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FBI Wiretapped Hemingway
Hugh Pickens writes "On the fiftieth anniversary of the death by suicide of author Ernest Hemingway, his friend and biographer A. E. Hotchner writes in the NY Times that the man who 'had stood his ground against charging water buffaloes, who had flown missions over Germany, who had refused to accept the prevailing style of writing but, enduring rejection and poverty, had insisted on writing in his own unique way, this man, my deepest friend, was afraid — afraid that the FBI was after him, that his body was disintegrating, that his friends had turned on him, that living was no longer an option.' In the midst of depression and under treatment at St. Mary's Hospital in Rochester, Minnesota, Hemingway was convinced that his room was bugged, his phone was tapped, and suspected that one of the interns was a fed. Decades later, in response to a Freedom of Information petition, the FBI released its Hemingway file. It revealed that beginning in the 1940s J. Edgar Hoover had placed Hemingway under surveillance because he was suspicious of Ernest's activities in Cuba. The surveillance continued all through his confinement at St. Mary's Hospital, making it likely that the phone outside his room was tapped after all. 'In the years since, I have tried to reconcile Ernest's fear of the FBI, which I regretfully misjudged, with the reality of the FBI file,' writes Hotchner, author of Papa Hemingway and Hemingway and His World. 'I now believe he truly sensed the surveillance, and that it substantially contributed to his anguish and his suicide.'"
It's not lulzsec's fault, even if they are incompetent, misinformed and illiterate fools.
The immunity to telecoms that accepted requests to wiretap without warrants, the revenge taken on Qwest for not doing so, the new rules that pretty much allow warrantless wiretapping at will...those powers would never be abused by today's FBI. They are all staunch and true. There's no chance of this happening now. No way are they going to snoop on friends-of-relatives-of suspected possible terrorists. Zero chance that people who impress a girlfriend by going to a march to support that Gaza blockade ship (which helps Gaza, which helps Hamas, who are terrorists, who no-doubt support other terrorists that might attack us some day) will find themselves on a list.
Don't be paranoid. We don't need a government of laws when we have a government of such good men who only want to protect us.
From terrorists.
And communists.
Doesn't mean they aren't out to get you.
I'll refrain from calling you names, as you've characterized LutzSed, but just point out the fact that it the FBI that's the problem. They've been violating the rights of Americans, and spying on us all, for their own reasons, not because they were trying to protect us, since they were formed. There's no hope of curtailing their activities, especially now that we have the big Radical Muslem scare, and a congress full of right wing reactionaries and cowards.
LutzSec isn't bringing on anything, it's already here.
Not to worry. The hope and change we voted for will be here any moment to take us to Candy Mountain.
Worth pointing out is that there is a competing school of thought, which regards his suicide as likely having been an accident.
Yeah, LulzSec is why Hemmingway was wiretapped.
DAMN YOU SCRIPT KIDDIES! DAMN YOU!
you're not paranoid if they're really out to get you.
In addition to all the properly placed commas, there are several periods. As such, it is not "one freaking long sentence".
The fact that he was wiretapped does not exclude he may have been a paranoiac.
Léa Gris
Q: What do you call it when the government, rather than protecting the people, sets out to protect itself from the people?
http://www.pdfernhout.net/on-dealing-with-social-hurricanes.html :-) :-) :-)" :-) "
"Our biggest advantage is that no one takes us seriously.
And our second biggest advantage is that our communications are monitored, which provides a channel by which we can turn enemies into friends.
And our third biggest advantage is we have no assets, and so are not a profitable target and have nothing serious to fight over amongst ourselves.
Let's hope those advantages all hold true for a long time.
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Too bad for him! Were he lived today he wouldn't have suffered paranoia of being wiretapped as everyone is wiretapped. Good for us living today!
It's not lulzsec's fault, even if they are incompetent, misinformed and illiterate fools.
And yet, they keep breaking into the private and customer information for banks, global corporations, governments, etc. etc.!
I'm awfully grateful for lulzsec revealing to the world that all it takes is a group of incompetent, misinformed and illiterate fools to cause billions of dollars worth of damage, destroy the credibility and security of world governments and established institutions and reveal the private information for millions of individuals.
I can't wait to see what competent, informed and literate fools with government backing can do to countries and companies when they decide that destroying a country's economy is more effective then paying billions of dollars to blow shit up.
My kingdom for a donkey!
Most of Hemingway's paragraphs didn't contain that many different thoughts.
1) Complain about the grammar of the summary.
2) Complain about kdawson.
3) Give a metaphor about Rob Malda's penis size.
4) Do some pro-corporate astroturfing.
5) Mention LulzSec.
6) Question Jon Katz' sexual preference.
7) Blame Microsoft.
8) Blame Google.
9) Blame Oracle.
10) Blame Sun.
11) Use ALL CAPS. IT'S LIKE YELLING.
12) Fuck you, Taco.
but, when the conspiracy is shown to be real, i have nothing but venom and hate for the power abusing assholes who think they can get away with it
hoover was a cross-dressing pinhead (not that there's anything wrong with cross-dressing, but there's plenty wrong with hypocrisy). the fbi under him was an extension of mccarthy era hysteria and witch hunts. so fuck you hoover, thanks for contributing to the destruction of the composure of a great man and a great writer
those who seek to protect us, in the name of hypocritical assumptions about what we need protection from, are the real enemies of the usa
down with them all
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
A: The United States of America.
I'm very grateful for lulzsec revealing to the world that all it takes is a group of greedy CEOs and corrupt government officials to cause billions of dollars worth of damage, destroy the credibility and security of world governments and established institutions and reveal the private information for millions of individuals.
FTFY
Mr. Green: Why is J. Edgar Hoover on your phone?
Wadsworth: He's on everybody else's! Why shouldn't he be on mine?
I've dealt with these fuckers, and believe me, they are not about doing what is honest or
what is right. They are a tool of the government, and they have been used for plenty of
evil and will continue to be used in that manner. Just because that sick bastard J. Edgar
Hoover is gone, don't believe for one second that the FBI is suddenly kind and gentle,
because that would be very far off the mark.
Even if you're paranoid, that doesn't mean nobody is out there to get you.
*Sigh*
The government and CEOs didn't do those things. A bunch of sociopathic man-children did. The governments and CEOs should have had better security, but blaming them for the damage is like blaming a girl for getting raped while drunk at a party.
LulzSec isn't a group of working class heroes, no matter how much you may wish them to be. They're just thugs, hurting people for their own amusement. They'd do the same to you, if they thought it would be so much as a half-hearted chuckle to their friends' lips.
...doesn't mean there isn't one. I am quite sure a large percentage of the paranoid notions out there are not true, but then there are the facts that surface much later that prove to have been true.
it's exactly this kinda crap that keeps the seeds of doubt sewn in my mind each and every time the government tells the people something.
Seriously, I was about to write that I doubt highly that CEOs and corrupt government officials are the ones coding the firewalls and preventing SQL injections.
My kingdom for a donkey!
JD's sausages also cause other people to die on his terms too.
My kingdom for a donkey!
With just a touch of exaggeration, I'll say that any public intellectual in that era who didn't have an FBI file probably was lacking a conscience. Einstein had a 1500-page FBI file, having aroused Hoover's suspicion with his involvement in "communist front" organizations like the American Crusade Against Lynching. America had been through the worst era of unrestrained robber-baron capitalism, followed by the Great Depression. It was the height of Jim Crow. If you were engaged in the intellectual life of the country, it was very likely that you were either going to become a socialist or some other kind of radical. Just to pick two more random examples: Margaret Sanger and Helen Keller were both leftists, and both had FBI files. American leftists were the only ones who spoke up against Fascism in Spain and tried to do anything about it -- at a time when right-wingers were often huge fans of Mussolini. For a lot of folks on the left, the big disillusionment came in 1939 with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
Find free books.
Like JD, he lived and died on his own terms. Fuck everyone that hasn't read Hemingway.
What, drunk? The man passed out in the middle of a speech!
A: The United States of America.
Ha. Funny. What the GP actually described is nearly every form of government ever invented by the hand of Man. That's the facts, jack. I mean, you wouldn't be claiming that the governments of oh, say, Russia or China don't take extreme steps to protect themselves from their own citizens. Would you now?
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Most of Hemingway's paragraphs didn't contain that many different thoughts.
That's because Hemingway actually knew how to write.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Edgar J Whoore didnt need a lulzsec to bring him upon usa as a plague like he was. he came about himself.
Read radical news here
This was also the era were the activities of the American clandestine agencies became so egregious that even congress took a look and grew something resembling teeth.
