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Alan Moore on V For Vendetta and the Rise of Anonymous
First time accepted submitter tmcb writes in with a piece by Alan Moore about the influence his comic has had on the hacker group Anonymous. "On Saturday protests are planned across the world against Acta — the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. The treaty has become the focus of activists associated with the Anonymous hacking network because of concerns that it could undermine internet privacy and aid censorship.
First published in 1982, the comic series V for Vendetta charted a masked vigilante's attempt to bring down a fascist British government and its complicit media. Many of the demonstrators are expected to wear masks based on the book's central character.
Ahead of the protests, the BBC asked V for Vendetta's writer, Alan Moore, for his thoughts on how his creation had become an inspiration and identity to Anonymous."
I'd be lying if I didn't admit that whatever usefulness they afford modern radicalism is very satisfying.
Wow, that's the first time I think I've ever heard Alan Moore expressing anything remotely akin to...dare I say..."happiness."
This article *must* be a hoax.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
...the V for Vendetta guy had the decency to die for what he believes in.
When will we see Anonymous punks start offing themselves? I suggest they do self immolation. Doesn't hurt anyone else really and the spectacle is great!
I am pretty sure the BBC don't do hoaxes
I expected any external use of his writings whatsoever to cause him to roll-over in the grave which I can only assume he sleeps in every night.
Moore sounds like he is satisfied with his contribution to the movement, but not as satisfied or validated with the achievements of modern radicals (yet).
I love seeing symbols and characters borrowed from history and re-used, or re-purposed. It reassures me that our actions could potentially matter to future generations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaghetti_tree_hoax
Except on April 1
V for Vendetta was about opposing a fascist government. Anonymous is about getting free movies and software. There's the difference.
And here I thought that the movie version of V for Vendetta was just a piece of thinly veiled propaganda against the latest Bush administration.
Go ahead and mod me down as flamebait if you want, but you know it's true. Propaganda can be used by anyone.
The movie takes place in Britain, which is a bit more level-headed than the USA...
Here in America, the police would just mow down the crowd with machine-gun fire and call it a day. Sure, there would be some news reports about police brutality, and some videos would show up on Youtube, but that would be about it.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
people who say the mask is based on that book or V for V movie are funny, the mask is this guy (pun intended):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_fawkes
I have contacted the attorney general and I have posted My home for sale by owner http://lenny.com/ Connecticut real estate management are deffinatly incompetent and possibly criminal I am currently gathering more of their criminal activities to forward to the attorney general LIke when Cathy Hired a friend for $40,000.00 a year job with our money The finacancials are all a mess they have no idea where all our money is or going Cathy could be putting money in her pocket and nobody would know any better
http://Lenny.com
I've spotted him laughing along at a couple of comedy gigs in Northampton of late. And showing a great deal of bonhomie with the acts too.
Guess what, we're all human.
To be honest, i never thought that i would see such thoughts and philosophies, and such awareness about the depravity of the current system in mainstream in my lifetime.
im quite pleased in the direction the awareness is going. i think, even if i dont see the full materialization of these ideals immediately in my lifetime, i can still die a happy camper. however, at this rate things are going, i may actually see the realization of those ideas before i bite the dust.
its exciting. i thank everyone who is participating in these awareness movements to change the world for the better.
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im out of points.
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fascism is a certain wealthy segment, which manifests as various corporate holders, holding the administration through a dictator they support. there has been no exceptions. nazis, mussolini, peron, they all had a certain corporate elite backing them into power, which continued to dictate policies through them after they got dictators placed. for example, not even at the highest peak of world war ii, when germany needed full mobilization very badly, nazi government did not take control of companies and factories, and instead kept performing 'bid-contract' method of capitalist government acquisitions for both resources and military design and manufacturing.
fascism is basically corporatism. just, in the u.s. you are in the early stages of it. if it goes a bit further, you will see the fascist traits you know by default. actually a number of them, like ndaa, the attempts to censor are already here.
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It's like you're actually a character from V for Vendetta and not the hero. ;)
until anyone wearing or owning one of those masks can be arrested for "suspicion of activities detrimental to state security"?
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
The protests happening around the world are a sign of a transition happening.
