Yes, what an amazing solution. After a large portion of your population dies from starvation, you can sue the bankrupt pesticide company and get a check ten years down the road.
His version of the Iraq War? That the United States
1) Manufactured intelligence about WMDs 2) Ignored all international inspectors who said there were no WMDs 3) Kicked the inspectors out so they could have their war 4) Lied to the American people about the cost and length of war, with Rumsfeld publicly stating that it won't last "much longer" than 5 months or cost more than 50 to 60 billion dollars 5) Ended up torturing Iraqis in the same prisons where Saddam did his dirty work 6) Pretended that we hadn't supported Saddam right through his worst atrocities in the 80s, including supplying him with "dual use" technology to wage a war with Iran that killed a million people and 7) Removing Iraq from the State sponsors of Terror list in 1982 so US firms could also sell him biological weapons to kill Kurds with
If you were born in Germany in 1920, you would have died wearing a belt buckle that read "GOTT MIT UNS." Blind fealty to the flag is fucking pathetic.
It's because there are idiots out there known as "libertarians" who believe that emasculating the government will solve everything. They are just as fucking wrong as utopian communists.
A transparent market is an amazing thing, but unfortunately, a market desires to be opaque in order to increase profits. Unless you have a strong and largely uncorrupted government to continue providing transparency, you don't have a market. You have a conspiratorial oligopoly that will risk destroying entire ecosystems to push up quarterly profits.
Terrorism is also threatening to blow people up just because you can. It's also threatening economic sanctions or embargoes if certain ultimatums are not satisfied. By this measure, the United States government is the largest and best funded terrorist organization in the world.
There are a variety ways we express it: an private diplomatic threat, a publicly implied threat, an threat of economic sanctions through the UN (while we ignore UN resolutions against us), military "exercises", CIA coups, and of course, the outright invasions and public threats of invasion.
America is like the local mafia that you have to do business with, or else you could end up like that guy down the street.
They're not conservative or liberal. They're authoritarian, just like Stalin.
Sure, if you want to go back to before the Revolution communism meant something else, but I'm not trying to convince an academic in some paper. I'm trying to convince a citizen that they're seriously fucking up the whole concept of democracy and the importance of freedom of expression.
Step away from this "left versus right" thing. In reality, what difference is there between Communism and Fascism? Does it make a difference whether a small elite group rules the state which rules commerce, or whether a small elite group rules commerce which rules the state? What if that group is an enlightened oligarchy, or a backwards junta? I suppose you could make a very weak argument that intellectual genocide has more merit than ethnic genocide, but I wouldn't agree. They are both two sides of the same coin: murder to create order.
The measurements of government cannot be drawn on a line graph. Even Canada has been waging it's war on personal freedom through the suppression of drug use, which is the very definition of totalitarianism: prosecuting someone for exercising personal freedom.
From his Inaugural address, formatted for clarity. Notice how many times he uses the word "peace" and how he describes that we should have "honest friendship with all nations".
. ..it is proper you should understand what I deem the essential principles of our Government, and consequently those which ought to shape its Administration. I will compress them within the narrowest compass they will bear, stating the general principle, but not all its limitations:
Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political;
peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none;
the support of the State governments in all their rights, as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns and the surest bulwarks against antirepublican tendencies; the preservation of the General Government in its whole constitutional vigor, as the sheet anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad;
a jealous care of the right of election by the people—a mild and safe corrective of abuses which are lopped by the sword of revolution where peaceable remedies are unprovided;
absolute acquiescence in the decisions of the majority, the vital principle of republics, from which is no appeal but to force, the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism;
a well disciplined militia, our best reliance in peace and for the first moments of war, till regulars may relieve them; the supremacy of the civil over the military authority;
economy in the public expense, that labor may be lightly burthened; the honest payment of our debts and sacred preservation of the public faith; encouragement of agriculture, and of commerce as its handmaid;
the diffusion of information and arraignment of all abuses at the bar of the public reason; freedom of religion; freedom of the press, and freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus, and trial by juries impartially selected.
These principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation. The wisdom of our sages and blood of our heroes have been devoted to their attainment. They should be the creed of our political faith, the text of civic instruction, the touchstone by which to try the services of those we trust; and should we wander from them in moments of error or of alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty, and safety.
Paypal and Amazon both gave in to US government pressure to eliminate their services to WikiLeaks. Since WikiLeaks depends on internet presence and donations to exist, it's no different than cutting the power to a house. In this case, it signaled to any other internet provider that they would no longer be friends to the US government, which per the norm, acts like a local mafia boss in enforcing its will in the neighborhood.
