:War Crimes Testimony - Yeah, and...?

[MooseByte]

jlantrhipp wrote:

"Wow, a whole 150?"

Is reading REALLY that fucking hard for you? I was quoting from Kerry's testimony re: a specific meeting in Detroit, where 150 vets had gotten together to share their experiences. You want more instances? Ask around instead of keeping your head in the sand. Of COURSE most people weren't doing it. It was merely common. 1% being bad/twisted/evil is all you need to make something common in a combat zone.

"show me a city of 2.5 million without a few criminals."

Exactly. So by your logic, anyone who reports a crime or testifies in NYC should be berated for painting all the other citizens with the same brush? Muggings are common in Detroit. How many actual muggers do you think there are? And do the 99% who are law-abiding feel put out by testimony against the muggers? Your argument defies logic.

"You paint them all with the same brush and for that you should be ashamed."

You should try thinking, vs. parroting your favorite AM talk-radio host. How does Kerry and fellow vets reporting war crimes paint all vets with the same brush?

I'm a vet, been there done that. If there were war crimes going on during a war, while serving or otherwise, I'd WANT to know about it. I'd WANT the WHOLE FREAKIN' WORLD to know about it. Know why? Read carefully now. Because those of us who are *NOT* committing war crimes want them stopped! Why? Read carefully again, this concept will no doubt blow your mind: Because when they are NOT stopped, (1) People are being murdered/tortured, (2) Their war crimes start PAINTING THE REST OF US WITH THE SAME BRUSH, poisoning our efforts and turning the in-country civilians against us.

Wow. What a concept.

"If there is a hell, I'm sure there's an extra warm spot in it reserved for Hanoi Jane?"

Fully agree. To this day I believe Jane deserves to be brought up on charges. Protesting is one thing. Trying to stop the killing is welcomed. Years after that rally, when Jane was sitting on that NK AA gun, that was pure treason.

"If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back..." The Dalai Lama of Tibet

How about those 16 women and children in Son Thang who were rounded up and summarily executed at point-blank range? What does the Dalai Lama say about that?

I'm confused.

[CausticPuppy]

I don't recall the argument being that Republicans were rich. It was that they are the tools of the rich...

So basically you're saying that Republicans are the tools of the Democrats?

Brain... hurting! Must... vote... Libertarian!!

Re:Nobody "placed" him anywhere...he was really th

[utahjazz]

The DMCA passed unanimously. It would be pretty silly to not for for John Kerry because he voted for it. If you want to find a polititian that didn't and wouldn't have voted for it, you'd need to get really, really, really fringe. I mean like way past Al Shapron, into deep libertarian land.

We distort...you decide.. FAUX News!

[Newer Guy]

I notice that these photos made it quickly and prominently onto The Faux News Channel. I wonder if the announcement that they are forgeries will be broadcast with 1/10th the gusto! Anyone care to give me odds on this?

All politics aside...

[Max Threshold]

There are certain restrictions on publishing photographs of people that do not apply when the person or events depicted are newsworthy. IANA journalist, so I don't know exactly what the legal definition of "newsworthy" is (and it's probably different where you live, anyhow). The point is, if there aren't similar exceptions to copyright law for newsworthy or historically significant images, then we have bigger things to worry about than who Kerry might have bumped into at a rally thirty years ago. The situation reminds me of some Rage lyrics: "Who controls the past now, controls the future..."

Re:Why would Corbis need to look for the offenders

[unfies]

LOL! All too true. If they suceed, they get lifted up on shoulders as being a super snoop... If they fail, at least they tried and care about your rights.

The Pubbies sell their souls for chump change?

[John Jorsett]

I don't recall the argument being that Republicans were rich. It was that they are the tools of the rich...

So they toil for their rich masters in return for nothing? And the mega-rich Democrats got that way by being on the side the "litle people" against the plutocrats? Riiiight.

Re:The Pubbies sell their souls for chump change?

[aborchers]

To you and the ACs who don't deserve a direct reply:

Do I have to put the *joke* markup around every freaking bit of sarcasm I post on this board?

If there's any consistent issue I have with the Republicans or their defenders it's that they apparently have no sense of humor...