Population growth drives need for change. We have been through such transition before and there are stories indicating such. Like the tower of babel, where we moved from bicameral mind mode of social interaction to a conscious mode capable of the creation and use of higher level abstraction. When we made that transition the misuse of higher level abstraction was the discovery of deception and the value of its intentional use, or misuse of the tool of higher level abstraction, to cash in on teh values of others at the expense of others but benefit of the individual deceiving.
Today the population has grown to over 7 billion and its has become obvious to the majority that the deceptions are no longer working to fool the majority. So the focus has turned to the whole and what is good for the whole as well as the individuals, but the few who have been cashing in on the many do not like this as it means they lose their position of power and control.
Anonymous helps to not provided a target to kill... that is all and it so happens V for Vendetta only brought the idea of anonymous up.
The Wachowskis brought the comic to the masses with the movie, as they brought something else to the masses with the Matrix trilogy. Which was the mechanics of how we must create and process Abstraction. Only the Matrix trilogy attempted to kill what cannot be killed as does V for Vendetta bring violence which is also in error of solution direction. All that is needed is exposure of the truth of what those in positions of power are doing to cheat the rest of us, and how, so they cannot continue to do so.
http://threeseas.net/vicprint/VIC-basic.html
http://abstractionphysics.net/pmwiki/index.php
For every Fawkes mask sold, Warner gets a cut.
For every cut Warner gets, Moore gets a cut.
Alan is probably the world's biggest fan of Anonymous.
Advice: on VPS providers
any relation to Michael Moore (Fahrenheit 911) or Gordon Moore (Moore's Law)
Holy Pretentious Batman!
The creator of Zero Wing explains how his game served as an inspiration to Anonymous.
That's "H" for hoax :)
So.
Although the government of today (In England) is a progressive bureaucratic creeping state of regulation and control, V for Vendetta makes the evil government a Christian Dictatorship? Yeah...that's a believable outcome.
The Hero tortures the Heroine to get her on his side in the grand fight? And he's the good guy?
The glorifying of Guy Fawlkes for his attempt to blow up parliment? What?
V for Vendetta is a stupid movie.
If you want to see a great movie about standing up to an evil state watch "The Lives of Others" A movie based in a believable world, one that really exists. Set in the ex-communist East Germany. It is a beautiful movie with sadness throughout but redemption at the end. Including bravery and doing what is right.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lives_of_Others
blah
The REAL Irony to him getting satisfaction that the V is being used in protests, is that most people would not of even known of his work if not for the movie (which he didn't want made). Sure there were plenty of comic book fans that were well aware of Alan's work, but not as many outside the medium. Not for the last 20-ish years (Same with Watchmen).
Oh, that's ironic. Not a very effective protest of corporate greed, paying royalties, buying something made in China. Stopping fascism is in large part done by people being aware of their participation in the system and opting out of it. Someone needs to make a free version. Maybe base it off the original. Not the movie version.
Something nicer than some DIY versions.
I suppose you could illegally copy the design...
Are these originals? mask1 mask 2
Ah, here are some more. And another kind.
another and another.
more
another
Or you could base it on a portrait of Guy himself.
As plot lines are usually driven by conflict as opposed to happy, fluffy bunnies, and as conflict is usually a relatively negative thing, a moderate tendency towards a more negative worldview helps in dramatic writing.
That is all.
bullshit. mask was an icon right after the movie was released, especially in internet underground.
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Funny how the Fawkes mask became the symbol of radicals when in fact the Gunpowder Plot was an attempt to restore a Catholic monarch to the throne.
They can't own the mask; it predates the corporation.
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It was a great film; few movies today are any good. Its not reality, it is art and it can illustrate plenty of real concepts and sometimes bring things into focus better than a documentary ever could. This is the power of art. Good art is vague enough for broader interpretation and this film is maybe a little too specific but it is generalized enough it'll continue for a long time; like how the book 1984 did; which was not "realistic" either but did a better job and will live on longer (until the book is banned by the party.) 1984 was short enough to be made into 1 movie... but it works better as a book; I'd not be against a film that changed the book if it broadened the exposure of the purpose of the book.
It is a pity if you did not understand the movie. It was a comic book action movie, those are quite lame so it did exceptionally well considering (although it did pick a smarter comic as did The Watchmen so it would be difficult to remove all merit... not that Hollywood couldn't rob something of all its redeeming characteristics.)
