DRM, like "two tier Internet", copyright abuse, IP lockdowns, domain name tyranny, and all kinds of corporate grabs of virtual property rights, are certainly means to a primarily political end. Even severely asymmetrical broadband, stymied 3G, and proprietary software requirements. The goal is to protect an official publisher class from encroachment by hordes of merely populist entrants, like you and me. 20th Century politics depends on special deals between political incumbents and media for mutual self-perpetuation. Leveling the playing field for incumbents and new, more diversified entrants who can fill all the niches more efficiently, is bad for everyone who's already got power.
That's why we find the same people on each side of each of those apparently different conflicts. Prosumers are the wave of the future, but the powers that be are hyperextending the "long now" as late as possible.
I spent the millennium rollover (2000-1) in Morrocco, in the desert outside Ouarzazate under the stars. I lived with a Berber gnaoua troupe, had a fling with a Rabat girl in Marrakech, and haunted the Casablanca bazaar for days. Unaccompanied, without French, Arabic or Berber - just a smile and an open mind. I had a great time, and confirmed my view that the Mediterranean is much more a geographical region than is "Europe" or "Africa". Further confirmed when I hopped over Mauritania to travel alone through Mali and Timbuktu. And I've continued to update myself with developments in those regions, both over the Net and in person with emigres here in NYC.
I saw that many "Muslim" countries are subjugated by their own duopoly: tyrants vs theocrats, just as Americans have our own Democrats vs Republicans. We've had centuries to evolve people power here, but Muslims have had millennia to for people to either accept powerlessness, or to use their power to demand tyrants or theocrats.
I think the worst reversal ever for universal democracy, certainly as a means to personal freedom and equity, was Bush's Iraq invasion. Apart from every other strategic, legal and political consideration, I think of what America would have become if France had merely invaded Britain's 13 American colonies for "regime change" and to institute democracy here. We probably would never have made our own national identity. We started our revolution not as a sophisticaed democracy, but based simply on "independence" from England - the Declaration of Independence is the basis of our nation, though it has no legal weight except rhetorical. If America wants democracies, we need to support independent foreign democratic groups in autocratic countries. Just like France backed the American Congress against the British, along with Poland and other original American allies.
I'd organize programs to support local factions, like South Africa's ANC, with economic, propaganda, diplomatic, communications/training, and even security guarantees. Even more radically, I would stop America harboring political refugees, which takes the pressure off their home countries to reform. Except perhaps long enough to temporarily relocate immediate family out of harm's way while the "freedom fighter" gets American training, including human rights screening/training and even political/governance theory, not necessarily even in the American system. Sponsor self-determination, and countries will find their own way with sure feet to rule by the people. Even when "based in sharia", the self-determination will evolve just as American law evolved from both old/new testament biblical morality and English law, as well as French and Spanish colonial legal artifacts.
I'm not so sure that decades of oppressive regimes in Muslim countries can be blamed simply on "US backing", though that's certainly largely true. The British have much responsibility, especially in creating all of the "sponsored" states the US "inherited" following the British Empire downsizing. The boundaries of most of Africa, Arabia, "the Orient" are largely British in origin, designed to split more stable nations into crippled states governed by a greedy, fearful minority, neighboring a rival state where the roles are reversed or shifted to a different oppressed/or. Americans have a lot of blame for perpatuating such states, for accepting the Cold War scam of "fighting Communism" by chosing fascism, rather than growing democracy. But specifically Iraq, Pakistan, southern West Africa, South and East Africa, Arabia, Malaysia, and territory of millions of other people are deliberately botched British creations. The French have their blame, Belgians in Central Africa, even the Dutch in Indonesia have a legacy of blame.
The bigger picture is a half-millennium of EurAmerican corporate exploitation. Even North America has been exploited that way, though our people have gotten our share more equitably distributed elsewhere by middle-class revolution enabling centuries of overt corporat
2000 hours over 10 years is 200h:y, or 33 minutes per day. That's not so heavy use among the people I know.
But what about Bluetooth? People wear headsets inserted into their skulls, along a canal closer to the brain, against a transparent auditory nerve hole. All day long. It's a different frequency, and different power level than cellphones. There isn't 10 years of data yet. But why should we wait?
Those aren't "brain tumors" - not the familiar cancerous growths. They're neural phone links our brains are growing to directly interface the phones. Rather than shielding radiation or moving phones away from our heads, we should be investing in more and faster growths. Because this development is the fastest way to move phones inside the head, where annoying ringtones and semversations don't bother bystanders.
I don't know what it is that you know about "Palestinians", but "Palestinians" have not been a nation (before 1948) since the time of Hebrew conquest millennia ago. Even then it was only occasionally under local rule. For almost its entire history, Palestine and its people have been ruled by distant empires, whether Egyptian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Roman, Byzantine, Persian, Arabic, Venetian, Vatican, Turkish or English. Even if you describe that long history of conquest as "foreign aggression", peace there has been enforced brutally by foreign occupying armies. Usually with local opposition, even if usually ineffective. English control and Israeli autonomy have come with much greater freedom than in millennia past, which has allowed much more persistent violence. And which has had more effect on local politics, perpetuating the violence. Where is some evidence for this "peaceful nation" you claim, other than that of a forcefully subdued people in bondage?