For the record, I could have, and have, made the same "tool" crack about congress(wo)men of the Democratic stripe as well.

Re:The Pubbies sell their souls for chump change?

[John Jorsett]

Do I have to put the *joke* markup around every freaking bit of sarcasm I post on this board? If there's any consistent issue I have with the Republicans or their defenders it's that they apparently have no sense of humor...

I've been engaged in political discussion on message boards since I first started messing with Usenet back in the late '70s, and I've seen postings of every conceivable stripe. If you're going for sarcasm, you're going to have to amp it up quite a bit to make it distinguishable from people who actually have those sentiments and write just the sort of message you posted. And since your comment implies that your intent is mistaken on a regular basis, I'd submit that the fault lies with the writer rather than the reader.

Re:The Pubbies sell their souls for chump change?

[aborchers]

I'd submit that the fault lies with the writer rather than the reader.

You're correct about the average participant's level of political savvy, of course, but maybe the following should have been an indicator of the tone of the post:

Besides, 9 out of 10 people know you can use statistics prove anything!

Exactly how pedantic does one have to be? As a rule, I prefer to reserve my babytalk for my toddler and assume I am dealing with people who are capable of abstract thought. If I'm at fault, it's for not learning the oft-repeated lesson to the contrary. I'm not suggesting you're in that camp. I don't know you, and I wouldn't presume.

Nice play of the "I've been debating politics on the Internet longer than you" card, though. Really classy...

Re:The Pubbies sell their souls for chump change?

[John Jorsett]

Nice play of the "I've been debating politics on the Internet longer than you" card, though. Really classy...

Not intended in that fashion at all. I wanted to establish my bona fides as not being a neophyte who reacts before thinking. A good illustration of how difficult it is to convey exactly what one means in these discussions. Peace.

Re:The Pubbies sell their souls for chump change?

[aborchers]

Peace.

Absolutely! I hate to get involved in these tedious flame threads, but even more I hate being misunderstood. Ah, that's where we began wasn't it. :-)

Cheers!

lick bush in '04

[cesspool]

imo, if bush gets four more years, the fiscal uncertainty he brings with him will trigger a market crash. On the order of 1929, not relatively mild like 1987.

Re:lick bush in '04

[Rayonic]

Thank you, great Kreskin. Can I peek in your crystal ball to see next week's lotto numbers?

Re:lick bush in '04

[AME]

That's fantastic! Thank you.

I'm bookmarking your post, not because I agree with you, but because it will make a great sig in five years when it doesn't happen.

Re:lick bush in '04

[danielsfca2]

Why? All the market needs to function like a well-oiled machine is the rich. The poor are the ones losing from Bush's policies, but no one really gives a crap what happens to them or whether they have enough money to buy things. It's Lincoln Navigators and Hummers that drive the economy, and surprise surprise, times are good for people selling those kinds of things! Go Bush!

And don't say "if" bush gets four more years. Say it with me: WHEN Bush gets four more years. We all know he's going to get the biggest landslide in the history of landslides. Especially with Diebold in his corner. I personally would rather the election were just cancelled today and Bush declared the winner so we could not waste our time with an outcome that's already guaranteed.

-Daniel Pritchard
Registered Democrat
(No, I'm not voting for Bush, but it won't matter.)

Re:lick bush in '04

[jedidiah]

Keep on outsourcing college level jobs and the Lincoln dealers are going to be in as much of a bind as a Detroit autoworker. They Kennedy's and the Rockerfellers only consume so much. The rest of that wealth gets generated by purchases from the affluent part of the working class.

Decimate that and your whole pyramid scheme starts to fall apart.

This is what Ford understood and Bush/Greenspan/ do not.

Re:lick bush in '04

[leifm]

Hummers and Navigators and plasma TVs may drive the economy, but as another poster said the top few percent only buy so much. I bet 9/10 of Navigator/Hummer owners are paying monthly through the nose for those vehicles, and teetering on the edge of financial catastrophe. It's not particularly hard to finance your way above your means, but staying there is contingent on keeping the same or better pay.