They have been given authority by several Congressional Laws throughout several decades. Stop thinking this is June 21, 1788 and we just ratified the US Constitution. Protections have been slowly disintegrating shortly after the last remnant of the Founding Fathers were in power and had pull to protect them. Stop voting in Evangelical Fundamentalists and you'll see how much push back Congress will actually do to keep a checks n' balance with the FBI. Stop sitting around ignoring all the Militia nut jobs around and take them more seriously because the FBI certainly does and must to keep even your ass from being threatened. The blade cuts both ways.
"I'm awfully grateful for lulzsec revealing to the world that all it takes is a group of incompetent, misinformed and illiterate fools to cause billions of dollars worth of damage, destroy the credibility and security of world governments and established institutions and reveal the private information for millions of individuals."
Most Governments dont need LULSEC to destroy their credibility....Most Government's credibility are already crap. Including and maybe even especially our own.
The US Government The Best Government Money Can Buy!
Might make you depressed if you thought your were going to be exposed.
Might even convince you it was time to kill yourself.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/jul/09/hemingway-failed-kgb-spy
This is the kind of mindset that fear mongers capitalize on. Hoover had the Red Scare to keep in power. This terrorist stuff is a fear mongers wet dream. Interesting how we have so many ways to keep people "informed", aka in fear. This kind of reptile brained actions are too global in reach. We haven't evolved out of it and we don't look like we will until we destroy ourselves or nature does it for us. Serioiusly, we are wasting time and resources we should be spending on space. Let's try to be ready to avoid a planet destroying event instead of fighting each other? How many asteroids need to wiz by our planet before we realize we need to tend to them?
Take the Red Pill.
So did Hemingway's estate ever sue the government for wrongful death or some such, after it was revealed that Hemingway's paranoia was justified and really not so paranoid after all?
To compare LulzSec with rapists or thugs is rediculous; comparing the CEOs to victims is so outrageous it's almost funny. There are plenty of serious "cyber" criminals who are hacking into people's systems for real money and causing real damage to people like you and me; the consumers who have their data being stored by these corporates. What makes LulzSec different is that, instead of just putting some charges on your credit card and never telling anyone where they got the data they published what they did. That's just bringing to the surface an issue which was already happening before LulzSec got involved.
LulzSec caused public nuisiance and annoyance but that makes them more stupid teenage vandals than thugs. The main bad thing they have done is embarassing the powerful and pointing out publicly what data was already available to the real black hats. It's not just that the corporates should have had better security, it's that:
For now I think there's quite a bit more value in pursuing the CEOs than the
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
Just because you're not paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you. - Colin Sautar
While hunting one day with director Howard Hawks and William Faulkner, the acclaimed actor Clark Gable asked Faulkner to enumerate the five best authors of the day. "Ernest Hemingway, Willa Cather, Thomas Mann, John Dos Passos," Faulkner replied, "and myself." "Oh," Gable maliciously replied, "do you write for a living?" "Yes," Faulkner retorted, "and what do you do?"
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
A: illegitimate.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
America had been through the worst era of unrestrained robber-baron capitalism, followed by the Great Depression.
Kind of like now, huh?
Cheat the moderation system - here's where countertrolling explains what he's doing while he trolls others (to his fellow trolltalk.com friends) to downmod them via his registered account, logout, & ac stalk, harass, and troll them:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2245866&cid=36491652
Here's where countertrolling's "troll mechanics" for downmodding others is explained in detail by someone that got sick of it happening:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2271908&cid=36579618
As far as bogus up moderations, the trolltalk.com bunch (tomhudson, countertrolling, & others) collectively "team up" to upmod one another, in teams, as favors to one another.
(Talk about low, and bogus!)
---
In fact, here's what he says about it, why he does it, and to all of us here:
"What the skiddies here don't understand is that I don't give a shit about dumbass 'karma' on the internet.. I'm here for the jollies with nothing to lose or fight for.. watching them destroy their world.. They can go absolutely nuts as far as I'm concerned.. It's nothing but pure entertainment (and data points) for me and mine... Tragicomedy is probably the best word I can think of to describe it" - by countertrolling (1585477) on Thursday June 30, @10:26AM (#36622502) Journal
QUOTED VERBATIM FROM -> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2281808&cid=36622502
Sounds like a sick individual to me.
But Hemingway also was, by most accounts, not a particularly happy individual. I am not meaning to absolve the FBI from blame for its misbehavior; but his dad commited suicide, his mom mailed him the gun his father used for that, he couldn't stay in a relationship, and he had a drinking problem - he already had 2.9 strikes against him. His semi-autobiographical Nick Adams stories all seemed to show a poor sense of self worth too.
It seems odd that the FBI would worry about his activities in Cuba, though, given how his writing sure seemed (to me) to be pretty pro-Batista.
#DeleteChrome
Fighting against Fascism in Spain meant fighting FOR Stalinism in Spain. Let's not fap too hard to romantic visions of the Abraham Lincoln brigade.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/SPrussia.htm
Franco kept Spain stable for decades, dealt with old-school Communists in the most effective way, and was a reasonably good steward of his country, which he kept out of WWII.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
You would have a hard time finding anyone that J. Edger Hoover was NOT spying on during that time. The guy was a zealot and first rate blackmailer that could not be removed from the FBI because he had information on most of the politicians and government officials who could have pushed for his removal.
Yeah, but Margarate Sanger wrote books about how to "eradicate the unfit". . .
All they did was out negligent system administrators. One of their victims did not apply the security updates for an Apache fault that was identified over a year ago. SQL injections have also been around for years and any competent developer or system administrator would have made sure this exploit was addressed.
Space? What say we just attempt to make sure nobody dies of starvation or from the lack of medical access? Once that is done we can start allocating resources to space programs.
the damage done to the usa by communist infiltrators was less than that by the hystertical overreacting nitwits
the damage done to the usa by terorrism today is less than that by the hystertical overreacting nitwits
the usa isn't weak. why do you think it is so fragile? it isn't. YOU are. stop projecting your pantywaist fears, asshole. YOU and your kind do more damage to this great country than it's genuine enemies. at least this country's enemies intend malice. you damage the country in the name of helping it, but you're too fucking stupid to understand why your low iq panty waist fear and paranoia hurts more than it helps
fuck off ashole. you're no patriot. you're just a tool
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
So, basically, J Edgar Hoover appeared and destroyed us.
Wollt ihr den totalen Krieg?
Cool, you got it!
Don't blame LulzSec, blame the people who will be putting such laws in place. That is like blaming flaming homosexuals for making gay marriage illegal, or blaming rape victims for the high number of rapists in prison. This kind of douchebaggery attitude is what will lead to improved tolerance of such government policies. Fight the government policies.
Where is the mod rating for "scary"? Also,
So mr. anarchist, you don't think large companies and corporations are capable of significantly worse effects of oppression on our lives? I know it is an assumption, but judging by what you said I assume you are totally against all government regulations of the corporate world. Using barriers to entry, monopolistic and monopsonistic actions, most US companies have managed to drive prices through the roof while driving wages through the floor, despite the fact that in the past 40 years GDP went from .5 T to 17T, a 34 fold increase. If that isn't oppression, nothing short of China's internet censorship, Soviet Russia, or Hitlers Germany qualifies. When you let corporations exploit people to an unlimited extent, they will. Regulations ARE necessary, if they weren't, we wouldn't be in this shithole situation right now, it would be a lot better as the deregulation of the past 10 years goes into effect, instead of even worsening quality of life. But don't let the facts affect your anarchism.
Governments are the only thing in the world that is by, for, and of the people. Corporations are for profit, by profit, and of profit. Profit isn't a moral imperative, people are. Governments can become too powerful, too strong, and too evil, but they do not have to be inherently, and can and have been controlled by the people for periods of time. This is not true of large businesses, who have amassed so much power that voting with your dollars is either ineffectual or impossible.
Where is the mod rating for "scary"? Also,
Isn't it more likely that it's exactly because of shit like this that we're seeing groups like LulzSec spring up?
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
Nah, they just fire the people whose job it is to do those things, so they can pocket that person's salary as a bonus for saving the company money.
Hemingway did spend a lot of time in Cuba. He enjoyed fishing off the coast on his ship - The Pilar. He spent a lot of time with my uncle, Antonio Gattorno - an outspoken, world-traveled, leader of the Modern Art Movement in Cuba. They spent many days drinking and fishing. Hemingway published his ONLY monograph written for his friend, Gattorno, about Gattorno in Cuba in 1935. Gattorno was very involved in the politics of Cuba and I am sure he had FBI eyes on him also. Hemingway brought Gattorno to the USA in 1936 and sponsored his first art exhibit in NYC. http://www.ArtByAntonioGattorno.com
Awesome, so your concept of an ideal government is China or Russia?
