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Democrats Appoint RIAA Shill For Convention
An anonymous reader sends us to Boing Boing for a report that "the Director of Communications for the RIAA, Jenni Engebretsen, has been appointed Deputy CEO for Public Affairs for the upcoming Democratic National Convention in Denver." The DNC site has the official press release. Cory Doctorow notes that the RIAA is the most hated "corporation" in America, having beaten out Halliburton and Wal-Mart for the honor, and writes for the DNC's attention, "This represents a potential shear with the left-wing blogosphere."
They used the words "shill", "left-wing" and "blogosphere". Then they mentioend the RIAA. That's as close as you can come to a Godwin violation without mentioning Historical German leaders.
Can you say, "I'M DUMB AS A STUMP" (Yes; in all caps)
I'm a political party needing the general population to vote for me, but I'm going to have the most hated company by the general population represent my party by letting them running the show.
Lets just tattoo a giant "L" on their forehead...
Unsurprising; both parties are in the pockets of corporate interests, anyway. I hope there is a backlash over this.
It's always amazed me that people seem to think liberals can do no evil. Maybe this will help you all learn the truth.
Just ask Howard Dean how much influence the "left-wing blogosphere" wields in terms of getting their darling elected.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
While she might have public sector skills the Democrats could certainly gain from having on their side, given her organization's (and no doubt her own) agenda, I would be very concerned about the back-channel influence she is going to have on the DNC, the candidates, and their supporters from the executvie and legislative branches. They will be 'rubbing shoulders
a lot in the preparation and at the event and one would have to be naive to think she won't be lobbying for the RIAA.
The Democrats rightly chastized Dick Cheney for his closed-door energy policy meetings with his energy industry cronies and then they turn around and act similarly by allowing a corporate special interest inside access to candiates--before they are even in office. Why don't they pick someone from a non-profit? Sure there will always be some agenda with any person they choose, but why choose someone frm an organization that is so blatant, so hated, and so mercenary?
Have they given leave of their sense?
Thats the way to get people to listen to your ideas and get them to vote with you. Call them sheep...
Tags != Comments, and -1 (Troll) != -1 (I Would Respond Angrily To This Poster So They Must Be Trolling)
I agree. "Blogosphere" is one of those awful dot-bomb era buzzwords, bandied about by marketdroids and the press to make them look cool and informed about the Internet. There seems to be an inverse relationship between the amount of times someone mentions "the blogosphere" and their understanding of how the internet actually works.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
As the democrats are clearly in bed with the RIAA they're not getting my vote any more.
money talks.
"I'll show you politics in America. Here it is, right here. 'I think the puppet on the right shares my beliefs.' 'I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking.' 'Hey, wait a minute, there's one guy holding out both puppets!'"
- Bill Hicks
-- Trinity in high heels carrying a whip: The donimatrix - there is no spoonerism
Wait, so you're advocating the libertarian party... and you don't even believe people have the right to use whatever recreational drugs they want?
It just seems like if you're going to be pro-personal freedom, the War on Drugs would be the first thing you'd want to get rid of, not the last.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
Read my journal. The reason why Libertarians are not more popular is that the don't effectively frame their message. They speak only in analytical terms and fail to differentiate their own moral values. They do have them, they just fail to speak in terms of them. Instead, the Republicans, who are masters of the art of framing, usurp the Libertarian watchwords for their own purposes which are contrary to libertarian morality. Thus, many Libertarians vote for Republicans against their own interests, and they don't realize it.
Example: calling people cowards is a conservative frame. Call them slaves instead - that's a libertarian frame. If you want a liberal frame, call them selfish bullies.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
It might interest you to know that there are more than 70 political parties in the United States.
And exactly two of them have a chance in hell of actually being elected.
Voting against the worst-possible-outcome (i.e. a Republican being elected) isn't ideal, but it's the reality of American electoral politics for a lot of people.
The libertarian solution to the failures of capitalism is to apply more capitalism til the failures are fixed.
It might interest you to know that there are more than 70 political parties in the United States.
And until our voting system is completely overhauled, only two of them are electable. That's the reality of it. If you don't like it (and I don't), press your congresscritter for reform of our voting laws. Even then, why do they want to change the system that keeps them in power?
