Slashdot Mirror
EFF: the Final Leaked TPP Text Is All That We Feared (eff.org)
An anonymous reader writes: Wikileaks has released the finalized Intellectual Property text of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which international negotiators agreed upon a few days ago. Unfortunately, it contains many of the consumer-hostile provisions that so many organizations spoke out against beforehand. This includes the extension of the copyright term to life plus 70 years, and a ban on the circumvention of DRM. The EFF says, "If you dig deeper, you'll notice that all of the provisions that recognize the rights of the public are non-binding, whereas almost everything that benefits rightsholders is binding. That paragraph on the public domain, for example, used to be much stronger in the first leaked draft, with specific obligations to identify, preserve and promote access to public domain material. All of that has now been lost in favor of a feeble, feel-good platitude that imposes no concrete obligations on the TPP parties whatsoever." The EFF walks us through all the other awful provisions as well — it's quite a lengthy analysis.
Before it lays eggs!
were fucked.
The most ignorant thing about pushing all this in the current global climate with the contortionists US twisting with regard to Islamic Fundamentalist Terrorist/Rebels, everyone will blame America and Americans, everything bad in the TPP and it's ugly sibling TTIP will be blamed on American corporations and sales will suffer accordingly. Want your citizens and country to maintain any semblance of freedom boycott Large US Corporations (small ones run by real Americans apparently are fine, so oddly enough help America rebuild Main Street and protect you own country by working together globally to gut Wall Street).
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
I consider it well inside my rights to ignore your laws.
In less martial words, issuing laws that contravene the consensus of the population is dangerous. Laws are upheld mostly because people consider them good, not because they are being enforce. Look around you and ponder which laws are upheld (in general) and which one are flauntingly broken. Do you see people go on murdering sprees, bank robberies or even do some minor shit like pushing grannies out of the way? No. Why? Not because they're forbidden, but because they go against the "general moral consensus", for a lack of a better term. People in general consider this "wrong". Yes, they are also illegal, but that doesn't matter too much.
On the other hand, people of all times have broken laws without remorse if those laws were considered unjust. From speeding to copyright to drugs, all covered by laws with fines and punishment that are in no remotely sensibly proportion to the crime involved, laws being ignored and broken routinely by people you would otherwise consider upstanding, moral and law abiding.
The actual danger here is in the view people get on laws in general.
If you need an example for this, look no further than the former Communist Bloc. People in there quickly noticed that the laws are not there to protect them from "bad people", but to protect the state against them. Which in turn led to a corruption without parallel, because the average citizen's attitude was "why bother giving a shit about the state if it doesn't give one about me?".
And we can have that too. If we insist in installing more and more laws that work against our population. People already don't ask what "they can do for their country" anymore. Oppression and trying to enforce even more ridiculously anti-population laws will only increase resistance to them, to the point where people will actually resent and oppose the state as much as people in the former East Bloc did resent and oppose their state.
Ok, we cannot flee to a west. There is none.
But there's always necks to be severed.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
by the .1% for the .1%. Choose to be a slave, or learn how to fight.
no problem
I really got to wonder who these people are who wield the power to write these laws. Not the congressmen, the head of these mega corporations that own the congressmen who pass laws on their behalf, while blatantly shitting down the throats of the rest of us. I mean, I got to know if they honestly have an argument for why they think this is a good thing, even in the face of overwhelming unpopularity. Or, do they just not give a fuck? Are they delusional or nihilist? [whynotboth.jpg]
You were critically hit for no damage. The bruise will look nice, and maybe the scars will make good party talk.
This treaty is an outright declaration of class warfare, with lots of surveillance goodies thrown in to get the enforcement part of government on board.
The thing to do now in the US is simply vote it down. If it is fast tracked so that Congress can only vote yes or no, then "no" it is. Just in case there's a chance of passage, we should make a lot of noise, make sure our representatives know our will and that it won't be safe to ignore us.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
Hope and Change. LOL. This is what we get from all the idiots falling for Obummer's bullshit.
Um what makes you think the democrap's aint equally involved with this or even the ones pushing this?
It's true that this is all bullshit. Speaking like a true politician, how do we know the EFF or Wikileaks has the right document? How do we even know that a true document exists? How do we even know that there even is a real TPP deal?
