Slashdot Mirror
Iran Cracks Down on Internet Sites
Dan Brickley writes "It appears that Iranian ISPs have been ordered to block a large number of popular Web sites, including weblogging, community, chat and email services. Web (particularly weblog) use has been increasing rapidly in Iran, with 64000+ weblogs published by Iranians via various sites. As of today, if the news is correct, the majority of these may be inaccessible to their authors, as will the email (eg. Yahoo) services they use to communicate with friends, colleagues and family worldwide. See stop.censoring.us and hoder.com for more details. The newly expanded blocks include PersianBlog, Blogger and the Google-hosted Orkut 'social networking' site, where Iranians come third after Brazil and USA, representing 7% of all users. How can we get our Iranian friends back in the Web?"
We could invade and liberate them. We're right next door. Then the Iranians could write about how happy they are on their blogs.
Complete control of information is required to stay in power. Lets hope that the people can get around this.
They can use a proxy to surf the web.
.01 cent
just my
"How can we get our Iranian friends back in the Web?"
/. is blocked?
I was going to say, "Liberate them", but someone beat me to it.
This would never happen in a system like here in the US. Corporations would never stand for blocking of site sthat they could advertise on. Besides, big money in convincing people that they need faster, bigger, more expensive machines and services so they can "stay connected" and all that.
I wonder if
[ping: Iran, can you hear me now?]
Sugapablo
Go take a look at blogger some time. Seriously. There are a zillion blogs on there now, it updates so fast that you could post your own blog and not make it to the "Latest Updates" page and catch your post before more than 500 new items scrolled it off the screen.
If everyone has a voice, no one really has a voice. Any single voice will be drowned out by many thousands of "Gee, this is my blog, I thought it would be a good idea to start one because my cat is so cute. I'll post pictures of my cat and I love Jesus."
The main thing is that the Iranians have access to medical information, educational information, and worldwide news outlets. None of those are being squashed, even by the fundamental, right-wing Muslim leadership. They know that having good quality information is key to improving the quality of life in their country.
Dissent is the only thing prohibited, but I doubt there is any country in which real dissent is permitted.
I wouldn't be surprised if a fair number of Orkut users don't miss their "Iranian friends" as much as you might thing. There's been a lot of bitching about them and the Brazillians from the English-speaking Orkut users. Can't say whether the complaints have any merit or not, but I've heard them in more than one place.
Wasn't there a bit of a student uprising in the late 90's in Iran? What happened to that? Is there any way we can help support a grass-roots rebellion in Iran? Overthrow of the islamic fundamentalists is the only solution for Iran.
"The Internet reacts to censorship as damage and routes around it." - John Gilmore (frequently misattributed to Howard Rheingold)
How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
So, is it worth killing and dying to get these people their rights back? GWB already has a hardon for the arabs; this might be a good excuse. Now all we need is some satalite imagery of packets being blocked.
Let's send the kids of poor people over to Iran to die and free thoes packets! GWB already loves sequels; look at Gulf War 2 as an example. He could go talk to Sadam and figure out how he fucked up in the Iran/Iraq war. Then GWB could launch an invasion of Iran from Iraq. It'll be just like the 80s agian. Only this time, USians will be dying.
I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
Easy... (help) depose the current regime.
..the change should come within primarily.
How ? Now that's the not-so-easy part. I fear the Bush administration might speed that along, but.. *eyes Iraq*
How about "stare in disbelief at the shear incompetence" in place of "laugh"? Then you'll have it. Isn't it wonderful that out of the axis of evil, we've only dealt with the one nation that was least crazy and least nuclear?
Play Command HQ online
How can we tell them not to censor the web when we censor just about everything here at home. I mean, yes, the web is pretty well uncensored in the US, but TV isn't, and neither is radio. In fact, there's no free non-censored medium in America. You have to pay for Internet, Cable, Satellite TV, or Satellite Radio in order to have the right to free speech in a country who's first amendment to the constitution guarantees that right. How can we expect Iran to have free speech/expression if we don't really even support it?
ZuluPad, the wiki notepad on crack
I'll bite.
Invasion is one solution. I do not favor it as being "the" solution, but you know, when I look back on Bush's last four years, I am firmly convinced he invaded the wrong country. Hussein was a wussy. Easy pickings. I would have voted for Bush if he had invaded any other member of the Axis of Evil. Iraq? Bah.
Of course, the cards have been laid down, and we have a far more dangerous regime to worry about because it was felt more expedient to settle old scores than deal with the issues that are relavent today, like Iran and N. Korea's ACTIVE development of WMD's, rather than Iraq's now proven theoretical development of such weapons.
Sorry for the rant. I had a bad week.
--- Journals are boring; Go to my web page instead
Commercialization! We need to bomb them with S.I. Swimsuit issues and Brittany Speares CD's.
-1, Too Many Layers Of Abstraction
I'd find it pretty easy to believe that Google is in cahoots with the US Gov't as far as information sharing and data mining go.
Orkut is a great way to find networks of people who are unfriendly to the Iranian regime. Skilled data miners can sift through the social networks and identify people to become CIA agents/informers/whatever.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
Or rather, let the Iranian government do this. Let them put their fists down, inconvenience and stiffle their own people, but with just enough proxy servers and new services opening cracks that the people are always getting a taste of what's available to them.
At some point, everybody in their country will understand what's between them and what they want.
Tweet, tweet.
Short answer: Who cares?
The conventional wisdom is that the Iranian people overthrew the Shah back in the late 1970s, when his regime became too secular and too iron-handed. They then established an Islamic republic, under the ayatollahs.
A few years later, when there were still Iranian students in US colleges and universities, the students whose predecessors had been frantically demonstrating against the Shah were themselves frantically demonstrating against Ayatollah Khomeini and his cronies. Some things don't change.
When, and if, the Persians decide they are sick and tired of oppressive government in the name of religious purity, they will remember how to fix that problem. Until they do that, it is THEIR problem, not ours.
Well, just bomb them into democracy. This worked in Vietnam, Korea and Iraq, so I guess another campaign of liberation and christening by our American friends will do the trick once more.
Reports are in that Billy Mathews's, age 12, mother is blocking access to certain sites she deems inapropriate. "He was really into this Slashdot thing where they show pictures of a grown man's (deleted) being spread open. And don't forget that porn... it'll make him go blind." she was reported as saying.
Billy was unavailable for comment but his press secretary released this statement: "Thats fine, when I'm 18 I'm so gonna look at all the porn I want. Until then I'll just use anonymous proxies. lol!!!!!111 omg wtf shes coming in my room... [end of signal]".
can't sleep slashdot will eat me
When, and if, the Persians decide they are sick and tired of oppressive government in the name of religious purity, they will remember how to fix that problem. Until they do that, it is THEIR problem, not ours.
If Iran acquires nuclear weapons, then it's everybody's problem.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Yeah, right.
How can we get our Iranian friends back in the Web?
The real question is why should we? I know this is highly ideological, but I think this was the real problem with the liberation of Iraq. You cannot give people freedom and democracy when they don't want it. When I say they don't want is because to this point they did not revolt, protest or overthrow the goverment. Sure, there has been some opposition but not enough or on a national scale. For this reason, iranian and others should fight for their rights themselves.
The Iranian revolution was originally middle-of-the-road secular types partnered with religious conservatives. Once the Pahlavi's were deposed the religious conservatives took power. It seems to be the pattern in many revolutions; Madame la Guillotine was well served by Robespierre who was fed to her in turn in France.
You can choose to not to study these histories of you want...
J:)
Oh well, no point in steering now.
I am an Iranian Student. To be honest with you, we have been pushing for a regime change during the past 10 years of our lives. With this last move of our Government, it clearly states that our hard works are finally paying off and it shows how afraid they are.
I would also like to thank you all from the buttom of my heart and on behalf of the Iranian society for your great concern, and I want you all to know one thing. We are different then Arabs! We live in 2 seperate worlds. Victory is ours. God Bliss America. May Ahoora Mazda be with you. Thank you
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
---Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail, April 16, 1963
they weren't all fired up.
might have been just fed up with the old.
doesn't mean that all of them love the new.
if there's third of them not liking the current system.. that's an awful lot of people - and the system 'needs' them to shut the fuck up or risk giving them power, the people who want a CHANGE are probably the one's affected by this block.
but still, that's the problem when you live with in a majority decides society, majority usually decides it's better than the rest.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
How can we get our Iranian friends back in the Web?
How about revolution?
Coderz 4 Life
Are you an American, or do you just share the same gene that tells you when something can't be easily fixed the best solution is to blow it up? As opposed to the rest of the world that would rather just sit on their collective thumbs at the UN and that their empty resolutions will work without having to enforce them? Sorry, but I'm tired of people ragging on the US. We're so evil because we liberated Iraq from an evil dictator (I'll abstain from the use of the world invasion.) and now we're also providing the largest chunk of relief money/logistical support to South Asia. Damn Americans!!! Always fighting for freedom and pumping money into areas that need help. F*** off, and God Bless America!
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
It might be beneficial to kick Iranians off the net entirely. I receive a report every hour without fail that an IP address owned by Iranian ISP's are scanning each and every port on my system non-stop until my firewall finally gets around to blocking the address. As well as daily reports that an Iranian IP Address is attempting a brute-force break in, which is promptly cut off by my firewall.
Although I get an occasional problem from Russia or Korea, they're not anywhere near the frequency of the attack attempts from Iran.
... and in the DRM, bind them.
That's funny. The thing is, when we had a secular, nationalist named Mossadegh, we didn't have a problem. Bt of course, a democratically elected governmented could not be tolerated by your wonderful government. So the US stepped in and overthrew Mossadegh, replacing him with the Shah who began the start of a repressive regime that was quoted by Amnesty International as having the worse human rights record to date.
No wonder any Islamic movement could have gained any popularity. Anything strong and opposed to the Shah was and is still better. However, you imposed that decision on us in the first place. Moreover, your government supported the Iraqis in invading Iran, which strengthened Khomeini's hand while our brothers and sisters perished.
And after all that, you have the nerve to say that it's just our problem, and not yours?
Mod this up, govt by the people for the people. It would be great if they could do it themselves. The will is there. Mcdonalds / Coke / tabouli / hummus / sushi / wireless / internet / lo mein democracy
I know this has been beaten to death, but here goes. I also feel that Iran and N Korea were/are a bigger threat to us than Iraq, but, because Iraq never complied with the UN resolutions, we had more of a right to go in to Iraq than any other. Also, as you stated, it was the easiest, and we showed the other two we weren't scared to do it. Too bad it turned into such a mess after we actually invaded. Also, if you don't think we're fighting Iran in Iraq right now, you need to wake up.