So only 2 parties are electable and neither will fix the problem. I submit to you that you must vote for an unelectable party in order to get things changed.
Maybe in the Federal elections, but State and Local elections are less popular (even though they're more important since they dictate the policy that affects you most where you actually live) and are thus more influential to third parties.
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
Democrats need to be very very careful with DRM and associating with the **AAs. The last 7 years have made me hate the Republican party enough to never vote Red again in my life...and I used to be a Republican (in college when I was clueless about the real world, and didn't have the ability to forsee how the republican party has annihilated the middle class over the last 7 years).
Bottom line, if the Dems go hard with DRM I will go with the independents and libertarians...regardless of whether this gives the Republicans an edge...I will not support a DRM friendly party that puts the rights of corporations over individual human rights. For Christ's sake Democrats are suppost the represent us...the people...corporate interests should always come second to any true Democrat in office.
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
And yet, you control but a single, insignificant vote. What have you got to lose? We can't even count accurately enough for a single vote to be significant should a large election come down to it.
Also, do not believe that we, the voters are their constituents in the sense that they are beholden to our interests. This is not the case. They are beholden to those who can pressure them by providing or withholding money, usually (but not always) through lobbyists. If you are not represented in such a way to your government representatives, then you are not in any practical sense one of their constituents. Your vote was the single act in which you are able to influence the process. In principle, you can write to them once they are in office and attempt to sway them, but unless you are onboard with the money-providing players, or unless you are part of a massive broad-based campaign, you will be ignored and will receive a canned response.
I claim that the above is neither an opinion nor ideology, but an expression of practical facts. Please refute that claim.
Wake up. The Democratic party want to regulate the hell out of everything just like the RIAA. Learn from history or repeat it. Time for a real 3rd party. No lawyers or career politicians allowed.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
bnetween the two parties. unless it's the Iraq war (which many democrats voted for by the way), name one substantial difference between the two parties. they both favor unlimited immigration, destructive trade policies, won't push to expand more oil drilling and nuclear power, don't give a crap about the social security/medicare atom bombs, and in general are so beholden to large monied interests. the republicans screwed up the war on terror, the democrats won't even fight it. other than that, they are more concerned with consolidating political power.
as for the media, et al., all those hollywood big wigs (like David Geffen), who love the RIAA. they are all HUGE democratic donors. connection? I guess not.
vote libertarian!!
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
Not a fucking thing.
3 things about computers: they're alive, they're self-aware, and they hate your guts.
Even if you don't get the minor party official elected, if they get enough votes, either a Republican or Democrat could pick up the driving issue and pursue it to their own means. It may not ideal, certainly, but it can be effective to get us what we want. So when the major two parties notice, the vote is not wasted.
Too bad the truth gets modded down. Senator Fritz Hollings, aka Senator Disney, is a Democrat.
The DMCA was signed into law by Bill Clinton, a Democrat.
There's a tax on blank CD media in Canada - passed by liberals.
You'd think the self-professed "smart people"* who vote for "smart candidates"** would realize this. But they don't, because they're nothing more than sheep being led to slaughter.
* who are actually just stupid liberals who have less intelligence than a mildly retarded squirrel
** dumbasses like John Kerry (C+!) and Al Gore (flunked out)
And exactly one of them has a chance in hell of actually being elected. Just because the Government party has a Jackass wing and an Elephant wing, doesn't mean they stand for anything fundamentally different. The Party knows all, sees all, and rules all.
Who would've thought that it would've been the Democrats that crack down on free speech (Imus) and then pick this assclown to work their convention? Are they shifting to the right, or are they just stupid?
Guess what? They won't ever have a chance of winning if nobody votes for them.
Thanks for being part of the problem.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Yes, but the poster's point was that a pro-drug stance shouldn't be the first thing to tout while on the stump. There are many more "pro-personal freedom" stances that are far more palatable to liberals and conservatives alike than "free the weed, dude".
Method of processing duck feet
The sad thing is that the Democrats, instead of actually listening to all the voters they've disenfranchised, seem to treat "What are you going to do, vote Republican?" as a policy platform.
