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The Web Won't Topple Tyranny
An anonymous reader writes "Joshua Kurlantzick of the New Republic online writes that the internet--once heralded as a revolutionary force in politics--has turned out to be surprisingly nonthreatening to dictators and tyrannies. Reminds me of Howard Dean, and the trend to see technological change as a politically progressive force. Maybe this is not such a good idea?"
After all, the people don't control it. Revolution isn't profitable to those who do control it.
And cross-referenced with the list of subversive sites you have recently visited.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
no longer can recognize censorship as damage and route around it. Blame the router manufacturers.
It is doing the same thing that television did in the 60's, when it brought the Vietnam "conflict" into the living room in all of its horrendous glory. Now we get to read the BBC and get a different take on why the world hates us.
Any why do you want to topple him/her?
The internet will not topple tyranny when they the evil forces that are supposed to be toppled control it (China). A completely free internet would topple tyranny but they know that obviously and thus do everything they can to control it.
From the article (on an Internet Cafe in Laos):
Yet, despite its trendiness and high-tech appearance, the Internet joint conspicuously lacked one element usually associated with cafe life: any discussion of current events. Virtually no one in the cafe spoke with anyone else.
Geez - geeks not socializing! What is this world coming to ?!
I hear there's rumors on the Slashdots
Howard Dean was a success story for the internet. He gathered a huge amount of money and marshalled a decent amount of supporters.
He lost because he stupid campaign manager blew all that money in the insignificant first two states of the primary, mostly fighting against Dick Gephardt-- who turned out to basically be a hopeless kamakaze attack steered into the Dean campaign anyway.
If it hadn't been for incompetence on the part of said campaign manager, Dean would have won or at least made enough fo an impact you would not now be chiding the internet-oriented aspects of his campaign strategy.
"surprisingly nonthreatening to dictators and tyrannies. " Since they generally don't have internet access is those countries, where's the surprise?
People like to say "The Internet treats any form of censorship as damage and tries to route around it." and in most cases that's true. If a router is refusing to allow access to another address, the router before it will attempt to find another way to get the packets to where they're supposed to go.
However, if the only ways out of the house/building/campus/country on the network are all controled by the same sensoring authority, there's no way to get there from here. So, Tyranical goverments just need to maintain control of all wires leaving their country, and prevent people from owning satellite dishes and then they'll be all set at blocking sites that they don't like.
The main reason that the internet has not been a threat to dictators is that the dictators don't need to control the internet. They only need to control the computers that access the internet.
This is no different than controlling any other type of media. (Control of presses/television stations/etc.)
Guess what - neither did the printing press, the telephone, radio or television.
Carefull there...
This kind of thing is best posted AC through anonymizing proxies, lest the biggest tyrants brand you a "terrorist".
Although, your posting history tends to suggest that you have been trying to disrupt communication systems, so you might technically be a terrorist.
Well, and with a little help from the French. ;)
There's quite a difference between a person who puts up a blog and a person who, for example, leads an armed insurrection against a bastard dictator. I submit that the ability to type and the ability to forcefully overthrow a government have little in common...
Don't you think, though, that there is not one single factor that can bring dictators down but it's a set of smaller reasons.
I think the Internet is a rather strong eroding factor. It isn't an instant fix, but it works to undermind the foundation of these regimes. Someone above said that "radio, TV, telephone" didn't do it either.. right, but the contributed. Nothing works all at once... all the communication together eventually brings it all down at once upon itself, like it did in the USSR.
Why don't you embrace your slashbotness instead of living in a dreamworld?
Quote: How long does this guy think these countries have had the web, and what percentage of these people does he think use it there? And finally how long does he think it takes for something like this to change culture? Holy Shit Dude! Its like saying: "we started publishing an underground newspaper three years ago, and it has yet to topple Dictator so and so.." Real soulutions take time. Cultural change takes time. And it is WAY to early to be making judgements about the way the web is affecting these places
Im not here now... Im out KILLING pepperoni
at some point in the future when we can truly measure the effect the internet has had on history, to see how it comapared to the printing press.
I don't get this guy.. He's pointing out that he visited an internet cafe in Laos, and despite its existence, their oppressive regime still stands!
How strange. Or?
Most people in Laos can't afford to go to an internet cafe and read the censored news - or possibly gain access to the uncensored ones. How could it possibly make a difference?
The internet is a medium, not a means. You need to have an organized opposition to effect change. You need support. You need a lot of things other than just the means of communication.
Instead, he should be looking at the places were these kinds of things are in place. Such as Iran. And you will also see the use of the internet. And these places are progressing*.
(*Although I'll be the first to admit to the recent setbacks in Iran. But on the other hand, the Ayatollahs wouldn't be acting if they weren't threated, would they?)
But world leaders, journalists, and political scientists who tout the Internet as a powerful force for political change are just as wrong as the dot-com enthusiasts who not so long ago believed the Web would completely transform business.
This is a classic example of a writer who had an agenda first, and then sought to write a story to back it up. The whole article is bogus.
The Internet HAS completely transformed business. It has become a major source of a variety of political discussion and activism. Anyone who has been paying attention can see that.
The mainstream political/business publications are resistant to anything which upsets the existing delicate balance, so they often hold new technology (i.e. things they don't understand, or can't control, or can't profit from based on the way they've been leveraging their power and control) to ridiculous, unrealistic standards.
So if we put Internet kiosks in a communist country and the regime doesn't topple in six months, that's a failure of the Internet? Get real!
I know this is nothing new, but am I the only one who doesn't see this new mingling of promotion and editorial which seems to now be totally dominant? An entity "proclaims" something IS the way it IS. Never mind coming up with a realistic explanation. Most people have such short attention spans they don't check the facts or read between the lines.
Did someone expect that tyrants could just be voted out with a web poll?
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
The kind of change the article is talking about can take years, even generations. Widespread access to the web hasn't really existed in most areas of the world but for a few years. Just as radio and television broadcasts didn't topple governments overnight, neither can we expect the web to be able to. But the web will play an important role in change. Those young people surfing pop-culture sites are really the bigger threat to totalatarianism - as they grow older, they'll start to look around and see what people in more liberal, western countries have versus what they have and realize the truth.
It is to be expected that where power is derived form force, the existence of the internet will have little political effect. On the other hand, where power is derived from propaganda the internet will have significant effect. This thesis is borne out if you look at recent political movements in the west, e.g. the anti-globalisation and anti-war movements.
The number of people involved in the anti-war movement in particular was unprecedented, and depended largely for its success on the internet - both as an alternative news source and as a organisational tool.
Internet is not only the web, and not all the web is about big webs. Its also small forums, maillist, irc, and instant messagind. If people mix with other, will know about how cool is to live at a democracy country, and be jealous... ..the article is simplistic at first. The Internet is a powerfull tool, with unknom hidden effects long range. I suspect.
-Woof woof woof!
Freedom of speech undermines revolution. If you don't have the freedom to speak your mind, you build up anger that you can't release. Eventually enough people build up enough anger that they do speak out and with critical mass they form a revolution. After all, if free speech is outlawed, you better arm yourself if you want to speak out.
Free speech generates a culture of back seat driver, couch potato swear-at-the-images-on-your television citizens. It's better to let out anger than leave it in. I think I like it that way. It's better than revolution.
It's true that the internet is not the cornucopia of freedom it was hyped up to be.
But the underlying premise, that information is essential to liberty, remains true, and the internet as a technology (perhaps not as a product) is the best way of getting accurate and timely information.
The very fact that the author was unable to access websites belonging to dissident groups proves the point. If the internet was irrelevant, these sites would not be blocked.
In the past, a dictatorial regime would progressively close off the flow of free information to its populace, the better to feed them the diet of lies that sustain such regimes. These days, that is harder than it has ever been, and this is largely thanks to the internet, including humble email.
I believe the internet has brought liberty to many people, it's just that the process is incomplete.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
Ooooo. Help help! I've been branded a terrorist!
...
...
Yeah, there's no way to fight against THAT kind of menance.
I'll just wait here for those tyranical government agents to come and break down my door and haul me away.
Any minute now...
I'm sure they just have a heavy workload. So I'll leave a note on my door letting them know what times I'll be in the house.
ANYWAY. What the original poster was pointing out is that you can hold all the peace rallies you want. The only way to get rid of a tyrant is by naked force. And by naked force I don't mean soldiers out of uniform.
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
yes, because the people refused to do anything. Why? I suspect the Iraqies actually supported Saddam. A great number of Germans supported Hitler, after all, and we are for all intents and purposes dealing with the same basic person.
The article is actually rather detailed and well-thought. The author makes some interesting arguments about why the Internet has not been as great a vessel for democratic progress as some hoped it would be.
One argument is that yes, geeks do not socialize. More specifically, the author argues that the Internet is inherently detrimental to social debate:
Another shortcoming of the Internet is that it lends itself to individual rather than communal activities. It "is about people sitting in front of a terminal, barely interacting," says one Laotian researcher. The Web is less well-suited to fostering political discussion and debate because, unlike radio or even television, it does not generally bring people together in one house or one room.
Another argument is that many governments have simply stifled the Internet completely, reducing its utility altogether:
But the Internet's inherent flaws as a political medium are only part of the reason for its failure to spread liberty. More significant has been the ease with which authoritarian regimes have controlled and, in some cases, subverted it. The most straightforward way governments have responded to opposition websites has been simply to shut them down.
It goes on to mention a great number of examples of such activities; including government policies in Singapore, China and Saudi Arabia, among other countries. I could not fail to be outraged at reading descriptions of such vile cencorship, which is unfortunately a fact of life for a great number of the world's Internet users.
I hear there's rumors on the Slashdots
Actually, speaking as someone who follows this stuff, you're completly wrong.
The Dean supporters don't see it as a "swindle". They see it as Dean took all the media heat for that amount of time..the first person to hit the beach, and hard. And set the tone for the entire debate in a very positive fasion.
What did they get? A very good chance of not only getting Bush out of office, but starting a conversation to make real change.
For those of you who don't know the story, Glass was busted for making up dozens of stories out of whole cloth. The story that finally broke the camel's back was one he made up about a (ficitonal) teenage hacker who held a large (fictional) technology corporation hostage. He invented hacker conventions and fictional US infosec laws to back all of this up. Nobody at TNR figured any of this out-- it took an investigation by another magazine to bring the ridiculousness of this to anyone's attention.
As Glass got more desperate, he manufactured fake web pages (in the AOL members section) for the corporation. Still, nobody at TNR realized this was bullshit, because they apparently didn't know a whole lot about how this Internet thing worked.
Unfair of me to hold this against them? Maybe. But TNR is going to have to do a lot to demonstrate that they're "with it" on technology issues before that kind of ineptitude is forgotten.
Since those who would be harmed by allowing thier citizens to speak out in a public forum also control access to the forum.
Just once, I'd like it if someone called me "Sir".
Without adding, "You're creating a scene."
Toppling tyranny turns out too tough for TCP/IP, thus trifling trends towards tempering totalitarianism through technological tricks. Terrorist throughout Terra are thrilled, thinking their thorny troubles will tidily thin, though they tremble tiresomely, tipped toward technology themselves.
He who laughs last is stuck in a time dilation bubble.
I'm pretty sure the dental records won't match. Or were you waxing retorical about some penultimate meaning of "all intents and purposes"?
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
"Reminds me of Howard Dean, and the trend to see technological change as a politically progressive force. Maybe this is not such a good idea?"
What? You attribute the collapse of Democratic support for Howard Dean as a way of advancing the argument that the internet is not revolutionary? Dean collapsed because of his crazy man scream and other gaffes, not to mention that his "I'm against Bush's war" wasn't enough of a campaign platform to rally behind.