You can't possibly support any claim that I say there's nothing wrong with the Jewish settlement in the Mideast.
As far as whether I'd like resettled Jews "right next to where I live", I live in New York City. Right next to me is a community of Jews indistinguishable from a European shtetl, but with plumbing and electricity. Most of the worst Jewish racists in Israel travel freely between here and there, often growing up here to migrate there. Far from "impossible", I live in a city, where I grew up, that has been defined quite a bit by Jewish resettlement here, and is directly connected to those resettled in Israel. And when the people integrate with the locals, even if they don't assimilate, it's a perfectly good way for a country to evolve.
I don't know how deeply you've bought into the "Jewish occupation" propaganda, so I don't know whether I'm just wasting keystrokes talking with you about Israel/Palestine expecting actual communication, but I hope for it. Your link to the French article leads with statements including "[Palestinians] will be punished for practising democracy". Palestinians will be "punished" for representing themselves with Hamas, an unambiguously terrorist gang with decades of blood of Israelis of every kind on its hands. Which is still a terrorist gang, making Palestine a terrorist country of its own free choosing. I live in a country that has chosen Bush to represent itself, though barely and under great (though insufficient) duress and protest. People who think Americans are insane warmongers, who treat us differently, certainly have grounds for doing so. Where effective, their "punishment" of the US for our government's terrible policies, is useful. But I'm not going to pretend that those people "hate democracy", or punish us for practicing it. That kind of propaganda is exactly what Bush produces, because he has contempt for the democracy that puts him in power over people he's punishing. Likewise Hamas and its allies, notably Syria and the Sauds, produce exactly the same kind of propaganda to cover their hatred of democracy. It's no mere coincidence that they are all allies against the rest of us in the world, regardless of their superficial squabbles over dividing the spoils of their wars against us.
Oh, I'm pretty familiar with Israel's history. Some of my family has lived there for generations, some for hundreds of generations, some moved in a century ago, some after WWII. I've been there myself, as well as to Egypt, Turkey and some other countries in the region that bear directly on its "destiny". And of course growing up and living here in NYC there's no shortage of Israeli history available, from many (of course conflicting) perspectives.
From my point of view, Israel has had two basic ways to stabilize under Zionist government: integration with domestic Arabs, or exclusion of Arabs to a separate country. Occupied "Arab territory" (territory Arabs exclude Jews/EurAmericans from, which Israel won't force to integrate) is an untenable status. The Golan Heights were used too often for Syrian military advantage to allow return to Syria, especially as Syria's government has become even more provocative, and of course refuses to release the entire nation of Lebanon from its brutal control. The PLO and other terrorist networks integration with Palestinian leadership made integrating those territories into Jordan and Egypt impossible, because of Palestinian terrorism and destabilization in those Arab neighbors. As well as the use of Palestinians as pawns in neighboring Arab countries' game against Israel since its foundation, and before. The Intifada's replacement of the Oslo peace has also killed integration into Isreal. Palestinians have carved out a country for themselves by alienating any other neighboring country with which they might merge - with that country's active participation in the process.
So they're all left with a Palestine defined by wars with Israel that Palestine only loses. Palestinians have bet on fighting strength and foreign dependence with Hamas. Promises of peace and "reformation" from Hamas are even more worthless than promises of peace from Arafat: their English TV diplomacy is followed immediately by Arabic grapevine agitation. And Israel's military factions are investing too much in the wall and other strategic "disengagement" to give up all the typical profits and power from the warmonger trade.
I think Israel has a chance to decouple "Palestine" from "Arab". Israel's democracy can accommodate different majorities, even Muslim, but only when not preempted by threats of extinction. If Israeli politics can marginalize the faction currently demanding the wall exclude "Israeli Arabs" as well as "Palestinians" and that it include "Palestinian territory" artificially Jewized with colonizing "settlers", it will have a direction towards integration. Integration of Arabs with a stake in growing, not destroying, Israel, and competing with those Palestinian Arabs whose own democracy elects Hamas. Down that road still lies the wall, splitting the countries, staging the inevitable military conflict between Palestine's Hamas army and Israel's military, resulting in military defeat of Palestine/Hamas, enforced peace under Israeli terms. If that peace offers less violence, but more freedom to Israeli Arabs than Palestine offers its own Arabs, Israel will likely continue down the road to integrity even with a Muslim majority.
Even further down that road lies possible reintegration of the two countries. The end of the Cold War allowed reunifying East/West Germany in the context of increased multinational regionalism, deempahsized nationalism, and new imperatives for cooperation across the old divides. The likely further decrease of nationalism in favor of global corporatism will offer more chances to reduce war across the oversimplified Israel/Palestine border. Like everywhere else, it will probably increase wage slavery and corporate exploitation, but why should we expect to solve all the world's problems with one tribal conflict? That kind of naive demand is at the heart of the intractable conflict there for the past several millennia.
