As a fellow American, i'm going to call you on this cop-out. We are responsible for the acts of our government. We cannot enjoy the priviledges of the American lifestyle without taking some of the credit/blame for American policies. (The same holds true for every citizen/nation.)
I may not agree with every decision made by my government, but unless i am always actively and publicly protesting, lobbying, and getting involved, i am giving tacit approval to my government's actions.
If i take the percentage of time i spent increasing my income, fiddling with my computer, and otherwise enjoying my life and that's the percentage of approval i've given to my government/society/culture/world.
I could get involved in the political process. I could get elected or appointed to a position of power if i work at it (or bribe my way into it). I could spend my time educating my elected representative and/or my fellow citizens. The system is not perfect and does not give enough power to individuals, but it is not independant from the individual.
I'm not suggesting that every one of us should devote ourselves 24/7 to politics, but we should be willing to admit that every minute that is not spent changing the world for the better is a minute that gives tacit approval to the status quo.
Ethically speaking, we are not responsible for the actions of every soldier in combat, we are not responsible for every bribe that a public official may take, and we are not responsible for every harmful policy an American company enacts, but we are responsible for the circumstances that allow these things to happen.
If i want to be free from blame, i must devote myself as much as possible changing the things i do not like. Otherwise i must accept that i are an accomplice to the misdeeds of my world. It is the unwillingness to take responsibility for our own actions and the actions of our institutions that has allowed our nation and our world to reach its current state.
Lesson from physics: things tends to follow the easiest path barring outside action. Like water flowing to the lowest point through the path of least resistance, so goes our world. Action is needed to change the course of a stream. Action is needed to change our world. Lack of action indicates approval of the current state and acceptance of the possible futures arising from it.
Might the shrinkage in number of websites have something to do with the corporate assimilation of the web?
As anyone who's been here from the start can testify, things have changed substantially since the early days. First there just wasn't much out there, and what there was was pretty random. Then Yahoo and other search/gateway sites began to come along just as the first boom of sites hit, making things a bit more organized and predictable. Soon after this, the corporations began to make their presence known, and then they started to take over.
Now if you want information on a topic you go to a corporate website that specializes in providing that information along with lots of other info, banner adds, pop-up adds, redirects to partner sites, etc. ad nauseum.
Old sites are lapsing because their place has been usurped by profit-driven sites. Times may have been hard for the tech industry lately, but who's going to go offline first: the business paying $1000 per month in hosting fees or the unemployed tech worker who's paying similar fees for his personal domain.
There's also the rise of the umbrella site that hosts a number of smaller sites under a single domain so that Jim's tech page is no longer at www.jimstechpage.net, but is now found under www.acmeweb.com/jimstechpage/.
Not all of this is bad, not all of it is good. The times they are a changin', and if we don't want to be caught unawares, we should keep our eyes open to the way its changing instead of sticking with an utopian vision that went bye-bye 5 years ago.
Oh sure, their behavior is not a result of our policies, but our policies (governmental and corporate) do enable their behavior. Doing business with Saudi Arabia is like doing business with apartheid-era South Africa. Sure, maybe we're not responsible for their system, but it takes a pretty morally bankrupt person (or nation) to reward them for it.
It's not a matter of being "dumb enough to try it," it's a matter of being powerful enough make it legal. If they see enough profit in it, they can buy Senators all day long until it's legal. Politicians are cheap compared to actors.
derrickh may be simplifying it a little, but his point is valid and scary.
People (or at least their images, voices, and names) will become commodities. They will be bought and sold by collectors, investors, studios, and Associations (as in MPAA and RIAA). Do you trust your "estate" not to sell you to the highest bidder to pay off their mortgage?
How long will it be until the studios are getting desperate young actors to sign away the rights to their own face and voices? Suddenly a career consists of stepping into a biometric scanning booth and collecting royalty checks.
How long before the MPAA buys enough senators to pass a law saying the actors' images are the studios' IP?