Truth is, the US government can neither confirm nor deny such allegations from EFF and Wikileaks. Furthermore... ... we'll probably just say fuck you to the other nations who signed on to this deal and scrap it. We do that with virtually everything else. Make them sign on to bullshit, and we go on about our way as the world power.
- Sam.
choose your methods of fighting !
The Committee For Public Safety will now come to order !
resistance will not be futile, but mandatory.
This is my opinion based on what little I know and understand of the rumors and lies Thanks, Randal
What got passed is what the deep pockets paid for. It's called extortion.
I don't know about you, but 90% of the things I buy to live (Food, Toiletries, shelter) are owned and made by 13 companies. Unless you can afford really expensive boutique goods how the hell do you boycott? And if you can afford that TPP is good for you...
Better yet, tell me how to get the churches and their blue collar workers back on track with socialism? How do I remove abortion as a wedge issue? I'm singling that one out since the left dropped guns and the right seems to be losing homosexuality and racism (and the welfare queens) as their wedge issues. It's the last major one I know of that divides our working class. Tell me how the hell to fix our politics...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
This is why Jury Nullification is so important. Of course that's why many of these laws will be enforced without a trial.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
By and large it's the Democrats who are putting up any sort of effective fight against the TPP.
Since this weakens the public domain and strengthens rights for rightsholders, does it comparably strengthen the case for copyleft? How/would this change FOSS promotion and/or adoption strategies?
Obama and his people in the Commerce and State departments (which he, as President, appointed and controls) are the ones who have (A) Negotiated this deal, (B) classified it to prevent the public from reading it, and (C) demanded the TPA bill earlier this year to put it on a fast-track to fly through congress without proper Constitutional scrutiny.
Sadly, "establishment" Republicans in congress (bribed by the same firms that funded Obama's rise to power) ignored their base voters and let him have TPA, and will do everything they can to pass TPP...... but There would BE no TPA or TPP without team Obama writing them and demanding them!
This is broadly about multinational corporations (and their billionaire owners and investors) freeing themselves of national boundaries and rules - but at the core of it are the multinational entertainment companies and their lobbying groups like the MPAA which are every bit as much of the core of the modern Democrat party as trial lawyers, government employee unions, and gay marriage advocates - separating this from Obama would be like separating George W Bush from the NRA, social conservatives, or defense contractors, etc.
I can and will circumvent any technological or legal obstacles they can dream of, and they can all go fuck themselves. At some point they're going to run out of dimwits who don't know how to use encryption, VPN, tor, i2p, freenet, bittorrent, etc., and their entire consumer base will have collapsed with a mighty "ARRR!!!" How's that for an end game, you short-sighted, unimaginative, greedy bitches?
Buy your next Linux PC at eightvirtues.com
I strongly suggest that, in countries that will see their public domains turned back 20 years, electronic distributors of public domain works create a special "TPP Pack" -- a collection of works that are currently in the public domain, but will revert back to copyrighted status. This will give everyone enough time to download these packs before the TPP is ratified.
And I'm not getting any financial compensation for the fact that works I purchased, with the understanding that they would become public domain within the next two decades, will now not become so, and I'm sure that are those who are seniors and perhaps will never see those works enter the public domain during their remaining lifetime. Speaking of which, once those Generation Typewriter are removed from the voting constituents, perhaps Digital Issues will become more important and we will finally see copyright term reductions. Of course, retroactively, and without compensation as well.
PS why wasn't this included in the Canadian Government's "TPP summary"?
When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.
"90% of the things I buy to live (Food, Toiletries, shelter) are owned and made by 13 companies."
It seems that the U.S. government now only helps rich people become richer. There is no democracy.
Companies That Control the World's Food (That is the 2nd page of the article.)
Food Processing's top 100
If you wait a year or two, you can buy anything for dirt cheap.
DVDs are just a couple of bucks once they aren't popular anymore. Same for games (hate Steam for the DRM, love it for the two-dollar games that are actually good). MP3s are just a couple of bucks new, in fact.
Seriously, when stuff is that cheap, I don't care that I must pay for it.
I seem to recall a president back in the '80s that had some ties to Hollywood, too. A union organizer and former actor, if memory serves. Wife a former showgirl.
You are welcome on my lawn.