More pointless shallow movies need to have some thought injected into them to they can do more than just act like an escapist drug. Even if you do not like the film it clearly has a global impact, arguably a positive one giving like minded people a symbolism to gather around... Some thing a documentary or "realistic" film nobody has seen can not do. Sure there is more informative or even more motivating material out there but good luck on trying to get wide appeal and recruit new people to the concepts. V for Vendetta was way above the tripe like Spiderman which put in some phrases "With great power..." and that is all they've got (not to mention how bland such lines are; and I'm saddened to see adults quoting empty movie lines as if they were proverbs.)
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
I think in some ways the UK police are as bad as anything the US can bring. Note the OC mentions kettling. This is a very distinctly European (and especially London/British) police behaviour and terminology.
You know, having lived for years in both countries, and being a dual citizen, I can unequivocally say that the police in the UK are nowhere near as bad as the police in the US.
Not even in the same universe, much less the same ballpark.
Yes, UK police use kettling, yes, they shoved a newspaper man to the ground (but did not subsequently beat to within an inch of his life) whose internal injuries from the later killed him, yes, they are imperfect, and can be as myopic or provincial as anyone. Yes, the chief of police can get buy for years with flagrant corruption and keep his post long past his sell-by date by deftly playing the ethnicity card over and over again, until a victim of his own ethnicity finally outs him in court, yes to all of that.
But that pales in comparison to the harshness of the US police that is part and parcel of daily policing here. Unarmed people here are shot dead in their own home, with alarming regularity, and the police get away with it by saying they 'thought he was armed.' There was just another instance of that in the tri-state area this past week, and dozens more in the 18 months or so I've been back in the states.
The UK police can be criticized plenty, but until you've lived on this side of the pond, you really don't know how good you have it. Your police are positively humane and polite, sometimes to a fault, by comparison.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Alan Moore doesn't feel happiness. He just gets so pissed that his feeling loop back around to the other end of the emotional spectrum.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
Well... we already know the V mask version of Guido Fawkes and where it came from... but what about the Lulz characters?
Both LulzSec and that new one- whats it called something "S" Sec- the one that got FoxConn recently use a snobby looking character with a top-hat. The two logos are different- but there are obvious similarities... the black tophat for one.
The only thing I can think of is "black hat"- although they're not really black hat hackers... Personally, I think they should be called "Red Hat" because they don't fit the white hat or grey hat definitions either. Red is the symbol for revolution and activism.
Nonetheless- I thought the colour hat referred to Westerns- you know the cowboy in white was the good guy- the guy in black was the bad guy. No?
Anyhow- back on subject- what is the origin of that guy- is it just a coincidence the new groups logo looks similar to Lulzsecs logo?
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
The hoax is that I click it and fuck all happens, you pedo.
Funny, I was actually thinking about this just yesterday on the subway. Thanks for the article!
Blow me, neurotypical!
By that logic Richard Adams ears were a little longer than average and he had small fluffy tail, Harriet Beecher Stowe was a brownish hermaphrodite with a rather small willy and H.G. Wells could travel thorough time but only up to next Thursday.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
No, Washington is often quoted as saying that, but it actually comes from the first Treaty of Tripoli, which goes back to the Barbary Coast pirates. American ships were being attacked by pirates, and thus, the U.S. Marines went to Libya to go take care of it. (That's why the Marine's Hymn goes, "From the halls of Montezuma, to the shores of Tripoli.") What resulted was the first Treaty of Tripoli, which ended the war. It was signed in 1796 by the Tripolians, and in 1797 by the U.S. Congress. In the English version, which was the version signed by the Americans, Article 11 of which stated that the United States of America is not a Christian nation:
As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion,—as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen, [Muslims]—and as the said States never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan [Muslim] nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.
Interestingly, this was not in the Arabic version, which was the version the Tripolians would have been looking at. Even more strangely, there was no Article 11 in the Arabic translation at all. So then why was it put in the English version?
Even more interestingly, when the second Treaty of Tripoli was signed several years later in 1815 (the pirate problem persisted), neither translations stated anything about the U.S. being or not being a Christian nation. The closest is Article 15:
As the Government of the United States of America has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility of any nation, and as the said States have never entered into any voluntary war, or act of hostility, except in defence of their just rights on the high seas, it is declared by the Contracting parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of Harmony between the two nations; and the Consuls and agents of both nations, shall have liberty to Celebrate the rights of their respective religions in their own houses.
For more information, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Tripoli.