Because there is some unrest in the people of Iran, I think we may not have to invade. N Korea, I don't know what we should do with that one.
My posts are definitive. Reality is frequently inaccurate.
Yes, we can help them by staying out of it. Nothing hurts the cause of the reformists there more than being seen as aligned with the "Great Satan," and nothing gives their enemies more ammunition than perceived interference on our part.
The mullahs are corrupt, inept, and not very popular. They remain in power mostly by rallying around a constant, self-inflicted state of pseudo-crisis with the U.S. (This is the same strategy Castro uses. When did the "revolution" end, again?)
Deprive them of fuel. Let the fire burn out on its own.
Why are these ISPs trying to get rid of paying customers again? I'd bet that a large percentage of their users would have no use for the Internet without blogs and such.
Because the government is forcing them to. I'm sure the ISPs don't want to do this, but when a government fears a loss of power due to the rampant flow of information, they need to do something to stiffle that flow of information.
Remember how China blocked google? Now google censors itself so that the Chinese government will allow it to continue (or at least it was censoring itself... maybe it's been opened back up?)
Careful. Being proud of the US will get you modded down and flamed here. I happen to agree with you 100%, though.
Hey Dan, Michael, let me give you a little hint: You can't. Or, as Stalin once said of the Pope, "How many divisions does Slashdot have?"
The Islamofascist Mmullahs ruling Iran have made it quite clear they're immune to such chimeras as "international pressure." What are you going to do, impose sanction? Yeah, that worked so well with Saddam.
Given a regime where critics of the regime have to flee for their lives, and where they executed retarded rape victims for the "crime" of having sex, what makes you think any actions short of armed revolution will get their Internet access back? Who are they going to listen to? Kofi Annan? Get real.
There are only two things which might actually allow Iranians to get back their Internet freedoms:
1. A full-scale liberation invasion by U.S./coalition troops, a very difficult and probably quite bloody task, or
2. A "decapitation" strike that takes out the Islamist religious leadership, possibly some high level military assets, and probably as much of their illegal nuclear weapons infrastructure as we can locate.
The chances of either being undertaken right now are slim, and the chances of the majority of Slashdot digirati support such a move are close to zero.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
There was an article on Tor back in December. Seems like a nice simple solution to these kinds of things and works on many different levels besides just web browsing. Just so long as you can get a program to work with SOCKs
They can use a proxy to surf the web.
Whatever happened to those distributed annonymous webproxy projects that were started several years ago? I seem to remember one done by the hacking group Cult of the Dead Cow (the makers of Back Oriface) but I never really saw anything materalize.
The problem with normal proxy services (anonymizer.com, etc) is that they can easily be blocked by government black lists on DNS and IP addresses.
As a point of information, Iran was a democratic country up until the government decided to nationalise the oil industry. This was too much for the West to tolerate. The democratic leader Muhammad Mussadegh was overthrown by the CIA and replaced with a Western puppet dictator - the Shah.
These are essential facts for understanding why aggressive nationalism plays such an important role in Iranian affairs.
I Agree
It ought to be axiomatic, or nearly so, that you can't impose a democracy on a people. If it's going to work, it must be a genuine dissent from the people and not a regime imposed from without. That's why Iraq is probably a doomed experiment. We didn't come to the aid of an existing revolutionary movement that was in difficulty, we just swooped in, took over, and said, "Hey, you're a democracy now! Is that cool or what?" To which many Iraqis now say, "Yeah, well this sucks too."
However, that doesn't mean we can't lend a hand when we see a real dissenting movement being actively suppressed. It's not easy to throw off tyranny. Sometimes you just need a little help from your friends.
And the brethren went away edified.
There's plenty of censorship here. It just *looks* like it isn't censorship because we have different values than the Iranians, a different view on what reasonably limited free speech is.
America will not invade Iran because they have nuclear weapons and I think GW kinda likes how things are working over there-
Adding a religious element to American politics seems to be working for him.
I dunno if Bush would go for it. After all, I'm not sure if there's oil to conquest in Iran (like the only reason there was a "war" -read, slaughter- in Iraq)? We gotta find an excuse for the monkey to cash in on it, first.
I think a country needs to "liberate" itself. The US had numerous bloody wars to get to the point to where its at. If enough people are against a topic in a country, they need to overthrow the powers that be themselves, that's all there is to it. Same thing goes to the whole "woman being battered" in a few of the middle eastern countries. Sure, I think its wrong, like anyone. But that's *my* belief, not necessarily theirs. These people have a whole set of beliefs that they have, too. They've been living with it for quite a long time. If a number of people wish to change things, they must do it *themselves*, not rely on the support of a country halfway around the globe that should be taking care of its own problems instead of spending billions overseas. If they do it right, they'll change things for the better and the beliefs just might stay around for awhile.
Sure we could try to do some recruiting, but I bet it's awfully hard to recruit anyone when they realize that signing that paper is pretty much guaranteed to get you an all expense paid trip to Iraq with substandard equipment. And the government hasn't been particularly interested in expanding the regular army since Regan was in power. It's pricey to maintain a real standing army in times of peace.
Nope, the world's policeman is busy. Call someone else.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
You'll probably get some respondents jousting with you here. I'll just chime in and say that I agree with this statement 100%. It's about the most plain-spoken, clear observation of the situation that I can think of.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
The company behind the technology is kind of lame, it's insanely expensive and it would be pretty slow however I doubt the government could do much to stop an Iridium phone with the data kit.
When punk rock is outlawed, only outlaws will have punk rock.
I don't expect to change anyone's mind on the war, but does the gigantic pile of cash we're giving to South Asia (and the UN and other places in need of aid) at least suggest we aren't trying to Blow Up and Invade And Pollute The World? Maybe we really do care about the rest of the world, we just disagree on specifics? Maybe? No?
Bah.
--This sig is in beta. Please let us know abut any errors you find.
http://www.news.uiuc.edu/news/04/0809firewall.html
Don't take a vacation in Cuba, that's communist and evil. But feel free to sell advanced computer and networking systems to China. That's cool.
Umm.. by helping people in another country overthrow their government arn't you participating in what these days is called 'aiding a terrorist organisation?' The problem with every country around the world passing laws against 'terrorism' and 'aiding terrorism' is that the world 'terrorist' has no universal meaning. Most times it is defined simply as "any organisation that is opposed to the current government."
How we know is more important than what we know.
Libraries? Some may have content censors but that is sexual censorship only, not political (you could still post political messages from them).
Also, a lot of people access the internet from work - where of course they pay nothing.
And if you have a laptop there a myriad of free WiFi hotspots.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Think we could Slashdot the Great Firewall of China while we're at it? ;-)
Iran is a different case. Their revolution has been much more recent. I'm not sure how popular the government is in Iran-but I suspect their ruling group is larger than in the old Soviet Union. Also, I expect the Iranian government is willing to maintain itself in ways the old Soviet Union was not.
However, the technologies have changed too. For example, wireless internet technology has advanced quite a bit. If there is popular resistance to the Iranian governments internet regulations, technologies like Mesh networks might be rather difficult for the Iranian government to be effectively control.
If folks want to really do something, creating technologies that governments have trouble regulating may be the route to help here-however, it isn't just Iran that has issues in this respect. A net the Iranian government can't control, is one no government can control.
Oh I dunno...maybe the threat of being beheaded?
How can we get our Iranian friends back in the Web?
Let them earn that right for themselves.
The government wants to protect it's members from possibly changiong its mind and realizong how poorly off they are, and from learning. Knowledge is power. I am against it, but in my opinion, why didn't they do it sooner?
ModLife.Net - If it ain't modded, what's the point?
Well, this all may be true, but didn't much of the initial funding and technology for the oil exploration in Iran come from U.S. businesses?
Not saying this is a complete excuse for everything that happened.... but it's a point conveniently overlooked in most of these arguments. If the U.S. really had business interests (EG. investments) in oil production, and then that was completely taken over by Iran's govt. and the U.S. basically kicked out of the equation - wouldn't it make sense the U.S. would make a retaliatory move afterwards?
For those that often post of the US as a "totalitarian" state, please consider that we can post just about any damn thing we like anywhere on the internet. There is no government control of what you read or post. (There may be government monitoring, but that is a different story...)
Even in places like Iraq where some consider us a "dictator in residence" please note that anyone can run a blog any way they like, without censorship. Even if they are critical of the US in the region!
Please, before you post again about what a facist government the US the the terrible repressions US citizens suffer take a look at places like Iran with real repression. The US has some annoying laws that have been passed but we are a LONG ways from being a truly repressive place.
I know I'll just get flamed eight ways from Sunday for posting this, but it simply had to be said. In order to protect my own sanity (and free time) and encourage other posts I'll encourage other more silent people to come out of the shell and respond to any flamers I might get.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I think that if they don't like the consorship, they can protest with their authorities, or move to a free country like the USA for which most of them hate anyways. Ironic huh?
It isn't a lie if you belive it.
It appears that Iranian ISPs have been ordered to block a large number of popular Web sites
...It also appears that 90% of Slashdot's
readers (ie, the American portion) don't
really give a damn about Iranian ISPs, nor
could most of us find Iran on a map.
As a result, expect numerous misguided comments about "freedom of speech", possibly "freedom of religion" from those informed enough to realize that Iran vaguely has something to do with that nasty Islam thingee.
And for those who would mindlessly mark this a troll... Welcome to the real world. Now go ahead and hit the "Moderate" button, from the comfort of a safe place to websurf, sleep, eat, and debate the legitimacy of US involvement in the Middle East.
Smuggle tor into the country?
The UK controlled all of Iran's oil resources prior to Mossadegh. After the CIA overthrew Mossadesgh, the US received 40% of Iran's oil revenues in compensation.
As for nationalizing oil resources, every country in the Middle East has done that since 1953. Despite this fact, the big Anglo-American oil companies still make huge profits from their involvement in Middle Eastern oil.
Two words: Regime Change.
Or you could ask the UN to do something about it. But of course, unless there's Oil-for-Food bribes involved, they're not likely to do anything about it.
Ed R.Zahurak
You know, oblivion keeps looking better every day.
I'm sure we're all familiar with the amazingly powerful speeches that MLK gave during WWII.
Oh, wait a second. He was 16 when the war ended.