Speaking of G W Bush photos...

[rwebb]

To have a little fun with the whole "politically damaging photographs on the internet" bit, Tom Tomorrow cooked up one of Dubya having a good ol' time doing some table-top dancing during a party at Yale

Strictly in good fun, of course (and to illustrate the point)...

Re:Speaking of G W Bush photos...

[Rupert]

I doubt his hair was that grey when he was at Yale.

Irony

[awtbfb]

... I was going to make a comment on how ironic it would be to...

Actually, the real irony of this story is that the guy who photographed Kerry is a professor of journalism ethics at a likely target for conservatives.

Re:Nobody "placed" him anywhere...he was really th

[grvsmth]

Edwards wasn't in the Senate when the DMCA passed, but what makes you so sure he wouldn't have voted for it? There's nothing I can find on his campaign website about intellectual property.

You... no... get, mmmm, joke?

[Ayanami Rei]

I was equating penis with funny, and funny with parody, in a braindead fashion. This was supposed to be satirical.

My apologies if I'm too obtuse.

Re:OFF TOPIC MOTHERFUCKER!

[merdark]

Well, it kind of follows from the previous post, which follows from the previous, and originally there WAS an on topic post.

But to answer your question: YES, all BUSH SUCKS POSTS are insightful.

Umm... bush sucks!

Hmm... I'm not insightful yet.

Oh, so you're who Al Franken was talking about.

[Chris Burke]

Only not important.

HAND. :)

Re:Oh, so you're who Al Franken was talking about.

[Just Some Guy]

Honestly, I would be proud it Al Franken disliked me; that's one of the best validations of a person's ideals that you can get from disposable culture these days. If you could throw in Michael Moore, too, then my day would be complete.

Re:Oh, so you're who Al Franken was talking about.

[Chris Burke]

Who cares if Al Franken dislikes you, when the term "lying liar" is accurately applied to you regardless?

Or are you just saying that if Al Franken noticed you enough to personally call you on your lies, you'd realize you'd finally lied your way to the big time!

Yeah, that makes sense. HAND! :)

Re:Oh, so you're who Al Franken was talking about.

[Just Some Guy]

Neolibs are so cute when they're wound up. :)

Re:Oh, so you're who Al Franken was talking about.

[Chris Burke]

Liars are so amusing when they're caught. :)
Who (and what) is a wound up neo-lib? Al Franken?

Meanwhile in Canada...

[Vagary]

I think you folks down there are wise to worry that Kerry will serve the interests of his peers, however up here in Canada things are a bit backwards:

The current Prime Minister (Paul Martin) is the son of a Prime Minister runner-up (Paul Martin Sr, believe it or not). One of the most quoted pieces of advice passed from father to son is that if he wanted to be PM, Jr should get rich first so he couldn't be controlled by special interests. So he when his father lost the leadership convention, Jr went out and became a millionaire before going into politics. Then, just before stepping down as PM, Jr's rival Jean Chretien passed legislation severly limiting campaign contributions. So in the end politicians don't even have the choice of being controlled by special interests anymore.

Although there's some skepticism about Jr's social policies, in general Canadians don't distrust politicians just because they're rich: because if money was important to them, they would have moved somewhere with lower taxes and privatised health care long ago!

Make a Third Choice!

[Vagary]

I realise this is probably not the election to be saying it during, but you guys could always try and create a third party? When you have three or more parties, centrism is no longer an equilibrium, so you'll actually find politicians with progressive policies.

Personally I don't envy you guys at all, and I'm not sure I'd be able to stomach vote for Nader, but I'd at least give it some thought.

Re:Make a Third Choice!

[Gr8Apes]

Right now, adding a third party would almost guarantee Bush stays in power. I'd rather it wait until after this election. Then, having more than 3 parties would be good. We've seen via Bush how 2 parties skew viewpoints to the extremes.

Re:Make a Third Choice!

[srussell]

We have a third party (Greens), and a fourth party (Libertarians), and a fifth party (Socialists), and a sixth party (Communists)... not necessarily in that order, but we have them.

The problem is that the American voting system discourages people from voting for what they believe in, and forces them to vote for the lesser of two evils.

