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Hackers Take Aim at Republicans
An anonymous reader writes "Wired reports-- Online protests targeting GOP websites could turn out to be more than symbolic during this month's Republican National Convention, possibly blocking a critical communications tool for the party... "We want to bombard (the Republican sites) with so much traffic that nobody can get in," said CrimethInc, a member of the so-called Black Hat Hackers Bloc. It's one of several groups planning to distribute software tools to reload Republican sites over and over again."
Wouldn't eliminating the Republican's "free speech" on the web via DDOS attacks basically amount to cyber-terrorism?
...remember how, in front of the UN in the run-up to the Iraq war, a couple of trucks in the middle of the desert were "mobile bio weapon research/development platforms"? (Exactly those that, like all the weapons of mass distruction, can't be found now)...
Hint! Hint! You wouldn't want Bush to go for more governmental control of the Internet in order to fight all kinds of cyber-terrorism, wouldn't you?
And - if this really hits the Republicans, it won't be long before Bush's spin-doctors claim the whole idea was, in fact, initiated by Al Qaeda members....
Apologies, but in my opinion massive page reloading to deny service is hardly "hacking". It's not even "cracking". What about reloading a page is innovative, clever, or technical?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
"tolerance" and "open-mindedness"
Hokey statistics and ancient misconceptions are no match for a good thought in your head, kid!
One group's voices are being silenced because another group disagrees with them. Now that's respect for freedom of speech!
sig: sauer
I'd better hear the same hue and cry in here as if a group of right-wing extremists were gleefully planning to shut down the DNC, or Nader, or any other such group.
That's just plain wrong. If you don't like someone, then debate them - don't try to shut them up.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Most things that the republicans have to say make me dislike them even more.
Please don't hide their idiocy by DDOSing their servers. We want to let them spread the news of their incompetent lunacy as far and wide as possible.
-- MartinG To mail me: echo kewyjlcxyzvjfxbqwh | tr bcefhjklqvwxyz
...who agrees with, or supports, this in any way, is a fucking hypocrite.
....I believe they have a right to speak. I believe that we should listen to everyone's ideas. I believe blocking them will only serve to infuriate people which will only help them in November.
No ifs, ands or buts. Denying others their free speech rights via DDOS - these guys are making all of us and our anti DRM, "info wants to be free", OSS support look like fools. I hope the FBI throws every one of them in jail.
BC
... Personally, while I'm going to probably be voting the same way as these hackers come election day, I don't think this is at all the right way to go about things. If you disagree with someone or some groups actions/beliefs etc, the correct way to beat them is through logic, presenting better arguments, getting a higher listing on google... what these people are doing is much closer to censorship. "We disagree with these people so we aren't going to let them speak" It's also a mistake to believe that every person that's going there is going to be convinced. I know that I have in the past gone to a political candidates website and after reading their beliefs found that I don't match up as closely to them as I previously thought... To me this is just a bunch of script kiddies trying to get attention, and going at something with as little thought as they're used to giving to their actions.
WANNAWIKI Wannawiki WannaWiki WANNAWIKI!
Honestly, though...not to troll, but what are we accomplishing here? As Democrats, or Bush-opponents or whatever, what do they expect to gain? It just seems desperate to need to gag a website to self-serve your own agenda. Why not post a different site with information on why NOT to vote Republican if thats what you believe? Too easy and civil I guess?
Freedom of speech is a Republican ideal? Because that's what these skript kiddies seem to be against here. Just because you don't agree with someone's viewpoint doesn't give you the right to impede their ability to present it.
I've just signed legislation that'll outlaw Russia forever. We'll begin bombing in five minutes.
Just a second... How is "reloading a page" illegal?
Unless they would intend to break into their servers, this doesn't seem illegal...
Unethical, yes, but not illegal... Is it?
Seconded. If one believes that Party X is wrong, wouldn't one wish for as many as possible to be able to view Party X's site and see the wrongness for themselves? This action just reflects discredit on the attackers, who come off as being people who want to hide their *own* wrongness.
Please remember, being anti-Bush does not make one a Democrat, and let's not let the actions of a few unsavory individuals tarnish the reputation of everyone who wants Bush out of office.
This is just like when the media focused on the SCO/spam worms and claimed that linux evangelists were out to destroy the company.
That statement, right there, is why the two groups can't get along. To Conservatives, "liberal and fair" is an oxymoron, but to Liberals, it makes perfect sense. It's like arguing about whether the GPL or BSD license is "more free". Stating one position as unarguable fact only marks you as a partisan, and not insightful.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Meanwhile, these "hacktivist" morons manage to be complete failures on both political and technical counts. Remember a few years ago when they tried to DDOS the World Bank and an admin there bounced their packets and flooded them off, instead? How much of a loser do you need to be to get 0wn3d by the World Bank?
And DOSing the Republican website affects the convention how? I suppose doing anything more sophisticated than a page reloading script is beyond them...
This is going to be widely reported if this "acutally" happens and it is just going to be a detrament to the republican opponents. Because this does look like political terrorism, and who will they associate with this. I will tell you who the Democratic Party, and the DNC and Kerry will come out looking like terrorist that can't actually win on the issues. Instead they have to resort to gorrilla war-fare inorder to win, just like many of the dictatorships around the world. (That last part was just a statement to prove a point I don't actually think these people are associated with Kerry or the DNC, but it is going to be very bad for Kerry in the election if this actually does happen.)
Wouldn't eliminating the Republican's "free speech" on the web via DDOS attacks basically amount to cyber-terrorism?
Of course, anything to have a story with the word terrorism in it.
From the article: But some activists are condemning the planned attacks, saying they violate the principles of free speech that protesters rely on for their demonstrations.
The free speech zones might be good enough for those people but I assume the hackers want Bush to be in the front seat when he sees what they hate about him.
I disagree with the tactics myself as they are nothing more than an annoyance and fodder for Bush's team to say "look! we have terrorists right here trying to end your freedoms!"
Sounds like a bunch of '1337 haX0rs to me. Or a bunch of 14 year olds in someone's attic. Seriously, would a real hacker a) reveal his plans, or b) draw attention to himself using 5kr1pt k1dd13s to DDOS a Republican website? The real hackers are the ones who, right now, are stealing your credit card number, and turning poorly maintained servers into warez servers.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
"They think we're just a bunch of anarchistic, anti free speech, long hair freaks, who have nothing good to say. They think that we can't win on the merits of our own platform. They think that all we're interested in is making a scene, rather than coming up with constructive, workable ideas.
Let's prove it to 'em!"
The question is just, whether that will be in a couple of months, or in 4 years and a couple of months...
While I hope his re-election campaign will fail (badly), I am not convinced it will.
All the guy needs to do is to occasionally raise (and then silently drop) terror alert levels again to create enough fear in the population to go for his kind of hard-liner politics...
LOL!!!
wow, could you be any more indoctrinated or what?
Yeah, those evil republicans! I know, lets just stop taking half measures and just commit random acts of violence against them... yeah, i mean, they aren't even human right? So it won't matter... yeah, next republican you see, bash her/him over the head with a brick. They have it coming to them, subhumans that they are.
You are a liberal, its your duty! To stand up against the inhuman unfairness of a republican.
This little "stunt" is about as pathetic as anything I've ever heard of... and is just a glowing indication of the inability of the left to engage in the political process in any meaningful way.
And yes, you with the mod points, sucked into the slashbot group-think, I fully expect you to mod this down as troll, flamebait... or wait... use the ULTIMATE cop-out... overrated!
sad robot making broken music
Once again the 'noble' hacker is committing crime - my hero!!!
Intentions aside, people like these need to be removed from society, for they are no better than the ill they wish to remove.
If you want to change a wrong, campaign (marketing) for the change, and VOTE!! Don't commit crimes and then say it was all in the name of justice.
This is like the 'peace' protestors that assault the police or destroy other's property, or the abortion activist murdering a doctor or pro-choicer.
It's time to start skimming the gene pool...
I've seen the increasing drumbeat of anti-GOP protestors everywhere, clearly building towards a childish orgy of vandalism and street violence. It is monumentally naive.
The GOP occupation of NYC is not just designed to exploit 9/11. It is a careful and deliberate attempt to provoke protest. Preferably large, frightening, unruly protest. The more masturbatory rage they can stir up in the city, the louder they'll be laughing on their way back to the white house.
This election will be won with moderates and swing voters. Those are people like your parents. They will not identify with "CrimethInc" and "scruffy, unattractive" street protestors. They will see this event covered from inside the convention looking out.
Every act of violence, provocation, and unruly or disorderly behavior will scare those moderates right into the GOP's arms. Whether it be showing up on 6th Ave. with a mask and a shield, or DDOS'ing a GOP website, this kind of bad conduct is exactly what Republican strategists urgently want. And it will hand them the election on a silver platter.
Don't be a goddamn lemming. Save your "violence" for the voting booth!
Want to Know How to Cheat the GPL? Read On!
That these idiots just make everyone else look bad? Congrats, you've just given Asscroft all the ammo he needs to take over all comminucations so asshats like you can't fuck it up for the rest.
Next time, set yourself on fire in public, it will make a better impact.
And for the record, I'm a registered Dem.
If the intent is to deny access to other people, then it is a denial of service and is illegal.
Arent' these Reloading apps similar to DOS apps? Written with the purpose of bringing websites down??
Aren't using DOS apps to bring a webserver down illegal?
In which reality were weapons of mass destrcution found? The Fox News dimension? Even Bush has given up on this and started talking invading Iraq because Saddam Hussein might have the capability to build WMD.
Conspiracy to commit distributed Denial of Service attacks probably falls under something illegal. Doesn't matter whether reloading the page itself is illegal.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
The fact that it's illegal, immature, and not at all conducive to proper political discussion is why people don't understand why anyone would think this is a good idea. Of course, the very fact that you used the word "regime" indicates to me that you are probably too far divorced from fairness and thinking for yourself to understand this.
Here's an anecdote: this is roughly akin to nailing two-by-fours across every door and window in my house so that you can prevent me from coming out and using my freedom of speech because you don't like the views I espouse. If you disagree with what I say, the appropriate response is to write, speak, and make your views known. It is not to simply silence the opposition by preventing them from being heard.
The US doesn't have a big problem with pro-neo-Nazi sentiment in our population. Why? It's not because we ban them from speaking or promoting their views, like in Germany. It's because every time they do speak, they get so thoroughly discredited by the opposition that everyone simply ignores them.
I would urge all people who do not agree with the White House to _write_ them, whether it's by email or snail mail. Call them, even! But I would urge everyone, both in America and elsewhere, to NOT participate in a childish act like DDOS'ing the RNC's website. The politics in this country are awful enough without resorting to a new low.
-Erwos
Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
Isn't it funny, not ha-ha, how some of those who wrap themselves in the First Amendment, and who claim to be the most open minded and tolerant, are the ones who would attack a group whose political affiliation is different?
Tolerance n. The capacity for or the practice of recognizing and respecting the beliefs or practices of others.