The Economist is a very pro-business magazine. Here's what they said about patents and the TPP:
"The cost of the innovation that never takes place because of the flawed patent system is incalculable. Patent protection is spreading, through deals such as the planned Trans-Pacific Partnership, which promises to cover one-third of world trade. The aim should be to fix the system, not make it more pervasive."
-- The Economist, "Time to fix patents", 8 August 2015
Millions spent by 487 organizations to influence TPP outcome
Kneel before the god of free trade.
I look forward to discovering the unexpected surprises in this thing.
Man-Man sex and Abortion (and meaningful gun control) are all settled issues barring a constitutional amendment, so I urge anyone not to vote on the basis of these issues, because they aren't changing anytime soon.
I'm a pretty typical American liberal in the sense that I am pro-choice, pro marriage equality, and fuck if I wouldn't like to round up all the guns and throw them in the sewer. But it's not going to happen, so I would happily vote for someone who opposed all of these things if they were in favor of single payer healthcare or fucking over this Treaty, or something else achievable that I'd like to see fixed.
Trump hates this and this will kill jobs and workers rights.
The new min wage can now be say chinas minimum wage
The USTR that's pushing this is in a Democrat administration.
Maxim: People cannot follow directions.
Increases in truth directly with the length of time spent explaining them
If you're mad at Obama, you must try to open your eyes. I'm 100% opposed to Republican views (1) and yet I don't think Obama acts too far from what a Republican would do.
That's because both parties are full of power-crazed psychopaths. The only difference is which lies they tell.
Said before and will probably say again, these laws are designed to eliminate interfaces of resistance. What? Well, take segregation for example. There was an obvious point of resistance: sit at a lunch counter, take a bus, get arrested.
Now take most of these trade agreements. There's no obvious point of resistance for ordinary citizens. Stuff just gets more expensive and/or inferior. Stuff that used to exist disappears. Products come with "features" that spy on you, and there's no alternative. There's no point of resistance, and it's too difficult to build any consensus for boycott like there was with segregated buses.
It's as if TPTB studied civil disobedience and figured out how to eliminate the traction surfaces where resistance is applied.
IMHO, it has to get worse before it gets better. At some point, they run out of smooth surfaces. The temptation to oppress in places where resistance is more obvious becomes too great for them, and then we have a flash-point.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
You encourage others to become aware of how they are played by their corrupt leaders. I encourage you to study your history, and see the big picture.
Our situation was not caused by a recent bad crop of politicians. Our situation is part of a cycle that has been repeating since the dawn of recorded history. I see no reason to expect that it should change now.
In fact, the only thing that has changed is technology level. Likely, that is the only thing that will change in the foreseeable future. If there is any hope of breaking the familiar human cycle of governance, the game-changer will be in our technology. But enough speculation...
Wealth and power corrupt, by their nature. And they are sought most vigorously by the already-corrupt. The net effect is that all world leaders seek primarily to serve themselves, and secondarily to serve their contemporaries (other aristocrats). They only serve the masses inasmuch as they must in order to further their own agendas. Throw them all out, and whoever you replace them with will be just the same. If they are not just the same, they will either become so, or will be politically outmaneuvered by someone who is just the same, with an obvious net effect.
You can't change this by shouting "wake up" at ordinary people. Nor can you change this by political action. You can't change this, period. The only thing you can do is apply political force, to ensure that your own agenda is in their best interest. This is done by funding lobbies, and organizing grassroots movements to encourage the poor to vote as a group on the issue. Apart from becoming an aristocrat yourself (no easy task, since they are not at all keen on sharing power), these are the only means available to you.
Beyond that, all you can do is recognize your place in the cycle, and adapt to it. Failing to do so will just create friction for yourself and others.
Right off the bat, legislation is confused with natural laws, a prime error. Then legislation that contradicts foundational principles in increasing degree is still called "law". In the end, we have chaos and tyranny. Such legislation has no inherent moral authority, but suckers enough people to create hesitation over the resistance and counteraction needed to really put an end to "enforcement" of such (tyrannical) "laws".
This is seriously scary, the more so because the EU is negotiating this in secret behind closed doors,which is apparently possible for a democratically chosen government.
-- Cheers!