Along the way, Israel will have to abandon racism one way or another. And probably tighten up its socialism, too, rather than subsidize hu
OK, some moderators are so enslaved to Bushworship that they see "Republican" and "lies" in a post, and have to TrollMod it.
My post, which discusses Republican government searching your email, tapping your phones, and forcing corporate dependence on it directly addresses the subject of "34 ISPs Subpoenaed By US Government", the story we're discussing.
You might have figured out that Republicans just pretend to serve the people and oppose Democrats to get elected, whereupon they screw us. But your.sig, "Card carrying member of the VRWC" is still waiting to hear the bad news.
Moderators have already assigned insight into the satirical, sarcastic, parodic style of my post about Republicans. But some people apparently aren't so sure.
To be clear: the current Republican government (controlling the White House for 5 years, both houses of Congress for as long as 12 years) lies when it tells you that it stands for small, limited, noninvasive government. These Republicans lie when they say they stand for personal freedom. And they're lying about corporate independence, too. They want corporate dependence on government, for government to do their competing for them, to prop them up with corporate welfare whenever possible, whether they need it or not. They are fascists, who merge corporate and government power.
These Republicans will search your email, surveil you from unmanned drones over your hometown or Spring Break, tap your phones, kidnap you and send you to Guantanamo to be tortured. They'll steal your taxes as collateral on unsupportable debt you'll have to pay for generations, and give the money to their corporate cronies. Who will not only fail to protect you when your home is destroyed by years of paying contractors for useless infrastructure, but will actively prevent individuals from helping you survive with gun-enforced useless bureaucracy.
But maybe I'm just not seeing the Republican vision at the end of the long, hard slog. Maybe that "small, limited, noninvasive government" really is coming. The personal freedom and corporate independence of humanity's natural state: anarchy and warlordism. Just how Marx predicted capitalism would eventually burn itself out. Then the only hypocrisy in the Republican plan is naming themselves after Plato's description of a representative government.
How could I trust Dell when their customer service has always been ignorant, charmless, and at the end of literally hours of waiting on hold? When their power supply recall (to prevent my computer literally blowing up in my face) never notified me (I saw it on Slashdot), and then never replied after I filled out the required forms?
When I send everyone who asks me to help them buy/upgrade their computer to buy a Dell so Dell support will handle them instead of me, and they all still bug me for help when Dell fails to support them?
When I know that buying a Dell will rule out upgrading with many commodity parts because Dell uses proprietary HW interfaces to save money?
What is happening in Israel/Palestine is conversion of the Gaza / West Bank occupied territories into a country, and Palestinian terrorists into a government and army. That moves Palestine out of its twilight status as "occupied territories" which have political and military power only through terrorism, which cannot actually change Israel's politics or defend Palestine.
Once Palestine is completely converted into a state, a full-scale war will begin. Israel's military will defeat Palestine's military, extract a peace settlement with Palestine, and stability proceed. Stability of very low quality of life and autonomy for Palestine. Because Israel will set the terms, and will both punish Palestine and secure it from further threats.
I regret that outcome. Israel is one people, so much more similar than different, regardless of tribe, religion or politics. Integration is the only way to both external and internal peace in that region. But the past couple of generations on both sides have done too much to destroy every chance at peace. Violence will peak in the next 3-5-10 years, followed by Israeli-enforced peace. If Israel had structured its economy not to depend on US and other EurAmerican military welfare, and Palestinians hadn't created itself as a terrorist state supported by the worst terrorist states, integration would be possible. Popular election of Hamas, which now makes clear that Palestinian voters are terrorists, makes "tweaking" the politics there impossible. Which is the design of both suicidal Palestinians and homicidal Israelis.
It's just more blood and death in a region that half the world takes much too seriously as license to do bad things to our own neighbors and fellow humans. I regret the whole thing, but I can see that the political, military and economic momentum is now irresistable.
The "Troll" mod is standard TrollModdery, where TrollMods lash out anonymously to suppress truth that threatens their constructed rightwing zombie fantasy world. But that "Offtopic" mod is really wrong, when I post "the kind of class that Bush was born into: [...] stealing elections" in a story thread titled "Diebold Threatens Wary Voting Clerk". TrollMods all.
Israel's borders are based on those mandated by the UN acts creating it. The inherent instability of those borders, exploited by invading neighboring countries for its first several decades, resulted in new borders created by victory over its attackers in war. That includes occupied territories, which Israel is now releasing with new borders.
When you win a war with a neighbor, even when they didn't start it, you get to decide the border. When they did start it, it's hard to discredit the defensive necessity of changing the borders.
As for America's increasing abuse of liberties, those are totally unacceptable. America is supposed to be better than other countries, like France, Germany, Russia, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Guatemala, Cambodia, China, etc, at protecting liberty. And I insist it lives up to that minimum expectation.
"They have completely surrounded a peaceful nation through violence, and claimed that as their territory".
Palestine has never been "peaceful", certainly not since Israel occupied Palestinian territory to end wars in which it was attacked from that territory. So you're not talking about Palestine.