The accounting error that placed George W. Bush in office would not have been an issue had a large segment of the liberal population not decided to vote -- for once -- by their consciences. Ralph Nader won about 2.7% of the popular vote in 2000 (Buchanan, the next most popular conservative to Bush, took less than 0.5 percent of the popular vote from Bush). It isn't unreasonable to assume that almost 100% of those people who voted for Nader would have preferred Gore to Bush. If even one percent had voted strategically (for the lesser of two evils), the Florida fiasco would not have been an issue.

I'm a firm proponent of electoral reform, so that people can vote their consciences without jeopardizing their position and letting the greater of two evils seize the power. However, until that time, I hope that the American public votes insincerely so that we don't end up with a repeat of the 2000 election.

Re:Make a Third Choice!

[Vagary]

I know you have alternative parties, but they're not really viable choices. Although I suppose in a winner-takes-all system like the US executive election, multiple choices has a very different meaning than in an assembly.

Regardless, Emperor Bush would have a lot less power if the Republicans didn't also control both assemblies. Voters were clearly still happy with Bush in 2002 or else they would have moved to limit his power.

Finally, I take everything said about Nader's spoilership with a grain of salt: yes, a tiny percentage of voters could have changed the outcome, but when 40% of the people don't vote, clearly it doesn't really matter to the majority who wins.

Re:Make a Third Choice!

[srussell]

I know you have alternative parties, but they're not really viable choices.

How do you define "viable choices"? Is it that they have a decent chance of winning? In that case, then we indeed only have two parties, and the reason for this is because of our voting system. There is no way of determining what percentage of the population would vote Libertarian if they could without jeopardizing their interests, because voting results don't accurately reflect the opinion of the voters.

Voters were clearly still happy with Bush in 2002 or else they would have moved to limit his power.

Much of this has to do with the effectiveness of modern gerrymandering techniques, which tends to be more a tool of Republicans than Democrats.

On top of this, Al Qaeda unfortunately chose that time to instigate their terrorist attacks; that is a situation which only worked in the administration's favor. It was a unifying event, bringing Americans together, and giving the president an opportunity to launch a war which America supported, bolstering Bush's popularity. After taking Afghanistan, Bush used the momentum to pursue his personal vendetta against Saddam Hussein. Whether or not this will have worked in his favor has yet to be seen. He may have miscalculated; if Iraq would have resisted more, he might have been able to draw out the war through the elections. In the past 100 years, presidents who were running during a period of war that hadn't yet "turned sour" were reelected. If he can keep the spin on the war in Iraq up, he might have a chance. On the other hand, no president who ever lost the popular vote has won a reelected. In any case, it should be an interesting election.

yes, a tiny percentage of voters could have changed the outcome, but when 40% of the people don't vote, clearly it doesn't really matter to the majority who wins.

The only majority that matters (in the USA) is the majority that votes. With the exception of some disenfranchised voters in Florida, every legal national of the USA has the opportunity to vote. It isn't difficult or costly to do, its the "official" way to have your opinion counted, and there is no good excuse not to. Those who do not exercise this right for that election, reject the opportunity to have their opinions matter.

So, the majority of voters (the only "majority" who counts) were disenfranchised in 2000. It wasn't even the first time that it had happened, just the most obvious.

We may be in a situation where the flawed electoral system in the USA is beginning to collapse. It may be at the point where what the majority of voters wants doesn't matter, because the elections are being fixed, as they were in Florida. I'm not sure we're there yet, but I do know that the system is flawed and needs to be changed.

Re:Attended the Same Rallies?

[mi]

said that one of the pictures was doctored

The article also confirms, that he did attend other antiwar rallies/meetings, including those, where Jane Fonda was also present -- if if there is no real photo of them standing next to each other. Whether that hurts or benefits his campaing is another question.

It was done by the Repugnantcans (tm) to discredit him.

How do you know, who did it, BTW?

Truth is, he did go there, participated, and gave speeches. If you believe, that discredits a man, you should thank the Republicans (or whoever) for bringing it up to your attention. If you don't see anything wrong with his past behavior (30 years ago), than the Republicans failed to discredit him in your eyes.