It has been continuous since JFK; it also existed in a press (and newsreel) agreement during FDR's term to keep his medical condition secret from the American people; an agreement to support the war against our enemies during WWII and, during Eisenhower's administration, to be anti-Communist.
Johnson lost the press and Hollywood, Nixon did not strengthen ties with them, Ford and Carter were cyphers with regard to the larger culture, and, you are right that Reagan reestablished ties which went back to Mankiewicz. The Bushes tried to ignore Hollywood; Clinton reeastablished ties; the younger Bush courted them without success, but Obama seems to have been made for Hollywood's surface glitz, leading to TIPP. Trump, of course, would be a master of neo-Kennedyism.
I'm a pretty typical American liberal in the sense that I am pro-choice, pro marriage equality,
Same here, but I'm also a gun owner (and have been for almost 40 years).
I'd bet I'm way more liberal than most people here (including you, probably) but I'm not a single-issue voter like a lot of people.
I vote for whomever I think will do the best job for the country even if it goes against my personal self interests. This time it'll probably be Bernie Sanders regardless of what the media says or how much they smear him.
Do I agree with everything he says? Of course not, but IMHO he's far better than any of the Republicans and far better than Hillary or Biden or whoever the Democrats dig up next.
I've never found an apt description for my political flavor, I suppose it'd be something like a "slightly-conservative-liberal" or "almost-social-democrat" or something like that. I sure as shit don't fit into any of the neat little categories they try to make us all fall into.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Whats it going to take to get governments in this world (USA, EU, Australia, New Zealand etc) that AREN'T being run by Hollywood and the big media companies?
The Dutch are all very much against this. However, the Dutch goverment is orgasming in ecstacy that it may be wagging it's tail and sitting on the US's lap even closer. So we are doomed.
Copyleft uses the power of copyright to subvert its common intent.
By giving copyright holders more powers, maybe we can now do more savage things to corporate violators, like send them jail.
Perhaps we need an anti-TPP software licence to take advange of this new power.
The harder they squeeze....
The US Gov't still does a lot of things to help the poor. Studies show that anti-poverty programs work. The Sentiments your expressing are just playing into the hands of the 1%ers who want to cut those programs without touching their own. Gov't is a dangerous tool like fire and guns. You regulated it and control it, but you don't just cast it aside.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I was literally just reading a neat little story in my local newspaper about the history of the second amendment and the redefining of meaning it's gone through in the last 50 years. There was about 100 period where the courts didnt ignore the "well regulated militia" part and properly saw that the second amendment was meant to protect state militias not mass firearm ownership in general and there were a ton of court cases all the way up to the supreme court that agreed on this interpretation. In the last few decades however, a very focused minorty has managed to get the first part of the second amendment essentially dropped.
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
Man-Man sex
I like your phrasing here because it is very accurate. Even the hardcore anti-SSM people don't seem bothered by girl-on-girl. It's the guy-on-guy that enflames their imaginations.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
Thank God Americans live in a Democratically elected Republic. We don't have to move elsewhere to return to the prosperity of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s before we reduced our top marginal tax rate from 90% to 35% and indebted our future generations and destroyed the ability of our middle class to educate itself and collectively bargain for a piece of the pie from their corporate en-slavers. And like we did in the 1930s and 1940s, we can use our right to vote to do it again.
And maybe your family can rise out of poverty too and get educated and contribute again.
It's amazing how much money the liberal states provide the to republican "pull yourself up by your boot straps" welfare states.
http://visualeconomics.creditloan.com/united-states-federal-tax-dollars/
---
Democratic liberal states make money.
Unlike dollars allotted, tax dollars received show where the money was actually spent. New Jersey receives 61 cents for each tax dollar paid, Nevada 65 cents, Connecticut 69, New Hampshire 7 cents, and Minnesota 72 . Illinois receives 0.75 for each tax dollar they pays, followed by Delaware At 77 cents and California at 78 cents per dollar paid.
--
Republican welfare states mooch and live off of it.
The states receiving the most are number five Alabama, which receives 1.66 per tax dollar paid, number four North Dakota with1.68, West Virginia at 1.76 , Louisiana,1.78, Alaska, 1.84 , Mississippi 2.02 and New Mexico at 2.03, over 100% of every taxdollar paid.