Your sentence more accurately describes the Arab countries which completely surrounded Israel in a series of wars, attacks and invasions, without attacks on them by Israel. I'm not willing to spin fantasy like you are, so I won't describe Israel as "a peaceful nation", especially given its committment to winning wars to defend its existence. But history shows much less evidence that Israel makes war without first being attacked. And Sharon, the asshole responsible for the few events for which there is such evidence, is dead.
Bush broke the FISA law by spying on American persons without a warrant. He has admitted, insisted, that he'll do it again, because he doesn't think the law is good enough for him. No serious legal authority has said that the spying program is exempt from FISA, which makes it illegal. There is no exception in FISA for notifying even all of Congress, let alone the handful of nearly-all Republican partisans. The only way out is a warrant from the FISA court, even retroactive, or a new law passed by Congress - neither of which Bush got. Especially when Bush tried to get the "Authorization of Force" to include such exceptions, but was explicitly rejected by Congress, and even by such slavish devotees as Ashcroft. Breaking the FISA law, passed to stop presidents from spying on us like Nixon did using Vietnam as a cover, and amended to accommodate both modern telecommunications and American liberty, is illegal.
Lying us into war with Iraq is actually slightly more complicated. But you can stay reasonable and real by looking into all the documentation of Bush's warmongering, especially the various "Downing Street" documents showing everyone around Bush's team knew they wanted an Iraq war no matter the cost, whatever the pretext. And anyone paying attention can tell that we've left the necessary war with Afghanistan unfinished to create the unfinishable war in Iraq. Not to mention that there's no WMD.
C'mon - the reality is that Bush has never respected the law except when forced, his whole life, and has suffered few consequences while winning great rewards. Lately, at unsupportable expense to America.
I'm not going to let you conflate memories into your selfserving version of events. You just described how Ken Starr joined the contexts of Paula Jones' (fruitless, except $850K extortion) lawsuit and his (fruitless, except for impeachment for lying about a blowjob) Whitewater investigation.
Camille Paglia's party is Camille Paglia. Of course Jones' right to due process should be supported by anyone interested in justice, feminist or otherwise. Of course, she was unable to demonstrate any damages, or the evidence. Even more important is defending Clinton's right to that due process, which dismissed that lawsuit, but which was subverted by replaying the trial and derived accusations in Congress, where it also failed. You are conveniently supporting Jones and Paglia when it suits your attack on Clinton, but you are not as interested in Clinton's right to justice, and therefore any of ours, feminists included.
Getting angry that Bush lied us into war, is squandering our treasury, is undermining our security, is leaving our enemies on the loose, is spying on us illegally doesn't change whether they're "high crimes and misdemeanors". All it does, apparently, is make you so defensive that you will ignore them, preferring to kill the messenger. The situations in which they happened are that Bush and his team wanted war with Iraq, $BILLIONS for their cronies and a crippled US government that can't defend the people from corporate predators. The lies to justify them are part of the evidence.
What destroys legitimate conversation is your insistence that a patriot can't be angry when his country is attacked from the inside by its highest leaders. You exclude yourself from legitimate conversation when you act like you speak for "most people". Calling others left wing extremists, even in the Fox Newspeak of "people are saying", is an easy way to tell that you are a right wing extremist, shutting off your own brain by flinging selfserving labels.
You are just repeating the increasingly lame whimpers from the right wing supporters who backed the criminals these past years. For example, if you looked into your crudely repeated, fuzzy talking point about Senator Feingold's censure bill, you'd see that it has cosponsors and several other Democratic senators supporting it. As well as some Republicans who probably see it as a way to "settle" without consequences. And you'd see that Representative Conyers' impeachment talk has dozens of "dems in office". It's not just some trivia like you make it out to be. It's the minority party taking a risk to challenge the unilateral, authoritarian majority with which it must make any deals it gets, in order to get justice even at a terrible price to their usual cushy working "relationships".
Apparently, it pisses off people whose homeland it never was - like Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan... Even people who piss off (and piss on) the displaced people - see the 1970s PLO.
"I agree. I'm not pleased with the prospect that the Zionists and the Christian-fundies are turning the U.S. into a damned police state just like they have in the Shit-hole(y) Land."
Personally, I think that ancient religions are the last self-perpetuating artifacts of the cultures that inhabited these desert areas when they were more habitable. They make a culture that is good at quickly destroying other cultures, but not as good as those cultures at sustaining habitation.
The current ecotastrophe overshadowing all our decisions has little to learn from the religious wars that are hogging the limelight.
Slashdot Mirror
Moderation -1
100% Flamebait
How can that post, with its specific, relevant personal and true complaints, be "Flamebait"? Maybe if the TrollMod is the Dell Dude or something.
DRM, like "two tier Internet", copyright abuse, IP lockdowns, domain name tyranny, and all kinds of corporate grabs of virtual property rights, are certainly means to a primarily political end. Even severely asymmetrical broadband, stymied 3G, and proprietary software requirements. The goal is to protect an official publisher class from encroachment by hordes of merely populist entrants, like you and me. 20th Century politics depends on special deals between political incumbents and media for mutual self-perpetuation. Leveling the playing field for incumbents and new, more diversified entrants who can fill all the niches more efficiently, is bad for everyone who's already got power.