The United States differs from other States only in that it does not overtly tell someone to shut up. It threatens charges. It stays quiet while members of it's government and celebrity punditry call for assassination. It sends a few spooks around to anyone connected with you. It's a base form of terrorism, and differs from the KGB only in that it has to look like an accident if they decide to eliminate you. They like plausible deniability because the miserable pro-authoritarian sycophants like you can pretend that those things don't happen, and you'll continue to support the government regardless of how badly they ignore the laws they are supposed to be following.
Take a look at the latest Nobel Peace Prize winner, Liu Xiaobo. What is the effective difference of the Chinese government throwing him in prison, and the US leaning on Sweden to bring back trumped up charges so Assange could be detained while they build a bullshit case to do the same thing? We just have better PR.
Honestly, you're fucking pathetic. You are everything that is wrong with democracy today, because you don't even know what freedom of speech is, or why it's important. I hope you end up in the society you dream of, protesting the latest corporate takeover of your publicly funded infrastructure from your "Free Speech Zone" like the coward you are in order to keep what little freedom they decide to let you keep for the time being.
Memo to employees.
on
RIP, SunSolve
·
· Score: 5, Funny
It is I, Ellison of Larry.
I am communicating from my iPad device on my yacht, which is constructed out of the carcasses of a thousand dead corporations. As I recline on my chaise-lounge and ponder your meaninglessness as I wait for the completion of my moon base, I want to assure you that the rumors stating that the turnip is almost dry are simply untrue. I have rebranded it as Oracle Turnip and raised the price by 10,000% for all of our hapless clients who are locked into the platform. Everything will be just fine.
Signed, The One who is more magnificent than your greatest conception of God
Either Assange is subject to US law or he isn't. If he is, he should be protected by the First Amendment. If he isn't, then they have no legal right to prosecute him.
All of the idiots who want to temporarily suspend the law to punish one person always forget that it could be their turn sooner than they think. And, frankly, I'd rather not continue to establish the precedent that the world's most powerful country gets to arrogantly ignore international law and kidnap people to kill or torture them. In fifty years, it could be someone else putting hoods over US citizens who dare to mention the truth in public.
It's an excellent cross reference to see what's really going on in any country on that list. If the US suddenly gives a shit about the Congo, check the news. The mine they rely on is now under threat. If next door there are millions of people being hacked to death with machetes, and we don't care, check the list. There is no useful resource we are exploiting. It's to illustrate that the United States does not operate on principle, but on self-interest, as every state does.
Unfortunately, Assange seems to be overplaying his hand. His only way out of prison time is to reveal something truly new and corrupt enough to get world outrage focused on the United States instead of himself. Then he will have the international support he needs to stay a free man.
He's either building up to this moment, or his arrogance has done him in.
Actually, another tactic may be that he's forcing them to breach the poison pill contract he has established. If he gets picked up and releases the encrypted file keys, it could unleash holy terror worldwide as all of the information they have redacted so far is suddenly unleashed. If there's enough in there to cause a slew of double agents to be exposed internationally, then he'll again have a better chance of staying alive if not free, and he will have collapsed the covert policies that have been running the world since the 20th Century.
The USG has nothing to fear from the NYT or any other news source. They are always interested in keeping access to government officials, so they never step over the line when reporting the news. They don't report on the reality of war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Editors at the major media companies are good friends with everyone in Washington and Wall Street, so you can't get good coverage there either.
Even looking at coverage of WikiLeaks, how many are reporting that the US State Department new immediately that the coup in Honduras was illegal, and then publicly stated a month later that they hadn't decided what had happened? How many are reporting that Hillary Clinton knew Saudi Arabia was the main funding source for the worst extremist groups in the world, but did not publicly reveal this to US Citizens for fear of damaging trade relations with the oil barons?
You would think that would even be front page news on Fox, who'd bread is buttered by fear mongering about muslim terrorists, but it's always below the fold, or on some opinion column that never sees the front page. That's because one of their main investors is a Saudi Prince.
A truly independent press is too dangerous for the United States to tolerate. It's told too many lies to too many people for too long. They know WikiLeaks has zero self-interest in American interests, and that's why the organization is so feared.
During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act. -George Orwell
Despite your anti-US sentiment, South Korea would look like North Korea if not for our meddling.
Or the whole of Korea might look like Vietnam, or India, or China.
Europe would have become Nazi if not for our meddling.
The German forces were concentrated on the Eastern front. Without the sacrifice of 30 million Russians, the war may have been lost since we didn't get involved on the ground until 1944. There is a reason I picked after WWII - obviously, almost any sort of government is preferable to National Socialism. The difference is that WWII returned democratic societies to democracy. For the sixty years that have followed, we have been trying to coerce other cultures into democracy, which never works, and is itself anti-democratic. I'm all for supporting democratic movements with peaceful action and solidarity. The problem is that the US government only supports a government if they will take orders, or serve our national interest.
That's why in Poland we joined the Catholic peace movement, and in El Salvador we had a hand in assassinating the "voice for the voiceless" while he was giving mass.