Tolerance, Politically Correct n. The capacity to slander, libel, ridicule, belittle, attack, or otherwise marginalize anyone who adheres to moral, religious, or political views which are not Politically Correct. See also: hypocrisy
Where 100million tinfoil hat script kiddies can see it and get ready for the big day.
The story IS obviously tech oriented (much more so than F 9/11), but is this the necesarily moral thing to do? I know Taco dislikes bush, but this is enabeling script kiddies to do damage to an electoral canidate in an ilegal way.
Besides all you would have to do to shut down the GOP website would be to link it from the front page with the phrase "Microsoft buys up SCO". What nerds survive the initial heart attack will then
I would rather be ashes than dust!
Marching in Washington is absolutely not a comparison that can be made. The equivalent on the Internet would be a web site that you create that promotes your views. The idea is not to interfere with the message of those who don't agree with everything you say, that is prohibiting free speech.
If there is a march in your town supporting let's say new roads, and you didn't agree with that march, would you prevent the other group from marching? NO! You would organize your OWN march. Or if these folks had their way they would prevent the New Roads Fascists from even voicing their opinion!
Liberals prove themselves equally stupid and as intolerant of dissent as conservatives. Maybe Americans really do get the government we deserve.
One, the march was to get the GOVERNMENT's attention. These are not government websites.
Two, the march was NOT ILLEGAL. Denial of service attacks are.
Three, it was their only avenue to get their message out to so many people. On the internet, anyone can set up their own website to get their message out.
No matter whether your're a Democrat or Republican,trying to inturrupt the Democratic Process becuase you don't agree with your opponent is just plain WRONG
1) It shows a lack of faith in the strength of one's point of view, since valid arguments can stand well enough on their own merits.
2) It serves the opponent by allowing them to claim the moral high ground
3) It debases the cause you beleive in by allowing your opponents to show how many zealots exist on "your" side.
4) It hampers/impairs free speech, which is the FOUNDATION OF DEMOCRACY
5) It reduces the ability have a tone of civility in debate as a whole (and don't get me started on who was rude first, that cry-baby crap doesnt show responsible adult behavior - change begins with ME - and you.)
Set a positive exmaple. Denounce this irresponsible behavior. If you know someone who is doing this or supports it, change their mind.
.
uR iGn0ranc3, Their Power
The worst part about something like this is that the neo-left needs to be a group that places evidence and facts before ideology.
Listening to Bush speak and extracting information - he supports pre-emptive war, he doesn't support scientific research on most stemcells, his education and domestic policy are faltering - this type of information is what should drive the left to vote for another candidate. The "he's wrong before I've even heard his views" stance is the *worst* way to go about creating a democracy, in fact, it's the best way to silence one.
Democracy is dependant on everyone getting the facts. Interpretations of the facts are tricky, but creating your own set of facts is downright wrong. Silencing speech, in any way, is the first step towards the ideological mess that the "faith-based" Republican party finds themselves in right now: creating facts to fit beliefs about misguided assumptions.
"If you disagree with someone or some group's actions/beliefs"... first requires that you listen to that group's actions or beliefs. I hope - *hope* - that we can get this message across.
While many people have pointed out that hackers may be shooting themselves in the foot and inviting retaliation by attacking the GOP, I see this somewhat differently. The GOP has been attacking us for a long time now. They've been attacking our basic freedoms and rights, they've been attacking other countries on whims, and they've been attacking the very moral fiber of the world. What's wrong with a little civil disobedience to strike back? While I am not in favor of stifling their free speech or actually causing damage, I am wholly in favor of making their lives more difficult, because that's exactly what they've done to me, and all of you, too, whether you want to admit it or not. While this is definitely not the method that our founding fathers held in mind in the formative years of our country, it is in keeping with the same ideals. In the face of tyranny, we must assert our rights, however possible, and make every attempt to bring about justice and liberty, two words that the GOP seems to have forgotten.
This sig has been stolen. Return it to its original user for a reward.
How do you defeat the modern Republican party? Not by shouting them down; if you shout them down, their ideals and agenda remain obscured. Let them talk themselves out of office. Let Cheney make stupid remarks about "sensitivity" so we can juxtapose them with the President's sensible remarks on the same subject. Let the President speak, so everyone can hear that he can't even figure out basic subject/verb agreement in a sentence. Let Ashcroft speak, so folks can see just how scarily totalitarian some of his ideas are. Let Rumsfeld speak, so everyone can hear just how egomaniacal and lacking in honest awareness of his own failings he really is. The best enemy of the US Republican Party is its own leadership ... let them speak.
I suppose this is a concept that is hardly difficult for a thinking person to unearth, but as no one above my threshold has yet commented upon it, I'll take the soapbox.
This sort of hacktivism is nothing more then the digital analogue of a violent protest. While I most certainly do not agree with the platform and politics of the GOP, I believe that it is these hackers that pose a greater danger to my 'free speech.' While the Republicans have paid to host a web site and run a server in order to communicate their vision to the world, this wonderful group of people has decided not to fight back with cogent argumentation and stunning logic, but rather with a wildly underwhelming attempt to flood the server.
This sort of free campaign fodder offered to the Republicans can only harm Kerry's cause (though he is no prize pig himself...). Just wait for the War on Terrorism to go electronic: I can't wait for a digital reprisal of Ari Fleisher's 2001 declaration that "People have to watch what they say and watch what they do."
It's time people began to think. I honestly believe that a logical policy analysis reveals the truth. Left to themselves, people reading campaign literature from either side should be able to discern the better candidate. Even card-carrying GOP members that plan to vote a straight ticket deserve to learn what their party stands for and believes.
Now flip the coin. Suppose it were Republicans DDOS'ing progressive web sites such as Salon.com, Kuro5hin, or (heaven forbid) Slashdot. Shouldn't we all have the right to publish in peace? Attack my logic and my political views if you'd like. I'm not here to argue today, but it seems to me that this is obviously a "bad idea."
Yesterday, a wonderful article was published in Salon regarding planned protests of the GOP convention. Article summary: "If militants violently disrupt the GOP convention, it could be Chicago 1968 redux -- and Christmas in August for the Bush campaign." There is nothing like a free victory in a battle not fought.
We recognize the right to free speech, but I personally believe in the right of anyone to be heard. By my personal moral code, the correct way to respond to a man shouting wildly on the street is not to toss a brick his way, but rather to engage in conversation.
So please, think. It might work.
-Scott
What about reloading a page is innovative, clever, or technical?
Well, if it was a typical web page, then I'd say the innovative part is to drive up hits so that the high apparent traffic would enable the site maintainers to charge their sponsors more money.
But in this case, the GOP already has fully-functional mechanisms for getting their sponsors to contribute money; now there are Super Rangers if you round up an extra US$300K.
If you're a less wealthy Republican and can't raise that kind of money you can help out the cause by garnering signatures to help get Ralph Nader on the ballot, particularly in swing states.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
I am hoping that we have as much guts as the Spanish who had the guts to throw out a government that kept lying to them...
You know, America, home of the brave?
It's more petty than anything else.
Why not just go out and stand in front of the RNC's headquarters and block people from entering?
What they should be doing is going out and doing something positive, like getting involed with the political party they feel the most affinity for.
Personally, I think it's just a media ploy by a bunch of lowball egonauts.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
Yes, they found a couple of pre-1991 shells that the UN had mistakenly not destroyed. Not the WMD that georgie was talking about. He was talking about Iraq making new WMDs, not this.
Interesting and unfortunate view.
Historically trying to forcibly kill a cultural viewpoint has done nothing of the sort. Take Northern Ireland as an example - whilst the British government were cracking down on the Irish they were queuing to join the IRA. Once the Good Friday agreement had been signed and most of the causes for the problems had been removed then the support began to dry up.
Likewise in the middle east every attempt to control terrorism by blowing up towns, farms and houses (often of people unrelated to the problem) has caused nothing but an escalation of violence. This is why so many people world wide think the approach of the US is doomed to failure and if anything will lead to even more entrenched and violent Islamic radicalism that will last for centuries.
It would be much better to understand and remove the causes for these problems but tackling poverty and lack of education is much more dificult then dropping a few bombs and doesn't give you neo-cons such a stiffy.
Nice troll there, young fellow. Perhaps you should sometimes let reality slightly modify your worldview, won't you? Iraq was the only solidly secular state in the region. That for sure has changed now. Nice work there.
This comment does not exist.
It really disturbs me that if we capture Bin Laden anytime in the next few months that there will actaully be people in the US who will be UPSET about it!!
Are we so divided that events that happen that advance the common good cannot be recoginzed by the everyone because of politics?
If you're still going to vote for Bush, then you're supporting all of the neocon/theocons, whether or not you agree with them.
I'm sorry didn't realise one shell containing a small amount of Sarin counted as a weapon of mass destruction.
RTFA - "However, a senior coalition source has told the BBC the round does not signal the discovery of weapons of mass destruction or the escalation of insurgent activity."
Germany KNOWS that Saddam did have WMD at one point, without a doubt. It also knows that Saddam was never fully cooperative with inspectors. The weapons inspectors could not verify that Iraq had complied, and in fact believed they hadn't, in 1998.
Are we to believe that in the interim period, Iraq secretly destroyed all of its remaining weapons, on its own, with no supervision or involvement of outside monitors, all with no proof or records, all the while Saddam Hussein himself thought he was increasing his investment in WMD?
It's mind-numbingly clear that Iraq had WMD. But the war in Iraq wasn't about WMD - it was a political reason chosen in the hopes of rallying UN support, and the support of the people of the US. The war in Iraq was about a multi-faceted effort to begin exerting influence, forcibly when necessary, in the middle east, in the hopes of stopping Panislamic radicalism in a generation or two rather than in a century or two. There are MANY aspects to this strategy: it's not just about bombing people into oblivion; it's about encouraging free government with a free flow of information, and some beginnings of open economies and markets to attempt to give the young people something to do, something to strive for, as well as full, unfettered access to news, information, and education, instead of focusing their energies on hatred of the West and the Infidel as taught by some segments of radical Islam. It's also, in case you haven't noticed, about the economic well-being of not only the US, but by extension, most of the civilized world.
So yes; in effect, this is a "war for oil". But it's not a war for oil so that greedy, fat Americans can drive Chevy Suburbans. It's a war to ensure the continued prosperity of the Western world, and thus the lives and happiness of hundreds of millions of people. What about the people of Iraq, you say? WE WANT TO HELP THEM, TOO. We don't want to indiscriminately kill innocent people, though the loss of innocent life is a tragic side effect of any military action.
People think that the US just wants to arrogantly steamroll people and kill all the brownskins for oil (while installing a Starbucks and McDonalds on every street corner in Baghdad). It's a fuck of a lot more complicated than that. It's also a fuck of a lot more complicated than simplistic "you're either with us or against us"-type rhetoric. Any thinking person, of any political stripe, would realize that.
"I'm against Bush but I don't want to kill him or take down his server or rage about how he's a filthy liar. I just want people not to vote for him because he hasn't done a very good job."
:)) direction, and will re-shape themselves into a better party.