That's why we find the same people on each side of each of those apparently different conflicts. Prosumers are the wave of the future, but the powers that be are hyperextending the "long now" as late as possible.
I spent the millennium rollover (2000-1) in Morrocco, in the desert outside Ouarzazate under the stars. I lived with a Berber gnaoua troupe, had a fling with a Rabat girl in Marrakech, and haunted the Casablanca bazaar for days. Unaccompanied, without French, Arabic or Berber - just a smile and an open mind. I had a great time, and confirmed my view that the Mediterranean is much more a geographical region than is "Europe" or "Africa". Further confirmed when I hopped over Mauritania to travel alone through Mali and Timbuktu. And I've continued to update myself with developments in those regions, both over the Net and in person with emigres here in NYC.
I saw that many "Muslim" countries are subjugated by their own duopoly: tyrants vs theocrats, just as Americans have our own Democrats vs Republicans. We've had centuries to evolve people power here, but Muslims have had millennia to for people to either accept powerlessness, or to use their power to demand tyrants or theocrats.
I think the worst reversal ever for universal democracy, certainly as a means to personal freedom and equity, was Bush's Iraq invasion. Apart from every other strategic, legal and political consideration, I think of what America would have become if France had merely invaded Britain's 13 American colonies for "regime change" and to institute democracy here. We probably would never have made our own national identity. We started our revolution not as a sophisticaed democracy, but based simply on "independence" from England - the Declaration of Independence is the basis of our nation, though it has no legal weight except rhetorical. If America wants democracies, we need to support independent foreign democratic groups in autocratic countries. Just like France backed the American Congress against the British, along with Poland and other original American allies.
I'd organize programs to support local factions, like South Africa's ANC, with economic, propaganda, diplomatic, communications/training, and even security guarantees. Even more radically, I would stop America harboring political refugees, which takes the pressure off their home countries to reform. Except perhaps long enough to temporarily relocate immediate family out of harm's way while the "freedom fighter" gets American training, including human rights screening/training and even political/governance theory, not necessarily even in the American system. Sponsor self-determination, and countries will find their own way with sure feet to rule by the people. Even when "based in sharia", the self-determination will evolve just as American law evolved from both old/new testament biblical morality and English law, as well as French and Spanish colonial legal artifacts.
I'm not so sure that decades of oppressive regimes in Muslim countries can be blamed simply on "US backing", though that's certainly largely true. The British have much responsibility, especially in creating all of the "sponsored" states the US "inherited" following the British Empire downsizing. The boundaries of most of Africa, Arabia, "the Orient" are largely British in origin, designed to split more stable nations into crippled states governed by a greedy, fearful minority, neighboring a rival state where the roles are reversed or shifted to a different oppressed/or. Americans have a lot of blame for perpatuating such states, for accepting the Cold War scam of "fighting Communism" by chosing fascism, rather than growing democracy. But specifically Iraq, Pakistan, southern West Africa, South and East Africa, Arabia, Malaysia, and territory of millions of other people are deliberately botched British creations. The French have their blame, Belgians in Central Africa, even the Dutch in Indonesia have a legacy of blame.
The bigger picture is a half-millennium of EurAmerican corporate exploitation. Even North America has been exploited that way, though our people have gotten our share more equitably distributed elsewhere by middle-class revolution enabling centuries of overt corporat
2000 hours over 10 years is 200h:y, or 33 minutes per day. That's not so heavy use among the people I know.
But what about Bluetooth? People wear headsets inserted into their skulls, along a canal closer to the brain, against a transparent auditory nerve hole. All day long. It's a different frequency, and different power level than cellphones. There isn't 10 years of data yet. But why should we wait?
Swedes already know the damage Bluetooth can cause in the name of bringing everyone together. Let's see the official damage tally.
Those aren't "brain tumors" - not the familiar cancerous growths. They're neural phone links our brains are growing to directly interface the phones. Rather than shielding radiation or moving phones away from our heads, we should be investing in more and faster growths. Because this development is the fastest way to move phones inside the head, where annoying ringtones and semversations don't bother bystanders.
At $0.05:minute, we're spending only $6000 on airtime that we could be spending on chemotherapy!
And just what qualifies that post as either "Troll" or "Flamebait"?
I can't imagine.
I don't know what it is that you know about "Palestinians", but "Palestinians" have not been a nation (before 1948) since the time of Hebrew conquest millennia ago. Even then it was only occasionally under local rule. For almost its entire history, Palestine and its people have been ruled by distant empires, whether Egyptian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Roman, Byzantine, Persian, Arabic, Venetian, Vatican, Turkish or English. Even if you describe that long history of conquest as "foreign aggression", peace there has been enforced brutally by foreign occupying armies. Usually with local opposition, even if usually ineffective. English control and Israeli autonomy have come with much greater freedom than in millennia past, which has allowed much more persistent violence. And which has had more effect on local politics, perpetuating the violence. Where is some evidence for this "peaceful nation" you claim, other than that of a forcefully subdued people in bondage?