I hope this doesn't turn me into a target for the army of Nader-Haters out there, but I voted for Nader in 2000 and I would do it again. (FWIW, I was registered in Washington state at the time, and given the (absurd) Electoral College system, my vote did not actually play into the final outcome of that election.) When Democrats tried to convince me I should vote with them, nobody ever tried to make the "we support those issues also" or "actual progress requires more compromise" arguments. All I ever heard was, in essence, "Yeah, but the Republicans are worse." That just seems pathetic.
I'm just sayin'.
What is your definition of "liberal"?
It's not a slam against you. It's just that, especially in the last few years, "liberal" has become a derogatory term for anyone the disagrees with the "right wing" folks. There, I did it myself. And I can't give a definition of "right wing" myself - these days - other than to say, "someone who still supports the Republican party after all of these years of corruption and complete mishandling of international affairs." - IMHO
Back to liberal. I was once talking to a friend of mine and she was complaining about all of the "liberals" who wanted to ban lawn signs on people's yards. How wanting to ban signs on people's yards makes one a "liberal" is beyond me.
Ah, but here's the tricky part: None of that 90% THINKS it's part of the 90%, and will agree that 90% of the population are sheep. So while in actually there's an insult, nobody will admit that the insult applies to them.
;)
No harm done
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
Look at it this way:
There are 101 people voting for president of the world. 51 of them are "Liberal," and 50 of them are "Conservative." (Both in the American sense.) In a two party system, the Liberal Candidate would win.
49 People have voted for Jack Johnson, a Democrat.
50 People have voted for John Jackson, a Republican.
That leaves just you (Robert Bobson,) and your close friend (Bob Robertson) to vote. Instead of voting for Jack, you both vote for Jesse Ventura, a "Liberal" independent. Now, you did not vote for John, because you disagree with his policies. You did not vote for jack, because you dislike him personally, although you agree with his policies. As result, you walk around saying "Don't blame me! I voted for a third party!," When in actuality, it is just as much a result of you, as it is of anyone who voted for John. The same scenario also works in reverse, of course, but Conservatives tend to have fewer major candidates.
So in this great place called 'reality,' unless you really don't care who wins, or it is not a close race, voting for anyone but the DFL or GOP candidate is not only a waste of your vote, but probably against your self interests. Now, this isn't to say I never do. Whenever the outcome of an election is clear, I vote Socialist or Green (assuming any candidates are available.) But in elections where my vote could, in fact, make a difference? I know better.
> Birds of a feather...
The original poster got modded troll but there is truth in it. The Democrats need the net crazies like Kos and Moveon. But they equally need the big sacks of filthy cash that they can raise from Hollywierd and drug addled rock stars. They are betting that dealing in the RIAA will bring in enough cold hard cash to offset the negative effects from some disgruntled netheads. After all, what are they going to do, vote for a Republican? They might donate less, but who cares when you have huge sacks of money and when the race gets serious does anyone really believe Kos & Co. won't be fired up and frothing at the mouth to destroy "Evil Republicans!"?
Same sort of cold calculation that makes both parties pay lots of lip service to core groups but dis em in their quest for the magical middle. Rove totally broke with that in '04 and by concentrating more on getting his base out pulled out a win, but 'everyone' realizes now that stategy is dangerous and probably won't work too many times.
So now we all go back to courting the 'middle.' And by middle it is generally understood we mean the clueless nitwits who know nothing about politics, policy, issues or any of that stuff. No, they want telegenic, charismatic people who talk in platitudes. So we on the road to getting an Empty Suit vs. a TV star.
Democrat delenda est
Ah sorry - my mistake - I see now that it was a 'ncaa college basketball' style elimination tournament to see which was the worst company. Still, it was a web poll and the bulk of my other points are still valid. Mea culpa.
Amen, friend. Anyone with a bit of patriotism and American sprit left in them should VOTE LIBERTARIAN!
"Keep your party off my lawn!"
And you're for Handgun Regulation? How do you suppose to keep people off your lawn if you are unarmed? You see, you claim to be against one thing, not realizing it is required to do the thing you do want.
Of course, when I do show up on your lawn, and throw a party, you are helpless to stop me, as I set my sights upon your house, wife and daughters (assuming your are a male).
And who is gonna protect you from abusive police powers, legal system run amok, and legislatures who write all sorts of nanny laws? Or perhaps you agree with the police state, crappy legal system and all the nanny laws.
