So then really they are committing fraud and money laundering, not so much the fact that their business is illegal. Thanks.
Umm, nope. It's more like the government one morning covering all the sidewalks with sharp spikes and then arresting anybody that avoids the spikes the only way left available- the road, for jaywalking or for blocking traffic.
Look dumb ass, there's no fucking logic to it. It's a simple statement of fact. In addition, you're somehow now conflating "US supporting corporate interests" and "pro-Americanism!" Jesus fucking Christ, how is it even possible to do this?
Again, you're talking about the US furthering corporate interests (at least, now you are) when to support DNS-and-Bind's point of view, you'd need to show that "corporate interests" would further American interests. Unsurprisingly, you can't show this.
Please go read DNS-and-Bind's post again before trying to argue in this direction.
Your and maybe DNS-and-Bind's mistake is to consider corporations and the US as separate when in fact they are one single conglomerate. But I don't suppose you'd agree on that either. It's not the corporations that further american interests, it's the other way around: the US furthers corporate interests. The US doesn't have interests of its own, it only expresses the interests of its true owners who are not the american people, but when you go up the food chain the owners are the banking elite which in turn control all the major corporations.
In short America and its corporations indeed pursue a hegemonic agenda but they're not doing it on behalf of a nation. They're doing it for a small mafia network. That's how the Roman and the british empires were run and that's how the american one is run today.
If the US controlled Egypt just to dominate it militarily or politically getting rid of Mubarak would indeed make no sense. But if you consider the overriding concern of the US mafia state is the control of resources and not much else it makes perfect sense. After all the egyptian sheep must be convinced that the coming selling of their state corporations and natural resources 1 cent on the dollar was done by a "legitimate" government for legitimate reasons.
Yes, let's deliberately misinterpret my post, surely that will win my all my arguments. No, in case you missed it, it doesn't make any sense for Google to help take down Mubarak if they were working for America because whoever replaces him won't be as pro-American. Read that again, maybe you'll understand it.
NOTE: There is a gigantic fucking difference between "pro-American interests" and "foreign corporations interest" you dumb ass. Seriously now.
I understood your stupid point. I just don't agree with it. Do you understand the notion that everybody doesn't have to agree with your asinine logic ? And about there being a difference between corporate interests and American interests maybe you should look up the term "banana republic" and see how the only interest of the US in banana republics was to maintain and further corporate interests. Before you call someone a dumb ass maybe you should make sure you are not one.
Your conspiracy theory is really awesome, but there's this giant flaw big enough to sail the Emma Maersk through.
That is, Mubarak (you know, the guy Ghonim helped take down) absolutely furthered American interests a TON in Egypt; he went far above what you can expect any elected official (or the military) to do when it comes to assisting the US. So no, taking down Mubarak is not in American interests, it is most definitely the opposite.
In other words, you should go back to your mom's basement and find another conspiracy to latch onto.
Really ? That's your logic ? Mubarak was a good american stooge therefore it's stupid to believe he would get replaced ? It was only stupid for Mubarak to believe he would be safe if he did all the boot licking required of him. The power to appoint someone to run a country implies the power to replace that someone at any point.
The only thing that's happening now in Egypt is they're setting up a bought and paid for "democracy" so the wealth of Egypt can then be "legitimately" transfered to foreign corporations.
Does anyone else just feel worn out by all political BS in the U.S these days? I mean, it seems like Congress is nothing more than a group of professional trolls at this point.
Politics HAS become a profession. You work in politics for years, make 6 figures per year, then retire to the lecture circuit, or work for one of your supporting corporations as a lobbyist. Back when this country was first founded, politics was a calling, a sacrifice. Representatives were lawyers, farmers, merchants, doctors. A couple months out of the year they would give up their time(and therefore their money) to go to the capital and legislate. But politics was not how they made their living. But we've gotten away from this. People no longer see public service as a sacrifice. They see it as a tool for personal enrichment, a way to gain power for their family, and(this is the worst part) a means to an end. That end is power and influence, both while in office and once out of it.
Basically, it's not the system that is broken. It is the people within it.
A system that doesn't account for human nature IS broken. There are plenty of people that proclaim the superiority of "democracy" over monarchy. But a monarch has a vested interest in his country's prosperity: the country is basically his property, his domain. The only interest elected representatives have is to sell their country to the highest bidder and so the place is run into the ground for the benefit of outside interests. So tell me now where is that superiority of the republican system, cause a democracy it ain't ? From my perspective, you can only judge a political system by how it actually works, not by the theory it proclaims. There are monarchies that survived thousands of years while the current 200 year old republics seem destined to disappear shortly because they won't defend their countries interests.