Cool, you got it!
Huh? That actually made no sense. Apparently, whatever there was to get ... you didn't.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
So mr. anarchist, you don't think large companies and corporations are capable of significantly worse effects of oppression on our lives?
Ah ... what? I think you need to re-read the two posts above mine ... and then re-read mine. Cripes.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Governments are the only thing in the world that is by, for, and of the people.
So, referencing my original post ... you believe that the governments of Russia and China are "by, for, and of the people"? Are you serious? Those governments are by, of and for themselves. Period. End-of-statement.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
If I thought I were being bugged, I would take a sudden interest in the hobby of in-home air horn playing at random times.
In particular, I think I would take to reading spy novels out loud, with random air for interjections to punctuate the juicy bits. Then if they carted me off, and gave as evidence something they had got from me, I'd simply as the time of the recording and give them the page number of the book the quote came from...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
July 1, 2011
Hemingway, Hounded by the Feds
By A. E. HOTCHNER
EARLY one morning, 50 years ago today, while his wife, Mary, slept upstairs, Ernest Hemingway went into the vestibule of his Ketchum, Idaho, house, selected his favorite shotgun from the rack, inserted shells into its chambers and ended his life.
There were many differing explanations at the time: that he had terminal cancer or money problems, that it was an accident, that he’d quarreled with Mary. None were true. As his friends knew, he’d been suffering from depression and paranoia for the last year of his life.
Ernest and I were friends for 14 years. I dramatized many of his stories and novels for television specials and film, and we shared adventures in France, Italy, Cuba and Spain, where, as a pretend matador with Ernest as my manager, I participated in a Ciudad Real bullfight. Ernest’s zest for life was infectious.
In 1959 Ernest had a contract with Life magazine to write about Spain’s reigning matadors, the brothers-in-law Antonio Ordóñez and Luis Miguel Dominguín. He cabled me, urging me to join him for the tour. It was a glorious summer, and we celebrated Ernest’s 60th birthday with a party that lasted two days.
But I remember it now as the last of the good times.
In May 1960, Ernest phoned me from Cuba. He was uncharacteristically perturbed that the unfinished Life article had reached 92,453 words. The contract was for 40,000; he was having nightmares.
A month later he called again. He had cut only 530 words, he was exhausted and would it be an imposition to ask me to come to Cuba to help him?
I did, and over the next nine days I submitted list upon list of suggested cuts. At first he rejected them: “What I’ve written is Proustian in its cumulative effect, and if we eliminate detail we destroy that effect.” But eventually he grudgingly consented to cutting 54,916 words. He was resigned, surrendering, and said he would leave it to Life to cut the rest.
I got on the plane back to New York knowing my friend was “bone-tired and very beat-up,” but thinking he simply needed rest and would soon be his old dominating self again.
In November I went out West for our annual pheasant shoot and realized how wrong I was. When Ernest and our friend Duke MacMullen met my train at Shoshone, Idaho, for the drive to Ketchum, we did not stop at the bar opposite the station as we usually did because Ernest was anxious to get on the road. I asked why the hurry.
“The feds.”
“What?”
“They tailed us all the way. Ask Duke.”
“Well ... there was a car back of us out of Hailey.”
“Why are F.B.I. agents pursuing you?” I asked.
“It’s the worst hell. The goddamnedest hell. They’ve bugged everything. That’s why we’re using Duke’s car. Mine’s bugged. Everything’s bugged. Can’t use the phone. Mail intercepted.”
We rode for miles in silence. As we turned into Ketchum, Ernest said quietly: “Duke, pull over. Cut your lights.” He peered across the street at a bank. Two men were working inside. “What is it?” I asked.
“Auditors. The F.B.I.’s got them going over my account.”
“But how do you know?”
“Why would two auditors be working in the middle of the night? Of course it’s my account.”
All his friends were worried: he had changed; he was depressed; he wouldn’t hunt; he looked bad.
Ernest, Mary and I went to dinner the night before I left. Halfway through the meal Ernest said we had to leave immediately. Mary asked what was wrong.
“Those two F.B.I. agents at the bar, that’s what’s wrong.”
The next day Mary had a private talk with me. She was terribly distraught. Ernest spent hours every day with the manuscript of his Paris sketches
Government will always be populated by douchebags, because nowadays you have to want to be a politician, instead of people electing a guy that was known for distinguished service and excellent decision making.
And you'll always have douchebags on the other side that think they're radicals and freedom lovers... only helping to make things worse.
Stop voting in Evangelical Fundamentalists and you'll see how much push back Congress will actually do to keep a checks n' balance with the FBI
It isn't evangelical types that are doing anything like that. Look at Obama, going after dispensaries now...
If you REALLY want to do something about it, vote in people campaigning for smaller government and reduced spending. A smaller government doesn't have time to waste resources wiretapping random people, nor the resources to do so.
That is the ONLY path which will actually help, not scare-mongering against people who happen to follow one kind of religion or another (or none).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
To be fair, Hoover had tabs on everyone. Every politician, every politician-wannabe, every man who stuck his head out in some way, shape, or form, Hoover knew about.
Hoover made Nixon resign (technically, his second in command, but it was still the information Hoover gathered and the network Hoover built). Hoover killed the Kennedy brothers (he didn't pull the trigger, but without his approval, JFK and RFK wouldn't have been assassinated). And these were only the people who made him their enemy. Imagine how many more were complicit.
It wasn't about political views. It was about power. The FBI was his personal government-sanctioned domestic spy agency, but not for the sake of "national security" or anything ridiculous like that. The FBI was there to make sure Hoover got his way at all times, no matter what he wanted, irrespective of the country or anybody else's interests. Hoover's files on intellectuals and other public figures were a way to either eventually discredit or blackmail them, whichever one was more effective (those he couldn't do that to he had shot, and then had the trail covered up).
You have to wonder if the FBI really has changed that much since then. It's thanks to Nixon that Hoover's second in command didn't take it over and begin a second reign of terror over the American people. It's thanks to Nixon that the FBI follows the order of the president, an elected official, instead of someone appointed. But you have to wonder how much of the old culture remains, and is in fact influencing the presidency instead of the other way around.
Somebody asked me this:
Why does a government must be an evil?
and I replied:
- well, because in history of humanity there was never a government that didn't become evil or wasn't evil from the start? Because government provides people with ability to gather power over people, businesses and resources without too much effort? Because a place that provides such an ability is a magnet for people who want the power over people, businesses and resources? Because government power is used to control people's lives, tax people's work, mis-allocate resources? Because over time regardless of the government structure it eventually leads to huge government apparatus living in itself for itself, feeding off the productive part of the economy?
Because government even though 'non-profit' is highly profitable for politicians and others, who get near the cake.
Because government has the power to set winners and losers in the economy by taxes and subsidies and regulations and laws.
Because anything that government does is an expression of government force, based on its ability to hurt you, rather than expression of market forces, which require 2 parties to come to an agreement.
Because government corrupts the very society by offering all sorts of impossible in the long run 'solutions', which cannot be supported economically in the long run, but look very lucrative to the majority of voters in the short run.
Because government punishes the productive part of the economy, by sacrificing it to its desire for power, since it basically directs the desires of the majority of the society to get things for free, things they didn't work for and to get those things, somebody must pay, and those are the people, who are in fact producers in the economy.
Because eventually governments spending and power grows beyond ability of the host society to maintain it, and then, government being what it is and corrupting the voters the way it does, destroys not only the economic ability to maintain this spending, but the very fabric of the economic stability - currency itself, by monetizing the insatiable thirst for debt, which is then used to 'pay' for all of the spending, which the voters are corrupted into believing is absolutely necessary and even indeed are their right.
--
The point is that government is a force outside of the rest of the market, and while the rest of the market is basically about 2 parties coming to an agreement over costs or value, etc., government does not have such silly limitations - it can impose its will upon the society, upon the economy, etc., regardless of any real economic outcomes and only based on the expedient desires to get more power and to stay in power further and indeed, to increase the power into infinity.
So yes, I cannot view the government in any other light but as the ultimate evil, and this conflicts with my understanding that the power vacuum will be filled with something, and this something better be set on purpose and be controlled than be something random.
The US Constitution was trying to impose the control upon the power of the government, but obviously there is perfect way to control it, and that's why governments always reset once they reach certain level of 'evil', and new governments are established.
It would be better if people understood these simple realities sooner rather than later.
You can't handle the truth.
What a sad story. It can't be nice being in a position where your friends and other people around you wont listen to you and treat you like you're crazy just because you are open minded enough to consider the possibility that some seemingly-fantastic concepts, might just be true.