You do realize that the Police State is required to maintain enforce the nanny laws, right???
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
And you all thought the Dems were the party of personal freedom... /soapbox
I guess it makes sense, the RIAA and the Democrats have one thing in common, "give us more money so we can spend it for you."
Vote Libertarian.
Thanks for proving my point.
And, it is worth noting that the laws you allude to as being put in place by Bush are the same kind of laws sought by the RIAA. And a lot of democrats voted for those laws.
In other words, if you're running an ER and you get somebody who's hemorrhaging, you don't treat him/her by breaking an arm.
Just because a person doesn't like the republicans is no excuse to let the democrats slide on this. If anything, they should raise more of an uproar about this, because it's taking place within their own camp.
3 things about computers: they're alive, they're self-aware, and they hate your guts.
I am not against voting Libertarian.... but when people going to stop and think who they are voting for? Vote independently of party and look at the person.
Small political parties are only devoid of corruption because they have no power yet. The conservatives swept into power in 1994 with the promise of reform -- look what happened. I guarantee the same corruption and shit will happen once the democrats are in power because this cycle is endless. Both sides are the same and we are on a giant merry-go-round with the same shit every time.
I think one of the best politicians recently was Jesse Ventura, and he ran as an Independent. Kept his word on many things and stepped out after 2 terms. Not a career politician by any means.
Contrast this with the average career politician willing to say anything publicly to get elected while toeing the party line while in office. Beholden to so many interests, its no wonder most suck.
If people ever started electing people without even looking at party affiliation, there would be no need for political parties. And a lot better job would get done. I would rather be for election reform if that meant that voting booths could just have the name of the person on the ticket, without party listed (do they list their every stance on issues in the booth too, I don't think so - this is a product of the 2 party system helping each other out - like they rig every other part of the electoral process). Then maybe people would be forced to look at who they are voting for rather than check it off all one party or another. Maybe then we'd getter better choices than between a douche and a turd.
Why must we have parties that are at extreme ends of the spectrum? Conservatism is good for some issues, but not all. Liberalism is good for some issues, but not all. Why must people think that US policy and government must all follow one prescribed liberal or conservative way of thinking?
The truth is, we haven't had a conservative government for decades. Conservatives want LESS government involvement, while the current neo-cons want to control every aspect of our lives. Democrats are often labeled as liberals, but they have corporations paying them off too; they're just not so blatently obvious about it. Remember, lobbyists don't really care who's in power, all they have to do is change who they right the checks to.
For both parties, its all about power. Mostly everyone in Washington is filthy rich from their private investments. The only thing to strive for after becoming that wealthy is power.
What we need is a nice middle-of-the-road party that actually thinks about what the people of the united states want when legislating. A party that is not motivated by the almighty dollar. Unfortunately, this is something that is probably never going to happen.
I got nothin'
Over time, this would enable viable third parties and independent candidates to 1) exist meaningfully and 2) eventually flourish. Why? Once voters are free to vote their view on all candidates, serious candidates can contemplate a non-Democrat, non-Republican affiliation without fear of being completely stonewalled at the voting booth.
Alone, rank-based voting may not be sufficient to increase political diversity in the US, but it's almost certainly necessary.
When are you people going to wake up? We aren't republican or democrats, we are Americans. Instead, we split ourselves along an arbitrary party line that single handedly fucks up EVERYTHING.
It is my strong belief that we need to abolish the two-party system as it stands. maybe if we stopped putting letters after people's names, the masses would listen to what they have to actually say, rather than what "side" they say they are on.
Fuck that. Fuck all of you who vote republican OR democrat.
What you have done to our country disgusts me.
Living With a Nerd
So you mean it's like she never went to the RIAA in the first place?
3 things about computers: they're alive, they're self-aware, and they hate your guts.
I don't hate the RIAA for protecting the rights of the artists and their record labels. I despise their heavy-handed tactics and willingness to sue grandmas on welfare. If the RIAA would act like a forward-thinking organization and stop treating the music customers like criminals, they might find out that we're on the side of the artists too and most of us don't have a problem paying for music. It is the RIAA's own fault that they are viewed as a bunch of hired Mafia thugs!
Sigh.