The roman republic collapsed when the rulers decided to cut costs by employing slaves on a massive scale competing free people out of business. That's exactly what's happening now: the rulers think they can replace well paid work in the west with slave labor in the east. Where does history tell you that will lead ?
Oh and the roman empire after that collapsed because it thought it could tax the people to death to fund the army and still have a working economy necessary to keep funding that army. Guess what ? They were wrong. And the nightmare republics today do nut just one of these 2 mistakes: of the roman republic or of the empire- they're doing them both at the same time, therefore they have no survival chance at all.
Courage, self confidence, and willing to sacrifice is all that's needed for a revolution to start. But I'm also reminded that while taking down a government is hard, creating a better one in its place is even harder. Egypt isn't out of the woods yet as they're severely wounded with a vacuum of power left in the wake.
There's no vacuum of power. Mubarak's military is in charge. (he being the former head of the airforce) And it's not at all clear they're not gonna fix the September elections they took upon themselves to organize.
That is just it. To have a real revolution you must have some hope of victory and frankly living to see it. People in the west and even slightly free nations really do not get it.
If you see masses of people being killed you will not join them. Look at the very limited resistance in European nations durring WWII. The movies really over blow the size of the resistance. The French resistance was actually pretty minnor until liberation was near at hand. AKA they thought they had chance to live to see victory. The Warsaw uprising was when Russian troops where near btw that was a shameful thing the USSR did letting them die.
The nation that did the best at resisting was Norway. The reason that did so well. Hitler gave them the most freedom and thought that they would actually fall in line because they where Nordic. BTW I am not saying this to take anything away from the Norwegian resistance. On the contrary they pretty much invited a brutal occupation because they took a moral stand. IMHO Norway was the unsung hero of WWII.
But all this brave talk on Slashdot means nothing. Most of us are really clueless to how good we have it and how free and safe we really are. When push comes to shove almost no one here would stand in front of tank that just ran over another protester. It goes counter to the basic will to live.
All true. But on the other hand if you're seriously oppressing a people if you want it to work you must either make sure there are very significant differences between the people in your army and the people they must run over with their tanks or else make sure the oppressed are kept on such a tight leash they never have a chance to assemble en masse in your capital. The mob itself almost certainly won't be enough to overthrow the government but it may very well provide cover for traitors and plots(who then of course declare their coup to be a "popular revolution"). And most of those tinpot dictators accusing CIA involvement in movements against them are probably not lying. A democratic government is easiest to control: just fund a bunch of killers/rapists/child molesters to power and then bribe and blackmail them into doing your bidding.
I mean, it's not like, duh, obvious or something? Left and right dictatorships are sucumbing to public protest, riot and facebook. And they *all* did the very same thing first, restrict the ways in which citizens can organize themselves, which in turn angried the citizens even more, and the whole thing totally spirals out of control.
Dear would-be dictator of some soon to come fledgling and hopeful dictatorship. If you let it get as far as that you have to forbid people from using facebook, you're doing it wrong.
I'm afraid the reality is not as you paint it. In the real world absolutely nobody starts a revolution for the sake of "freedom", "democracy" or any such nonsense. When they do it's because they've been made dirt poor and struggling to get food on the table. The "freedom" and "democracy" shit is just a rationalization after the fact that flatters their ego after they've been humiliated (and so leaving themselves open to be even more humiliated by democratic governments that flatter their ego while they steal their bread).
If you want proof just look at the "revolutions" in Venezuela and Iran- the demonstrations there are organized by well fed middle class spoiled brats that think they should run the place instead of the existing governments. With such a base they're got 0% chance of success while everybody else supports the government or simply doesn't give a shit.
"Occasionally the tree of Liberty must be watered with the blood of Patriots and Tyrants."
— Thomas Jefferson
It's a popular sport to pull the Founding Fathers out of context, to prove a point.
King George could not be voted out of his seat. I dare say that Thomas Jefferson, if he were to live today, would advocate peaceful means to oust anyone from power in the US.
To be sure: I am not saying that Parent is saying otherwise, I know he is just offering a quote.
However, the general mood of this thread is something like "tyranny demands exceptional means to be used". Which is fine, but if you live anywhere in the Western world today, you have no moral justification for violence against the system.
Because the system is far from perfect, but is far better than a tyranny.
I'm sorry, but your reasoning is flawed. You're thinking of tyranny as only possibly being personal. What if the entire state with all its accumulated oppressive laws and institutions represents the tyranny ? Sure you can vote puppet president number xx out of office. Do you along with your fellow citizens have any means of directly repealing laws and disbanding institutions of your choice by vote ? If you live outside Switzerland I think not.
Jefferson and the founding fathers hoped to prevent tyranny by giving the state powers limited by a constitution supposedly secured by a balance of power. Since that system failed a long time ago I don't think he'd agree with you at all.