Its actually ironic that you brought this up regarding the lack of power the internet has in toppling dictators. *The Coalition* toppled a well-known one this past year, with military might. The Military (through DARPA) created the internet, and it is integral to military operations. Therefore, the internet IS a revolutionary force that does topple dictatorships. Perhaps after the election, we'll see another regime be toppled through the same means in 2005; a regime that does have WMD beyond the shadow of a doubt - North Korea...
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
Orwell saw that back when he wrote 1984! Ever considered how that whole editing process worked? Or the telescreens? That's technology for you!
Christopher S. 'coldacid' Charabaruk -- coldacid.net
What he got in Laos was not the Internet. It was a Potemkin internet (small "i"), where the government controls the access to controversial people. The Internet is not the threat to tyranny, people are, when using the Internet. The people of Laos are uniquely tyrannized, after their 1970s holocaust which killed millions of people, on the basis of their education and independence. And Laos is just now getting any kind of internet at all, or even foreigners. In a few years, after the inevitable noise in their tyranny signal buzzes the people with any alternatives to the official truth, confirming the crazy ideas of the bearded backpackers scrambling through their mountains, their government will have a lot more trouble monopolizing the minds of their people, leading to the dissolution of their _1984_ style dystopia. From which they will likely move to our own _Brave New World_ style dystopia.
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make install -not war
Let's use Iran as an example. The postings that I have read from Iranian activists who are fightin against the Mullahs say that if it were not for the support of the British, French and Russians that the Islamic Republic would be long gone by now. It comes as a shock to many that the U.S. isn't the only country in the world that props up evil governments for its own benefit.
There is evidence coming out of both the Rwandan government and the U.N. to show that the French government all but carried out the Rwandan massacre. Its officers gave the orders and set up the scenario that made it possible. With a country like France knowingly carrying out those kinds of actions, no wonder many countries are having problems.
The Internet only works as well as the ability of the citizenry to defend it against government control. Most countries are ruled by a governing elite that make America's look like statesmen. At least in America, the elite has to give a pretense of caring about the common man's rights. In countries ranging from the U.K. to Iran to China, the elite not only doesn't care, but often openly shows its contempt.
It's a cultural conflict and that's why most geeks and nerds are so poorly equipped to understand it. The average geek/nerd's understanding of politics is basically like CmdrTaco's: "democrats good because they're not religious right, republicans bad because they are." It was sickly ironic that people like CmdrTaco supported Gore, since 2/3 of the things that were wrong with tech policy at the time could be blamed on the Clinton administration. That again illustrates why most geeks just "don't get it."
Honest political analysis and insight takes a lot of time and effort. The geek mind can deal with it on an intellectual level quite well. The problem though is that society isn't ready for many of the changes. And by society I am speaking more in a liberal cosmopolitan sense.
Most of the human race is nowhere near as liberal as the average American. That is why most geeks and self-proclaimed intellectuals fail when they try to apply American standards to developing countries. It's not that our cultures are completely equal because no culture is better than another, it's that the spread of liberalism takes time.
If you want to protect the Internet, work on spreading liberalism around the world. Give money to the Reason foundation, to the Minaret Foundation if you're a Muslim. Buy copies of Reason magazine, Liberty and other liberal (ie neither conservative nor socialist) publications.
The Internet represents the liberal "end of history" for communication systems. It cannot in the long run work in a world that is largely conservative or socialist.
Disclaimer: I have for a long time been a harsh critic of the foreign policy establishment in America because of their tendency to betray our founders. Our founders would be horrified to see how illiberal America's foreign policy is today, so do not take me to be some wild-eyed zealot. I may be an American patriot, but i'm also a southern nationalist. For those from South America, remember that we Southerners too are at least semi-victims of "Yanqui Imperialism."
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
"Another shortcoming of the Internet is that it lends itself to individual rather than communal activities. It "is about people sitting in front of a terminal, barely interacting," says one Laotian researcher. The Web is less well-suited to fostering political discussion and debate because, unlike radio or even television, it does not generally bring people together in one house or one room."
That's a big Whisky Tango Foxtrot. A huge one.
Where has this guy been? The reason why the internet is so useful is EXACTLY that reason. It doesn't need people in one house, or one room. People can be comparing ideas and improving them from across the street, across the state or across the world.
The world is run by ideas, and only by improving and refining those ideas can any progress be made.
It's open source politics, that's really what it is. And to think that it's not changing things, well..you might as well think that linux isn't changing things.
Check out Eschatron or Daily Kos to get some of the best examples of this principle at work.
Here Here... When will people figure out that the west is not the only way to live.. Bobdamn Ethnocentrists. You put it well.
Techno-utopianism predates the Internet; it goes back to the Macintosh:
"HyperCard is uniquely suited for activist causes. It goes without saying that its great ease of use and flexibility favors the underdog. Activist groups have often relied on people power and maneuverability to counteract the brute economic and political force of various Powers-That-Be; HyperCard can enhance both of these advantages."
-- "Signal: Communication Tools for the Information Age (A Whole Earth Catalog)," Kevin Kelly, ed. Foreward by Stewart Brand. Point Foundation, 1988, p. 164.
Today the same religious zeal can be found among Google cultists.
The principle is that if people can communicate with each other, rather than rely on the mediation of the dictator, they are harder to tyrannize. In Iraq, Saddam stayed in the center of the "public". We'll never know whether the Iraqis would have gotten rid of Saddam once they got freer communicaion, because the US cheated them of their chance at an American style revolution, in favor of a murderous nanny "rescue" that disempowers the people yet again.
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make install -not war
This being slashdot, i'll go out on a limb and assume your from the left and was reading the grandparent with leftist views in mind, but... how do you know he wasn't talking about the use of force to overthrow another tyrant recently. Regardless of what you think of the war, force used to oust a tyrant(regardless of the current problems) does seem to work. Just playing devils advocate, i think bush fucked up the country too, but i've also got some crazy views on the war...
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
The internet also provides an outlet through which the average somewhat Internet-savvy person can do their own pissing and moaning about the state of things.
Those who live under tyrannical governments do not be an outlet through which they can express their opinion without their being repercussions, therefore the internet as a political tool is largely irrelevant in said countries.
But the internet has been a tremendous tool in turning the tides against political apathy. That, or those who were already politically aware and active are just using a new tool to get their views out. Regardless, it can only be viewed as a good thing in terms of it leading to more political awareness.
but rather develop better democracies?
What's so bad about being lazy? What if there was a war and nobody showed up?
Sorry, but this guns=democracy theory doesn't work in either direction. Gunless societies have been democracies and gun-filled societies have been brutal dictatorships and/or warlord-run anarchies.
What keeps governments honest is a well-educated populace that can see through the governments claims and is resistant to propagandizing. Thank you.
And had he been nominated, he would've probably toppled ONE tyranny.
Terry McAuliffe?
Well, there are several issues to be considered here before Mr. Kurlantzick gets ahead of himself.
The internet is a relatively new phenomenon. In many areas of the world--especially Laos--it has not undergone mainstream proliferation. Many Laotians do not have access to the internet, and contrary to this article's claims, many of them are still illiterate. Those who can read can only read the Lao language. Until the Internet has mainstream acceptance among the mainstream of Laotians, there will be little revolutionary activity. This will take time, of course, because revolutions aren't born overnight. As says the historian Howard Zinn, "so far, human history has consisted only of short runs."
This, of course, assumes that people want to revolutionize. Erich Fromm's _Fear of Freedom_ suggests that "individuals, and therefore societies, have an innate tendency to revert to systems of political and cultural restraint rather than to take advantage of opportunities for freedom or emancipation--and that they may actually seek out governments to control them rather than face the prospect of individual freedom." That Laotians do not revolutionize is not an inherent limitation of the internet but rather an inherent aspect of human nature.
This kind of borders on a gun control argument....but, I can state a couple counter examples to your argument off the top of my head: Japan, England, current day Germany. All of those places don't have a form of the 2nd amendment and they are model democracies.
What do they expect? Massive incursions of angry libertarian geeks? Dissidents armed with plotters and inkjet cartridges? All change takes time, but the fact you can now get employment in a tin shack in Africa making custom goods being sold in the US - and getting a percentage of profit from every item you make WHILE tracking those items yourself - just screams "empowerment thanks to the internet."
What happens when the old guard in china dies? Or in Cuba? Does anyone really think the internet won't play a huge role in helping new political groups organize? What about the reporters in China who got news out on Tianninmin using cellphones, fax machines, email and other tools of the (then) infant internet?
It's all very well to talk theoretically about information setting people free, but the bottom line is that if you live in one of these countries and you make "dissident information" available online the authorities will very likely track you down. Similarly, if you are seen to be accessing the IPs associated with "dissident information" you will, at the very least, end up on some kind of watchlist. Sure, the availability of Internet cafes helps some - you obtain a veneer of anonymity by hiding in the crowd - but probably not enough to really let people speak out. What would really help is something like the old (and apparently now defunct) Freedom system that Zero Knowledge Systems put together, which used strong crypto to dissociate sender and receiver from each other. Of course, then the authorities will just pick up anyone producing encrypted traffic. But if all traffic ran through a Freedom-like system...
Ok, ok, I know that's wishful thinking on my part. But I can hope, can't I? And maybe if enough of us living in countries that still retain some (political) freedom started to make use of Freedom, and encouraging businesses and news orgs to do the same, then it would begin to permeate the 'net as a whole. Sigh, there goes that wishful thinking again...
Am i the only one who lost the first Y in the headline and thought, whoa.. slashdot got raunchy?
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ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
It's wrong to say that the Internet is not democratizing politics, and the author of the article gives evidence of this, in this paragraph quoted from the article:
"The Internet has had more impact on politics in Malaysia than in Singapore," says Cherian George, who is writing a book on Internet usage in Southeast Asia. There are several nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in Malaysia committed to investigating the government;... As a consequence, when activists in Malaysia want to use the Web to highlight human rights abuses, George says, they can draw upon the information amassed by the NGOs from their networks of sources.
Social change is often largely hidden for years before it shows obvious external characteristics. That's what happened in the former Soviet Union. The people did not have access to much information about the outside world, but the leaders had complete access. The breakup of the Soviet Union was largely due to Soviet leaders not believing in their own mental constructs, after years of experiencing the outside world.
The internet hastens these hidden social processes. For example, all of China's leaders have completely uncensored access to the entire internet. This makes them more aware of their own mental rigidity.
A wise man said: "If erections could change the system, they'd be illegal."
This is the same process that toppled apartheid and the USSR. Back then it was FAX machines TV and radio. Once people have access to many sources of information, good and bad, they will begin to make up their own minds. Information is subversive. Information acts below the surface. How it will impact society and when, cannot be predicted. Who would have predicted the fall of the USSR even 2 years before the actual event? The same with apartheid.
The Internet is only part of the process. It is also the hundreds of TV channels. It is the Palestinians getting better are presenting their cause to the world at large. All of these things are conspiring to destroy Israel. There is nothing that they can do. It is simply the power of truth to defeat lies. The Israeli's think that increased opression will save them. The Israelis have mountains of guns, fighter jets, money and even nukes. None of those things will save them. They are the world's last racist state and the world sees them for what they are.
They think that high tech weapons will save them. Instead, it is the high tech Internet that is destroying them.
It's my understanding that a lot of the organization for the coup that took down the Soviet Union was done by email. Of course, at the time, the internet was under the radar. More recently, massive demonstrations that brought down a government were organized by text messaging. The lesson here is that communication technology may indeed be a threat in places that actually allow the people to use it. The Chinese government is right to be afraid, because internet usage is quite widespread there. North Korea probably has nothing to fear.
WARNING: there is a trojan on your
The problem with the internet is that it supplies an overwhelming set of viewpoints - generally cancelling each other out.
People do not have the time to digest this mass, and thus fall back to other channels.
While I have no doubt that the pen is mightier than the sword, a billion pens all scribbling at once aren't going to result in anything usable.