I'm intentionally witholding my own judgement here as irrelevant, BTW.

That being said, I would not put it past someone on the Democratic side to make the forgery and "leak" it out to move attention from Kerry's past (mis)deeds to the forgery seemingly attributable to the Republicans.

Re:Nobody "placed" him anywhere...he was really th

[peeon]

Edwards is a former trial lawyer who got rich. Do we need to say more? Damn sue happy america.

Re:Nobody "placed" him anywhere...he was really th

[dafoomie]

Yeah, he was there, but Jane Fonda wasn't. So he was "placed" next to her because the intent here is to discredit him by associating him with Jane Fonda, even though Fonda was the one inserted into the original image, with Kerry in it.

Even though an authentic photo (that you linked to) exists of the two of them, he is sitting three rows behind her in a crowd. You could hardly use that to insinuate an association there. Also, your picture was taken at a different event from the forgery, before her trip to North Vietnam, the reason why she is so hated and why you don't want to be associated with her. The forgery would have been much more damaging since it shows Fonda speaking and Kerry sitting next to her on stage.

Re:Interesting

[jms]

They don't need to protect their copyright. You are thinking of trademarks, which need to be protected. A copyright can be enforced, or not enforced as you like, without losing any of your rights.

Choose Canada

[maysonl]

Europe will be freezing pretty soon as the Gulf Stream begins to fail.

Re:Nobody "placed" him anywhere...he was really th

[Ironica]

If you want to find a polititian that didn't and wouldn't have voted for [the DMCA], you'd need to get really, really, really fringe.

Yeah... all the way outside Congress.

Seriously, I remember looking down the roster of hopefuls during the MoveOn primary way back when. Nine of them, and six were automatic "nos" because they were in Congress, and that check hasn't balanced anything in a while.

Re:Nobody "placed" him anywhere...he was really th

[Ironica]

It affects his ability to connect with the "folks." Do you really want the 3rd richest President in the nation's history after a Republican like Bush?

Being rich, even growing up rich, doesn't mandate that you have no social skills. Sure, maybe he is a snob. But even that doesn't necessarily disqualify him to be President.

And, frankly, I'd take George Washington or John F. Kennedy any day over the Shrub... and apparently they were richer than Kerry. Maybe someone with *more* money will feel *less* need to pander to the rich, I dunno.

Not that I'm happy he's coming out on top... I was rooting for Dean. And we'll see what kind of running mate he picks; Gore lost my vote by letting Lieberman open his mouth (and y'all can shut up about how I'm part of the problem; I'm in California, which Gore won handily even without my vote). But the assumption that having money means he won't be a better president than Bush isn't necessarily that useful.

It's easier to be liberal if you're wealthy...

[freeBill]

...it's also easier to be conservative.

The wealthy tend to be more conservative. But, of course, this is by no means universal. Conservatives generally support the status quo, and the rich tend to be happy with the status quo.

A countervailing tendency is based on the fact that more highly educated people tend to be more liberal, and education tends to correlate to income. All of these are tendencies, and they get mixed up when they counter one another.

We have a rich-east-coast-liberal stereotype because some people can manipulate others politically by perpetuating it. And because some people can make lots of money telling people who want to hear it what they want to hear. You do understand that most stereotypes are inaccurate, don't you?

The very wealthy of the east coast have tended to be conservative from the very earliest days of our Republic. James Madison sought to build his political base in New York City because he felt this crowd would be won over by his conservative message. And they were. Today we have the Wall Street Journal (one of the most successful conservative publications in the world) making a very good living supplying similarly rich conservatives with what they want to hear in New York City.

If you base your logic on the assumption that stereotypes should be believed, you will come to many false conclusions. But they might well be commonly believed by those who share your biases.

Re:It's easier to be liberal if you're wealthy...

[TXG1112]

I'm not claiming that these stereotypes are true. My premise is that because there is a stereotype, there must be a grain of truth in there somewhere.

You and I would appear to agree. The sorts of people that read the WSJ are wealthy and conservative. However my point was that it's easy to embrace the idea of giving away 30% (or more) of your earnings for social programs and other liberal causes if the 70% left over is still more than you could ever use.

