Slashdot Mirror
FCC Orders Anti-Monopoly Report Destroyed
jagger writes "According to an article on MSNBC a report, written by two economists in the FCC's Media Bureau, showed local ownership of television stations adds almost five and one-half minutes of total news to broadcasts and more than three minutes of 'on-location' news. The conclusion is at odds with FCC arguments made when it voted in 2003 to increase the number of television stations a company could own in a single market. Senior managers at the agency ordered that 'every last piece' of the report be destroyed."
We are surprised by this why?
Rather frightening that with every passing day, the US is getting closer and closer to Eric Blair's 1948 visions...
The Bush administration disregards evidence contradicting their world view.
Minitruth has determined this information to be doubleplusungood. Please deposit all copies of this report to the memory hole immediately.
Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.
It's friday and I was wondering where our Just-In-Time-For-The-Weekend conspiracy was going to come from! Thanks Slashdot!
Can someone get a FOIA suit going fast enough to beat the shredders to those docs?
The FCC is kinda frightening. It does a lot of good, but it does a lot of harm as well. It's on my top 3 list of government agencies to not piss off.
It really aggravates me that decisions keep being made to help a few big companies at the expense of everyone else. It seems obvious that keeping more local control over TV stations is in the viewer's best interest, and yet the decision was made to let these stations get taken over. It seems it's only getting easier and easier for big money to grease the wheels of government.
The fact that this report was ordered to be destroyed only goes to show that someone's best interests other than the public's are being defended here. How far will this sort of thing go? How much are people going to take before they push back, or are we pretty much screwed to slide down this slope to a place where we have no voice and no control? I sure hope not.
what has the good FCC done for citizens lately, aside from arbitrary and vague obsenity rulings?
Seriously.. every other redaction or witholding of important perspective/evidence posted to slashdot as a story prompted people to post links of the supposedly stifled documents.
So.. who has em!.. where's the link people ; ).. don't let me down!
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Seems like this story goes against what MSNBC stands for. I would have expected to see this article on a number of websites, but isn't NBC owned by one of those guys that doesn't like local media ownership?
FCC Head: "Can you get me a line to Bill Clinton"?
FCC Operator: "Bill Clinton? Why do you want to talk to that no good lying sonovabitch with a cunt for a wife and who likes to get blown by fat ugly chicks who look nothing like Ann Coulter"?
FCC Head: "Because I hear he knows of good paper shredding services. I've got some hot docs here that need to be completely and totally destroyed before they make it out to the public".
FCC Operator: "Ahhh... all is clear to me now boss. Sure thing sweetie".
FCC Head: "By the way, can you head up to my office in fifteen? Remember to dress comfortably and don't forget the donkey".
FCC Operator: "Sure thing boss! I can't wait! Imagine the nerve of that Clinton asshole fucking that fat pig of a woman in the Oval office. At least we Republicans know it's far better to fuck REAL farm animals".
FCC Head: "See you in fifteen".
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
Fascinating.
The draft report and FCC Chairman Kevin Martin's response to Senator Boxer are linked on the
FCC's website.
I'm not sure why MSNBC is sourced by the original poster, since it's an Associated Press article.
"Was it a millionaire who said 'Imagine No Posessions?'" -- Elvis Costello
This is simply the slightly more sophisticated version of covering one's ears saying "La la la la I'm not listening I'm not listening". And to think that if they had just ignored the report, it probably would have sat in a locked filing cabinet in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying "Beware of the Leopard" without anyone taking any notice.
I am officially gone from
Anyway the only thing this report could have done is legitimate the use of force by the government against TV stations. Even if the regulation could have some positive impact, this would lead to a regulation trap the government could use to control the media even more. As much as I disaprove of the destroying of the report, it is clearly irresponsible, but I do appreciate that coercive laws won't be passed.
If people WANT to watch local news there WILL be local news, tehre is no need for a law.
\u262D = \u5350
See... I have mod points, but for the life of me I can't find "-1, Retarded" in the available mods....
You can mod your friends, you can mod your nose, but you can't mod your friend's nose.
Who says we're surprised? Or even disappointed, strictly speaking, since Bush's job is to keep expectations low.
Slashdot isn't "Surprises for Nerds". But living down to abyssmal expectations when handling telecomm policy is important news. Especially when the Republican Congress is facing losing reelection in only 7 weeks, on November 7, 2006. It's your chance to surprise them for a change.
