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Using Copyright To Suppress Political Speech
MacDork writes "As most /.'ers know all to well, Copyright is increasingly being used as a means to suppress free speech these days. And the trend has not been lost on our 2004 US Presidential candidates. Both George and John are using copyright law to 'vaporize' information considered embarrassing or harmful to their campaigns. Don't worry about basing your vote on copyright issues though. Like most other domestic issues (gay marriage: no, offshoring: yes), their stance is pretty much identical (i.e. pro Hollywood)."
Like in all great republics, democracy is but an illusion.
The Good Life
John Kerry's friend, George Butler, a New Hampshire filmmaker who has known Kerry for more than three decades is threatening legal action against Vietnam Veterans Against John Kerry.Com. Butler is claiming ownership of two photographs pertaining to Kerry's radical pro-Hanoi days.
1 , a site displaying one of the infringing photographs. It is well-settled that "a party may be liable for contributory copyright infringement where knowledge of the infringing activity, it induces, causes or materially contributes to the infringing activity of another." A&M Records v. Napster, Inc. 114 F. Supp.2d 869 (N. Cal. 2000). Accordingly, you are still liable under federal copyright law for posting the hyperlink.
One is the cover picture that appeared on Kerry's book, The New Soldier which Kerry tried to suppress in 1972. It depicts several unkempt demonstrators crudely handling an upside down American flag to mock the famous photo of the U.S. Marines at Iwo Jima.
Read letter below:
March 5, 2004
By Certified Mail, Return Receipt Requested
and By Email usveterandispatch@earthlink.net
Ted Sampley
U.S. Veteran Dispatch
P.O. Box 246
Kinston, N.C. 28502
Re: vietnamveteransagainstjohnkerry.com
Dear Mr. Sampley:
Please be advised that this office represents the professional photographer George Butler. The above-referenced website is currently hyperlinking to a website which displays an infringing photograph, and is making false statements about this law firm. This must be remedied, or our client and this firm will be forced to commence legal action against you.
Your online service provider, EastLink, was contacted by this office regarding two photographs taken by Mr. Butler that were being used without permission on your website. To ensure compliance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (17 United States Code 1200 et seq.), EastLink removed the infringing photographs on March 4, 2004.
In response, you posted the above-referenced statements and hyperlink to http://www.grunt.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=953
Moreover, the statement that "lawyers representing John Kerry's interest threatened our Internet server with legal action unless the picture was removed" is a false statement of fact. As stated above, this firm represents George Butler. John Kerry is not, and has never been, a client of this firm. In addition, we did not threaten your Internet server, EastLink, with legal action. Rather, our letter and phone calls were required by law to afford EastLink the opportunity to take advantage of the safe harbor provisions of the DMCA that protect the interests of online service providers before commencing an action against any of the websites they host.
Thus, you remain in violation of copyright law by continuing to link to the above referenced website and have published false statements of fact on your website, which is actionable as well. You must immediately remove the hyperlink and the false statements from your website.
If you have any further questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Very truly yours,
Nancy E. Wolff
cc: George Butler
You vote for a third party. Really, people, it's not that hard.
Republicans, Democrats... All the same.
I'm probably at the karma cap. Mod up a funny troll instead, it lightens the mood
First 4 times I clicked on the link (before I tried de-fuglifying it) all that loaded was:
Nothing for you to see here. Please move along.
Paizurishitetai desu ka?
Abortions for some, miniature American flags for others.
get a copyright on this, mr. lowry mays
"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."
after all, that's important 'intellectual' property of your buddy
vodka, straight up, thank you!
In a system without runoff voting, yes it most certainly is. How do you expect people to rally around a worthy third candidate (out of the hundreds out there) when there is such a compelling motivation to vote "NOTKerry" or "NOTBush"? Maybe when they truly are identical someone else can challenege them, but right now there are just too many people willing to vote for the lesser of two evils.
If you're on a college campus and want to work to make copyright law more sane, join FreeCulture.org.
Colleges and universities have a huge amount of power to influence this debate and reasonable copyright law is perfectly inline with the mission of a public education and research institution. So go get linux in the campus computer labs and work up from there!
This brought to you by the Republican party, the political group led by an imbecile cokehead who didn't even have the balls to turn up to his cushy National Guard posting. I have little sympathy for their copyright complaint...
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
GW Bush is censoring free speech because NBC won't let Michael Moore use a clip from Meet the Press.
And John Kerry is censoring free speech because his friend George Butler won't let people slandering John Kerry use a picture he took for their book cover.
Uh huh.
You got something to say, then say it. You don't need these stage props to make your point.
Fucking whiner.
For a long time I've believed that a third party vote is a waste because of our lousy voting system. But I'm beginning to change my mind. If the dems lose enough elections because of spoilers like Nader, maybe they'll eventually back voting reform and we can get a decent system like instant runoff.
I think I may vote my concience this time. I'm begining to think that voting reform is a more worthy long term goal then replacing Bush the tool with Kerry the tool.
Cheers.
Both Bush and Kerry are against Gay Marriage, but there are really only two parties.
So who do the gays vote for, huh?
Go Democracy!
My email addy? should be easy enough.
right from the horses mouth. Big difference between saying "Bush had nonsense answers on MTP when defending his position in Iraq" and _showing_ Bush attempt to defend his position.