The problem here is not with the technology, but with the organizations that control it. The technology could be used to encourage creativity and provide a continuing legacy, but in our world, dignity almost always loses out to greed.
The desire for peace and justice is not the same as cowardice.
Cowardice is to be afraid to act. Violence is preferable to cowardice, but it requires much more bravery to remain non-violent in the face of violence. (Gandhi said that.)
Slaughtering innocents in Afghanistan, Palestine or Iraq is no better than slaughtering innocents in New York, nor is it justified by what happened yesterday.
The US should respond, but not with indiscriminate violence. It's too easy for us to be deluded by racist undercurrents and nationalistic propaganda that seeks to restore America's tough image instead of her ideals of freedom and justice.
Those who advise caution want to make sure that the situation does not happen again. We want to make sure that justice is served on the correct parties, not on a scapegoat. We want to ensure that we don't spark fear and hatred in the nations who were not responsible for yesterday's attacks.
If we act in a heavy-handed and indiscriminate manner we will only make more enemies and provoke more attacks. We don't care about angering the terrorists who are responsible for yesterday, we just don't want to create more terrorists by overreacting. By all means prevent those who are responsible for yesterday's attacks from ever doing it again, but let's not strike out prematurely and blindly.
Do not confuse vengeance with justice. Vengeance heals wounded pride but causes more problems. Justice heals wounded spirits and prevents more problems.
As an American, i believe that we must show that we can be strong without being tyrannical to other nations. We must show other countries that we will defend our citizens but we will not indiscriminately harm theirs.
Grown-ups know that an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth leaves us all blind and toothless. (Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi said that.)
Let's take care of our wounded and grieving first and defend ourselves from a repeat as well. When we know who is responsible then we can talk about what to do about it.
It is my country and i preach peace. Not the peace of cowardice, but the peace of justice. By all means, find those directly responsible for the planning and execution of the attack and give them their day in court - a real and impartial trial based not on bloodlust, but on evidence.
Do not lash out blindly and unjustly at a nation, race or religion as though every individual member is equally responsible for the actions of an extremist minority.
One of the aims of terrorism is to provoke an unjustified response. It spreads sympathy for the terrorists and makes their act seem justified. Let us not give them that satisfaction.
Nothing can justify this attack, nor can this attack justify a response of the same scale from us.
We must be more vigilant in our own defense. We must make greater efforts to treat the other citizens of the world as equals, not servants. We must remain true to our ideals in deed as well as word.
September 11, 2001 will be remembered in history, but let us remember it as the darkness before the dawn, not as a step on the path of destruction.
"When we have an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, it leaves America toothless and blind"
"Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love."
~ Martin Luther King Jr.
Dell may not be as bad as the others but they're not winning any prizes in my book. I've had the usual treatment from them - long hold times, bounced calls, and lies.
Shall we indulge in a few anecdotes?
Transferred through three different departments just to get a copy of a bill of sale. Had to call back a second time and get transferred through two of the same departments to get the paperwork.
Spent two hours on hold after a transfer. (It was a toll free call and i had a second line available so i left it to see how long the hold time would last.)
Told the tech i was a sysadmin, and that the problem had to be internal to the hardware. (Seemingly random and instantaneous power loss.) He made me install a bunch of useless software updates and call back twice before letting me ship it back for repair. (Turns out it was a bad motherboard.)
When a tech offered to transfer me to another person i asked if i would get stuck on hold again. The tech said, "No, this is a direct line." Half an hour later i got to speak to someone.
I try to be courteous and patient. I know these people didn't cause my problem, but they don't usually solve it either.
My advice: Call a sales line and pretend like you got there by accident. The wait times are much shorter (usually nonexistant), the people are friendlier, and they can frequently transfer you directly to a tech support person.
The first ammendment says that the government can't make laws limiting free speech. Private schools are not government entities and are therefore entitled to make just about any rules they wish.
The reasoning goes that by attending a private school with restrictive rules, you are voluntarily giving up some of your rights at school. It assumes that this is a conscious choice and not something that just gets foisted upon unsuspecting students by the administrators and by their parents.
