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Little Red Book Draws Government Attention
narcolepticjim writes "An unnamed Dartmouth student was visited by Homeland Security for requesting a copy of Mao Zedong's Little Red Book for a class project." From the article: "The student, who was completing a research paper on Communism for Professor Pontbriand's class on fascism and totalitarianism, filled out a form for the request, leaving his name, address, phone number and Social Security number. He was later visited at his parents' home in New Bedford by two agents of the Department of Homeland Security, the professors said."
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/offer-listing/083 512388X/ref=dp_olp_2//102-9865629-6948961?conditio n=all
I'm not fat, just big boned...
...at least he got material for his research paper on fascism and totalitarianism.
Thanks, I'll be here all day.
We recently had heard in the office over one of the Yellow Machine that's made by Anthology Solutions.
Why did he have to provide his "name, address, phone number and Social Security number" ... to read a book?
Cue discussion of RMS's paper on "The Right To Read", but still. Is this just sensationalism, or does one actually have to give all one's personal information to read this?
With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
Everyone go checkout Mao's book from your local library. If enough people do this, the FBI will have to give up on this type of spying as I don't think they can visit 100,000 people.
Well, it's not as though this kind of thing is unexpected. Once the
government is given power, it is human nature to abuse it. What I
don't understand is why people fall hook, line, and sinker, for the
same techniques throughout history over and over again.
1) Instill fear in the population somehow, by either orchestating or latching on to
a catastrophic event,
2) Tell the population that you will take care of it, blame enemies of the state,
3) Go to war, claim critics of the war are unpatriotic, out of touch, part of an "elite".
This is all classic power grab politics, and yet it happens again and again in
history.
Why do people not learn from history? It is clear that those in power have a
vested interest in having a sheeple populace. A critical thinking, well informed
electorate, is the biggest enemy to would be dictators in a democratic society.
Start with the children. I guess fear really is the mind killer. And, at the risk of
pulling a Godwin, two quotes from Hermann Goering, leader of Hitler's Luttewaffe.
"Education is dangerous - Every educated person is a future enemy"
"Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."
Finally, just a minor nit. The submitter claims the student was a "Dartmouth" student, whereas the article states that the student was from "U Mass-Dartmouth".
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
If you mean the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, you're right.
I'm proud to be an American
Where at least I know I free...
Liberals call everyone Nazis yet they are the closest thing to it.
To quote Will Rogers, "Be happy you don't get all the government you're paying for."
Gods don't kill people, people with gods kill people.
"Fuck you, get a warrant".
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
but he had to fill out a form because he was requesting an inter-library loan. I don't know how your school works, if the loan department can psychically detect what you want to request and save you the trouble of filling at a form or whatever, but obviously his school works the old-fashioned way.
Not that this excuses the utterly retarded HomeSec nonsense, of course.
Not funny ha ha, but funny strange.
h /bush;_ylt=AuvuW06usVciqJihQS1hh_us0NUE;_ylu=X3oDM TA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ--
Bush just admitted eavesdropping on US Citizens http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051217/ap_on_go_pr_w
Then of course, the politicians is claiming that we need the "Patriot Act" to protect us. Are we sure that 9/11 was not a setup for the Patriot Act?
Just remember:
"They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security." -- Benjamin Franklin
Of course, Bush would put Benjamin Franklin on a terrorist watch list.
Fight Spammers!
How does this take two months to get out? If it were me this happened to, I'd call the press the minute the men in black suits left.
It strikes me as troubling that this stuff waits a while before hitting the presses. So in two months we'll hear about the stuff happening now.
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/work s/red-book/
coral
http://www.marxists.org.nyud.net:8090/reference/ar chive/mao/works/download/red-book.pdf
There are way too many US colleges that routinely violate the privacy of their students and expose them to identity theft by using their Social Security Number as a student ID number, because it's ostensibly unique and they sometimes also need it if the student's an employee or has a government loan. Fortunately neither school I attended did that, but it's extremely common. Similarly, many US states use the SSN as a driver's license number, and all of them collect the SSN in keep it in their databases. And many medical insurance companies use SSNs as a customer ID number (HIPAA's changing that a bit, but Medicare's still based on SSNs so they usually need it anyway.) And too many companies use SSNs as an employee ID. It's appalling, but get used to it.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
The practice of red flagging books (no pun intended) has been around for a long time now but as Morgan Freeman said in the movie Seven; "99 times out of a hundred it's a student doing a research paper"
Why would the Dept. of Homeland Security tip their hand in such a visible fashion? Perhaps the agents themselves are uncomfortable with the practice and are seeking to shed light on it?
I'd understand if the feds paid someone a visit after they bought - for example - large quantities of chemicals that can be used to build a bomb, or something similar, and I'd expect them to pay someone a visit who tries to buy a large number of guns and ammo for them, and similar things. That's OK.
But a *book*? And what's more, a book that contains nothing but *quotations*? It's not even the anarchist's cookbook or something - just a collection of quotes. Sure, it was Mao who wrote it, but seriously - this is no more justified than McCarthyism was. You could just as well advocate paying someone a visit for trying to obtain a copy of, say, de bello gallico (Julius Caesar was a dictator, too, and not exactly squeamish when dealing with his enemies).
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
the point was not investigation, it was intimidation. That is how Totalitarian countries work.
Typical "the government needs to be totalitarian to protect me" BS. Don't let them run roughshod over my rights and it's my fault if something happens? Let me give you clue, Einstein. Reading Mao or anything else like it isn't a good marker for a potential terrorist threat. It's a great marker for someone who may be thinking for themselves, not like the direction this country is going, and actually might stand up and say something about it. And if you think that isn't the danger that the people in power are currently most worried about, you're even more naive than you sound.
Nevertheless, I find the details fishy:
- Why would a student have to write down a SSN for a book loan, but not have to write down the class for which he is requesting the book?
- If he *did* have to write down his class, then why would the NSA waste resources on this case?
- Why would a book by Mao be on a watch list? Surely the NSA isn't having flashbacks to the 1950's!
- Why does it seem just a little too convenient that this unnamed student is being investigated by the NSA while doing research for a class on "fascism and totalitarianism"?
- Why are none of Robert PontBriand's classes (the professor in question, according to TFA) listed as "fascism and totalitarianism"?
No doubt there are good answers to these questionsHuman being (n.): A genetically human, genetically distinct, functioning organism.
There must be something more to this story.
I cant accept things have gotten to that point, yet.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
... if the student travelled abroad, which the article says he did, requested a known communist propaganda piece from a site that required SS#, most likely governmental in nature, and actually turned out to be a terrorist,
What would the public outcry be? "Where was the government? Why did they drop the ball on this, they had the guy's info and did nothing.... " We all know it.
It was proven during the last four years...
yes your absolutely right.
Instead of enforcing constitutionally protected freedom of speech, its better for you to choose what people can read. Your constitution doesnt really matter.
yup, there's no chance that anyone could possibly read the book and not come away a devout communist. Yup, no one has ever read the writings of such figures purely to try and figure out how they think, with the understanding that it will lack a true representation of what happened to the people.