I agree. The oppression of entire country by some sick sadistic islamofacists is no big deal! Doesn't affect me, so who cares?
Same with South East Asia! It's their problem, right? Oh who cares if, like those in Iran, they're not able to help themselves, screw 'em (as Kos would say)!
Oh wait, that doesn't quite fit into your idiotic world view, now does it?
"A disruption in communication can mean only one thing.... invasion"
Uh oh, it's coming!
Unless you're American and there's oil there, of course, which makes the whole matter completely different
You think this is an american problem? what about France, one of the many countries against the war on Iraq who were also scamming the food-for-oil programs.
Ohh yeah, you mean the French Started Vietnam War right?
Ohh yeah, and you remember the US led invasion of Sri Lanka and Indonesia... Yeah Because I don't.
Ah, Iranians don't behead people. Maybe you're thinking of fighters in Iraq?
Germany's money is contingent upon all the rebellions in the area stopping and the countries and the rebels all making up. It's also long-term aid. It's a nice number, but there's nothing there (yet).
Australia has been great.
The US is not currently the highest in monetary value, but it is a felony for any one to promise aid that has not been formally approved by congress. Hence the stop at $35 million and then at $350 milllion. Of course, private donations are somewhere in the $320 million range right now.
The complete carrier group that we have in the area is honestly priceless right now. As are the over 10,000 military personnel that have moved into the region.
It'll never get any media play (outside of the standard conservative media channels), but if not for the super evil US military the death toll would dwarf what it currently is.
That makes no sense. The ISPs are doing it likely because they were ordered to by the government. Too bad I can't read Farsi or I'd read some of the news sites.
The internet is dangerous for the Iranian government, because it can run arbitrary applications (email, blogs) that people are using to get around the government's restrictions. However, the government still has control over the infrastructure and is now exerting it.
However, wouldn't it be possible, given enough Wifi-enabled devices, to create an entirely rogue Freenet-style network to publish web pages, run applications, send email, etc.?
In that case, there would be no infrastrucutre for anyone to place restrictions on, but it could perform any actions that the internet was capable of, just more slowly, I would think. Anyone know if software exists to build such a WiFi network?
Yes, and I'm glad that you "absolutely" believe this. Funny how the guy who doesn't think that Iraq is any of the US's business posts openly while the guy who's all up in that moral zone about helping the helpless feels it necessary to post as AC.
Suffice to say that we (Americans) have representatives on both sides of the question.
If people are being beaten and starved but stand by while it's happening to them why is it the United States sacred duty to go fix that? Have you noticed that more US soldiers in Iraq have died since we "defeated" the Iraqi army than died before we beat them?
Not very grateful these starving, beaten people. They're worse than the army we freed them from.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
i am really beginning to think some people's brains are just wired differently than mine. here is a subject matter everyone seems to agree on: censorship is wrong, and here we have an egregious example of it from the iranian government
and yet i scan the comments here and what do i see? anti-american sentiment
how does that work?
is the usa a friend of iran? does the censorship by the us government not look like a molehill in your mind compared to the mountain of that going on in iran?
i honestly cannot fathom how some people think: iran does something evil... therefore, let me criticize the usa
i'm not saying the usa doesn't deserve criticism, not at all: the usa does plenty wrong that needs to be examined and castigated
but what i am saying is that criticizing the usa in the context of what iran does is simple, pure lunacy. it's alternately hilarious and horrifying to me how some people can have so little understanding of concepts like: perspective, scale, context
people really have to stop obsessing about the usa. no, really, you look like a fool. a fair criticism of blindly pro-american people is that they are obsessed with the usa. but some of the posts here only prove to me that the same obsession lives in the heart of anti-american sentiment too, to the same level of monomaniacal stupidity
guess what pro-american and anti-american people: there is more to the world than the just usa. really. the world does not revolve around the usa. for real. there are other cultures and peoples and governments out there. no, really. the world does not orbit the united states. for true.
you'd think this simple painfully straightforward observation would be dumbfoundingly patently obvious and stating it would a cause for laughter and going "duh!" but then you read some of the comments in this thread. it's absolutely mystifying the obsessive one-dimensional idiocy of those talking about the usa in this thread. when the story is about the abuses of the iranian government?
utterly dumbfounding, this one-track obsession. please, some of you need to wake up. some of you need to ditch the fashionable propaganda of the times and try thinking for once
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Why does the religion of peace need special instructions on how to act civilized?
You mean like 10 Commandments or something? Why do Christians need this?
Why is the religion of peace directly responsible for 28 out of the 30 violent conflicts raging in the world today?
Hmm, really? Please enumerate them. Christianity seems to have its hand in a lot of them too.
Why is the religion of peace responsible for the vast majority of chattel slavery in the world today?
Really? Care to cite a source? BTW, the Southern Baptist Conference was pro-slavery throughout the civil war. There is NOTHING in the Bible condemning slavery - in many places slavery is condoned. Are you sure slavery is something inherent to a religion, or is it more likely poverty and economics?
Why is the religion of peace responsible for the vast majority of terrorism in the 20th and 21st Centuries?
The same reason Christianity was responsible for it in the preceeding 18 centuries. Because. Now, if you would care to substantiate this allegation, I'm all ears. The IRA, FARC and ETA have killed a lot more people in those centuries than Islamic terrorists but they just haven't been getting the press coverage since 9\11...
Why are the practitioners of the religion of peace routinely slaughtering unarmed practitioners of every other religion wherever they can get away with it?
I think what you meant to say was "SOME practitioners". Again, this can equally and justifiably be said of Christianity as well. When the Army of God or Eric Rudolph kills abortion doctors or some blond-haired, blue-eyed boy next door blows up 168 people in a federal building, you don't seem to blame all Christians or all Americans do you?
Why does the religion of peace call for the murder of anyone who converts from the religion of peace to another religion?
Oh you mean like these guys? Yeah, your right...what kind of sick religion is THAT?
Why do so many of the believers of the religion of peace look forward to the opportunity to rape 72 virgins in heaven if they die while killing innocent women and children of other religions? Is it a god they worship, or just sex? If a god, then shouldnt heaven have more to do with him than their libidos?
Would you care to show where it says ALL muslims share this belief? Or have you been watching too much Fox News...The Church of the Creator thinks that the White Race was Gods true choosen people and can even quote the Bible to back it up...doesn't make it so and doesn't mean All Christians think that way. Don't mistake the beleifs a a sick minority with the whole religion.
Why do the leaders of the religion of peace routinely issue fatwas (death warrants) for anybody who questions their holy book of peace and their holy prophet of peace?
You mean like Christianity did for hundreds of years upto the begining of the 19th century...Catholic AND protestant? Think of about 5 centuries of Jews and witches being burned at the stake. Better yet, read up about the murder of Hypatia in Alexadria. You know its is bad, but again, if Jerry Falwell claims that 9\11 happened because America pissed of your God doesn't mean ALL Christians think like that...
Why is the religion of peace responsible for the sexual mutilation of millions of little girls and the savage oppression of women?
But sexual mutilation of infant boys is ok then? Christianity has not exactly been a beacon of equality for women either, save the last 40 years of so...
Why did millions of the practitioners of the religion of peace laugh, cheer and dance in the street because 3,000 innocent men, women and children were murdered by seventeen men who supposedly hijacked the religion of peace? And why dont the real practitioners of the religion of peace condemn the supposed hijackers of their religion? Why th
Never by hatred has hatred been appeased, only by kindness - the Buddha
Which part of the constitution specifies that freedom of speech doesn't apply to sexual material?
Freedom of speech does apply to sexual material. And happily you are able to post whatever you like in that regard from a library. It's viewing that can be more problematic.
It's only when you try to view SOME (not all) sexually explicit sites that you might be blocked. They can't block them all of course, and there are anon proxies they do not block - so you have options.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'm pretty sure the loss of a few blogs is less damaging to the average Iranian than the loss of their life, which is something that's bound to happen if the US try another one of their 'liberation' stunts. Look at Iraq, where people are still dying nearly everyday because of Islamic militants setting off car-bombs to kill American troops and Iraqi 'collaborators'. Do you really want that to happen in Iran for the sake of a few blogging sites? At least with Iraq, Saddam had a proven track record of genocide against his own people, so perhaps the Americans had a good reason to invade, but the fact is there is still bloodshed of innocent people going on nearly everyday. With Saddam you can turn round and say "but he killed thousands of Kurds, that's far worse than what's going on now". What are you going to say about Iran when the death toll continues to climb long after Bush declares 'victory'? Are you going to complain about how those evil dastardly Iranians stopped their people reading John and Jenny Doe's blog post about how their toddler's potty-training?
As for executing a retarded rape victims, that's not much worse than the US executing people found incompetent to stand trial, people suffering from severe mental illness and people professionally adjudged to have the mental age of an 11-year-old child. I could probably find more, but I remember that press release distinctly and had it bookmarked. Admittedly those people had committed crimes rather than been the victim, but it's really not that big a step. Lastly, don't get me started on the 'illegal nuclear weapons infrastructure' comment - you've got the biggest nuclear stockpile in the world, who are you (as a country) to call any other nation's nuclear infrastructure illegal? Does DRM come on tactical warheads now? Seriously, this is no reason to be blowing up anyone - it's just not worth it... and doesn't China have the 'Great Firewall of China' and executions for frivolous crimes? Oh, I forgot, they're too big for good ol' George Dubya to go after.
George W. Bush: Always picking on the little guy.
Dealing with lawyers would be a lot less tedious if they all looked like Casey Novak.
Perhaps the UN could provide free WiFi hotspots for bloggers from its vast fleet of high-end Range Rovers.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Ok I am glad everyone all of a sudden cares this much about the bloggers in my country. But a few facts.
* I can't get to hoders website right now but I don't belive that anyone has verified the web blocking.
* While blogging is popular in Iran it's not the next great revolution. It's a way for people to talk, browse for porn and do all the other things most college students do in the US.
* The Iranian people are capable of figuring out a government for themselves. When theycouldn't take the Shah anymore they dealt with him.
* As the student demonstrations showed a few years ago the regime still has a lot of backers, eventually Iranians will figure out what they really want and how much they care about fighting for it.
In the meantime you can get a list of some english blogs written by iranians over at http://blogsbyiranians.com/
it appears to be down at the moment since I suspect it's hosted at hoders server but there is always the google cache if you want to look at it right now.