Then you're obviously on the wrong site: this is news for nerds, i.e., people who can figure out how to use a URI even if it's not hyperlinked. News for hapless, brain-dead idiots is thataway. (Or even thataway.)
Now go away and let the grownups talk. :p ;)
OK- not verbatim; but it shows Washington himself expressing that the nation was not founded as a Christian nation- so why 200 years later people are trying to attest that it was is baffling.
Regardless of how it was translated (most likely a translator who didn't agree with that one statement, or an oversight)- that was what was written and endorsed. It may not have been in the second treaty of tripoli - but that doesn't matter. O'Bam didn't reannounce the freedom of slaves at his state of the union address- doesn't change what happened in the past. They are still free.
Washington said the country is not Christian- that statement isn't taken out of context. Congress endorsed what he wrote.
I don't see any controversy there.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
They let me easily identify the politically-naive morons so I can write of their opinions immediately.
congrats dude. you just confirmed my proposition. there are a lot of people who are ignorant about what political terms are, but keep on using them.
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I find it ironic in much the same way Michael Moore talks about benefiting from capitalism because it is amoral and doesn't if you are protesting it or fighting against it so long as you can make a buck.
There are many ways you can argue that slavery is detrimental to society before needing to broach the issue of morality, that is different though to what it seems the parent is saying but yes as you say if and when society decides that you no longer have your rights, you do indeed cease to have them, when your government locks you up for no reason and refuses you a trial, the magical ACLU fairy is not likely to turn up in prison with files baked into a cake especially if they are sharing your cell block. Unless society actually cares about it [and to a degree for it to warrant action] you will sit there and rot until the government decides your taking up too much floor space.
There is nothing natural that innately gives you the right to anything, rights that humans are said to possess simply by being humans are constructs of our current society, these are the rules that we choose to play by, over time they change as better [subjectivly in the societies eyes] methods of collaborativly working together come to be needed due to a variety of factors [population/education/economy especially] which is why we have gone from small tribes to countries to a hybrib of countries and mulitnational corporations. To adapt to these changes we [or more our predecessors] have created these rules in an effort to all get along therefore what could be said to intrinsically give someone the right to anything is the society in which one lives, rights to free speech and similar could equally be understood to be the promise of your neighbour to protect your speech in the understanding you will protect theirs, and in that sense its clearer to see how a society can come to no longer grant certain rights to citizens and equally decide why certain other rights should be now granted. The most obvious example is prohibition, though also the response to communisum/organised crime/drugs/terrorism/illegal immigrants/technology where popular public opinion at the time about certain issues has influenced the things that society has said that you can and can not do or believe.
Yes this is in a way awful, but frankly there seem to be no better options, even if you decide to permanently lock in certain things, when society wants to change them it will, and the harder you lock them in the more cataclysmic that change will be, equally without the ability to change a representative democracy cannot function as the power to change the system is one of the key factors in maintaining the stability.
I previously worked for a company that interfaced with police agencies all over the country (we were there database software provider). I can tell you that there's really not as much bad shit going on as you think. Yeah, there's some, but most cops just want to punch in and punch out safely, just like you. I can't compare to the UK.
There are so many police officers in this country that of COURSE you're gonna get some racists, nutjobs, or power-trippers, just like any other large enough group of people. Getting up in arms over police abuses isn't the right fight, as those cops are degenerate assholes anyway and would be committing crimes if they were cops or not (the position of authority does make many crimes more egregious though). The right fight is going after the stupid laws and lawmakers that allow these behaviors to continue without removing these officers.
My only experience with UK police are the ones in NI. I have to say I've always found them to be very helpful, much moreso than the Gardaí further down south here. Although, given that every time I see them they're wearing kevlar and look happy that I'm politely asking for directions or something like that, I may not fall into the norm for people they deal with on their job.
has nothing to do with a graphic novel, movie, or any established ideology
A poster before me has cited one, and here is another one.
No, because Washington (nor anybody else in the capital), wrote the treaty. Washington wasn't even president at the time; John Adams was.
Remember, this is 1796. They're still using sailing ships. An emissary from the capital, by the last name of Barlow, was sent to negotiate the treaty. According to the Wikipedia article, which I sent you, he did a really crappy job of translating between Arabic and English.