How is it even conceivable that a corporation, which exists at the whim of democratic government, can sue a democratic government that wants to build its own infrastructure. That's like GM or Caterpillar suing the municipal government for having its own works department to build and fix roads.
Utter insanity. Yes Virginia, democracy IS a sham in our current corporate oligarchy.
That's because the world doesn't run on principles, laws or constitutions. It runs according to who is the strongest and prepared to impose their will. Always has. "Democracy" is just propaganda to get the sheeple to believe otherwise and think they're "free".
Ah, but you see, in a natural monopoly situation, there is no way for another company to compete with the first-mover in the market. You either accept government regulation of the monopoly, or you let the monopoly do what unregulated monopolies do: bend you over and rape you. Is that what you want? Fat rich bastards bending you over a fence and raping you?
In the US, it depends on the state, the locality, and the natural monopoly in question. Some are run as cooperatives, with the board elected by the members. These tend to work very well. Some are privately owned but well regulated by the respective agency. Some regulatory agencies are bought and paid for by the very people they are supposed to be regulating, but in those cases, I blame a less than diligent voting public. If the citizens wanted better regulation, they could fight for it. Who knows? Maybe they like being raped by rich people.
I see your point. But luckily telco monopoly here doesn't seem to be all that natural- competition could and did arise and no local or central authority charters monopolies. So there is alternative to both getting raped by rich bastards and trusting regulatory bodies to do their job and not get bought off.
As for blaming the citizens for not being diligent it's very clear to me that the so called representative democracy doesn't work, never did work, and doesn't have a chance in hell of ever working. So there's no point in blaming the brainwashed, overworked and distracted masses for not doing a job they were incapable of anyway since the place is run by rival mafia families called parties taking turns in collecting most of the protection money while the loser still gets some loot.
When the system by its nature is giving a huge competitive advantage to those who can obtain the most support from interested third parties there's no possibility of the citizenry getting their way. The only reason democracy is maintained is because there are plenty of naive and stupid plebs believing they have a shot at getting their wishes through it. And while after many years some finally get the picture, all throughout those years there was a new idiot being born every day to be brainwashed.
What kind of motivator is for an elected official the threat of being fired by the citizens when he can get many times his wage in bribes ? Same goes for the underpaid schmucks in charge of keeping the place clean.
I did not say monopolies are more efficient. I said that in a natural monopolies situation, a monopoly is more efficient than multiple competing companies. There is a HUGE difference between a government granted monopoly and a natural monopoly, but natural monopolies should be government regulated.
My question is, who owns the wires from the boxes on the poles to the central telco?
Government regulation of a monopoly, natural or otherwise, means I would have to trust the government to be able and willing to somehow regulate the price of the service and not give in to whining or bribes. Not to mention get the monopoly to invest in improvements. How did that work out in the US again ?
The wires (fiber optics) from the boxes (inside or outside the building) to central and everywhere else are owned by the respective telco. Then there are internet exchanges dealing with the peering among them, such as interlan or ronix. Here: http://netview.interlan.ro/ and here: http://www.ronix.ro/netview/ you can see the traffic in and out for different ISPs. Most are small ones, but you can see romtelecom, the former monopoly there too:)
Usually there are around 3 ISPs/telcos in an apartment building (in some area with less competition maybe just 2, in others more). It's not disruptive cause they only drill holes and put wires outside the apartment. They connect you only if you sign a contract with them. Besides that average of 3 inside the building there are usually one or more small ISPs that have their switches on the electrical company's poles, in metal boxes on the front of buildings etc. and then they get the wires to your house/apartment through the window. May not be very aesthetic but there's no law against it:)
What you say about monopolies being more efficient may be true theoretically, but in practice if given the opportunity most corporations would just sit on their ass collecting a lot more money than they should and not invest in improving the network. Just read here what the american jackass CEO of UPC Romania has to say (in english don't worry): http://www.zf.ro/zf-english/mikaloff-upc-romania-ceo-competition-in-romania-had-become-irrational-4129186/
I would bet your big carriers are required to lease out to small ISPs at their own internal rates. Ours aren't regulated like that anymore.
There is only the former monopoly with such requirements, but the lease price is so high that it's not a source of competition (I think I can safely pin that on the endemic corruption and bribes in the right places)
So no, the competition had to build its own infrastructure from the ground up and most of the ISPs did that with FTTB, switches and then FTP cable (or in the case of usually smaller ISPs serving houses instead of apartment buildings- something like FTTN). The major exceptions are the former monopoly- Romtelecom now run by Deutsche Telekom and the US owned UPC who both had been the most averse to any major investment in infrastructure.