---
The cognitive dissonance of these moochers is amazing. Against welfare, yet living off of it. But I don't mind, I'm a city dweller and and taxed adequately, but I also understand that getting ahead is not just an individual act, but a collective one as well. You people want individual freedom unless it is the decision to choose who you want to marry or what medical procedures you can have. Then freedom is a bad thing. The cognitive dissonance amazes me.
I enjoy the nice roads, clean environment, business friendly and responsive government. I will gladly pay more to ensure everyone gets a chance at the American dream through hard work and education.
I'm voting Sanders. He's had 30 years of consistent messaging. Finally a third party in the white house. Checks and balances could be restored between the two branches again.
The Corporatists in Congress with their < 15% approval rating will have to actually negotiate with a non-Corporatist for once.
I'm excited at that possibility.
https://birds-are-nice.me/musi...
I show how the concept of the public domain has been crushed by demonstrating just how little popular music exists in it.
I'd call this shameless self-promotion, but I make about £0.03 a month in advertising off that. Factor in that everyone uses ad-blocking here and I might make £0.06 this month if it gets slashdotted. No, I just want to flood the internet with public-domain music in open-standard format.
I agree. Both are happening. The corruption and the correct management.
Free as in without inconvenient restrictions like treating your workers like humans.
And Japan. It's not just IP to worry about, it's a whole host of things. Under NAFTA Canada became the most sued country and most of those were to remove our environmental protections. At least we're in an election right now and if we can get the Conservatives out we have at least a HOPE of at least renegotiating it. Then again, a guy I work with just voted (advanced voting) and somehow accidentally checked the wrong box...sometimes I want to give up...
You cannot flush them, so throwing them guns in the sewer is not going you any good. Throw them in the active volcano or into the ocean instead. As you said this is not going to happen but at least your options should be meaningful.
I do not want to spoil the fun here but China is not party to TTP.
but I'm not a single-issue voter like a lot of people.
But the country's problems ARE single issue, namely that the government at high levels place the desires of corporations above the rights of the people. In fact the government places pretty much everything above the rights of the people. The problem is that this is not a partisan issue, it's not even an isolated American issue.
The math skills demonstrated in this post demonstrate why America is so far in debt...
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
Your post amounts to a "not-uh", which is to say not at all insitefull.
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
It's not so amazing once you realize that a lot of that money is for useless crap that, in many cases, the federal government imposes on those states.
Furthermore, while I disagree with the current system of taxation and government handouts, as long as it is the law of the land, I am certainly going to maximize the amount of money I get out of it.
When it comes time for politicians in each country to decide whether to sign or not, then you'll find out which countries really are democratic and which ones have fallen to complete corporate capture.
This shit is referendum material right off the bat considering its implications. If you don't get that opportunity, it's a sinister foreboding of what's to come.
Yes, the government does screw over the people. And your solution to that is to vote for someone who wants to give the government even more power to screw over the people?
Sanders wants to institute massive expansions in taxes and government regulation of corporations. Even if Sanders were competent, strong, and honest, how do you think a successor is going to use these expanded powers?
Trying to fix government by electing a strong leader that fixes government misconduct doesn't work. Nations have tried that approach again and again and it ends in disaster. The only way to address government misconduct is to limit it, by limiting government itself.
Here we go again.
Private insurance costs 30% to run, Medicare costs 3% to run.
I understand that you're just a worker bee, but those of us who own our own businesses are tired of overpaying for healthcare for our employees when government could do the same job for one-tenth the cost. In spite of their incompetence, government programs don't need to make a profit like private insurance companies do.
I fail to understand why dumbshits like you continue to want to hand over your money to private insurance companies which provide fewer benefits year after year, while raising prices 10% year after year. Is it simply that you're too ignorant to know you're being duped?
Hey libertarian idiots, you really want to shrink the size of government? If you're serious, then allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices again (THANKS Obama...oh wait, I mean Bush), and healthcare cost plummet.
... we have written the year 2000, that the world will observe strange things (...) from the West a law which purpose will be to supress all individual thinking ..." - Rudolf Steiner, 1916
With post 2K Software patents and now this 1984 nightmare of a law package, I'm wondering if this guy actually was on to something.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
I'm voting Sanders. He's had 30 years of consistent messaging. Finally a third party in the white house.