IMHO, many of the people who read the WSJ do not consider themselves wealthy (though they would qualify by most definitions) and have a conservative outlook, while people who are stupendously wealthy (and are aware of this) would be more inclined to support liberal causes. Again as you say these are not hard and fast rules, and there are many exceptions, and while stereotypes and never wholly true, they can provide useful information.

In my own life, I have found that as I make more money I have grown more liberal. I am aware that at my end of the economic spectrum this is unusual. (I am not even moderately wealthy yet, but I hope to be someday.)

The dental records were ...

[burgburgburg]

from 1973, after he'd already moved back to Texas (He went back to Alabama to get his teeth cleaned. What's up with that?) The tax records show he was paid, not that he did anything to be paid. None of the 800 people working at the base have come forward with a plausible story about seeing him (the one who's come forward has the dates all wrong, saying Bush was there before he would have been and working three times as much as he was paid for).

And he didn't serve his country either. That's the point.

I wonder...

[Kindaian]

I'm not a lawyer, but, since when did DMCA protects the change of pixel colors?

If you apply a slight blur to a watermarked photo with a program that don't knows what that is, the watermark will start to vanish and no "hacking" was used in the process.

After several image manipulations like that the watermark will be absent from the "processed" image (if my reasoning is correct).

As there was no "circunvention" in the process... I wonder how can they imply a DMCA case in this? /emote is puzzled...

Kerry lied through his teeth.

[Shivetya]

His testimony before Congress claimed that it was common practice for US Soldiers to rape, murder, and torture civilians. He and his cohorts made claims versus other soldiers. The majority if not all of his testimony has been refuted.

Kerry doesn't deserve respect. Go check out what he testified too before you give him an ounce of it.

Here is a decent article about this sordid affair.

http://www.nationalreview.com/owens/owens2004012 70 825.asp

Re:Kerry lied through his teeth.

[techno-vampire]

Yes, other people have mentioned that. Unlike some people, I can and do change my opinions if I learn something new that makes it appropriate. Thanks for your info.

Re:Nobody "placed" him anywhere...he was really th

[The Desert Palooka]

LOL

Republicans told you to? Heck most repbulicans would LOVE to have Dean get nominated. In the way that many Dems think Goldwater was a right wing nut the Reps think Dean is a left wing nut. They consider him an easy kill...

The real reason so many are voting for Kerry is that the media is just psycho about polls and after Kerry's Iowa win and Dean's fiasco we got to see a friendly little casscade. People aren't thinking anymore they're just doing what they see on TV.

I think Edwards would likely be MUCH more electable than John "It's not fair to talk about my *Public* voting record" Kerry...

Re:Nobody "placed" him anywhere...he was really th

[The Desert Palooka]

To many vets it doesn't matter that he wasn't sitting next to her. They're just angry that he was any where near her without a sign protesting her.

Re:Nobody "placed" him anywhere...he was really th

[dafoomie]

All of these pictures were taken before she went to North Vietnam - the reason why a lot of people (myself included) don't like her. She wasn't seen as a traitor before that. This is what whoever forged the picture wanted to accomplish. Associate Kerry with people's hated for her.

While we are on the subject...

[bmf033069]

Speaking of photographs linking political figures, I have yet to see the obligatory link to these pictures of Rumsfeld and Saddam Hussein

Re:OFF TOPIC MOTHERFUCKER!

[merdark]

Your right, I should have posted as anonymous, but didn't think of it at the time. :)

free republicans...

[dave420-2]

I was at an anti-war protest in LA, and the free republic people were there. A woman, in her 40s, elbowed me in the face. They also tried to cover my "stop bush" sign with an American flag. Oh, the irony.

The Free Republicans are racist and hateful. They gave my wife racist abuse (she's chinese american), saying "We saved your country's ass in WW2!", even though she was born in Australia, and moved to the US later on. They even told me to "go back to Germany!" (I'm British - go figure).

I'm not one for spreading much or name-calling, but those guys are full of hatred, and think the sun shines out of their collective asses. They're dangerous. Read their forums - you'll see.