The laws being sought by the RIAA are admittedly invasive, and I do object to them. I object to them publicly and with great vigor. It's not that Bush's privacy invading laws are different in principal, it's the sheer magnitude of them, and also the fact that his administration frequently *breaks* the law and does things like illegally monitoring US citizens. If the RIAA did something like that and got caught, someone would probably go to prison. But since it's the executive branch of the government doing it, nothing is done. Hence, far bigger problem.
Of course, the Bush administration has all sorts of other problems as well (Americans and Iraqi citizens dying by the thousands in the Iraq war, manipulation of intelligence leading up to said war, the whole US attourney scandal, Karl Rove's missing emails, Valerie Plame etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, the list goes on and on).
Yes, the Dems appointing an RIAA shill pisses me the hell off, because I hold the Dems to a far higher standard than Republicans, and you can bet I'm going to join the no doubt many thousands of people signing petitions and writing angry emails. To reiterate, the fact that the Democrats are way way better than Republicans doesn't excuse this kind of shit. I just still intend to vote for them because by and large they represent my views way better than neocons and religious wackos, and they're less corrupt on the whole.
If you vote dem to end the war, you also get minimum wage, tobacco and transfat prohibitionists, inconvenient truths, and equal rights rehash. If you vote reps for the small government, you also get big government, biblical authoritarianism, and endless war.
Yeh those damn liberals. Without them we'd still be living in the utopia that was the 19th century.
Still, it was a web poll and the bulk of my other points are still valid
The BULK? What bulk? Here are your points from your original post:
* The contest was between exactly two companies - Hallibutron and the RIAA. Those were your choices if you participated in this survey. The RIAA won by 3.8%. Wal-mart or none of the above were not choices.
* The 'survey' was done by The Consumerist. Sounds impressive, eh? Like The Economist magazine, perhaps? No, not really. It's basically some shitty blog. Hint: their web page currently has ads for 'Replica Rolex Watches Rolex, Cartier, Gucci, Brietling Only $189!!'
* So, this poll was a web poll. Hardly what we'd expect from a true 'Most hated company in America' type deal.
* See it for yourself here [consumerist.com].
So out of these four bullets, one simply states that this was a web poll, ok true, but not exactly insightful. The last point is not a point at all, just a link to your source. The first point you already admitted was wrong, leaving only your second point as anything that could fall under your term of "bulk" and I would hardly call a single valid point bulk by any stretch.
In addition the consumerist website is not some tiny fly-by-night blog, it's been around for a while and they are the slashdot of constomer service issues and are part of Gawker Media which handles other such blogs as Gizmodo, Jalopnik, Kotaku, and Lifehacker just to name a few. While these may be niche blogs in that they have a sharp focus, they are by no means somebody's part time basement run website. In March 2007 the Consumerist received over 5 million visitors, and they have consistently had over 500,000 visitors per month for the past 12 months, and over 1 million visitors/month for the last 6.
As for the SINGLE advertisement you chose to judge the quality of the page, (ignoring other advertisers such as the prominent T-Mobile ad) the replica watch company is not selling counterfit goods, it sells replicas, clearly marked in both their URL and product page, so it is not an ad from a scammer. Also considering the nature of the consumerist blog, I would certainly think that they vet companies before accepting ads from them.
So in short, you overreacted and shot down a completely legitmate site which ran a survey over a period of weeks that reached a very large audience. Is it a scientific poll? No, but it's also not some two-bit blogger ranting about poll results culled from a handful of readers. Kudos on you for posting a semi-retraction but your "bulk" of remaining points is essential naught.
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
...keep voting that way, you'll keep "electing" one wing or the other of the cooperating criminal cartel that has hijacked government and runs it as a crony jobs program for multimillionaires and billionaires and transnational non patriotic corporations.
I've been hearing the same shit for 40 years now -"don't waste your vote-don't vote for an independent or third party!"-it was wrong then and is still wrong, but the brainwashed parrots keep convincing themselves and other people to do the same thing over and over and over and over and over again, somehow magically expecting a different result "this time". IT AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN.
Anyone "you" has one vote, wasting it on the lesser of two evils will ALWAYS result in evil getting elected.