In the early days of radio some people actually believed that putting radios in police cars would end crime and that radio was a force for world peace. When television was new it was assumed that it would be educational and raise the level of literacy.
I don't see much difference between these earlier beliefs and current superstitious ramblings on by baby boomer journalists about the power of the internet.
The internet eventually will make a difference in politics because it's how people communicate. It just won't be as magical or quick as some of these writers assume
the internet--once heralded as a revolutionary force in politics--has turned out to be surprisingly nonthreatening to dictators and tyrannies.
I can think of a few dictators and tyrants whose kingdoms are threatened by the power of the internet. The internet is scary to some, exciting to others, because it's people working together.
I'm not normally an irrational zealous dickhead, but I figure "When in Rome..."
Here is one counterexample
Also see the Poland, East Germany, the Soviet Union
Soylent Green is peoplicious!
Actually, he would have toppled TWO tyranny's in my opinion. He was the rare politican who spoke from the heart. The political machine of BOTH parties got him. The Democrats were as afraid of him as the Republicans.
Save a Life. Donate Blood. Please.
...who explained to me that in a dictatorship, it doesn't matter what people think, because you have a gun to their head. If you can control what they do, then what they think doesn't matter.
Only in a democratic system, where direct extortion is prohibited, does thought control become necessary. When people are relatively free to do as they please does it become necessary to control what they think - and that's what the media cartels have learned how to do.
The Internet allows for the relatively free flow of subversive thought and criticism, which certianly sparks change in societies where force is not king. But in a dictatorship, That's not enough. Until the Internet traffics in guns, dictatorship won't care about it.
True. Non-violent action usually does.
Remember the fall of the Berlin wall? Around that time a third of humanity rid themselves of dictators mainly through non-violent action.
Now, non-violence does not always work (Tien an men square...), nor does it always work fast (South Africa, India, Burma, Tibet...) but then neither does violence. With Afghanistan slowly going back to the Taliban, that lesson should be clear.
Also keep in mind that the people that you train to use violence can then use it against you- another lesson that should have come out of Afghanistan.
I'd rather trust in organized, informed non-violent groups than in gun-toting ideologues. I'll choose the internet over guns any day.
Information: "I want to be anthropomorphized"
On a large screen on one wall, music videos featured Madonna gyrating half-naked.
Was she sreaming, "Fuck you! Fuck you all for stealing!!!!"?
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"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Has Internet improved democracy in the USA, or anywhere else in the civilized world?
-- The best way to accelerate a computer running Windows is at 9.8 m/s^2.
"In fact, in some repressive countries the spread of the Internet actually may be helping dictatorships remain in power."
Where's the evidence?
"Except for the tourists, no one seemed to venture onto news Web pages"
Perhaps there is a fear with the people to see other news? They might feel the government is watching everything they do and somehow they will have to face consequences for looking at the "wrong" sites. It makes you wonder, why won't they discuss current events?
IGB: More fun than eating oatmeal!
I don't. Neither does CSIS or the CIA.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't dictatorial countries such as Laos, China, and Cuba generally centralize Internet access thru government-owned gateways so they can filter any content they don't like? I admit that keeping out "subversive" materials would be easier said than done, but such governments could (for example) firewall access to the Washington Post web site or whatever and make it harder (though obviously not impossible) to read their content. They'd also be able to keep an eye on Internet traffic, perhaps sniffing for certain keywords and phrases, to see whether anyone in the country is accessing "subversive" material.
*ahaem*
The Web site you quoted is about Cambodia, not Laos (as one easily can see by just looking at the home page).
The telescreens weren't interactive - they were really just TV (did they have surveillance aspect too?). You couldn't even turn them off IIRC.
;-)
The internet is totally different - it's so "interactive" (which pointless blog do you want to read today?) you don't WANT to turn it off
Freedom: "I won't!"
When Dean's winning, we have a group of pundits saying "this changes everything." Now that he's out, we have pundit saying, "this changes nothing." It's interesting how truth enters the noosphere. Ppl are like bits, believing one simplistic statement or another. When enough ppl believe a certain statement, poof, that becomes reality. For example, the Earth is round. I have no evidence to believe that, but it has such a saturation, 99.999999% that it IS truth. religion only has 75% saturation, perhaps, so this is still to be determined, but a "probably" to most people. just interesting to see this kind of memetics. Most ppl chiming in on this here too are participating in pundtry and picking a simplistic argument.
Philosophistry
SMS may be the real revolutionary technology. They have recently been a huge factor in the upset in the Spanish election. Flash mobs have also demonstrated their power in producing spontantenous actions that are utterly unpredictable by the people in power.
It may not serve to get foreign ideas into a populace, but it can greatly accelerate the spread of ideas in a way that is uncontrollable.
I'm optimistic for the future.
been made for political reasons
back in the day we didnt have no old school
First of all, "the Web" and "the Internet" are not interchangeable terms. I'm tired of hearing from writers who undertake to write about the social implications of technology which they don't seem to understand in depth, who seem to think the network is entirely contained within their web browser.
To find things on the web, you have to look for them. Revolutionary ideas don't jump out of the web and slap you in the face. You have to go looking for them. Which means 1) you are somewhat inquisitive 2) you know at least enough about what you're looking for to have enough search terms to plug into Google or some other index.
Which means you are already to some degree indoctrinated into the movement you want to read about. This is why political activism on the web today is something of a global circle jerk. The point of any real change is to bring new people into the fold and spread the idea that they don't need to put up with the tyranny they are living under. Once that idea reaches critical mass, people will get bolder about challenging the establishment, and take appropriate action.
As a few people have pointed out, people aren't going to embrace that idea unless they are really being oppressed in a way that has affected them personally and perhaps traumatically. Tyranny is an acceptable way of life for a lot of people if they have their basic human needs met. They don't really know how much better their life could be because they've never experienced anything better and they don't miss what they never had. Or they are beat down by their oppressors to such a degree that they no longer believe they have the power to change things.
So of course the web is not going to be a great vehicle for spreading new ideas. It's just the simplest and most accessible layer of the internet for armchair revolutionaries to utilize and bitch about. It CAN be a great medium for people who are already motivated and are actively seeking what's out there.
So, the author is half right about the web, especially when he notes that it's an especially easy medium for the despotic governments to monitor and crack down on.
What really will spread the cause of liberty and bring down the most oppressive and iron fisted dictators and oppressive governments in this world is japanese teenage girls with cellphones.
You heard me right. Look there if you want to see the prototype for your revolution. That's right... Rural chinese people and disgruntled Saudi youth are not "gettin' a Dell", dude.
Net connected consumer communications devices will become ubiquitous, and they will support new protocols which are designed from the ground up for social networking. They will support encryption and VPN, and will be all but impossible to suppress. Wireless and satellite have the potential to bypass a lot of the censorship going on at the network routing layer.
I could give this writer a break for not having the vision to see where things are going, but there is simply no excuse for not seeing how they are today. The people who are living under bad government are lucky to be able to read, have water to drink, and electricity... let alone a computer, internet access, doughnut friday, and a copy of the New Republic.
reply to sysarcathushcom
Not the Web topples tyranny, it's the people who do.
Internet access is a scarce and expensive commodity in most countries ruled by tyranny. Therefore, only the upper class has access to the web (if at all), and upper class normally won't have serious problems with their governments. So expecting the web to topple tyranny is naive, to say the least.
However, the web is a great medium to propagate ideas; ideas which will also influence the few people out there with internet access. Some of these ideas will still sink in, and may eventually lead to gradual regime changes all over the world.
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
Are these local teenagers the sons and daughters of local shopkeepers and farmers, or are they the children of the ruling class? Hmmmm.
----
"Ours was a free culture. It is becoming much less so."-Lawrence Lessig
I'm not up on all the latest crypto/privacy issues, but it seems to me the relative anonymity afforded by the internet would also be a major boon to anyone trying to spread subversive ideas.
The Dalai Llama
well, I know, but nobody else mentioned it...
My sig could be your sig!
The Internet can improve the average life of everyone by aiding technological progress. In the long run people everywhere will gain access to the basic necessities of life and have economic opportunities for improving their own lives.
An important thing is to communicate about abusive leaders, problems, and solutions.
People all over the world feel more unified with instant communications, but it is still hard to express in words what is happening. Bandwidth and recording limitations permit some grainy videos to be seen. We're just overwhelmed by the number of issues. It's like arriving at the scene of a fire. 99% of the time there are legions of firemen already there and you don't want to interfere. Similarly, people who are reporting about problems in detail on the Internet are on top of the situation and the rest of the world waits mostly to see if the people handing the situation are doing a good job. The sentiments of the commissioner of the National Hockey League - he doesn't take sides in the Stanley Cup finals; he just wants good refereeing.
Know your pads. One time pad: good for cryptography. Two timing pad: where to take your mistress.
You need people together out in the streets.
The U.S. is a schizoid suburbia with shopping malls conveniently placed within an SUV drive. But there are no truly public spaces. We are each alone.
While studying CS in school, our graphics teacher said the holy grail of computer graphics was to produce an image that was indistinguishable from a real photo. I asked him if he considered the social implications of such technology...he said "no"...that chilled me then, and still does.
you think it's easy, but you're wrong...
Lets face it, when the government controls the ins and outs of any given form of communication, it effectively becomes useless as a method to insite change or revolution. Honestly, you're better off with lower tech methods, such as leaflets or "freedom radio" to communicate your intentions.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
If political subversion becomes so mainstream that kids in Internet cafes are reading political articles, then this tyrannical government is probably already dead.
Come on, be realistic! How many kids in the US go to political sites? Maybe 1 out of 1,000,000? How many kids in the US even know anything about politics? You might as well do like Howard Stern and go ask a stripper.
The Web is not a panacea. People still need to care. In China right now, most people don't care, they will just live however they can and try to stay out of the way of the government. Some people where I work even want to go back to China because the living is so good now in their eyes. They don't give a shit about human rights, about the right to criticize the government, etc.
The fact is that the Web is another facility for those who care to communicate. For example, e-mail was one of the things that kept the world informed about the attempted coup in Russia in 1996. During the Tiananmen Square in 1990, if activists had e-mail, I'm sure they could have been much more organized, and the people of China could have heard about it and the truth of how the army fired on their own people. The fact is that all other means of communication were completely shut down. I have friends from China who at the time knew nothing of the truth of Tiannamen square until they came to the US to study.
In South Korea, there was a massacre at Kwang-Ju where the army killed dozens if not hundreds of protesters. Again, my friends of Korea at the time said they knew nothing of it.
If more people had been connected to the web, and e-mails were forwarded like crazy between activists and then finally to the regular masses, maybe something could have been done?
This is the power of the web, and it is available to many people... it's the activists job to sell to these people that change needs to occur.
... until they are.
Revolution is often like a kind of boiling point. Under the right conditions everything is a weapon against the dictator.
The web won't cause revolutions, but I suspect it might lower the boiling point and the energy needed to create a population inversion.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
You can't have a technological solution to a social problem.
... it used to religion (hell, in Texas it STILL IS), then a house and a car for everyone, then MTV and CNN, well, and now it's the Internet that serves only one purpose: keep us entertained and drugged up on a worldwide scale, so that every country grows an army of ./ geeks that thinks the latest gadgets are more important than politics.
wtf is a sig?
On the whole, with most news sources, unless somebody is out-and-out lying blatantly, both sides get equal time. The people arguing both sides of the issues are generally chosen to be equally competent.
By contrast, on Fox news, the tendency is to put a feeble, timid Democrat against a bulldog Republican. On the rare occasion that a Democrat gets a word in edgewise, they are summarily cut off because "oh look, we're out of time." When a Democrat is slaughtered by a Republican, they replay the interview constantly. When they make a blunder and accidentally end up with a Democrat that is outspoken and intelligent, the interview is seen once and never seen again.