(And in related news, a guy named Vasili Arkhipov probably saved the world. Say what you want about the Russians, but they have just as much to do with the survival of civilization as the West.)
What do any of those examples have to do with "the right of people to direct the actions of their government"?
The governments that were being contained or overthrown by these actions definitely would not acknowledge the existence of that right.
Exactly. And the United States doesn't recognize that right either. Somewhat for it's own citizens, and absolutely for the unfortunate citizen of any country in the way of US interests.
I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves. -- Henry Kissinger, Secretary of State, 1973
1. Berlin Airlift - Saved 2 million residents from going hungry, which was fallout from the partitioning of Europe between WWII allies
2. Korean Police Action - Do you think North Koreans or Chinese have more freedoms today? Is there more suffering in rural China than in the DPRK?
3. Greek Civil War - How is foreign government intervention democratic when the result is a dictatorship?
4. Brussels Pact/NATO: currently the occupying force of Afghanistan.
5. SEATO? The one that didn't do shit about Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, East Timor...?
6. UN: Would be great if the United States would accept it's legitimacy. Right now it's just the chessboard upon which the Great Game is played.
7. The strategic arms limitation treaties: I don't think the West gets credit for cleaning up the mess it created by escalating nuclear proliferation, like secretly allowing Pakistan to develop nukes.
8. the opening of China/US diplomatic relations: which only really happened after Tiananmen Square, once China proved it had the will and the capability to kill it's own citizens to keep business going. Hardly the diamond of democratic progress you're looking for.
9. the founding of the Solidarity Union: Perhaps the only real success story of the Cold War. Too bad anything supportive of unions is out of vogue with US propaganda.
10. the fall of the Soviet Union and reunification: for every country liberated by the fall of the iron curtain, the west destroyed at least one trying to subvert the spread of communism through clandestine military action
Let's go through my list: 50s - Coup of democratic governments in: Iran, Guatemala - Attempted coups in Laos, Vietnam - Support of Duvalier over democratic movements in Haiti
60s - War in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos - Coups and assassinations in: Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Greece, Congo, Brazil, Indonesia - Attempted coup in Cuba
70s - War in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, East Timor - Coups and assassinations in Chile, Angola, El Salvador, Nicaragua - Escalation of Afghan War
80s - War in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Grenada, Panama - Coups and assassinations in: Columbia, Panama, Haiti, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador
90s - Coups and assassinations in: Haiti - War in Iraq
00s - War in Iraq, Afghanistan - Military strikes in Pakistan, Yemen
This is not the whole list, does not touch military and diplomatic support, and does not touch weapons sales.
You do realize that Noriega was a CIA asset, right?
The 1988 Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations concluded that "The saga of Panama's General Manuel Antonio Noriega represents one of the most serious foreign policy failures for the United States. Throughout the 1970s and the 1980s, Noriega was able to manipulate U.S. policy toward his country, while skillfully accumulating near-absolute power in Panama. It is clear that each U.S. government agency which had a relationship with Noriega turned a blind eye to his corruption and drug dealing, even as he was emerging as a key player on behalf of the Medellín Cartel (a member of which was notorious Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar)." Noriega was allowed to establish "the hemisphere's first 'narcokleptocracy'".
Look, if you don't believe a country has the right to determine it's own destiny, that's fine. Just don't bitch when China invades. Get out there and wave the red flag like the obedient coward that you are, and the powerless citizen that you aspire to be.
Almost all of those movements in the United States were opposed by the US government until they gave in to years of struggle by popular movements comprised of dissidents. If you'd read your history, you would know that.
For every country liberated by the fall of the USSR, another has been destroyed by agents of the United States government. To recap:
Vietnam, followed by direct and indirect destruction of Laos and Cambodia East Timor destroyed by Indonesia, who were equipped by the US
And then you have Chile, Argentina, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama, Haiti, Grenada, Ecuador, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan... and I could go on. All sovereign nations prevented from directing their own destiny by the US government.
You really think we didn't know there is complicity with Pakistan on the drones
The United States and Pakistan denied that. Specifically, they denied earlier reports that a private military force from Blackwater/Xe was operating in that country without the knowledge of many people in the American and Pakistani governments, and certainly their citizens. This proves that they were both lying to their constituents. At what point on the road to fascism would you like to stop?
How about this? Did Assange provide leaks...
I'm not chasing any red herrings today, thanks.
Everyone has their own agenda, and diplomacy is the art of navigating those agendas without the consent of your citizenry, and often in direct opposition to their interests.
Fixed that for you.
Without privacy there is no diplomacy and without diplomacy there are wars.