It is becoming more and more clear that the focus on tightening up intellectual property law to make it more like a form of "real" property is not just affecting geeks and pirates anymore. As the entertainment industry and members of congress continue to pound it into our heads that "taking any expression from anybody from any reason is bad" we are going to realize extraordinarily negative consequences to our democracy. Will we be able to show the "State of the Union" address after the original airing? I most certainly can't get into Congress to tape it, so it seems that the networks can lock down political information very tightly. Sure, there are transcripts, but political messages aren't just about what's said, it's about how it's said and who the message is said to, and what the reaction to that message is. The use of copyright as a tool to stifle opposing viewpoints or criticism in politics is a very powerful - and extremely dangerous - political weapon, and it is one that could kill democracy as we know it. If we aren't even free to draw up words and images of the leaders who we elect, who we pay out of our tax dollars, and who we let govern us, then the ideals which this country was founded on are dead (if they aren't already). Just because NBC or ABC or CNN shot the film of a leader doesn't mean the public shouldn't have certain rights to choose who can or can't use it or how it can be used. These networks use public airwaves, receive public services wherever they shoot (i.e. the extra police protection around the press corps at the Democratic Convention in Boston) and take the time of our elected leaders. Surely the public deserves a little fair use.
If you don't like Kerry or Bush, you might want to check out the Libertarian candidate for president, Michael Badnarik. I can almost guarantee you'll agree more with him than either Kerry or Bush even if you do consider yourself a democrat or republican.
I was hoping that the person who posted this would deign to provide us with some solid information or maybe just a link. As it is, the post just makes this unsupported claim that Bush and Kerry are using copyright to censor and then asserts without proof that they are no different than each other. Could someone please explain to me how something this thin got posted here.
Seriously, though. Demopublicans, Republicrats, same same. Both parties are feeding at the corporate trough. I'm hopeful that under Kerry we'll have Evil Lite rather than Double Evil with Cheese and Curly Fries.
I like Nader and his take on things - I've been a fan for a long time. But I don't think he has a shot - he's not going to be on the ballot in many states, some of them key states like California.
It would be nice if one day we can have a third party candidate who (a) had a hope in hell, (b) wasn't a nutball, and (c) had the stones to be a progressive rather than a "me too" corporate slave.
Kang: Go ahead, throw your vote away.
>Like most other domestic issues (gay marriage: no, offshoring: yes), their stance is pretty much identical (i.e. pro Hollywood)."
That's not true. John Kerry is anti-offshoring. He went as far as naming CEOs who do extensive offshoring "benedict arnold" CEOs.
That is the stupidest title I have ever read. If you think this is 'only in America', you need to open your eyes and take a look around. When it comes to free speech, the US is pretty damned liberal. I can still fly a confederate flag and wear a white hood if that tickles my fancy, but in free thinking places like Germany you can be arrested for doing a stiff armed salute or displaying a Nazi symbol - and it isn't like Germany is the most toltalitarian of places in the world.
Catchy phrase, but pure bullshit karma whoring.
They're our ruling class. They take positions that benefit them, and only them. It bugs me to hear starry eyed morons going on about gov't for/by the people, and never stop to consider that America's got rulers just like any Dictatorship you care to name. The fact that you can sometimes join the ruling class doesn't change that. If the people ever really do wise up and start trying to change things, you can bet your @$$ our facade of democracy's gonna colapse real quick.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
When corporations can absolutely control what you can archive, reuse, or replay - that will be the day that free speech is reduced to what an individual can mimeograph and hand distribute. And there are already laws that chill that speech, such as vandalism, loitering, disturbing the peace, unlawful assembly, and thousands more. Don't worry, one applies to you. Right now.
So violate copyright every chance you get. Copyright has been abused to the point where it is useless, unjust, and no longer represents the intentions of the framers of the Constitution. Civil Disobedience, kids - 1 in 6 Americans can't be wrong...or can they?
I'm trying not to troll of flamebait here, but this really isn't a good reason to vote for somebody. You're comparing an existing record vs. a nonexistant record. The two cases can't be compared without baseless assumptions. That aside, I don't think anyone with half a brain should be voting for Bush. But, the enemy of my enemy is not my friend. We learned that with Stalin, Pakistan, Saddam Hussein (issue aside please), Howard Dean, Ralph Nader, etc. You should think about choices that are still there. Think of it this way: there are a few choices out there and you've only eliminated one; you should weigh the remaining choices or eliminate them in roughly the same fashion. Hey, from this comment I can see you're at least a somewhat intelligent person. It'd be a shame if you lost your intelligence in the voting booth.
main(0)
This article makes it sound like both candidates are engaging in a campaign of suppression. If you actually follow the links, you find out that there is (as far as i can tell) only one lawsuit per candidate, and that the suits were not filed by the candidates.
I think copyright holders are wrong in both cases, but the candidates aren't necessarily behind it.
If you want to know where a politician stands on an issue, you should ask them and check their record. It's not enough to find one example where they've benefitted from someone else's lawsuit.
Come to think of it, how come these suits are only evidence in one direction? The candidates aren't party to the lawsuits. You could just as easily say that both candidates are against copyright suits because a movie that helps Kerry is being suppressed and so is an ad that helps Bush.
-- . . ramblin' . . .
That's why I'm voting for Kerry. His party is much less effective at passing legislation restricting citizens rights than is the Republican Party. And with the Republican control of Congress, the balance of power between the Legislative and Executive branches will defang them more than ever. Moreover, the more precarious position of the Democratic Party makes it more responsive to activism from the people. Through individual donations to the DNC and anti-Bush "527" corporations, especially over the Internet, the people are much more important to the DNC than they are to the RNC, which protects their corporate "donors" more effectively, at the expense of the people.