As a former member of the TV industry, I am utterly shocked and apalled at the intense bias I see in Fox news. That's not saying that other news outlets aren't liberally biased. Their very existence is predicated upon the freedoms granted by liberal thought. However, comparing a group that is just left of center to a group that is just left of Orin Hatch and saying that the latter is less biased is like comparing a pistol to a shoulder-fired missile launcher and saying that the latter isn't as loud.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Most people don't want/can't tolerate freedom. They seek out totalitarian systems and leaders in order to escape the responsibilities and pressures freedom creates. This axiom is as true today as it ever was. Oh well and so it goes...
And you have the nerve to complain about other countries? I note that very little mention in the article was made of attempts by western countries to censor the net.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
It sorta makes sense.
But saying this is better makes you the ultimate couch potatoe. So you would happily live in a police state as long as you are allowed to complain in a forum about it?
Nothing that a lot of cynical people haven't expected for a long time but still sad. Oh well most westerners comfort themselves that they live in a democracy despite the fact they are ruled by a minority (the people who actually vote). Maybe human kind is just another herd animal. Today the lion ate someone else so for now I am safe.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
also, companies don't execute people. The question isn't whether or not companies are allowed to provide material support to tyrants, but whether they should, and whether we should patron those companies.
(sarcasm on) Those are the people who get things done, like in Haiti (sarcasm off). The Internet distributes information. If the Chinese people had access to such a thing during Tiennamen Square, the government wouldn't have been able to cover it up and just let it drift away into the memory hole. Why do you think censorship is such a favored tool of dictatorships like Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia? It is absolutely necessary to prevent those you wish to control from communicating. And, you must not let them find out about other groups who revolt or rise up. Revolution will become an "emergent phenomenon" in the future. Can you imagine what Ghandi could have done if Indians had access to the Internet? How quickly it could have happened and on such a massive scale? Twenty people with guns might get things done in a village, but 200 million pissed off, interconnected people can do a whole lot more on a global level. The entire goal of a controlling power is to prevent the masses from communicating. Just convince them to play by your rules. "Get your guys and meet my guys on the hilltop and we'll have a shoot out." Except, his guys have bombs, tanks and body armor while your guys have pitch forks. Only the idiot plays by the state's rules when it comes to revolution. Rocket propelled grenades aren't going to cut it. And if all it takes is guns to solve things, how come the USA didn't stomp the living shit out of Vietnam?
Even if it's a cliche, it's true. Information is power. It's much more desireable for oppressed people to begin to recognize the seeds of discontent in those around them and begin to resist as a large group. Very little good will come of whatever violent revolt happened in Haiti. Very little good would come from some band of revolutionaries getting guns and taking over China. It just starts over. Someone else is in control of a bunch of ignorant people. Some other guys with guns will come along.
Without television, do you think the Civil Rights Act would have been passed as soon as it was? Do you believe that as many people would have joined the protests around the country?
p
you've been Hannitized, haven't you?
Yeah, because changing the course of politics as we know it is trivially easy. Heck, if the Interweb can't do it a couple decades, clearly, it's just a failure.
It's a little early to proclaim that net capability won't assist revolutions. This report sounds like sour grapes about the author's political views not spreading as they want, and that's unfortunate for the author, perhaps. The reality is that while the web itself will not be accessible to those behind the Red Firewall, it's irrelevant -- those inside will have more effective communication, should they choose to have it, because they'll be able to use the technology.
-----------------------
You are what you think.
We hear lots about armed resistance against the Nazis, but few people write about things like the time 6000 women picketed the Gestapo headquarters in Berlin in 1943 and got the Nazis to release their Jewish husbands, or the fact that nonviolent confrontation of the Nazis by the Danes saved the lives of almost all the Danish Jews. This was far more effective than violent resistance, such as the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.
And unarmed suasion by Martin Luther King and others did more than the violent tactics of Huey Newton and Eldridge Cleaver to obtain civil rights for black Americans.
Perhaps most impressively, we look at the fall of the Shah of Iran. In 1978, the Shah had the largest military force in the middle east (715,000 men, 2500 tanks, 450 major fixed-wing combat aircraft) but was unable to hold power in the face of unarmed fundamentalist revolutionaries.
I believe that Quacker really felt it's important to tell the FBI that this is a joke. Are you really free in the USA?
The Soviet Union fell apart in part because its subjects caught enough images of the West as a rich and happy place from movies, magazines, video tapes of TV ... and then they tried to instantly become America (with big advice from Harvard) and ended up being gangster heaven. Now countries under dictatorship have a much more mixed view of the Wonders of the West available to them and, guess what, the West isn't such a shining example when seen in wider scope, so it leaves the locals more likely to base their utopian dreams on the silly fantasies in old "religious" books - much like many of the more desparate (Republican) Americans today down in the Old South (apologies to the excellent poster who's a Southern Patriot - I'm proud my relatives shot at his and won - although ashamed that we returned the vote to white Southerners too soon by a couple centuries).
Anyhow, the point is we need to remake some of the West so that it can again - under the increased scrutiny the Net allows - be a shining, almost irrestible example. The way to topple tyrants is to offer a believable vision of Utopia - as Lenin and Mao both knew, but as the American Founders also took advantage of in the idealization of ancient "Saxon liberties" that was prevalent in the history books that they all were avid readers of at the time. See Trevor Colbourn's The Lamp of Experience: Whig History and the Intellectual Origins of the American Revolution to learn how this worked. Our liberties are partly from our ancestors (those of us who are of English blood especially) but more fundamentally the product of the particular Utopian dream they mistook for the real, proven prospects of the best way to live - and in large part lucked out on (although there was also a current philosophical basis - particularly in the works of Francis Hutcheson). Hey, it worked. Oh, also note that the "Saxon liberties" that were taken by the American Revolutionaries to be the inherent rights of Englishmen were pre-Christian - and so those current idiots who claim that the Bible is behind it all are being even more wishful in their history than Jefferson and crew were.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
Do you actually know this historic event?
.
Yes. Do you play chess?
While you are at it, get an atlas. The Arabs of Iraq are Asians. .
Yes. I know. In fact, I've made, and had to defend that very point, right here on Slashdot, when I've pointed out that every major European religion is of Asian origin, and thus European culture is essentially Asian culture, all natively European religions having effectively been extingished.
Which, despite personally being an adherent of Asian religious thought, I think is a great cultural shame. Many European religious cultures were quite lovely compared to what replaced them.
KFG
I can understand modding me -1 Flaimbait, -1 Troll, or -1 Overrated (if you don't think Bush is a tyrant). But -1 Offtopic when the topic is about tyranny and this forum is online? Hell, the post is a prime example of tyranny talk plus the web. At least bump me down for a good reason.
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
So what you're saying is that you don't think voting can change anything, but asking the politicians on Slashdot to leave you alone can??
99% of people in the world aren't interested in rising up and overthrowing their oppressors.
Think about it. You may be being oppressed, and life may be shit, but it's *life*. You're still alive. Now, given the choice at your local newly-opened cybercafe, are you going to head for a pro-democracy website full of anti-government rhetoric, or are you going to check out mtv.com for a look at what Madonna's up to? Remember, one of these choices could lead to you being arrested. Pick wisely now.
It's much easier to get on with your life without worrying about such things. Unless somebody's actually coming to kill you *right now* for your ethnic group/religious beliefs/sexuality/whatever, in most countries you can at least have a life - friends, family, marriage, kids and so on - without the concern that you might be dragged off at any moment and thrown into a cell or shot in the back of the head. So why stir things up?
(NB: I'm not suggesting for a moment that I think people *should* just knuckle under and accept whatever tyranny happens to be exploting them. The sad fact is, people *do* accept them, because it's much easier than the alternative - running around in the countryside trying not to get shot dead.)
Governments - of any nation - are more powerful now than at any time in history. And the people who enforce the actions of those governments have guns. And tanks. And helicopter gunships. And a whole bunch of other weapons ostensibly for the 'protection' of the nation that can just as easily be turned against people within its borders.
Hell, if there's one thing the internet's done, it's shown that democracy ain't a magic wand, at least not the way it's done in the US and the UK. Here are two candidates. They're both rich white guys, and apart from trivial differences over specifics, their policies are practically identical. They also both want government to have greater control over the daily lives of the citizens. Don't even bother thinking about a third alternative, because the media has already turned them into a laughing stock. Now choose!
I've come to the sad realisation that not one single political party in the UK even vaguely represents my beliefs. So how do I get my voice heard? (Don't suggest 'start your own party' - I'm on Slashdot, I have zero charisma! ;) And if it's like that even in a stable western democracy, what chance do the 'internet dissidents' have?
You must think in Russian.
The original question was different, originally the question was whether they should be held liable. If the government says that its okay then they are not liable. If the U.S. government actually punished China or other countries for human rights violations then the story would be different. Right now there are no laws that say Cisco is doing anything wrong. Since this is the case they are not liable for anything China does with their equipment.
Companies do not "execute" people, but they do have them killed, or at least allow them to be killed. Here is but one example.
Expecting voting to change anything is like expecting the jail guards to be significantly affected by popular decsions among the
prisoners.
Think of the internet more as a tool of escape.
My knowledge structure and learning has never moved along so quickly as it has in the last few years with instant access to information. Libraries and the telephone are still useful, but the net moves much closer to the speed of thought.
As for uprisings against political tyrany. . ?
I wouldn't rule that one out. One of the best ways to lock down a nation under military rule is to invoke an uprising which 'validates' the use of military force.
-FL
Losing a battle is not losing the war. Just as losing a pawn is not losing the game. Remember the Alamo. I do. I've been there. Sometimes losing a pawn guarantees the game.
.strawman.
How you lose it is what's important.
It would have mattered a good deal in the larger scheme of things if they had only been armed with pens. Likewise the Alamo.
Then why did you write a message with something about attacking Asians instead of attacking Iraqis?
We are all capable of making technical error when working quick and dirty. Does all of your code run first time from prototype?
I never said anything about Celts. I said "some." Your argument is a. .
It is also, by modern historical study, discounted, as the only source for the idea is a clearly propagandistic writing of Julius Cesear. There is no evidence to back it up.
Buring prisoners seems to be a Christian European practice, historically.
Executions take place everywhere.
KFG
Israel fights terrorism every day, and apprehending or killing terrorist leaders is part of that fight.
The Israeli's think that increased opression will save them. (sic)
Israel fights implacable foes who hate it for its very existance, and calling them a "racist state" is so utterly wrong that I'm shocked someone modded your post up. An examanination of your posting history shows a number of -1, Flamebait comments relation to Israel. This is not the first article you've trolled.
I used to be the tyrant king of my own planet. It was a very advanced place, with all kinds of technologies that we don't even have here on Earth. Unfortunately, we got the Internet over there, too, and not six months later, the FUD spread and there was a revolt and I was kicked out of my palaces. Now, the place is in anarchy, and the anarchists had to dissolve their own government on a matter of principle. At least they are consistent in their beliefs. Ok, this post is garbage, and lucky for you, it's over now. Move along, folks, move along.
Yeah, those would be great examples...if any of those were tyrannies.
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
I've also pointed out, which turned out to be even more controversial, that Europe itself is Asian, moreso even than India.
.an atlas. A good one. In relief. You can walk from France to Kamchatka without experiencing any undue hardship. The early Russian settlers of Siberia carried boats across the Urals. Walking to and from India to anyplace else in the world presents certain difficulties. Hence all the brouhaha around the Kyhber Pass over the centuries.
I discovered this fact while my age was still in the single digits by the simple expediant of looking at. .
I like maps. I can read them for hours. Reading a proper relief atlas can teach you more about most historical events than all the prose in the world. I fully concur with the wag who noted the "old men" of Versaille needed to be given a text on elementary geography.