The only thing preventing me from believing that is the entirety of modern history. If diplomacy wasn't built on lies, it wouldn't break down and cause war all of the time. If everyone knew that that Saddam Hussein was a US henchman, there would be no public support for the Iraq War in 2003. (Support had to be manufactured from forged documents obtained diplomatically from Britain.) If everyone knew that Saudi Arabia was the leading funder of Al Qaeda, we wouldn't be in Afghanistan. We wouldn't have just sold Saudi Arabia sixty billion dollars in advanced weaponry.
Lets tape all your private conversations...
Let's establish first that my private conversations and intimate relationships are responsible for death, destruction, and the soiling of Constitutional principles. They are called public servants for a fucking reason.
I have no problem with Assange and what he is trying to do in the name of openness. His approach seems to be lets shoot for idealism no matter who it fucks. I am not saying the approach is bad, but it is naive to blindly believe it will have positive results.
Right now the world is shooting for greed no matter who it fucks. I'd rather be committed to ideals.
This fucking realpolitik is astounding from the mouths of Americans. You have no reason to plead fealty to power, but you choose to do it out of sheer cowardice and apathy. Apparently your civil liberties will have to be entirely destroyed before you value them again.
Assange has done more for Democracy, as in the right of people to direct the actions of their government, than the entire Western world has done since WWII. That's why the United States government is so pissed off: it despises the right of people to know what their government is up to with their tax dollars. It didn't want Pakistanis to know of their government's complicity in the drone strikes. It didn't want to admit that the puppet government in Afghanistan was riddled with corruption, even though the State Department has been aware of this fact since the beginning. Just like it didn't want it getting out that we have been systematically destroying democratic institutions, from Iran to Vietnam to Argentina to Palestine, because reality might upset some of it's electorate.
Sure, Assange is kind of a douchebag. You don't think Patrick Henry was? Churchill? However, the marketing ploy of providing this narrative and stringing along the releases has kept this in the news far longer than the previous leaks. It's unfortunate that the mass media, which is owned by corporations, has no self-interest in the truth anymore. But the last hole that can be exploited is the desire to keep their ratings up, and he has done well to exploit this weakness in the system.
If COINTEL PRO had been leaked in the same dramatic fashion, perhaps more people would remember it. The fourth estate is broken. It's going to take soap opera narratives with entertainment value targeted at the masses in order to fix it, which is a hell of a lot better than another war.
The stage is now set to hopefully expose Bank of America or some other major institution for fraud and corruption. Personally, Assange is the only douchebag I would trust with that information. Everyone else in the media are compromised. They are fools, cowards, and intellectual prostitutes.
And, as you see, it's entirely different from the mindless nationalism of other states. Principles? Values? Morals? Secondary to the incidental place of your birth.
America, as far as at least one of the founders would be concerned, no longer exists.
"[If a book were] very innocent, and one which might be confided to the reason of any man; not likely to be much read if let alone, but if persecuted, it will be generally read. Every man in the United States will think it a duty to buy a copy, in vindication of his right to buy and to read what he pleases." -- "The liberty of speaking and writing guards our other liberties." -- "No experiment can be more interesting than that we are now trying, and which we trust will end in establishing the fact, that man may be governed by reason and truth. Our first object should therefore be, to leave open to him all the avenues to truth. The most effectual hitherto found, is the freedom of the press. It is, therefore, the first shut up by those who fear the investigation of their actions." -- "If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so."
This is the dumbest propaganda since Bristol crashed Dancing With The Stars.
The Constitution is founded upon the ideal that all men, regardless of rank or wealth, are equal in front of the eyes of the Law. That's what made it special. The fact that we expanded that to include all US Citizens, regardless of gender, land ownership, race, and religion is also special. The fact that we didn't resort to torture and extra-judicial murder in WWII was also special. That's why we were the Good Guys.
If you want some sort of yellow bellied compromise, that's okay too. Just realize the justification of murdering innocent people to preserve the State has been used by Stalin, Hitler, Mao, and every other corrupt government dating back to the beginning of time. This includes the country we fought to gain our independence.
I was going to say your forgot your period, but then I realized you didn't.
I'd rather use expletives and stick to principles then become a valueless blob that is as dear to the Pentagon as the KGB was to Stalin. You can provide all of the false pretext you like, but it won't change the fact that you're a piece of shit.
If Canadians used the US to stage a terrorist attack on Shanghai, and the Chinese invaded, you'd be lined up on the street waiving the hammer and sickle, is that it? I mean, as long as they have enough political power to coerce the UN into a few years of resolutions.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, what an amazing solution. After a large portion of your population dies from starvation, you can sue the bankrupt pesticide company and get a check ten years down the road.
Hooray libertarianism!