It reminded me of the I, Robot (film) quote:
"Does believing you're the last sane man on the planet make you crazy? 'Cause if it does, maybe I am."
Poor guy.
Hemmingway was one of the greatest celebrities of all time. Had I been a president, I would have ordered him to be wiretapped just to hear the latest rumors without having to wait for the books to come out. Think of it as a primitive RSS feed.
No, he merely used a shotgun approach in the hope that someday he would hit something solid to find a truth that would obsure his pack of lies. His offer to stop harassing Arthur Miller if he could get a vote winning publicity photo taken standing next to Marilyn Monroe really summed the slimy weasel up as the man he was. It was all about making a lot of noise so he could get a chance at being President and the commie threat bullshit was just his scam to get there. Real spies didn't matter because McCarthy had no way of knowing who they were anyway. Your conspiracy theory holds no water because you've just thrown together a pile of things that may have justified two or three lies if McCarthy had known about them, but he didn't because he was really nobody of consequence until after he had made all the wild claims.
Now you've made some very wild claims above. Which members of Congress over the years were named as Soviet spies? Go on, you've suggested that's the case so put up and let us all remember them as traitors or try sticking a little closer to reality.
This is such a drag.
An asteroid impact event has the potential to kill billions and end technological civilisation on this planet.
Risk analysis.
Franco kept Spain stable for decades, dealt with old-school Communists in the most effective way, and was a reasonably good steward of his country, which he kept out of WWII.
By which you mean he supported the Nazis and offered them assistance whilst not fighting in WWII himself, summarily executed his political opponents and sent hundreds of thousands more to forced labour camps, totally rolled back women's rights and religious freedoms, and was a least as bad as the Communist states - but that's OK because he wasn't red.
There's a reason the US isn't very popular.
Not at all douche-wagon. I said governments can be corrupt and go against the people. But bad governments don't mean governments are bad. That is like saying because chocolate cake with lard filling is bad for you that all food is bad. Governments are the only organizations which can actually be by and for the people, while some fail at that and royally suck, they should then be overthrown and replaced by a real government instead of a tyranny. My point is that you anarchist types are so damn against government you don't realize that you are giving corporations the right to oppress you far more than any government possibly could.
Where is the mod rating for "scary"? Also,
Sounds even kinkier and voyeuristic. YHBT troll.
There is one major problem that makes everything you just said dead wrong. By amassing large amounts of capital, corporations have far more power over your life than any business possibly could. Any business that reaches even ten or twenty percent of a market share, or a market is dominated by a few large businesses with no serious competition, and barriers to entry are high (which they always are, just on the need for physical capital to produce goods and services), the corporations and companies can employ monopolistic and monopsonistic policies to control every aspect of your life. Maybe not as directly as some communist countries do, but they can force you to spend 20 hours a day working for jack shit, in fact, at EVERY SINGLE POINT in history when there was not sufficient regulation preventing businesses from paying people in bread crumbs for working themselves to death, businesses have done just that. Businesses will enslave people at every chance they get, and because they hold the food, and have effectively eliminated everyone elses ability to grow it, as long as they own all the houses and drive up home prices by holding stock off the market, they can force people to live in rented apartments at way higher than the median cost, they can force people to work difficult and ridiculous jobs just to pay the bills so that they can survive. And when there are only a few companies out there, and they all have the same services at the same prices and treat people in the same way, there is effectively no difference between them, so voting with your dollars does nothing. That is when you can vote with your dollars, when there isn't an effective geographical monopoly.
It is IMPOSSIBLE to stop businesses from destroying people like this without the power of government telling them they can not do so. History proves this indisputably and irrevocably. Governments are incredibly prone to corruption, they attract the wrong types of people, and they give great incentive to use their power for profit motive instead of for the people. But, they can be controlled. Yes, our constitution is very lacking for modern times and needs a major overhaul, but that is not going to happen, there is too much opposition by the rich and the millions of idiots they have tricked into fighting against their own interests. The fact is a good government does as its people tell it to, and protects their interests against those with the power of capital that allows them to do whatever they want. Without government, power is still exerted over the people, in the form of whomever has the most money. The only difference is who your leader is and what their motives are. Governments have to keep the people happy, businesses only have to make a profit, they can piss off every customer, as long as they have made sure they don't have an alternative service, they will keep making money indefinitely. That is how such evil and disgusting corporations in America have managed to stay in business for decades. Markets do not require two parties to come to agreement. They only require that businesses make money. If I have food and you need it to live, and nobody else has food so you have to buy it from me, I can charge you as much as I want to for it, and you pay it or die. Sure that is your choice, but it is a lot less of a choice than you have with a government. The average consumer has choices that are exactly the same, you choose whether to pay exaggerated rent here, or pay roughly the same down the street and get the same services, but there is nowhere where the services are different and the prices are different, you don't have an alternative, you pay out the ass or you live on the streets. That is not two parties coming to agreement, that is one party using their force of capital to force the other party to part with far more than they should have to. When you understand that, you will understand why an engineer can make a company ten million dollars a year, get paid fifty thousand, and be expected to be ecstatic about his five thousand dollar bonus. Th
Where is the mod rating for "scary"? Also,
There is one major problem that makes everything you just said dead wrong
- good start, with a nice general, overall blanket statement.
By amassing large amounts of capital, corporations have far more power over your life than any business possibly could.
- you likely mean to say 'government' there, not business, right?
Here is why the above statement is false: no business can force me to pay them and no business has the ultimate authority to end my freedoms and to end my life, thus that statement is ridiculous on its face.
As to corporations amassing capital - in government regulated world you do have that happening, as government prefers certain monopolies and makes sure they amass more than they ever could in the free market, where any business, that could be that profitable, would immediately face various levels of competition, with start ups doing their own things to get a cut of that nice juicy pie.
The point is that in free market without government regulations, anybody is free to start their own competing business without having to face government, which works for the largest monopolies, protecting them from competition and giving them the unfair advantages, from special tax breaks, which then do not apply to startups, to simply subsidies - money and regulations, that strongly enforce that monopoly in that industry.
Any business that reaches even ten or twenty percent of a market share, or a market is dominated by a few large businesses with no serious competition
- you are pulling various numbers out of your rear.
Suffices it to say that even in todays world, where the government involvement is minimal, we see severe competition, driving costs down and quality and offerings up.
and barriers to entry are high (which they always are, just on the need for physical capital to produce goods and services),
- of-course barriers to entry are high in today's world, which has governments completely destroying people's ability to save capital to start their own business, by taxing them, by destroying the currency via printing (inflation), by subsidizing large monopolies, because governments prefer monopolies, they have all that extra cash to kick around and kick back to the politicians.
In absence of government destroying the market, there would be plenty of credit available for good ideas, not for consumer credit, which government promotes, but for producer credit, which government destroys. Also with government not being as huge as it is, it could be paid by minimum sales taxes on vices and excise taxes, and gov't wouldn't have to be getting into all this debt, which is stealing credit from production and putting it into government bonds.
the corporations and companies can employ monopolistic and monopsonistic policies to control every aspect of your life.
- this is the case today, when companies do enjoy various monopoly statuses, provided and protected for them by governments. This is not the case when government stays out of business and does not destroy the competition.
. Maybe not as directly as some communist countries do, but they can force you to spend 20 hours a day working for jack shit, in fact, at EVERY SINGLE POINT
- more weird numbers pulled out of your rear.
Here is a bunch of REAL numbers:
In USA the federal income tax is 35%.
State income taxes vary from 0 to maybe 7%
Then there is SS tax, which applies to the first 100K or so.
Then there is Medicare tax, which is near 3% on all earnings.
Then there are payroll taxes
Then there are various sales taxes
Then there are property taxes
Then there are transaction taxes
There are taxes on things you gift to others, there are taxes on your entire wealth when you die.
There are municipal taxes, all sorts of things.
These taxes easily go over
You can't handle the truth.
Be careful here Anonymous Coward. There are at least two groups from the US religious right who are pumping out stories about how Sanger was a racist who wanted forced sterilizations. I have not read EVERYTHING she wrote, but I've read a lot, and here's all I've ever seen: She was indeed a Malthusian and she believed in reducing the "unfit" by allowing the poor access to birth control. She believed that voluntary birth control would reduce the number of unfit in the population. Yes, she did, like many do-gooders of her day, support sterilization of the developmentally-disabled or emotionally disturbed who had been placed in public custody. However, it was clear that she thought this had little to do with eugenics but was to "protect" such persons from the burden of parenthood. My take on it so far is that Sanger is not as bad as she's being painted by people who currently want to attack reproductive rights, family planning, birth control, whatever you want to call it. Given the circumstances, I think she comes out with karma on the plus side. (If you want to read about the circumstances from someone else, the Autobiography of William Carlos Williams has some passages about mid-way through discussing what it was like for him working as a doctor to women and children in Hell's Kitchen. And you might check out the websites "exposing" Sanger; most of them I've seen eventually get around to "ZOMG she also approves of pre-marital sex," which reveals a strong anti-sex bias at work.)