If you choose this repression, then you are simply walking down the same path that Mao himself followed.
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
War Is Peace
Freedom Is Slavery
Ignorance Is Strength
(http://www.studentsfororwell.org/)
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Of course the recent NYTimes bombshell story about Bush authorizing survellience of US Citizens, contrary to law, is making big-time news this weekend.
But did anyone see this report on MS-NBC only a few days earlier?
This has to reach a breaking point right? Or do the American people just continue to bend over and take it?
There's definitely a major major threat that college students reading Mao's Red Book are going to go out and start peasant revolutions - here in the US they'd need to learn to sing country music first, and then they'd find that most of the farms have been taken over by large agribusinesses like Tyson Chicken and Archer-Daniels-Midland, who've got other ways to be connected to power. I mean, sure, the Little Red Book was popular reading back in the 1960s, since the US hadn't had a Cultural Revolution and reading was still legal, but the Feds are starting to catch up with Mao.
At least they don't have to worry about anybody reading "Das Kapital" and believing Marxist economics - it's a really dull read and the economics are transparently bogus, unlike the Communist Manifesto which is at least short and enthusiastic.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
"Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar." -- Julius Caesar
Personally, I'd normally brush off conspiracy theorists and tin foil hat types with a joke and grouping them in to the "whack job" grouping that usually includes cults, scientoligists, militia types and mormons. Frankly, it's sad how under the reign of George Bush, his greatest contribution seems to be lending credibility to these type of people. It seems to me that the war on terror has shifted from the Middle East to the shores of America. This war now needs to be fought on home soil; not from Islamic radicals or those of that ilk, but from politicians who more and more seem to be using fear and terror to pass laws within our own government and abusing the rights of it's own citizens.
To borrow a quote, "They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security." (Benjamin Franklin)
$sys$droids
I dont think so.
A book is far more dangerous than any gun ever was. You see guns aren't dangerous, it is the person holding it and it is ideas that animate us.
So you are saying that thoughts should be controlled? That sounds very much like the principles America was founded on.
Why is even being Communist a crime?
What about all the innocent people who got hauled up to congress to testify and lose their jobs because of the public embarassment just simply because McCarthy got wind of some something he didn't like from them and wanted to see them publically smeared.
What about that Secretary of the Army guy who totally debunked all of his accusations and resulted in McCarthy being censured?
And you all thought the McCarthy era was over... Nope.
Ironic... as that is a perfect example of facism.
google.slashdot
I'm not standing up for the government or anything, but...
It's unlikely that if you ordered this book, you'd get the same treatment. The article states that this student had a history of traveling overseas, etc. So it sounds like he wasn't investigated simply for ordering the book, but that the book was the final straw in a series of other "suspicious behavior", whatever that means.
Of course, because I point this out, people will probably complain that I'm rationalizing their behavior or whatever. Such is life, I suppose.
WeRelate.org - wiki-based genealogy
Terrorism for Dummies is available at your local federal governmen't printing office.
It's called an "Army Field Manual"
They've got How-To's on everything from training insurgents, fighting a counterinsurgency battle, improvised explosives/munitions/booby traps/guns/silencers/, code breaking, psychological ops, interrogation... the list just keeps going. And that doesn't include Marine field manuals.
The U.S. Army has put into print enough information that terrorists don't need any other sources. And when I say "For Dummies" I really mean it, those field manuals are written for the lowest common denominator.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
about losing a $20 and looking for it under a streetlight down the street becasue the light is better.
Agent A: How are we going to catch some terrorists?
Agent B: We could inflitrate their organizations and to track their activities.
Agent A: Nah, that'd take years. I was thinking of a quick fix.
Agent B: Technical?
Agent A: Preferably.
Agent B: OK, we intercept their commnications.
Agent A: Whose?
Agent B: The terrorists.
Agent A: And who are they?
Agent B: Uh. I don't know. Why don't we monitor everyone's communications.
Agent A: We do.
Agent B: So, why don't we know who they are?
Agent A: You speak Arabic?
Agent B: No.
Agent A: You know anybody who speaks Arabic?
Agent B: No. But we could learn it.
Agent A: That'd take years too.
Agent B: Well, hire some translatos.
Agent A: Spend money? You got money for friggen towel heads in your budget? Just clearing them will take years.
Agent B: You clear them?
Agent A: Well, no. But it doesn't change the fact I dont' have the budget. I need to put some numbers up on the board this quarter, otherwise they'll ship me to New Mexico to do Indian shit.
Agent B: Oh, is that all. Just do the usual.
Agent A: You mean pick a source of data that's convenient to monitor and jump over anything that's different?
Agent B: Yep. Throw your weight around and make a lot of noise.
Agent A: I like throwing my weight around.
Agent B: And I hate people who are different.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I got paid a visit for reading material that was hardly "subversive" -- it was published by the U.S. military! Read all about it here and here... I was reading the literature on a plane, to be sure, but a home visit from the feds seemed way over the top. To their credit, however, the Marshals seemed to be nice enough and they didn't seem to think I was a threat to national security, and I haven't been bothered since the visit to my house. Though I wonder whether there are now federal files on me, and whether I'm being looked at funny at the airport.
Wow, you really are a prime example, you don't even see (or at least admit too) your own repression.
Your repression is the act of trying to substitute another book in the place of what a FREE person CHOSE to read.
He was not looking for a historical perspective, he wanted to read the actual propaganda for himself.
But yes, you are right books are not harmless, they are bad bad dangerous things because they make you think. I'll see you at sunday's book burning.
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
So, basically, he wanted to find out about life in Communist China, and got a pretty good lesson about what life was like in Communist China. You read something off the government's unapproved list, and the government comes calling. Wake up folks, it's happening here, right now.
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
It is harmless. It would be a ridiculous thing to not read any Marx, for example, in college if you were living in fear of being searched solely because that ideology later gave rise to a system that killed millions of people. Also, even if the Little Red Book is harmful, as you suggest someone might apparently follow the tradition of Mao, what was that student going to do? Create a dictatorship and carry out a cultural revolution? No where in the book is there references to terrorism, or any of the kind of ideology that drives this kind of "individual" warfare, where one man can kill thousands. Just because Mao killed lots of people, and Osama killed lots of people, doesn't mean Mao = Osama. The kind of danger post-Sept. 11 investigations are looking for are not related to taking out a book on Mao.
Besides, I'm far from a Marxist or a fascist, but I've read plenty of both and found it enlightening. Whether or not you like it, both were powerful forces and need to be understood. When a basically fascist candidate is able to come so close to victory as in France (who knows how much more successful he'll be in lieu of the Parisian riots), it's time to turn to Mein Kampf and read up. Marx is indispensible too. And I'm sure someone like Condoleeza Rice, who has to deal with China more and more everyday, might make some use of reading Mao's book of quotes to learn a thing or two about the nation she's dealing with, regardless of where her sympathies lay.