Now even Romtelecom appears to have seen the light and recently started investing in FTTB still using the existing copper wires with VDSL2, but still an improvement. UPC while covering over 1.5 million homes has only about 250 thousand subscribers to its horrid internet service and about one million to its less objectionable cable tv service.
And I almost forgot to mention that the biggest ISP, cable tv and satellite operator in Romania is not the former monopoly as you might expect but a romanian owned private company (not listed on the stock market) who had to build its own FTTB infrastructure like everybody else: RDS. They're also the second largest land-line operator and growing their mobile phone segment to threaten the likes of orange and vodafone.
If another start-up came along and ran another set of cables to every house, they would go bankrupt. In this case of natural monopoly, having more than one set of wires running to each home is simply less efficient than having only one. Everyone loses if companies run more than one set of wires, as everything gets more expensive. It's a simple fact: a natural monopoly means that a monopoly is more efficient. So, we can either encourage a fake competition (which means everyone loses) or we regulate a single entity. Or, we wait the decades or more for technology to change the market, but an unregulated natural monopoly is going to do everything in its power to kill any technological change that threatens it. Regulation really is the best option. Only closed minded free market ideologues think the free market is always the best option. Reasonable people know that it fails sometimes, and then government must step in. As with most things in life, the middle ground is often the best.
Really ? New competitors would go bankrupt or lead to higher costs ? So the cutthroat competition here (Romania) between a few big ISPs and thousands of small ones that led to some of the lowest prices and fastest internet speeds in the world must be some delusion I suffer from. The 4 ISPs that I previously believed available to me personally must be part of a related delusion.
The Chinese rulers have the (ongoing) example of the Former Soviet Union to show they what can happen if they open the information floodgates. They can try that. Or they can try to hold on to power and see if they can patch the leaks in the dam fast enough to avoid a flood.
Given the soviet example you just quoted how can you rationally support changing the system as beneficial either for the people, for its rulers or for the country ? It was an unmitigated disaster in every way, a race between local oligarchs and foreign companies to rape the place. At the only point Russia saw improvement was when when Putin took over and imposed his will with his "anti-democratic tendencies" much condemned in the west. Why would any rational person living in either Russia or China support a system that lets him starve ?
I'm sorry but your views are naive: it's better to have one master with stakes in keeping the place in reasonable shape than a bunch of jackals fighting "freely and democratically" over the carcass of the country.
If you don't understand the pressure you have when you own one nations debts, please read this Wikipedia article that describes how USA with economic pressure ended United Kingdoms status as world power in 1956:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Crisis
That action of an "allied" power should learn each person how important financial power is and clearly tell you why the Chinese owns USA.
And the reason the UK buckled under the pressure was because it couldn't calculate a winning military strategy in the conflict that would follow repudiating the debt. The US is not in any danger of being invaded by China. Now redo the math.
Pure democracy is called "tyranny of the majority" for a reason.
Don't get me wrong- I hate democracy as much as the next monarchist, but why are California's budget problems an example of tyranny ? People don't want to pay more for their government so the government can either cut its spending or go bankrupt, extinct or whatever. Then the people may form a new government if they wish. On the other hand a "political class" voting to rob the people using institutionalized threats of more robbing and deprivation of liberty (laws) seems to fit the definition of tyranny quite nicely.
Day traders are a tiny part of the whole trading ecosystem. They just happen to be the sharks, while most people are the tuna.
I guess I was asking, what's in it for the tuna? Why should a tuna let itself be eaten by a shark, when the tuna is a citizen of a democracy where it can vote to outlaw sharks?
They shouldn't and they wouldn't, and yet they are. That's your error right there. Your mistaken belief that you live in a democracy (*cough* republic *cough*) and that the tuna have any practical ability to vote on anything of consequence, when in fact they can only choose between pre-selected and approved shark A or shark B in accordance with the sharks policy of providing the tuna with circus and a false sense of control/responsibility (the responsibility bit comes real handy when the sharks mess things up (in their favor) and the tuna are induced to believe they have only themselves to blame).
I use UPC in Austria. I don't think this is anything new. They been fucking with my bandwidth for ages.
Here too. They're the worst ISP in Romania. Practically nobody else does this here. If they did they'd end up with just as few clients as UPC has for internet access (and they have quite an extensive infrastructure).
Carl Marx wasn't a fascist he was a communist. Please don't confuse the the two, as the red scare really makes communism look worse than it is. Yeah! I mean, if you were not part of a social class scheduled for extermination, like you know, the "bourgeoisie", the aristocracy, the intelligentsia or the kulaks, and you didn't know anybody connected with the oppressors of the working class, your kids had nothing to say against you to the secret police and you gave regular reports to said secret police about any potential subversive activities everyone you knew might possibly be engaged in, you had absolutely no reason to fear anything at all.