Yes, you are.
(No i'm not!)
(Yes you are!)
(No i'm not!)
(Yes you are!)
(You're stupid!)
(I know you are but what am i?)
(Etc. I just thought i'd save us some time and carry the argument out to its logical conclusion. All in jest, sir.;)
You are still attacking the analogy (which really has little substantive use in this article) rather than the actual content of the article.
In the early stages of the automobile, there were hundreds of manufacturers in the US, and lots of unsafe cars. Now there are the Big Three and cars are much safer, but do you think that during the early stages of the industry anyone could possibly have predicted what the automobile would become?
Ah, but the safety of the modern automobile is due to outside activism. People like Ralph Nader monitored the developers of the technology and forced them to include safety features not because the average consumer was clamoring for them, but because they were necessary for public well-being.
We need external monitors for the new technologies as well. It was relatively easy to engineer seat belts, air bags, structural reinforcements, etc. after the cars had been around for 50 years, but developing safeguards for biotech after it has been released isn't guaranteed to be so easy.
Let's monitor and take precautions so that we're:
very sure we want the genie out of the bottle
very sure of what the genie's going to do once it's out
and/or
able to put the genie back in the bottle
With proper monitoring, we don't have to be Kreskins, but the monitoring process, combined with careful ethical analysis will make our predictions better. Just because our predictions can't be 100% accurate doesn't mean we shouldn't try.
Too bad i don't have mod priviledges right now, because if i ever saw a perfect example of "Offtopic", this is it.
You're diverting the discussion from the argument to the semantics, which is akin to attacking an idea based upon its grammar.
And by replying, i'm helping you do it. Egads! The abyss has gazed too long into me! Monster, I have become! Cursed was the day of your birth, yea, and mine as well!
The phrase "Tyranny of the Majority" refers to the oppression of the minority by the majority. Democracy is built upon majority rule, but when the majority use their voting power to marginalize and oppress, that is tyranny.
Don't get me wrong, i disagree with Natapoff as well, but the Tyranny issue is an aside. I just don't think his analysis matches the reality. There are better options than simple majority. Natapoff fails to acknowledge this.
It never fails that when some dumb-ass wants to prove their point, they bring up Hitler and the Nazis as their "hypothetical" case. When will they realize that Hitler, as a figure is too polarizing to allow any realistic analogy to be drawn.
These people didn't die just to be used as "hypothetical" support for every moron's argument.
Gore doesn't own my vote. My vote for Nader didn't take anything away from Gore because Gore never earned it.
I still can't decide which of the dumbass twins i'd prefer in office.
The Moron would at least have the support of congress, so something may be accomplished. Of course, he is a moron, so we may not like what he accomplishes.
On the other hand, the Liar would continue with business as usual, which ain't that impressive, but neither is it debilitating.
I don't think either one of them can do irreperable harm, but neither is likely to do any good either.
It's been a while since there's been any race this significant that was this close, and i think it might prompt people to push for political reform.
Everyone knows the electoral college is an outdated affectation that no longer represents the views of the people. It's high time we changed it.
We might even be able to push for things like proportional representation and instant-runoff voting while we're at it. (More info on PR and IRV.) Nader might not have gotten his 5%, but his message on these topics might get heard anyway.
For the internet to fulfill any empowerment fantasies we may have about it, we first have to make progress in our everyday lives.
Unless we make fundamental changes, commercialism and corporatism will eventually take over the net because they have already taken over every other aspect of our lives.
The net will (like it or not) mirror the values (or lack thereof) of its users in proportion to the prevalence of those views. Until the balance of the net populace takes responsibility for and power over their lives and actions, the corporations will continue to dominate.
We need fundamental changes to our social, political, and economic structures that will allow a more democratic and responsible ethic flourish before we can expect a responsible and democratic ethic to flourish.
Respect for diversity, meaningful voice for individuals in politics, and widespread commitment to ethical behavior in business and economics, are all steps towards change.