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make install -not war
This is not the "free market" vs "regulation" problem you are framing it as. Although I generally lean towards libertarian, I do not agree with your argument in this case. The study in question showed that PRIVATE ownership of stations by local networks provided a better level of news coverage as opposed to PRIVATE ownership of stations by huge media corporations. The only regulation in question here is an attempt to loosen anti-monopoly measures dictating how many stations a media corp can own. The study in question supposedly provides hard evidence showing that there is no benefit to consumers in such an action.
.
If this signature is witty enough, maybe somebody will like me.
this document is going to be lost **forever**...
On thousands of slashdotter's hard drives around the world.
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
Isn't she precious. Gonna push for an investigation. How cute.
Listen, hon, the horse left that barn behind a long time ago. Congress has made itself pretty much irrelevant. President breaks the law? They just pass a new law making whatever it was legal. They threaten to actually do their jobs and enforce some oversight? President claims he can do whatever he wants anyway. (When there was some talk about the USA PATRIOT act not getting renewed, Bush just came right out and said he could do whatever he wanted anyway as C and C. Rather than challenge that assertion, they just passed the law.)
And they gave away the store long ago with these agencies. Agencies like the FCC enact and enforce regulations without all that pesky oversight and due process they have to deal with down in congress. Better yet, agency heads don't have to worry about elections. Regulations are so much easier than laws.
What are they gonna do about it now? What did they do when all those energy executives lied to them? What did they do when all those baseball players lied to them? Mrs. Boxer and her colleagues are gonna do whatever they think they need to do to get reelected. Nothing more. They're certainly not going to do anything to anyone at the FCC.
... err America Prevails!
The FCC's job is entirely based on the need for a central registry for radio broadcasters, so sufficiently powerful signals don't interfere with each other. Along the way that leverage in denying access to the "public airwaves" turned into government control of broadcasters. Along that way the requirements to "serve the public good" were dropped. These days in favor of "protecting the propaganda of the government".
New phased array tech lets multiple transmitters share a frequency, but are distinguished by their spatial separation. So the FCC's central mission is coming to an end. A lot of their worst moves to sell off any public benefit and protection, and to merely regulate content on "obscenity" (or other culture war buzzwords) is mere desperate grabs for power.
I hope that phased array stations arrive well before the FCC can help the corporate broadcast cartel lock out entry to the media sphere. If we can make it past that dropping sword, we might be fairly home free.
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make install -not war
I happened to be reading this in one tab while reading something a friend wrote about Amber Alerts in another tab and it struck me that non-local media will never give the proper coverage to missing persons, abducted children, or escaped convict type news as it is local by nature.
If you were not serious, please disregard the rest of this response. But that's just hilarious! Why don't you compare the ratings of Nova and American Idol and see if your theory holds up? Wise observers of history would more likely note that unregulated free markets tend towards monopoly and exploitation.
You note that news, science, and educational programming in general are of immense value, and yet you call the privileging of them "arbitrary". Market forces do not recognize value; they recognize profit. Better products certainly do not always win in the marketplace. Really, the "free market" does not exist outside of government regulation. Without governments and the rules, regulatons and structure they bring, all we have is a primitive barter system. That is the only true free market; trading milk for eggs.
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
I love how the average /.er is against the FCC when they're censoring Howard Stern or Janet Jackson, but in favor of their cracking down on "big business".
Media that can be recorded and distributed can be recorded and distributed.
-kfg
Ironically, you're argument sounds like the Stalinist-approach to truth. You're saying that the FCC is right to supress a taxpayer-funded study if the study's conclusions run counter to the current administrations policies. When evidence meets ideology, then ideology should win? I'm not saying the study was correct, but I wouldn't throw it out before I've read it.
"It exists!" [Winston Smith] cried.
"No," said O'Brien.
He stepped across the room. There was a memory hole in the opposite wall. O'Brien lifted the grating. Unseen, the frail slip of paper was whirling away on the current of warm air; it was vanishing in a flash of flame. O'Brien turned away from the wall.
"Ashes," he said. "Not even identifiable ashes. Dust. It does not exist. It never existed."
"But it did exist! It does exist! It exists in memory. I remember it. You remember it."
"I do not remember it," said O'Brien.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
It's not the government's place to "optimize" the economy. If you don't get that, please stop pretending to even "lean" toward libertarian.
Media that can be recorded and distributed can be recorded and distributed.
-kfg
If you want something to go away, you don't jump up and down saying, "Burn this immediately! IMMEDIATELY!", because then everyone knows that this is important and one of your employees/minions/servants might save it anyway, either because you're evil and they want to screw you or because they think that you're shortsighted enough to want it gone now and back later and so they want to save you from yourself. Duh.