Look at an atlas. You'll find out why Iraq invaded Kuwait. Indeed virtually had to give it at least a try sooner or later. The "old men" fucked up.
Or, more than likely, really didn't give a shit about causing a future tribal war in Arabia.
KFG
Although, I'll point out, that the point of nonviolence isn't to achieve any other goal other than refraining from violence.
It's a belief, not a tool.
This doesn't at all alter the fact that in the right time and place it can also be a very effective tool if one is a nonviolent activist, rather than pacifist.
KFG
Islam still has an endemic genocidal hatred of Jews.
That depends on what you mean by "still." That hatred is historically recent. Islamic countries used to be the safest place in the world for Jews. Certainly all of the truly enlightened Islamics never have had any hatred for Jews. The Torah is their Old Testament, Abraham is held to be the father of the Arab "race" (although there is that casting out into the desert thingy to deal with, which serves as modern religious justification for the hatred. Call me Ishmael.), and Moses is the first of the great prophets.
I thought of bringing up the issue of Buddhism being the only religion that I'm aware of that does not, and never has, espoused any sort of oppression, but I wanted to think a bit harder about it first and see if I could come up with another ( I haven't) and because, as an expressed Buddhist, it might smack a bit of being self serving.
In the case of Buddhism itself there are certain practices of Japanese Buddhism that might seem a bit on the oppressive side to an American or European, but aren't really in context. For instance we are culturally attuned to thinking of being struck as "punishment." In Japan where striking a child at all is nearly unthinkable they have no such inherent association, per se.
KFG
New Republic is a neoconservative pro-government magazine. They claim to be liberals but have nothing to do with liberalism. They are heavily influenced by the modern neoconservative movement.
I can't believe that anyone, let alone the Slashdot editors, take their opinions on "tyranny and dictatorship" seriously. New Republic wouldn't even know what democracy was even if it hit them on their head...
If anyone wants to know the true impact of internet on dictatorship, they should go and ask someone who knows what's going on. This certainly doesn't include New Republic...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
The SAn liberation struggle against the apartheid government was not non-violent. In the beginning it was, but by the 1970s or so, even Nelson Mandela had realised that apartheid would never fall by peaceful means alone, and thus he OK'd the beginning of the "armed struggle" (part of which was the creation of an 'armed wing' of the ANC, Mkhonto we'Sizwe (MK = spear of the nation), as well as APLA (Azanian People's Liberation Army) under the PAC). These organizations, who mostly had to operate outside of SA borders, carried out a number of operations, e.g. terrorist bombings, St James Church massacre, etc. The armed struggle definitely played a part in ending apartheid, and I think if it weren't for the armed struggle, apartheid would still be around now.
The pen is mightier than the sword, but not at any given moment.
Or to use modern examples, the computer is mightier than the gun, but not at any given moment. I own both, with the computer I can write great well reasoned[1] essays that will convince others to help my cause. As soon as I pick up my gun I'm limited the help of those already on my side who know what I'm doing. Sure I can kill 10 people (I happen to have 10 bullets in my house[2]), but once those are gone, I can't kill anyone. Worse, if I haven't made use of my pen beforehand correctly I now have police after me. National television will show the police breaking down my door, and people will cheer. However if I used my pen before hand I could get the people on my side, the police might break down my door, but it will just turn me into a martyr and help the cause!
The pen and sword (computer/gun) combined are much stronger together, but the strength comes from the pen.
[1]Pretend I'm a good writer, I know I'm not.
[2]Left over from my last hunting trip. I hope that I never have need to use my gun for any other purpose. I would if I had to, but I don't want to.
If you're a tyrant, you have the spread of ridiculous lies on the Internet for its diminution of informative force.
People don't even look at maps anymore. This has reached the point where it's nearly impossible to purchase a good atlas. I have one published by Time-Life in the 60s that's a wonder. It makes the traditional, large family Bible look like a pocket book. It must weigh about 20 pounds. Maps galore, geographical in relief (including the sea floor), political, climate, etc. Each country or region given its own full treatment, not just a "this is Asia," in 8 1/2 X 11.
After the fall of the USSR I went out to look for an updated version and discovered that there's just no market for that sort of book anymore, so they had stopped making them.
I'll have to look again. Maybe now that the map has settled a bit they've given it another go.
Americans these days think "Latin America" and "South America" in conjunction.
If you really want to get them going point out that Texas, California and Florida are Latin American. People who live in Los Angeles, San Antonio or Miami who want to see English become the official language are going to have to think of all new place names.
Nevermind the fact that I don't think one American in a hundred knows that over 200 million Latin Americans don't have Spanish as their first language. Or that the majority of Latin Americans are white Europeans ( perhaps they don't know what "Latin" means?) or that there is a sizable Arab and Japanese population.
It's all "Here there be dragons wearing ponchos."
KFG
...since the web was largely used as a grass-roots effort in the United States to OPPOSE the toppling of Saddam's regime, this is not surprising at all.
In that case, if anything, the dictator got a leg up on freedom.
What destory the Berlin Wall was a few East German politicians brave enough to stand up and isolated the ruling class before a massacre
could accrue. What those few people there would have been ten of thousands of people die.
There is a really sick perception that Non-violent can overthrown dictators. These people live in a fansty land.
once heralded as a revolutionary force in politics--has turned out to be surprisingly nonthreatening
I assume this is the part that reminds you of Howard Dean?
I'd rather be a conservative nutjob than a liberal with no nuts and no job.
I've read the book as translated by an Iraqi educated at London University. I must say I found it rather tough sledding, mostly due to the quantity of disjointed repetition.
I've been working a bit on my Semetic languages. I suppose I'll have a go at bits of it in the original when I feel up to it, but admit that Omar the Tentmaker is more to my taste.
I can't say I found any special hatred toward the Jews in it. He certainly brings them up a lot, as he does Christians, but seems to be a fairly balanced hater to me. If he had any special pet peaves it would seem to be hypocrites and idolators, and I can at least sympathize with that.
I wish he'd taken a night course in prose composition though.Why is it that so many prophets have trouble keeping track of the narative?
KFG
The point that you're missing is that all the militias in the world are worthless without intelligent leaders who can fill their heads with new ideas and get the ball rolling for violent action.
Look at the US's own militia organizations. Honestly, they're a bunch of hicks with no leadership and no ideology. They sit around while congress passes laws like the PATRIOT ACT. They sit around doing nothing while national elections are in serious question. They just talk and shoot targets. That is the sword by itself.
Obviously, you need well-read "pens" to get the "swords" going. Both elements are needed for change but the "sword" is the most useless alone. At least a lowly poet or a political writer can pass on memes and information that one could not get elsewhere and make them question authority. No "sword" can do that, that's why unarmed dissidents are rotting away in jail while militia boys are playing Rambo in the woods.
"Another shortcoming of the Internet is that it lends itself to individual rather than communal activities."
Obviously the author has never visited dailykos.com or atrios.blogspot.com which have developed their own communities nad are motivating people to act locally, vote locally, and gather funds in the range of tens of thousands a week to democractic politicians.
They also criticize media and bring to light stories buried or neglected by the corporate press. And these are just two examples of thousands of political sites making a real difference everyday.
Also, the internet is not just for geeks anymore. That argument might have made sense in 1995.
Yeah, those would be great examples...if any of those were tyrannies.
Are you saying the countries of Eastern Europe under communism were not tyrannies? I think in the context of the article they fit the bill perfectly.
Uh, you aren't Gerald Ford posting under a nick, are you? :)
Soylent Green is peoplicious!
The people who lived through the depression and got their MBAs before the fall, and scrounged for food like the rest of us, after, had intelligent, visionary MBA professors. They taught these students that "The moment a product is created, there's a demand for it, however small. The trick is to find it."
Obviously this was a few years before someone tried to sell a piece of moldy toast on eBay. :>
I don't know who posited the idea that the internet would help in any way to overthrow governments...was this the guy who dreamed up WebVan? Pets.com? :>
Sure, it informs....sometimes MIS-informs...but people still have to DO it. And just about everyone who's spent a little time there learns that not everything posted on the net is 'gospel'...so I ask you: if you learned something awful on the net, would YOU put your family on the line and overthrow a dictator?
Just checking.
In memory of the dot-coms: circa 1994-2002
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
That's a good question, especially since the phrase is of French invention. Ah, the vagaries of geopolitics as expressed through culture. For some reason, after expelling the French, the Mexicans kept the term. Perhaps they liked the percieved grandeur of it. The Spanish have always liked a bit of grandeur.
Ibero-America is now prefered by some to deal with that very issue. If nothing else it'll keep people from saying, "Hey, if it's Latin America, where are the Italians?"
Just where the Romanians fit into this I haven't a clue.
I'll have to get back to you on the title of the atlas. Right now it's locked up in the auxiliary library number two, which is inconvenient for me to get to right now.Watch this space tomorrow.
Auxiliary library number one is that stack of boxes over in the corner. I haven't been building bookcases fast enough. God help me when I have to move again. Ebooks have the advantage of being light and not taking up much space.
If only they were as nice.
KFG
In both cases they were sacrificial delaying tactics. There's some question about how really valuable the action at the Alamo was, Sam Houston probably would have had his army together anyway, but of course that's only in hindsight, but I don't think there's any question about Thermopylae. The Spartans held the Persian's advance for five days, allowing the Athenians time to make their, ultimately successful, defensive preparations. They were a pawn to be sacrificed, and they knew it.
Nor were they exactly defeated. A Greek traitor showed the Persians a way around the pass and attack the Spartans from behind. There were about 10,000 Spartans. 300 of them volunteered to hold the pass to the last man, allowing the Spartan army to retreat intact despite being encircled by a larger force.
It was an absolutely brilliant bit of strategy and off the cuff tactics and the reason the Peloponnesian Wars are still studied in the war colleges. The battle was "lost," but the war was won as a consequence.
The Battle of Bunker Hill bears certain similarities.
With any more such victories we are lost.
The Athenians, of course, sacrificed Athens itself to gain the ultimate victory.
See also Pete Seeger's song The Phoenix and the Rose.
Many of the greatest strategic wars have been on the losing side. The retreat of the Nez Perce is still taught at West Point. You should read some Chief Joseph. Brilliant man and a fantastic orator.
I don't buy the Inca thing. Until fairly recently it was thought that the Inca didn't practice human sacrific at all. The Spanish didn't report any and they loved to point that stuff out. The Inca did a better job of hiding their religious practices than anybody else though. The Spanish never did find Machu Pichu. Now we know better from the archeological record, but the only sacrific I know of is the sacrifice of female children, one at a time, raised for the purpose as "vestal virgins", and this was done by exposure on a mountain top.
The Indian practice of sacrific by burning was pretty terrible, considering the circumstances and the victims. One of the good things to come out of the British occupation was the end to this practice. The Indians were far more repressive to Indians than the British ever were. Nobody likes being a vassal state though. Although many Indian states were vassal states to other Indian states before the arrival of the British.
Ah, the complications of colonial geopolitics. Didn't work out for Rome in the long run either. American politicians could learn a few things by reading Gibbon. Those of them that can actually read English.
"What did the Romans ever do for us?"
The subjucated are always ungrateful wretches. I don't know what's wrong with them.
By the way, northeastern American Indians commonly practiced suicide by self immolation. The fire acted as a ritual purifier. Reading Fenimore Cooper makes no sense unless you understand this, to the extent that Fenimore Cooper makes sense. See Mark Twain's criticism of same.
Simply as a point of fact I'm "Way smarter" than the average of any group you care to name. As an example, I'm smart enough not to belong to MENSA. What a silly idea for a social group. My wife was a member. Mostly they sit around wondering why smart people like them can't seem to get along.
Hey, Sparky, it's because you're a smart Boston Liberal and he's a smart neofascist. Get a clue if you're so smart. Smart doesn't mean "like minded," just minded, for sufficiently small values of minded.