No one should be afraid of reading, and this goes double for the collegiate environment, or the "classic academic bubble" as you say with such disdain. College is a place to explore all points of views and learn more about the world. Mao's red book, a philosophy that is at least ostensibly the underpinning of a government that rules over 1/6 of the world's population, certainly qualifies as something you should learn.
> Reading Mao or anything else like it isn't a good marker for a potential terrorist threat. It's a great marker
> for someone who may be thinking for themselves
Whatever. Seriously dude, twenty years ago one could be forgiven reading Mao just to see what all the fuss was about. Anyone doing it now falls into a few groups:
1. Historians. Mao certainly has a place in history, a dark one, but there it is.
2. Completeness freaks, reading every crackpot philosophy just to have read em all.
3. Retards. Seriously, show of hands if anyone still believes Mao was anything other than an insane genocidal lunatic.
> not like the direction this country is going, and actually might stand up and say something about it
Sorry pal, hate to break the bad news to you. You can oppose current policy all ya want, it IS still a (mostly) Free Country. But anybody tries to introduce any of Mao's insane political ideas here I'll be fighting my way to the front of the line to answer their challenge with a bullet. I might not know what works, but I damned sure know enough history to know what doesn't. Mao, Stalin, Lenin, Hitler, Pol Pot and Castro are on the ashheap of history for very good reasons and they need to stay there.
Democrat delenda est
There is exactly *one* article that I can find that covers this.
My guess is that the unnamed student didn't get the book in time, or was otherwise late in turning in his paper. So the student makes up this story to tell his professors.
I'm a senior in college, and in the years at school, I have seen bomb threats called in for buildings on campus, twice for unspecified locations on final exam days, and once for the library, called in by a student who hadn't finished a paper that was due the next day.
With all kinds of conspiracy theorists in the ranks of the professors at my school, I could probably tell them something like this and get away with it, too.
It's all to convenient that the supposed government agents "brought the book with them, but did not leave it with the student". From which library did they get the book they brought, or was it their copy?
This whole thing stinks of a student trying to cheat for extra time or lenience in grading. When this comes out as a hoax, I look forward to hearing about him getting an F for academic dishonesty. It's too bad most colleges don't believe in expulsion.
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
If you don't check out the books from a public library, they get "weeded", or removed from the collection. The Great Soviet Encyclopedia was another choice that was probably removed from lack of interest rather than an overarching conspiracy. Also, if anyone granted you a library card without checking for identification, they were wrong in doing so. I'd be fired from my library for doing irresponsible stuff like that.
Step 1 - Assemble numerous cells in the US.
Step 2 - Have all but one or two act as decoy cells. Keep decoy cells separate from the real cells with no contact whatsoever.
Step 3 - Members of decoy cells check out hundreds of books from librares, surf dozens and dozens of terrorist websites, etc., etc.
Step 4 - While Feds waste time chasing down book readers and web surfers, the real cells continue on with their plans.
Step 5 - As the US government expands powers and searches, create more decoy cells that create more needless searches and wild goose chases.
Step 6 - Repeat steps 3 to 5 as needed.
Step 7 - Obtain US citizenship and vote for politicians that expand the powers and searches in Step 5.
-- Fugacity: Confusing chemists since 1908
Yeah, he didn't mention that part, but between 128 and 256, 100 of them got shot in a riot.
First, what "pro-terrorist cranks" do universities "enjoy hiring"? Even Al-Arian in Florida, who is hardly in any way representative of the kinds of professors hired at most universities in the US, was acquitted of any wrongdoing. But he lost his job as a result of the controversy, and you can bet that professors likely to cause such controversy are going to be passed up by most hiring committees.
More importantly, however, can you please tell us what "dots" can possibly be "connected" to terrorism based on a professor checking out a book of quotations from a library? You make a big deal out of the fact that this guy wanted the right version of this book - as if a concern for accuracy makes one a terrorist suspect. This is ludicrous. I have no problem with the Feds monitoring purchases of large quantities of dangerous chemicals, but books? Full of quotations? By dead Chinese dictators? Come on.
As a professor who writes and teaches about war and terrorism (among other things), I often find myself checking out and buying books about terrorism, al Qaeda, and other things far more "threatening" than Mao's red book (not to mention visiting websites, etc.) My research interests have caught the attention of the feds before, but never from just checking out a book from the library. The idea that certain books are flagged simply for ideological content is a sign of significant problems in terms of academic freedom and freedom of thought generally.
The fact that a forty-year old book of vague quotations about "people's war" that is also the second most popular book in the world (second only to the Bible) is on that list just shows how surreal and absurd this war on terrorism has become.
I think you have a few bits loose :-)
How about the curious? There's still a massive great big country out there of which a decent number base their life on that little red book. As far as chinese Communists are concerned (and I don't believe Communism is illegal in the US any more) that book is the Bible. Although it probably has marginally less brutality in than the Good Book.
For the love of God, please learn to spell "ridiculous"!!!
I can't.. The library doesn't have the book since the GOP Rally/Bookburning last month.. bummer!
This book is actually the second-most published book in the world (well, third if you count the Ikea catalog), which means that if it is on some kind of watch list, the Feds really have their work cut out for them. If this is one of those books that can change the world, it already has, and there's little the Feds can do about it now by stopping people from writing papers about it at universities.
No no no. If people brush their teeth they will get less holes in them. That then translates into lesser visits to the dentists, making for less money changing hands. That is clearly a communist plot to fight capitalism too.
Helping the police do their duty is a responsibility of a citizen, even in, especially in, a free country.
What if their duty is to make a list of all the {Jews | Japanese-Americans | Communists | Bourgeois Capitalists | Anarchists | Muslims | Armenians | crypto-Christians | Quakers | students reading Mao} on your block?
Will you answer "Jawohl, mein Polizei, Herr Kohn in apartment 103 is one?"
It really amazes me that so many "good Christians" believe in always helping the cops. I mean, their Christ was executed, according to the law of the times, after being seized by the cops for being a troublemaking radical. You'd think they might remember that.
Sometimes, the only decent thing to do is to not help the cops.
Ihre Papiere, bitte!
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
On the other hand, the original student was extremely foolish to tell anyone this, since doing so is a Federal felony in itself. We won't be hearing from him again, I'm afraid.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
... the DHS to harass a college student working on a paper, especially when we have missing truckfulls of radioactive materials, unchecked illegal immigration linked to terrorism, and gross negligence in disaster preparedness? (cause, you know, let's not forget that FEMA is in the DHS now)
<sarcasm>I'm so comforted that a noticable portion of my paycheck gets usurped for such important security concerns.</sarcasm>
If you are a taxpaying U.S. citizen, I advise you to see how your contributions to the government are apportioned and spent.
when it rains, it gets real soggy. when it pours, i'm under the tap just _waiting_ for the joy
Grown up in the eastblock I know a little bit about the USSR - believe me when I tell you how common this state was to the USA of today when it comes to ideology.