You can't possibly support any claim that I say there's nothing wrong with the Jewish settlement in the Mideast.
As far as whether I'd like resettled Jews "right next to where I live", I live in New York City. Right next to me is a community of Jews indistinguishable from a European shtetl, but with plumbing and electricity. Most of the worst Jewish racists in Israel travel freely between here and there, often growing up here to migrate there. Far from "impossible", I live in a city, where I grew up, that has been defined quite a bit by Jewish resettlement here, and is directly connected to those resettled in Israel. And when the people integrate with the locals, even if they don't assimilate, it's a perfectly good way for a country to evolve.
I don't know how deeply you've bought into the "Jewish occupation" propaganda, so I don't know whether I'm just wasting keystrokes talking with you about Israel/Palestine expecting actual communication, but I hope for it. Your link to the French article leads with statements including "[Palestinians] will be punished for practising democracy". Palestinians will be "punished" for representing themselves with Hamas, an unambiguously terrorist gang with decades of blood of Israelis of every kind on its hands. Which is still a terrorist gang, making Palestine a terrorist country of its own free choosing. I live in a country that has chosen Bush to represent itself, though barely and under great (though insufficient) duress and protest. People who think Americans are insane warmongers, who treat us differently, certainly have grounds for doing so. Where effective, their "punishment" of the US for our government's terrible policies, is useful. But I'm not going to pretend that those people "hate democracy", or punish us for practicing it. That kind of propaganda is exactly what Bush produces, because he has contempt for the democracy that puts him in power over people he's punishing. Likewise Hamas and its allies, notably Syria and the Sauds, produce exactly the same kind of propaganda to cover their hatred of democracy. It's no mere coincidence that they are all allies against the rest of us in the world, regardless of their superficial squabbles over dividing the spoils of their wars against us.
Oh, I'm pretty familiar with Israel's history. Some of my family has lived there for generations, some for hundreds of generations, some moved in a century ago, some after WWII. I've been there myself, as well as to Egypt, Turkey and some other countries in the region that bear directly on its "destiny". And of course growing up and living here in NYC there's no shortage of Israeli history available, from many (of course conflicting) perspectives.
From my point of view, Israel has had two basic ways to stabilize under Zionist government: integration with domestic Arabs, or exclusion of Arabs to a separate country. Occupied "Arab territory" (territory Arabs exclude Jews/EurAmericans from, which Israel won't force to integrate) is an untenable status. The Golan Heights were used too often for Syrian military advantage to allow return to Syria, especially as Syria's government has become even more provocative, and of course refuses to release the entire nation of Lebanon from its brutal control. The PLO and other terrorist networks integration with Palestinian leadership made integrating those territories into Jordan and Egypt impossible, because of Palestinian terrorism and destabilization in those Arab neighbors. As well as the use of Palestinians as pawns in neighboring Arab countries' game against Israel since its foundation, and before. The Intifada's replacement of the Oslo peace has also killed integration into Isreal. Palestinians have carved out a country for themselves by alienating any other neighboring country with which they might merge - with that country's active participation in the process.
So they're all left with a Palestine defined by wars with Israel that Palestine only loses. Palestinians have bet on fighting strength and foreign dependence with Hamas. Promises of peace and "reformation" from Hamas are even more worthless than promises of peace from Arafat: their English TV diplomacy is followed immediately by Arabic grapevine agitation. And Israel's military factions are investing too much in the wall and other strategic "disengagement" to give up all the typical profits and power from the warmonger trade.
I think Israel has a chance to decouple "Palestine" from "Arab". Israel's democracy can accommodate different majorities, even Muslim, but only when not preempted by threats of extinction. If Israeli politics can marginalize the faction currently demanding the wall exclude "Israeli Arabs" as well as "Palestinians" and that it include "Palestinian territory" artificially Jewized with colonizing "settlers", it will have a direction towards integration. Integration of Arabs with a stake in growing, not destroying, Israel, and competing with those Palestinian Arabs whose own democracy elects Hamas. Down that road still lies the wall, splitting the countries, staging the inevitable military conflict between Palestine's Hamas army and Israel's military, resulting in military defeat of Palestine/Hamas, enforced peace under Israeli terms. If that peace offers less violence, but more freedom to Israeli Arabs than Palestine offers its own Arabs, Israel will likely continue down the road to integrity even with a Muslim majority.
Even further down that road lies possible reintegration of the two countries. The end of the Cold War allowed reunifying East/West Germany in the context of increased multinational regionalism, deempahsized nationalism, and new imperatives for cooperation across the old divides. The likely further decrease of nationalism in favor of global corporatism will offer more chances to reduce war across the oversimplified Israel/Palestine border. Like everywhere else, it will probably increase wage slavery and corporate exploitation, but why should we expect to solve all the world's problems with one tribal conflict? That kind of naive demand is at the heart of the intractable conflict there for the past several millennia.