Vidi, vici, veni. (I saw, I conquered, I came)
The US tried to screw over Indonesia with its handling of East Timor. However, they are still relatively nice to us. They appear to be a good muslim country, but nobody in America cares.
>> Why did millions of the practitioners of the religion of peace laugh,
>> cheer and dance in the street because 3,000 innocent men, women and
>> children were murdered by seventeen men who supposedly hijacked the
>> religion of peace?
> Why do anti-Muslim bigots keep clinging to this Urban myth? The
> "video" of which you allude was of about 30 people in the Occupied
> West Bank. Some of the videos shown on Fox later turned out to be
> library footage of Palestinians celebrating the 1993 peace accord,
> NOT a celebration of 9\11.
Wrong.
http://www.snopes.com/rumors/cnn.htm
Only on
Nope, that's why we are giving them shit loads of aid because of the tsunami... Because American's don't care about them, uhuh.
People that supported/support the current Regime are old/elders who have ideals that:
- The wife stays home, takes care of kids, the Dad works and brings money
- All women should hide skin
- Alcohol leads to chaos
And more similar bullshit that north americans followed back in the time of WW1 when things were like that here (Remember in Simpsons where the guy takes the picture of the women showing her ankle and drools?)
Thing is, today in Iran, a pretty big portion of the population is the new generation, young citizens that are getting really fedup with the regime's censorship technics and lack of freedom. They are the ones in the universities who are aware how life is outside. Problem is, what choices do they have? Currently their only way out of this as I see it is another Revolution but one where most should get involved so we could see some result. This is a problem in Iran that needs to be solved by Iranians for future Iranians. GWB is not needed! It may not happend today and it may not happend tomorow but I'l bet my last monopoly dollar that there will be one.
I know this because I have family in Iran's Capital Tehran that are trying to find ways to get out of the country because they are missing all the freedom that is taken away from them from those bearded a*saholas. Currently, people living there have no liberty.
Theres no clubs, theres no night life.
It's hell for tourists. If you are caught with a camera or taking pictures in the cities you are screwed bigtime and will be questionned
Anything remotely fun must be done in secrecy.
You can't just say "They got what they wanted" Because what the population wanted back then surely isn't the same as what they want today.
A revolution will happend one day or another in Iran to overthrown the mullahs. I'd prefer that than GWB getting involved.
I wouldn't piss in your mouth if your throat was in fire but I'd surely "tubgirl" in it.
Until they do that, it is THEIR problem, not ours.
Um, this is a regime that is actively trying to build nukes, and may have already done so. Guess what, genius- when they have nukes they are everybody's problems.
Do you have ESP?
And the US regime has nukes. And biological weapons. And land mines.
We've also got a way to get the payload to a target. Does Iran?
Actually, that's a serious question. Can Iran launch a missile with enough range to hit even within ~100 miles of the US coast?
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
In a country where speaking against crime is considered taboo and females are kept in veils, exercising your right to speak and communicate is a 'crime' in itself. As far as I understand, these 'islamists' who control the Government wants to check the spread of 'westernisation' in their country. This is not restricted to Iran only. Even in countries like Pakistan, government exercises strict control on communication media.
We have common ground! What do you know! I also as a matter of fact hate religon. When it comes to America (or this world for that matter there are two truths IMO. First "God's got nothing to do with it" and second "When they say it isn't about the money then it's only about the money". Pessimistic maybe but there it is.
Iranians have been running Iran with no help from anyone else since 1978. If half the population is under 24 and your country has been on it's lonesome for 27 years then fix it yourself.
And for the record I'm not blaming your countries problems on the people who you claim (and I take that at face value) are trying to save it. I blame them on the people who saved it back in 1978. They're still running the show as I'm sure you've noticed. They saved it from the Shah so now you go save it from the mullahs.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
There will always be moronic moonbats who denounce anything the U.S. does as self-serving and tyrannical, ignoring the injustice everywhere else in the world. The same fucktards denouncing the vote counting in Florida were calling Saddam's election a fair democracy (only Saddam was on the ballot, and your vote was public record). These same idiots denounce the liberation of an entire country as unilateral aggression (over 40 countries is unilateral?), and in the same breath scream for a "people's revolution" to put a communist dictatorship in power.
The scary part is the population of these half-brain assholes seems to be growing.
-- Will program for bandwidth
Fucking religion. A pox on this world. A fucking mental illlness. And don't think I'm just talking about Islam. Christianity, holy fuck, what a huge stifling pile of fucking bullshit. Praise Jesus! | God! | Allah! | Muhammad! | Mork from Ork! | George Burns! | an F5 tornado! | what the fuck ever! And don't forget to murder some human beings while you're praising your "Lord" O faithful religion follower and brainwashed idiot. Hey, even people who *ack* worship make believe motherfuckers like Allah and Jee-zuz need to be able to blog, read Slashdot, and surf for free pr0n too, right? Gimme an amen!!! Halla fucking looyah!!!
what if we just airdropped crates with guns and ammo? arm the people, let them work it out.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
You want free access to the web and media in Iran. The Iraninans will have to kill all the mad turbans off. You have to remember this is a counrty where they hang 17 yearold girl with a mental age of 8 because her parents sold her into sex slavery.
If you don't like what I write don't be a CS and mod it down. Refute it.
Yea I can't spell. So what is your point?
google censors US searches as well.
Also, I notice are beloved search company has never done very much to fight varies US laws that make them censor.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
using domestic violence as an example... you're a few decades out of date.
It USED TO BE in the US that the woman had to press charges against the man in order for the police to make an arrest. I know this not only from a law enforcement background, but from personal experience.
One of my next-door neighbors growing up was a terrible alcoholic and wife-beater (he was also a physician. What a disgrace to the profession... but I digress). I can't remember how many times we called the police, because we could hear him beating her (things breaking, screaming, thuds, etc). The guy used to beat the living tar out of his wife... bruises, black eyes, cuts... I've seen better-looking barfight victims. She, however, would never press charges, and the guy got off every. single. time. We could have "minded our own business," but we felt an obligation to do something. I was but a lad, so I couldn't understand the dynamics involved... Needless to say, all their kids, save one, are now in prison.
It took decades, but a sea change eventually took place. These days, Domestic Violence is a crime not only against the individual, but against the state. This allows the police to make an arrest whether the victim wants it or not.
Sometimes the situation is bad enough, or the people co-dependent enough, that they literally need help to get out of their situation. I'm well aware of how that sounds... so spare me the vituperation for being patronizing. That said, I don't think the Iranian people would resent being free... and any way we could assist them in that effort is arguably the right thing to do.
Of course, it goes without saying that we'd probably be ahead to first exhaust less-violent means of assistance.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
rest assured: the mullahs are watching. If you can help the people in Iran, please find a private way of getting it to them.
Loose lips sink ships.
I've been going through the comments and most of what I read is about invading Iran because they're censoring the net. How is that any better?
Can we criticize censorship without bringing an invasion into the equation? And heck a few years ago, I remember a time where many around here made comments favorably or unfavorably towards one US policy or another and yet the anti-american label was rarely used to reply to such comments.
people really have to stop obsessing about muslim countries. the world doesn't revolve around them. there are other cultures and peoples and governments ou there.
It really stinks. You criticize something in a foreign country, all of a sudden they wanna invade it. You say something bad about a US policy and you're labeled as anti-american. wth happened?
the link show over 170 years of experience! wow, programing before electricuty. Cool!
Tell me, were the steam powered computers dificult to keep clean?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
But they are getting louder, and seemingly crazier.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I think whatever non-secured mode used, it will be blocked very soonish, because it's easy to catch every plaintext containing those banned URLs or words. ...
But is there such a secure tunnel to open proxies? Not questioning technical problem, because I often use ssh tunneling
saying "um" doesn't make you sound intelligent. (From one pedantic shithead to another.)
Slashdotters: You are all a bunch of faggots.
Do you hear me, you repulsive faggots? NO DIGG.
Hmm...
The president tells me that we have freedom. That we love freedom. That others hate freedom. That we must force them to embrace freedom. That we must make those who choose to live their lives differently understand what freedom is all about.
That's good enough for me.
Your "freedom" of speech might cause people to doubt that. It would actually hurt freedom. You don't want to do that, do you?
Are you a freedom hater?
Here's a flame:
You know its logic like yours that I don't understand.
You complain at repressions US citizens suffer... take a look at $wherever, there its much worse.
You complain about lack of freedom of speech, well in $wherever, you'd be killed for expressing dissent.
or...
You're complaining about working at walmart? People in $wherever would kill to have a job like that.
You had to stand outside in the rain until 4am to vote? Well in $wherever you can't even vote, so be thankful.
Just because there's someplace that's worse isn't an excuse to not strive to make things better here.
The methods are always the same, as is the mindset of those who institute it: Change the law, then use the law to threaten. It's a well entrenched routine in the West, even if it rarely makes headlines.
you had me at #!
When usa invades, im sure they have the address of that judge and will Bust A Cap into his sorry ass with a 5000lb bomb !!!!
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
http://tor.eff.org/overview.html
Tor is a network of virtual tunnels that allows people and groups to improve their privacy and security on the Internet. It also enables software developers to create new communication tools with built-in privacy features. Tor provides the foundation for a range of applications that allow organizations and individuals to share information over public networks without compromising their privacy.
Codito Ergo Sum
Burba, Elisabetta. "Whooping It Up -- In Beirut, Even Christians Celebrated the Atrocity." The Wall Street Journal. 22 September 2001.
google censors US searches as well.
Also, I notice are beloved search company has never done very much to fight varies US laws that make them censor.
That's right. They've been pressured to remove some links due to accused copyright infringements. I forgot about that...
Ok, now tell me why?
No I will tell you?
Because Americans are a bunch of nice people.
some? Try the state. Which is analogous to the state of Iran targetting women. Thats right. The state of Iran is run by modern day Nazis.
Viral software licensing is not freedom, it is in fact GNU/Socialism.
I seem to recall the United States government having to pay farmers to not grow crops, because we're producing far more food than we (fat as we are!) can consume.
Actually, Iran does have some oil. Problem solved!
Viral software licensing is not freedom, it is in fact GNU/Socialism.
Actually of in-kind donations may still put us at the top. 2 carrier groups and over 100 helicopters are quite expensive just to operate. Then theres the hospital ship. That isnt cheap either. It all depends on how long they stay in the area, but were still going to be in the top 5 donators no matter what. Thats not even counting private philanthropy.
Viral software licensing is not freedom, it is in fact GNU/Socialism.