Same here, and his record of consistency is one of the reasons. He voted against the war AND against the PATRIOT act.
-
I'm excited at that possibility.
Me too...can't wait for it to happen.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
But the country's problems ARE single issue, namely that the government at high levels place the desires of corporations above the rights of the people.
That is far from the only issue facing this country. It's a significant issue and is at the heart of many problems, but it's not the only issue to be considered.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
And your solution to that is to vote for someone who wants to give the government even more power to screw over the people?
Except that all the other candidates ON BOTH SIDES want this exact same thing.
Anyone who thinks they don't simply hasn't been paying attention.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
The corporate influence problem could be attacked by increasing regulation. OR...it could be attacked by cutting back on the regulations that were put in place to serve corporations. Consider pyrimethamine (Daraprim), a cheap generic medication manufactured and used all over the world. But a sudden price increase in the US is now news, because one company bought out the only US supplier of the drug. If Americans were allowed to get their prescriptions filled on the world market, this would never have happened, because on that world market the drug is not "rarely used" and it's made by many suppliers.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Zontar, I'm quite unsure of how to change my font from monospace. This is an old account.. Didn't realize that the font bothers you and makes me seem like I am "seeking attention".
I will try to change my font so you won't be distracted anymore.
No, the solution to the problem is to have a government that represents the people and not the corporations, who are the ones who really screw over everyone.
That's one reason your argument is utterly wrong. People like you who espouse it always fail to address the fact that left to their own devices corporations will do worse and worse things. Every single time without fail.
The only thing that can stop that is government in the hands of the people. That is what corporations fear, therefore that is what they need to be given. The well funded 'small government' libertarian movement is a corporate response to that, taking people like you who likely genuinely believe in freedom and turning you into unwitting and unpaid corporate propaganda shills.
All of her friends were there, the room decorated with balloons and streamers, an arc of letters proclaiming "Happy Birthday, Jenny!" in purple, her favorite color, the cake chocolate with chocolate frosting, her mother, smiling ear-to-ear at how happy her daughter was to have a room full of people there to honor her on her Special Day. Yet the man in the suit, standing in the corner with his hands at parade rest isn't smiling. Men like him never smiled; they just stand there, expressionless, reactionless, like a Beefeater guard. As everyone starts to sing 'Happy Birthday', the man in the suit notes the time and date, and the exact number of celebrants who are actually singing. All six candles are blown out in one huge breath by little Jenny, to a rousing "Hooray!" from everyone except the man in the suit, cake is cut and shared, presents are opened to the ooohs and aaahs of the children. Some time later, after the children have gone in the other room to play in the manner children play with one another, the man in the suit breaks his discipline and approaches the mother, handing her a clipboard and a pen. "Please sign here, ma'am, to certify your acceptance of the royalties bill. Thank you. We'll expect payment in full within 30 days." Things just weren't the same after the Trans Pacific Partnership agreement went into effect. Even something as simple as singing 'Happy Birthday', which once was put into the public domain, became complicated, as the decision was reversed, the original rights-holder claiming perpetual ownership, and demanding royalties for every 'performance' of the song, even in private venues like little Jenny's birthday party, an event which had to be registered ahead of time, along with a signed statement of intent to perform the song, and a security deposit made against the actual royalties, based on the actual number of participants performing the song on the scheduled date. At least the party wasn't held in a public place, Jenny's mother thinks with a sense of relief; the surcharge in that case would have bankrupted them..
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
In the states local markets are few, far between and expensive. It's not about wanting to or not wanting to. It's about how much money you have. 62% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck (look it up). Those extra dollars are the difference between making rent this week and not...
Also I don't think Heinlein forsaw or could address modern politics, specifically the type created by Karl Rove and Dick Cheney. He mostly focused on economics. That works when you've got a united undercalss. Rove and Cheny did two things. They divided the underclass with wedge issues and and they started using bold lies repeated endlessly to convince folks of those like. Hell, Rove ran a draft dodger against a war hero more than once and one. How the hell do we deal with that?
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
It can never be solved by increasing regulation because of regulatory capture. That's what economics tells us, and it's also what happens in practice again and again.
The only solution is to cut back regulations.
That's nonsense. Sanders campaigns for a massive expansion of federal power and spending, far greater than other candidates. He is a self-declared socialist; go look up what that actually means.