Along the way, Israel will have to abandon racism one way or another. And probably tighten up its socialism, too, rather than subsidize hu
Moderation +3
80% Insightful
20% Offtopic
OK, some moderators are so enslaved to Bushworship that they see "Republican" and "lies" in a post, and have to TrollMod it.
My post, which discusses Republican government searching your email, tapping your phones, and forcing corporate dependence on it directly addresses the subject of "34 ISPs Subpoenaed By US Government", the story we're discussing.
You might have figured out that Republicans just pretend to serve the people and oppose Democrats to get elected, whereupon they screw us. But your .sig, "Card carrying member of the VRWC" is still waiting to hear the bad news.
Moderators have already assigned insight into the satirical, sarcastic, parodic style of my post about Republicans. But some people apparently aren't so sure.
To be clear: the current Republican government (controlling the White House for 5 years, both houses of Congress for as long as 12 years) lies when it tells you that it stands for small, limited, noninvasive government. These Republicans lie when they say they stand for personal freedom. And they're lying about corporate independence, too. They want corporate dependence on government, for government to do their competing for them, to prop them up with corporate welfare whenever possible, whether they need it or not. They are fascists, who merge corporate and government power.
These Republicans will search your email, surveil you from unmanned drones over your hometown or Spring Break, tap your phones, kidnap you and send you to Guantanamo to be tortured. They'll steal your taxes as collateral on unsupportable debt you'll have to pay for generations, and give the money to their corporate cronies. Who will not only fail to protect you when your home is destroyed by years of paying contractors for useless infrastructure, but will actively prevent individuals from helping you survive with gun-enforced useless bureaucracy.
But maybe I'm just not seeing the Republican vision at the end of the long, hard slog. Maybe that "small, limited, noninvasive government" really is coming. The personal freedom and corporate independence of humanity's natural state: anarchy and warlordism. Just how Marx predicted capitalism would eventually burn itself out. Then the only hypocrisy in the Republican plan is naming themselves after Plato's description of a representative government.
How could I trust Dell when their customer service has always been ignorant, charmless, and at the end of literally hours of waiting on hold? When their power supply recall (to prevent my computer literally blowing up in my face) never notified me (I saw it on Slashdot), and then never replied after I filled out the required forms?
When I send everyone who asks me to help them buy/upgrade their computer to buy a Dell so Dell support will handle them instead of me, and they all still bug me for help when Dell fails to support them?
When I know that buying a Dell will rule out upgrading with many commodity parts because Dell uses proprietary HW interfaces to save money?
Trust them to take my money, maybe.
Republicans stand for small, limited, noninvasive government. Personal freedom, corporate independence.
What is happening in Israel/Palestine is conversion of the Gaza / West Bank occupied territories into a country, and Palestinian terrorists into a government and army. That moves Palestine out of its twilight status as "occupied territories" which have political and military power only through terrorism, which cannot actually change Israel's politics or defend Palestine.
Once Palestine is completely converted into a state, a full-scale war will begin. Israel's military will defeat Palestine's military, extract a peace settlement with Palestine, and stability proceed. Stability of very low quality of life and autonomy for Palestine. Because Israel will set the terms, and will both punish Palestine and secure it from further threats.
I regret that outcome. Israel is one people, so much more similar than different, regardless of tribe, religion or politics. Integration is the only way to both external and internal peace in that region. But the past couple of generations on both sides have done too much to destroy every chance at peace. Violence will peak in the next 3-5-10 years, followed by Israeli-enforced peace. If Israel had structured its economy not to depend on US and other EurAmerican military welfare, and Palestinians hadn't created itself as a terrorist state supported by the worst terrorist states, integration would be possible. Popular election of Hamas, which now makes clear that Palestinian voters are terrorists, makes "tweaking" the politics there impossible. Which is the design of both suicidal Palestinians and homicidal Israelis.
It's just more blood and death in a region that half the world takes much too seriously as license to do bad things to our own neighbors and fellow humans. I regret the whole thing, but I can see that the political, military and economic momentum is now irresistable.
Moderation +1
40% Insightful
20% Offtopic
20% Troll
The "Troll" mod is standard TrollModdery, where TrollMods lash out anonymously to suppress truth that threatens their constructed rightwing zombie fantasy world. But that "Offtopic" mod is really wrong, when I post "the kind of class that Bush was born into: [...] stealing elections" in a story thread titled "Diebold Threatens Wary Voting Clerk". TrollMods all.
Israel's borders are based on those mandated by the UN acts creating it. The inherent instability of those borders, exploited by invading neighboring countries for its first several decades, resulted in new borders created by victory over its attackers in war. That includes occupied territories, which Israel is now releasing with new borders.
When you win a war with a neighbor, even when they didn't start it, you get to decide the border. When they did start it, it's hard to discredit the defensive necessity of changing the borders.
As for America's increasing abuse of liberties, those are totally unacceptable. America is supposed to be better than other countries, like France, Germany, Russia, Iraq, Iran, Israel, Guatemala, Cambodia, China, etc, at protecting liberty. And I insist it lives up to that minimum expectation.