The question for each of us is how do we make these things happen in our lives? Let's educate ourselves about the issues, get involved in our government, and be personal examples of what we want for the world.
No matter how much we like to say McCarthyism and the Cold War were bad and wrong, the fact is that they have made Communism and Socialism into bad words.
Most people don't even understand what these things are, but they know that Russia used to be big and scary and evil when it was a communist nation. They know that socialism is like communism in some ways, so it must be bad too.
Most people don't understand that communism, socialism, and capitalism are purely economic systems that can be attatched to virtually any form of government. Americans have been trained to believe that Communism and Socialism != Democracy.
Most red-blooded Americans would be shocked to learn that they live in a socialist country. Public education, public roads, fire departments, hospitals, police. All Socialist agencies!
I suppose this really answers the how, not the why. During the Cold War, it was all done to get support for the military-industrial complex. Now it's just habit. The people who were raised during that time period raise their kids the same way. To paraphrase Doctor King, "Ignorance breeds ignorance."
It's perfectly OK to believe that Communism and Socialism are not good economic systems, but quite another to demonize the names and associate them with all the evils of humanity.
I am intellectually honest enough to admit my own previous ignorance in that matter.
But not brave enough to sign your name to a diatribe laced with big words in the (failed) hopes of sounding intelligent and pandering to knee-jerk reactions by invoking phrases like "Stalinism".
There's too many people complaining and not enough working on a solution. Try offering an alternative.
Nader is the alternative. He will reform the corrupt political system so that each person's vote matters and the people have more voice than the corporate $.
Yes, Bush trusts the public to make their own decisions with money and guns, but not with abortions or the internet. Yay freedom.
Gore trusts the public with abortions, but not with guns, money, movies, or the internet. Much better.
The real problem is that neither trusts the public.
They both trust the corporations to keep lining their pockets.
There's a lot of morons in the world who i wouldn't trust with a nerf ball, so i can't blame them on some issues.
I know i don't trust corporations, so i'm voting for Nader. At least he's not on their payroll.
Slashdot Mirror
What has this got to do with news for nerds?
Plenty. It's so rare, that every time a geek finds love, it should be treated like a court judgement against Microsoft! Another win for the underdog!
Hello, Pot? This is Kettle. I was just calling to tell you that you're black. Thanks, see you later.
As a fellow American, i'm going to call you on this cop-out. We are responsible for the acts of our government. We cannot enjoy the priviledges of the American lifestyle without taking some of the credit/blame for American policies. (The same holds true for every citizen/nation.)
I may not agree with every decision made by my government, but unless i am always actively and publicly protesting, lobbying, and getting involved, i am giving tacit approval to my government's actions.
If i take the percentage of time i spent increasing my income, fiddling with my computer, and otherwise enjoying my life and that's the percentage of approval i've given to my government/society/culture/world.
I could get involved in the political process. I could get elected or appointed to a position of power if i work at it (or bribe my way into it). I could spend my time educating my elected representative and/or my fellow citizens. The system is not perfect and does not give enough power to individuals, but it is not independant from the individual.
I'm not suggesting that every one of us should devote ourselves 24/7 to politics, but we should be willing to admit that every minute that is not spent changing the world for the better is a minute that gives tacit approval to the status quo.
Ethically speaking, we are not responsible for the actions of every soldier in combat, we are not responsible for every bribe that a public official may take, and we are not responsible for every harmful policy an American company enacts, but we are responsible for the circumstances that allow these things to happen.
If i want to be free from blame, i must devote myself as much as possible changing the things i do not like. Otherwise i must accept that i are an accomplice to the misdeeds of my world. It is the unwillingness to take responsibility for our own actions and the actions of our institutions that has allowed our nation and our world to reach its current state.
Lesson from physics: things tends to follow the easiest path barring outside action. Like water flowing to the lowest point through the path of least resistance, so goes our world. Action is needed to change the course of a stream. Action is needed to change our world. Lack of action indicates approval of the current state and acceptance of the possible futures arising from it.