--
make install -not war
GW Bush is censoring free speech because NBC won't let Michael Moore use a clip from Meet the Press.
l ?pg=5?tw=wn_tophead_6
BZZT! Sorry, but that is incorrect. It is not Micheal Moore, but another Iraqi War documentary maker: Robert Greenwald, who is trying to use the clip.
Source: This editorial from Wired about, not-ironically, big media and copyrights suppressing democracy.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.08/view.htm
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Threats and bullying only work when you give in to them. If you're not willing to fight and sacrifice for your rights then guess what, you don't have them. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, and that means doing things that are uncomfortable in the short run to ensure your freedom in the long run. Giving in to the abuse of power only makes that power more likely to be abused in the future. To stand fast and say "NO!" is a victory in and of itself regardless of the personal cost.
I don't know about you, but threats from law firms don't scare me. If they think my freedom and my rights are less important to me than my bank balance then they are sadly mistaken.
The fact that the law can be used to harass is a two way street. At the end of the day it all comes down to who is going to blink first. Who is willing to go the farthest, dig the deepest, and get the meanest. I don't know about other people here, but I'm one of the most vicious, spiteful, ruthless and stubborn people I know. I'm a nice guy when others are nice, but when it becomes clear that someone is trying to fuck with me my demeanor changes rather dramatically. When someone is clearly my enemy, I have no conscience, no scruples, and I'm willing to go as far as is necessary to make my enemy wish they were never born. This aspect of my personality is sometimes frightening even to me.
If I were someone these shysters were threatening, I do believe I'd tell them to put their money where their mouth is. Make them spend the time and money to pursue me. If they did...well lets just say that they'll wish they hadn't. That is the kind of vigilance that is necessary to secure and defend one's rights against abuse at the hands of others who have more money and power than you do. Make it as painful for them as possible at every turn. Make them PAY for it in ways that they just aren't willing to. Exact the maximum discomfort from them at every turn.
Lee
P.S. The scientologists can KISS MY ASS TOO!
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
It doesn't really matter - they're both unacceptably bad. Although Reagan's deficit was larger as percentage of GDP (GNP, then), eg. 6% in 1983, vs. Bush's 5% of 2004 GDP, -$500B in 2004 brings us to something like $8.5T of debt. And remember that Reagan's debt was also Bush Sr's debt - especially as Bush Sr ran the "deregulation" of the banking system that enabled the $1.5T S&L heist. That was the 1980s, when a trillion dollars was still worth something :).
--
make install -not war
I really want to vote for Nader. I just wish there were a 3rd party (4th party?) candidate on the right siphoning votes from Bush as well. Then there would be less complaining about Ralph being a spoiler. (what is a spoiler anyway? Couldn't Kerry be a spoiler for Nader?)
I went to the local Nader nominating convention here in Portland. It was a 3 ring circus. There were Rupublicans there who wanted Nader on the ballot. There were Democrats there filling the seats and refusing to sign the petition because they wanted to keep him off of the ballot (they were unfortunately successful). And then there were those of us who thought that it would be nice to have Nader on he ballot so we could have a real choice if we decide in November that we can't go with Kerry.
Amazingly, at the end, Nader took questions from the audience. Unfiltered questions. Some of the questions were form angry Democrats. One question was from a guy that was not mentally all there (and Nader was quite gracious with him, I thought). I was so impressed by this Q&A session. Not that the questions were all that great, but that Nader opened himself up to questions like that and handled then well. It would have been unimaginable at a Bush or Kerry rally.
You invoked Hitler, I win :)
Who is the more credible witness amongst people who saw the same things? Kerry's supporters are outnumbered by detractors 23:1
I trust his equals and commanders, who contradict what he says than his subordinates who pal around with him
And I didn't support bush, i support truth. I respect bush.
Hmm... I think /. should stay away from politics, moderators' personal political beliefs get in the way. Its just such a touchy topic around here...
I know who the moderators are going to vote for - anyone anti-kerry or pro-truth (not necessarily pro bush) is abandoned whole the pro-kerry posts are "informative"
I know my posts are mostly ignorable, but there must be SOMEONE the doesn't believe Kerry and says so good enough to get moddedup
Let me start this with I work for lobbyists out here in Colorado. I've been working in politics for a while now and it's safe to say the President doesn't hold nearly as much power as everyone seems to think. The biggest movers and shakers reside within the federal senate, congress, and your state legislative representatives (if the senate holds a contrary majority to the President nothing will get done, etc.). Remember he can't do much unless the congress and senate approve it (you voted them into place too). So, in your effort to vote out bush, or keep him there, remember there are other elections on your ballot that you all should be watching!!
true, Germany for one learned from its past mistakes and is redeeming itself to this very day. sorry, but nice as free speech may be, as much as an elemental part of a free society it may be, banning nazi behaviour somehow seems to, i dunno, make sense...
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
Slashdot, I appreciate your latest attempts at telling me how to think.
I mean, before, the articles only contained strong hints that I should be a libertarian liberal. But now, I'm flat out told what to think. This is a wonderful change, as I was not bright enough to understand those old school strong hints on my own.
Most refreshingly though, is that I should now hate both presidential candidates because their similar positions on 2 issues do not reflect Slashdot's approved positions. I mean, wow! Can Kerry and Bush honestly be that stupid? I mean, Slashdot's editors have figured it all out by themselves...why can't two of this nations most powerful leaders figure it out?
Anyways, I'm off to see Farhenheit 9/11, because apparently there is much truth in that movie that tech nerds like me should see.