Oh yeah, and don't try posting anything anti-republican there - they don't believe in free speech.

Re:Damn you!

[Mr. Piddle]

All the third parties should band together, and simply get one person who sucks less than Bush or Kerry on to the ticket. If they can get a third-party president into office, then they can worry about their differences later. I suppose Nader could be this person, as he has chosen to run Independent this year.

Should we be surprised?

[pair-a-noyd]

First off, screw corbis. They suck and that's documented fact. Then, screw the DMCA..
Yes, screw the DMCA..

Now, on with business.
They had to do something to counter GWB's draft dodging stories eh?

The doo-doo will be hitting the fan this fall, count on it.

Also, count on Bush to pull a Bin-Laden out of the hat just before election.

mod +5 prophetic...

why Rage ?

[Arioch_BDV]

You quoting the famous "1984" by Orwell.
Rage seems to quote it too.

But this nightmare will not be in the whole.

It will be more like "Our brave new world" by Huksly mixed wed some points of "We" by Zamyatin

PS: i'm probably mis-spelling, sorry, i'm not English-speaking one.

o.k. - a series of massacres then

[JimmytheGeek]

Dropping bombs indescriminately (which was the case in the air force up until after the Gulf War - only 10% had any kind of guidance then, and even in Afghanistan the proportion was under 2/3rds guided. CEP measured in hundreds of yards...)

Any chance you are just a knee-jerk right wing dipshit? Pretty strong. Yeah, massacres by commies are bad. I'd try to stop them. Massacres by Serbs, Croats, Hutus and Tutsis are bad. Massacres by U.S. troops, representing the greatest, and at our best, most enlightened nation in the world are especially bad because it is such a come-down from our ideals.

The law says several things - willful killing of non-combatants is unlawful. Indescriminate use of firepower and bombs is acceptable. You shouldn't be surprised to find that military law is as contradictory as civilian.

When a bombing run flattens a hamlet, the civilians are just as dead as when Calley (and his Captain) perpetrated the retail killing at My Lai.

Re:Nobody "placed" him anywhere...he was really th

[bonch]

I'm not a Democrat. Still, I agree with you.

Almost forgot...

[aborchers]

I'm embarrassed at the degree to which my post was modded up. It show's that the moderators didn't get it either...

Re:Damn you!

[Mr. Piddle]

I read Nader's issues page earlier today, and, while the Libertarians would have to really be open-minded about this, Nader is at least a step away from the current oligarcy and generally a step towards real improvement.

The good things about Nader's platform are ending the war on drugs, ending overseas military dominance, reducing corruption, reducing pork projects, and supporting equitible education.

The debatable things about Nader's platform are nationalized health care, "living wage" (whatever that is), and a more aggresively progressive income tax.

I am forming the opinion that Nader's pros outweigh his cons, and he would be a good step towards healing some of the current problems in politics. Also, it is highly unlikely that nationalized health care can really be made a reality, as it has failed to pass more than once already and even Mr. Greenspan is apprehensive about the government's current social burdens (e.g., social security + baby boomers).

Probably the biggest thing going for Nader is his appearance of real integrity without being a corporate pushover (and blatant bigot) like Bush nor is he a con-artist like uber-rich Kerry.

The 'spitting' here is yours - in your own eye

[ianscot]

When a campaign is making a big deal about someone being a war hero, it's a bit suspect when that war hero became part of the faction that spit on soldiers when they got home...

You're repeating one of those convenient myths the right wing has constructed to project its own demons on others. The notion that anyone who opposes a war is insulting the military is ludicrously confused, if you want confusion, so I guess you've done yourself proud in expressing that -- But with respect to the specific "spitting" lie you're repeating:

The Spitting Image: Myth, Memory, and the Legacy of Vietnam

"...In February 1991, I was asked to speak at a college teach-in on the Persian Gulf War. My presentation focused on the image then being popularized in the press of Vietnam-era anti-war activists treating Vietnam veterans abusively. Drawing on my own experience as a Vietnam veteran who came home from the war and joined Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), I called the image of spat-upon Vietnam veterans a myth. The historical fact, I pointed out, is that the peace movement reached out to veterans as potential allies in a struggle against an unpopular war, while many veterans were joining the anti-war movement by the late 1960s.