I love Hemingways writings, but Hemingway aside, oh my god - an Adobe Flash application to view their files? It's slow as molasses, unresponsive, has some weird copycat of a hand cursor and has its own scrolling in addition to the page scrolling - in short, it's a disaster! Jesus, haven't these guys heard of PDF, courtesy of the same company? Or are they on LSD or something?
Everyone everywhere has "negligent" system adminstration by that definition. The question is, does the senior management run audits which check for it and then, once it's identified make sure it gets corrected or do they simply leave the system adminstrators with the responsibility for thing which they don't have enough power and resources to protect?
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
Yeah, okay, we'll all wallow in the same filth? You go ahead and inherit the Earth. Rest of us are going to the stars.
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
Those who restrict themselves to "moral" methods cannot win large wars. It was easier to fight a two-front war against Germany than have a Soviet Union (which couldn't be cut off or outflanked) push West.
Morality does not win wars.
There being no reason or benefit to not murder Stalinists and their supporters, and every reason TO liquidate them, it was wise to do that and support those who did that.
The fight against Nazism and Communism was an existential struggle. That justifies (by logic, morality is whatever one feels like making up to suit their desires) playing each against the other, be it taking advantage of Spain or taking advantage of the destruction of the Wehrmacht AND of millions of Communists on the Eastern Front.
Let's not forget Franco had plenty of supporters. He wasn't "inflicted" on Spain. The winner was decided by battle, which is what battle is for. People accept that the way to stop Fascists is to kill them, but that applies to Stalinists too.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Let's try to be ready to avoid a planet destroying event instead of fighting each other? How many asteroids need to wiz by our planet before we realize we need to tend to them?
Corporate America, their international counterparts and all of their bought dog political lackeys are the progenitors of world destruction. I say that we should whole-heartedly support our troops and bring them home and help the American people to clean out Washington DC and all state assemblies of the rats nest den of thieves that have usurped the American dream in the name of national security. The only thing secure in this nation is the pockets, bank accounts and offshore banking instruments of these career criminal politicians.
We the People doesn't include the general population. The true TERRORISTS are the international banksters who fund both sides of every conflict since who knows when. There's no need to bring down any nation by means of war. All destruction will come by increased levies on loans based on fiat monies. When a country cannot pay its loans, the banksters will just raise the debt limit. Anyone with a credit card will see the trap, and IT'S A TRAP!!!
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
Freedoms aren't given, they're taken. I'd argue that it's the complacent couch potatoes that are making matters worse. They can only muster up enough willpower to follow American Idol votes. Apathy is killing our government, not internet pranks. If anything, these hacks are but a doorway to more meaningful protest. After all, you can't play by their rules. If you want to fight the system, you have to come out it from the sides. And in this modern world, hacking basically equates to violent protest against said system. No, the problem isn't hacking groups. The problem is that no one else is following suite.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
Once upon a time, years ago, I was living far out into the countryside. I was trying to tune my radio to something to listen to and came across a religious channel. I sat down for a listen and all I could hear was "money...blah blah blah...money...send us money...blah blah...more money....commericial...money...send us money...if you want to know more buy this book and send us money...blah blah money...money, more money, give us your money please...money". I was disgusted and turned the channel and what was playing?
War Pigs by Black Sabbath. "Generals gather in their masses, just like witches at black masses....etc" I listened to the lyrics and it was more spiritually enlightening than anything I heard on the "religion" channel. God must have been grooving on War Pigs too, I could feel the connection. And the song seems so appropriate these days as the war machine we have built seems hungry enough to devour the world.
Speaking of crooks in government, I wonder if there is any truth to the rumor of DSK being here for the IMF to verify that we still had gold left in Ft Knox after it being rumored that its all gone. Wouldn't that be a hoot? Our crooked government having spent all of our gold on God only knows, now leaves us holding the bag and the IMF foreclosing on the entire country. It doesn't help this rumor when this country has went insane over owning gold recently.
Internet rumor mills, got to love them.
Take the Red Pill.
Obama has 6 espionage act prosecutions going against people for talking to journalists. thats more than we have had since circa 1919 when the Sedition Act was part of the espionage act.
You have to realize that several of these cases also involve the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, specifically subparagraph (a)(1), the "Comptuer Espionage" law.
When they came down on manning for the Collateral Murder video, this was one of the laws they used.
When Thomas Drake plead guilty to a misdemeanor, for simply accessing UNCLASSIFIED documents on an NSA network, the misdemeanor he plead guilty to was under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
If you read that act, it is a back-door way to trash the first amendment, by simply putting "on a computer" after a whole bunch of innocuous stuff that wouldn't otherwise ever have been illegal.
This article shows, to those that might think otherwise, that the US government can be as authoritarian, repressive, anti-democratic, and destructive as any of its enemies that we US citizens might believe are evil.
I agree that this repression can be minimized by openness and accessibility.
Corporations are another thing entirely, entities enacted to minimize financial risk to individuals and maximize profits, they are a social cancer originally granted license only for a limited short time (2 - 4 years) to reward risk-takers for building something that might return useful products like roads, machines, etc., they have metastacized into sacred entities that the courts equal to people. They don't need to be open or accountable to anything but their board (often comprised of cronies), unlike governments. Most of the regulations on them have been chipped away in the past 200 years and now the cancers spread throughout the economy.
In Soviet America, Hemingway reads you.
that's a laugh, the situation only got worse after Democrats in control, and Obama is even worse than Bush in any and every way when it comes to being a corporate bitch, taking away our rights, building a police state. I was hoping Obama would have at least done some good, but he is an evil lying corrupt SOB.
evidence? here are a few books written in the past 5 years.
Fool's Gold, by Gillian Tett
The Zeroes, by Randall Lane
Too Big to Fail, by Andrew Ross Sorkin
The Trillion Dollar Meltdown, by Charles R Morris
All the Devils are Here, by Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera
A Colossal Failure of Common Sense, by Lawrence McDonald with Patrick Robinson
Devil's Casino, Vicky Ward
House of Cards, by William D Cohan
Crash of the Titans, Greg Farrell
Street Fighters, Kate Kelley
Confidence Game, Christine S Richards
EConned, Yves Smith
The Asylum, McGrath Goodman
Inside Job, Charles Ferguson (film)
Some of these CEOs are not upstanding, concernced citizens. Many of them are highly reckless, thrill seeking individuals, who use drugs and prostitutes, and who took enormous amounts of money from their own organizations while those organizations fell apart, and were then bailed out by the taxpayers.
there are pdfs available at the bottom of the page.
If it weren't for those "evil corporations" making money you wouldn't have that computer in front of you with which you write you produce your asinine drivel. If a worker isn't happy to get his $5000 bonus then he can go work somewhere else. After all he wouldn't even be getting that if it were not for the stockholders who are the real driving force behind said "evil corporations". If you don't like it, leave.
Cheat the moderation system - here's where countertrolling explains what he's doing while he trolls others (to his fellow trolltalk.com friends) to downmod them via his registered account, logout, & ac stalk, harass, and troll them:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2245866&cid=36491652
Here's where countertrolling's "troll mechanics" for downmodding others is explained in detail by someone that got sick of it happening:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2271908&cid=36579618
As far as bogus up moderations, the trolltalk.com bunch (tomhudson, countertrolling, & others) collectively "team up" to upmod one another, in teams, as favors to one another.
(Talk about low, and bogus!)
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In fact, here's what countertrolling says about it, why he does it, and to all of us here:
"What the skiddies here don't understand is that I don't give a shit about dumbass 'karma' on the internet.. I'm here for the jollies with nothing to lose or fight for.. watching them destroy their world.. They can go absolutely nuts as far as I'm concerned.. It's nothing but pure entertainment (and data points) for me and mine... Tragicomedy is probably the best word I can think of to describe it" - by countertrolling (1585477) on Thursday June 30, @10:26AM (#36622502) Journal
QUOTED VERBATIM FROM -> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2281808&cid=36622502
Sounds like a sick individual to me.
(Don't get lured into their journals either. That's their main goal along with getting these data points that way. Just ignore them and they will be powerless before you know it (no mod points)).