If you want to have fun why don't you join a group of stupid people who are into what you are?
If I were of a mind to be facetious I'd say that brings us right back to Slashdot.
It isn't an issue of their being willing to have me as a member. More a case of they haven't figured out a way to keep me out yet.
KFG
-- $SIGNATURE
Disclaimer: I'm a part of this significant subset of the democratization industry that Kurlantzick mentioned. Kurlantzick is sadden by the inability of the Internet to topple regimes. Note that by Internet he means the World Wide Web and that he seriously anticipated the Internet to empower the meek and downtrodden with the weapons and ammunition needed to stage revolutions that will remove tyrants.
The Internet is a powerful force for democracy because the Internet is an enabler of open communication. It is just like a radio, a television, or a newspaper - all three of which have ignited flames of revolt all throughout history. The ability to voice one's opinion as well as one's oppression is a prerequisite to the democrazation of any social or political system. Now obviously a government can hinder the effectiveness of the Internet. China did this with Google. We did it with Early Bird. Cultures can also handicap the effectiveness of the Internet.
True story. A North African Muslim couple come to the US to study Information Systems. They catch the entrepreneurial spirit and decide to open an ISP in their home country upon returning home. A couple of years later they return to the US, having not started that ISP. Their reason was that their society was very fundamentalist Islamic despite a few liberal pockets. By starting an ISP, they would expose their customers to culturally and religiously offensive material such as WalMart.com women's casualware listings or Saks Fifth Avenue's pantyhose and shoe catalog. The couple feared a death sentence for bringing in what was considered locally, smut and porn.
This is one specific example of how the effectiveness of the Internet can be limited. However, the Internet has had more success in other places such as the former Yugoslavia. IIT's Project Kosovo and Project Bosnia have successfully used the Internet as a way of documenting war crimes and atrocities and getting the word out to the international community. Democratization efforts depend on getting information flowing. We need to get people talking. We need to start hearing more stories first-hand. The Internet hasn't been used seriously as an instrument for social change until the late 1990s, so results will take time. The ultimate goal is for the Internet to serve as conduit that permits a free exchange of ideas, and that through that exchange help can be given and lives can be improved.
The Internet has an even more important role today than envisioned years ago. Many people are frightened of sharing their political and social opinions in public out of fear of retribution by the authorities. The Internet a vital means for learning the issues from multiple perspectives and for engaging in healthy political debate. At this very moment, tech savvy groups like eToy are engaging in electronic hacktivsm, making people aware of issues that they won't hear about on corporate-controlled news channels. Even now in the US, the safest place to protest is not the free speech zones approved by the government but private chatrooms and blogs.
This is opinion. I've spoken with many forei
Muhammad was illiterate and dictated the Qu'ran to a scribe, so it wouldn't have been that easy for him to look back and forth in what he had "written". Besides which, he did claim to be seeing visions which generally indicates a state of mind that isn't very coherent or rational (often due to starvation and extremely low glucose levels, I think).
People only attempt to topple dictator for only one reason. Not because they want democracy or freedom of speech, but because the live they live is more miserable than the propect of fighting their own governement. That is, most people will find themselves ok as long as they are in minimum warmth (coverage), have minimum food, and a minimum of entertainement. Those minimum can be pretty low depending on your standard of life. But freedom of expression ? It does not enter in anybody's minimu standard BUT for a few hard core political activist. Look back at all revolution. they started because an event made a pressure too high on the population. True, most were afterward "overtaken" by the political activist. But they certainly not were the reason the revolution started (or the revolts in case of failed revolution).
This is why I never paid any attention about this "topple dictatore thru democratic free expression" Stuff.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Coca-Cola should sue the thugs for libel.
I'm not saying that the allegations are true, but I do think it is kind of interesting that they haven't sued.
All singapore goverment structure is equally transparent. It's just an open state, wich is strikingly better to live in than in any of the neighbouring country. The goverment there really cares about citisens, not in horrible 'Big Brother' way you discribed, but by creating opportunites for industry development and doing there best to attract external investments. Just imagine that a contry smaller than NYC in the middle of unfrendly muslim contries.. without any resources, even without water. And in the large part due to the government this contry is still independent, has much better life level. I belive you have never been to Singapore and it's neighbours or wearing your tin foil hat right now..
The original question was different, originally the question was whether they should be held liable
While not liable in the legal sense is one thing. Even if they were legally liable, the is a very real question about who would be able to bring suit against them, since those being directly affected are not allowed to.
The central thesis of the arguments against the router manufacturers who give material aid to tyrannical regimes are morally liable.
Let's not make any bones about it, China is a tyranical regime. The only real question is whether are they are still (and if so for how much longer) a communist regime or just another run the mill despotic regime.)
If the U.S. government actually punished China or other countries for human rights violations then the story would be different.
You mean like the Cuban embargo?
In my fantasy land, a few politicians brave enough to stand up and isolate the ruling class to prevent a massacre does constitute non-violent action.
Even if tens of thousands are massacred, if they do not respond with violence and still achieve their aims, that is still legitimate non-violent action. Non-violence does not totally eliminate the risk of injury or death.
But then again, modern forms of violence all but guarantees people will die- and usually in bigger numbers, with more precarious results.
Information: "I want to be anthropomorphized"
You forget that as part of the armed struggle, the ANC sold itself to the USSR, and became a branch of the Soviet military
That was the version of the story as told to the SAn media by apartheid propaganda, I think you've been soaking up too much 80's NP SABC 'white media' propaganda. They used this propaganda to justify fighting what they basically called "commie terrorists", but it was mostly nonsense. The ANC was not a Soviet "proxy army", you'd do well to inform yourself with the other side of the story (e.g. the freedom fighters themselves, e.g. Letlapa Mphahlele, or better, the TRC hearings).
To believe that the armed struggle played no part in ending apartheid is just ridiculous. The armed struggle helped "tighten the noose" that was (amongst many other factors) slowly squeezing the apartheid government smaller and weaker. The armed struggle made it harder and harder and for the apartheid government to continue oppressing the people: at the height of apartheid, in the 80s, the armed struggle had become increasingly organized, and their ranks had continued to swell, and more and more people were willing to fight for the cause as the cycle of violence began to escalate (much as in Israel/Palestine).
Lack of an armed resistance would most certainly have helped the apartheid government to continue to oppress the people, without a doubt - they had no plans on ending apartheid voluntarily (at least not until FW de Klerk came along, and even that was touch and go for years, remember CODESA).
'Soviet proxy army'? That's the silliest version of SAn history I've ever heard. At best, there was some soviet funding and soviet training, but the evidence is that by and large the fighters were locally organized and most of the training was in rebel camps elsewhere in Africa, where they gained experience from soldiers in other countries who had fought (or were fighting) their own liberation wars.
Thousands of young blacks left SA since the Soweto uprisings to join the armed struggle, to fight for 'the cause', the resistance effectively became ever stronger and stronger, while local support for apartheid government was weakening and more people becoming afraid of increasing violence and civil war. The apartheid government was basically slowly losing control of the country.
No, I don't think he was a Ted Kennedy type, but he certainly probably would have been a New Dealer. He got run out of England for advocating the overthrow of the monarchy and giving all men over 21 the franchise, instituting Social Security, minimum family income standards.
Then he nearly lost his head in France for advocating not Chopping off the King's head. Only Monroe saved his life at the last minute.
While in prison he wrote the first scholarly attack on the truth of Christianity and the Bible, The Age of Reason.
Do you see the trend here? He escapes prison in England for advocating overthrowing the King and ends up in prison in France for advocating sparing the King.
He wrote books entitled things like Common Sense and The Age of Reason, and of courst The Rights of Man.
He was a man possessed by certain ideas of fairness and reason, even where those ideas flew in the face of what everyone "knew was true." His principle dogma was the abandonment of dogma.
Thus he is the most misunderstood person of the period. Even in the context of New Deal socialism it isn't really fair to call him a statist. He hated the ruling classes. He would have been more in tune with the distributionism of Chesterton. Everyman with three acres and a mule.
He is one of those remarkable individuals who never corrupted his beliefs to go with the flow, even at the risk of his life, but can appear to be a corrupt statist from a particular context, and with Paine you always have to take context into consideration because he always relied on reason instead of dogma, and when the axioms change the conclusion changes. When he argues for Social Security it's a reasoned argument based on the idea that the taxes belong to the people, not the King. Anti government pork.
He'd get thrown out of any modern political party, including the Libertarians. Ironic since he's the founder of modern Libertarian thought.
And the further irony is that his writings can be used to support the dogma of any modern political party, as per the site you point out, which I'll have to keep my eye on.
You remember the scene at the end of Lawrence of Arabia where Feisel remarks to Allenby that they're both really glad to be rid of Lawrence?
Paine was the pen to Lawrence's sword, at least as portrayed in the movie they would have made a good team, and been equally dispossed of in the end.
You really have to read him to understand, and if you want to do so without letting ideas of modern politics get in the way The Age of Reason is the place to start. We grew up in an age where questioning the veracity of the Bible is commonplace, so it isn't shocking, and gives a good idea of his thought processes.
Project Gutenberg is your friend. It would be your friend if he were contemporary. He donated The Rights of Man to the public domain so that anyone might be able to afford a copy. He was an open source "file sharer."
Ted Kennedy would have held out for a better contract.
KFG
You rightwingers have become so self-referential that you can't even count. A simple enumeration becomes some strawman for your hissy fit. Think for yourself, and your atrophied brain will cough back images of Iran with nukes, and the rest of the current events that people who read (ie, not your President) that threaten us every day while your boys are running the show.
Even those partisans who don't like Clinton admit the obvious: he's the smartest President we've probably ever had, certainly in our lifetimes. Far from being dumped, he was involuntarily retired, with the highest approval ratings of any lame-duck President ever. It's Bush Jr who's getting dumped, like his nasty father before him, as his lie machine runs out of gas on every front: job destruction, terrorism complicity, obnoxious fratboy attitude, and LIES LIES LIES. You'd better cash your BushCo check fast, denial queen, while their money lasts.
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Anyone else notice the swarm of Anonymous Cowards backing these tired lies about Bush, Clinton and Gore? The absence of anyone with a brain, or willing to attach even a Slashdot handle to their nonsense, for at least consistency?
You might have had this "Clinton fatigue" - that's your right as a self-destructive, brainwashed American. What scandal, the endless perverted voyeurism of bottomdwellers like Ken Starr, whose investigations turned up no illegal activity, nothing that even hinted at any mismanagement of the country, while Clinton managed the greatest growth in world history? The manufactured scandals that rightwing losers like you ate up, barking so loudly that it was difficult for Clinton to successfully protect America from al Qaeda? You morons waved a blue dress for the cameras to protest the attacks on bin Laden that kept him on the run in the 1990s.
In my country, in which New York City is my home, not some pantywaist slogan for attacking countries like Iraq that don't threaten us, we're pretty mad at Bush for stealing the election, destroying the credibility of the Supreme Court and the White House, coddling his Saudi sponsors when they back bin Laden in attacking us, robbing the treasury to stuff his rich corporate patrons while the rest of the country stagnates, LIES LIES LIES about education, compassion, christianity ("Thou shalt not kill", anyone?), and anything else fools like you will believe.
I won't dignify your rightwing pressrelease lies about Gore except to note that Tennessee is populated by biblethumping faith-based fools like you (Elvis, anyone?), and that Al Gore never said he invented the Internet, but he certainly did more than Bush or Cheney, who never even use the Internet, or read a newspaper, let alone define a National Information Infrastructure that successfully transitioned the Net from government to private ownership, while keeping it open and affordable for the public. Get a clue before you start spurting rehashed lies that no one but the infirm and the choir have believed since they were invented by your Republican kleptocrats.
