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Leak Shows US Lead Opponent of ACTA Transparency
An anonymous reader writes "Throughout the debate over ACTA transparency, the secret copyright
treaty, many countries have taken public positions that they support
release of the actual text, but that other countries do not.
Since full transparency requires consensus of all the ACTA partners,
the text simply can't be released until everyone is in agreement.
A new leak
from the Netherlands fingers who the chief opponents of transparency
are: the United States, South Korea, Singapore, and Denmark lead the
way, with Belgium, Germany, and Portugal not far behind as problem
countries."
"American Idol is on tonight, oh goodie" - Typical American
It's not a law yet. They are trying to keep things quiet so that there is not enough time to mount large scale opposistion to the proposal. This will allow them to pass it before most people are aware of the implications. Once its a law it will be a lot harder to repeal or change what they decided in these secret meetings.
I know, I must be new here... Here's an important block of text. Read this:
The U.S. Representatives may be against transparency, but they aren't stupid enough to say so.
Now, their South Korean and Singaporean cronies on the other hand, are stupid enough, and they are opposed to transparency -- because they lose so much money to counterfeiting!</sarcasm>
Who's representing the US in the ACTA negotiations. If it's just the usual **AA people, then good luck getting this past The Senate.
The DMCA made it past the Senate, as did the PATRIOT act, the war on (some) drugs, Prohibition, and I believe the Corwin Amendment. I feel your faith in the Senate is misplaced. You see, to have real influence in the Senate, you must either be someone with enough cash to make a difference in an election, such as a CEO, or you must be someone who represents a collection of people that have that power, such as union bosses.
SSC
As a current US Army reserve soldier let me tell you:
An American Revolution is most definitely possible in modern society for two reasons:
The US Army is not supposed to put down armed uprisings unless it is on a massive scale, you only have to fight the police at first.
By the time it gets big enough they start calling up the Nat'l guard and what have you, you'll have as many soldiers defecting to revolt.
It's even more possible now with a lot of our top end equipment and soldiers in Iraq/Afghanistan.
As for the technological gap between the Army and the civilian population, well the Iraqis don't have drone fighters and are still doing a decent job of killing soldiers.
IDG covers the latest Dutch leak that reveals the transparency position of many ACTA participants. Particularly telling is the view that both France and Italy favour greater transparency, but fear U.S. retaliation.
Here's an important block of text... Moreover, the U.S. has remained silent on the issue.
This is a more telling block of text :
IDG covers the latest Dutch leak that reveals the transparency position of many ACTA participants. Particularly telling is the view that both France and Italy favour greater transparency, but fear U.S. retaliation.
... , to the very people who elected them, require consensus? Shouldn't it be opacity that requires unanimous consensus?
Seriously, people, how much more clue do you need that "reform" isn't going to cut it? Only another "R" word is going to put an end to this. If you're not firing up the furnace and making ready to beat your plowshares into swords, you're not doing enough.
No one because all you armchair freedom fighters are too much of pussies to actually do anything besides posturing on the internet.
The reason for the widespread compliance within the population is not because they are all wimps. Revolution is like amputation. You only amputate your leg if you really have to. If wounded in the leg, and given the choice to do nothing, or amputate it, most people will adopt a wait and see approach - it's not that bad just yet.
Whereas real healing lies in the utilisation of other, finer instruments - the scalpel, the antibiotic, the anaesthetic. In the context of government it is by wielding the fine instrument that you overpower the powerful in their entrenched power bases. These fine instruments are things like:
These are a hard slog. And lot's of people like to complain, but are too lazy to do their duty, to step up to the table and fix what is wrong. So the solution is to call for revolution. Blowing the dog whistle of revolution justifies doing nothing - after all, they did their civic duty by blowing the whistle, who would ask more of them? The revolutionary whistle is like a relief valve - there's a problem, hearts and minds are stirred - pressure builds up - someone calls for revolution - no we can't do that, it's not justified - the relief valve opens and the pressure is gone. People go home to bed, and in the morning, pay their due to their masters.
Ironically, the US love of guns and the kneejerk tendency to suggest violence as the solution to issues of governance means that of all the democracies in the world, the US population is amongst the most compliant of all populations toward their government.