You may be cynical and say that they all end up doing the same thing, but if you look through history, that's not true either: there are substantial differences between presidential candidates.
Finally, "vote for Sanders, he is no worse than the other guys" is hardly a good proposition.
Ironic that that Chapter QQ is about Imaginary Property :-/
Without addressing the rest of your post - while it's true that the top marginal tax rate was 90% back then, there were so many exemptions that nobody actually paid that rate.
Examine even your most deeply held beliefs. Nobody is always right.
Finally, "vote for Sanders, he is no worse than the other guys" is hardly a good proposition.
That's not what I said, and not what I meant.
Frankly I like Sanders' policies (not all of them) and see him as a hell of a lot better than the other candidates on both sides.
There are over a million people who've donated to Bernie Sanders, and he isn't taking money from any SuperPACs. Like it or not, you have to respect that so many people like what he's saying enough to send him money.
Hillary Clinton is a fascist and a war monger. She voted for the war AND for the PATRIOT act. Sanders voted against both of them. That counts for something with me.
Clinton is a serial liar and a crook, and if she didn't brand herself a "Democrat", you'd swear she was a Republican.
As for the Republicans, the entire Republican field is nothing but an disorganized array of theocratic, right-wing whackos who are begging to suck the dick of every corporate entity from Boston to Barstow, and they aren't even shy about it.
They all want to impose their version of Christian sharia on the country, and many of them talk endlessly about how god "guides their decisions", etc etc etc. Santorum would turn this country back 1,000 years. Huckabee would put every non-believer to the sword of he could, and the rest aren't that much better. Is that what you want?
Don't like Sanders? Then don't vote for him. Spend your vote on whoever you like. I'll be voting for Bernie if I get the chance.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
o shit if only I had mod points.... I *voted* for that guy too... only 1x tho
C|N>K
And your solution
Actually I didn't propose a solution at all. Further more I don't even know a solution which could possibly be proposed compatible within our current system of government.
IIRC Nixon, in his younger days, had a bit to do with the whole 'accuse Hollywood of being full of communists' thing during the McCarthyism days. It's no surprise that the media was unkind to him after that. I seem to recall an interview with Khrushchev's advisors, one of them at any rate, where they shared his disbelief at Nixon going down for a 'fairly trivial' lapse in ethics on behalf of folks who worked for him. I was there, at the time, and probably wasn't as in-tune to it as I am now but I suspect there was a lot of media slant and bias during his administration. I can't imagine that Hollywood ever forgave the man who helped send some of their peers to jail over supposed ties with communism.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
My memory is a little fuzzy but I seem to recall that the trend towards globalization and open trade policies was pushed by the left. The reason they pushed it was a feel good process. A rising tide raises all ships and those poor people in third world countries are living on less than a dollar a day and need jobs. This will better their lives and give them opportunities they've never had.
In hindsight, it just looks like they wanted to rape more people (figuratively). A few people have managed to make a little money but not a whole lot has changed except the standard of living here has gone down.
That (and below) shouldn't be read as an endorsement for the right. Not at all. It should be read as a condemnation of the left. (If you think those are synonymous then stop here.)
Sometimes, I still see them (the left) cry this tired battle cry. They try to use shame and call it 'protectionism' or 'nationalism' or the likes. To be honest, I don't know their motives nor who has brainwashed them. What's amusing is that they belittle the right for voting for policies or people who will harm them while pushing for those who'd push jobs overseas and reduce the power of the middle class and absolutely destroy those already impoverished in this country. I have to assume that there's some sort of plan here... I'm just not seeing it.
(This is not the place to interject a reply with a crazy wingnut conspiracy theory. But I am open to any ideas but try to keep them sane. It's probably not the fault of Jews, Masons, One World Order, Lizard People or Aliens.)
And, before you ask, I'm pretty far left. I support things like single payer health care, easily accessible education, human rights, equality (true equality, not privileges based on innate traits), reasonable taxes on wealth, seeking non-violent solutions, ending the war on drugs and on terrorism, and other lofty goals. I don't have any problem paying my taxes. I do not like how my taxes are spent. I'd happily pay more if they were spent properly. Instead, I make up the difference by donating to worthy causes - much of the donated total is beyond what can be used to reduce my tax burden. I do so because it is my social contract - I'm contractually obligated to contribute even if that contract isn't written. I'm a member, a signatory, of that contract by my presence and participation in society. I give to charities/worthy causes because it is my duty to do so and to help provide for those who can not.