By the time the U.S. Congress saw the treaty, in 1797, it had already been signed twice, first in late 1796 in Tripoli and then in early 1797 in Algiers. It got to the U.S. Congress in mid-1797. The U.S. Senate passed it unanimously, true, but I'm not sure if it would have made much difference if they had not wanted to ratify it. Barlow had already signed the treaty, "as agent plenipotentiary" for the United States, according to the treaty. According to the definition, he had full powers to sign a treaty. And, if they hadn't passed it, but wanted to renegotiate, it might have pushed the final signing off until 1798 or 1799, Atlantic travel being what it was.
And, the Wikipedia article notes:
Neither Congress nor President Adams would have been able to cancel the terms of the Treaty by the time they first saw it, and there is no record of discussion or debate of the Treaty of Tripoli at the time that it was ratified.
So no, Washington never said, wrote, or signed it. Barlow's the one who wrote it, and the U.S. Congress (and President John Adams) are the ones who signed it.
Aack. My first sentence should have been, "No, because neither Washington (nor anybody else in capital), wrote the treaty."
The militarization of the police in the USA involves more than just giving the police bigger guns and more armor. The police here are trained like soldiers and conditioned to handle citizens like armed hostiles. That's why we get "trigger happy" cops, because they're trained to shoot at the first hint of danger and to keep shooting until their target is surely dead. That's why the cops employ shock tactics, breaking into peoples' homes (and always killing their dogs, by the way). In the cops' minds they're engaged in a war. To them the guy sitting on his couch smoking a joint and playing mega man is a hostile combatant and the 8 year old arthritic corgi sleeping next to him is a deadly guard dog.
LOL... OK- I stand corrected then. It wasn't Washington.
Decided to read your link! ;)
From the same article it claims that many Americans officials signed it before it ever made it across to the US- that Adams (who has many anti-Christian comments attributed to his name BTW- I did a google- he seemed quite bitter towards Christians actually) quoted:
Now be it known, That I John Adams, President of the United States of America, having seen and considered the said Treaty do, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, accept, ratify, and confirm the same, and every clause and article thereof.
Also- the Senate signed it unanimously and there were no protests. So it sounds like no-one at the time had any problem with it.
I'm disappointed it wasn't Washington to be honest- because he was more private about his religion- Adam was quite vocal in his views about Christianity.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
It was not a great film.
It was a pandering film that placed a strawman of a government to fight against and a proposed solution that was ridiculous. It was a poorly conceived sci fi flick with childish notions of how to solve problems.
I can agree that there is a whole bunch of tripe out there but to call this anything but tripe is ridiculous. Our governments, at least in the UK and the US, are not in danger of taking our liberties away in one fell swoop via some crypto-christian-fascist coup but by progressive liberal slow bureaucratic regulation creep (it's for the children/planet/polarbears). The slide isn't fast, it's slow. You are a frog in a slowly waming pot of water...
blah
You are off target; the smokescreen designed to keep you hating the wrong enemy and vilifying them society becomes ineffective at self governance.
The corporations are the problem; the 1 world government will not take the form of a government institution with some dictator antichrist. It'll be a cabal of powerful corporations pulling the strings of most the world's captive governments which placate the masses OR serve to distract people such as yourself. A system not an antichrist; systems are more powerful and more difficult to stop or recognize... For example, you can jail Madoff but other crooks just take his place and the still system promotes them; the masses are placated with scapegoats. Government systems are troublesome as well, which is why the separation of powers was attempted but does not apply to external organizations which can concentrate greater power and that is where todays problems are coming from (that and people having too many kids.)
It is rather odd you take the line that you do; given how regulations went down to the point where the economy tanked and haven't been restored to prevent anything further. How the Chinese kick our ass with their lack of even reasonable regulation and are not so great at enforcing what little they do have (they just execute 1-2 execs after a big scandal and go back to the norm.) We are a race to the bottom and unless you want to go below China they will win in the "free market" that is, until your robotics can be cheaper than exploited human labor (at which point what do most the world's people do for a living? when the lowest of the low can't beat machines?)
Religious beliefs are a powerful control method; Christianity is an old one but economic religions based upon extreme marxism or capitalism can be used too. Gods are not necessary for something to be a religion. Extremist believers in a "just world fallacy" count too.
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You say that though I was re-watching the film recently and it was the scene at the end where the mob marches on the armed police and the police use their own judgement and decide not to fire. Maybe I've been spending too much time on /. but I can't believe that in the current climate in that situation in the real world the police wouldn't fire and then chase them down.