Of course, this is an argument for DRM - if this report had been DRMd (competently), there would probably be very few people with both the knowledge of the report and with the ability to circumvent the DRM so that if someone had wanted it gone, it likely would have been.
That's a good thing, right? [crickets chirping]
Wipe them out. All of them...
I think the problem is that your definition of "libertarian" is "social Darwinist nutjob," while the rest of us define it as "normal person who just wants to be left the fuck alone."
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Surely a populace informed by a free press with a diversity of editorial leadership will provide aid and comfort to the enemy!
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
Libertarians are quick to point out that monopolies are almost always government mandated. Well, duh. Of course they are. It's no accident either.
When corporations reach a considerable size, it only makes sense that the best way to ensure continued growth and desired stock performance is to manipulate some (or all) of public policy. Sure, great product ought to be enough, but what if something goes wrong? What if a competitor suddenly pulls the rug out from underneath you? Why not hedge your bets? Sound business planning really; a little insurance to cover those "unforseens."
To those at the very top of the market ladder (corporations, not people), fascism is a utopia, as long as its fascism they are in control of (or at least benefit from). It's perfect; reduces corporate risk to practically nothing. Fortunately, there are other pressures which, so far, in the US, have kept it relatively under control. But to many it seems like its slipping every day.
See, that's just the thing. You're afraid of Big Brother being a little too big and a little too controlling. What you have to understand is the megacorps want to be the nanny state, not so they can have some sort of Comic Book Evil totalitarian control over you, but to make sure you only buy products from them or their partners.
looking for his OS fix.
That report was paid for with taxpayer money, which means they have no right to destroy it. Where is the ACLU the one time I might actually want them?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Looks like the First Church of Censorship strikes again...
"It ain't a war against drugs.it's a war against personal freedom" --Bill Hicks
From global warming and EPA report cutting.. To fmr Treasury Paul O'Neil, who after showing that income taxes would need to double in order to support the aging baby boomers, was rewarded by the report being axed before he was fire err before he resigned.
This has got to be the most hand over the eyes administration in history. History books will not be kind. Especially when taxes must be raised in the future to cover the huge US debt or when there is only one entity controling all media. At some people it will be obvious what a terrible administration this is, right now it's not so clear.
2 years and no mod points. Join reddit. Because openness is good.
why would Bush want us watching the national news, it bashes him every day! One would think that if he was behind this he would have everyone watching local news so we can be ignorant about the world outside our little towns
That's silly, we all know that few owners would help local t.v. coverage. Just like having fewer political parties helps the people. Imagine if we had one person own all the news networks. That would be like having one political party, and we all know how easy it is to vote when we have no choices. We just listen to what they say and blindly believe everything they say.
Interesting that Michael Powell of "Hang those responsible for the wardrobe malfunction think of the religious rights children" fame was chairman behind all this, then suddenly stepped down and allowed the whole thing to be shoved under the carpet. Wonder what concessions he got in exchange.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
They're both the same thing. In one case, someone in the government is deciding that Howard Stern or Janet is offensive. In the other case, someone in the government decides to kill a report telling me that its to my advantage to have locally on TV stations.
I don't know about you, but I don't like people in the Government deciding too much about airwaves "we" own.
There's nothing suprising about him sounding like a Stalinist. He's posting from an anarcho-capitalist (U.S. Libertarian party) point of view. Which is to say, he's just a Marxist on opposite day.
(The ancaps are sometimes called 'vulgar libertarians' by other anarchists, as their arguments almost always devolve to little more than simple defenses of those currently powerful and wealthy. "Them pore ole CEOs need all th' help they can git!")
They have defined themselves over the years primarily in their opposition to Marxism. (IOW, statist socialism) In duelling with these monsters, they've come to look, act, and think a lot like them.
Where Marxism has a central, fatal flaw -- to wit: Marxism holds that the cure for monopolies is monopoly -- the ancap position does nothing more than invert the direction of this inconsistency.
Both hold that some people are prone to abuse power over others, and yet hold that the answer is to invest even greater power in some different people, who will somehow be beyond corruption, despite all evidence to the contrary. The difference is that Marxists claim that unlike big business, the state would not abuse its power, since it is the 'engine of the people', whereas the ancaps claim that unlike the state, big business will not abuse its power, since it is 'ruled by the invisible hand.' Both are articles of faith, and both are easily dismissed by a perusal of actual history.