If there were more people like you, I wouldn't be so anti-Democrat. I haven't been very impressed with Bush, but all the "ANYBODY BUT BUSH/NO BLOOD FOR OIL/OMGWTFBUSHSUX0RS" 'liberals' have completely driven me away from that side as well. While I will most likely be voting for a third-party candidate, at this point I'd rather see Bush win than Kerry, mainly because the Democrat side seems so horrible now. Then again, if Bush loses, the Republicans may realize that they're been moving in the wrong (IMO, of course
Bah. As the Aliens vs Predator trailer says: Whoever wins, we lose.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
Libertarians, at least the mainstream ones that live on lp.org, are worried about excesses of power and inefficiency in government, and want to pare down the powers of government as much as possible. They also believe in what they call an "unfettered free market" and their opponents call "no checks on the excesses of large corporations."
Hacker types tend toward Libertarianism in the sense that they want the government to have less power ("What do you care if I smoke weed in my own house? Fuck off!"), but they also want large corporations to have less power. Rather than portraying the conflict as government-against-private and coming down on the side of private (people and corporations), the hacker types see it as big-guys-vs.-little-guys, and support the little guys. It doesn't matter WHO the big guy with all the power is--they oppose it.
The Democrats may be just as big-government as the Republicans, but they support less power for big corporations.
Specifically, the big-governmental roles that hacker types object to are generally moral and ethical rather than financial. They oppose government interference in what they consider to be private matters more than they oppose higher taxes.[1]
Conventional wisdom says that the Republicans want more of this sort of control than Democrats: they are the party that wants to ban abortions, write the heterosexuality of marriage into the constitution, is more vehement in attacking drug use, and so on.
So, the GOP has lost with the hackers on two counts: favor to large corporations, and moralistic interference in private life. The Dems still want a large role for government, but their idea of large government isn't as oppressive to hacker types.
[1] The Republicans generally portray themselves as the party that will tax Americans less; whether this is true or not is beyond the scope of this post.
for crying out loud mod parent up. i only wish the moderators had enough sense to notice what genemachine so adroitly pointed out.
and the GOP (at least what the modern GOP has become... theocrats, neocons and corporate apologists) but this sort of disruption is just wrong on so many levels. Now its true that most of what Bush has to say is nothing more than lies, fear-mongering and propaganda... OK EVERYTHING he says falls into one of those categories, but even a fraud like like Bush has a right to say it. We should counter his lies, fear-mongering and propaganda with web sites of our own telling the "other" side of the story, not acting like the GOP thugs who intimidate anyone who critizes their Great Leader.
If we think we are better than this bunch of crooks & liars we ought to behave as if we are better then them, as true (small d) democrats, not just another set of absolutest goons.
ON a more practicle side this sort of thing (and any disruption of the RNC in NYC) is in danger of being counter productive. There are precious few undecided voters this election, and although it appears that Kerry is doing better than Bush amongst those voters, it won't take much to turn them off.
So I urge everyone who understands just how important it is to get rid of Bush and the neocon crazies in his administration not to try to disrupt the GOP's web sites or convention, but to channel the energy into a positive message.
Wow, that's got me convinced. I'm going to go down right now and change my party affiliation to Democrat.
(do I really need sarcasm tags here?)
Fred
"A fool and his freedom are soon parted"
-RMS
The more grotesque, destructive and hate-filled RNC protests turn out to be, the more votes that get swung to Bush. We'll see how it plays out.
I think the actions of the radical Left groups are actually going to turn off a lot of support for Senator Kerry if the Democratic National Committee doesn't distance themselves from them. Does anyone remember the riots in Chicago during the 1968 Democratic National Convention and the protest that turned very ugly during the 1999 World Trade Organization conference in Seattle? These ugly scenes played right into the hands of the people who want law and order, and probably contributed a bit to the Presidential wins of Richard Nixon in 1968 and President Bush in 2000.
These "hacktivists" are going to be grouped among the anarchists, which will defeat their aims.
To all of you DOSers out there -- in case it's not already obvious... Denial of Service attacks earn you no respect, it demonstrates no skills. It's like child molestation: it's so easy, anyone could do it. But why would you want to?
Kind of interest how it is the Democrats are lacking morals and are doing this. Did Rebulicans do the same a little while ago? Not to my knowledge. It seems like something a 12 year old kid would do, but they can't even vote. Hmmm....
Pardon my ignorance (I'm Canadian, you see) but I thought the entire 'right to bear arms' and 'no standing army' provisions of the constitution were designed to allow the citizenry to overthrow the government, if they so chose? Didn't Jefferson himself actually think that the government SHOULD be overthrown every few years, just to keep it honest or something?
I'd just like to point out that Kerry has made it clear that the war in Iraq was the right thing to do, if we had had the support of the world to do it. We did not. I think people don't remember that the US is a member of the world, and no longer a Superpower. We need to work with the rest of the world to solve our problems and theirs, not against the world.
The irony!
Above is a perfect example of why its so difficult to have a "proper debate".
It really saddens me that we spend so much energy painting those who disagree with us as stupid or one dimensional or evil that we really start to believe they are all that. Once you monstrify the other person, proper debate is impossible.
Sometimes, I think people are so bent on the whole "one nation, under god" in the Pledge of Alliegance that they forget that the Pledge ends "with liberty and justice for all"
--You will rephrase your request for me to go to hell. Goto statements are not acceptable programming constructs
1. is a diabolical, cunning Fascist.
2. is a drooling, incompetent idiot.
NOTE: It's perfectly OK to use BOTH of these arguments in reference to the same person - even in the same debate. Trust me, no one will ever notice the contradiction!
HINT: Free speech means everyone gets to express their ideas, not just you.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
How the actions of such "activists" differ from the efforts of government, RIAA, MPAA, etc. to restrict our access to information and the truth is left as an exercise for the reader.
the Republicans have all the money in the universe (or soon will) so they'll just buy more servers and ride it out, no?
Why does this myth perpetuate so much that the Republicans are the fat cats? Consider:
o The Democratic bankroller, George Soros, is a multi-billionaire. He's the funder behind MoveOn.org and one of the world's wealthiest persons.
o Warren Buffet, multi-billionaire and depending on the list, the second richest man in the US (behind Bill Gates, who donates to both parties) is exclusively pro-Democrat.
o Most of Hollywood's rich are Democrats and despise Republicans.
o Most of the Fortune 500 CEOs are either pro-Democrat or contribute to both parties.
o Enron's CEO and CFO were very close friends to Kerry's wife, and the CEO was on one of her boards.
o Global Crossing did sweetheart deals (invest a couple hundred grand, get $16 million back, while the common folk get screwed) for the DNC head.
o When research has been done on who donates to the parties, the Republican party's donations consisted of mostly numerous small donations by the non-wealthy with some large fat cat donations, while the Democrat donations were the other way (mostly rich folks with large donations). Here's a clue to help you validate this fact: look at what geographic regions vote Republican (aka fly over country, or the "Red states" which the elitists aka Democrats point out are rural schmucks not worth their time). Ever wonder why elitists are almost always Democrats too? Ever wonder why the media elitists hate humble people (i.e. George Bush, Ronald Reagan) and make fun of them as idiots because they don't understand complexities (that's code for relativism)?
Seriously, you've gotta get off the plantation and quit buying into the master's propeganda. Yes, both parties listen to money, but quit buying this rich fat cat propeganda that the Democrats are for small folk, pro minorities (look at which party fought for slavery and even ran a candidate against President Lincoln that promised to end the civil war and let the south keep the slaves).
Please... read your history. Check the facts yourself. The only thing sadder than living life blindly as a house negro is a house negro who conducts terroristic acts against his liberator, as these DoS efforts represent.
They won't need to. You should have been in Philadelphia in 2000. The PD there was the best anyone could have asked for. Like many protests, it started out peaceful and ended up violent or stupid. The fact of the matter is republican or democrat doesn't matter much in a mob; getting that many agitated people who tend to be younger and probably easily impressionable and it's a magnet for trouble.
It is, perhaps, a stereotype that most protests are filled with people between the ages of 18 to 25, but from what I've seen it's largely true, with older people leading them. It makes sense though, that's the group of people who have the time to leave their lives for a couple weeks, go accross the country, and protest. They are also the ones willing to live in the streets for a bit and have the energy to keep up that kind of passion. They are also the least likely to actually vote, and the most likely to make an uninformed decision without listening to the rationale on both sides.
Whether or not you agree with me, it's these perceptions developed largely by actually being forced to live in an area where protests were supposed to be "sticking up for me" that automatically makes me label protestors as idiots, no matter what they are out protesting. Republican, Democrat, Antiabortion, prochoice, environmentalist, antiwar, -- all of it is better served by discussion, not screaming. There are few instances I can think of where a protest would do more good than a well written letter.
Never confuse volume with power.
Your analogy about the gun thing is short-sighted. It would work if owning a gun was illegal. You see, Saddam wasn't going to use those weapons (even if he had them). The US went at him because he HAD those weapons, which the US sold him. So, you see, the US attacked him for something the US specifically did, not because the US sold him something he later mis-used. Remember the story for going to Iraq (after the "he's gonna kill us in the next 10 seconds" excuse) was his ownership of WMDs.
Your ideas about weapons inspectors in '98 is half-baked, relying on heresay as to what Saddam was thinking, and his probable actions. You don't go to war for that. You go to war when you're in imminent danger, or someone you care about is in imminent danger.
You say the reason the Europeans are against the war is because of money, yet you never address the point that it might not be the case at all. You assume something, and run it into the ground, saying "look at this evidence! isn't it compelling!".
You mention breaking UN security resolutions. You know the best way to not break those? Be able to veto them. The US has vetoed more resolutions than Iraq has ever broken. Resolutions like "abide by international law" etc. Blaming Iraq for not having the veto the US has is ridiculous. It's a vapid argument.
Then, you say it's not about WMD. Isn't that what Bush told us it was about? Which is it - Bush was lying and it's about Islamic fundamentalism, or Bush was telling the truth and it IS about WMDs that aren't there. Well?
Panislamic radicalism. That's a great one. How about we just give the US administration a catchy name like that and throw the exact same argument back at you?
So Iraq does have ties to Al Qaida? Wow. Where did you get that little gem from? Can you cite some sources for us? Let me spare you the time - you can't. That is a claim the Bush administration has been trying to spread around for months. It's been debunked by every media outlet there is (excluding Fox, of course). If you still believe that, you obviously have no idea what's going on in the world.
Why did the US pick Iraq? It was the least dangerous country in the middle east. So safe, in fact, that even Kuwait wasn't scared by it. I mean, if the US wanted to really take a stance against "panislamic radicalism", they would have gone for a hotbed of radicals, not a country ruled by a moderate, whisky-drinking Arab with a not-exclusively-muslim government. It just doesn't make sense. That's the whole point about all of this - if you actually think about it, using your own brain, using your own sources of information, you can quickly see that the Bush administration has changed their story SO MANY TIMES they clearly have something to hide. If they came out straight away and said about panislamic radicalism, then there would be more credibility to their stance. As it is, they didn't, and now look like they're pulling excuses out of their asses.