Slashdot Mirror
So then really they are committing fraud and money laundering, not so much the fact that their business is illegal. Thanks.
Umm, nope. It's more like the government one morning covering all the sidewalks with sharp spikes and then arresting anybody that avoids the spikes the only way left available- the road, for jaywalking or for blocking traffic.
Look dumb ass, there's no fucking logic to it. It's a simple statement of fact. In addition, you're somehow now conflating "US supporting corporate interests" and "pro-Americanism!" Jesus fucking Christ, how is it even possible to do this? Again, you're talking about the US furthering corporate interests (at least, now you are) when to support DNS-and-Bind's point of view, you'd need to show that "corporate interests" would further American interests. Unsurprisingly, you can't show this. Please go read DNS-and-Bind's post again before trying to argue in this direction.
Your and maybe DNS-and-Bind's mistake is to consider corporations and the US as separate when in fact they are one single conglomerate. But I don't suppose you'd agree on that either. It's not the corporations that further american interests, it's the other way around: the US furthers corporate interests. The US doesn't have interests of its own, it only expresses the interests of its true owners who are not the american people, but when you go up the food chain the owners are the banking elite which in turn control all the major corporations. In short America and its corporations indeed pursue a hegemonic agenda but they're not doing it on behalf of a nation. They're doing it for a small mafia network. That's how the Roman and the british empires were run and that's how the american one is run today. If the US controlled Egypt just to dominate it militarily or politically getting rid of Mubarak would indeed make no sense. But if you consider the overriding concern of the US mafia state is the control of resources and not much else it makes perfect sense. After all the egyptian sheep must be convinced that the coming selling of their state corporations and natural resources 1 cent on the dollar was done by a "legitimate" government for legitimate reasons.
Yes, let's deliberately misinterpret my post, surely that will win my all my arguments. No, in case you missed it, it doesn't make any sense for Google to help take down Mubarak if they were working for America because whoever replaces him won't be as pro-American. Read that again, maybe you'll understand it. NOTE: There is a gigantic fucking difference between "pro-American interests" and "foreign corporations interest" you dumb ass. Seriously now.
I understood your stupid point. I just don't agree with it. Do you understand the notion that everybody doesn't have to agree with your asinine logic ? And about there being a difference between corporate interests and American interests maybe you should look up the term "banana republic" and see how the only interest of the US in banana republics was to maintain and further corporate interests. Before you call someone a dumb ass maybe you should make sure you are not one.
Your conspiracy theory is really awesome, but there's this giant flaw big enough to sail the Emma Maersk through. That is, Mubarak (you know, the guy Ghonim helped take down) absolutely furthered American interests a TON in Egypt; he went far above what you can expect any elected official (or the military) to do when it comes to assisting the US. So no, taking down Mubarak is not in American interests, it is most definitely the opposite. In other words, you should go back to your mom's basement and find another conspiracy to latch onto.
Really ? That's your logic ? Mubarak was a good american stooge therefore it's stupid to believe he would get replaced ? It was only stupid for Mubarak to believe he would be safe if he did all the boot licking required of him. The power to appoint someone to run a country implies the power to replace that someone at any point. The only thing that's happening now in Egypt is they're setting up a bought and paid for "democracy" so the wealth of Egypt can then be "legitimately" transfered to foreign corporations.
Does anyone else just feel worn out by all political BS in the U.S these days? I mean, it seems like Congress is nothing more than a group of professional trolls at this point.
Politics HAS become a profession. You work in politics for years, make 6 figures per year, then retire to the lecture circuit, or work for one of your supporting corporations as a lobbyist. Back when this country was first founded, politics was a calling, a sacrifice. Representatives were lawyers, farmers, merchants, doctors. A couple months out of the year they would give up their time(and therefore their money) to go to the capital and legislate. But politics was not how they made their living. But we've gotten away from this. People no longer see public service as a sacrifice. They see it as a tool for personal enrichment, a way to gain power for their family, and(this is the worst part) a means to an end. That end is power and influence, both while in office and once out of it.
Basically, it's not the system that is broken. It is the people within it.