His version of the Iraq War? That the United States
1) Manufactured intelligence about WMDs
2) Ignored all international inspectors who said there were no WMDs
3) Kicked the inspectors out so they could have their war
4) Lied to the American people about the cost and length of war, with Rumsfeld publicly stating that it won't last "much longer" than 5 months or cost more than 50 to 60 billion dollars
5) Ended up torturing Iraqis in the same prisons where Saddam did his dirty work
6) Pretended that we hadn't supported Saddam right through his worst atrocities in the 80s, including supplying him with "dual use" technology to wage a war with Iran that killed a million people and
7) Removing Iraq from the State sponsors of Terror list in 1982 so US firms could also sell him biological weapons to kill Kurds with
If you were born in Germany in 1920, you would have died wearing a belt buckle that read "GOTT MIT UNS." Blind fealty to the flag is fucking pathetic.
It's because there are idiots out there known as "libertarians" who believe that emasculating the government will solve everything. They are just as fucking wrong as utopian communists.
A transparent market is an amazing thing, but unfortunately, a market desires to be opaque in order to increase profits. Unless you have a strong and largely uncorrupted government to continue providing transparency, you don't have a market. You have a conspiratorial oligopoly that will risk destroying entire ecosystems to push up quarterly profits.
Terrorism is also threatening to blow people up just because you can. It's also threatening economic sanctions or embargoes if certain ultimatums are not satisfied. By this measure, the United States government is the largest and best funded terrorist organization in the world.
There are a variety ways we express it: an private diplomatic threat, a publicly implied threat, an threat of economic sanctions through the UN (while we ignore UN resolutions against us), military "exercises", CIA coups, and of course, the outright invasions and public threats of invasion.
America is like the local mafia that you have to do business with, or else you could end up like that guy down the street.
They're not conservative or liberal. They're authoritarian, just like Stalin.
Sure, if you want to go back to before the Revolution communism meant something else, but I'm not trying to convince an academic in some paper. I'm trying to convince a citizen that they're seriously fucking up the whole concept of democracy and the importance of freedom of expression.
Step away from this "left versus right" thing. In reality, what difference is there between Communism and Fascism? Does it make a difference whether a small elite group rules the state which rules commerce, or whether a small elite group rules commerce which rules the state? What if that group is an enlightened oligarchy, or a backwards junta? I suppose you could make a very weak argument that intellectual genocide has more merit than ethnic genocide, but I wouldn't agree. They are both two sides of the same coin: murder to create order.
The measurements of government cannot be drawn on a line graph. Even Canada has been waging it's war on personal freedom through the suppression of drug use, which is the very definition of totalitarianism: prosecuting someone for exercising personal freedom.
From his Inaugural address, formatted for clarity. Notice how many times he uses the word "peace" and how he describes that we should have "honest friendship with all nations".
. . .it is proper you should understand what I deem the essential principles of our Government, and consequently those which ought to shape its Administration. I will compress them within the narrowest compass they will bear, stating the general principle, but not all its limitations:
Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political;
peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none;
the support of the State governments in all their rights, as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns and the surest bulwarks against antirepublican tendencies; the preservation of the General Government in its whole constitutional vigor, as the sheet anchor of our peace at home and safety abroad;
a jealous care of the right of election by the people—a mild and safe corrective of abuses which are lopped by the sword of revolution where peaceable remedies are unprovided;
absolute acquiescence in the decisions of the majority, the vital principle of republics, from which is no appeal but to force, the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism;
a well disciplined militia, our best reliance in peace and for the first moments of war, till regulars may relieve them; the supremacy of the civil over the military authority;
economy in the public expense, that labor may be lightly burthened; the honest payment of our debts and sacred preservation of the public faith; encouragement of agriculture, and of commerce as its handmaid;
the diffusion of information and arraignment of all abuses at the bar of the public reason; freedom of religion; freedom of the press, and freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus, and trial by juries impartially selected.
These principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us and guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation. The wisdom of our sages and blood of our heroes have been devoted to their attainment. They should be the creed of our political faith, the text of civic instruction, the touchstone by which to try the services of those we trust; and should we wander from them in moments of error or of alarm, let us hasten to retrace our steps and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty, and safety.
Paypal and Amazon both gave in to US government pressure to eliminate their services to WikiLeaks. Since WikiLeaks depends on internet presence and donations to exist, it's no different than cutting the power to a house. In this case, it signaled to any other internet provider that they would no longer be friends to the US government, which per the norm, acts like a local mafia boss in enforcing its will in the neighborhood.
The United States differs from other States only in that it does not overtly tell someone to shut up. It threatens charges. It stays quiet while members of it's government and celebrity punditry call for assassination. It sends a few spooks around to anyone connected with you. It's a base form of terrorism, and differs from the KGB only in that it has to look like an accident if they decide to eliminate you. They like plausible deniability because the miserable pro-authoritarian sycophants like you can pretend that those things don't happen, and you'll continue to support the government regardless of how badly they ignore the laws they are supposed to be following.