Might the shrinkage in number of websites have something to do with the corporate assimilation of the web?
As anyone who's been here from the start can testify, things have changed substantially since the early days. First there just wasn't much out there, and what there was was pretty random. Then Yahoo and other search/gateway sites began to come along just as the first boom of sites hit, making things a bit more organized and predictable. Soon after this, the corporations began to make their presence known, and then they started to take over.
Now if you want information on a topic you go to a corporate website that specializes in providing that information along with lots of other info, banner adds, pop-up adds, redirects to partner sites, etc. ad nauseum.
Old sites are lapsing because their place has been usurped by profit-driven sites. Times may have been hard for the tech industry lately, but who's going to go offline first: the business paying $1000 per month in hosting fees or the unemployed tech worker who's paying similar fees for his personal domain.
There's also the rise of the umbrella site that hosts a number of smaller sites under a single domain so that Jim's tech page is no longer at www.jimstechpage.net, but is now found under www.acmeweb.com/jimstechpage/.
Not all of this is bad, not all of it is good. The times they are a changin', and if we don't want to be caught unawares, we should keep our eyes open to the way its changing instead of sticking with an utopian vision that went bye-bye 5 years ago.
Oh sure, their behavior is not a result of our policies, but our policies (governmental and corporate) do enable their behavior. Doing business with Saudi Arabia is like doing business with apartheid-era South Africa. Sure, maybe we're not responsible for their system, but it takes a pretty morally bankrupt person (or nation) to reward them for it.
It's not a matter of being "dumb enough to try it," it's a matter of being powerful enough make it legal. If they see enough profit in it, they can buy Senators all day long until it's legal. Politicians are cheap compared to actors.
What dumb-ass rated this as funny?
derrickh may be simplifying it a little, but his point is valid and scary.
People (or at least their images, voices, and names) will become commodities. They will be bought and sold by collectors, investors, studios, and Associations (as in MPAA and RIAA). Do you trust your "estate" not to sell you to the highest bidder to pay off their mortgage?
How long will it be until the studios are getting desperate young actors to sign away the rights to their own face and voices? Suddenly a career consists of stepping into a biometric scanning booth and collecting royalty checks.
How long before the MPAA buys enough senators to pass a law saying the actors' images are the studios' IP?
The problem here is not with the technology, but with the organizations that control it. The technology could be used to encourage creativity and provide a continuing legacy, but in our world, dignity almost always loses out to greed.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
~ Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
The desire for peace and justice is not the same as cowardice.
Cowardice is to be afraid to act. Violence is preferable to cowardice, but it requires much more bravery to remain non-violent in the face of violence. (Gandhi said that.)
Slaughtering innocents in Afghanistan, Palestine or Iraq is no better than slaughtering innocents in New York, nor is it justified by what happened yesterday.
The US should respond, but not with indiscriminate violence. It's too easy for us to be deluded by racist undercurrents and nationalistic propaganda that seeks to restore America's tough image instead of her ideals of freedom and justice.
Those who advise caution want to make sure that the situation does not happen again. We want to make sure that justice is served on the correct parties, not on a scapegoat. We want to ensure that we don't spark fear and hatred in the nations who were not responsible for yesterday's attacks.
If we act in a heavy-handed and indiscriminate manner we will only make more enemies and provoke more attacks. We don't care about angering the terrorists who are responsible for yesterday, we just don't want to create more terrorists by overreacting. By all means prevent those who are responsible for yesterday's attacks from ever doing it again, but let's not strike out prematurely and blindly.
Do not confuse vengeance with justice. Vengeance heals wounded pride but causes more problems. Justice heals wounded spirits and prevents more problems.
As an American, i believe that we must show that we can be strong without being tyrannical to other nations. We must show other countries that we will defend our citizens but we will not indiscriminately harm theirs.
Grown-ups know that an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth leaves us all blind and toothless. (Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi said that.)
Let's take care of our wounded and grieving first and defend ourselves from a repeat as well. When we know who is responsible then we can talk about what to do about it.