SEO Test: TIGI und SEBASTIAN - Online Shop - V
This is the same way revolution starts.. 1 becomes 2h,4h,8h, 10h,20h,40h,80h, 100h,200h,400h,800h, ... and so on and so forth.
Unless you're living in a void and not critically evaluating what you read, Mao's little red IS harmless.
Mao certainly caused a lot of deaths, but contrary to leaders like Stalin, Mao was more a flawed leader that screwed up badly than someone whose core ideology involved mass murder, and if you read the little red book you will see that reflected in a lot of what he is saying.
Most people reading it will find themselves agreeing with a lot of it, either because it is vague enough so as to be more or less apolitical, or because it plain makes sense. Most of those same people will probably never like Mao, nor will they they ever become apologists for what he did. Even the Chinese Communist Party readily admits that Mao had many flaws and that many of his policies should never have been carried out because they were disasterous and caused vast numbers of deaths that could have been avoided with better leadership.
But you will also likely find that many of the things in Maos little red book are things you can agree with exactly because it contains admonishions of how to act that the Chinese Communist Party really ought to be learning from.
A few examples (NOTE: There are certainly far more controversial quotes too - particularly regarding the Leninist concept of democratic centralism - I'm not trying to whitewash Mao, just to show a side most peopke don't know - for the other side, read the book):
"A proper measure of democracy should be put into effect in the army, chiefly by abolishing the feudal practice of bullying and beating and by having officers and men share weal and woe.".
And: " With regard to economic democracy, the representatives elected by the soldiers must be ensured the right to assist (but not to bypass) the company leadership in managing the company's supplies and mess."
And: "We must not be complacent over any success. We should check our complacency and constantly criticize our shortcomings, just as we should wash our faces or sweep the floor every day to remove the dirt and keep them clean."
And: "We should be modest and prudent, guard against arrogance and rashness, and serve the Chinese people heart and soul. . . ."
And: " Our duty is to hold ourselves responsible to the people. Every word, every act and every policy must conform to the people's interests, and if mistakes occur, they must be corrected -- that is what being responsible to the people means."
The biggest "danger" the little red book constitutes is that it might make some readers see the difference between communist ideology and what has been practiced in the name of communism in totalitarian states - the greatest bulwark against support for communist ideas today is that most people still think of countries like China, North Korea or the old Soviet Union as representative of communist ideology, rather than as dictatures that flagrantly abuse it's symbolism and phrases. How many people today consider the Inquisition representative of Christian ideas (I don't, and I'm an atheist), or for that matter consider Hitlers support for the church as proof churches are evil?
However, the Chinese Communist Party is really the organisation that should worry most about people actually reading and understanding Mao and realising just exactly how far from the goals of the Chinese revolution they have moved.
They better hope the Chinese people don't start taking to heart quotes like the ones above, or the following one, and start expecting for them to be followed:
" Every comrade must be brought to understand that the supreme test of the words and deeds of a Communist is whether they conform with the highest interests and enjoy the support of the overwhelming majority of the people."
If you'd like to see for yourself what it actually says, all of Mao's little red book is available online
Supporting occupied peoples in regaining their freedom is clearly a hindrance to trade when politicians and their corporate cronies have manufacturing bases to export and bucks to be made. It is interesting how the empires of Mao and Lenin, both of whom remain on display full of preservatives, have turned to imperialist fascism (made infamous by their past opponents Japan and Germany respectively, although e.g. the British Empire certainly had such tendencies as well) in order to "earn their rehabilitation" in the eyes of the West.
Western leaders are full of love and affection for dictators like Putin and Hu Jintao (aka the Butcher of Tibet after his brutal crackdown on Tibetans during his reign as the supreme chinese party chief in occupied Tibet) while the non-expansionist socialist dictators of smaller countries, like Cuba's Castro and Zimbabwe's Mugabe, are still being treated like pariahs.
If the western democracies actually asked their electorate which is worse, a small non-expansionist socialist state like Cuba or a genocidally expansionist one-party dictatorship like China, would the western leaders have to act surprised by the answer?
Should invading one's peaceful neighbours be opposed, or rewarded with trade deals?
It means we're opposed to those who are opposed to the opposition of those who oppose the opposition's overlords. I guess that makes it The Story of "O".
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
My mother mentioned once that, back in the 50's, she took a class while at university for which she found it useful to get a subscription to the Daily Worker.
The FBI promptly showed up at her doorstep for a little interview.
My, how far we've come.
> So you are saying that thoughts should be controlled?
Oh course not. But let is be realists for a moment. If we are to prevent madmen from going KABOOM in unwelcome places we have to have spooks doing the sometimes unpleasant things spooks do, right? Now if we can agree that so long as the risk of people going FOOM in a shopping mall exceeds the risk of Bush taking to the podium and announcing a new thousand year reich, we as informed citozens should insist that intelligence agencies investigate. Since they can't investigate everyone, and we wouldn't want to live in a country where they COULD investigate everyone, how are they to pick? I assert that their current methods resemble what we here on slashdot would propose. Computerized sieving of raw information followed up by actual humans asking questions supplemented by old school human intelligence.
From the press account it looks as if this is exactly what happened, this guy was asked some questions because the computer spit out his name, and from the noteworthy items mentioned in the article it probably should have kicked his name out for a human to have a look at. But unless there is a little more than the article revealed, and there probably is, they probably should not have expended the resources to send two agents over to directly question this guy.
Democrat delenda est
If you're really dealing with jack booted thugs, the only person these words are likely to make miserable is you.
1. Why would a student have to write down a SSN for a book loan, but not have to write down the class for which he is requesting the book?
The UMass system when I was there asked for your SSID/student ID and the various other pieces of information, but not what class you were doing it for (you could include it as optional information). The reason is that they really don't care if you're reading it for a class, multiple related classes or for your own personal improvement.
2. If he *did* have to write down his class, then why would the [DoHS] waste resources on this case?
See 1
3. Why would a book by Mao be on a watch list?
The article mentioned that the student had been abroad for a significant amount of time; it was probably a totality of the evidence. (Note: not justifying the situation, just saying how it probably came about)
4. Why does it seem just a little too convenient that this unnamed student is being investigated by the NSA while doing research for a class on "fascism and totalitarianism"?
The course is Ideologies of Power, as has been pointed out. Fascism and totaliarianism might be part of the course or an Honors' Colloquium, which typically takes part of the course and creates a focused presentation, research paper or discussion group for an extra credit plus honors credit in the area of the course. This would also explain why a course text was not available in the UMass Library system.
5. Why are none of Robert PontBriand's classes (the professor in question, according to TFA) listed as "fascism and totalitarianism"?
See 4
Within minutes, I was hassled by a very hot and loud bitch cop (120 dB of pure bitchery and 120 pounds of hot chick). Within minutes I was surrounded by 6 cops and transit security.