Of course, the Marxists used to have an excuse for believing this, since back before 1916 no-one had ever created such a state of affairs. The ancaps have no such excuse; Tennessee Ernie Ford wasn't lamenting the government when he sang "Saint Peter don't you call me, 'cause I can't go; I owe my soul to the company store." The dangers of unfettered monopoly that arises from capitalism are known, even though they're mostly far off in the past.
At his point, the ancaps will claim that monopoly rises from government interference in the market, and they're partly right -- the government interferes in the market because it's being used by powerful business interests to stifle competition. In the absence of 'government', those interests will still exist, and they would use any other means available. Government, in this case, is just a farming out of coercive violence to a third party. History shows plainly that capitalism can simply roll its own when it's necessary. (See the assassination of union organizers at Coca-Cola bottling plants in Colombia for a recent example. Death squads are pretty easy to hire, and highest bidder wins.)
The ancaps offer only the freedom to pick your master, nothing more - just as most governments do. I.E., you can vote for the Reach-around party, or the No Reach-around party. Sure, you could vote for the No-reach-around Lube-rtarians, but what for? Why, you'd be throwing your vote away, ha, ha! (And still getting sodomized.)
Those interested in a consistent, workable solution to such massive imbalances of power might be interested to read the works of Josiah Warren. He lays out the foundations of Individualism/Mutualism, which is a pro-free-market, anti-capitalist form of anarchism which promotes small owner-run businesses and localized, cooperative communities in place of massive monopolies and federal governments, respectively.
http://www.hearusnow.org/fileadmin/sitecontent/mis sing_localism_report.pdf
:-)
Spread it around
When corporations reach a considerable size, it only makes sense that the best way to ensure continued growth and desired stock performance is to manipulate some (or all) of public policy
Corporations are only able to lobby for a particular public policy because there is a belief among the public that we, as a society, need some form of public policy. The libertarian position is that we do not need a public policy; we need property rights.
In other words, just as you can acquire land ownership by simply using an unowned piece of land, you should be able to acquire spectrum ownership by using an unowned part of the spectrum. As long as courts ensure that property rights are justly and fairly acquired, the free market will work like a charm. If there is any sort of clash between two parties, they can simply take their case to court.
Before you reply with all the problems you see with this approach, think about how we would handle those problems when it comes to land. If you honestly can't find an analogous situation in land-based property rights, then go ahead and type a reply.
Once we moved to a property rights-based system, no company would be able to influence public policy, because there would not be any public policy to influence.
Seriously, what color is the sky on your planet?
The guy who pushes crap into the parts of the spectrum that belong to his competitors, or, as an extension, the whole frackin spectrum.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
Why should I be forced to base my retirement on social security when I can gamble in the stock market instead?
Look at all the Enron employees who got rich. I'd rather be them. Wouldn't you?
[republican parody off]
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
...is capitalism makes you a dumbass who rejects education. Thanks for playing and I'll be sure to tell all my earth crunchy co-op friends that sentiment was straight from the capitalist shills mouth.
Tired of all the isms, don't exploit people as an employer, or a government, mmmmK?
well looking at it from a land perspective... define use.
or from the spectrum side, is it use if I broadcast a test signal?
so in reality to use the lebertarian perspective you have to have some defined use. If you don't use said property in hte leagal manner does that mean that you don't own it?
just wondering.
Watch carefully, maybe we'll get another lesson in newspeak out of these quotes. I hear the words "democracy" and "freedom" are due to be removed from the dictionary next year...
Telecommunication, however, has been using BOTH its mega sizes to increase operating efficiency and generating more profits per customers. It is using its leverages inside the government to make it easier for them to push people around legally, yet they adhere to very little regulations (business conduct wise) and can get away easily with the agencies they are answering to.
This is the very essense of "necessity of monopoly". Given their size and scales of influence they should be recognized of their size and power, and then regulate them because of their monopoly power.
I would normally leaning against government intervening business. Telecomm industires however has become such that it requires stiff regulations, period, to protect cusumer's interest. Without more accountability in their business, we, the individual consumers, lose.
Where exactly is the FCC 'censoring big business' by limiting the number of TV stations they can own?
For that matter, isn't corporate personhood the result of government interference in the first place?