Take a look at the latest Nobel Peace Prize winner, Liu Xiaobo. What is the effective difference of the Chinese government throwing him in prison, and the US leaning on Sweden to bring back trumped up charges so Assange could be detained while they build a bullshit case to do the same thing? We just have better PR.
Honestly, you're fucking pathetic. You are everything that is wrong with democracy today, because you don't even know what freedom of speech is, or why it's important. I hope you end up in the society you dream of, protesting the latest corporate takeover of your publicly funded infrastructure from your "Free Speech Zone" like the coward you are in order to keep what little freedom they decide to let you keep for the time being.
It is I, Ellison of Larry.
I am communicating from my iPad device on my yacht, which is constructed out of the carcasses of a thousand dead corporations. As I recline on my chaise-lounge and ponder your meaninglessness as I wait for the completion of my moon base, I want to assure you that the rumors stating that the turnip is almost dry are simply untrue. I have rebranded it as Oracle Turnip and raised the price by 10,000% for all of our hapless clients who are locked into the platform. Everything will be just fine.
Signed,
The One who is more magnificent than your greatest conception of God
Either Assange is subject to US law or he isn't. If he is, he should be protected by the First Amendment. If he isn't, then they have no legal right to prosecute him.
All of the idiots who want to temporarily suspend the law to punish one person always forget that it could be their turn sooner than they think. And, frankly, I'd rather not continue to establish the precedent that the world's most powerful country gets to arrogantly ignore international law and kidnap people to kill or torture them. In fifty years, it could be someone else putting hoods over US citizens who dare to mention the truth in public.
When I think of countries contributing to global peace, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Egypt, etc. don't come to mind in the first place.
Sorry bro. Mubarak, Musharraf, Karzai, all buddy buddy with the United States. If Ahmadinejad would follow orders, he'd be our buddy too.
It's an excellent cross reference to see what's really going on in any country on that list. If the US suddenly gives a shit about the Congo, check the news. The mine they rely on is now under threat. If next door there are millions of people being hacked to death with machetes, and we don't care, check the list. There is no useful resource we are exploiting. It's to illustrate that the United States does not operate on principle, but on self-interest, as every state does.
Unfortunately, Assange seems to be overplaying his hand. His only way out of prison time is to reveal something truly new and corrupt enough to get world outrage focused on the United States instead of himself. Then he will have the international support he needs to stay a free man.
He's either building up to this moment, or his arrogance has done him in.
Actually, another tactic may be that he's forcing them to breach the poison pill contract he has established. If he gets picked up and releases the encrypted file keys, it could unleash holy terror worldwide as all of the information they have redacted so far is suddenly unleashed. If there's enough in there to cause a slew of double agents to be exposed internationally, then he'll again have a better chance of staying alive if not free, and he will have collapsed the covert policies that have been running the world since the 20th Century.
The USG has nothing to fear from the NYT or any other news source. They are always interested in keeping access to government officials, so they never step over the line when reporting the news. They don't report on the reality of war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Editors at the major media companies are good friends with everyone in Washington and Wall Street, so you can't get good coverage there either.
Even looking at coverage of WikiLeaks, how many are reporting that the US State Department new immediately that the coup in Honduras was illegal, and then publicly stated a month later that they hadn't decided what had happened? How many are reporting that Hillary Clinton knew Saudi Arabia was the main funding source for the worst extremist groups in the world, but did not publicly reveal this to US Citizens for fear of damaging trade relations with the oil barons?
You would think that would even be front page news on Fox, who'd bread is buttered by fear mongering about muslim terrorists, but it's always below the fold, or on some opinion column that never sees the front page. That's because one of their main investors is a Saudi Prince.
A truly independent press is too dangerous for the United States to tolerate. It's told too many lies to too many people for too long. They know WikiLeaks has zero self-interest in American interests, and that's why the organization is so feared.
During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act. -George Orwell
No, the insults are needed.
Despite your anti-US sentiment, South Korea would look like North Korea if not for our meddling.
Or the whole of Korea might look like Vietnam, or India, or China.
Europe would have become Nazi if not for our meddling.
The German forces were concentrated on the Eastern front. Without the sacrifice of 30 million Russians, the war may have been lost since we didn't get involved on the ground until 1944. There is a reason I picked after WWII - obviously, almost any sort of government is preferable to National Socialism. The difference is that WWII returned democratic societies to democracy. For the sixty years that have followed, we have been trying to coerce other cultures into democracy, which never works, and is itself anti-democratic. I'm all for supporting democratic movements with peaceful action and solidarity. The problem is that the US government only supports a government if they will take orders, or serve our national interest.
That's why in Poland we joined the Catholic peace movement, and in El Salvador we had a hand in assassinating the "voice for the voiceless" while he was giving mass.