Although I will not defend the actions of LulzSec for numerous reasons, I also will not give a pass to a CEO. In most cases, the chief executive officer is the highest paid officer in a given company, as such, they bear the greatest burden of responsibility. Leadership is not taking the accolades while passing off blunders. Leadership takes responsibility for the bad while passing praise below to those who helped make it happen. The buck stops with the CEO, and yes I realize they are not responsible for the day-to-day security of the company, they are responsible to the share holders. As such, their fiduciary responsibility requires that they are responsible for making sure that LulzSec et al. has a harder time doing what they do. Your comparison is a straw man argument and meant as an emotional appeal that does not deal with the reality of the CEO's role. Extreme compensation means extreme responsibility, CEO's shouldn't be able to have their cake and eat it too, though that is the world we seem to live in.
In this case at least he was relevant. You on the other hand, were not. Your counter-trolling is just more disruption, which (if he is a troll) is his ultimate goal.
And exactly how many people will get into space before an asteroid or some other catastrophe and where are they going to go? It takes a lot of resources just to put a few people in orbit let alone ferry multitudes looking for escape. It my be possible to create orbiting habitats but even that requires skills and technology that currently doesn't exist. Things like water, food, air and waste disposal management. I have no problem at all with wanting to go into space but at this time it is not yet feasible on a large scale. The government or private industry should continue to be funded to encourage this endeavor but at the moment there a few things a little more urgent that should be taken care of first.
No actually, I do not mean government. I mean business. Governments do not have to favor certain monopolies over others, in fact they can be used to destroy monopolies wherever they form, and for a short period of time after the sherman anti-trust act, it actually was used in such a way.
Business can absolutely and positively be used to remove ALL of your freedoms and reduce you to a slave and you have no choice in the matter. The fact that you do not believe that makes you incredibly niave of the workings of the world, so I'm going to assume you are some sheltered kid who has had life handed to him on a silver platter. Or at least a copper one. If you want an example of how businesses can do this, you need look no further than Pullman, who used their localized monopsony on labor to reduce their workers to slaves. They worked more and more hours every day for less and less money, and the company owned the land, housing, and food that the workers bought. Pullman then lowered wages to the point where the employees could no longer even afford the rents on the pullman housing or the food, even when working 20 hour days 7 days a week. This is just the best example and the closest to perfecting the method in history. Right now businesses have driven down the cost of labor to a small fraction of what it should be, and thanks to commodities speculation they have driven up the cost of living to the point where most Americans can no longer afford it. The actions of businesses and large companies have taken away my right to the fruits of my labor and yours to the point where without a college degree the average American has to work at least 80 hours a week just to pay the national average rent and electric, heat, and buy shitty food that will inevitably cause them to develop diabetes. You can pretend that is still freedom all you want, but it isn't, not in any way whatsoever.
Even in the best market conditions, even if government gave huge subsidies to small and new starting businesses, starting a new business to compete with any of the super-massive corporations out there today will fail. They have economies of scale, and barriars to entry are impossible for the average American. I can guarantee you beyond all reasonable doubt that any of the intelligent bottom 275 Million Americans on the income bracket, even if they had a perfect business plan, knew well what they were doing and had everything lined up to bring around massive profit, could ABSOLUTELY NEVER get started because the banks work for corporations. And the banks work for corporations for free market reasons, always have and always will in a free market. A government can help small business and hurt large ones, it does not inherently have to behave in the way you describe, whereas the markets will always inherently behave in the way I describe.
There is no competition in todays markets. This has nothing to do with the government. This is because corporations match each others services and prices so closely that there is no difference between shopping at one as opposed to the other. One of them can raise prices by a dollar or two, and the people who shop their won't notice or won't think it is worth the drive to the further away store. It is what is called by real economists an effective monopoly, which there is in every single large market in America right now. This is why home prices are so high, food prices are so high, everything is so expensive. You know the actual cost of producing enough food to feed 1000 Americans for a year? It is about 50 dollars. But the cost to Americans thanks to commodities trading and a lack of competition is more like 30000 dollars. And that is not pulling numbers out of my ass as you keep saying, those are valid figures.
Again, Barriers to entry are incredibly high even without any government at all, even with governments giving subsidies for the equipment required to start a business. Take microprocessors for example, for a set of the machines required to produce microprocessors of the 32 nanometer process, yo
Where is the mod rating for "scary"? Also,
Governments do not have to favor certain monopolies over others, in fact they can be used to destroy monopolies wherever they form, and for a short period of time after the sherman anti-trust act, it actually was used in such a way.
- a laugh. Anti-trust laws were used to destroy trusts not for any reason, other than the trusts were becoming more powerful than the politicians and didn't want to share their wealth with the politicians.
Standard Oil wasn't a monopoly by the time it was broken up and Alcoa Aluminum was an exceedingly efficient business, so nobody could compete on price, which means the market didn't need it to be broken, to give rise to less efficient businesses. However the less efficient businesses got their act together and got the politicians to attack Alcoa, so that less efficient businesses could enter that market using government support. The end result was as always - rising prices on aluminum, which is all government is good for - pushing prices higher.
Business can absolutely and positively be used to remove ALL of your freedoms and reduce you to a slave and you have no choice in the matter. The fact that you do not believe that makes you incredibly niave of the workings of the world, so I'm going to assume you are some sheltered kid who has had life handed to him on a silver platter.
- or maybe I had to participate in taking down a government at one point in time, a kind of government that oppressed its people. But this is /., where assumptions are the basis of all knowledge.
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Good luck talking to yourself there, by the way.
So that you don't bother replying to me in a pointless back and forth, here are other comments I made on similar topics, whatever you want to say and all rebuttals to whatever you want to say are definitely there.
So that you don't bother replying to me in a pointless back and forth, here are other comments I made on similar topics, so whatever you
You can't handle the truth.
Those who restrict themselves to "moral" methods cannot win large wars.
Perhaps winning large wars isn't in itself necessarily a good thing? If "winning" means duplicating the behaviour of those you're fighting against, and entrenching it as public policy, it sounds like just a synonym for "losing".
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
I have dealt with people like you hundreds of times before, and you all rely on the same fallacious depictions of reality in the creepiest way possible. Free markets inevitably push wages down, prices up, concentrate power in the hands of the wealthy, and impoverish the masses. Governments can be whatever we make them to be, and while they have the capacity to be evil, they don't have to be. Free markets are inevitably cruel to the masses, governments can be, or can be nice to them. It all depends on the government. But free markets can ONLY lead to high prices, low wages, and systematic oppression.
Where is the mod rating for "scary"? Also,
As for the warmongering, this might shed some light. As for the international banksters foreclosures, you can't foreclose shit if you're behind bars.
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
You have lost my interest long ago, when you moved the topic from the ideas to personalities, and it's not an interesting discussion to have.
You can't handle the truth.
The OP said Hemingway "had flown missions over Germany". google was no help in finding any details on these missions, presumably flights on B-17s or B-24s. Do any /.ers have mission details?
Circle the wagons and fire inward. Entropy increases without bounds.
no business can force me to pay them and no business has the ultimate authority to end my freedoms and to end my life, thus that statement is ridiculous on its face
Why? Who you gonna go running to when some company selling latex dicks starts dumping their waste in your yard? You gonna stop buying latex dicks? That'll show them!
Fact is, "voting with your wallet" can't do jack against the vast majority of corporations who you don't do any business with in the first place.
As for "ultimate authority", one movie line comes to mind: "Good? Bad? I'm the guy with the gun." When you're dead, you aren't gonna go running to anyone.
Before you start crying about how you didn't really mean to get rid of the government completely and you think the government should be there to enforce the laws, is that before or after your "tort reform" to take away your right to injure the shareholders of the latex dick plant in return for them causing you injury? Right now, if a dog you own mauls a kid, in most places the dog's owners are held responsible. Are you going to tear down the government-created "corporate veil" that allows the owners to hide behind mommy government's apronstrings when their pet company mauls a kid?
Actually I don't trust any government to enforce laws or to do military protection of the borders either, so don't worry, there will be no tears shed.
You can't handle the truth.
that's a laugh, the situation only got worse after Democrats in control, and Obama is even worse than Bush in any and every way when it comes to being a corporate bitch, taking away our rights, building a police state. I was hoping Obama would have at least done some good, but he is an evil lying corrupt SOB.
Your brain rot is only overshadowed by your bigotry.
bigotry against what? liars? politicians in the pocket of mega-corporations? those who continue the evil of Bush and Cheney by taking away even more of my rights? yeah, I'm bigoted against all like that, and my brain sees it quite clearly, no rot here.
"America had been through the SECOND worst era of unrestrained robber-baron capitalism,"
There, fixed that for you. Your version was about ten years out of date.