In some places it was even more restrictive than that. I was reading a book recently about the history of New York State (The Wedding of the Waters, which I stronly recommend to anyone interested in both the history of the U.S. and of technology), and there were fairly onerous restrictions on eligibility to vote, well into the 19th century. These restrictions could include not only race, age, and gender, but also that a person own property debt free. As an example, I think I remember reading that between 1820 and 1840, for a black person to be eligible to vote in NY State (remember also that at this time, the Electoral College electors were chosen by the state Legislature, not by direct election), they had to own a debt-free freehold worth at least 100 pounds sterling; unfortunately the texts of the NY State Constitutional Conventions from those periods (when the rule would have been enacted, in the 1820s and removed in the 1840s) doesn't seem to be online.
At any rate, what struck me in reading this, was how little we today appreciate the outright corruption and occasionally even violence that was pervasive in our political system in the past. To say that people "hate Bush" today may be true, but it shows a lack of perspective to suggest that these feelings are somehow historically unique. Similarly, the feeling that an executive body has overstepped its authority and encroached on civil liberties is hardly new; these crises have happened to our Republic before, and in my opinion in far more severe ways.
I don't think that history is going to be overly kind to our current President, but neither I think will it regard him with quite the same amount of cataclysmic rhetoric that's frequently spouted today.
If there is one single truth that seems to be the common thread through American politics, it is that the political system can ignore the will of the public for a time, but in the long run it always follows it eventually, if with much reluctance, once that public will is demonstrated. In hindsight, I think people will look back on the current period as one of confusion, when there wasn't a clear consensus among Americans as to what we wanted our government to do and what powers we wanted it to have, regarding domestic surveillance and threats. In this confusion, the goverment is essentially drifting off in its own (probably undesirable) direction; this is only possible because most people really don't understand what's going on or care.
Democracy is if nothing else, very slow. It has in the past taken multiple generations to resolve what in retrospect seem like very obvious problems; I'm not sure it's realistic to assume, even given the accelerated pace of life today, compared to the 19th century, that such basic questions about domestic survelliance and the role of the police and military in what now seems to be the common mode of warfare ("unconventional warfare," aka terrorism), will be settled in our lifetimes.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Small reminder. THE UNITED STATES IS NOT A DEMOCRACY!
The United States is a Federal Republic with democratic trappings. The reason that a democracy wasn't instituted is that straight democracies are easily subverted by a charismatic-enough individual. It's tyranny of the majority with ZERO PROTECTIONS for those in the statistical minority.
Pure democracy = mob rule. Mob rule means that whoever jumps out in front and screams the loudest can essentially do whatever they want, whether it's legal, ethical, moral or not.
The republican form of government we currently have is NOT perfect. However, it protects statistical minorities from gross abuses by the majority. Therefore, I'm ill-disposed to a notion to bin it and replace it with a chaotic free-for-all and the vague hope that whoever emerges as the leader of the mob is well-intentioned...
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
maybe we ought to call people like the GP libratarians: libertarians who have merely read books about "their" philosophy.
(From their website: http://www.fcc.gov/contacts.html)
How to Contact the FCC
To Contact the Commissioners via E-mail
Chairman Kevin J. Martin: KJMWEB@fcc.gov
Commissioner Michael J. Copps: Michael.Copps@fcc.gov
Commissioner Jonathan S. Adelstein: Jonathan.Adelstein@fcc.gov
Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate: dtaylortateweb@fcc.gov
Commissioner Robert McDowell: Robert.McDowell@fcc.gov
United States Postal Service First-Class Mail, Express Mail & Priority Mail
Federal Communications Commission
445 12th Street, SW
Washington, DC 20554
Big industry can buy politicans who decide, or those that enforce - or both!
Welcome to the United States of Clear Channel and News Corp.
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Why is the AP including "This material may not be published" in their articles?
Kinda ironic, eh?
No, you're the only one of us who failed American history. I got a perfect score on my AP History test, and have learned (and lived) much more in the decades since.
"Pure democracy" doesn't even mean "mob rule", even if we had the Athenian democracy that lasted about 200 years.
America has one of the many kinds of "people powered" democracies, constitutional republican democracy. It's not like we went to the government store and picked "democracy" out of the "ideologies" rack. Despite the "Republican" work on destroying elections and gaming the counterdemocratic Electoral College, we are primarily democratic, to produce a republic, according to a constitution that defines further complex interactions and differences from "pure" forms.
So I'm not interested in your weird notion that we're replacing our system with the mob rule that you fantasize about. Or your failure to not only recognize American history, but that you're talking about polticial science, which is very distinct from that other subject you failed.