(And in related news, a guy named Vasili Arkhipov probably saved the world. Say what you want about the Russians, but they have just as much to do with the survival of civilization as the West.)
What do any of those examples have to do with "the right of people to direct the actions of their government"?
The governments that were being contained or overthrown by these actions definitely would not acknowledge the existence of that right.
Exactly. And the United States doesn't recognize that right either. Somewhat for it's own citizens, and absolutely for the unfortunate citizen of any country in the way of US interests.
I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves.
-- Henry Kissinger, Secretary of State, 1973
Let's go through your list:
1. Berlin Airlift - Saved 2 million residents from going hungry, which was fallout from the partitioning of Europe between WWII allies
2. Korean Police Action - Do you think North Koreans or Chinese have more freedoms today? Is there more suffering in rural China than in the DPRK?
3. Greek Civil War - How is foreign government intervention democratic when the result is a dictatorship?
4. Brussels Pact/NATO: currently the occupying force of Afghanistan.
5. SEATO? The one that didn't do shit about Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, East Timor...?
6. UN: Would be great if the United States would accept it's legitimacy. Right now it's just the chessboard upon which the Great Game is played.
7. The strategic arms limitation treaties: I don't think the West gets credit for cleaning up the mess it created by escalating nuclear proliferation, like secretly allowing Pakistan to develop nukes.
8. the opening of China/US diplomatic relations: which only really happened after Tiananmen Square, once China proved it had the will and the capability to kill it's own citizens to keep business going. Hardly the diamond of democratic progress you're looking for.
9. the founding of the Solidarity Union: Perhaps the only real success story of the Cold War. Too bad anything supportive of unions is out of vogue with US propaganda.
10. the fall of the Soviet Union and reunification: for every country liberated by the fall of the iron curtain, the west destroyed at least one trying to subvert the spread of communism through clandestine military action
Let's go through my list:
50s
- Coup of democratic governments in: Iran, Guatemala
- Attempted coups in Laos, Vietnam
- Support of Duvalier over democratic movements in Haiti
60s
- War in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos
- Coups and assassinations in: Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Greece, Congo, Brazil, Indonesia
- Attempted coup in Cuba
70s
- War in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, East Timor
- Coups and assassinations in Chile, Angola, El Salvador, Nicaragua
- Escalation of Afghan War
80s
- War in Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, Grenada, Panama
- Coups and assassinations in: Columbia, Panama, Haiti, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador
90s
- Coups and assassinations in: Haiti
- War in Iraq
00s
- War in Iraq, Afghanistan
- Military strikes in Pakistan, Yemen
This is not the whole list, does not touch military and diplomatic support, and does not touch weapons sales.
You do realize that Noriega was a CIA asset, right?
The 1988 Senate Subcommittee on Terrorism, Narcotics and International Operations concluded that "The saga of Panama's General Manuel Antonio Noriega represents one of the most serious foreign policy failures for the United States. Throughout the 1970s and the 1980s, Noriega was able to manipulate U.S. policy toward his country, while skillfully accumulating near-absolute power in Panama. It is clear that each U.S. government agency which had a relationship with Noriega turned a blind eye to his corruption and drug dealing, even as he was emerging as a key player on behalf of the Medellín Cartel (a member of which was notorious Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar)." Noriega was allowed to establish "the hemisphere's first 'narcokleptocracy'".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuel_Noriega
Look, if you don't believe a country has the right to determine it's own destiny, that's fine. Just don't bitch when China invades. Get out there and wave the red flag like the obedient coward that you are, and the powerless citizen that you aspire to be.
Almost all of those movements in the United States were opposed by the US government until they gave in to years of struggle by popular movements comprised of dissidents. If you'd read your history, you would know that.
For every country liberated by the fall of the USSR, another has been destroyed by agents of the United States government. To recap:
Vietnam, followed by direct and indirect destruction of Laos and Cambodia
East Timor destroyed by Indonesia, who were equipped by the US
And then you have Chile, Argentina, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama, Haiti, Grenada, Ecuador, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan... and I could go on. All sovereign nations prevented from directing their own destiny by the US government.
You really think we didn't know there is complicity with Pakistan on the drones
The United States and Pakistan denied that. Specifically, they denied earlier reports that a private military force from Blackwater/Xe was operating in that country without the knowledge of many people in the American and Pakistani governments, and certainly their citizens. This proves that they were both lying to their constituents. At what point on the road to fascism would you like to stop?
How about this? Did Assange provide leaks...
I'm not chasing any red herrings today, thanks.
Everyone has their own agenda, and diplomacy is the art of navigating those agendas without the consent of your citizenry, and often in direct opposition to their interests.
Fixed that for you.
Without privacy there is no diplomacy and without diplomacy there are wars.