Yes, yes I am a Libertarian. Sorry for the confusion. Not all Libertarians are insane - just most of them. *sighs* It's a political ideal, not an economic model. But, I've digressed enough and am tired.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Those so-called "policies" sound good to you because you fail to understand that they are empty promises, and that they inevitably lead to economic disaster and worse. I'm afraid Sanders is the fascist, and like all fascists, he rises to power on a program of right wing populism.
Why yes, those policies. Most notably, government intervention in the market. At this point, I think it's empirically proven that free markets are a complete disaster in practice and lead to economic disaster and worse. I think Enron is a great poster child for deregulation, and if you don't like that example wait five minutes. As for Sanders being right wing populism, I wonder if you're suffering from wing dyslexia?
People have a tendency to go, NOOOO you can't intervene in the sacred free market, it's so much more complicated, there will be disaster and badness and it's awful and you must instead remove even MORE regulations and controls and trust in the freeness of the freeing! Because it's so very complicated and you don't understand it ACtually and just shut up and let the smart people tell you how the future will be great if you just happen to do things that will profoundly tilt things to the currently rich and powerful!
Nope, Don't trust Enron (or Uber, or Twitter) to tell you what economic disaster is. Promises are only empty when you talk yourself out of doing them. Have a listen to Nick Hanauer sometime, he might save your ass, that's a very rich person who is loudly demanding that people get a clue before society inevitably breaks out the guillotines.
And intervening in the free market is as simple as bringing down a public shooter. Hire people, give them badges and weapons, and make it their job to identify the guy who's killing less-powerful, innocent or unrelated people and remove that guy from that situation. That's civilization. The idea that in a market, which is a human invention, we can't have civilization, is a crazy dumb idea. That's where we need civilization MOST, because it matters how it works.
This. Can we please let certain things on a governmental, national scale EMPLOY economies of scale? There's a bridge in my own home town that needs rebuilding. Because it's not in service, I'm driving across two shitty railroad tracks both ways twice a week going to some meetings.
I've already lost one car to the cumulative damage caused by this, and I don't see local businesses setting up some sort of piggy bank to repair the bridge because the ones served by the out-of-service bridge are economically harmed by the changed traffic pattern and they're least able to take action, plus the scale of the rebuild is beyond their abilities even if regulation allowed J. Random Store to build a bridge linking a road to an interstate highway, whether or not they had the least idea how to build bridges.
Not the same issue as the healthcare, but also an infrastructure problem. We need government to do civic projects like this and take on things like national healthcare, or the things will not get done at all. It is wildly more expensive to make a 'market' out of some stuff. Certain people get rich doing it, but generally things just don't get done and we continue to decline towards cold war Soviet-level collapse. I guess communism and capitalism are so very unlike each other that they end up acting exactly the same. Only the names have changed.
An excellent summary. It's funny how all the establishment both Democrat and Republican are hating on Trump. I don't like him but it makes me want to vote for him because as much as I dislike Trump I despise them.
Also chance of Sweden getting envaded at any time or become a dictatorship are 100% at some point in time. Chance of happening in the USA are zero ever been cause everyone has at least one gun .I personally have two handguns, four rifles and 1000 rounds of ammo . times I been shot in USA zero times shot in middle East twice ... So I think I'll stay here right in the USA .
Okay then, let's look just at welfare data:
States with the highest percentage of food stamps recipients:
1. Mississippi (22%)
2. New Mexico (21%)
3. West Virginia (20%)
Yup, nothing to do with welfare. /sarcasm And before you blame black people and illegal immigrants, in all of these states the majority of welfare benefits go to white people.
Hear, hear!
-- "I'm not in a hurry; I'm in Hawaii." The Homeless Guy
When will we learn that governments cannot be allowed to conspire about anything in secret? You let the government do anything out of public sight and they will fuck the living hell out of voters in order to make every special-interest group ecstatic and fill their campaign coffers.
Heller was a 5 to 4 decision so your meaningful gun control is just one justice away.