My talk was published as an opinion piece in the Hartford Courant and the response to it encouraged me to look further into the truth and origin of the spat-upon veteran stories. My research focused on three sets questions: the evidence for and against the claims that the alleged acts of spitting ever occurred; the political and cultural roles played by the stories; and the way in which the stories were constructed and popularized..."

You could read on if you have any sense of curiosity about this at all. Suffice it to say: There are several newspaper stories about pro-war advocates spitting on veterans demonstrating for peace at the 1968 Republican Convention. Perhaps that's what you're thinking of. Otherwise during the war this particular story wasn't around. It was created afterward as a political tactic-- much like the deliberately misleading "POW/MIA" category. Spirow Agnew had something to do with it playing quite the way it did.

if you intend - but know you'll fail...

[JimmytheGeek]

then it's still indescriminate. If you know or should know that your bombing is wildly inaccurate and you still persist because, well, you aren't that concerned about what else is in the area, that's a legitimate cause for concern.

I didn't see the purported clear thinking on the issues. I did see a presumption that I was in favor of massacres perpetrated by commies. That earned you a presumption of "kjrwd". Your conjecture of qualities I lack tends to confirm it.

Incidentally, in your understanding of history, you described S. Vietnam as a separate country. It was actually part of Vietnam, which was partitioned pending elections which the U.S. decided against holding. It knew the North's government would win. That doesn't mean that the elections would have proven a model of democracy. The massive migration south also suggests that the North's government wasn't viewed favorably by a lot of people who got a chance to vote with their feet. Still, the U.S. took a temporarily partitioned state and attempted to make it permanent by suspending elections.

And where do you get the idea that I assume U.S. troops regularly commit war crimes? I do say, and the evidence supports it, that much of the conduct of the war in Vietnam was criminal. The bombing was akin to a cop firing a shotgun into a crowd in the belief that a perp was present. Except shotguns are a little more accurate. Much of the ground war in the province where My Lai was located was also conducted in a criminal fashion. Free-fire zones - not cool.

And do you suppose the right-wing support of central american death squads is morally consistent? Saddam was the same thug in the 1980's when he was shaking hands with Rummy as he was when W. invaded Iraq. The thing is, the right is as full of it as the straw-man left it attacks.

Finally, I find it unpatriotic to hold Americans to no better a standard than the militia of some tinpot dictator. We're not the best because we're the baddest. We're the best because of a lot of things, most of which reflect on a presumption of inherent worth and dignity in humans. The expansive definition of citizenship is to me the biggest thing - it transcends ethnicity/nationality. I admire Germany and Japan, but they have, to me, backward notions of what it takes to be a citizen.

"Intervention"?

[cmholm]

The Falklands were an "intervention"? So, when the Germans occupied the Channel Islands, was their reconquest an "intervention" as well? I'm guessing you define "liberation" when it's a piece of the UK you care about, an "intervention" when it's a piece you don't (and the locals weren't cooperative with your desire to wash your hands of their home).

Perhaps the reason why many Americans care about military records is the perception that a military is a neccessary part of maintaining national sovereignty. Do the folks in the UK think that's all just poppy cock, or just you?

Re:Nobody "placed" him anywhere...he was really th

[RickHunter]

No, the Republicans TOLD you they would love for Dean to get nominated. I watched them do so. For two weeks before Iowa, every Republican talking head on TV was going on about how they'd love for Dean to get nominated and how scared they were of Kerry. Dean was, in fact, their worst nightmare. He's a centrist with broad appeal among both the left and right wing. Kerry is a Massachusets liberal, and an incredibly corrupt one at that. He'll be annihilated in a GE, and if by some miracle he gets elected, he'll be no better than Bush.

Edwards, of course, is just as electable as Dean. But he'll also never get nominated. Why? Because the DNC doesn't want to win. They want to lose big so Bush gets even more brazen and the general public is desperate enough to accept Hillary in 2008.