You seem to think that Islamic countries have an in-built hatred for the US. That's not true. Osama Bin Laden is pissed off with the states for something the states did to him and his country. If the US stopped running around pissing off every country it could find, there wouldn't be anyone parking airliners in your sky scrapers. By your logic, there would have been bombs all over Canada and every conceivable part of Europe by now. As you can see, there haven't been. Doesn't that show you that it isn't "Islam vs. The West", but "Pissed off people vs. America"
Your excuses for not going after other countries is stupid. Iraq was a "pre-emptive war" (which it
How does this get a 4?
It's mind-numbingly clear that Iraq had WMD
To who?
Where are they?
How come only half the US believe this and most of the rest of the world don't?
It's more clear as time goes on that the premise for the war was shaky at best, due to either incompetent leadership or incompetent intelligence agencies. Saddam HAD weapons of mass destruction but that was a long time ago. As we drew up to war it seemed that he might have some still, but there was certainly no definite evidence. Now it appears there really were non, as we can't find any.
I remember advocating two simultaneous reactions to 9/11:
It's not "girly" or "unpatriotic" to think about how one's actions affect others.
W.R.T. right vs left: It would be great if people thought about efficiency and effectiveness and responsibility once in a while instead of constantly going on about rights all the damn time. I am tired of laziness, intellectual and otherwise, substituting for getting together to get the job done (whatever the job is at any given time).
Genuine thinking is difficult and takes discipline. But worst of all, taking the time to actually consider one's approach is being labeled by both sides as unpatriotic/wrong/girly/wonkish/etc. I guess it's not exciting enough.
I guess you're not familiar with Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, or Imperial Japan, then...
Likewise in the middle east every attempt to control terrorism by blowing up towns, farms and houses (often of people unrelated to the problem) has caused nothing but an escalation of violence.
Actually, from what I've seen in Isreal, blowing up Hamas and Islamic Jihad leadership seems to be pretty effective at shrinking (though, no eliminating) the violence. You're right if your point is that we can't just blow up the terrorists and hope they go away. That's why we didn't just carpet bomb Iraq and most of the middle east. Instead, we're trying to eliminate terrorists where we can AS WELL as set up a free state in the middle of the region to act as a beacon to bring liberty and peace to the rest of the region.
Is this going to work overnight? Hell no! It took half a decade (and in some cases longer) to pacify post-WWII Germany and Japan, and even longer than that for them to become viable world powers. Likewise, it will take us just as long if not longer to achieve the same in Iraq. However, assuming we don't cut and run, it will be achieved.
Read the articles of 1946 in magazines such as Time... They sound eerily familiar with headlines such as "America Won the War; May Lose the Peace"... Funny in light of the situation of today, where two of our 'occupied' countries both are on friendly terms with us and compete with us economically.
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
Perhaps if Bush had simply said that to begin with instead of towing the WMD line, people might have generally gone along with him. Perhaps we all could have an honest, adult discussion about the issue and what might be the best way to deal with it.
I still think war in Iraq was really not the best way to start combatting Islamic fundamentalism/radicalism, but perhaps I didn't have all the info. I certainly wasn't given the chance to change my mind or think about it, I was just told Iraq had WMDs and was linked to Osama, both of which turned out not to be true (and Osama's name hasn't been mentioned by the President more than 6-7 times in the past year - apparently not much of a concern for him).
I believe war can be just and necessary from time to time. I agree that fundamentalism of all kinds, especially the kind that tends towards militarism, is the biggest problem we need to be dealing with in the 21st century. Unfortunately Bush picked the wrong target, misled everyone and now we're in a mess that seems to be making things worse than better.
IANA Spaniard, but I thought most Spanish voters were pissed that the government immediately blamed those Basque people when their own intel sources were saying it was Al Qaeda.
i.e., the election was not about "caving" or "standing up" to the terrorists; it was about standing up to a government that was putting ideology ahead of solid intel.
Hmmm... why does that sound familiar?...
All's true that is mistrusted
I don't support Bush even if I tend to agree with Republicans. But even I can see a con job and a grab for oil for what it is.
However that doesn't make a DDOS attack right. If Bush's message is so bad then why shouldn't it be heard. All this does is drive up sympathy and plays in to the terrorist fear mindset that is the cornerstone of the Bush agenda.
Slashdot, home of supporters of free software, free music, and free speech.Except for Moderators that disagree with you.
It would be much better to understand and remove the causes for these problems but tackling poverty and lack of education is much more dificult then dropping a few bombs and doesn't give you neo-cons such a stiffy.
You can't fix the problems of poverty and lack of education without removing the the dictator/regime that is forcing the conditions on it own people.
Saying pretty please won't get the dictator/regime to leave either. So sometimes it is necessary to "drop a few bombs", as you put it.
Huh? What's with the idea of bringing liberals into this discussion? We're talking extremists here. Extremists on both sides of political idealogy are against liberty. Extremists are the ones who want to shut up (or lock up) their opponents. This has nothing to do with liberals or conservatives, both of whom hate actions such as this (or such as the White House neo-cons have been doing). Extremists are the problem, not conservatives or liberals.
*ahem*
bwahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahah!
Bush made his money in deals? No, he lost money in deals. He ran several businesses into the ground. He made his money the American way - Daddy arranged it all for him.
Please, someone propose a better protest then.
So far, here's what we have:
- Street protests: Yeah, that'll make a big difference. Oh, another mass of people protesting in a major city? What good did the hundreds of thousands in multiple protests last year in Manhattan, or the millions in cities across Europe accomplish?
- Voting: Yeah, that'll make a big difference. That huge political gulf (sarcasm) between Bush and Kerry notwithstanding, there's very little to hold either to their election day promises, as many a President has shown.
To paraphrase Peter Lamborn Wilson, where did we cross the line where we forgot that protesting about the possibility of political consequences is not the same as political consequences? Voting for the RDNC will not solve our predicament. There has been a concerted effort between the parties to dig us into this hole for 50 years, and surprise, surprise, people are starting to lose faith in the system.
This is a big vote, indeed. But the likely outcome, a Bush/Kerry win, will only change the rate at which new suckage spews forth from the headlines.
What is one to do as this nation, and many of it allies, decends into war?
If you give a real alternative protest with real political consequences, these petty hackers will listen.
If you don't, you're probably part of what they're protesting.
The republicans own the media.
They won't let peaceful protesters within blocks of the President or in view of a camera taping the President.
The debate process blocks anyone with a differing view.
This is just about the only way people have left to voice their views. They aren't hurting anyone and they may very well make themselves look stupid. It is simply peaceful, but unlawful, protest.
To quote Cris Rock, "I'm not saying that its right, but I understand."
If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. - James Madison
So in the same vein, if you vote for Kerry, you're supporting all the wacko Greenpeace, tree-huggin, anti-capitalist, anti-trade communists, whether or not you agree with them. :)
I'd guess it's the theory that one side is a little closer to what you believe than the other...
lessor? where were you when they were teaching spulling? Or has Bush cut education spending that far already.
Anyway. Let's see, Bush has: sent American troops to die in an illegal war and after lying to the country about the reasons. He's presided over a regime that's successively stripped away your rights and freedoms. He's had out billions in tax breaks and dodgy contracts to his cronies (Halliburton): to such an extent that he's turned a massive budget surplus under the Democrats into a truly awe-inspiring defecit.
And what has Kelly done?
Clinton only lied about who was sucking his dick (and how is that anyone else's business anyway). Bush lied and got thousands of people killed, *increased* terrorism and reduced your freedoms (including the freedom to learn how to spell it seems).
And Kelly has done what exactly that even begins to compare with Bush's fundamental corruption? Hmm let's see.... Nope, nothing is still the answer. Let's face it, in many ways Saddam Hussein would be the lesser of two evils when put up against Dubyah: at least he's honest about how he came to power.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
Have you met many Americans? Do they know what totalitarian means? Do they admit their own failings? Can they make sentences w/ subject/verb agreement?
I'm not trying to say that Americans are slobbering idiots that deserve the crap leaders they get, but advocating silence and letting the GOP self-destruct just doesn't seem to acknowledge the apathy/lack of critical thinking that's so prevalent in America. I don't know the solution to the problem, but counting on analytical, intelligent voters is not it.
"I must not fear. Fear is the mind killer." -Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear
If you Read The Article you would have realized that they were not only advocating page reload *programs* and distributing them (for the express purpose of DoS), but also "mischief and mayhem" by hacking and defacing websites.
I would wager to guess that the "organizers" of this DoS could be charged with something, but no I don't think it is currently *expressly* illegal, but it is at minimum disturbing the Cyber-Peace, which could be translated from current laws.
I have two cases for you to help you ponder your hypocrisy:
Al-Jazeera
Yellow Times
Censorship is wrong. A liberal would not be in favor of censorship. These guys are more accurately described as anarchists.
- Hail to our fearless misleader! Fool speed ahead!
HINT: Free speech means everyone gets to express their ideas, not just you.
It's amazing how slashdoters can be so fickle. Free speech is OK as long as it doesn't come from a republican.
Not everything is analogous to cars. Car analogies rarely work.
Problem is, the hacktivists don't see it that way. They probably don't even LIKE Kerry...many voters don't consider him progressive enough for their tastes and the anti-war folks can't like that he's a decorated veteran even considering his later protests.
They see themselves as being anti-Bush...a separate option from pro-Kerry. But many conservatives don't break it down so granularly...anybody on the other side is on the Other Side, and so we moderates voting Democrat this year are in the same boat as the draft dodging hippies and punk subversives.
In fact, one of the major problems I have with the modern Republican party is that they treat nearly everything as a binary issue. You're either for it or against it, you can't be ambivalent or vote to control the amount of something. In a way, this inflexibility makes the Republican party even more idealistic than the Democrats, and institutes a lot of what the Democrats claim is hypocrisy. How can you have a party that believes that parents should have the right to choose what school their children go to but that they're not bright not moral enough to choose whether or not to keep their child? Easy...each of these issues is broken down differently on that polar scale, and abortion falls cleanly into the "no fucking way" bin. Pragmatic decisions like keeping abortion legal, but dumping money into support and pro-child advertising campaigns to reassure scared young mothers that they don't have to kill their child, are seen as wishy washy liberalism -- even if such programs are met with greater success -- because they do not accept the artifical polarity forced onto the issue by idealistic conservatives. Yes, in a perfect world nobody would choose abortion and everybody would have a father and one parent would be able to be a primary caregiver. But these are cultural problems...and they are impossible to legislate.
Hey freaks: now you're ju
Then we have to deal with average people joining the Republican party just because it offers a sane choice compared to the nutjob left wingers. Hell, even crazies like Anne Coulter seem sane compared to hacker groups actively working to break the law in the name of democracy.
I'm sorry, but how can you honestly claim that these people, with the maturity level of 12 year olds, are somehow politically related to Clinton, Kerry, Cleland, Obama or anyone else who is taken seriously by Democratic Party? Janet Reno would have prosecuted these losers just as quickly as any other criminal. If you are willing to associate these idiots with the Democratic Party, then you also have to associate McVeigh, the KKK and the majority of right wing nuts listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center with the GOP. Besides, these little kids might be misguided about democracy, but the right just cares about power, which concerns me a lot more.