That this sort of system is an absolute necessity for any nation that has embraced the concept of progress. There's only ONE way to stay the same, but there's an infinite number of ways we can change. If 25% of the American people are apathetic enough to think things need to stay the same, they can still manage to beat out the other 75% of the country if no one else agrees on a solution.
And we shouldn't HAVE to agree; we shouldn't have to unanimously agree on the solution in order to agree that there should BE a solution. But in a single-elimination voting system such as ours, we have no choice. We rally around the candidate closest to our view, lest we give the election to the man who is not even in the same zipcode as our beliefs.
Saying that we should vote for Nader (or whoever) anyway just so he can get federal funding for his next attempt is absolutely ludicrous. Conventional voting is fundementally flawed, fundementally biased AGAINST PROGRESS and unless people start to realize this and write their congressmen en mass, things will never change. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans will lay down their collective power without a long, hard fight.
Don't worry about basing your vote on copyright issues though. Like most other domestic issues (gay marriage: no, offshoring: yes), their stance is pretty much identical (i.e. pro Hollywood).
Vote Libertarian?
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
Do you know where you stand?
Political Compass (2 Axises)
Another site: ontheissues.org"Oh, and the reason we have to go with Israel is because they don't strap bombs on kids and have them walk into pizza parlors full of other kids and blow themselves up."
Not sure I follow your point. They don't need to strap bombs on kids, instead they can just drop them from an F-16 or shoot a missile from an Apache. Remember the 500 pound Israel dropped on a crowded apartment building in Gaza, as a ham handed way to assassinate one guy. It ended up killing, inevitably, all the innocent women and children in the building. A number of loyal Israel pilots sacrificed their careers, and lives, to protest that incident, along with targeting of cars with missiles on crowded streets because it shows Israel is no better or different in the indiscriminate killing department.
The world needs to realize that both sides in that conflict have issues. As long as the world divides up in two camps and chooses to pretend one side is always a saint and the other is the devil, and vice versa, its going to insure perpetual blood shed and a breeding ground for extremism on all sides.
This is a key reason why the U.S. can't win the "War on Terror" on its current path, because it can't fathom it has to fix the root causes of the animosity of the Arab world towards the U.S. and Isreal. Doing that would deprive the extremists of much of the support they are now getting from more moderate Arabs.
@de_machina
Are you refering to Sheik Yassin of Hammas?
l
Bear in mind that pro-palestinian news sources give Hammas members and bodyguards of terrorists the deceptive label of 'civilians.'
From http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article2527.shtm
( a pro-intifada site)
In addition to Sheikh Yassin, 7 Palestinian civilians, including 3 of Sheikh Yassin's bodyguards, were killed and 17 others injured, including two of Sheikh Yassin's sons.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
It isn't.
Even though I'm not a fan of the USA, I must agree they are, at least in this respect, more fair and consistent then almost all european countries. While I fully endorse anti-racism as my own worldview, I do not agree with any anti-racism laws that ptohibits the mere expression of thoughts, EVEN when they are racist.
Freedom of speech is something that you can not (or at least, should not) make dependend on ones own views, or else you have no freedom of speech. I mean, it's always easy to let others speak when you agree with it, but that's not the point of it; rather it's meant to let other people be heard too, even though you fully and utterly disagree with them.
This argument is mostly lost in europe, where politicians somehow think they should muffle and forbid speech they don't agree with and which may offend some group.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
From the good folks at snopes: link.
I trust you won't be repeating such bullshit lines again.___
Cogito cogito, ergo cogito sum.
Even Slashdot is incapable of demolishing the most creative inventions of the mass media. Watch "Outfoxed" (outfoxed.org) if you don't believe me. Imagine all those FOX News viewers hearing these deliberate falsities repeated everywhere and having their world picture altered to include all of it. Or to include SCO's latest fabrications? What room does this leave blogs and the alternative media to reveal to the mainstream that Kerry really isn't that French and that the Bush administration really wanted invade Iraq long before 9/11?
I wrote a decent essay on this topic four years ago.
-Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase temporary safety deserve neither. -Ben Franklin
You need a better democracy. Nothing wrong with trying to improve a system to have a better representation of its citizens, and the old two party split is far from perfect. Not that I know much about America's voting system and structure but there have been many new systems that have evolved over the years, like those proportion systems vs first past the post etc. I'm out of my depth here heh. Anyone have a list of alternative systems and what Americans here would want instead to give better representation? I remember NZ moving from first past the post of MMP with mixed results, then again I have been an ex-pat for so long I'm likely not the best to comment :p
"Naturally, the common people don't want war, but after all, it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a facist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country." ~Herman Goering speaking at the Nuremberg trails after WWII
~S
"It makes no difference which one of us you vote
for. Either way, your planet is doomed. DOOMED!" - Kang
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
Okay, bub, I don't care what Bush knew or didn't know about the torture of the Iraqi prisoners. When a president asks his people to find some legal loophole to justify using torture on the prisoners he's already declared "enemy combatants" and stripped of rights held dear by Americans, I don't think it matters.
Because when people join the ruling class, they don't become happy go lucky champions of freedom, they become greedy little bastards like Bush, Cheney, and hell Kerry too.
That upward mobility is largly an illusion. It took a while, but the rulers have finnally figured out how to keep people down (and preserve their God like standards of living). The trick is to have a small middle class, and the occasional new entry in the ruling class. The poor of the world end up spending all their energy trying to move up, and the middle class are wasted just trying to stay middle class.