Based on the assumption that the information in the article at (http://hoder.com/weblog/archives/013115.shtml) is true, I think this kind of thing happening in the world should be a kick in the pants to democracies around the world; "Yes, look, it really does happen - some governments attempt to suppress the **FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION** between citizens and the rest of the world." Seeing this should make us ever vigilant with our own governments to make sure we never give them the power to censor us!
Canada recently concluded a supreme court case where the Little Sisters Bookstore fought the good fight and beat back the darkness http://www.littlesistersbookstore.com/court.asp
Americans, watch out for that Patriot Act! http://www.epic.org/privacy/terrorism/hr3162.html
Remember Jefferson: "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!"
No, really. It is!
Demonstrant's Open Source Tools
Hussein was a wussy. Easy pickings.
THAT WAS THE POINT! We'd roll in, knock off Saddam, help set up the Iraqi democracy IN THE MIDDLE OF THE MIDDLE EAST, and they'd show the rest of the region how it's done. The Iranian dictatorship is supposedly about where the Soviet Union was in its final years, so an indirect push--say, fellow Shias next door getting their own consensual government--has a decent chance of pushing the Iranian government over the edge. Plus the Iranian dissidents didn't want us to intervene militarily, unlike the Iraqi dissidents. 'Twas a good plan. Plus the North Korean military has over 10,000 dug-in artillery tubes pointed at the South Korean capital (the nuclear ICBMs they're working on are for blackmailing Japan, they're redundant otherwise), which means a strictly conventional weapons attack on NK just wouldn't do.
What we didn't figure on was the sickening enthusiasm the Former Soviet Useful Idiots would show in teaming up with the Islamic Fascists. I realize that modern liberalism is the ideology of Western sucide, but GET A CLUE ALREADY! If the Iraqi democracy succeeds it could bring down all the neighboring dictatorships, even Saudi. Now could y'all stop writing propaganda for the terrorists? (That means you, Dan Rather, so eager to be fooled by the 1971 edition of Microsoft Word...)
Insighful? come moderators where is your judgement.
The Johnny says "bet you got this from a chain letter e-mail from you Aunt Flo in Mobile didn't ya" and then goes on to quote the contents of a chain email as if it was fact concerning the footage of the dancing and celebration of palestinians of 9/11. I would suggest you check snopes before spouting next time.
Say don't compare
I don't know where the hell you Americans get your news.... It is a shame to see the recent American generations have wasted the great heritage of America which were once democracy, pluralism, and freedom. The recent American generations from the world's viewpoint will leave pornocracy, violence and dis-information behind for its next generations. Many people are so dumb that think they cannot replace oil. America could and has the potential to replace oil with new alternative, but you have let your government to raise the majority as idiots... and feed them with whatever dis-information. Keep your taxes in home and build heaven in home, instead of hell outdoor. This piece of news is simply not true, and I don't know where the hell is the source. Even in the article, it says...if the news were true... but I live in Tehran and see nothing like this... regain your lost freedom (from greed, selfishness, etc.)
Um, South Korea was democratic BEFORE the Korean War. The US controlled it after WWII, remember?
The Korean War was fought because North Korea's Kim Il Sung wanted a united communist Korea.
South Korea's a bad example for US/UN bombing working or not working at instilling democracy since it was, you know, already instilled.
Yeah, and I guess the French should have said "Hell, let the Americans earn the right to taxation only with representation by themselves."
In all fairness, Germany did it to Britian first... We played dirty because they did.
I have a friend in Iran that I've talked to for years, and I'm afraid that this might mean I can no longer do so. Does that mean it's not my problem?
The whole "too far away, too different, why do anyth ing about it" response is a crock of shit. Guess what, what happens halfway across the world is still happening on your world. Whether or not it greatly affects you much of this still remains a tragedy to the human race.
I think what you might say is that "the issue would be most properly dealt with by Iranians." That much would be true, as there are little other ways to directly and effectively deal with the problem without causing a greater problem (see: Iraq).
Maybe if the rest of the world gave more support to this though, gradual change could occur more smoothly/swiftly. But the truth is, most of the world doesn't know what happens, and most of the world doesn't want to because they believe as you say "not our problem."
It's pretty easy to ignore an issue until it becomes "our problem," but perhaps if we paid a little more attention to those "not our problems" then the world might be a little better for everyone?
1. A few of your rebukes cite past historical sins in christian societies ("our" societies) as analogies to the the acts of radical moslems coming from the respective societies ("their" societies).
A common argument made by many apologists is that "they" as a society are still evolving and going through the same problems we went through. To back up this argument "our" past errors are cited. Of which certainly we know quite a few. (BTW how much do we (or even they) know of their past? Is is openly dealt with?)
While it may be interesting discussing the merits of this theory, it begs the question: does that mean "they" are less capable then us, inferiour even? That we give them some leniency, kindly treat them the way we treat confused and troublesome children?
To the point: does that mean we don't criticize them the same way we critizes our own religions, our own politicians and our own clergy? We don't hold them up to higher standards?
I certainly hope not. I would hope that they don't either.
For this reason we as individuals should not refrain from criticizing failings of others and hold our standards to everyone equally high.
2. You cite a few examples of extremists in our societies, show that we have our own bad apples. Again a good point, maybe it would be good to just run a tally to see if we have the same density of extremists as they do...
But it shows a fault in their societies themselves: these kinds of opinions and actions do not come out of nowhere. People in their vincity know and tolerate this interpretation of Islam and maybe even their actions. Of the violent examples (IRA, ETA) you stated, I would assume that "our" offenders had to conceal their identies. They had to be carefull not to be discovered or betrayed. One just doesn't have the impression that radical islamic terrorists worry much about being betrayed by people that know of their opinion and deeds.
3. All comparisons you make are only qualititave comparisons not quantitative. To "sexual mutilation of millions of little girls and the savage oppression of women" you counter "sexual mutilation of infant boys" (you certainly mean sexual abuse by very sick clergy men in the US, you certainly aren't speaking of circumcision are you?)
It would be laughable to assume the numbers could be compared. Also in the US the church is being held responsible (morally as well as legally) for the sick deeds these men have made and the almost equally sick decisions the church has made to hush-hush it over the decades. This owning up to mistakes does not take place in their societies.
4. Your rebuke to the point concerning the videos was shown to be false in the above poster: http://www.snopes.com/rumors/cnn.htm
5. Concerning Oklahoma City, the Pope and the Archbishop. They sent their condolences (search it with google, I did). I can imagine the Pope sends his condolences each time a catastrophy happens. Dito the Archbishop. But I am also certain that had the bomber cited "The Christian-Catholic God" as being his moral compass that the Pope would have publicly condemned this man. As would have all christian priests in their churches. Openly, they would have gone to great efforts to avoid any possible misunderstanding and to make clear that they have absolutley no sympathies for this kind of act. Unfortunately to often moslem-arab imams are the moral compasses and inspiration for terrorists. Why is it so hard to hear all other imams publicly condemning this? If these people have hijacked their religion why are they not publicly shunned and denounced? How is it that these people can use their churches for their agitational-inspirational meetings? Where is the public opposition?
Why do they not insist that it not be called 'jidah' anymore? 'Jidah' means 'struggle' for the faith in oneself and with
______________________________________________
sigamajig...
Well, let's try to be fair to the Iranians, even the fundamentalists. The people who hijacked the planes were Sunni radicals from Arab states, not Persian Shiites.
"OH SHIT, THERE'S A HORSE IN THE HOSPITAL!"
Duh.
Go back to playing counterstrike.
What was it that our current President said about a website that made fun of him?
"There Ought to be Limits to Freedom."
And didn't he also try several legal challenges to that website to try to limit their freedom to say what they wanted?
You are absolutely right, that its not anywhere approaching the levels that Iran is doing. But personally, I'm not altogether impressed just because my democracy wins when compared against a yardstick like the theological dictatorship of Iran.
Could you please cite a figure for the number of people denouncing the vote counting in Florida who
- were;
- weren't;
calling Saddam's election a fair democracy? (Citing individual examples of people in the first category isn't sufficient to prove your point; I strongly suspect they were in the minority of people complaining about the vote counting in Florida.)Could you do the same for the number of people denouncing the "liberation" of an entire country as unilateral aggression who
- are;
- aren't;
screaming for a "people's revolution" to put a communist dictatorship in power? (The same note about individual anecdotes vs. real data applies.)stage a revolution. it wouldn't be the first time.
Do you know why?
Because their (acutally, our) courts don't respect international copyright laws. You could buy WindowsXP cdroms for $2, and around same price for Exchange servers. Now, we all know that MSFT doesn't give out security patches to servers with well-known stolen^W public serial numbers, so their servers remain unpatched, and the spam begins!
Why use of stolen software? 1) it is cheap, and 2) They are under embargo from the Uncle Sam, so they can't buy support, say, from RedHat or Suse (Now part of Novell).
looks like it works good for everyone, except Iranians, whose most of their young men are becoming drug addicts. Correction: Hard drug addicts.
This
Thankfully everyone's favourite hidden cam gallery is still up (totally safe for work). Iran is having a few problems at the moment, the highly conservative part of the government is squashing the other half and most of what happens with the police is down to how much you bribe them with money or sex. Hey Khomeini, suck my dick.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
"I dunno if Bush would go for it. After all, I'm not sure if there's oil to conquest in Iran"
h ttp://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0872966.html
Never fear, Iran has extensive reserves of both oil and natural gas. The country possesses about 913 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, and 100 billion barrels of oil. These figures represent a significant chunk of the world's reserves.
However, destabilising such an important and reliable source of oil and gas by invading it (or "conquesting" it, if you prefer) may not make for sound economic policy.
http://www.factmonster.com/ipka/A0872964.html
Yes, Iran does. It's called FedEx, and you can trivially stuff quite a large nuke into a shipping pallet and get it delivered.
Given the poor control of our borders that we have, and the incessant smuggling of heroin from that region, I'm sure a big chunk of cash could get a payload delivered somewhere quite interesting.
You'll get no argument from me on whether giving piles and piles of aid is The Right Thing, and I for one am very happy to admit that the US in the case of this disaster are being absolute stars.
On the subject of whether it suggests that the US isn't trying to Blow Up and Invade And Pollute The World, probably the easiest way to put it is: there are a lot of different opinions in the US and a lot of conflicting motivations, meaning that the US often disagrees with itself. That means for example that there are stunningly bright people in the US with outstanding foresight and understanding of any one issue.