The only thing preventing me from believing that is the entirety of modern history. If diplomacy wasn't built on lies, it wouldn't break down and cause war all of the time. If everyone knew that that Saddam Hussein was a US henchman, there would be no public support for the Iraq War in 2003. (Support had to be manufactured from forged documents obtained diplomatically from Britain.) If everyone knew that Saudi Arabia was the leading funder of Al Qaeda, we wouldn't be in Afghanistan. We wouldn't have just sold Saudi Arabia sixty billion dollars in advanced weaponry.
Lets tape all your private conversations...
Let's establish first that my private conversations and intimate relationships are responsible for death, destruction, and the soiling of Constitutional principles. They are called public servants for a fucking reason.
I have no problem with Assange and what he is trying to do in the name of openness. His approach seems to be lets shoot for idealism no matter who it fucks. I am not saying the approach is bad, but it is naive to blindly believe it will have positive results.
Right now the world is shooting for greed no matter who it fucks. I'd rather be committed to ideals.
This fucking realpolitik is astounding from the mouths of Americans. You have no reason to plead fealty to power, but you choose to do it out of sheer cowardice and apathy. Apparently your civil liberties will have to be entirely destroyed before you value them again.
Assange has done more for Democracy, as in the right of people to direct the actions of their government, than the entire Western world has done since WWII. That's why the United States government is so pissed off: it despises the right of people to know what their government is up to with their tax dollars. It didn't want Pakistanis to know of their government's complicity in the drone strikes. It didn't want to admit that the puppet government in Afghanistan was riddled with corruption, even though the State Department has been aware of this fact since the beginning. Just like it didn't want it getting out that we have been systematically destroying democratic institutions, from Iran to Vietnam to Argentina to Palestine, because reality might upset some of it's electorate.
Sure, Assange is kind of a douchebag. You don't think Patrick Henry was? Churchill? However, the marketing ploy of providing this narrative and stringing along the releases has kept this in the news far longer than the previous leaks. It's unfortunate that the mass media, which is owned by corporations, has no self-interest in the truth anymore. But the last hole that can be exploited is the desire to keep their ratings up, and he has done well to exploit this weakness in the system.
If COINTEL PRO had been leaked in the same dramatic fashion, perhaps more people would remember it. The fourth estate is broken. It's going to take soap opera narratives with entertainment value targeted at the masses in order to fix it, which is a hell of a lot better than another war.
The stage is now set to hopefully expose Bank of America or some other major institution for fraud and corruption. Personally, Assange is the only douchebag I would trust with that information. Everyone else in the media are compromised. They are fools, cowards, and intellectual prostitutes.
And, as you see, it's entirely different from the mindless nationalism of other states. Principles? Values? Morals? Secondary to the incidental place of your birth.
USA! USA! USA! REGARDLESS OF HER HYPOCRISY, USA!
America, as far as at least one of the founders would be concerned, no longer exists.
"[If a book were] very innocent, and one which might be confided to the reason of any man; not likely to be much read if let alone, but if persecuted, it will be generally read. Every man in the United States will think it a duty to buy a copy, in vindication of his right to buy and to read what he pleases."
--
"The liberty of speaking and writing guards our other liberties."
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"No experiment can be more interesting than that we are now trying, and which we trust will end in establishing the fact, that man may be governed by reason and truth. Our first object should therefore be, to leave open to him all the avenues to truth. The most effectual hitherto found, is the freedom of the press. It is, therefore, the first shut up by those who fear the investigation of their actions."
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"If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so."
-– Thomas Jefferson
Yes, much better than your understanding of the definition of anthropomorphic.
This is the dumbest propaganda since Bristol crashed Dancing With The Stars.
The Constitution is founded upon the ideal that all men, regardless of rank or wealth, are equal in front of the eyes of the Law. That's what made it special. The fact that we expanded that to include all US Citizens, regardless of gender, land ownership, race, and religion is also special. The fact that we didn't resort to torture and extra-judicial murder in WWII was also special. That's why we were the Good Guys.
If you want some sort of yellow bellied compromise, that's okay too. Just realize the justification of murdering innocent people to preserve the State has been used by Stalin, Hitler, Mao, and every other corrupt government dating back to the beginning of time. This includes the country we fought to gain our independence.
Power for it's own sake is nothing new.
How's life as an apparatchik? Do you get the good rolls of bread before the members of the Outer Party?
I was going to say your forgot your period, but then I realized you didn't.
I'd rather use expletives and stick to principles then become a valueless blob that is as dear to the Pentagon as the KGB was to Stalin. You can provide all of the false pretext you like, but it won't change the fact that you're a piece of shit.
If Canadians used the US to stage a terrorist attack on Shanghai, and the Chinese invaded, you'd be lined up on the street waiving the hammer and sickle, is that it? I mean, as long as they have enough political power to coerce the UN into a few years of resolutions.
I don't buy it. And neither does anyone else.