The large amount of upward moblity seen in America/Europe around 1950 was largely due to the population crash following WWII. Now that the baby boomers have fucked thier way back to a surplus of laborers (and the cold war's ended) Globalism can kick in full steam with all it's truely nasty implicatons. Capital flows to where ever labor's cheapest, and just the mere threat of closing factories will keep unions from ever exisiting. That's the real scary thing actually. When unions form, the bosses just leave. No workers protests, no beatings, no sensational stories about worker abuse. Just a bunch of starving people nobody cares about.
I guess the point I'm driving at (albeit poorly) is Capitalism is perfecting itself. It's approaching a perpetual system of hard working fools and the Capitalist Kings they work for. The only thing I see stopping the trend is another population crash. Which is all well and good, unless you happen to be a member of the crashing populace.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
the real world is much more complicated than that
Not if you're George W. Bush.
paintball
Probably because he accused people who favor Bush of trolling to take votes for Kerry when then post pro-bush, and then Posted a long pro-Kerry post. Pot-Kettle. Just a guess.
Personally I agree the stakes are a bit high, we have a choice between a religeous nut and a self confessed war criminal for the two major parties. I rather think both a BAD choices for president. We really NEED to vote for someone else.
Bush is blocking needed research on religeous grounds (I'm not 'pro-choice', but he's being stupid here) and trying to amend the constitution over what's essentially a private (usually religeous) issue. And unconstitionaly detains people in cuba.
Kerry can't tell the same lie the same way twice and testified in congress that's he commited 'atrocities' that qualify him for war criminal status and then tries to run on the 'war hero' theme (which is it?) using faked video and medals he did/didn't/sorta threw over the fence.
Both should be tried for thier admited crimes, would teach the next few people in office to tread lightly around the people serve (as in opposite of rule!).
Mycroft
https://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4c3ed6600b6ea
hummmm.
- Carter inherited 25B/year defict and ran it up to 50B.
- Reagan inherited 50B/Year deficit and ran it up to 250B/year.
- Poppa Bush ran it up to 325, then back down to 250B, in an effort to start balancing it.
- Clinton, did balance it . No deficit spending and loads of waste.
- W. ran it up and has wasted more than any other admin in history.
I will take Clinton or Poppa Bush (he turned it) any time.What the problem is, when a president and congress are ruled by the same party. What is needed to solve this is
- Line item veto
- Balanced Budget except during times of formal war (as opposed to more of this vietnam shit).
I do not care if kerry ever voted for a tax cut. I want to know if he pushed in waste. Did he push in haliburton? Did he spend his time lieing to us and blaming everybody in his administration. So far, W. has blamed everybody in his admin and not taken one bit of blame. Not "the buck stops here". It is always, "fire that bastard there, he caused it".I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
if fair is fair does kerry get to destroy his records and get away with drug abuse too?
Clinton had to appologise to his wife.
Bush will have to appologise to the nation (and the world).
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
If voting changed anything, they'd abolish it
Ken Livinstone, the current Major of London, can be a bit of a prat sometimes, but other times he has a point. When did voting (by all the people in the country), alone, last change something?
In the UK the 'opinions', and I use the term in the looses sense of the meaning, between the two main parties are almost identical. It's becoming like the US (or how the US is portried in the UK), of "(s)he with the most money" or "(s)he who is most photogenic" will be elected
It could be worse, much worse, but the present system of politics dominated by large corporations, almost buying their way (or their cronies way) into power cannot be good, in the long run, for the average Joe on the street
Jaj
Rather than picking something that is more than 100 years old and settled, try for something now. Go in front of the white house and wave a picket in favor of Al Qaeda. Put on the picket things like
etc. etc.etc.
Get a tv crew to come down, and then watch what happens.
Also, ask any national news person how free things really are these days. Other than fox news, you might be surprised what these journalists would say.
Freedom is not the ability to bitch about a long ago war. Freedom is the ability to critize the current and even recent government. Think about Bush allowing Reagan and Poppa Bush to hide all sorts of things. The Freedom of Information act was put in place for a reason. Now Bush preverts it and allows them (and himself) to hide past actions. BTW, I do note that Kerry has not said that he would remove that presidential order. I find that sad.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
not quite, just pointing out that there ARE repubs trolling sites masquerading as lefties to encourage people to not vote for kerry. same as there ARE microsoft astroturfers posting pro-microsoft fud on various blogs. Of course not all anti-kerry or pro-microsoft stuff is such astroturfing or trolling, but it does exist, and i want to let people know about it.
no pot/kettle/black since i'm obviously pushing kerry and stating it. i don't see how i could have been a troll. I can see you someone either right or left of me would not like what i'm saying, but that doesn't make me a troll.
make world, not war
unfortunately when it came to Kerry all you criticised him with was a racial slur: "Kerry has his skeletons ...For some reason the press lets everyone think Kerry is a Kennedyesque Irish Catholic when his paternal grand parents were actually Austro/Hungarian and Jewish.His name would be John Kohn if they hadn't changed their name to Kerry when the immigrated to the U.S....these little things...may color his decision making on Isreal in particular"
This contains hints (probably subconscious) of old slurs:
1 Jews control the press
2 They are deceitful (not merely sensible in those times of rising tension against anyone with a germanic sounding name)
3 Jew=Zionist (pro Israel)
Thats why I made my promise with my friends.
If everyone voted for the person they really wanted;
instead of voting defensively against the guy that they don't want;
maybe we could spark a new era of American Politics.
The democrats that I know don't like John Kerry.