It is my country and i preach peace. Not the peace of cowardice, but the peace of justice. By all means, find those directly responsible for the planning and execution of the attack and give them their day in court - a real and impartial trial based not on bloodlust, but on evidence.
Do not lash out blindly and unjustly at a nation, race or religion as though every individual member is equally responsible for the actions of an extremist minority.
One of the aims of terrorism is to provoke an unjustified response. It spreads sympathy for the terrorists and makes their act seem justified. Let us not give them that satisfaction.
Nothing can justify this attack, nor can this attack justify a response of the same scale from us.
We must be more vigilant in our own defense. We must make greater efforts to treat the other citizens of the world as equals, not servants. We must remain true to our ideals in deed as well as word.
September 11, 2001 will be remembered in history, but let us remember it as the darkness before the dawn, not as a step on the path of destruction.
"When we have an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, it leaves America toothless and blind"
"Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love."
~ Martin Luther King Jr.
Dell may not be as bad as the others but they're not winning any prizes in my book. I've had the usual treatment from them - long hold times, bounced calls, and lies.
Shall we indulge in a few anecdotes?
Transferred through three different departments just to get a copy of a bill of sale. Had to call back a second time and get transferred through two of the same departments to get the paperwork.
Spent two hours on hold after a transfer. (It was a toll free call and i had a second line available so i left it to see how long the hold time would last.)
Told the tech i was a sysadmin, and that the problem had to be internal to the hardware. (Seemingly random and instantaneous power loss.) He made me install a bunch of useless software updates and call back twice before letting me ship it back for repair. (Turns out it was a bad motherboard.)
When a tech offered to transfer me to another person i asked if i would get stuck on hold again. The tech said, "No, this is a direct line." Half an hour later i got to speak to someone.
I try to be courteous and patient. I know these people didn't cause my problem, but they don't usually solve it either.
My advice: Call a sales line and pretend like you got there by accident. The wait times are much shorter (usually nonexistant), the people are friendlier, and they can frequently transfer you directly to a tech support person.
The first ammendment says that the government can't make laws limiting free speech. Private schools are not government entities and are therefore entitled to make just about any rules they wish.
The reasoning goes that by attending a private school with restrictive rules, you are voluntarily giving up some of your rights at school. It assumes that this is a conscious choice and not something that just gets foisted upon unsuspecting students by the administrators and by their parents.
Yes, you are. ;)
(No i'm not!)
(Yes you are!)
(No i'm not!)
(Yes you are!)
(You're stupid!)
(I know you are but what am i?)
(Etc. I just thought i'd save us some time and carry the argument out to its logical conclusion. All in jest, sir.
You are still attacking the analogy (which really has little substantive use in this article) rather than the actual content of the article.
See my reply to #46.
Ah, but the safety of the modern automobile is due to outside activism. People like Ralph Nader monitored the developers of the technology and forced them to include safety features not because the average consumer was clamoring for them, but because they were necessary for public well-being.
We need external monitors for the new technologies as well. It was relatively easy to engineer seat belts, air bags, structural reinforcements, etc. after the cars had been around for 50 years, but developing safeguards for biotech after it has been released isn't guaranteed to be so easy.
Let's monitor and take precautions so that we're:
and/or
With proper monitoring, we don't have to be Kreskins, but the monitoring process, combined with careful ethical analysis will make our predictions better. Just because our predictions can't be 100% accurate doesn't mean we shouldn't try.
Too bad i don't have mod priviledges right now, because if i ever saw a perfect example of "Offtopic", this is it.
You're diverting the discussion from the argument to the semantics, which is akin to attacking an idea based upon its grammar.
And by replying, i'm helping you do it. Egads! The abyss has gazed too long into me! Monster, I have become! Cursed was the day of your birth, yea, and mine as well!
The phrase "Tyranny of the Majority" refers to the oppression of the minority by the majority. Democracy is built upon majority rule, but when the majority use their voting power to marginalize and oppress, that is tyranny.