The problem tends to arise when different specialities conflict, such as economics versus environmentalism or economics versus politics, etc. Many of my American friends and acquaintances tend to use the term 'schitzophrenic' when discussing American policies, presumably for this reason.
So I hand it to you that you aren't, as a seamless mass, trying to Blow Up and Invade And Pollute The World. You are a large and diverse group of people and have all sorts of different aims in mind. One of them is to be kind and nice and helpful. Others are to make a lot of money, to prop up political structures, or to promote ideologies. Few if any of these aims are universal within the US population.
So yes, you do care about the rest of the world, in all sorts of different ways and depending on all sorts of different uses of the term 'care'. And yes, we do disagree on the specifics.
And yes, this is enough to cause an awful lot of people to feel extreme and sincere dislike, which is usually inadequately well targeted since really people should be saying "I hate the Republican stand on xyz" or "the Democratic stand on abc", rather than yelling "bloody America!". Sadly, and I do mean sadly, people just find it easiest to blame the entire country.
Th reason you hear so much about American "totalitarianism" is because most of the people posting on Slashdot are American. A small amount of repression in America is more relevant to the average Slashdot poster than a large amount of repression in some far away place like Iran.
Disclaimer: This was written by someone here a few years ago, that's why I post as AC. I forgot who wrote it, and /. searching is a joke. As was the parent, probably. Anyway, here goes:
But if you want to play it that way, let's have the full, accurate list shall we? And let's just see where these countries are today...
France 1942-45 Republic
Germany 1942-45 Federal republic
Belgium 1942-45 Parliamentary democracy
Netherlands - 1944-45 Free
Italy 1943-45 Republic
Japan 1942-45 constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary government
China 1945-46 Free from Japanese, conquered by communist dicatorship.
Korea 1950-53 Republic, see South Korea
China 1950-53 Communist tyranny
Guatemala 1954 Constitutional republic
Indonesia 1958 Republic
Cuba 1959-60 NO BOMBS community tyrants take over
Guatemala 1960 Constitutional republic
Congo 1964 Thank the Belgians
Peru 1965 Constitutional republic
Laos 1964-73 Communist tyrany
Vietnam 1961-73 Communist tyranny, and how about them French?
Cambodge 1969-70 Multi-party democracy
Guatemala 1967-69 Constitutional republic
Grenade 1983 Constitutional monarchy with Westminster-style parliament
Lybia 1986 - Dictatorship
El Salvador 1980s - Republic
Nicaragua 1980s -Republic
Panama 1989 - Republic
Iraq 1991-99 - Give us time
Sudan 1998 - Authoritarian regime
Afghanistan 1997-2002 - Republic
It's a pretty great list. In fact, it looks like getting bombed by the U.S. is a great way to end up with a free country.
This is the foreword from the site www.faithfreedom.org
Prologue
By Ali Sina
"Islam is a religion of peace". This is what our politically correct
politicians keep telling us. But what is politically correct is not
necessarily correct. The truth is that Islam is not a religion of
peace. It is a religion of hate, of terror and of war.
A thorough study of the Quran and Hadith reveal an Islam that is not
being presented honestly by the Muslim propagandists and is not known
to the majority of Muslims. Islam as it is taught in the Quran
(Koran) and lived by Muhammad, as is reported in the Hadith (Biography
and sayings of the Prophet) is a religion of Injustice, Intolerance,
Cruelty, Absurdities, discrimination, Contradictions, and blind
faith. Islam advocates killing of non-Muslims, and abuses the human
rights of minorities and women. Islam expanded mostly by Jihad (holy
war) and forced its way by killing the non-believers and the
dissidents. In Islam, apostasy is the biggest crime, punishable by
death. Muhammad was a fundamentalist himself therefore fundamentalism
cannot be separated from the true Islam. Islam, which means
submission, demands that its followers submit their wills and thoughts
to Muhammad and his imaginary Allah, a deity that despises reason,
democracy, freedom of thought and freedom of expression.
I reject Islam a) because of Muhammad's lack of moral and ethical
fortitude and b) because of the absurdities in the Quran.
a) Muhammad lived a less than holy life. His lust for sex, his affairs
with his maids and slave girls, his pedophilic relationship at age 53
with Aisha, a 9-year-old child, his killing sprees, his massacre and
the genocide of the Jews, his slave making and trading, his
assassination of his opponents, his raids and lootings of the merchant
caravans, his burning of the palm plantations, his destroying the
water wells, his cursing and invoking evil on his enemies, his revenge
on his captured prisoners of war and his hallucinations about having
sex with his wives when he actually did not, disqualify him as a sane
person let alone a messenger of God
b) An unbiased study of Quran shows that far from being a
"miracle", that book is a hoax. The Quran is replete with
scientific heresies, historic blunders, mathematical mistakes, logical
absurdities, grammatical errors and ethical fallacies. Could possibly
the author of this Universe be as ignorant as it appears to be in the
Quran?
Quran tells Muslims to kill the disbelievers wherever they find them
(2:191), murder them and treat them harshly (9:123), slay them (9:5),
fight with them (8:65 ), strive against them with great endeavor
(25:52), be stern with them because they belong to hell (66:9), to
strike off their heads; then after making a "wide slaughter among
them, carefully tie up the remaining captives" for ransom
(Q;47:4).
This is the punishment of the pagans. As for the Christians and the
Jews, the order is to subdue them and impose on them a penalty tax,
after humiliating them (9:29).
The Quran is alien to freedom of belief and recognizes no other
religion but Islam (3:85). It relegates those who disbelieve to hell
(5:10), calls them najis (filthy, untouchable, impure) (9:28), orders
the Muslims to fight them until no other religion except Islam is left
(2:193), to slay or crucify or cut the hands and the feet of the
unbelievers, and to expel them from the land with disgrace.
It stresses that the disbelievers shall have a great punishment in
the world hereafter (5:34) and figuratively depicts a horrendous
chastisement for them stating that they will go to hell to drink
boiling water (14:17), that they will be engulfed in smoke and flames
like the wall and the roof of a tent and if they implore relief they
will be granted water like melting brass that will scald their faces,
(18:29) and that "garments of
I did not say none have, I took care in saying "Why is it so hard to hear all other imams publicly condemning this?".
Your rebuke did not answer that question. I read arab media often enough -albeit only in english- to feel justified in asking that question.
Your rebuke did not even answer any of the other questions.
To paraphrase you, you simply said: "it ain't so, you suck".
If you can answer my question to the positive please do! If nastygrams are your habit please go ahead, show the world again your special talent.
Violence is the last refuse of the incompetent. (Isaac Asimov)
And profanity is their linguistic crutch.
______________________________________________
sigamajig...
Heard of the DMCA? The DeCSS case? Try talking about protection schemes and how to avoid them.
Not having access to 'the web' is not a crime against humanity, its a philosophical issue.. Much as not eating cows is not in other countries..
"we" may not agree, but its their choice..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
This whole worship of cultural relativism makes me sick. How can it be anything but unacceptable that people are beaten and horribly discriminated against just because they happen to be a female? My god people. The intellectual dishonesty is just amazing.
I think it's sick too. Sick and wrong. But, if you march in there with troops and "liberate" the country, do you honestly think the people will be much better off? People will still have the same misogynist attitudes and do many of the same "inhumane, segregationist, insulting, and discriminatory" things to women and other minorities.
The only way for this to change is for their ideas about women and minorities to change.And there are many ways to help this along besides war. Like gp said, "a country needs to 'liberate' itself." I have no problem with the US providing support to a country who is already in that process, but I think the country itself should decide when it's ready to be liberated--not the US.
Dlugar
Computer Go: Writing Software to Play the Ancient Game of Go
The reason I think Iran won't be invaded is because they have a big youth population which, really, does not like the current leadership.
Parts of the Iranian population is turning away from the old way. An invasion might jeopardize that.
This is not about oil.
"So unmerciful is life, that everything afterwards is too late."
Good response, well thought out.
"So unmerciful is life, that everything afterwards is too late."
Sanctions were effective, I guess you don't read independent news. As for the rest of your post, well, you're the kind of person we're fighting. You might want to look up "liberation" and "genocide" in a dictionary some time.
you had me at #!
What better way to rile up Americans into an invasion mood than to tell everybody stories about how country 'X' is being unfairly ruled? Just read some of the reactions below.
Information about this censorship issue is pretty sketchy at the moment.
But when it comes right down to it. .
The trouble is that it may well be true, but that the directives would appear to stem from the ultra right-wing end of the Iranian political spectrum, and that end of the scale is controlled by others with an agenda. --Saddam had been installed by the US specifically to be a target when it became necessary to take Iraq, and Bush was similarly installed by the Neocon cabal, and the Neocon cabal are a bunch of rag dolls in the hands of still other groups.
The interesting truth of the matter is that no country is independent of the larger ruling class; public display politics are designed simply to channel the masses and sculpt emotional states and activities with the final goals being understood by only a very few, but which can be hunted down with a bit of work.
The agenda is secret, but secrets leak. -Which, paradoxically enough, is the very reason many people say, "I don't believe in Conspiracies! It's impossible to keep a secret!"
Ahh. There's straight forward logic, and the circular kind. Take your pick. But don't dawdle; Iran is edging toward the abyss. .
-FL
Right On!
I was beginning to think I was the only one who thought this...
Never by hatred has hatred been appeased, only by kindness - the Buddha
Hmmm, haven read the Bible lately have you? All those same atrocities and more.
Are you willing to post the same condemnation of Jesus and Christianity to Slashdot?
I thought not...
"We have just enought religion to make us hate one another but not enough to make us love one another" - Johnathan Swift
Never by hatred has hatred been appeased, only by kindness - the Buddha
The reason the United States became free was because we were allowed to have guns and overthrow a tyrannical government. Britain and Australia gained their independence bloodlessly, but how much longer would that have taken us? 10 years? 20? 100? Would we still have the Constitution and the Bill of Rights that's kept us around for oh so long?
The number one reason that I am 100% anti-gun control laws of any type is because when Bush or whoever the fsck our leaders are decide to tyrranize us to a point of no return, I want to be able to have my frigging militia go shoot them.
the Political Inquirer
They can make Napalm, C4 and other explosive/incendiary devices from common chemicals now. In many ways, the common man has never had the kinds of options before that he has today to fight back. In the ME it's terribly easy for people who want to, to get automatic rifles and if they're dedicated enough, they can always park a car bomb outside the local court or police station. You know what they need for that? Fertilizer, gas and a stolen car. Be ironic, steal a cop's car. The Iranian people can fight back.