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You ignore the Saudi family funding of bin Laden and other terrorists who attack the US and others across the world, to say nothing of their madrassas which brainwash muslim children into a downtrodden mass of ignorant haters. You can hide behind your strawman Jews lies, and your excluded middle of "control everything". The Saudis controlled the only private planes out of the US after 9/11/2004, carrying the bin Laden family out of the reach of the FBI; we should be finding out what other control they exert over our demented Mideast policies, but we'll have to wait for Bush to get dumped before anyone asks the tough questions. Junior's following in Senior's footsteps, down the chute to the dustbin of history.
As for WMD, you can't fool anyone by twisting the WMD claims. We invaded Iraq because Bush said Iraq had WMD in 2003, you sick rightwing liar. Not the WMD that Rumsfeld sold Iraq in the 1980s, on Reagan's watch, while your boys cheered his attack on the Kurds - who have been sold out by BushCo at every turn, thwarting any chance of a homegrown Iraqi revolution against Saddam. Every WMD inspector admits they're not there, from the Pentagon for the past year, to all the UN inspectors, like Blix, who show that Clinton's agressive attacks on any Iraqi false move defanged the tyrant. That's why Bush forced them out - the truth conflicted with his lies and his agenda. No, you lie about WMD, you lie about WMD lies, you lie about being "moderate" to force your rightwing insanity center stage, and swing the entire spectrum rightward. You are such an ambitious fraud that you call Bush's policies "progressive"! HA!. Take a deep breath and read some of Rice's lies, a short list because they're just about the past week.
The truth is that BushCo wanted to invade Iraq, ignored al Qaeda until they got their desired "Pearl Harbor Event", then took over Kabul in a token gesture while they attacked Iraq. Now sellouts like you parrot their spin, while the Taliban retake Afghanistan, al Qaeda's recruitment skyrockets, Iraqi shi'ites roll out sharia in Iraq, and the rest of civilization fears the US more than muslim terrorists. Drop the lies and do something sane to protect America from the BushCo predators: Dump Bush in 2004.
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Can you describe the major battles between the revolutionaries and the Shah's forces?
As to the Nazis, most of the 6 million lived in countries that did not attempt systematic nonviolent resistance. Denmark saved over 95% of its Jews by nonviolent means. Can you name a country that achieved better results using armed resistance? I never said that nonviolent resistance would work in countries where it was not used!
The New Republic CLAIMS to be liberal but it is anything but. And no, I don't have it confused with National Review...
In any case, conservative magazines tend to favor the people having power instead of government having power.
Are you being serious? Is that why conservatives support the Patriot Act, spying on anti-war activists, holding people without trial, etc? Also, how do you explains why conservatives are in favour of banning homosexuality, criminalizing drugs, etc?
Conservatism is conservatism. The "neo" label is used by few, and is pretty much meaningless.
Where have you been for the last few years? Neoconservatism is the most popular form of conservatism in USA right now. Obviously that fact has flew by you.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
Political-economy primer (mostly) for "my fellow Americans": The dominent mass media, both in the USA and in Venezuela, is owned by a relatively few large corporations and rich families. These owners & influential corporate stockholders are members of a tiny class of extremely wealthy people with all kinds of other financial interests spread across the world. These altruistic folks are sometimes referred to as the bourgeoisie. In the bourgeois press itself, of course, even to identify the existence of this class is widely considered subversive or conspiratorial, but recognition of this ruling class and its vast power is really mostly a matter of institutional analysis. Strangely enough, the media owners select editors who will pursue journalistic policies that will reinforce the power and wealth of the capital-owning class. As a result, the point of view of most of the corporate media is remarkably uniform, even without some secret cabal meeting in a smoke-filled room, plotting to dominate the world (though I don't doubt that some of that also takes place). However advocacy journalism (more honestly called propaganda 'in Soviet Russia') is much more effective if you can convince people that that you are honest & objective (or 'fair & balanced(R)' as Faux News describes itself). Your credibility can be further enhanced if you can convince the sheeple that your point of view is the exact opposite of what it actually is, hence the myth of a "liberal" media.
So when a Venezuelan populist former officer named Hugo Chavez won elections in 1998 & 2000 & promised to improve the lot of the poor majority (which might mean diverting power and resources away from the extremely rich bourgeoisie) the bourgeois press promptly labeled him "authoritarian" (and the "liberal" Washington Post characterized Venezuela as a "Disguised Dictatorship"). The five commercial Venezuelan TV chains transformed themselves into basically a network of 24 hour infomercials targeted against the "democratically" elected government. Eventually the time came for members of the bourgeoisie & armed forces to overthrow the government (with the direct financial & military support of the Bush regime). The Venezuelan TV stations ran free ads every 10 minutes urging people to demonstrate against the government. On April 11th 50-150,000 complied and marched towards the government Miraflores Place to "remove Chavez from office." Shots were fired, killing between 10 & 30 people. Despite the fact that it later turned out that the vast majority of these victims were actually government supporters, the Western bourgeois press (the corporate AP, CNN & NY Times, as well as the supposedly independent government owned BBC & NPR) immediately reported that the shots were from the Chavez government (without sourcing these claims) and that Chavez had "resigned" from office in the subsequent wave of righteous indignation. In actuality a military junta had captured Chavez at gunpoint & anointed Pedro Carmona, the leader of the Venezuelan Chamber of Commerce, as president. Carmona promptly disbanded the country's legislature and Supreme Court, suspended the constitution and initiated a country-wide roundup of Chavez supporters. The 13th U.S. ambassador met with Carmona at Miraflores and referred to him as "president." The bulk of the bourgeois press adopted the tone that, while the coup was troubling, it was the inevitable result of Chavez' authoritarian shennanigans and probably a step forward for democracy. In the meantime, the Venezuelan oligarch-controlled TV networks and newspapers essentially blacked out all news about the coup and ongoing political developments, instead running non-stop Hollywood movie reruns and sporting events. Members of the National Assembly and government ministers tried to communicate with the country,
No, you can't see beyond your own projected racism to understand that your strawman lies are about Jews, when you hide behind the lie about their somehow "controlling everything". Nor do the Saudis, among the greatest opressors of Arabs, unless you're talking about their control of BushCo. You don't really understand racism, so you jump at the chance to libel someone with the charge, even when it's totally inappropriate.
Don't give me that weasel crap about the bin Laden's family being so large - Osama's immediate family was on those flights out, while thousands of Americans, Arab and otherwise, were stranded without a direct line to their "public servants".
We'll just have to disagree that propping up the Saudis at every turn, propping up Saddam while convenient, creating bin Laden's Afghani mujahideen and turning them loose, backing the murder twins Sharon and Arafat with politics, money and weapons, the Iran part of the Contras and their Hezbollah front, ignoring Syria's Hamas war on Israel and subjugation of Lebanon - the snakepit is bottomless - is demented.
The WMD Rumsfeld sold to Iraq during the Reagan/Bush 1980s were 1st used up on Kurds, then destroyed during the ongoing Clinton war putting teeth into the UN inspection regime. They count against your specious argument that your BushCo boys somehow protects us from them, while peddling them, but they don't count towards invading Iraq, because by then they didn't exist. It is only you who's both sucking and blowing on WMDs (and Cheney - nice company you keep there, AC). They hid the WMDs, and my foot tapping is keeping you safe from tigers. Send me a check when you get a chance, true believer.
As I mentioned elsewhere, even people who like Dubya call him "Junior". You're lagging behind your own old-boy network.
If you don't call countless missiles fired at Iraqi forces in the 1990s agressive, enforcing actual UN resolutions, with actual results in containing and disarming Iraq, then you should march right to the front lines in Iraq, where the passive "nation building" is chewing up hundreds of Americans, thousands of Iraqis, all while Junior's war is "over". You'll be just as safe as the Iraqis were under Clinton.
WHERE ARE THE WMDS? Your lies ring so hollow, you should be embarrassed by now. Except of course you don't really care about WMDs, you're just a shameless warmonger whose fix is threatened.
Your Blix/German/Nazi comment is beneath contempt. Take off the tinfoil hat and try catching up with civilization, which abhors war, especially now that we've all had a taste of it.
You can only deny that BushCo was fixed on invading Iraq if you're totally out of touch, or just lying to convince yourself. Al Qaeda attacked us, Bush used it as a pretext to attack Iraq, and now everybody is screwed. When the Spanish tried that crap with their ETA enemies last week, they got what Bush has coming to him, minus the treason charges. The PNAC thirst for a Pearl Harbor event to justify the invasion of Iraq is documented in their own published blueprints, and they brutally followed their own scripts when their own ignorance of their own intelligence bore al Qaeda fruit. All this is documented by the evildoers themselves - nobody buys your childish cries of denial. And your impugning the bias of the documentation of Rice's lies about Clarke is the same useless character assassination Rice herself is fumbling. The self-contradictory quotes and disproving evidence speaks for themselves. Now relax your grip on that flag you're wrapped in, and get with the program, as we flush the parasites from the White House, and get a regime that protects America from our enemies. Or keep saluting the scoundrels and contributing to your own selfdestruction.
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How about this: George Walker Bush is an asshole who should be fired immediately, who never should have been appointed President. You, Anonymous Coward, are too childish to notice the facts and logic when someone calls an asshole an asshole, while documenting his atrocious behavior. Don't ask me to be nice when he's killing people every day, while robbing the survivors of liberty, economy and dignity. Oh, and you get one too: Even people who like Dubya call him "Junior". Only a twit would get hung up on the nickname his own father called him, Dubya, in a debate about life, death, and American National Security.
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Allowing free trade with China was the wrong way to go, stick with tariffs, limit the benefit they can have by selling to us and help out the U.S. economy at the same time. China has made no attempts at friendly relationships with the rest of the world so why should they be rewarded?
I don't mistake what China is, but I believe router manufacturers should not be held morally or otherwise legally responsible for what is done with their products. They offer the same advice to anyone willing to pay, and they charge the same price based on quantity. So if Qwest wants to setup a DSL network that filters qwestsucks.com then so be it, its not Cisco's fault the people buying their products have shitty intentions.My Linux distro has man pages that tell me how to do the same things with netfilter so I hardly see anybody responsible.
I do agree intent matters, if the Cisco reps said, this is how you suppress your population then they would have a moral liability. However, I highly doubt anything like that happened since it is routine practice in the business world.What the heck is Hannitized? Sanitized you mean? And how does that relate to Dean?
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
What do I care how I look to an Anonymous sniping Coward in denial? I stick to the facts:
Among other skulduggery, Bush's Iran-Contra coke flying buddies at ChoicePoint and DataBase Technologies kicked 57,000 Florida voters, mostly Gore voters, off the voting rolls in 2000, to secure a 500 vote margin, "validated" by the same Supreme Court "justices" who line up behind the Chief Crony, Antonin Scalia.
How about that ongoing Iraq war, instead of getting some al Qaeda closure, as atrocious behavior? Steel tarriffs in a shameless ploy to buy industrial votes, unfunding No Child Left Behind, lying about Medicare costs by 50% and silencing the auditor? If you don't hate this guy already, you must hate America, or just have checks coming from the Committe to Reappoint the President - better get that payoff while there's still Treasury to cover it. The rest of us are getting on with kicking the incompetent failure out, and letting America do its thing free of leeches at the top.
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No WMD. Hundreds of Americans, thousands of Iraqis dead since Bush's Orwellian declaration of war's end, with the pile growing higher every day. Stop your senseless lying, your addiction to butchery.
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Nader's running is a threat only due to a at a serious flaw - the winner-take-all system. Nader's 2000 take of a few percent in Florida was still smaller than those erased by Katherine Harris' machinations, so I'd rank voter disenfranchisement as a greater threat than a legal run by a competitive candidate. If the erroneously counted "Buchanan" votes were properly counted for Gore, the Florida electoral ballots would have been properly allocated, the national popular and electoral votes would have been synchronized, and the Constitutional crisis would never have arrived.