I didn't. I am talking about your false perceptions of the economy and your inability to realize that in the face of overwhelming evidence. How about you be a deer and do something to help society instead of your mongering to exacerbate the present conditions of monopsonic and monopolistic behaviors that have driven prices up and wages down by signing this petition:
http://www.change.org/petitions/make-wages-fair
Where is the mod rating for "scary"? Also,
Besides his dad, I think his brother committed suicide as well as a few others in his immediate family. Something genetic perhaps? Or maybe once a family member commits suicide, the taboo against it starts to crumble.
that's a laugh, the situation only got worse after Democrats in control
Of course it does. It's a very simple tactic: when you're in power, you break down all fences and other protections that limit the power of money. That doesn't matter, because by the time the money is running loose, you're no longer in office. Then all people with less than half a brain will start blaming the current government (since you conveniently lost your latest election) for the problems. You let the current government re-build the fences (which costs money, so people will moan loudly) and you're set for another round, building on the relative stability of your predecessor.
You idiot, it's called economic inertia. You really think that all the problems of Obama's first two years in office were of his own making? By the time Obama was done cleaning house from the Bush administration and could finally start planning for the future, he lost the Senate majority because people were blaming him for the after-effects of Bush. I'm not defending him, I'm just pointing out that US' citizens are braindead and republicans appear to be more effective zombie-herders.
The US Government The Best Government Money Can Buy!
The Best Government a $14 trillion deficit can buy?
I didn't.
oh?
so I'm going to assume you are some sheltered kid who has had life handed to him on a silver platter. Or at least a copper one.
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I have dealt with people like you hundreds of times before, and you all rely on the same fallacious depictions of reality in the creepiest way possible
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Sincerely, whenever somebody starts using arguments of the personal nature, they lose my interest.
you be a deer and do something to help society instead of your mongering to exacerbate t
- I am doing something useful. I build my own businesses and add to the wealth of the society by offering services and products that didn't exist until I built them.
So there will be no 'making wages fair' support from me - the only fair wage is a wage that is set by free market.
So if you truly care about fair wages, you'd support free market and not government destroying the free market.
Oh, and free market does work every time, as opposed to government, with millions of examples, from lasic eye surgery, to computers and cell phones, to TVs, to the first flying airplane (as opposed to a government sponsored version by Langley, that ended as an abysmal failure), to medical care and insurance and education, which worked in US very well and was very affordable, even cheap, before government got its hands all over it, to the very foundation of the economy - money, which government has destroyed.
Governments fails every time, that's why I moved my business to a place, where government does very little because people here care more about success of economy, than about some government supported idea of 'fairness', which always ends up in a disaster.
You can't handle the truth.
That ignores the OTHER "outcome set" of losing, which is subjugation to foreigners, famine, pestilence and death.
Rome and Carthage may not, for example, been hugely different. I'd prefer to have been a Roman for obvious reasons.
The tendency to view war ONLY through the currently fashionable lens of popular "morality" ignores everything else!
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
The free market can drive wages down to literally slavery. Just look at Pullman in history. Because corporations have an essential monopsony on labor markets, because they own most of the capital, they have driven wages down as profits go up and workers work harder. This is an inevitable effect of the free market. The free market inevitably drives prices up, wages down, quality down, it is simply an effect of how the the free market congeals power by concentrating it. Businesses are always at war, and the best among them always wins, taking enough market share to be able to abuse their market share. Government can stop the coagulation of power by keeping monopolies and monopsonies split up, they can also say that you can only steal 40% of the work of somebody, you must pay them for the rest, to avoid the kind of exploitation that totally destroyed American's buying power over the past 40 years, that lead to the poverty that made the great depression so terrible, the factory conditions that were worse than the slavery in the south. You can say that is effective free market all you want, but that is cruel and sickeningly ineffective.
Where is the mod rating for "scary"? Also,
The free market can drive wages down to literally slavery
- nonsense. Nobody can force you to work for in a 'literal slavery' unless they actually own you.
Because corporations have an essential monopsony on labor markets
- this makes even less sense. An employer and an employee negotiate the terms of a contract, they agree on conditions. When WWII ended and USA federal government finally stopped money after all the bailouts and stimulus of the depression era, US labor was in very high demand, which drove purchasing power so high, that a secondary school graduate could maintain a family of a stay-at-home wife and a few kids on a single paycheck, own his house and a second property, own a couple of cars, buy health insurance/care out of pocket and do all of that without getting into any debt. Eventually the government milked that cow dry, while growing intensely, as foreign nations became productive again, US government became too expensive, too many regulations were enacted, too many labor laws and very high taxes hit the producers in USA, all coupled with huge government thirst for finances, which lead to US gov't getting off the gold standard so that it could print ever more cash and get into ever more debt while financing insane wars, monopolies, etc.
As capital was leaving in the open market to other nations, US worker became less and less productive, because productivity depends directly on capital - tools, machinery that are available to labor. As capital was leaving, efficiency was decreasing, while costs associated with expensive government laws, regulations, taxes were rising. This is what makes US worker unemployable, nothing else.
Your entire perception of what is happening in terms of 'fairness' is screwed up.
. The free market inevitably drives prices up, wages down, quality down
- nonsense, as USA 19 century showed, as China in fact is showing today. Free market causes prices to fall, as USA displayed in 19 century, while dollar was going appreciating, the prices in the very competitive market were constantly lowered.
In fact whatever the price for a good was in 1800, it was cut in half by 1913, all while more and more products and services were created by the free market (mostly free at that time, as government really only dealt with the biggest businesses, helping tycoons and robber barons of the time.) The free market in USA is responsible for every bit of wealth that was created in 19 century, which also incidentally drove the quality of life up for everybody, rich or poor, and allowed more leisure time, and allowed for rights of people to become more equal. As free market capitalism was increasing efficiencies and improving working conditions by using more and more capital, which means more and more effective tools, that are easier to use, less and less manual hard work was required, which is exceedingly clear especially in farming, as society shifted from 95% farmers to only 5%, and allowed more people to free their time from living at subsistence levels, so they could pursue other careers and they could work on changing the perception of society upon the rights of minorities - women, children, other races.
Businesses are always at war, and the best among them always wins, taking enough market share to be able to abuse their market share.
- I see a person who never built a business trying to tell me something here? First: there is no such thing as 'best' among businesses. Second: even if one business is more efficient, it does not mean another must be destroyed, it means that another must find a way to be even more efficient and/or to approach the business from a different perspective. Survival is key of-course, but that's only good for the consumers, as those who survive must provide better value, and if somebody slips and stops providing the best value possible, given the conditions of the market, then another player wi
You can't handle the truth.
See, the problem with all of that is that you are ignoring the facts. You say that working for literal slavery is not a possibility in a free market, yet you ignore the reality of the old north when factory workers in the north worked more hours than those in the south and had a significantly lower life expectancy and quality of life. There was HUGE demand for labor, and low unemployment, and yet people like Pullman were still able to force wages so low that employees could no longer afford to eat and rebelled, and they hired mercenaries to put down the rebellion. This was before there was any government regulation on US markets. You ignored everything I said by dismissing it as ridiculous, and yet the facts, history itself, reflects what I am saying as true and what you are saying as false.
In addition to those problems, in the past 40 years labor regulations have relaxed, and in the past decade tons of regulations were scaled back by the disgusting, fascist, anti-American republicans, and at the same time wages fell, and working conditions worsened, despite falling costs and massively increasing profits. From what you said, in these conditions, scaled back regulations, increased profits, prices should fall and wages should rise. But the EXACT OPPOSITE has happened, for exactly the reasons I gave. You talk a lot of smack, but reality simply disagrees with what you have to say.
I never said anything about sharing gains. I said it is about value. If each worker has a production capacity of 150k worth of merchandise a year, and that bring that much revenue into the company, after costs and taxes, they should get at least 60% of it. If the top brass of a company makes a bad decision which causes the company to take losses, then they are responsible for the negative value they have to the company. It is that simple. But apparently the simple processes I have described here by which reality works and reality in which we live is perfectly explained are something that you can not even hope to grasp.
Also, right now, billionaires have a top marginal tax rate below 30%, and the less you make the smaller the tax. Apparently you don't even know what fucking taxes are here, yet you insult them anyways. It is amazing how ignorant people like you have so much weight in the economy. And that is not an ad hominem, that is an observation.
lol, you didn't make a salary for years? You must really suck. I've known a lot of small business owners in my old community, franchise owners, people who started up their own businesses, and NEVER did I meet somebody who had trouble turning a profit in more than a couple months. In fact, most of them are doing VERY well right now. You really must suck at everything, hell you can't even grasp basic economic ideas, and you failed to run a business even in the great conditions for business in America, and you can say they are bad all you want, but the effective tax rates are literally non-existent, and regulations are so easy to avoid a blind deaf monkey could do it.