You want to split hairs on the wrong dog, make sarcastic comments about nonsense, try it on someone who thinks your screaming wrong politics is right because you scream it the loudest.
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America's economic foundation rests in *competitive* free-markets. So why -- except for obvious political purposes -- would a report like this be destroyed?
Fact: the Bush administration and the cronies they've placed in various 3-letter agencies all hate America.
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
I'm in an area dominated by locals, where the network station feeds often have very cool shows, showing, my local station cuts off the "out-of-area" stations showing sci-fi shows on weekend afternoons, or late evening, with the claim that they have the rights to show those programs at 3-4am (to kill ratings) instead.
I also dislike my local station's (and local cable's) consistent tendancies to cut out parts of national, primetime shows to splice in extra advertising. If my local stations (FOX, CBS, NBC, ABC) didn't corrupt network broadcasts with more advertising and didn't ban other channels showing programs at a "watchable hour" (recording is a hassle), I might agree, but all I've seen with local stations is "abuse".
I'd love it if it cut the other way, but it doesn't.
l
Courtesy of the Ministry of Truth
quia potentia mens mentis
Conditions in the 'depression' were bad. Really Bad!! In small towns in Michigan an all over
the country, unemployment was over 20 to 30 percent! This was in farm country where farmers worked and townspeople serviced them. One would think that farm service towns would have better
unemployment stats. If they did, then WHAT DID THE CITIES LOOK LIKE?! In the election of 1932, Earl Browder the candidate, perennial candidate, of the Communist Party of the United States polled over
5 million votes. The next election, 1936, looked to be the beginning of Communists being in both the House AND the Senate if not the White House if something was not done to help a starving
population. Starving in the midst of plenty. People who had witnessed outrages like the mass
dumping of foodstuffs in Los Angeles harbor just to maintain a price level, a level that was
above the ability of American citizens reduced to penurious wages to pay. Maybe it will take a tragedy like that to happen again to knock people out of their easy chairs and into the streets to protest what is being stolen from them. The Bushites are waiting. Their Air Force generals are itching to try combat weapons on American citizens to prove their worth before taking them overseas to shoot them at the Taliban. They want to see if their microwave weapon really CAN make somebody's head explode amid molten silver tooth fillings and shattered hearing aids and melted
pace-maker wires...........at a hundred meters distance from a protesting crowd. This kind of hellish instrument that only a true nazi could love did not exist in 1932. That is why Palestinians do not demonstrate any more. They use IED's. Take a look at Chile and what that country went through with Pinochet and the Chicago economist. The idea of putting 24 million Americans in concentration camps that was floated by the Bush administration still lives in op plans in military desk drawers all over this country. Republicans are hoping we Democrats will forget this too in November.. We will not! The Republicans will not pass!
I have been investing a higher % than your 12% into a 401 or 403 account for about 20 years, admittedly mostly in the higher risk funds. Things did look pretty good during most of the 90's. However in the last six years or so things don't look so well. I am not sure one can trust such "managed" accounts. I suspect that I like most those falling in the later 25-30% of the baby boom will work till they die. I put my trust of being able to stay comfortable and well fed into the home I am building and my hands on living skills as well as my marketable knowledge. The home is designed to be inexpensive to heat and cool, and intentionally designed to not to fit within standard market definitions. This may make for a lower market value but it will thus also have a lower taxable value as well. The house will be a mostly buried steel reinforced concrete over steel quonset form. It is being built on a very rural tract without a mortgage and will survive just fine without insurance.
Wabi-Sabi
Matthew
Another way to look at the rise of American communism during the depression, and the installation of Social Security, is that Americans, like everyone else in the world, gradually expected our government to protect the basic economic survival of everyone in the country, at the cost of everyone in the country. Social programs offered a degree of socialism that satisfied what would otherwise have let Americans go overboard with full "communism".
This happened practically everywhere in the world. Despite communism being designed for an industrialized country, the industrialized countries have produced socialism, which is most certainly not communism (as any reading of Marx/Engels or any actual communist political economics will make clear). Only agrarian countries became communist. America reflected that difference, as a huge country mostly agrarian but containing a huge industry elsewhere as well. As we industrialized the agrarian areas during the 20th Century socialism has become more popular, while communism is basically dead except among a tiny fringe of political radicals who mostly don't really understand economics.
In other words, the American flexible, self-modifying representation political system took the pressure off to dodge the communism bullet.
I agree with your take on the Republicans march in the other direction, into fascism. But do you have a citation for this "24 million Americans in concentration camps" Bush plan that you mentioned?
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