As for the Iran-Contra resumes of Bush's current public/private partnership for hegemony: you really should look more closely at that cancer on your party. It has taken over the brain. Poindexter, North, their druglord buddies, even Lee Hamilton the Democrat whitewasher... do they really represent you?
Hank Asher provided the unprecedentedly expensive Democrat scrubbing campaign in Florida 2000, and flew cocaine for Iran-Contra, now profiteering from domestic spying. These criminals kept the Iranians propped up, and defend them even now, as they get played by the Ayatollahs in Iran and Shi'ite Iraq building a nuclear superstate which will threaten us for generations, if we even all survive that long.
FDR, united with his party, the opposition, the American people, and substantial global allies, could wage war in both Europe and the Pacific - mainly by merely supporting Europe (primarily Russia) while leading in the Pacific. The US fought a well defined enemy, in a war novel in scale, not so much complexity. While the Bush administration seems to be unable not only to fight in both Afghanistan and Iraq, but unable to run a reelection campaign and even one successful war. And they're taking us down with them. Neither you nor I depends on the "one man" at the top of this administration, or all hope of any survival would be lost at the hands of George the Squanderer, who has never won any fair competition in his life, certainly not without help from a family fixer. 2004 won't be fixable, in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea, Wall Street, the jobs market, or anywhere else except possibly the voting booths in November. Let's hope he screws that up as well.
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Asher flew drugs through the Bahamas for Iran-Contra before continuing his central role promoting BushCo through ChoicePoint, DBT and the MATRIX. These evildoers are still active, unlike the ghosts of long-gone foreign regimes that haunt you, Anonymous scaredy Coward, but whose own descendants have rejected after learning the hard lessons firsthand.
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I don't know what FoxNews reported, but the US & FL Supreme Courts stopped the counting of ballots, once they saw the risk that Jeb's brother would lose, as per his lawsuit.
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There is no U in favor, so the spelling has been corrected for you.
;)
Thanks...
As far as Clinton and Kerry are concerned, they are not very liberal. Kerry is almost a conservative; he is a centrist with left-leaning rhetoric. He voted for the Iraqi war, voted for the Patriot Act, and hasn't really said anything about Guantanomo Bay. Most of these so-called "liberals" in USA aren't liberals. During this presidential campaign, I think the only ones that I would consider seriously on the left-wing are Sharpton, Kuicinich, and Howard Dean.
As far as neoconservatism is concerned, I don't see your point. I scanned the Wikipedia entry on it and I don't see anything wrong with it. The term is NOT meaningless, contrary to some. Even wikipedia has a long write-up on it. If the term were meaningless, you couldn't classify Wolfowitz, Cheney, Feith, Kristol, et al, as neoconservatives. And you wouldn't have such a long write-up on Wikipedia. The present US government, and the most popular form of conservatism in USA in neoconservatism. I don't see how you can say it doesn't exist.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
If your idea of an actual candidate is one that wins, then you may be right. Otherwise, anyone that is eligible to receive a vote is a viable candidate in my eyes. I do not denigrate anyone...
As far as liberal views are concerned, I would say that the majority of liberals object to the Iraqi war and the Guantanamo incarcerations. You may be right about the Patriot Act though. Many liberals probably have no idea what it is. As far as conservatives are concerned, only a minority object to Guantanomo Bay and the war. The majority support it.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
Obviously you are a conformist, who values the status quo. I, on the other hand, am glad to see people running against massive odds, with practically zero corporate backing. It always boils down to the corporate and establishment support. Since I'm a leftist, I'm glad to see Kuicinich, Sharpton, and Dean run. Similarly, I'm glad to see Ralph Nader run, even though the establishment hates him.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
I kind of like it, too. However, I am full aware of the fact that they have a snowball's chance of winning. They are just not viable, period. One of the theories in the left wing (although this applies to the right wing too) behind running minor candidates is to educate the masses and bring issues to the forefront. Even if one loses, they can accomplish a whole lot by educating the clueless masses who rely on mainstream corporate-controlled media and government propaganda for all their information.
For instance, debates with minor candidates will push ignored issues at the general public. Since USA is a two-party (almost one-party) state, debates aren't THAT important. However, you'll see the impact in British-style systems where you have multiple parties (say Canada or Britain or Germany or whatever). The 3rd, or 4th, or 5th candidate will bring up issues the mainstream parties ignore (eg. worker rights, environment, homelessness, religion, etc) It shouldn't surprise you why a liberal publication like New York Times actually calls for boycotting all candidates except the Democratic and Republican candidates. This is done with a purpose...
Sharpton, while entertaining, has suspect leftist credentials. Why else would his campaign be funded and controlled by a conservative Republican? Dean's record as a leftist is not really that strongly leftist at all (he's leftist, but not far left). Kucinich? Yes, he's leftist for sure.
Sharpton being funded by the right seems rather bizarre, given that he is probably hated by the right more than anyone else. But such things don't surprise me because you wouldn't believe how politics is funded. For instance, did you know that some of Kerry's biggest donors are also some of the biggest donors to certain Republicans? Noam Chomsky once remarked that US politicis is bought. It seems that way at times...
Even though the intent of him running is to give Bush another 4 years? Nader is punch drunk in power, somehow getting off on the idea of being kingmaker for George W. Bush twice in a row. No leftist of any kind could be happy with that.
Nader is cuasing controversy on the left. Some people think he shouldn't be running; some think he should. I personally think ANYONE should be allowed to run. Calling for people not to run is kind of idiotic, not to mention "undemocratic".
I'm a radical (on the far-left) so Kerry and Bush are pretty similar to me. The rhetoric is different but their actions will be similar. From a far-left perspective, the Republicans and the Democrats that have been elected over the last 50 years have shown very little difference. Both parties support war; both parties destroy the environment; both parties are in bed with corporations; and so on. As we discussed already, Kerry voted in favour of the Iraqi war, supports the Patriot Act, and so on. Does anyone seriously think Kerry will make much of a difference? Nope.
I'm not American but if I was in USA, I would vote for Nader or the Green Party, even if it means electing Bush. Voting for Kerry will not make much different from my perspective. Furthermore, by following the "Anyone but Bush" philosophy, one may end up allying with the devil (eg. anyone but the communists->Usama bin Laden; anyone but the communists->Nazis). Clearly anyone with a left-wing conscience should avoid supporting the establishment. Typically, the further away from the center you are, the more you follow my line of thinking (i.e. you stick to principles); the closer you are to the center (say center-left), the more likely you are to support candidates/parties that violate your principles in order to prevent someone else from rising to power.
Leftists lack a healthy disrespect for government power.
Most anarchists are leftists so you are not accurate. After all, anarchists have the least respect for authority and no one of the right wing (except anarchists eg. anarcho-capitalists) come close. Having said that, I kno
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
There is fundamentally no difference between the old and the new government in Georgia. There is less difference between the current leader and the deposed leader than there is between the current President of the United States and his democrat rival.
- but people believe what they see, and the people who now have the power were good enough friends with the press to make it look otherwise.
Still out there? Got your ears on?
I havn't forgotten you. The holder of the key to auxiliary library #2 has been out of town and won't be back until early next week.
However, I've follow my hopes and suspicions and discovered that, indeed, now that the major political map redrawing has settled down for a bit atlas publication enjoyed a brief spurt of renewal in 1999-2000.
The Times Atlas of the World has undergone it's first full revision since it was first published in 1967. This is the uberreference atlas. If you want to know where East Bumfuck is and its precise official latitude and longitude this is the puppy for you.
Pricey even at discount, $175 at Amazon, $200 at B&N, this is a serious book. So large and heavy that it not only doesn't qualify for Amazon's free shipping, they tack an extra $2.50 surcharge onto the deal. This is a coffee table book. That is to say if you open it up on your coffee table it'll take up the entire surface area, or more if you have a modern, wussy coffee table. You'll want 2x4 feet for this thing to leave some margin around the edges. Just enough for a coffee cup if you scooch the book all the way over, but not enough for a coffee cup with any sort of safty for the book.
The National Geographic World Atlas has also been revised. This one looks to be about the equivilent of my old Time-Life. Maybe a bit better volume for just looking at all the pretty pictures than the Times, and you can get by with a 2X3 foot table to open it. $105 plus change at Amazon.
Hammond has also revised their atlas. $52 plus change at Amazon. Cheap enough, and good enough, to be the one you give your kids as their own to carry them from grade school through high school.
And not a bad edition to just keep near your desk for a quick lookup of something. 11X14 format, so the maps are at least large enough to be far more readable then the common desk reference maps.
A spate of work has just dumped in my lap, now I have a sneaking suspicion where some of the procedes are going.
If I only knew where I was going to put them. I seriously need to build more shelves, and as I've already written all of my interior walls are already made up out of bookcases. I guess I'll also need to build a 2X4 foot bookstand.
So I guess I'll need to build a home addition too.
When my permanent home becomes a 22' boat, as it is quite likely to do for at least some years, I'm hosed. Well, my mother reads. I have that going for me. I don't think she'll have any particular objection to "storing" them for me.
KFG
You can't hide among the decent humans anymore, with your rightwing extremes of "everyone this" and "never that". The human world is nuanced, and your robotic denial, with idealized "with us / against us" rhetoric convinces only the terrorized, upon whom you prey. At least you're well represented by clones in the White House, but your mutual ideology of "victory for me, by any means neccesary, regardless of the common cost" sets you at odds even with one another.
Let's cut the spin, already, Anonymous dittohead Coward. Where are some of the ringing successes of your boys in DC? Where has Wolf Blitzer, whose kids are going through college on the lucre from his selective Iraq warmongering(Sr & Jr), displayed journalistic integrity outbalancing his BushCo scripts? Right down to his name, he's a charicature of a warmongering attack reporter, running with the pack, baying at the moon.
Will you now attack me for defending myself against your lies? Will you claim that I now threaten your family? You surely must, though I obviously do not, under your convenient logic which makes the vile Saddam's defense of his regime from a decade of American warplanes into a threat to the rest of America. No credible threat has ever been supported, despite you President's lies about WMD, Niger uranium, poisoning venues as vital to public democracy as the State of the Union. You're falling in line with the lies of nanny Rice, Napoleon Rumsfeld, the vacillating Powell, the amen chorus of deniers and ends/means justifiers who have destroyed the credibility of our entire country, the price we'll pay for the rest of our lives in securing the feudal allegience of true believers like you. Wake up and smell the reality, AC, like the rest of the credulous country is, so rapidly these days. The nightmare is almost over: shrug off the delusions, or get left in them.
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Bush's patrons fund his $200M+ campaign, the billions in kickbacks to his cronies in DC, industry and the media, and the foreign governments like the Saudis who are his only allies in their own faith-based corporate exploitation of as many people as it takes to get what they steal.
Where are your numbers? Everyone knows the Bush tax cuts have stolen from the future of those protected and developed by government health, education and justice systems. And that the proceeds defray the taxes of the richest, especially the corporations owned by them.
My deepest question to you, Anonymous Bushitter Coward, is how much better off are you now than you were 4 years ago. Don't give me any of that bushit about how you're freer with the Iraqmire than with Saddam, or the total denial of Bush's collusion with Saudi and other pipeliners to enhance the terror from saboteurs. How have your taxes declined, your entrepreneurial opportunities increased, your liberty grown, your future brightened? And while you're at it, how about mine? C'mon, here's your chance to convince me, a independent voter (not a Democrat), that Bush represents me, protects me, opens the door to a better future for me than Kerry.
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Even discounting the illegally purged 57,000 FL 2000 voters, mostly for Gore, Gore won Florida. Where are your cited facts to the contrary? When will you get off this treadmill of pure denial, and get with the facts? Why do you hate America?
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