A system that doesn't account for human nature IS broken. There are plenty of people that proclaim the superiority of "democracy" over monarchy. But a monarch has a vested interest in his country's prosperity: the country is basically his property, his domain. The only interest elected representatives have is to sell their country to the highest bidder and so the place is run into the ground for the benefit of outside interests. So tell me now where is that superiority of the republican system, cause a democracy it ain't ? From my perspective, you can only judge a political system by how it actually works, not by the theory it proclaims. There are monarchies that survived thousands of years while the current 200 year old republics seem destined to disappear shortly because they won't defend their countries interests. The roman republic collapsed when the rulers decided to cut costs by employing slaves on a massive scale competing free people out of business. That's exactly what's happening now: the rulers think they can replace well paid work in the west with slave labor in the east. Where does history tell you that will lead ? Oh and the roman empire after that collapsed because it thought it could tax the people to death to fund the army and still have a working economy necessary to keep funding that army. Guess what ? They were wrong. And the nightmare republics today do nut just one of these 2 mistakes: of the roman republic or of the empire- they're doing them both at the same time, therefore they have no survival chance at all.
Courage, self confidence, and willing to sacrifice is all that's needed for a revolution to start. But I'm also reminded that while taking down a government is hard, creating a better one in its place is even harder. Egypt isn't out of the woods yet as they're severely wounded with a vacuum of power left in the wake.
There's no vacuum of power. Mubarak's military is in charge. (he being the former head of the airforce) And it's not at all clear they're not gonna fix the September elections they took upon themselves to organize.
That is just it. To have a real revolution you must have some hope of victory and frankly living to see it. People in the west and even slightly free nations really do not get it. If you see masses of people being killed you will not join them. Look at the very limited resistance in European nations durring WWII. The movies really over blow the size of the resistance. The French resistance was actually pretty minnor until liberation was near at hand. AKA they thought they had chance to live to see victory. The Warsaw uprising was when Russian troops where near btw that was a shameful thing the USSR did letting them die. The nation that did the best at resisting was Norway. The reason that did so well. Hitler gave them the most freedom and thought that they would actually fall in line because they where Nordic. BTW I am not saying this to take anything away from the Norwegian resistance. On the contrary they pretty much invited a brutal occupation because they took a moral stand. IMHO Norway was the unsung hero of WWII. But all this brave talk on Slashdot means nothing. Most of us are really clueless to how good we have it and how free and safe we really are. When push comes to shove almost no one here would stand in front of tank that just ran over another protester. It goes counter to the basic will to live.
All true. But on the other hand if you're seriously oppressing a people if you want it to work you must either make sure there are very significant differences between the people in your army and the people they must run over with their tanks or else make sure the oppressed are kept on such a tight leash they never have a chance to assemble en masse in your capital. The mob itself almost certainly won't be enough to overthrow the government but it may very well provide cover for traitors and plots(who then of course declare their coup to be a "popular revolution"). And most of those tinpot dictators accusing CIA involvement in movements against them are probably not lying. A democratic government is easiest to control: just fund a bunch of killers/rapists/child molesters to power and then bribe and blackmail them into doing your bidding.
I mean, it's not like, duh, obvious or something? Left and right dictatorships are sucumbing to public protest, riot and facebook. And they *all* did the very same thing first, restrict the ways in which citizens can organize themselves, which in turn angried the citizens even more, and the whole thing totally spirals out of control. Dear would-be dictator of some soon to come fledgling and hopeful dictatorship. If you let it get as far as that you have to forbid people from using facebook, you're doing it wrong.
I'm afraid the reality is not as you paint it. In the real world absolutely nobody starts a revolution for the sake of "freedom", "democracy" or any such nonsense. When they do it's because they've been made dirt poor and struggling to get food on the table. The "freedom" and "democracy" shit is just a rationalization after the fact that flatters their ego after they've been humiliated (and so leaving themselves open to be even more humiliated by democratic governments that flatter their ego while they steal their bread). If you want proof just look at the "revolutions" in Venezuela and Iran- the demonstrations there are organized by well fed middle class spoiled brats that think they should run the place instead of the existing governments. With such a base they're got 0% chance of success while everybody else supports the government or simply doesn't give a shit.
Why are they presenting this to the IDF ? The israeli army is their main customer or what ?
"Occasionally the tree of Liberty must be watered with the blood of Patriots and Tyrants." — Thomas Jefferson
It's a popular sport to pull the Founding Fathers out of context, to prove a point.
King George could not be voted out of his seat. I dare say that Thomas Jefferson, if he were to live today, would advocate peaceful means to oust anyone from power in the US.
To be sure: I am not saying that Parent is saying otherwise, I know he is just offering a quote.
However, the general mood of this thread is something like "tyranny demands exceptional means to be used". Which is fine, but if you live anywhere in the Western world today, you have no moral justification for violence against the system.
Because the system is far from perfect, but is far better than a tyranny.
I'm sorry, but your reasoning is flawed. You're thinking of tyranny as only possibly being personal. What if the entire state with all its accumulated oppressive laws and institutions represents the tyranny ? Sure you can vote puppet president number xx out of office. Do you along with your fellow citizens have any means of directly repealing laws and disbanding institutions of your choice by vote ? If you live outside Switzerland I think not. Jefferson and the founding fathers hoped to prevent tyranny by giving the state powers limited by a constitution supposedly secured by a balance of power. Since that system failed a long time ago I don't think he'd agree with you at all.