John McCain? The same man who doesn't know condoms prevent STDs? Who wanted to send even more troops than Bush in his surge? The John McCain that walked around in a Iraqi market with a huge security force to "prove" that it's safer? The same guy whose plan for a solution to Iraq is to send 100,000 more troops there? Are we talking about the same person?
On a more serious note, Ron Paul seems to be a good match if one really cares for liberty.
bnetween the two parties. unless it's the Iraq war (which many democrats voted for by the way), name one substantial difference between the two parties.
Trade, estate taxes, income taxes, workers rights, stem cell research, wiretapping, abortion, separation of church & state, corruption, the environment, getting a blowjob an impeachable offense for one but shredding large parts of the Constitution not for the other. And so on, and so on.
don't give a crap about the social security/medicare atom bombs
Hardly. And the reason we have budgetary bombs is because of reckless Republican tax cutting, most of which goes to those who don't need them.
the republicans screwed up the war on terror, the democrats won't even fight it.
Are you talking about Democrats fighting terrorism or fighting the Bush administrations boneheaded policies? Either way, you sir, are full of shit.
I can't say that the results are quite what I hoped.
Me, I once ordered a pineapple and ham pizza and ended up raped by wild boars and left bleeding on a Pacific island to die.
I dunno, I guess yours was worse.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
FUCK. THE. BLOGOSPHERE.
/.'ers who link to your blog in you sig mod me down, which you're going to do, clearly and deservedly. Think about it a second. You want people to read your stuff, right? thats all well and good, but is your own specialness worth elevating some inane documenting of some asshat's daily lives to the same level as decent writing, literature, or real journalism? I certainly the fuck dont think so.
.02
There. I said it.
It had to be said.
What a self important bunch of wankers. Nothing about the concept of a blog is derserving of its own ism or sphere. Its just a website. Ever hear about what's happening in the Shoppingsiteosphere? Or the OnlineNewsosphere?
No.
You know why? because those particular areas of the Internets are created and staffed by professionals, who dont need to go around inventing self-aggrandizing titles for themselves.
The ability so sign up for a Blogger account and blabber on about whatever the fuck you want in no way designates you as worthy of buzzword-creation rights. Fuck off and give the rest of us a break. Isnt there a coffee shop you should be posing at with your MacBook Pro or something? I think there is.
And before all you
So there's my
Now feel free to continue modding me down as flamebait or troll because i cussed at you, and because you're *really* that special.
Come read my stupid blagablog. Rants and Giggles
Guess what? There is such a thing as self-sustaining processes that you need a critical mass to overcome and break out of. Thanks for oversimplifying.
Also, thanks for assuming that the trade-offs are worth it without any evidence. Even if I like the Prohibition Party (just to pick a rather unlikely candidate) more than the Democrats, that doesn't mean that it'd make sense for me to vote for them; it depends on exactly how much more I like them than the Democrats, how much more than the Republicans I like the Democrats, how much of a chance I estimate there is for them to actually start playing a political role (or, alternatively, how long I expect them to take to start doing so), and how much of a chance I estimate there is for the Democrats to defeat the Republicans in the election at hand.
It may WELL be that even though I like the Prohibition Party more than the Democrats (again, I don't actually) and that I STILL decide to vote for the Democrats rather than them, simply because I figure that it's more important to keep the Republicans out of office (and/or because I figure there is no chance the Prohibition Party candidate will win, anyway).
The real solution to the current mess is to reform the entire system and get rid of things like the electoral college etc. that are actually responsible for this pseudo-democratic 2-party system. Once THAT is done, you can start voting for other parties, too; until then, the idea that voting for them is going to change anything or that any of them will actually rise up from meaninglessness is just wishful thinking.
butter the donkey
Why ? Isn't their agenda removing the remaining limitations from total contractual freedom, allowing Corporate America to use its vastly superior resources to force even more onerous demands on the people who have to deal with it ?
Libertarians seem to think that removing state power makes people free. It does not, it simply creates a power vacuum for someone else to fill. The large corporations seem most likely, already practically controlling most countries, but even if they fail to seize power someone else won't; no matter what, you will always have an overlord, and in the end, despite their numerous flaws the current semi-democratical Western states are amongst the most benevolent overlords in human history.
All of this, of course, assumes that the libertarians will actually keep their word if elected, which would require them to be resistant to the temptation of power. Given history of politics, that seems a rather generous assumption.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
You're fucking kidding, right?