Personally, I'd rather be associated with script kiddies, who just need to be taken out behind the woodshed once to straighten them out, than racist wacko nutjob terrorists like the KKK and it's spinoffs. Who's worse, vandals or terrorists?
I'm a liberal because the Founding Fathers were liberals. I'm a liberal because this country is a liberal secular democratic republic. I'm a liberal because I believe in the American Revolution. I don't really give a rat's ass if someone else has managed to confuse their culture or religion with the business of the government of the US, it doesn't make their ideas valid. I'm a liberal because I believe that a political system of ideas must be internally logically consistent. Everytime I go applying scientific analysis to the historical record, to the original writings that formed the ideology behind the American Revolution, I come out looking liberal. I can logically and rationally defend my political positions and can do so consistently. That's why I'm a liberal, and anyone can try and criticize me for it all they want, but they still haven't beaten me in a debate. I'm a liberal, because intellectual conservatism is dead.
<troll>Oh, and I also think that Ayn Rand was an idiot and libertarians are, for the most part, the most politically naive group I've ever run across. They're much more fun when they're drunk and trying to defend their ideology, cause when they're sober, it's just sad</troll>
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me
HAHAHAHA
F911 is such propaganda and blatant lies it is unbelievable.
after watching that it makes me want to vote for bush because i know all of what was said is obviousely false. and basically if they couldnt find anything REAL to go after, there must not be much there
i am playing devils advocate, but seriousely, anyone who is swayed against bush because of F911, they shouldnt vote, becasuse they are idiots, stay home and get trashed on listerine instead. do yourself and your country a favor, we do not need more uninformed voters.
These proposed acts say volumes about the Far Left. Continually crying about their rights being suppressed, they take every opportunity to suppress the rights of others. It obvious that they have no more love of Free Speech (or Democracy) than the Taliban, Bin Laden, and other terrorists.
Illegal? What war is legal or illegal? He DID enforce the UN's last resolution on describing punishment if Iraq didn't start complying with the mandates of the UN (not to mention the terms of its surrender) that it hadn't done for about 12 years...if saddam had opened things up, verified destruction of old WMD (which he has had and used), and complied fully with UN requirements...he'd unfortunately still be in full power. Bush lying? Have you listened lately to the 9/11 and other commisions' findings? They said there was bad intelligence, but, it was the SAME intelligence th e rest of the world powers had and believed. If I were president, and my intelligence told me that someone was going to nuke me tomorrow...and I had Russia, Great Britan and a few others tell me the exact same thing...I'd definitely hit them before they hit me. This is an analogy of course, but, the same situation. Shit happens...and it did in this case. But, out of it...many good possibilities may come of it. Getting saddam out...giving democracy a real chance to happen in a Arab nation. But, lying? C'mon...if you're acting on the best intelligence that you believe to be true...no lies. Clinton? Yup...he lied...and was caught at it lying to a court. In this land, no matter who you are...you cannot do this. If Bush had been found to be lying for some reason, I'd be up in arms too, but, nothing points to him doing so.
"He's presided over a regime that's successively stripped away your rights and freedoms."
Gotta agree with you on this...the Rep's used to be more for individual rights, privacy, and fiscal responsibility, and they have none of this now. Trouble is...I don't see any of this on the Dem's side either...sigh
"And what has Kelly done?"
Who the hell is this 'Kelly'...and what is he running for?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Ah, but what is he lying about? I think you've been listening to the propaganda too long if you think Kerry is the 'ultimate traitor'; he has differeing views to be sure, but that hardly makes him a traitor. Can you point out why you think he's a traitor?
IMNSHO you guys need to tone down the rhetoric down there. You end up with right-wing liars and left-wing liars, and for some reason you think you have to swear allegiance to one of them...
Which is, of course, why you should go with Instant Runoff Voting. Have more than two REAL candidates! Never waste another vote! Wanna vote for Buchanan but would rather get Bush then Kerry? You can EXPRESS THAT!
Disclosure: I don't like Kerry, but I think Bush is a well-meaning but incompetent president, controlled by a group of vile sons of bitches. So feel free to call me a pinko commie Liberal and all that if you like, but there's no need to post it.
Anyway, I'm sure I've sown enough seeds of sedition here...
A vast majority of Spain's population was against the war to begin with. Of course they were going to vote out the government that didn't listen to anything they said. Not fighting a war that has nothing to do with you and is supported by shaky, constantly changing rationales is not "cowering in fear". It's sensible.
My good looks paid for that pool, and my talent filled it with water.
Things are going from bad to worse at the moment, what makes you think they're going to take a turn for the better?
And how much do you honestly know about the situation that isn't from some form of mass-media? I have friends in Iraq currently and some that have served and returned. What they tell me is vastly different from what is being reported on the news. But that's why it's news. They can't report that everything is going smoothly in 90% of the country because that's not news. That is the ordinary.
Not everything is analogous to cars. Car analogies rarely work.
If you throw out one government that lies to you, it will only be replaced by... guess what? ANOTHER government that lies to you. If you throw out one government that makes some mistakes, it will be replaced by... you got it... ANOTHER goverment that makes mistakes.
What we should be asking our candidates is not so much "how many mistakes have you made in your life", but "what exactly is it that you stand for?".
On the one hand, we have Bush; a guy who (most of the time) has a clear agenda, strong beliefs, and tends to stick to them (whether we like them or not). The end result is that he may do some things that we don't like, simply because he believes in them.
On the other hand, we have Kerry, a man who has demonstrated again and again that he will say or do anything, and take nearly any side of any issue to appeal to as many people as possible in order to get elected.
While this may seem like the perfect man for the job ("Finally! A president who will do what the PEOPLE want him to!"), this is also the epidomy of wishy-washiness.
Let's say you're leading a group of 5 people, and you're lost in the woods. Each one of them wants you to go in each of the 4 cardinal directions. "Go East!" says one. "No! Go North!" says another, and so on. Would you rather be led by someone who will make a decision, accepting the risk that goes along with that, or would you rather be led by someone who is so bent on appeasing all 4 people that he'll just stand there with his thumb up his butt and go NOWHERE?
A truly brave man is not afraid to take a stand in spite of what some people might think of him.
But God demonstrates his love for us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us - (Romans 5:8)
When the hell are these stupid children (however old they may be) going to realize that pulling juvenile stunts like this is NOT the way to make your point. Nor is it a way to "win".
It merely points out (with glowing, thousand meter-tall indicators) exactly how stupid, petty, and childish you are. As well as aggravating your candidate when he realizes what a group of morons he has in his constituency and how badly they reflect on him and his political views and backers.
You want to effect REAL change?
SOCIAL ENGINEERING!
Script-kiddie bullshit like this only inhibits it.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
This is utterly disgraceful to use the word 'hacker' this way. My views mirror those of most hackers and are quite well known. This is low. Hacktivists are nothing more than mouse clickers on low bandwidth connections. This is lower than script kiddies.
I am 100% against Bush, as are a sizable majority of Europeans. It is nice to see Americans turn against him and he'll do himself in without the help of hacktivists and violent protesters. There are simply better ways to replace George W. Bush!
Is this the new liberal idea of free speech and choice? Block people from seeing Republican websites, and block them from entering Republican headquarters?
I know it's not all liberals/Democrats, but some of them are completely insane. If they're not actively blocking Ralph Nader from being on the ballot (after all, nobody should have any choices), they're funding smear books and movies. I constantly hear about this "Republican attack machine," but honestly all I ever see is a liberal attack machine.
Okay, so this is off-topic.
This is to say nothing of the civil liability a person could incur. The RNC has deep pockets, far deeper than some script kiddie has.
A lot of these anti-bush people don't even know what they are talking about. They let the media tell them how to vote. Bush is a bad public speaker, I'll give you guys that, but he is no idiot. I didn't know idiots get degrees and MBAs from Havard and Yale. Go figure.
f ormation About Moore
I also find it funny that Democrates don't even know what Kerry stands for (kind of like he doesn't even know what he stands for) but they again let the media tell them what to do. These are probably the same people who think Michale Moore is a genious, although he doesn't even make documentaries, since documentaries by definition are TRUE.
http://www.larryelder.com/911/debunking911.htmlIn
Pinging a server isn't illegal either, but it becomes so when you do it in such a way (volume and repitiion) to disrupt traffic
If you can't see the value in jet powered ants you should turn in your nerd card. - Dunbal (464142)
I was in France when the Spain held the elections. The terror plot worked (turned the elections), but not in the way the terrorists had planned.
I listened fully to the coverage on BBC Radio and France Info, and I found that it was the media, not the government who suggested ETA (Basque) links. The government higher-ups stayed quiet while the pundits decryed ETA's tactics. Of course, it doesn't take a terrorist expert to realize that ETA always claims responsibility, and did not in this case.
Also, my firend in Syria told me that at that time (while the investigation was unpublished), the Arab media was pointing their fingers saying, "See, it's not always Islamic extremists..."
When the report was finally published, the opposition was *very* quick to accuse the government of hiding the Al Qaeda ties, thus deceiving the people concerning the risks of participating in Iraq. Without time to properly challenge the accusation, the people voted the opposition into office.
Now, if the government had meant to blame ETA to keep the heat off them concerning Iraq, why did they release the info a couple of days before the elections? They could have kept it hidden for another day or two, no? Also, as I said before, the media was largely responsible for the accusation of ETA, and then for the accustation that the government had tried to keep the truth form the public.
In the end, the terroists succeeded, but only through the media and the oppositon party. I think this is a small-scale preview of what could happen in the US.
Large, competitive media, more concerned about ratings/profits than truth? Check.
Partisian warfare? Check.
What is truely scarry is that someone could be so politically spiteful of another party that they would help people inciting violence acheive their goals, if it hurt the other party.
The more time goes by, the less I like partisian politics.
I'd rather have someone respond than be modded up.
What a baseless crap statement. Which party is more tolerant in regards to flag-burning?* Which party lead a coordinated effort to jam the phone lines of the other party during "get out the vote" calling efforts on election day 2002? Which party helped back a massive campaign to force theater owners into not showing F9/11? Yeah, thought so.
* I proudly served as a United States Marine and nothing breaks my heart like seeing the United States flag burned, but I also understand that giving others the right to burn the flag is what makes this nation so great.
-- jimmycarter
>I guess you're not familiar with Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, or Imperial Japan, then...
That is a completely different point. The resistance of those countries was organized and could be targeted. Terrorism has no central location. Terrorists do not represent a state. The parent comment's point is that you can't bomb an enemy who has no home. So all of your examples are beside the point.
Do you actually have any proof that the Israeli tactics have reduced violence in Israel? Just because you think the tactics are effective is meaningless until you can offer some factual evidence to support this claim. Your entire comment is basically supposition.
Sorry I can refute that - I did not believe that Saadam has WMD neither did Hans Blix.
So although you might think you are correct you are wrong.
Just saying it like it are.