"They have completely surrounded a peaceful nation through violence, and claimed that as their territory".
Palestine has never been "peaceful", certainly not since Israel occupied Palestinian territory to end wars in which it was attacked from that territory. So you're not talking about Palestine.
Your sentence more accurately describes the Arab countries which completely surrounded Israel in a series of wars, attacks and invasions, without attacks on them by Israel. I'm not willing to spin fantasy like you are, so I won't describe Israel as "a peaceful nation", especially given its committment to winning wars to defend its existence. But history shows much less evidence that Israel makes war without first being attacked. And Sharon, the asshole responsible for the few events for which there is such evidence, is dead.
Bush broke the FISA law by spying on American persons without a warrant. He has admitted, insisted, that he'll do it again, because he doesn't think the law is good enough for him. No serious legal authority has said that the spying program is exempt from FISA, which makes it illegal. There is no exception in FISA for notifying even all of Congress, let alone the handful of nearly-all Republican partisans. The only way out is a warrant from the FISA court, even retroactive, or a new law passed by Congress - neither of which Bush got. Especially when Bush tried to get the "Authorization of Force" to include such exceptions, but was explicitly rejected by Congress, and even by such slavish devotees as Ashcroft. Breaking the FISA law, passed to stop presidents from spying on us like Nixon did using Vietnam as a cover, and amended to accommodate both modern telecommunications and American liberty, is illegal.
Lying us into war with Iraq is actually slightly more complicated. But you can stay reasonable and real by looking into all the documentation of Bush's warmongering, especially the various "Downing Street" documents showing everyone around Bush's team knew they wanted an Iraq war no matter the cost, whatever the pretext. And anyone paying attention can tell that we've left the necessary war with Afghanistan unfinished to create the unfinishable war in Iraq. Not to mention that there's no WMD.
C'mon - the reality is that Bush has never respected the law except when forced, his whole life, and has suffered few consequences while winning great rewards. Lately, at unsupportable expense to America.
I'm not going to let you conflate memories into your selfserving version of events. You just described how Ken Starr joined the contexts of Paula Jones' (fruitless, except $850K extortion) lawsuit and his (fruitless, except for impeachment for lying about a blowjob) Whitewater investigation.
Camille Paglia's party is Camille Paglia. Of course Jones' right to due process should be supported by anyone interested in justice, feminist or otherwise. Of course, she was unable to demonstrate any damages, or the evidence. Even more important is defending Clinton's right to that due process, which dismissed that lawsuit, but which was subverted by replaying the trial and derived accusations in Congress, where it also failed. You are conveniently supporting Jones and Paglia when it suits your attack on Clinton, but you are not as interested in Clinton's right to justice, and therefore any of ours, feminists included.
Getting angry that Bush lied us into war, is squandering our treasury, is undermining our security, is leaving our enemies on the loose, is spying on us illegally doesn't change whether they're "high crimes and misdemeanors". All it does, apparently, is make you so defensive that you will ignore them, preferring to kill the messenger. The situations in which they happened are that Bush and his team wanted war with Iraq, $BILLIONS for their cronies and a crippled US government that can't defend the people from corporate predators. The lies to justify them are part of the evidence.
What destroys legitimate conversation is your insistence that a patriot can't be angry when his country is attacked from the inside by its highest leaders. You exclude yourself from legitimate conversation when you act like you speak for "most people". Calling others left wing extremists, even in the Fox Newspeak of "people are saying", is an easy way to tell that you are a right wing extremist, shutting off your own brain by flinging selfserving labels.
You are just repeating the increasingly lame whimpers from the right wing supporters who backed the criminals these past years. For example, if you looked into your crudely repeated, fuzzy talking point about Senator Feingold's censure bill, you'd see that it has cosponsors and several other Democratic senators supporting it. As well as some Republicans who probably see it as a way to "settle" without consequences. And you'd see that Representative Conyers' impeachment talk has dozens of "dems in office". It's not just some trivia like you make it out to be. It's the minority party taking a risk to challenge the unilateral, authoritarian majority with which it must make any deals it gets, in order to get justice even at a terrible price to their usual cushy working "relationships".
I didn't say that unmanned reconnaisance is unconstitutional. Nor that it would be so because it's unmanned.
You are arguing not only the wrong point, but a point you made up to oppose. That's called a "straw man" argument. Making it destroys your argument.
Apparently, it pisses off people whose homeland it never was - like Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan... Even people who piss off (and piss on) the displaced people - see the 1970s PLO.
"I agree. I'm not pleased with the prospect that the Zionists and the Christian-fundies are turning the U.S. into a damned police state just like they have in the Shit-hole(y) Land."
Personally, I think that ancient religions are the last self-perpetuating artifacts of the cultures that inhabited these desert areas when they were more habitable. They make a culture that is good at quickly destroying other cultures, but not as good as those cultures at sustaining habitation.
The current ecotastrophe overshadowing all our decisions has little to learn from the religious wars that are hogging the limelight.