And I'd say at least half the conservatives I know don't like Bush (Of course the religious ones love him).
But they're going to vote against each other because thats what the media gives them.
John Jackson vs. Jack Johnson.
If they'd only wake up and vote for someone who really represents what they want;
Maybe our political system would change;
Maybe people could control the government rather than business;
Maybe common sense could prevail.
I ask you then, what of the so called "Swift Vets For Truth"?
They were exposed just days ago as schills, paid for by a major Republican contributor. Why, in you and yours delusion of "liberal media", hasn't this appeared on CNN, MSNBC, Fox, et al?
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
I have a couple of pretty severe issues with the the Libertarian platform, which I finally got around to reading last night.
First, they oppose "victimless crimes". This means some changes that I'm not entirely comfortable with. Plutonium is a controlled substance in the United States, and an elimination of consentual crimes would make it uncontrolled. I want possession of plutonium to be controlled, frankly.
Second, the libertarian approach toward justice is somewhat different than that I approach. I view justice as a dissuasive mechanism, something that can be used to stabilize situations. Libertarians view it as a restitutive mechanism, a method of restoring the state before the crime was committed. I believe that this approach leaves crime profitable unless law enforcement operates perfectly and 100% of damaging crimes are caught.
Third, I very, very strongly disagree with their proposed changes to jury trials. They propose a combination of juries being volunteer and having the ability to override existing law. This effectively reduces the value of a written code of law, means that laws may basically be retroactively changed after a crime was committed, and means that extremists may use jury trials as a political platform, which I do not think is an appropriate place for rational and open discourse. I can understand how frusterated they are with being a minority party and wanting minority parties to have more political power, but I do not think that this is a good mechanism. I am particularly surprised that vote reform, one of the most valuable changes that would allow minority parties to gain political influence, is not a fundamental part of their platform -- I guess that if they ever get into power, they are unlikely to want to give up power to minority parties. Sigh.
Fourth, their platform on American Indian Rights -- the return of Indian lands to Indians -- is simply ridiculous. It might sound nice, and there might have historically been some nasty games play ed to obtain land ownership, but you can hardly kick people off of land where they now live.
Fifth, I utterly disagree with their "zero regulation" model of business. Their claims that all monpolies arise from government intervention is, frankly, wrong. I can't see how they intend to deal with natural monpolies, unless they expect to simply ignore them. They do not deal with artificial mopolies, which I can't believe the government directly causes in all cases...unless they want to also repeal all forms of IP, which will be, well, overly extreme in my book and almost everyone's.
Sixth, their "no taxes" model makes no sense. It's just ridiculous. We've tried not having *federal* taxes, and that just didn't work. The mind boggles at the thought of local and state taxes being eliminated. How do they expect to have a functioning government? Even they must allow for the operation of certain skeletal structures, like a judicial system, or their own rules will not be enforced.
Seventh, their proposed method for dealing with pollution simply ignores the game-theoretic models that have convinced people that pollution is a public-good problem that requires intervention. Who cares if the children 100 years down the road get screwed over? The person causing the damage will be gone!
Eighth, they propose deregulating the postal service. This would probably mean an end to mail that can reach anywhere in the United States, even if it reduced costs to the other people.
Ninth, I think that their policy on secession is stupid. Sounds very idealistic, but why doesn't, say, GM Seattle secede from the United States, and avoid paying business taxes? Their workers can still *live* in the United States and enjoy the no income taxes that the Libertarian party promotes. I just don't see it working.
Tenth, their policy on annexation is like the Guano Act plus a million. It would produce an unmanagable United States if a
May we never see th
Wait.. hold on..
If we shouldn't vote for the lesser evil..
Do you mean to say we should vote for.. the greater evil ?
Have you been to DC recently? I was down in DC few weeks ago and there was a constant stream of protests, pickets, and booths doing exactly what you described - with picture. This stuff happens all the time down there. You could do any of the above and you will not get arrested. Certainly they will likely watch you like a hawk, but so long as you are not standing in the middle of the road obstructing traffic, or trying to use physical force on anyone, they will allow it. If you just want to sit there with a sign that says "Bush is a murdering fascist", no one will stop you.
A strong argument could be made that when it comes to freedom in IP, the US lags. In terms of actual individual speech, I can't possibly see how it could get much rosier. You can say anything you want. I think you would be damned hard pressed to find another nation that is so liberal in terms of what the laws protect for freedom individual of speech.
People need to get a grip and get things in perspective. I am not voting for Bush in the upcoming election and I all around think he is dumber then a pound of bricks. However, I don't let my dislike of his policies fabricate disillusions that I am living in a fascist police state or that he sits around all day figuring out ways to kill babies for shits and giggles. People don't disappear. No matter how nutty and vocal you are, no one is going send the corporate death squad run by Dick Chaney after you. Get a grip and realize how badly the media (and politicians in general) has you hyped up into a frothing mess to the point where you will believe anything so long as it sounds bad for Bush.
I saw Fahrenheit 9/11 and was utterly blown away at how many people in the audience ate up some of the most one sided and utterly racist propaganda I had ever seen in my entire life. If at any point you can't at least understand the other side's argument and rationally see why they would think that way, then I 99% of the time it is because you have turned fanatic and will eat up any bullshit that fits in line with your beliefs. Nothing is more destructive to the political process then when people become a frothing mess that isn't able to at least understand the others sides position. There is nothing wrong with disagreeing, but you need to at least understand it first. The worst thing about this election year is that both side's bases are so riled up that they are utterly blind to anything that lands outside their current pre-programmed views.