During the ensuing shouting match, none was ever able to say what illegal act I had committed. I eventually gave my (cellphone) number to the bitch ;)
6 months later, a "national security division" cop of the RCMP calls me on the cellphone and wants to talk to me.
- This is a cellphone.
- Oh. Sorry. Well, call me at 555-555-5555.
Not being stupid, I make sure I don't call him from $ORKPLACE. They're the police, so they surely can find my home number in the phone directory, no? And if they check google with my name, they can find I'm a transit buff, no?
Well, I guess not. And if they are doing "national security" investigations, 6 months later is pretty fast, I guess...
Imagine you're a fed.
Imagine you're stationed in Boston.
You spend 99.9% of your time looking into student idiocies which amount to zip. Once in a blue moon, several things come together to make you think, one of these kids is getting serious about a revolution. Wouldn't you pay him a visit? It wasn't a SWAT team that showed up.
Pull that in SLC and I bet the SAC would show up and give you a body cavity search.
I personally believe that all of this security is useless, that the nuts that do these horrible things are spread so thin that it will only ever be random chance that they'll catch one that has a brain at all. So why do we spend billions of dollars when it's all just a crap shoot anyway?
Well, guess who gets the money!
What alarms me even more than this blatant corruption is the number of bad cops that end up being produced by this unattainable "perfect security." Recent example- Everyone on the plane has been cleared, the luggage has been screened. Some guy starts screaming he has a bomb while a female companion starts screaming he's bipolar and off his meds. What kind of cop thinks, "All the systems have failed and I have to put a bullet in this guy to save everyone?" Not a good one. The training is set up the way it is so that bad policemen can make bad calls and it's ok because that's the way they were trained.
The Air Marshalls can say the guys were following training, but that training sucks if they start shooting passengers because they didn't get their meds today.
Seriously, when all of this stuff is going on I don't want Dirty Harry or John McClane protecting me, I want freaking Andy Taylor.
Although I think that in your case of "He's a communism!" and off you went to a prison.. hanging is to good for you.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
A guy I know from a flight sim Web board was visited by the FBI in late 2001 because he bought a HOTAS joystick and throttle for his flight sim. Rumor was circulating back then that the 9/11 hijackers used a flight sim to practice the attacks. This guy bought the joystick online and it was delivered by a well known parcel carrier. The package was just the original manufacturer's box with the pictures of the joystick. He suspected that the delivery guy called the Feds but he couldn't prove it.
A single agent dropped by his house in the evening, looked around, noted the flight-sim on his computer, and the joystick, and CDs and books and manuals on the subject, asked him some questions, and left.
WTF?
What better way to learn about fascism and totalitarianism than to live under 'em, eh?
Yes, I'm feeling sardonic today.
All right, all you college types. Time to give something back to the society that has either given you so very very much or at least failed thus far to kill you. Go to your university library, and try to order Mao Zedong's Little Red Book. Preferably using inter-library loan, and preferably order it in the original Chinese. Knowing a foreign language has to be a red flag, right?
Maybe if we flood the world with bogus information, they'll have to go back to, you know, actually running proper investigations instead of wasting our time and scaring people whose only sin is having interests.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
what's the big deal with them stopping by to see who was reading the book, and why?
It's people like you who are a threat to our civil liberties. I don't want to check in with my friendly local FBI agent every time I want to check a book out of the library.
"Printer's ink has been running a race against gunpowder these many, many years. Ink is handicapped, in a way, because you can blow up a man with gunpowder in half a second, while it may take twenty years to blow him up with a book. But the gunpowder destroys itself along with its victim, while a book can keep on exploding for centuries." --Chistopher Morley, "The Haunted Bookshop"
I hear people complaining about the department of homeland security, and their recent actions in questioning a college student over his assingment. Honestly, they only asked some questions. Its not like the young man was taken into custody, sent to an undisclosed location, denied due process, and totrured to find out what he knew about the chinese communist dictator. Communism is a dangerous thing with a savavge domino effect. First you read books on Mao,then the next thing you know you're praising your comrades work on his macoroni sculpture of the kremlin. Dangerous stuff. We cannot allow these things to happen and I for one applaud the efforts of the dept of homeland security.
So, to remind everyone, we have exactly one source for this, the professor, who is at best relaying the story secondhand to all of us - we do not have an eyewitness report, in that the student to whom this supposedly happened hasn't given his version to anyone else, including the paper in which this was reported. Hell, it doesn't look like the paper even bothered to contact DHS for any sort of comment.
I dunno, I really think I'd like a little more info. More than just the say-so of some professor dude, who may or may not have a vested interest in telling tales.
ABSURDITY, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion.
This is a surprise? The administration that ships people off to overseas prisons so they can be tortured, spies on his own citizens and labels it "necessary", let's the military spy on US citizens, holds suspects indefinitely with no charges and no access to a lawyer.
After all that anyone's surprised to find out they're investigating innocent Americans for requesting a suspicious book? Get real. How does this compare with all the atrocities you've already tolerated?
There's no lower limit to the behavior of this administration. The only difference now is the clueless 52% is starting to wake up to reality.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
"In America, you check out books at the library. In Soviet Russia, library checks you out!" -- Yakov Smirnoff
Well, looks like that one's not true anymore.
I believe his point was that, regardless of how the agents acted, he should have raised a much larger stink about the whole situation instead of just posting some lackadaisical story about it on an unknown blog. As the parent mentioned, he was lucky that he was even able to do that.
In 10-20 years everyone will be wondering "How the hell did we get in this crappy position to begin with?" Until that time, the uninitiated masses will just continue to ignore everything and mutter "in this day and age we just have to give up some things, I guess."
I'm also a huge proponent of the individual rights and liberties. And this news makes me sad.
Frankly, I think the student *should* not only be permitted to read Mao's book, but it should be encouraged, and the DHS should fuck off. Only by understanding where we are coming from, and the sort of horrors for which Mao is responsible -- and doing this can centrally include reading Mao's views that helped catalyze the policies leading to them -- will we be able to avoid such brutal ideologies like communism and totalitarianism.
"Those who do not learn from their past are doomed to repeat it", after all. A free, non-totalitarian society allows its people to read books written by rulers of non-free, totalitarian societies; this is not true in reverse.
Ironically, the DHS is enforcing the sort of totalitarianism the student intended to read about. Apparently the DHS has yet to learn history too...
(His professor is unbelieveable though, saying at the end of the article "Mao Tse-Tung is completely harmless." Given that Mao was responsible for the mass-murder of as many as 70 million people, nothing could be further from the truth.)
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
power, n.: possession of control, authority, or influence over others. Knowledge is the ability to refute others' power over you, or to accumulate the devices/assets/flunkies that DO constitute power.
My sister opened a computer store in Hawaii. She sells C shells by the seashore.