Give it up with this "liberal media" bullshit. Good lord. The "liberal media" acted so liberal in the run-up to war that the liberal editors of the two most liberal of the liberal papers, the NYTimes and the Washington Post, felt the need to publically apologize in recent months for not doing their jobs, and instead acting like pseudo-patriotic parrots of administration propoganda - and doing so very willfully. There was a great study showing that during the war anti-war pundits on all networks together (including PBS) got one-twenty-fifth the air time of pro-war pundits. That would be 1:25, not 8:1. Real "liberal" there.
If you could see past that log in your eye, you'd realize there's nothing liberal about the media anymore. Virtual all media in this country is owned by a handful of large corporations. They look out for #1. CNN viewers may have been slightly less misinformed than FNC viewers, but CNN still beat the war drum just as hard, and have been just as soft in criticizing the administration since.
I guess you're not familiar with Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, or Imperial Japan, then...
The difference is that these were national governments (same as Iraq). It doesn't work the same way with Islamic Radicalism, the IRA or any other terrorist group. This doesn't mean that a military strategy to fight Al Qaeda is ineffective, but I doubt whether that alone will do the job.
It took half a decade (and in some cases longer) to pacify post-WWII Germany and Japan
Really? There was fighting in post-WWII Germany (i.e. in the 50s)? Strange, my parents don't seem to remember anything like that and they were there after all...
Likewise, it will take us just as long if not longer to achieve the same in Iraq. However, assuming we don't cut and run, it will be achieved.
While I agree that to cut and run is not an option, don't be too sure that it will be achieved. Things can play out either way (Germany vs. Vietnam). History tends to defy good intentions.
This is one of the stupidest reasons I've ever heard for wanting Bush to win. Does this mean you prefer the theocrat "Bush is a moral man" or "The rich are the only ones who innovate and create jobs" type idiots who are voting for Bush? Maybe you support the Neil Boortz "we should turn Najaf into a glass parking lot" type of idiots that support Bush.
If you make political choices based on the fringes of the political parties, you should be voting Democrat, they at least know how to marginalize their loonies, the GOP let's em run the asylum. And how is this opinion Insightful? I'd rather see Kerry win because 9 out of 10 KKK members support Bush? You vote based on ignorant Bubba's in white robes? Maybe the GOP will learn when Bush loses? These aren't serious political strategies, they're akin to stoner dorm room conversations.
This is why the GOP fails to impress me, I've yet to see a serious person with real ideas or any grasp of reality claim that Bush is a good president. This buffoon is quite literally, the absolute worst Presidential Administration this country has ever had. This guy is worse than Nixon, worse than Jackson, worse than Grant or Hoover. He makes Wilson look like a saint. I want this whole crowd of incompetent fools gone. They aren't worth the tax dollars wasted on them.
Every problem that has arisen from Bush policies has been predicted. No result that the Bush Administration claimed would come from their policy has actually happened. More often than not, the results their critics have predicted have come to pass. These idiots are seemingly incapable of rational thought or any grasp of reality. Their tax policies have failed to create jobs. Their energy policies haven't done shit for foreign dependence or better energy markets. We have no coherent strategy for dealing with terrorism. "YeeHaw" is not a foreign policy. Wages are falling, jobs are leaving and there are no new industries or markets replacing what's disappearing. We are going further into debt as a nation. This administration has been squandering every great resource we've given it access to. They've squandered our reputation internationally. They've squandered our wealth, and they squander our environment.
These people are cultural bigots who don't grasp anything outside their own limited experience. They believe they have some sort of monopoly on truth and are willing to do anything to gain power. Our system was set up so that the people would have the ability to stop individuals just like this. The Bush Administration advocates for every scenario our Founding Fathers warned would destroy the Revolution. The Bush policies encourage concentration of wealth, mingling of culture and religion with government, and they can't keep state secrets, SECRET.
Between the Valerie Plame incident and that Khan computer guy, who was a freaking Pakistani mole, these guys might as well give Osama a swipe card for the Pentagon. They are incompetent, screw em, I'll take any marginalizable loonies over these nut jobs with power any day.
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me
I wonder if portions of the Patriot Act would make this act an act of terrorisim. I'm not sure if I feel that would be a valid use of the Patriot Act or not however, I do feel that attempting to limit someone's freedom of speech is morally, ethically, and legally wrong. Probably doubly so when it comes to limiting the political process. I am not a member of either major party but I do recognize their role in society and government.
I also know that the two groups in this country that have done the most to limit political speech in this country are the Republican and Democrat parties. Their respective politcal machines hoard the publicity and raise money and as a result they are able to out-shout all the other voices that deserve to be heard. There are other political parties out there that have valid agendas and good ideas (the Greens and the Libritarians come to mind immediately). But the reality is that the two party system that has evolved in this country has served more to divide us than unite us. Most people are members of one party or another based on their feelings about a single issue that they feel strongly about (abortion for instance). They go along with the other planks in their party's platform simply because they agree with the one issue.
In some ways, I'm pretty far to one side and in other ways I'm pretty far to the other. In general my leanings I feel are based on some core values that I got from my parents and my church others from values that I found for myself. Because of these things, I can't be a member of either major party, I run hot or cold, not lukewarm and I'm sorry but I will not comprimise my feelings just to play on one of the big teams.
Unfortunately for me, this means that I do not have much of a voice in Washington D.C.
They don't believe it because hackers are part of a demographic that's notoriously anti-organized-religion.
:)
With folks like Ashcroft at the helm of one of the more frightening departments of the government, people associate Republicans with money, power, and religion.
What I think most people fail to realize is that right now, neither party really sticks to their core values. The Democrats want to restrict freedoms under the guise of social and economic reform. The Republicans want to restrict freedom under the guise of security and religous appeal.
Which of these looks more dangerous to the typical hacker's social sensibilities? It doesn't matter if in the end, the core of the US is totally ruined and discarded. All people see right now is the road to get there.
Of course, beware the gross generalizations.
Slashdot. It's Not For Common Sense
I really,REALLY doubt that anyone anti-Republican with an operational brain cell left would pull such a useless, inflamatory stunt such as this.
It makes the 'pubs look like victims, and gives juice to the 'wingers and other "security" crazies in vogue, juice that will inevitably be used to set up a police state presence on the internet.
It reminds me vividly of the few "anarchists" at the WTO protests in Seattle a few years back. A few dozen really violent bastards ran out from nowhere and trashed the city, of the thousands of peaceful people assembled. The news networks ran the pictures incessantly, and the American public were convinced that protests were not worth the free assembly rights we used to have. Now you need to get a permit, and IF you get that, you are herded past a gauntlet of shoulder-to shoulder armored and overarmed black monsters, into a small enclosure surrounded by barbed wire, with cameras trained onto your face, in some remote hellhole. You may be arrested at will. As recent reports indicate, the FBI is now visiting people's homes on the premise that they MIGHT someday protest, leaving the message that They Are Being Watched.
Throwing out the obvious thought: the "anarchists" at the WTO protest were agents provocateurs, and the government security apparatchiks have used that "riot" to institute the present police state in the U.S. and Europe.
And I am thinking that these "protestors" against the Republican web sites are about as authentic as the "anarchist rioters" in Seattle.
Wait for it people: this DOS attack against the 'pubs will be used as publicity fodder to create a new internet police force. If it doesn't work this time, a few "anarchist" attacks in the future should convince the public that such a force is needed.
And the FBI/CIA/HS police will be asking for your papers when you criticize someone in power. Count on it.
I'm surprised that more people from the left aren't absolutely ashamed of what's going on over there. All the talk of anarchy, black powder on your clothes to confuse the dogs, volunteering for the convention and then not showing up, trying to DoS their website, etc.
God forbid any of these people would go out and campaign for their candidate on the issues. Go door to door asking people to vote for him and telling them why they should. Contribute money to your candidate's campaign. Go to the local campaign headquarters and ask what you can do to help your candidate -- something you can tell your grandchildren about with pride.
The problem with the left is that they're so desperate to defeat Bush that they'll do absolutely anything sort of breaking the law. And I'm sure some won't stop there. Remember, it doesn't have to be a felony or a misdemeanor for something to be wrong or unscrupulous. DoS'ing the GOP's website is going to do absolutely nothing to help your candidate. And neither is causing chaos at the convention.
I, for one, am completely in favor of very strict criminal penalties for anybody who intentionally distrupts the security personnel or infrastructure at the convention or at any high profile event. Send these morons to the city jail for some serious amount of time -- like 90 days. If there's no room for them in the jail, build a tent city outside of town and keep them there.
Protesting is one thing, and you have every right to do that, despite what you and your friends might say about the GOP wanting to silence you. Nobody's going to stop you from protesting, as long as you obey the law. And yes, they might have rules about where you can be. That's not an infringement of free expression. It's a way of attempt to control a potential mob and keep them from intentionally disrupting a location that really does require a lot of security.
Bottom line -- grow up and let the democratic process work. If you really want to help this election, you can get to work educating voters how to vote properly, so we don't have the fiasco we had last time in Florida. Thanks to that lunacy, we unfortunately had to take the whole thing to the courts, which obviously isn't the way a lot of people like to see an election decided.
RP
If you want to help fix the political systmem in America, GET INVOLVED. We are in the boat we are in because we have record low numbers of americans actually voting and electing our leadership. Actually THINKING about the issues and MAKING AN INFORMED VOTE would be a big improvement. Get involed in a political party (not even one of the 'big two' - I bet a lot of slashdotters would like the libertarian party, for instance)
Doing this kind of vandalism is going to do nothing to engender anyone to any cause it might be supporting. It might even polarize people AGAINST the cause it might be supporting. Remember how linux developers were recently criticized for windows virii?
On behalf of a loser country, I'd like to thank you guys for lending us the money and saving us from the Nazis and the red menace.
-- Using the preview button since 2005
Hello all,
:
I think preventing people from getting information from a party or another is not a good practice in democraty.
But why don t all the people who do not want to see bush any more do not simply put a banner on their web site
NO MORE BUSH !
The web is a media like any other one. It is right to use it into a political way.
Maybe so, but only because we give our cash to practically every other country in the world as 'aid'
As a percentage of GDP given as foreign aid, the USA rates as one of the meanest countries in the developed world. Add to that the strings attached to the meagre aid they do give, such as the withdrawl by the Bush adminstration of funding for NGOs which advocate the use of condoms to prevent the spread of AIDS.
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
When Hussein accused UN weapons inspectors of being US spies in 1998...
Um...they actually were spies.
But all this stuff misses the main point about Iraq. Saddam was contained by the sanctions. He wasn't particularly punished by them (he didn't miss any meals) but look at hii options post-9/11, pre-war:
- Attack one or more of his Islamic neighbors.
- Attack Israel, either conventionally or with WMD.
- Attack the United States, either conventionally or with WMD.
- Give, say, Al-Quaeda WMDs.
- Maintain the status quo.
Saddam's a vicious, evil SOB. But he's not stupid, and he could see the above as well as anyone. If you can come up with another alternative path for him to take, I'd love to hear it.Result: Gulf War II with full international support.