Don't get me wrong, i disagree with Natapoff as well, but the Tyranny issue is an aside. I just don't think his analysis matches the reality. There are better options than simple majority. Natapoff fails to acknowledge this.
It never fails that when some dumb-ass wants to prove their point, they bring up Hitler and the Nazis as their "hypothetical" case. When will they realize that Hitler, as a figure is too polarizing to allow any realistic analogy to be drawn.
These people didn't die just to be used as "hypothetical" support for every moron's argument.
Gore doesn't own my vote. My vote for Nader didn't take anything away from Gore because Gore never earned it.
I still can't decide which of the dumbass twins i'd prefer in office.
The Moron would at least have the support of congress, so something may be accomplished. Of course, he is a moron, so we may not like what he accomplishes.
On the other hand, the Liar would continue with business as usual, which ain't that impressive, but neither is it debilitating.
I don't think either one of them can do irreperable harm, but neither is likely to do any good either.
It's been a while since there's been any race this significant that was this close, and i think it might prompt people to push for political reform.
Everyone knows the electoral college is an outdated affectation that no longer represents the views of the people. It's high time we changed it.
We might even be able to push for things like proportional representation and instant-runoff voting while we're at it. (More info on PR and IRV.) Nader might not have gotten his 5%, but his message on these topics might get heard anyway.
For the internet to fulfill any empowerment fantasies we may have about it, we first have to make progress in our everyday lives.
Unless we make fundamental changes, commercialism and corporatism will eventually take over the net because they have already taken over every other aspect of our lives.
The net will (like it or not) mirror the values (or lack thereof) of its users in proportion to the prevalence of those views. Until the balance of the net populace takes responsibility for and power over their lives and actions, the corporations will continue to dominate.
We need fundamental changes to our social, political, and economic structures that will allow a more democratic and responsible ethic flourish before we can expect a responsible and democratic ethic to flourish.
Respect for diversity, meaningful voice for individuals in politics, and widespread commitment to ethical behavior in business and economics, are all steps towards change.
The question for each of us is how do we make these things happen in our lives? Let's educate ourselves about the issues, get involved in our government, and be personal examples of what we want for the world.
No matter how much we like to say McCarthyism and the Cold War were bad and wrong, the fact is that they have made Communism and Socialism into bad words.
Most people don't even understand what these things are, but they know that Russia used to be big and scary and evil when it was a communist nation. They know that socialism is like communism in some ways, so it must be bad too.
Most people don't understand that communism, socialism, and capitalism are purely economic systems that can be attatched to virtually any form of government. Americans have been trained to believe that Communism and Socialism != Democracy.
Most red-blooded Americans would be shocked to learn that they live in a socialist country. Public education, public roads, fire departments, hospitals, police. All Socialist agencies!
I suppose this really answers the how, not the why. During the Cold War, it was all done to get support for the military-industrial complex. Now it's just habit. The people who were raised during that time period raise their kids the same way. To paraphrase Doctor King, "Ignorance breeds ignorance."
It's perfectly OK to believe that Communism and Socialism are not good economic systems, but quite another to demonize the names and associate them with all the evils of humanity.
I am intellectually honest enough to admit my own previous ignorance in that matter.
But not brave enough to sign your name to a diatribe laced with big words in the (failed) hopes of sounding intelligent and pandering to knee-jerk reactions by invoking phrases like "Stalinism".
There's too many people complaining and not enough working on a solution. Try offering an alternative.
Nader is the alternative. He will reform the corrupt political system so that each person's vote matters and the people have more voice than the corporate $.
Yes, Bush trusts the public to make their own decisions with money and guns, but not with abortions or the internet. Yay freedom.
Gore trusts the public with abortions, but not with guns, money, movies, or the internet. Much better.
The real problem is that neither trusts the public.
They both trust the corporations to keep lining their pockets.
There's a lot of morons in the world who i wouldn't trust with a nerf ball, so i can't blame them on some issues.
I know i don't trust corporations, so i'm voting for Nader. At least he's not on their payroll.