Since you're so well-informed, perhaps you could remind me -- when he said he would happily turn over evidence of subversion by government employees, what did he come up with when Sen. Lehman asked him? What was the final number of "known Communists" working in the state department, or did he just make up the number as he went along? And the biggie -- how many indictments and convictions resulted from his investigation of 'credible threats'?
The overlap between McCarthy's names and the Venona names is embarassingly small for someone who is supposed to be well-informed (and not just making stuff up). Perhaps that's what you get when a grandstanding drunk is given a position of power and a microphone -- ruin a few lives, call for strikers to be shot, etc.
Perhaps you should remember that the right of American citizens peaceably to assemble is guaranteed by the first amdendment (you know, the one right above the second, which I'm sure you're familiar with). That right is not abridged, even if the name of the assembly is "Communist Party of the USA". Treason is a crime; membership in the Communist Party is a civil right. Oh, and just for the sake of making steam come out of your ears, you should know that even advocating the violent overthrow of the US government is not a crime, and is in fact protected speech -- only speech designed to provoke 'imminent lawless action' can be restricted.
The fact that Drunken Joe was right with a few of his accusations was almost incidental -- he was a publicity whore out solely for himself. His style of persecution and character assassination show US government at its worst. It is arguable that his tactics played a role in driving people who might have been wavering to act against US interests. If your point was merely '"he wasn't 100% bad", I might agree - but his percentage was definitely above 80%.
Read the best of all of Slash: seenonslash.com
Oh course not. But let is be realists for a moment.
That would be a very welcome change from our government's current behavior.
If we are to prevent madmen from going KABOOM in unwelcome places we have to have spooks doing the sometimes unpleasant things spooks do, right?
That depends on how unpleasant those things are.
Now if we can agree that so long as the risk of people going FOOM in a shopping mall exceeds the risk of Bush taking to the podium and announcing a new thousand year reich,
A strawman. Simply preventing "a new thousand year reich" is not the goal we should be striving for when it comes to keeping an eye on our government. If that's the best we can accomplish, then we're already screwed.
we as informed citozens should insist that intelligence agencies investigate.
Yes. Investigate things that are relevant, and that have a chance of providing useful information without trampling on those rights that we consider to be important.
There's another aspect to this story that doesn't seem to be getting much discussion. Setting aside, for the moment, the question of whether it is morally acceptable for an allegeldy freedom-loving government to investigate its citizens in this manner, the book in question consisted of quotes from a Communist leader. How many of the 9/11 hijackers were Communists? When was the last time an Iraqi insurgent quoted Lenin or Mao in front of a camera? In fact, not only are these people not Communists, they are diametrically and violently opposed to Communism. Hell, many of the senior Al Qaeda leaders cut their teeth fighting Communists.
So IOW, this investigation had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with counter-terrorism. Which tells me that, at best, these investigations are being run in a haphazard and disorganized manner, and at worst, they are being used to watch people with politically undesireable views and send them a message. Combine that with the fact that many neo-cons use the label "Communist" or "Marxist" to stain anyone with views that even remotely appear leftist -- or, for that matter, just plain critical of the current administration -- and perhaps you can begin to understand why so many people consider this to be a frightening precedent.
The parent poster's unlikely premise of college students starting a peasant revolt, as the basis for Dubya/CIA/DHS/FBI/NSA investigating a student for wanting Mao's "Little Red Book" evokes !WTF!.
If I didn't know any better, we have corporate national socialist running the USA these days, and what is good for GM or WAl-Mart is good for the country. Considering that China is one of the USA's largest suppliers, largest customers, and largest creditors, you would think that the PRC (China) is the USA's newest bestest friend.
What's next? Any college student caught studying Taoism or Confucianism will be turned over to the neo(Con)artist religious fundamentalist Inquisition and put on trial for blasphemy?
The real reason this kind of thing is stupid in general is because it prevents us from studying our enemies. If you can't understand what your enemies are thinking, then it is much more likely that they are going to be able to blindside you.
I'll give a concrete example that is actually related to real threats. I have a number of friends and acquaintances of various Islamic persuasions. They would naturally have different perspectives on the real threats of Islamic-based extremism. However, given the ideological climate of America as exemplified by this kind of incident, I'm certainly not going to risk causing them any problems by asking them for their insights.
On the other hand, worrying about potential communist sympathizers at this time is just plain stupid. You'd think the president who'd allow such a thing would have to be some kind of moron.
Oh, wait...
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Seriously.
The only way to teach these crooked cops is to make them actually do real detective work instead of taking the lazy route by trying to harass a large number of people to get their information.
No sane judge is going to sign off on a search warrant for the entire customer list of a company that sells joysticks that look like real cockpit controls.
The five golden words: "I have nothing to say" also come in handy.
Stuff like 9/11 happened because of this type of lazy and slacked police work that targets the wrong people when instead they could have connected the dots and got the RIGHT people.
Lord High Crapflooder The Right Honourable Vlad Craig Esther McDavenpherson III
Destroyer of Mercatur.Net
vidarh writes:
Bull. Feathers.
While the Little Red Book isn't more of a threat than any other book (and let me be clear, censorship of books is simply wrong, as is restricting access to them), to say that Mao was a "flawed leader that screwed up badly" isn't too far from suggesting that Caligula had minor impulse control issues.
Check out the numerous bios of the man. Check out the references, especially in those written in recent years --- well-attested archival material from the mainland is appearing that does nothing but back up what has been claimed about his rule for many years. For instance, check out the recent Mao : The Unknown Story by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday. Yes, the authors are decidedly anti-Mao, and anti-PRC. Yes, anti-Mao bias is more-than-likely to be found in this book. Yet the facts it reports surrounding Mao's reign are just that, facts (and why make up anything when the truth is so awful?): the millions upon millions who died in the Great Leap Forward and its accompanying famines --- famines which could have been easily ameliorated had Mao wanted to do anything about them; the chaos, disorder, and madness that swept across the land during the Cultural Revolution (during which the Little Red Book was waved on high and memorized by those most responsible for the craziness and death); the ruthless way in which followers and associates were used and discarded from even his earliest days in the Party --- these things alone are more than enough to show him to be among the worst of the worst of 20th century rulers, if not heading the list. Talk to someone who lived through his reign. Watch their eyes. Listen to them as they struggle to talk about it in any but the vaguest terms. An entire nation went mad for a generation; while it is doing an amazing job of picking up the pieces today, many scars left by Mao are yet unhealed, and will not fade for many years to come.
brwski
"Because without beer, things do not seem to go as well''
I think this is just our retarded and ineffectual homeland security at work.
This is coming from the same idiotic line of thinking where they interrogate people who are snapping photos of landmarks or ask a woman on a transit bus to show her or or face more retarded treatment from authroity.
Do the cops get a kick out of fucking with the people? Sure they do, but its not really part of a larger conspiracy, is it? Out of the entire USA population - how many of us are radical leftists? Not all that many. They might be some of the most vocal - but in terms of threatening the grip of the two party power system, they have zero to worry about from them.