Not saying it'd be easy, but from the reports that I have seen, there are a lot in the government itself who hate the Mullahs and wouldn't really want to fight the people. Hitherto what seems to be the problem is mainly a lack of a good leader to unite those who hate their government.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
Well I stand corrected...
Still, not "millions" of Muslims dancing in the streets...CNN did cover the thousands of Muslims that prayed and protested against the 9\11 attacks in other Muslim centres as well, but people seem to forget that when writing their anti-Islamic diatribes. Palestinians who did this were doing it as Palestinians not as Muslims...there were plenty of Christian Palestinians celebrating this as well.
Should the non-Christian world think poorly of Christianity when they see the Topeka, Kansas Westboro Baptist Church hatemongers protesting and celebrating the kidnapping of a Swedish boy during the aftermath of the tsunami? I din't think so..
As an atheist, I think the people who beleive in a god or gods are poor superstitous bumpkins. As a Buddhist, I recognize the pragmatism that all religions, despite their superstitious elements, want peace, love and the end to suffering. And if interjecting in hate filled diatribe to remind people that they are the same as those they condemn is what needs to be done, I'll do it. It is my duty to spread compassion and to fight injustice wshen I see it, and not stand by.
I saw it and I have no apologies.
Never by hatred has hatred been appeased, only by kindness - the Buddha
When did "I'm worried that the US might be going down the path that might turn us into a totalitarian state" turn into anti-American sentiment? The fact that some people start screaming that you're being so unamerican and should start censoring yourself seems contrary to the entire concept of free speech.
I don't like the current US administration. Does that make me anti-American? The US has a long history of people protesting the power structure from the inside; when did dissent become unamerican? Are we going back to 1798? Should we pass new Alien and Sedition Acts? (Yes, we had examples of dissent against the sitting president as far back as 1798... And some of the dissenters were people like Thomas Jefferson and James Madison; if you're going to start considering this sort of thing anti-American, I have to wonder where you get your concept of America from.) I like this country; I don't like people telling me to shup up and support something just because we're at war...
So yeah, censorship is wrong. Just remember that's what you're doing when you accuse people of having "anti-American" sentiment. (Oh yeah, and it's wrong in Iran too. And Iran has plenty of examples of bad behaviors... As far as this "scale" and "context" and "perspective": why not complain that slashdot doesn't publish stories about all the other evil things that happen in Iran?)
There is a solution to this problem- anonymous proxies exist to get Web users through to blocked sites. I use http://www.spynot.com/ to get through to my yahoo mail accout from work. I suppose the same sort of thing would work for Iranians.
The article have quotas to the Koran
your should look them up yourself.
The different is that Christians
don't live out the dark side of the bible.
And if Jesus is your role model, then
your should love other people.
But if your role model is Muhammad, then your
have to kill other people(all non-Muslims)
I am a Buddhist myself, so I don't hate other
people, and I feel a lot of compassion for Muslims.
Because they are the fist victims of Islam.
But to solve the problem, your have to first understand the problem.
So please investigate the problem yourself before
your jump to conclusions.
2 months ago. I would have reacted like your, but
then I started to study Islam.
Let me ask your some simple question.
Would your have reacted like this if I have
criticised Nazism ?
What if i make Nazism to a religion
with Adolf as prophet ?
Four different ways: /cgi-executeables, and mods it to be free of the word "Proxy" (My copy here is free of the "P" word- my school blocks anything with the word "Proxy" in the address bar)
First of all, friendly people outside of that country download this free perl proxy and put it in
Secondly, some nice person compiles a list of working HTTP / Socks / etc proxies
Thirdly, they put this on a big P2P client
Finally, some other nice person works out the Iranian government's IPs, and adds those to a peer guardian like blocklist that's distributed with the p2p client.
If they block most non-80 ports, then just use desproxy to get around it.
Finally: PROFIT! (Well, liberty, which is just as good)
My UID is prime. Is yours?
Well brother, I too am a Buddhist and a former Christian.
I am not disagreeing with what you said of Islam based on what is in its holy book, but Christianity is just as culpable. If you have Jesus as a role model, you may be just a susceptible to strange interpretations of that holy book as well.
The origin of this thread was a direct attack on a single religion, as if it were the only one that had these problems and atrocities associated with it. I merely pointed out that the mainstream religion of many Americans (Christianity) is the same, based on its holy book. And as many Christians DO live on the dark side of the Bible as Muslims that live on the dark side of the Koran.
Remeber, Jesus came not to bring peace, but sword!
Most mainstream Muslims are indeed peace-loving individuals, as are most mainstream Christians. They ingnore the nastier parts of their holy books as quaint outdated relics of a bygone age. Both take the BEST of their holy teachings and apply it on a daily basis. But if you wish to sully a single religion because of dated, violent passages in its holy book you must do the same for all. Measuring by passages in both the Old and New Testament, Christianity is just as evil a religion as Islam.
Why not look at what each has in common rather than differences? Why spread this bile, that is likely to cause suffering and hatred, against our Muslim brothers and sisters? Not exactly "Right Speech" is it?
Perhaps you need to review the 8-fold path again....
Never by hatred has hatred been appeased, only by kindness - the Buddha
A soldier's life is not a play thing.
Sending soldiers to war -->GIves his life,amputee etc ->>brag about the latest technology with which artificial legs have been made @ slashdot.
WOW.
Why does yahoo do this
Well now. . . I don't think I've ever drunk and posted in my life, and crazy is a very relative term. --That is, everyone in the history of this world who has decided not to walk in time with the masses has been called crazy by boring people who were little thought-of during their lives and quickly forgotten afterwards. Congratulations. Let's not trade places, 'kay?
-FL
And I wager that us-ians would be better world citizens if things shifted enough to where we weren't a political, economic and military superpower. As I cringe at our Iraq situation and shake my head in disgust at the things overheard from a sizeable population of simplistic crisco-eaters I run into daily, I wonder if that isn't our immediate future. There's evidence we're already overstretched militarily, we're certainly not a political leader right now, and economically, we're slippin'.
We've had 60 years of their murderous bullshit and there is no reason to tolerate any more. What the hell are you talking about?
Im curious as to what America did to Iran in 1945?
Perhaps you are referring to the world-war 2 era around 1941, when your country was invaded. That was Britian and Russia, not the United States. And those two super powers had more than enough justification to invade Iran. They asked Reza Pahlavi (dictator at the time) to break off ties with Germany, after the Germans invaded Russia. Of course he refused because the Germans were buying oil that he owned and making him rich. Pahlavi was a bad dictator anyway, he stole alot from the Iranians.
Now lets follow Iranian history a bit more. Pahlavi's son then came to power. That government was extremely corrupted. Eventually, in 1979, he was 'removed from power' by you current government. That government quickly lost popular support and became an agressive islamic-totalitarian dictatorship. Now Iran is considered one of the most dangerous countries in the world
So basically, it looks like you are right. Iran has done well for itself and needs no help from the 'evil and murderous' western super-power.
Just for clarification, I never supported the war my nation has declared on Iraq. I might have if Iraq had actually done something to one of its neighbors instead of just threatening. Furthermore America will not invade or attack another nation unless it had pissed us off. Invading another free nation is a great way to piss us off. If you recall, Iraq invaded Kwait and terrorized its population. That resulted in the Gulf War between the US and Iraq.
A good rule of thumb is that your country should remain under the international political radar for at least 20 years after a U.S.-led invasion. (which Iraq did not do)
There are 10 types of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who do not.
Thats the point...they are NOT Islamic, therefore, along with the IRA, shows that the majority of terrorists are not Muslim....
It seems to be quite fashionable here to be hate Islam....sorry I won't play along...
Never by hatred has hatred been appeased, only by kindness - the Buddha
I wouldn't consider taking the high moral ground as "Right Speech".
Si tacuisses philosophus mansisses. If you had kept quiet, you would have remained a philosopher.
First the Koran is not open to interpretations. It is in the Koran to, that the Koran is clear and is also says that your have to accept everything in it. And it is atrocity not to believe it all. And atrocity is puniest by death. So your can see that your are trapped. I don't know all the bible, but how many did Jesus kill ? >Most mainstream Muslims are indeed peace-loving individuals. Yes, this is true. but most mainstream Muslim hasn't read the Koran and Hadith. Like most mainstream Cristian hasn't read the hole bible. So they don't know the hole Islam. Ali, who has the site www.feithfeedom.org. Read the Koran and Hadith and thereby discovered that he couldn't accept Islam. But it do explain all the terrorist from Islam. Because they understand the real Islam and live by it. Is is not like your hear in the media that they are just fanatics. They are actually just following Islam correctly to the letter and as intended. Yes, I know is sounds unbelievable. So go check for yourself. Don't take my word for it. And as the Muslim population in a country grows more and more Islam related problem start to occurs. In Europa, we have already started to see Honor killings, and forced marries with girls of age 12,13,14. So should I just look away from all this suffering? If I don't do anything I will course suffering by letting this continue. But if I do something about it I will course suffering. Your can see I have a dilemma. So what should I do ?? Buddhism have learnt me to face problems strait on. And the best way is to tell the Truth (Right Speech). And this is what I try to do. By if your can tell me a better way, your are welcome. Please visit www.faithfeedom.org's forum if your want to debate anymore.
First the Koran is not open to interpretations.
It is in the Koran to, that the Koran is clear
and is also says that your have to accept everything
in it. And it is atrocity not to believe it all. And
atrocity is puniest by death.
So your can see that your are trapped.
I don't know all the bible, but how many did Jesus kill ?
>Most mainstream Muslims are indeed peace-loving individuals. Yes,
this is true. but most mainstream Muslim hasn't read the Koran and
Hadith. Like most mainstream Cristian hasn't read the hole bible.
So they don't know the hole Islam. Ali, who has the site
www.feithfeedom.org. Read the Koran and Hadith and thereby
discovered that he couldn't accept Islam.
But it do explain all the terrorist from Islam.
Because they understand the real Islam and live by it.
Is is not like your hear in the media that they are
just fanatics. They are actually just following Islam
correctly to the letter and as intended.
Yes, I know is sounds unbelievable. So go check for
yourself. Don't take my word for it.
And as the Muslim population in a country grows
more and more Islam related problem start to
occurs. In Europa, we have already started to
see Honor killings, and forced marries with girls of
age 12,13,14.
So should I just look away from all this suffering?