Result: War. Quite possibly a glowing crater where Bagdhad once was.
Result: it is to laugh. Iraq is stomped even worse than it actually was. Perhaps even a glowing crater. (If he actually posed any real military threat to us, the war might conceivably have been justified... but nobody thought that.)
The only real terrorism Saddam has been tied to, the stipends for families of suicide bombers in Israel, was very public... because he was doing it for publicity. He doesn't gain a lot from attacking the U.S. by proxy, and if it's ever traced back to him (a significant probability, though far from a sure thing), we're back to a full-on military onslaught with widespread international support.
Result: pretty good for Saddam. He's still in charge of the county, livin' large, and he can tweak around oil prices and hurt the U.S. a bit by saber-rattling from time to time.
If we really wanted to supress "Panislamic radicalism", screw Saudi Arabia or China or whatever, we could have done it better in Afghanistan. We had international support and clear moral grounding, a populace that actually didn't like the ruling regime and really did mostly welcome us, etc. If we'd spent the kind of dough and deployed the kind of troops there that we're currently throwing at Iraq, we might actually have been able to do some real nation-building.
Just think, a democratic Islamic state. Nothing better to scare the thugocracies of the Middle East, and perhaps even inspire their people. Yes, it would have attracted the same foreign insurgents there that Iraq has, but the native populace didn't get introduced to us by infrastructure bombing. The Soviets did that, and we helped the Afghanis against them.
How much money did Bush allocate for Afghanistan in the 2004 budget? Nothing. Not a damn thing. They forgot about it.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
Low voter turnout shows the world that we don't really care about how our country is run... GET OFF YOUR LAZY ASSES & VOTE... FOR SOMEONE YOU BELIEVE IN!!!
It seems pretty obvious to me that the 'hactivists' are exactly what they profess the desire to overthrow. They are deciding that its bes tfor people not to see these websites, and therefore not decide for themselves. Some freedom fighters... If they really belived in the opposing force here, in this case the Democrats, they would be confident that their (the Dems) message, weighed against the Repub's message, would be enough for people to make a valid and respectable choice. But to say, "ets silence one of their outlets of expression, so only one side can be heard' is exactly the kind of oppression that these morons think they are fighting. What a bunch of fools.
I think you're a hypocrite if you criticize the patriot act but applaud these types of efforts to limit free speech.
"we can track individual trucks by satellite."
Satellites by definition have to obey Kepler's laws, which means where they are when is very predictable. This is why we still have spy planes.
Also, being able to track a truck has little (if anything) to do with knowing its contents. Those transporting sarin tend not to write "WMD" in big letters on top of the trailer. If anything, they're more likely to put a red crescent on the truck than anything else. This is why we need more human intelligence.
And finally, tracking something and being able to intercept it are two very different things. About the only thing US troops can do to effectively project force anywhere in Iraq right now is through airstrikes, which present new problems. Too little explosive and you have a lethal cloud of sarin wafting through the countryside. But if you use enough explosive to incinerate all the sarin, all anybody will find is a scorched piece of sheet metal with the aforementioned red crecent, which will be all over the news and convince well-intentioned locals to take up arms against the US. This is something that needs to be intercepted on the ground.
"How is it that we picked up individual "chemical weapon lab" trucks on satellite,"
Because ground intelligence was able to verify the contents of the truck beforehand, red-flagging the truck for special attention the the Reconnaisance Office.
"but missed the 370 trucks moving across the border? If they were spaced only 150 feet apart, the convoy would have stretched for more than ten miles! How did we miss that?"
Again, they tend not to write "WMD" on their trucks. Sarin is obviously not Iraq's only potential export, and it's easy enough to imagine a few "special" barrels of "oil" being shipped out here and there both in accordance with and against the Oil for Food program.
"But Sarin is not a liquid."
A weapon is all but useless if it isn't portable. Pretty much as a rule, chemical weapons are transported in liquid form and become a gas only upon use.
"and to put 2 tons of gas in compressed cylinders on a military truck would be quite a feat."
You're forgetting one of your gas laws. Why compress when you can chill?
And they wouldn't use military trucks.
"740 tons of 100 lb artillery shells is 14,800 rounds."
And you're assuming that 14,800 artillery shells is a non-negligible number of artillery shells for the former Iraqi army to have on hand.
"At 100 rounds/truck, you're still looking at 148 vehicles.
How did we miss that?"
Sit at any given point on a highway and count the number of trucks that pass by you during the course of any given day and you might have an idea.
" but rather that he tried too hard to be like the U.S. - a sovereign nation possessing weapons of strategic deterrence."
Except that the US doesn't have a consistent history of using such weapons both internationally and domesticly, doesn't have numerous UN resolutions against it, didn't have a statutory requirment to dispose of said weapons in a verifiable manor, etc.
Comparing Iraq and the US in that manner is like saying "Everybody else in the US can own a gun, why can't a convicted felon?"
Maybe by then some of the nations will be kind enough to absolve us of some debt like we have done to countless other nations, specifically those in Europe.
And, along the same lines, you will be kind enough to absolve many developing nations from their debts, which in their cases mean a majority of their population living in crippling, often-fatal poverty?
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
Hacking the republican website: morally fine with me, legally not so much. At least they aren't SPAMMERS: I had to halt service at our free email server http://friscomail.org because of a Nigerian Scammer/Spammer. (Help me stop this guy - all the info is on the front page.) Personally I'd rather see the authorities go after these type of people instead of the blackhats mentioned in this article. Honestly though, is shutting down the Rep. site really going to do much other than cause inconvenience? It's the DieBold machines that need to be "taken care of"...
Yeah, but who is going to call in our debts? Given our military supremacy, actually having to caugh up that 6 tril isn't going to be an immediate problem.
The real financial problem for the US is not the debt itself, but related to the debt.
For the past several decades, the US could get out of financial troubles by simply printing more money. Since we had the only currency that was universally accepted as a unit of international monetary excange, this seldom caused the kind of inflation it should have. Now that the Euro is challenging the Dollar as the international currency of choice, and east Asia is talking about a unified currency, it's unlikely that we'll be able to continue this strategy.
For a long time now, money has been growing on trees for the federal government, and that's stopping fast. This could spell real danger for the US economy.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
I think that "We want to bombard (the Republican sites) with so much traffic that nobody can get in" says it all. Intent is not hard to get when they announce it.
Erm, not really. The neocons are in firm control of the GOP. The greens are not anywhere near in control of the Democratic Party. While there has been a resurgence in the liberal/progressive wing of the party, there are still a lot of moderates in the leadership. If you vote for Bush, you're voting for a neocon agenda. If you vote for Kerry, you're voting for a moderate liberal agenda.
Perhaps you should also wake the fuck up and realize that this whole mideast strategy IS NOT ABOUT WMD IN IRAQ. It's about forcibly killing Panislamic radicalism over the next several decades, perhaps in a generation, without letting it run its natural course over the next 2 to 3 centuries.
.. I don't know what that is called. fascist?
Wait... first you were talking about the justification to invade Iraq, and now you are alluding to some higher strategy.
Why not just tell the TRUTH? Why does the Bush administration need to LIE about the reasons for going to war. This is a democracy, not a fascist state, and the people must be trusted to make the right choices democratically. To believe that the government may/should take unilateral action in spite of the electorate is well...
Why have 9/11 and "Iraq" been discussed in the same context? Not because, as some liberals mindlessly drone that Bush and his "cronies" wanted to "fool" the American people into thinking that Iraq was directly involved in 9/11 (and no one in the administration has EVER said anything of the sort;
So 70% of the american people simply decided to believe that connection for no reason. SOMEONE was putting the thought into the minds of the public.
additionally, Iraq does have proven ties with al-Qaeda, even while NOT having been involved in 9/11 - but that ridiculously misses the point!);
And the point was stated that "Saddam Hussein is an iminent threat".... Saddam Hussein was a secular leader, and while he was a brutal dictator and an asshole, he was also helping to prevent the spread of islamic fundamentalism. Which is the reason America supported Saddam until the time he stepped out of line and invaded another dictatorship known as Kuwait.
rather, they're talked about in the same breath because 9/11 is but a mere taste of what the US and Western Europe can expect if the problems in the mideast at large aren't dealt with preemptively. (Oops, is that a dirty word?)
Dealing with a problem in such a self aggrandizing , unilateral and dishonest way, just throws fuel onto the fire. You honestly think, kicking the shit out of Saddam Hussein has weakened radical islam? And now to follow it up, with some farce of a show trial... this only weakens the bonds between democratic nations on earth and gives the enemy more opportunities for attack.
Hussein should be handed over to the Hague.
"pre-emption" is not a dirty word when applied to a bona fide iminent threat, but it is a polite way to say "war of aggression" when applied pointlessly to a non-threat (some 12 or so years late), and results in self-aggrandizement (i.e. restricting reconstruction contracts to coalition member based companies only, does not help Iraq, it lessens competition, raises the cost of reconstruction, and rewards coalition members).
Democracies go to war because of what is right and good. Not in order to earn cash prizes. It is morally offensive.
And certain multi-national corporations with very close ties to the Bush administration benefited splendidly from the war in Iraq. It is a conflict of interest. It smells like corruption. And it is certain to weaken the unity of democracies around the world, and give the enemy the chance to strike.
9/11 CHANGED the threshold for dealing with things that could potentially execute devastating blows to the US, and to our economy with which our prosperity and our very lives are so dependent.
I dont see how 9/11 did that at all. Military strategists knew of the posibility for such an attack. Everyone knew of such possibilities.
9/11 changed the threshold for censorship and removing civil liberties and silencing dissent among all those who have differing opinions. And I'm not talking about the opinions of terrorists. I'm talking about the opinions of law abiding citizens who aren't morons, and when you claim to have proof, expect to see proof.
So
No one has a right to their *own* opinion. They have a right to the TRUTH.
Well when you owe that much money there isn't much they can do to you because if you default on it they quite possibly could go out of business.
It is said that if you owe a million dollars you have a big problem, but if you owe 100 million dollars the bank has a big problem.
Scale that up to ~6 trillion dollars and draw your own conclusion.
One group of wackos doesn't mind sacrificing me to advance their cause. The other group might make me poorer, and my ecnomy less efficient, but at least I will be alive and able to enjoy my life of poverty...
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
If the causes of terrorism were poverty and lack of education, as so many try to claim, then we would find the terrorist organizations staffed and filled with poor and uneducated masses.
That is completely and utterly stupid. It's like saying Martin Luther King wasn't standing up for the disenfrachised, uneducated black man, because he was obviously an intelligent, effective man of some means.
I'm not equating the methods of terrorists with those of that great passivist; I'm simply pointing out the obvious fallacy in your argument. The poor and uneducated in those countries are too busy scratching out a living to fight, that's true. Those that are educated and/or wealthy, seeing the institutionalized causes of that poverty, and how those institutions limit their opportunities and ability to be masters of their own destiny, then choose to strike out against those they believe to be responsible. Dr. King did so with reason, passion and dignity. The terrorists have chosen other, more deplorable means.