Well, I offer the fall of the Berlin Wall. Due to a press release flub, the guy on TV said that the borders checkpoints would be open immediatly while the actual plan was for later, and thus no guards had been told anything about opening the checkpoints. When mobs of East Germans massed at the checkpoints demanding to be let through, the soldiers called in and never received a reply or orders. Finally, when things looked like it would have to turn violent, a pair of guards said "fuck it" and opened the gates, thus ending the Berlin Wall. It's just one anecdote, but it's pretty close to the one we're talking about.
Every time I look at him he reminds me of the creepy Burger King king mascot. Hmm.. I see that Burger King actually retired him at about the same time Occupy started. Coincidence? I don't think so.
Regulation was one of the founding pillars of this financial crisis. The regulation to mandate Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac to maintain more than 50% of their loans as subprime loans (to help american families get a home yay!) created the supply that helped fuel the entire industry.
Regulation is stranguling this country and giving rise to rampant crony capitalism. You need look no further than Obamacare and the thousands of waivers from its provisions. We now live in a country where law is not law but waivers are granted to supplicant businesses.
To place corporations at the head of the problem is to try and chop off the wrong head. It is the symptom not the cause. Reduce government and reduce the need for favoritism.
You can control who is in office. You can't control who is in the board of corporations. Vote for candidates that advocate for smaller government, it is really the only path out of this mess. All else is only greasing the skids.
blah
"After seeing what happened at the recent protests with police attacking protesters with disproportionate force, the kettling .. I honestly found the resolution to be unbelievable because they have shown they're willing to attack huge crowds of protesters for political gain"
That was the police showing restraint and the police have no political agenda, it's their policical masters in the peoples parliament who would like to keep a good distance between them and the voters.
AccountKiller
Does it make you feel any better that a large percentage of those masks in Europe are "pirated"? ;)
Every problem has a solution that is simple, easy and wrong. Selling our Liberty for a little Security is a much too de
Your argument breaks down, though, in that if it really were just a bunch of bad apples, their fellow cops would arrest them for breaking the law. Instead, they support their brothers in blue no matter how clearly obvious it is that a crime has been committed by someone with a badge. In so doing, they become accessories to those crimes and invalidate their own badges.
I'd really like to see, just once, a cop arrest another cop at one of these protests for excessive use of force. But not a one of them has the backbone to even try.
The world you experience is only a close approximation of reality.
Aside from Miller being a hate-spewing idiot. . .
Miller's Batman would have tried to haul V into jail.
In Batman's world, bad guys are those who rob banks. In V's world, the banks are the bad guys.
V is like the Joker with a moral center which isn't based on childhood baggage.
Please. I know too much to fall for that Fanny Mae scapegoating. The two of them could have continued do poorly but it was the deregulation that allowed the sale of debts and repackaging them in schemes that were outright FRAUD which spread outside of them and infected the whole system. It didn't just cause them to collapse; the problem spread and multiplied outside of them and became far larger than the origin. Plus it was not just them, it was others doing similar (or worse) schemes and dumping their ponzi scheme like a hot potato on some sucker who bought that risk. Do you not realize how the ratings "industries" were involved in multiplying the problems from multiple sources and shifting them to others or the IRONY that the USA bond rating was lowered by the same corp who highly rated these frauds???
Madoff's biggest mistake was not better packaging his crap and selling it off (to blow up in their faces) like the others did. LACK of law enforcement, investigation and regulations caused the mess; if you can't see that you are not bright enough to be in politics. Government needs to punish these frauds and they are not... if the people take action themselves, they are terrorists. Government is not functioning and part of that is bloat, I agree, but a complex society requires a larger government able to perform its duties. I can not understand why today so many people are pushing the same old talking points that were used to create the problem.
Trouble with armed gangs? Get rid of more laws and have less police then you will have less crime! true... if their crimes are made legal and if criminals are not caught there will be less "crime".