I can see the reason why GW does not often do interviews:Bushisms. The man is so obviously unable to articulate himself in his own language, and very probably think in it (His latest one on Tribal sovreignty was really painful) that I'm am pretty sure his campaign advisors such as Karl "Goebbels" Rove almost crap themselves every time GW has to answer impromptu questions in public. A good deal of the USA might be unable to use their own language properly and appreciate the fact that their president is as dumb as they are, but I think the majority are probably more than a little worried now that GW "The Chimp" Bush is really an utter idiot acting as puppet for a group of far right fanatics.
I think you'll find, though, that those of us that don't like Bush primarily because of his mixing of religion and politics don't really have anyone else to vote for. The Libertarian candidate, for instance, went on TV and told people to vote for him so that John Kerry would win, and the mixture of a Democrat president and Republican congress would revert the government to a stagnant state. Then there's the views against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which is likely to grate on those people which don't want to vote for Bush primarily because of his legislation of moral issues (or things like expansion of government services like medicare).
-PainKilleR-[CE]
You can't get rid of the leaders until the next election in the US unless:
a) the leaders do something extraordinarily stupid and commit an illegal act (Nixon)
b) you ovrethrow them violently
c) public protests lead to early elections
Option a) is the only option that could possibly happen. The last two are so extremely unlikely it's not even worth considering.
That's why politicians can lie through their teeth all throughout their campaigns, then get elected, do a 180 and continue to remain in office.
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
Goodness.
First of all, I don't see slashdot moderators modding down other people's websites.
Second, I've even posted articles supportive of Microsoft and didn't get modded down.
Perhaps it's the way you present yourself?
The title for this /. forum is all hype. The lawyers are not saying that the maintainers of the website are not allowed to use ANY photographs of Kerry. They're just saying that this photographer --- who has every right to protect his copyrighted woks --- doesn't want them using HIS photographs. Are the people that run the website paying him for using his content? No? Then they should find a photograph that's in the public domain. This is not about free speech. They're not being told not to say what they want about Kerry, they're just being told to stop using this guy's content royalty-free. Why don't they take their own photos of Kerry?
...and I'm happy to support a candidate who'll prevent the state from *forcing* me to accept gay marriage.
And as far as domestic issues: How are two issues "most" issues?
There are 100 people in society
There are 2 brilliant people
There are 20 greedy people
There are 20 gullible people
There are 10 who are opposed
There are 48 apathetic people
5 greedy people ambush 2 brilliant people
5 greedy people convince 20 gullible people
20 gullible people make lots of noise
38 apathetic people restrain 8 who are opposed to restore calm
5 greedy people, 20 gullible people, 10 apathetic people, and 2 who are opposed vote
5 greedy people sit back, enjoy the show, and profit.
Using copyright to quell political speech is a tactic of the greedy people perpetuated by the apathetic people who simply want things to quiet down so we can go back to trying to pay bills and keep up with rising taxes.
+++ATHZ 99:5:80
The US president owns neither his words nor his image - at least not when he speaks in public on important matters. Anyone is free to use what he says, and the way he says it, to criticize or to praise. The president, in this sense, is free. But what happens when the commander in chief uses private venues to deliver public messages, holding fewer press conferences and making more talk-show appearances? Who controls his words and images then?
3dinfo@maficstudios.com
>>Well, do you hate them both equally? If not, you could (on probability) improve your position by voting for
>First, you're basing your vote off of hatred? And not real "you killed mah daddy" hatred, but Hate Week hatred? That's lame, right there.
>Second, where do you get off saying "improve" ? Don't you really mean "cause to deteriorate more slowly" ?
Try checking attributions. It was the original poster that said he hated both candidates. The point in reply is, if he doesn't dislike them equally, then there is something he can actually do to reduce the chance that the one he dislikes more will get elected. If there is one of them that he dislikes less, doesn't that make it less bad (for him) if the one he dislikes less gets in? And isn't a less bad outcome better than the worst, and isn't that relatively an improvement?
-wb-
Karma kill session begins now:
Why is it that if an article is slightly against Kerry it is modded down and articles referring to Bush as "chimp" and his advisors as "goebbels" are modded highly? I thought name calling was usually flamebait or at the least a troll. Regardless, the tone of this discussion and the soundbite level of understanding most posters have is dissappointing. If people would only try to understand government with the passion they approach picking out their favorite text editor or scripting language.
Bush's actions with respect to Iraq are troubling. Kerry's actions surrounding his service in Viet Nam and possibly his actual service is questionable. Even worse, some of the promises from both campaigns are totally unkeepable. If you think hate for the president is what has kept our allies on the sideline and that changing leaders will suddenly bring France and Germany and NATO into Iraq, you will be dissappointed. Nothing happens between nations without a price. If you believe that the economy is all better, believe me, when the fed raises interest rates and people can't unlock the equity in their homes so easily... we are in for trouble.
Regardless, it's nice to see people who feel such passion about firing the president. It's too bad that both Bush and Kerry do not represent what is best in America. In fact, both of them appear to be self-serving egomaniacs who are interested in wielding power for power's sake. That is a national tradgedy, and using DCMA to supress the opposition is exactly the kind of tactic I'd expect from both of them - and we can expect more of the same if either is elected.
-- $G
mbbac
Of course, that's not to say that there isn't real value in influencing the two parties' platforms.