I know what you are talking about, I have heard these theories before, but the fact of the matter is you are wrong in every respect. The great depression was caused for a very straightforward and causal reason, unlike the meaningless metaphors that lack an actual causal reason why the great depression happened. Basically, yes, the twenties were roaring, but the majority of Americans were actually seeing lower wages and the rich were getting rich at an accelerating pace. Businesses and people took out enormous investment loans that would only pay off if the price of goods continued to rise, but as the American people got increasingly poor they had less and less buying power in the markets and could no longer afford even to take out loans to purchase goods, and the bubble collapsed on itself. The same thing happened with home prices in 2008, everybody bet that prices would continue rising because banks had successfully kept prices artificially running away by holding stock off the market, but as construction cau
Where is the mod rating for "scary"? Also,
See, the problem with all of that is that you are ignoring the facts.
- no, no, that's you projecting your own problem onto me.
You say that working for literal slavery is not a possibility in a free market
- No, I am saying that 'literal slavery' is not a possibility where you are not a literal slave. Being a slave means you have to do something because you are forced to do it by whoever sets your laws for you - so that they are in a legal position to punish you for something that you do or not do. Being a slave means you are owned and have no legal way to escape that ownership, or that you are kidnapped and even though held illegally, you can't escape the bonds.
So when you say somebody is a 'literal' slave in a free market, while actually meaning that they are not owned by anybody is quite a leap.
In reality today people are slaves, but they are slaves of their government, so that when a TSA agent puts his hands on your genitalia, you must take it and not make a fuss, much like slaves had to take being handled by their buyers, who checked their muscles and teeth and inspected their body for signs of disease, etc.
Now, you can say somebody is a slave figuratively speaking, but then you have to be able to support your argument, and you cannot.
In addition to those problems, in the past 40 years labor regulations have relaxed
- you must have never dealt with FINRA. Or the EPA. Or the department of education. Or the department of energy. You must have pretty sheltered life, the kind that just glosses by and doesn't actually try to do anything productive, where you actually stumble over all of the regulations, that are set to protect the monopolies and keep you out of becoming a competitor.
I never said anything about sharing gains. I said it is about value. If each worker has a production capacity of 150k worth of merchandise a yea
- negotiate your contract, and since you are but one competitor in the labor market, be prepared to be paid somewhere around where others are paid for similar positions.
Your 'value' to the company is actually directly correlated to the amount of capital that the company spends on your ass by getting the tools necessary to make your work more efficient, similar how a guy with a shovel is less efficient than a guy with an excavator.
But the excavator was bought by the company.
The business is set up by the company.
The clients are found by the company.
The goods are created by the company.
The services are provided by the company.
Whatever you think is your value to the company - it's your absolute right to negotiate it with the company, but you won't be getting a PERCENTAGE of the value or of the company or anything like that. You will be getting your salary or your hourly wage, because that's how the employer knows what he must set aside to pay your ass by the end of the month, and as hired help you don't care if the company MAKES that money that month or if it loses it.
You get paid either way. But if you want to own PERCENTAGE of company's worth - get in line and become an investor. Or start your own company. And then you actually will find out that companies can have losses as much as they can have gains, and that the employees get paid anyhow, while the business owners may get nothing, because they have to have the business moving.
top brass of a company makes a bad decision which causes the company to take losses
- right, so you are always a valuable asset, while the top brass makes bad decisions. You want your 'value' in dollar amount, but if the 'value' is negative that month, will you write the check back to the company?
Also, right now, billionaires have a top marginal tax rate below 30%, and the less you make the smaller the tax.
- I don't know what your point is, all income t
You can't handle the truth.
Legal and physical force is not the only kind of force out there. There is also economic force. If you are working for somebody at a job for 20 hours a day and not making enough to live, you get by. That is it. You can not go search for another job, you can not leave, especially when protesting gets you shot. Like in the free market instance of Pullman. did you miss that example the past few times I mentioned it, or are you just to uneducated to know what I am talking about?
lol the EPA? You don't exactly have to jump through hoops, just no dumping hazardous waste, it has to be disposed of properly, and don't use the worst, most wasteful and polluting methods of shit. But even those regulations are extremely easy to get around, just look at the Koch brothers business, one of the biggest in the country, they account for the majority of the pollution in the country without paying any kind of fines or having any restrictions. They also pay their workers as little as possible and personally see billions of dollars a year in profits.
I know exactly how hard business is in a country dominated by incredibly huge corporations. As did the people I have known. The difference between me and the people I know and you, is very simply market analysis. The people I know started businesses where there was a demand but not a supply, like a new Mcdonalds on the side of town that lacks one, a GNC in a mall that doesn't have one but sees good business, a car garage body shop in a part of town with a lot of beat up cars and people that can only just afford them, etc. I am myself and Inventor and engineer, right now I have invented a new gas separation technique that is significantly more efficient than fractional distillation, the old method, that if used in Carbon capture would be as much as a 25% decrease in plant efficiency, whereas my invention takes less than 2% off the top. It is so efficient that it could significantly reduce car pollution and increase their efficiency and horsepower. I had the idea, and it took me one month while taking a ton of classes to turn that idea into a 3d prototype on the computer complete with electrical circuitry and get the mathematics which showed it would work all together. I couldn't even get the automotive industry to look at it. Not one of the two dozen companies even responded with anything besides "We will look at it if you give us full rights and sign your patent over to us before hand" from Delphi. I know the breaks. You brought a crappy product into a market in the wrong place and time. You did not adequately do market research and planning that would allow you to turn a quick profit like the successful business owners I know and myself.
Again I am not talking about a percentage of the companies worth. I don't know how I can explain this to you any better. I really don't. It is incredibly simple. I am talking about the actual value of the labor of the guy sitting in the excavator. As in, without this guy working right there, we make this much less. It does not include the physical capital, the costs of the employee, or anything, it has to do with the value of the work that they did. That is all. I don't know what about that is so fucking hard for you to understand, you really must be slow in the head or something.
Your explanation of the great depression relies on such fallacious ideas that it almost made me laugh. First of all it relies on the government actively working towards what they knew would cause a collapse, second it does not explain the actual reasons for the asset bubbles to collapse, which I addressed very well due to free market pressures that have caused booms and busts since the beginning of time.
WWII brought on enormous government spending in military operations and put enormous amounts of money into the hands of the middle class, the men who fought and the workers who made the weaponry. It was followed by a time when the top marginal tax rate, the tax on millionaires, was over 90% and that money was used for a enormous expansion of government
Where is the mod rating for "scary"? Also,
You know, I am tired of your BS, so here is my reply to you:
1. Nobody owes you a wage.
2. You can't reconcile your own points, on one hand you are implying it's easy to make profit, so that everybody you know does it in 2 months, on the other you want some silly wage protection, which you are free to negotiate with your employer, but you won't start your own business. Why not, it's so easy, you'll be the boss and make all that money? So why are you getting your panties in a knot about some silly wages, when you can have this great profit that quickly? You are an inventor, you invented something? Sell it, make some money, go live the high life.
3. Your ignorance is not my problem, so I am not going to explain to you anything about markets or depression or money or finance or business, you are obviously not interested and maybe you are better than me at all of that, maybe you know all of that so then why are you coming here for more in this thread? It's pointless, and I have to hit the road tomorrow, it's a long long road and thus I need my sleep.
Your Marxist views are not welcome with me, so go find somebody else to annoy.
You can't handle the truth.
You are not free to negotiate with your employer, they have all of the power in the negotiation and you have none. You need their job to survive, so you work for whatever conditions they put on the table, as if you ask for more they will make sure you don't work in that city ever again. Clearly you haven't spent much time navigating such negotiations.
I won't start my own business because I can not acquire the capital. I have written business plans and offered to sell them to investors with the resources to start such a business, but nobody wants to do the legwork. Nobody will lend to a poor person who lives in a city, no matter how concrete their plans, no matter how well trained they are and how good their points are, and capital is largely monopolized in the US, with the vast majority of capital in the nation owned by a few banking institutions with identical services and policies.
I am extremely interested in the things we are talking about, I am extremely anti-communist, and it is not ignorance on my part that we are discussing, but your inability to grasp well known and well proven economic reasons for the events of the past and present. You can choose to give up and admit you are dead wrong at any point, you just choose to propagate the lies that actually make your life sound like you made good decisions instead of coming to the reality that you made poor choices, sucked at what you did, and are now making a living in a place where it is nearly impossible not to because you had to take the easy way out. Reconcile it however you please, but don't expect me to listen to what you have to say just so that you can reinforce falsehoods within your own mind so that you can sleep at night.
Where is the mod rating for "scary"? Also,