/., I'd tend to think its the latter, but I know enough RINOs like yourself to know otherwise.
I'm a dyed in the wool liberal, which is why I hate the Democrats _almost_ as much as the Republicans.
But its a matter of scale. I've _always_ known the Dems to be in bed with Hollywood and the entertainment industry cartels. That's an order of magnitude different from being in bed with oil companies and defense contractors.
Wake me up when the RIAA helps get us stuck in a pointless war with no end in sight.
You're either ignorant, or a troll. This being
It's too bad your mom didn't exercise her right to an abortion and spare the world one less mouth breathing douchebag.
Another poster down the page a bit has listed Dems that created and passed bad laws on behalf of the RIAA and MPAA. That's a good deal more than hiring someone near those organizations. Granted, Oryn Hatch and that other turd (I forget his name at the moment; but he's a Republican... Specter, I think) did the same sort of thing.
With the liberals we get slick liars, and with the Republicans (not conservatives) we get sincere hypocrites, to quote my history professor. The real issue is that from both sides we have professional politicians passing anti-consumer laws written by big business lobbyists. It seems to really be the only thing our legislative body can actually "get done."
So many people go on about "what the Bush Administration has done," but these kinds of things were all OK, or even admirable, when the Clinton Administration did them (echelon, Bosnia, Janet Reno firing every last Republican U.S. Attorney... just to list a few). And no, please don't explain to me how those were "all completely different..."
On another subject: have a good weekend.
That may be true about the other personal freedoms...
But, there are few issues where "the evidence" is so compelling. I would wager that most people, when they answer honestly, realize weed is no "worse" than alcohol. But yet, the subject is never seriously debated and the same ol' War continues on. Do you realize we spend almost $40bil/yr fighting the drug war? That's a lot of people's paycheck.
The reason its such a hot-button issue is because the War on Drugs has probably had the largest impact on freedom for the largest amount of people. Both sides are affected. The citizens are policed and the police forces depend on "anti-drug money" for their funding. You didn't think they got those machine guns and new SWAT cars because they were nice, did you? No, they go them as a direct result of the drug war. It has, in a way, transformed our police into tactical military units.
While there are definitely other topics to talk about, the WoD is the single largest rights-impeder out there and that's why the libs focus on it. Not only is it a HUGE source of corruption, but there are truly, some dastardly things that have been done during this war. Just go browse a civil liberties site and you can find countless stories of abuse with respect to the War on Drugs.
No other personal freedom issue has a track record like that one.
"And no, please don't explain to me how those were "all completely different...""
Well you won't find me defending any political party. But... Some of those things were different.
I agree with you that we the people are no longer represented in our government. It is the corporate money that allows politicians to win the elections and that's what they care about most.
Politics is a dirty and complex game. The more I look at it the more I want to resign from the human race. At least with Bosnia we were stopping a genocide. I'm sure there was more to it than that but I could stomach a military conflict because it felt like we were really intervening in something horrid.
I feel like the war we have now was started by despicable people for despicable reasons. Not for the reasons they fed us.
If you go out to democracy.org and watch the video of the interview with Ret. Gen. Clark he states that he was at the pentagon about ten days after 9/11 and was told by one of his former staff that the Bush administration had already decided to invade Iraq. He goes on to state that some time later he was told that they plan on invading seven countries.
I don't like any political party but this Administration is out of control.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
A bigger problem with the system (not quite sure how the electoral college is to blame) is the uneven playing field for third-party candidates. A candidate is not even eligible for federal election dollars unless their party received at least 5% of the vote in the last election cycle.
Now it's not likely that we can (soon) remove that requirement. We can, however, start voting for these parties so that they can at least qualify for those dollars and have a chance at some publicity in the next election.
It's easier to just throw up your hands in frustration and declare the system broken (even if it is) than to make a choice that, while maybe not immediately gratifying, will get things moving in the right direction.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Um...dude...its gonna happen. Shit happens, and it is part of life. You may not like to hear it, but there is nothing your friendly politician can do about it except create CO2.
Lets assume for a second that all guns were outlawed in the US and were no longer available. This guy would have found some other way to go on a killing spree - be it with a knife, some improvised weapon, or even a homemade bomb.