While it sported an interesting enough initial premise, this post was prederrailled by the off-topic (and innaccurate and misleading) "clever" postscript. Bush and Kerry do not in fact "agree" on gay marriage, which is exactly what the cited link states - the story in question supports the poster's assertion only from the most semantic and specious viewpoint. Bush and Kerry do not in fact "agree" on outsourcing, the cited link in fact notes the story of a supporter of outsourcing supporting Kerry on the basis of other issues. This isn't even close to a justification for the poster's assertion so at this point I have to assume they are just willfully stirring the swill for no decent reason. The second half of this posting is in fact a troll.
And yeah, I have an opinion, a strong opinion, on why it does in fact make a difference who you vote for and whether it makes more sense to vote for a third-party candidate or not. But I won't share it here because it isn't relevant to the actual topic. Jeez, if I want to have a pointless, terminally threadjacked smack-down conversation about the presidential race I'll go hang out on Fark.
It Is the Nature of Information to Transgress Artificial Boundaries
Are you claiming there is more diversity in rural areas than urban areas? I'm saying that every single person should have an equally powerful vote. If you say otherwise, let me know how you determine who gets the more powerful votes and why.
Also, instant runoff is _all_about_ diversity of candidates. Do you think that two candidates who are nearly identical on all the issues is somehow diverse?
Oh, wait. You're just a troll.
Cheers.
If I'm a Nader voter (and I'm not, I prefer voting for someone who could legitimately be President rather than protesting the whole scene), I'd have voted Nader-then-Gore-then-Bush in 2000. My Nader vote wouldn't have split the vote -- and Bush in all likelihood wouldn't be in office. You can vote your conscience.
There's no inconsistency between instant runoff and the electoral college. In that way it'd be a less radical change than what Colorado is proposing right now (and one other state already does) -- splitting the electoral vote by percentage of the popular vote. That change seems simpler, but it does away with the sort of geographic weighting you're talking about, and does nothing to address the "wasted" votes.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
No, John Kerry is not suing. The photographer who own the copyright and makes his living selling his pics through a stock agency is suing. Same thing as NBC.
"Moreover, the statement that "lawyers representing John Kerry's interest threatened our Internet server with legal action unless the picture was removed" is a false statement of fact. As stated above, this firm represents George Butler. John Kerry is not, and has never been, a client of this firm. In addition, we did not threaten your Internet server, EastLink, with legal action. "
The revolution will NOT be televised.
Iraq was a debacle because the US government wanted a war, despite necessity, and lied to the Americans about it. For example, just this past week, some Nixon/Kissinger tapes were published showing their coldblooded considerations of continuing the "unwinnable" war in 1972, to preserve their chances at reelection. Sound appropriate to Iraq? How about Johnson's "Gulf of Tonkin" fraud, inventing an attack by North Vietnamese on American troops to incite Congress into backing his Vietnam escalation. A blueprint followed by Bush, with his Cabinet's incessant talk of WMD, "45 minutes to launch", "smoking gun / mushroom clouds". Even the Vietnam "domino theory", discredited by the Chinese invasion of Vietnam, sucessfully repelled, following American retreat, shows the Vietnam precedent of persuasive fallacy in oversimplifying "enemy of my enemy is my friend", fraudulently equating Hussein to bin Laden.
The soldiers were "muzzled" by the government, which ran an unwinnable war from afar for its political benefit, as well as its military contracts. It's well established that the troops themselves were tactically superior (over 1M Vietnamese dead to about 55K Americans, >20:1), while the Pentagon was strategically incompetent - to end the war, but very competent to stay in the war business. Kerry is a good example of people who supported the troops, like the Vietnam Veterans Against the War, which he headed, but fought the politicians keeping them in a meatgrinder. When the troops returned home, they weren't supported by the public, because the politicians identification of "the troops" with "the war" backlashed when the war became unpopular. The actual atrocities committed by some soldiers, necessarily revealed to stop the war, added to their shame. Despite the dignity with which people like Kerry made the case that the war's victims included our own troops, unjustly sent to fight on false pretenses of cause and conclusion.
Kerry's vote to send troops to Iraq was, along with everyone else in Congress, a vote based on not only the intelligence, but presidential assumption of authority for it, and the policies they voted for. In fact, the vote Kerry joined was a sensible, responsible vote for "necessary force" to disarm Hussein:
"I will be voting to give the President of the United States the authority to use force, if necessary, to disarm Saddam Hussein because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a real and grave threat to our security." (October 9th, 2002).
When WMDs were shown to be a Tonkin-style hoax, Kerry worked against the use of force. On his vote against the specific $87B Iraq war funding bill, Kerry voted against that version because its $18B for reconstruction had no accountability to ensure its application - and to date, only $0.5B has been spent on reconstruction, just as Kerry suspected. While several billion has been sucked up by Halliburton overcharges, to Cheney's delight. That's why Iraq is already another Vietnam, and Kerry has the experience, insight, and leadership to get us out.
Sure, all those politicians grabbed the "faulty intelligence" cover story that exonerates their bad judgements, including accepting it. Clinton at least had the judgement not to invade Iraq just based on the bad intelligence, while his campaign disarmed Iraq. The "bad intelligence" that overestimated Iraq's threat at worst led him to contain and defang Iraq, while Bush's people devoured it and demanded more, to justify their invasion. Where we're still stuck today, years after they declared the war over, losing more troops than ever.
The perpetuation of these conflicts is testament to the inconclusive power of foreign policy developed by, for, and of the Pentagon. The Korean stalemate that Eisenhower produced has kept over 40,000 American troops there for over a half century. Carter's Israel/Egypt peace is kept by another 40K American troops on the border. American troops
--
make install -not war