How is it even conceivable that a corporation, which exists at the whim of democratic government, can sue a democratic government that wants to build its own infrastructure. That's like GM or Caterpillar suing the municipal government for having its own works department to build and fix roads.
Utter insanity. Yes Virginia, democracy IS a sham in our current corporate oligarchy.
That's because the world doesn't run on principles, laws or constitutions. It runs according to who is the strongest and prepared to impose their will. Always has. "Democracy" is just propaganda to get the sheeple to believe otherwise and think they're "free".
Ah, but you see, in a natural monopoly situation, there is no way for another company to compete with the first-mover in the market. You either accept government regulation of the monopoly, or you let the monopoly do what unregulated monopolies do: bend you over and rape you. Is that what you want? Fat rich bastards bending you over a fence and raping you?
In the US, it depends on the state, the locality, and the natural monopoly in question. Some are run as cooperatives, with the board elected by the members. These tend to work very well. Some are privately owned but well regulated by the respective agency. Some regulatory agencies are bought and paid for by the very people they are supposed to be regulating, but in those cases, I blame a less than diligent voting public. If the citizens wanted better regulation, they could fight for it. Who knows? Maybe they like being raped by rich people.
I see your point. But luckily telco monopoly here doesn't seem to be all that natural- competition could and did arise and no local or central authority charters monopolies. So there is alternative to both getting raped by rich bastards and trusting regulatory bodies to do their job and not get bought off.
As for blaming the citizens for not being diligent it's very clear to me that the so called representative democracy doesn't work, never did work, and doesn't have a chance in hell of ever working. So there's no point in blaming the brainwashed, overworked and distracted masses for not doing a job they were incapable of anyway since the place is run by rival mafia families called parties taking turns in collecting most of the protection money while the loser still gets some loot.
When the system by its nature is giving a huge competitive advantage to those who can obtain the most support from interested third parties there's no possibility of the citizenry getting their way. The only reason democracy is maintained is because there are plenty of naive and stupid plebs believing they have a shot at getting their wishes through it. And while after many years some finally get the picture, all throughout those years there was a new idiot being born every day to be brainwashed.
What kind of motivator is for an elected official the threat of being fired by the citizens when he can get many times his wage in bribes ? Same goes for the underpaid schmucks in charge of keeping the place clean.
I did not say monopolies are more efficient. I said that in a natural monopolies situation, a monopoly is more efficient than multiple competing companies. There is a HUGE difference between a government granted monopoly and a natural monopoly, but natural monopolies should be government regulated.
My question is, who owns the wires from the boxes on the poles to the central telco?
Government regulation of a monopoly, natural or otherwise, means I would have to trust the government to be able and willing to somehow regulate the price of the service and not give in to whining or bribes. Not to mention get the monopoly to invest in improvements. How did that work out in the US again ? The wires (fiber optics) from the boxes (inside or outside the building) to central and everywhere else are owned by the respective telco. Then there are internet exchanges dealing with the peering among them, such as interlan or ronix. Here: http://netview.interlan.ro/ and here: http://www.ronix.ro/netview/ you can see the traffic in and out for different ISPs. Most are small ones, but you can see romtelecom, the former monopoly there too :)
Usually there are around 3 ISPs/telcos in an apartment building (in some area with less competition maybe just 2, in others more). It's not disruptive cause they only drill holes and put wires outside the apartment. They connect you only if you sign a contract with them. Besides that average of 3 inside the building there are usually one or more small ISPs that have their switches on the electrical company's poles, in metal boxes on the front of buildings etc. and then they get the wires to your house/apartment through the window. May not be very aesthetic but there's no law against it :)
What you say about monopolies being more efficient may be true theoretically, but in practice if given the opportunity most corporations would just sit on their ass collecting a lot more money than they should and not invest in improving the network. Just read here what the american jackass CEO of UPC Romania has to say (in english don't worry): http://www.zf.ro/zf-english/mikaloff-upc-romania-ceo-competition-in-romania-had-become-irrational-4129186/
I would bet your big carriers are required to lease out to small ISPs at their own internal rates. Ours aren't regulated like that anymore.