The whole argument about guns is purely an emotional one. There is no logic behind the anti-gun arguments that outlawing them or making them harder to get will reduce crime, and evidence shows that restrictive gun laws have a correllation with increased crime.
My Sysadmin Blog
Seriously if your going to go on a rant don't pull random numbers out of your ass. We are averaging less than 3 US soldiers killed in action a day. If you want to use number like "By the thousands" look to the older wars like WWI or WWII if you want to use hugely inflated numbers. The amount of solderis dying in Iraq is not a whole hell of alot more than the amount that are dying on US soil from drunk driving and training accidents.
It's bad in Iraq and yeah we shoulda never started this war. But Slashdot is suppose to be full of smart freethinkers not people who regirgitate bullshit fed to them by the media.
Blame the Clinton and Gore all you want, but don't forget that the DMCA was passed by a republican controlled house and senate. To me, the RNC is EQUALLY as responsible as Clinton and Gore for this - they had the power to prevent such legislation from ever making it to Clinton's office to sign. What has Bush done to undo this injustice, anyways? How about Orin Hatch?
We need a new party called the Centrist Party. All the choices we have are extremists.
You right now are embodying one of the most destructive impulses of hardcore Democrates: Demonizing the opposition.
Look -- I'm fairly typical Democrat material. I'm not associated with any organized religion. I'm in favor of gay marriage. I'm maybe even starting to think about conceding that universal healthcare might be a good idea. That said, any time someone simply shuts down and goes into an "us vs. them" mentality, it means they aren't seriously thinking about their opposition's viewpoint and perspective, other than coloring it in overbroad lines.
And that's bad.
Sure, it's not like the Rove & co. didn't do most of the escalation lately -- but the response to venom and hatred isn't to shut down your brain, because that stops you from thinking about why Average Joe Republican is in fact voting Republican. And ya know what? Chances are, Joe is unhappy about a lot of the same things you are -- but when you go on the attack (or only speak from your perspective without taking Joe's worldview into account), you lose the opportunity to make that sale. You're even turning me off right now, and I'm probably pretty typical of your target audiance.
It should be pretty obvious by now that I'd like to see Obama as President. I grew up right-wing Christian conservative and still have a working model of that mindset handy even though it's not something I espouse -- and Obama speaks to the old me as powerfully as the new one. The last thing we need now is more division, and Obama stands for a return to saner, less polarized politics more effectively than anyone else I know of.
As for my support for Ron Paul, the man has principals and he follows them. I don't like his personal social positions -- but he keeps those out of his voting record, and the principals which do reflect themselves in his voting record are such as to enact an effective policy of "first, do no harm". That's the kind of person I want holding the power of veto, no matter what banner he rides under.
The point of the thread ought to be this; neither of the two major political parties in the US represent the interests of average people. The republicans have oil and big business, the democrats have the entertainment and the lawyers.
Hear Hear!
It has been a long, long time since politicians really cared about their constituents or made "promises" that meant anything. Perhaps the only exceptions are your local politicians, the ones you interact with every day and can look them in the eye when they do something idiotic.
Politicians seek to gain power for themselves first, then their political party, the gov't, and anyone who is paying them wads of cash. If they happen to do something nice or truly "good", oops, sorry about the accident, it won't happen again. Political party doesn't matter.
-M
So fecking what? 'Chief marketroid' still means they actively supported the RIAA's evil campaign of suing the public for every penny they could get, just to maximize corporate fatcat middleman profits.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
OK, so is this new party going to be pro-choice or pro-life? Try to be centrist on that one.
The fact is that there are about 1000 political issues: manufacturing vs labor, social liberals vs social conservatives, fiscal liberals vs fiscal conservatives, business vs environmentalism, pro-choice vs pro-life. Some people care about some things, some about other things. But the way our system is set up guarantees that all of the millions of different possible viewpoints have to be amalgamated into exactly two (2) political parties, leaving everyone to chose the least of two evils.
For example, in the 2000 election, I had the choice of either voting anti-abortion or anti-microsoft. Gore's administration would have finished the job Clinton's administration started, and MS would be three separate companies by now. But which is more important, stopping an abusive monopoly, or stopping the slaughter of innocent lives?
TCP: Why the Internet is full of SYN.