At least when you look at other toltaltarian states - i.e. Nazi Germany or USSR, their governments worked with far better efficency and effectiveness than ours at controlling the sheep.
Lord High Crapflooder The Right Honourable Vlad Craig Esther McDavenpherson III
Destroyer of Mercatur.Net
Ok, all my bullshit meters went off when I read this article. It might have happened, but I'm laying odds that it's either a hoax, or that the professor is studying to see how neo-anarchistic sites like Slashdot can uncritically accept stories about our government, or that the student successfully bullshitted the professor. Or it could be our government is actually somewhat retarded (Chairman Mao is a threat in the era of the War on Terror?) and somewhat fascist. I wouldn't be surprised either way.
...which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.
Random points, in no particular order:
1) It's too coincidental. It happened (or was published) a day or so after secret eavesdropping policies from the administration made front page news in the New York Times.
2) Why the hell would agents bring the book? Can you imagine NSA agents walking into a remote library (and not the local library, because he needs the extra-special "Peking" version of the world's secondly most commonly printed book) and checking out this "rare" copy of a book? *How* did they check it out? Do they keep library accounts with all the universities in the state? And, why? Just so they can wave it in his face? What did they do with it after? Just toss it in the mail? Drive it back across town or to another city to return it? It makes no sense.
3) As best as I can tell, there's no such thing as the extra-special Peking Version of the book. My fiancee is Chinese, she's never heard of it (though she dislikes Communism, and isn't an expert on it either). Google '"Peking Version" Quotations of Chairman Mao' (or Little Red Book) and you get no results. Even the name is a bit suspect since Peking is the British name for Beijing, and the communists worked to change the name on everything to Beijing (via the uniform adoption of the standardized Pinyin system). But it's an older book, so it could be legit (the Pinyin reforms didn't happen for a while during Mao's reign). But neither does "Beijing Version" get any hits. Even the 1st edition was published in a variety of places, not just Beijing, so it would be a misnomer to call it a Peking Version.
Here's quotes from the article:
'"I tell my students to go to the direct source, and so he asked for the official Peking version of the book," Professor Pontbriand said. "Apparently, the Department of Homeland Security is monitoring inter-library loans, because that's what triggered the visit, as I understand it."'
and
"In the 1950s and '60s, during the Cultural Revolution in China, it was required reading. Although there are abridged versions available, the student asked for a version translated directly from the original book."
There is a rare-ish 1st edition, but it's only two chapters shorter than the common 2nd edition, and the text isn't different in any meaningful way (I think there was a typo or two fixed.) Having the student request a rare 1st edition wouldn't make any sense since (beyond the obvious fact the English versions aren't rate), he doesn't speak Chinese, and there's no textual changes between the English versions based on the different editions (2 chapters were added for the 2nd edition, and one for the 3rd).
4) The Little Red Book IS the bloody abridged version of the multi-volume Selected Works of Chairman Mao. But in the article it states the kid wanted the 'unabridged' version (of an abridged book??), and one that was "translated directly from the original version". Heh, I didn't know the Quotations of Chairman Mao (again, 2nd most published book in the world) was so rare that most American versions were, what... translated from the original Japanese? This request of the student's is nonsensical.
5) The professor is up for tenure. Which may or may not make a lick of difference, depending on the professor. He seems cool enough, though, doing some sort of extreme history thing in Afghanistan.
http://www.brianglynwilliams.com/
6) Another quote: "The professors had bee
If you really think that way about derogatory statements, tell your GOD DAMN FUCKWAD American diplomat to Canada to stop trying to interfere in Canada's election process!
... AS IF YOUR OWING US 6 BILLION IN ILLEGAL LUMBER TARIFFS wasn't the real problem!
... clean up your own house first.
Of course you probably are not aware of how Wilkins has been screaming for Our Prime Minister to layoff all the complaints about how YOUR country won't honour the trade agreements you freely chose to sign, that it may damage US/Canadian relations
You don't want derogatory?
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
Why? ... Because he said nothing AGAINST those laws!
... encroaching on the freedom of ANY PERSON destroys freedom for ALL PEOPLE. This whole incident proves that freedom of speech is dead ... in addition to the 3 or 4 other parts of the constitution that the Patriot Act breaks, and that your judges don't have the balls to deal with properly.
... yes, there are exceptions, no, the system isn't perfect, but at least our system does something to protect people's rights. ... You'll wish people had read my snide comments and done something about your Orwellian government when you 'accidently' are held without charge, with no contact to a lawyer or your family simply because you read a certain book or your name was similar to some one else's.
None of you seem to get it
In Canada, when The Charter of Rights and Freedoms is infringed upon, when the constitution is broken by a law, the courts disalow the law
It's already happened to hundreds in New York when your government decided to crack down on the bike protest rallys. In several occurances there, people spent 3 days locked up without charge, not allowed even to tell their families where they were. The people had simply vanished.
George Bush + Linux = "I will not let information get in the way of the fight against Windows"
Um, yeah. Except the last time I checked the American Way didn't include the secret police keeping tabs on our reading material, or the President authorizing wiretaps without warrants. You cannot defend liberty by removing liberties. You cannot defend the American Way by undermining the freedoms that make America the place it is.
"Mission Accomplished" -- George W. Bush May 1, 2003
The interesting thing is that under the so-called USA PATRIOT Act the library is forbidden from confirming that the incident took place. Not only do the police get to review your choice of reading material but the librarians will go to prison if they tell anyone that an investigation actually happened. That way people like you can say "well, there isn't any confirmation so it probably isn't true". Isn't that nice?
"Mission Accomplished" -- George W. Bush May 1, 2003
Me being a socialist and all i've been keeping tabs on what fringe fringe leftists has been up to to some extent. Several facts point towards maoism being intresting still: 1.The CPP (Communist party of peru, AKA Sendaro luminoso) is still active, waging a low profile war, and they are on the US terrorist org list. They are Maoists. 2.The nepalese maoists are still waging peoples war, they are also on the US terrorist org list. 3.You have domestic groups supporting BOTH these groups, namely the RIM (Revolutionary international movement), MIM (Maoist international movement), the RCP (Revolutinary Communist party, with chairman Avakian in exile) and their magazine Revolutionary Worker Online. Now; I honestly dont know why the nepalese maoists are considered terrorists, as they have never laid hand on americans, and the repression they fight against is by far worse than most of the hoohah a maoist could do. Sendaro on the other hand is perty wacky in the head. Thats why the feds are tracking those books, i aint saying its right, but that probably why.
Allegedly, the DHS took the library book with them. It is not illegal to own that (or any other?) book, and the book was not evidence of any crime.
Communism: A political theory which states that, among other things, everything within national boundaries belongs to the government, and can be seized for the good of the people.
Soviet Communism: And we get to spy on you, too.
DHS: "We came down here to see what you're up to, so we're gonna take your library book."
The Bible, The Hadith, The Torah: "Thou shallt not steal."
The U.S. Constitution: Governemnt can't take your property without compensating you.