If I don't do anything I will course suffering by letting this
continue. But if I do something about it I will course suffering.
Your can see I have a dilemma.
So what should I do ??
Buddhism have learnt me to face problems strait on.
And the best way is to tell the Truth (Right Speech).
And this is what I try to do.
By if your can tell me a better way, your are welcome.
Please visit www.faithfeedom.org's forum if your want to debate anymore.
some balance, some intellectual honesty
for example, the fashionable propaganda nowadays is to talk about the religious crusade of america going to war with iraq, or how america is slipping into a sort of fascism
what?
saddam hussein's baath party is blatantly modelled on stalinism, saddam hussein absorbed neighboring kuwait a la a fascist germany, saddam hussein's methods of internal control are clearly goosestepping secret police and politically motivated massacres
and al qaeda is a repeatedly, clearly, emphaticially stated fundamentalist crusade... no, not some sort of james bond villian: osama bin laden is a real genuine breathing fundamentalist bigot bent on terror and 13th century sharia law... no really! i'm not making that up! that actually means something!
meanwhile, the usa is a stable secular democracy
no, really! it's a stable secular democracy! really!
it's funny i have to say this, considering the things you hear about the "fascist fundamentalist" george bush
i don't like george bush! but i know a potato when i see a potato, i know a duck when i see a duck, and i know george w bush is NOT a fundamentalist, or a fascist, really!
and i will say something like this, and people will be like "you're trying to censor me and call me un-american because i criticize the usa! you're a tool a fundamentalist christian crusade!"
wha???
where did this insane ultrasensitivity come from? this willful blindness to obvious truths?
all i am saying, ALL I AM SAYING, is to look at the usa and cry "fundamentalism! fascism!" when the usa is clearly nothing of those two things... and that it is fighting things like al qaeda and saddam hussein which are just about DICTIONARY DEFINITIONS of fundamentalism and fascism... can you possibly understand how i might find you silly?
if you come at me like this when i say something like "george w bush is not evil, just maybe dumb"...
"oh my god! you're censoring me! you're a bootlicking sycophant of the religious right in the usa!"
huh?
all i ask for is intellectual honesty, balance, perspective, scale, context... am i so crazy?
in other words, a level of measured sophistication in your world views, please?
and what i get is this sort of vitriolic, hyperbolic, hysterical hypersensitivty that is not intelligent, it is just alternately hilarious and frightening that people can be so monomaniacally obsessed with everything the usa says and does, especially as regards to calling american actions and statements fundamentalist and fascist, when meanwhile, there are some real palpable genuine examples of fascist and fundamentalist forces in the world today and these people say... nothing
no really: screaming about the usa for two hours and then going "oh yeah, al qaeda is not nice and saddam hussein is bad too" is NOT intellectual honesty!
and yet to say these words i am saying right now, to ask for the slightest bit of balance and sophistication in response to the deluge of fashionable but braindead anti-american propaganda... and clearly, i must be a fetishistic boot licker of george w bush!
huh?
how does that work?
what is wrong with some people that their obsession with the usa clouds their sense of reason and judgment and perspective so passionately?
it's so weird, it's sad, it's hysterical, it's scary... i really think some people must have their brain wired differently than mine, to be so monomaniacal about something in defiance of all sense of reason
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
You should not make the suffereing elsewhere seem less by equating what US citizens suffer in comparison! It's the same reasoning that calling someone a "Nazi" is so lothesome, as calling just about anyone a Nazi simply serves to devalue the meaning of the term (though there I can understand the weaking of the term over time, but the general concept stands).
I donate to the EFF and FSF. And I am chomping at the bit to fight things like the broadcast flag, rights that will mean something for countries that do reach the level of freedom we enjoy in the future. But while we are looking ahead we should not forget to look back every now and then and make sure no-one has stumbled along the way.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Have you seen this?
That's hosted in the US BTW. The last I heard the authors of that page were not stuck in a dungeon somewhere awaiting fingernail extraction.
Yes that is a danger, but even there many people post without fear of anything beyond a lawsuit, not physical harm by government goons. At least here it is somewhat more feasible to commit civil disobedience.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
He should be courtmartialed for using his rank for posting political rantings against current policy.
So when does your Article 32 convene?
Because if you don't get brought up on charges for this, it'll be pure luck.
"All the other things most college students do in the US" certainly includes talking about politics. And very frequently students have been on the leading edge of political revolutions. Because they want to change the world and they haven't got any dependants yet. It matters. Okay, I agree invading Iran would be crazy. But it does matter enough to do something about it. Such as the Anonymizer service (I'm surprised the iranians are so inept as to take a month to block it each time though.. I suppose they're not putting the money in, not like China). And if that doesn't work, we can give them something else that does.
Hi ! ... is horrible listen to this : ... .
I am 20 years old boy who lives in tehran.
If you think filtering Orkut.com or blogs or
1. There is no freedom in iran! no one can talk against thier regime if papers talk about it they close it as they've closed nearly 14 papers of reformer's papers. there is only 1 left ! if people do they go to jail without any courts or anything like it. if anyone talk against them in internet they filter the site and if the one who wrote em lives in iran they catch him and send em to jail!
2.in iran we cannot vote! yeah thats right ! in the last election nearly ALL reformers were DISQUALIFIED before election not (by people by the regime) (people who won 90% of votes in last election) and with 28% of people taking part in election the parliament started its 7th circuit. the parliament guys are trying to make a law for peoples DRESS! called national dress which means EVERYONE MUST wear a special kind of dress otherwise
3.President Khatami is Ms.NO ONE in our country! yeah he can not do anything! he doesnt have the power actually power is in the hands of others...
4.There is a law about NOT LETTING PEOPLE USE SATELITE ! yeah the same story about blogs and net and paper. they have built a 7 channel tv which ADvertise for them and telling lies to people. REAL LIES!
There are more to say but i dont have time and believe me these things happen in iran without any coutries showin REAL reactions. i even dont know if i will be caught by tommorow believe me
I was brought to your chain while meta-moderating, but I feel I must respond to your posits directed elsewhere, so excuse my breaking in late.
> If not, then perhaps you do not think that they rise to the level of being worthy of some random American putting himself in the fight against. If it's that: would you fight if it was your sister who was being infibulated, raped, killed, or their rights denied? If it was your child who died in Beslan? If your friend had been killed in 9/11, or by a suicide bomber, or by an indiscriminate Israeli? Or if it was your value as a non-Muslim being less than half of what a Muslim's are? Or if you were enslaved? Obviously, you would.
I tend to grit my teeth when presented with such arguments. Saying that I'd change my target of effect if I was in different circumstances simply dodges the point. The point is that there are many fights to fight, and the fact that I'd fight your particular fight if I was directly involved doesn't mean that your fight is the only fight worth fighting. More below, hopefully with fewer occurances of the word "fight".
> Then, why is it so hard to fathom that my sense of responsibility, that derives from my own priveleges and luck for being born in the right place at the right time and from my own connection to greater humanity, extends to those people who cannot defend their own rights? Extends to women and children I've never met and will never know?
It's not really your sense of responsibility extending to these parties that led the OP to the "brainwashing" conclusion. It's the implication that this responsibility is somehow more important than resonsibility to fellow Americans, and the idea that the best way to defend these people is by joining the National Guard and physically interposing oneself into the struggle that get you labelled "gung ho". It's the hallmark of the extremist to think that the best solution for him is the best solution for everyone, and your presentation implies that anyone who isn't willing to sign up for guard duty is failing to do so because he's afraid for his own safety. In fact, your last paragraph pretty much states it openly.
> Perhaps my use of a 'slogan' phrases like the Jefferson quote means that I'm incapable of forming my own opinions as a whole - I'm merely swayed by demogogues of ye olde quaint tymes. Despite the other, non-slogan reasons in the post, I simply don't think that's the case: among other things, I'm a 32 year old blue-state born American, well-travelled internationally, well-educated in history, theology and psychology, professionally employed software guy making a six-figure salary, who has rejected marxism, deconstruction, and po-mo moral relativism. Who, exactly, are you to question my intellectual or moral philsophy and choices?
It's not sloganeering that got you that analysis, it's the presentation, as I stated above, that anyone who doesn't follow you to the recruiting station isn't fighting the good fight, and it's because they're afraid. As to who exactly I am, I'm your equal. Did you forget for a moment that this is the ideal you're fighting for? "All men are created equal" applies to both of us, which gives me just as much right to call you brainwashed as it gives you to call me cowardly.
> As for cannon fodder - hardly that, I think - but on the front lines is, definitely, where I would choose to be. And, standing the line between you, your sister, any of the majority of good people of the world and a 'suicide bomber', terrorist, or Islamofascist is where I would want to place myself. If I can save a life (or kill a terrorist, same diff), then I will have made a difference, and being on that line will have been worth it, for me.
That's good for you. Actions do speak louder than words, and doing what you think is right is laudable.
> Sometimes, there are things of value that are more important than one's own skin. This is one of those. Those from whom nothing
If you like to call her a "child" for being dealt with according to the laws, she's also a "child" for having sex, specially according to her land's rules and customs she's taken a big strange risk. Don't get me wrong, for I feel sympathy for her, but everyone there knows the consequences of "acts against chasity" very well. It's forbidden and is against that country's laws and everybody there is well aware of it, and most of the people even consider sexual liberty immoral (more or less like our grandparents). And even then far too many people are still breaking those laws without even being noticed. IMO her case was a rarely unlucky one, I could relate it to her lack of diplomacy, if she provokened the judge by talking of misogyny and such. Iranians tend to be more subtle when dealing with those bigots. Sexual affairs before marriage is not much accepted there (for both sexes, but males tend to have less self-control) unless some libertarians go preaching systematically for their people. Nevertheless, satellite channels do a fine job now. They have a great influence on iranian youths, converting many of them to a Mtv-like culture and mindset, and I must include, most trashy aspects of such culture is being spread among them too. If you wish to compare it to the Western world, well there are definitely a few advantages in their laws against sex. For instance, far less teen/child porn or even normal porn exists there (if we ignore internet you would never come across such material inside the country, unless you intently seek it by asking and networking. It's very "underground"). Females (and males) are not used as objects of predominately sexual value in advertisements and alike. Prostitue is illegal as well. And -flame me if you wish- Homosexuals' propaganda is still not an unleashed politically-correct cause in ther land. And about the shocking polygamy which is ok according to those laws, it's so rare in actual life, you might never learn of one instance among the people you meet, even if you live there for 15-20 years.