Reduce government corruption, we agree on that. But reducing government so it lacks the power to do its job to protect the citizens (and do their will) for things citizens can not do themselves. The big corporations RUN THE GOVERNMENT. You don't see it? when we hear about the **IA trying to pass even worse copyright laws and imposing their will on other nations with lax laws; and using the USA gov as their enforcer. What about the wikileaks on Monsanto having the state dept threaten Spain for being anti-GM food? This is not favoritism; it is way beyond that... well, its more like Monsanto favoring government officials than the other way around. Powerful forces who subvert the democratic process and democratic institutions. You've got it backwards. We've been down this backwards thinking since Nixon (except Carter years, it has pretty much progressed non stop.) Clinton did little a few moves that served more as cover than anything else.
Under the flag of lowering government corruption the powerful crooks who corrupt the government create even better conditions for themselves. I remember how Bush weakened the ability of government to investigate the wealthy and focused the IRS on the little people; yeah, smaller government...
We didn't live under the rule of law during Bush either, and the democracy was dysfunctional since Nixon. Carter was the last unapproved president and he was thwarted; we've only been allowed approved candidates since. How could one think such situations remain static? Without a huge mass movement to fix the problem it continues to go downhill each year. They don't need to setup a Colosseum for mass entertainment to distract us; we already had the biggest escapist culture on earth before things got bad; it'll have to fall relatively much more than Rome before the masses activate.
You sir, do not like representative democracy. You think its better to have organizations where we the people do not have a vote?
I can't actually control who is in office but the corporations CAN and DO. I can't control who runs the corporation and if I could take out the board, another like minded one would be put into place, restricted ONLY by regulation. Hell, its government regulation that created, defined, and empowered corporations in the 1st place-- they are government created organizations under private management; you have
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Actually, there were investigations all the time into situations where a fellow cop did something wrong.
For instance, I was point on an investigation into an officer that went in and deleted 10 or so database records, and was not authorized to do so. These records were of an arrest of a family member of his; a DUI, if I recall. He even went in and deleted the system records that recorded the original deletions. He failed to realize that deletion of system records is tracked recursively; he would have needed to turn off system records prior to deleting ANYTHING for it to have gone unnoticed. Access rights at that level belonged to one person at the agency (usually the database admin; not even the police chief typically has this info) and, of course, us. This guy was caught with no recourse; I was even able to find the deleted records by sifting through the backups. He is no longer a police officer, at least at that agency, and the firing was all done pretty efficiently.
Others of my former colleagues would deal with this type of abuse, as well as its opposite: adding records to a database without grounds (mugshots, jail fines, court papers, etc for people who had committed no crime). We would also get requests all the time, as in, 2 or 3 for every 25-ish national support calls, for help aggregating records entered by a particular police officer over an alleged abuse of power (or for the defense of an accused officer's behavior; some cops really ARE wrongly accused). This wasn't a common enough task, especially at the smaller agencies, that the records clerks knew how to accomplish it alone, but it was common enough that we had a read-only report procedure written to accomplish it easily. Some of the bigger agencies would request their own modifications to this report, especially when the officer in question had been there for 30 years and accumulated enough records to slow the entire database while running the report. The agencies were typically not stupid (though there really were some Maybury-like organizations), and you can pretty much bet that anytime an officer is no longer an officer, he did something he shouldn't have, and the turnover rate for medium to large agencies is actually pretty high. It's in the best interest of the agency that you don't know the details, but it happens quite a lot.
I actually agree, to a point, with your assessment that lots of cops *think* they're above the law. Even in the cases I pointed out, the officers weren't risking criminal penalties very often. All of the officers that got caught also got fired, losing pensions and all the other secondary benefits in addition to paychecks, but had I done the same thing, I'd have had to lawyer up. I suppose there are benefits to that; it's much easier to fire an officer quickly than to arrest and prosecute one, providing paid leave during the process.
My argument isn't that cops are all or even mostly great people, just that there are some tremendous assholes that are working in an environment where their non-asshole or asshole-lite co-workers tend to focus on their own jobs, believing (hoping?) that the right higher-ups are on top of it. I'd guess most random samples of people would be like this, although I'd also guess that a random sample of police officers would show a somewhat higher capacity for abuse of power. There are reasons cops want to be cops, after all, and it seems likely that some officers went into law enforcement to wield power.
Anyway, being a cop is much like any other job, and maybe it's like the military (never was an army grunt, going off hearsay). If Joe in cubicle C watches The Matrix all day long instead of finishing Tuesday's TPS report, I sort of expect him to fall at some point, but that's a management issue, not mine, and I have enough shit to do without the responsibility of opening that can of worms. Again, the fact that leadership and law is structured like this is the problem.