The Law: Stealing is a crime.
Ironically the DHS comes out looking like the communists whose book they allegedly suppressed.
Protecting the U.S. Constitution does not authorise the government to suppress political opinions. Such a suppression would be unconstitutional.
"Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." -Jesus Christ The Lord's Prayer
"The Feds turned up and took away my book."
Consider your sig: Stop censorship, eliminate the SLC funding that enables CIPA. You wish to Kill SLC to stop CIPA, apparently with the intent of ending some form of censorship. And yet, you talk essentially classify anyone reading this particular book as a "retard", unless they're reading it for purely educational purposes or for the sake of completeness.
Perhaps I'm being too extreme, perhaps I'm simply not understanding your enlightened position. Whatever the case may be, to "answer their challenge with a bullet" sounds like a pretty strong form of censorship to me.
This demonstrates that no matter how old you are, where you work, or how low your Slashdot UID is, you can still be a full blown douche bag.
I have discovered a truly remarkable sig which this margin is too small to contain.
I don't believe this actually even happened. There's nothing in the story that makes it anything more than hearsay. The reporter allegedly knows the name of the student, but the student thinks something bad would happen to him by coming forward? BS. It didn't happen, this is likely made up by the professors interviewed. I'm surprised at the low level of critical thinking exhibited here on Slashdot when it comes to matters of politics. (Flame suit? Check!) If MS comes out and says the sky is blue, four thousand posts (or more) will argue, analyze, nitpick (it's actually periwinkle!) in an exercise of critical thought (and more acurately, critical talk). But the minute any liberal shill comes out with a statement that plays to a grand conspiracy orchestrated by (the government, george bush, karl rove, "insert your least favorite conservative here"), you all jump on the bandwagon with nary a wink at the facts, common sense, or anything remotely representing critical thinking.
Here's an example:
The anti-war left loves to chant that Iraq is a war for oil. Okay, let's assume that statement is true. Now that we "occupy" Iraq, why haven't we gotten our greedy, American pig-dog capitalist hands on it? Why hasn't the worldwide market for oil reflected (via lower, not higher prices) increased supply of oil flowing out of Iraq?
The answer is, because the premise is false. Anyone who takes the time to understand a nit of oil production learns that Iraq's oil reserves are largely untapped because of the difficulty extracting it (Financial Times did a wonderful piece on this in May 2003). At a cost of trillions of dollars to simply prosecute the war and secure the country, if you could somehow extract the oil, it would take decades to earn a return on investment. In short, it would a) financially cheaper, and b) politically more expedient to piss off the environmental kooks and drill in ANWaR than go to war in Iraq if the goal was oil.
But most of you Slashdotters, who otherwise pride yourselves on your smarts, hipness, contrarian thinking and general exclusiveness are eager join the chorus "No War For Oil". Well, all I can say is that is simply lazy thinking. Next time you hear a story about the big bad (the government, george bush, karl rove, "insert your least favorite conservative here"), maybe you'll take a minute to check the facts - apply a little common sense - think about the story, where it's coming from, who's involved and ponder what motivations they might have for furthering that story. And then, God willing, maybe you'll post an intelligent thought about it on Slashdot for others to ponder.
The sheer audacity of the US, thinking that it should be releasing statements to the citizens of foreign countries suggesting who their preferred candidates are.
That student just got a whole lot of first hand experience in totalitarianism. The kind that you just can't get from a book or a classroom.
He even refuses to give his name now because he "fears repercussions".
You just can't get that kind of gut-level understanding without a visit from the authorities. That is one kid who will have a deeper understanding of the material now than anyone else in class.
I am one of the professors mentioned in this 'conspiracy theory response' (Dr. Brian Glyn Williams). With all due respect I wanted to add a few comments. A. The incident with our Univ. of Massachussetts history student happened several weeks ago, I was asked to comment on President Bush's sweeping surveillance activities only yesterday. I innocently cited this incident as an example of the White House policies' very real applications and how they trickle down to the university level. My description of the incident was in response to an inquiry from a reporter at the Standard Times, New Bedford who called requesting a commentary and I thought it was appropriate. B. There are several key sections omitted in the version of the Little Red Book here in the USA and we are proud of our student for probing the issue. C. I have tenure and I do not know how you came to the assumption that I do not, my webpage brianglynwilliams.com clearly states that I am Associate Professor of History. But I do appreciate your reference to the field work I do in Afghanistan and Central Asia in trying to understand the roots of jihadism and terrorism. It is precisely this sort of cutting edge research and teaching I hope to protect by bringing this issue up. D. I know this student well. He is the real thing, he is mature, honest, reliable, hard-working and genuinely interested in getting to the truth on issues, i.e. he is everything we train our students to be. The fact that Dr. Bob Pontriband who is by the way a passionate educator who seeks to instill just this sort of above-and-beyond-the-call-of-duty research in his students also vouches for him lends two voices to his defense. I sincerely hope that your questions are meant to be the sort of critical inquiry we expect from our students and not some reflexive attempt to delegitimize was our reporting of what it is frankly a rather disturbing act of surveillance that does not seem to be an example of productive, preemptive counter terrorism. Sincerely, Dr. Brian Glyn Williams Associate Professor of History University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth
You must be feeling ill, speaking such... malcontent.
:) 451 and 1984 great books... read "We" and "Brave New World" sometime :)
Remain where you are, a team of highly trained members of the Ministry of Truth have been dispatched to your location to rectify the issue of you believing in this "freedom" nonsense. The Party has seen to it that Bushism is the way, and will be given further terms. Conservatism is irrelevant, it is only one of our tools to help you see the Truth.
Your brothers in Truth,
~The Party
PS - Sounds like it wouldn't happen... heh. yeah right, we who are geeks and READ the words of our wiser ancestors, know better
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
it is easier if you use hex you know:) ... and so on and so forth.
:) ... and so on and so forth.
1 becomes 2h,4h,8h, 10h,20h,40h,80h, 100h,200h,400h,800h,
Hex? REAL programmers work in binary
1 becomes 10, 100, 1000, 10000, 100000, 1000000, 10000000, 100000000, 1000000000, 10000000000, 100000000000,
See? That's so much simpler!
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
The core of Communism is a very old system of government, called slavery. When slavery and communism are implemented, citizens lose the right to own property, choose their occupation, and take public office. They become property of the State. Communism is just a modern way of selling this type of slavery to the people, who somehow imagine that it will be fairer than living under capitalism, a view that is based on a misunderstanding of both systems.
For more facts about communism, read the fascinating online Museum of Communism, which is a brilliant read, although rather dated in terms of presentation.
You're an immobile computer, remember?
The most predictable thing about this story was that it would be exposed as a hoax because of all the nonsense and contradictions in it.
Now the student, whose anonymous allegations were the only evidence of the whole matter, has recanted.
I pitched this as another story and it was rejected. Maybe it will show up from another author, or maybe the editors prefer the story to be true.