There is only the former monopoly with such requirements, but the lease price is so high that it's not a source of competition (I think I can safely pin that on the endemic corruption and bribes in the right places) So no, the competition had to build its own infrastructure from the ground up and most of the ISPs did that with FTTB, switches and then FTP cable (or in the case of usually smaller ISPs serving houses instead of apartment buildings- something like FTTN). The major exceptions are the former monopoly- Romtelecom now run by Deutsche Telekom and the US owned UPC who both had been the most averse to any major investment in infrastructure. Now even Romtelecom appears to have seen the light and recently started investing in FTTB still using the existing copper wires with VDSL2, but still an improvement. UPC while covering over 1.5 million homes has only about 250 thousand subscribers to its horrid internet service and about one million to its less objectionable cable tv service. And I almost forgot to mention that the biggest ISP, cable tv and satellite operator in Romania is not the former monopoly as you might expect but a romanian owned private company (not listed on the stock market) who had to build its own FTTB infrastructure like everybody else: RDS. They're also the second largest land-line operator and growing their mobile phone segment to threaten the likes of orange and vodafone.
If another start-up came along and ran another set of cables to every house, they would go bankrupt. In this case of natural monopoly, having more than one set of wires running to each home is simply less efficient than having only one. Everyone loses if companies run more than one set of wires, as everything gets more expensive. It's a simple fact: a natural monopoly means that a monopoly is more efficient. So, we can either encourage a fake competition (which means everyone loses) or we regulate a single entity. Or, we wait the decades or more for technology to change the market, but an unregulated natural monopoly is going to do everything in its power to kill any technological change that threatens it. Regulation really is the best option. Only closed minded free market ideologues think the free market is always the best option. Reasonable people know that it fails sometimes, and then government must step in. As with most things in life, the middle ground is often the best.
Really ? New competitors would go bankrupt or lead to higher costs ? So the cutthroat competition here (Romania) between a few big ISPs and thousands of small ones that led to some of the lowest prices and fastest internet speeds in the world must be some delusion I suffer from. The 4 ISPs that I previously believed available to me personally must be part of a related delusion.
The Chinese rulers have the (ongoing) example of the Former Soviet Union to show they what can happen if they open the information floodgates. They can try that. Or they can try to hold on to power and see if they can patch the leaks in the dam fast enough to avoid a flood.
Given the soviet example you just quoted how can you rationally support changing the system as beneficial either for the people, for its rulers or for the country ? It was an unmitigated disaster in every way, a race between local oligarchs and foreign companies to rape the place. At the only point Russia saw improvement was when when Putin took over and imposed his will with his "anti-democratic tendencies" much condemned in the west. Why would any rational person living in either Russia or China support a system that lets him starve ? I'm sorry but your views are naive: it's better to have one master with stakes in keeping the place in reasonable shape than a bunch of jackals fighting "freely and democratically" over the carcass of the country.
If you don't understand the pressure you have when you own one nations debts, please read this Wikipedia article that describes how USA with economic pressure ended United Kingdoms status as world power in 1956: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Crisis
That action of an "allied" power should learn each person how important financial power is and clearly tell you why the Chinese owns USA.
And the reason the UK buckled under the pressure was because it couldn't calculate a winning military strategy in the conflict that would follow repudiating the debt. The US is not in any danger of being invaded by China. Now redo the math.
Just noticed I quoted the wrong "tyranny of the majority" comment.
Pure democracy is called "tyranny of the majority" for a reason.
Don't get me wrong- I hate democracy as much as the next monarchist, but why are California's budget problems an example of tyranny ? People don't want to pay more for their government so the government can either cut its spending or go bankrupt, extinct or whatever. Then the people may form a new government if they wish. On the other hand a "political class" voting to rob the people using institutionalized threats of more robbing and deprivation of liberty (laws) seems to fit the definition of tyranny quite nicely.
Day traders are a tiny part of the whole trading ecosystem. They just happen to be the sharks, while most people are the tuna.
I guess I was asking, what's in it for the tuna? Why should a tuna let itself be eaten by a shark, when the tuna is a citizen of a democracy where it can vote to outlaw sharks?
They shouldn't and they wouldn't, and yet they are. That's your error right there. Your mistaken belief that you live in a democracy (*cough* republic *cough*) and that the tuna have any practical ability to vote on anything of consequence, when in fact they can only choose between pre-selected and approved shark A or shark B in accordance with the sharks policy of providing the tuna with circus and a false sense of control/responsibility (the responsibility bit comes real handy when the sharks mess things up (in their favor) and the tuna are induced to believe they have only themselves to blame).
I use UPC in Austria. I don't think this is anything new. They been fucking with my bandwidth for ages.
Here too. They're the worst ISP in Romania. Practically nobody else does this here. If they did they'd end up with just as few clients as UPC has for internet access (and they have quite an extensive infrastructure).
"It is reported that the unveiling speech will include the words "Sic Semper Tyrannis""
Call me when they have added Big Foot footage. Until then watching Bush on TV will be enough zoo time for me.