I'm not trying to criticize you here, but I think I should post a correction: your post is only really meaningful if one does two things:
1. Count only governmental aid. The U.S. is different from most other Western countries in that we are not a centralized, government-controlled society (although admittedly we become more so every year). The percentage of private vs. government aid is much higher for the U.S. that it is for most other countries.
2. Ignore perhaps the most colossal subsidy of all: Defense. For 50 years, the only thing preventing the Red Army from pouring through the Fulda Gap and into Western Europe, or the North Koreans from smashing through the DMZ into South Korea, was the U.S. military. Same situation vis-a-vis China and Taiwan. Freed from the colossal burden of defense spending, those countries used their resources instead to develop stable polities, healthy economies and the freedom to bitch about the U.S. everytime something goes wrong.
- Alaska Jack
After reading the posts on this particular topic, I'm amazed at how quickly the /. community retreats to the rhetorical (albeit slightly better researched and intelligent) arguments on both sides of the Bush vs. Kerry argument.
I'm not going to advocate either candidate here as I don't really think it really matters. Both men have questionable service records during the Vietnam war. I know that service speakes to the character of each man, but just how relevant is a three decades old cold-war conflict to the modern world with regard to the completely different "war on terror"?
The grim reality we need to face is that Bush and Kerry are actually two sides to the same damn coin. Is your real tax burden really going to go down under either administration? Is the government going to be less intrusive under either administration? John Kerry hasn't met a tax increase or bigger governmental progam he didn't like. George W. Bush signed on one of the largest entitlements in over 30 years. While Bush did manage to get tax cuts handed out, how many of us felt a real impact? How many of us really believe that the cause of liberty (which I differentiate from freedom to include a measure of responsibility) will be championed by either man?
Bottom line is with either man, your taxes will go up (if you live here anyway), the government will increase its size, scope, and intrusiveness, and neither man will work toward true liberty for the citizens of the US.
Sure, John Kerry will not appoint someone as scary as Ashcroft as Attorney General, but he will appoint an equally scary Janet Reno clone. Political Correctness will be the blinders Mr. Kerry will strap on each of us to blind us from the harsh realities he doesn't believe we're capable of handeling.
On the other hand, George W. Bush won't hasten the demise of free speech via PC activism, but will use national security to the same end the blinders Mr. Kerry would see implemented. Neither man believes we the people are capable of managing our own lives and protection.
Sure GWB lowered taxes and I've heard the various arguments for and against them (left: only the rich get tax cuts, right: the rich pay the bulk of the taxes so who else should get the cuts) ad nauseum, ad infinitum. Kerry has said he'd repeal the Bush tax cuts, he's raised taxes every times he's been asked, so I believe he'll do it again. Bush tells us that the he wants the tax cuts to be permanent, but increases entitlement spending. Neither candidate is interested in really reducing the tax burden on most families. That would mean cutting too deeply into pet projects of our various congresscritters.
Why is there even a debate here about taxes? What governmental agency has gotten anything right in the past 30 years? We dump more and more money into social problems only to find them getting worse. Why not try a different approach? Oh yeah, beacuase both parties have a vested interest in getting people addicted to the heroine that is government assistance. Neither party wants to see Americans independant, able to successfully function on their own, and provide for their families needs. Republicans want us to need them for personal protection and to be good little consumers, and Democrats want us to need them for everything else.
Under either candidate's adminstrations we'll still have to deal with Ridges Retards poking around our personal possessions at airports. Under either candidate, the war on terror will take a surprisingly similar look and feel as the war on drugs. Color coded alert levels are now a permanent fixture of life here in the USA. Neither candidate will lift a finger to attempt to discredit the animating ideas that inflames those who would do us harm. While Kerry would capitulate to world opinion before acting and allow terrorists the exclusive right to the use of force, Bush's approach tends to feed fuel to the fire.
A vote for Kerry means higher taxes, a PC system designed to inhibit thoughtful int
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
1. Count only governmental aid. The U.S. is different from most other Western countries in that we are not a centralized, government-controlled society (although admittedly we become more so every year). The percentage of private vs. government aid is much higher for the U.S. that it is for most other countries.
Firstly, I'm not sure I understand your comments about centralized, government-controlled societies. Are you claiming that Germany is not a federal republic? Or Switzerland? Are you claiming that in the UK, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland do not have regional semi-independence?
Secondly, I've heard this claim about private vs. public donations. I would be willing to listen if you could back it up with some facts and/or figures.
2. Ignore perhaps the most colossal subsidy of all: Defense. For 50 years, the only thing preventing the Red Army from pouring through the Fulda Gap and into Western Europe, or the North Koreans from smashing through the DMZ into South Korea, was the U.S. military. Same situation vis-a-vis China and Taiwan. Freed from the colossal burden of defense spending, those countries used their resources instead to develop stable polities, healthy economies and the freedom to bitch about the U.S. everytime something goes wrong.
Well, not altogether. Both the UK and France have had viable nuclear deterrents since the 1950s, although it is debatable whether these would ever have been useful in preventing a conventional invasion through Eastern Europe. In any case, however, its important to note that the US expenditure on defence has often had a very damaging effect on the poorest countries of the world. During the Star Wars programme of the 1980s, the US went through a capital crisis, and hiked up the interest rates many-fold on the foreign debt it held.
Unfortunately, much of this debt was in the forms of loans to third-world countries. These loans were made in the late 1970s, when the US was awash with cash from Middle-East oil-producing nations; hence they had low, affordable repayment rates. The hike in interest rates in the 1980s, caused indirectly by Star Wars expenditure, raised these repayment rates to crippling levels, which is one of the reasons so many third-world countries are in such a dire state today.
This is only one example; I'm not trying to convince you to change your argument completely, simply attempting to show you that there are more subtleties to the issues at hand than might appear to be the case.
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
Blocking access to the opponent is precisely what we must NOT do if we are interested in preserving democracy.
This may be hard to believe these days but this system depends on a vanishing sort of genteel competition in order to flourish. Whoever wins, the important thing is that the process has been upheld, and the people have spoken. It's not whether you win or lose, the all important thing is how you played the game.
These black hat tactics will more likely shift votes to the Republicans as a backlash. They will certainly not help Democrats. The real loser(s) are Americans and the entire ideal of freedom and fair play and an open selection of who we want to govern the country.
If anybody should be prosecuted as the real enemies of freedom in the ultimate sense it should be those who interfere with voting, campaigns, or any kind of communication between and among the people and the candidates.
The media can't harp on how invading Afghanistan was a bad idea, that's why. They would if they could, but there would be viewer outrage.
I don't know if you noticed, but the media like to simplify everything. Much like how they boil down the Iraq question to "WMD or not" -- not even touching on WMD intent.
Osama is in Pakistan, more than likely.
Actually, most opposers of the war in Iraq have been against it since before day one -- well before any reconstruction efforts.
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation
What is funny is that in all the discussion groups, newsgroups, etc. I frequent the liberals, notice I did not say democrats, constantly blame bush for everything....even for their irregularity. They blame republicans for using Nazi tactics, censorship and hundreds of other things that they do not do. It sounds like the paranoid ramblings of the John Birch society of the 50' & 60's.
When Sandy Berger was caught with his hands in the cookie jar, so to speak, even liberal democrat came out and dodged any questions about it being right or wrong and blamed bush for anything that would get the reporters off the subject.
What is worse is they always talk of freedom of speech but then in the same post say that republicans should not be allowed to talk or use their free speech. They state that republicans are Nazis and should have to wear patches to indicate in public that they are, that no one should do business with republican owned business and that republican should be kicked out of America so it will be the land of the free. Some radicals even talk of killing all republicans. I guess these liberals are unsure of the meaning of the word Nazi.
Wake up democrats! The liberals are going to make sure Kerry loses in November. I guarantee that if the liberals remain in control of the party they will insure a Bush win. Take your party back from these people or Bush will be here another 4 years.
While it is fashionable to claim to support free speech, only a tiny minority of people actually support free speech. Some people want campaign finance reform (esentially limiting how much people can donate to a party, so that only the two big parties can get enough money to advertize), some people want to ban advertizements against products they feel are bad (cigarettes, for example). Some people want to ban "hate speech". Left wing people and right wing people want to ban pornography, either because it "exploits women", or "is against the bible".
And now there are people on the left who are so angry about the Iraq War and The Patriot Act that they are willing to abandon the principle of free speech to win votes for... well... to win votes for someone else who wholeheartedly supported the Iraq War and Patriot Act.
When are people going to learn that it isn't some secret cabal of evil facists who are destroying free speech? It is people like your typical Slashdot reader who thinks they are enlightened and opened minded and support free speech, but who are willing to make exceptions for whatever speech they want to ban. YOU, the person reading this right now, more likely than not does not support freedom of speech.
"incl. wife"
You just made a bullshit leap.
Bullshit leap: When you assume something without providing proof.
Kerry's assets *don't* include his wife. The prenuptial agreements clearly state that John's assets are seperate from Teresa's.
As a Libertarian sitting on the sideline, I find it very amusing that democrats/liberals that always tout how 'tolerant' they are are always the ones that are so intollerant of their opponent's viewpoint.
Case in point, the idiot quoted in this article.
Sure. Maybe maybe maybe. But after 10 years of dickering around, we got Sept. 11, and we just weren't in the mood to dicker around anymore.
And you have heard by now that Iraq had nothing to do with September 11'th, right? The administration whipped up our nation into a furor, linked Al Quaeda and Saddam, and then turned the anger towards Iraq, and all their blustering and "intelligence" turned out to be a load of crap. And even before we're done with Iraq we're talking about invading Syria if they don't comply with our demands, where's the evidence that Syria is so damned guilty?
Again, sure. But we're talking about the situation *before* the U.S. invaded. We only know about the nuclear situation in hindsight, and here's the kicker: WE WOULDN'T KNOW THAT NOW IF WE HADN'T INVADED TO BEGIN WITH.
It's sad when you can justify the invasion of another country against all advice from most of the international community like that. Oh, we know now that we invaded that they don't have nukes, 'sall good!
As for the rest of your post, you make a perfect example of the type of American who thinks that what's good for America is good for the world, and if they can't realize it, well then sucks to be you. We have no right to take out Saddam halfway accross the world when he is in no way a direct and immediate threat to our country, if Saddam does something, there's nothing stopping us from going in there and taking the bastard out, but as long as he minds his own business, we have no business there. We're not the world police man. Maybe we should start gathering reliable intelligence rather than relying on what Bush and Cheney decide to say today. Then we could actually get the rest of the world backing us because we can prove it.
I'm not saying Saddam was a nice guy, or that taking him out of power was not ultimately a bad thing, I'm only saying the methods that we utilized were EXTREMELY unnecessary. The war was a devastation of Iraq's already considerably weakened forces (Remember the first war? I'm sure Iraq had already amassed at least as much power as they had previously), and now it's just squabbling with a bunch of terrorists, putting our troops into a quandary. Operation Shock and Awe was a huge joke as well, hey let's fling tons and tons of missles into a populated urban area, they're guided and things never malfunction! Like half those missles were necessary?
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