I agree with you that Wahabbism is a big problem, but I think it is a problem that the Saudi people will have to address from the inside. I fear pressure from the Western world will have the opposite than desired effect. Palestine on the other hand is a festering wound because it undermines the West's and especially US credibility in the Arab public opinion. The US is widely perceived as joint at the hips with Israel's interests. Problem is that given the importance of the Jewish vote in the USA there is some truth in it which makes it so much harder to correct this perception. Yet, I think the chances of the Western world to bring piece to this region are much greater. I think a tenth of the force currently in Iraq would be enough to pacify Palestine and I think the Palestinians would welcome any force that keeps the Israeli soldiers out. Why this hasn't been done years ago is beyond me.
Thank you for sharing your blog link and quote, I think it drives nicely home how diverse the situation on the ground is in Iraq. Of course there are many other voices out there as well i.e. Raed and Riverbend I wished more Iraqis would feel the way that Mohammed does. Unfortunately polls of Iraqis show that he is very much in the minority now.
But that does not violate her right to free speech.
You are absolutely right about this. My point is that a democracy needs an open culture that inspires debate in order to flourish.
Given the history of my country I may be over-sensitive to this issue. But from what I've been told by my grandparents the culture of intimidation came before the collapse of the 1st German republic. If people are afraid to speak up for whatever reason your constitution becomes nothing more but another piece of paper.
Funny thing. Having seen Bowling for Columbine I think Moore made exactly your point. It is not the fact that you can get a gun easily in the US that causes all those deaths - rather it's a cultural problem. You can get guns just as easily in Canada but they don't seem to have the same problems.
Being German I was surprised to learn the other day that in terms of guns per capita my country is not that far away from the US. Yet we have far less murders per capita. Why is that? It was that question the culture of violence and anger that Bowling for Columbine explored. I find it rather strange that this movie is simply portrayed as anti-gun. It seems that mainstream America is unable to perceive anything outside pre-conceived notions.
Having lived both in the US and the EU I found that there is a culture of intimidation in the US (where I currently live again). A colleague of mine actually told me that she is afraid to show her political leanings because she knows that her boss doesn't share them and she's afraid that she wouldn't get a promotion if he knew. I never heart a similar sentiment expressed to me in Germany. Back there it was perfectly normal to strike up a conversation about politics at the office e.g. at your lunch break.
In Corporate America more often then not policies discourage the employees to discuss such controversial topics.
Democracy can not work without public discourse. I think this is actually the underlying reason why the democractic processes are so broken in the US - people in this country do not talk about political topics any more because they are afraid they may offend somebody and fear the repercussions.
Having lived both in the US and the EU I don't think the statement that "that criticism against Bush is generally regarded as not a wise move" can be that easily dismissed.
I found that there is a culture of intimidation in the US (where I currently live again). A colleague of mine actually told me that she is afraid to show her political leanings because she knows that her boss doesn't share them and she's afraid that she wouldn't get a promotion if he knew. I never heart a similar sentiment expressed to me in Germany. Back there it was perfectly normal to strike up a conversation about politics at the office e.g. at your lunch break.
In Corporate America more often then not policies discourage the employees to discuss such controversial topics.
Democracy can not work without public discourse. I think this is actually the underlying reason why the democractic processes are so broken in the US - people in this country do not talk about political topics any more because they are afraid they may offend somebody and fear the repercussions.
From what I remember Moore's point was that his mother had to commute for such a long time to her low paying job that she virtually had to be absent from her boys life and therefore could not be a positive role model for him.
(The law that took away benefits form single mothers was signed by Clinton BTW.)
As much as I sympathize with your feelings I find that one of the most serious problems with America's democracy is the seeming inability of Americans to have a political discussion with someone from the other side without becoming emotional about it.
That is no a healthy situation. In order to persuade somebody about anything you have to be able to engage in a productive dialog. When it comes to politics most Americans seem to have lost this ability.
When engaging somebody with different political views I first try to listen very hard in order to find out where he is coming from and then present my arguments in a fashion that I believe will make the most sense to him.
The next election is very, very crucial. Being able to persuade swing voters is key. Having emotions take over when discussing politics with somebody who is on the fence may be just what it takes to push him to the wrong side.
Many Europeans were very much for letting the UN weapon inspectors finish their job. Now, Iraq is a mess and it is much closer to Europe than the US. If Turky was to join the EU we even have a border with Iraq.
I think the EU countries are very much for a joint effort to turn around the Iraq disaster and address the route cause for Middle East unrest - the Palestine problem. Unfortunately there does not seem to be much interest on the American side of the Atlantic to cooperate on these issues. This administration seems to be a firm believer in tackling everything solely relying on America's military might. Blair had to learn the hard way that even if you go along for the ride you are just a junior partner without any power to influence decisions.
Not surprising that most Europeans hope for another administration. Not because they want America to fail - but because they want it to succeed. This is not about Bush this is for a foreign policy that recognizes, engages and fully leverages long standing American allies.
Getting information from as far a political spectrum as possible is a very good idea. Yet, I found that only paying attention to American media will still be very limiting. In order to understand what information influence the opinion of European leftists you also may want to sample sources such as the Guardian. I also find it rather instructive to monitor the infamous Al Jazeera in order to understand what kind of reporting influences the public opinion in Iraq and other Arab countries.
If your objective was to insure that Iraq does not fall prey to Islam fundamentalism than removing Saddam was the most stupid plan of action.
Saddam was well contained did not pose any imminent thread and held in contempt by Islamists for being secular.
The strategists of this Iraq war were dreaming of starting a chain reaction of political change in the Middle East. They may get their wish fulfilled. The irony is that even if those countries were to switch to a full blown democracy the first fair election would almost always bring fundamentalists into power (as has happened when Algeria experimented with democracy a decade ago).
This administration played with fire when invading Iraq. The odds were always against them and they played their hand so badly the situation is almost beyond salvaging.
In all fairness I think Bush should be reelected because it'll be a terrible burden for any other administration to have to deal with the inherited mess of Bush's making.
Having lived both in the US and the EU I don't even know where to start. You couldn't be more wrong about your concept of liberty by Permit only in the EU. All EU countries have constitutions that guarantee citizens right and protect their human rights - like not being arrested without due process - something that has now happened twice to American citizens who have been labeled enemy combatants and were denied their basic right to make a call to get a lawyer. Such abuse of executive power is simply inconceivable in the EU at this point.
But what I find even scarier is the culture of intimidation in the US (where I currently live again). In Germany it is perfectly normal to strike up a conversation about politics at the office e.g. at your lunch break. In Corporate America more often then not policies discourage the employees to discuss such controversial topics. Democracy can not work without public discourse. I think this is actually the underlying reason why the democractic processes are so broken in the US - people in this country do not talk about political topics any more because they are afraid they may offend somebody and fear the repercussions. A colleague of mine actually told me that she is afraid to show her political leanings because she knows that her boss doesn't share them and she's afraid that she wouldn't get a promotion if he knew. I never heart a similar sentiment expressed to me in Germany.
I hope you are right about the Iraqi mind-set. I just don't see much evidence for it. The Iraqi blogs that I can read are in English and the authors fairly westernized. Of course the handful blogs are not representative but it is reasonable to assume that they are more US friendly then your average Iraqi. That is why it doesn't bode well that you've lost them. . Riverbend ] for instance wrote in the past of her fear of a civil war. That was one of her rationales for keeping US troops in her country. The photos changed all this. In her last entry she wrote:
I sometimes get emails asking me to propose solutions or make suggestions. Fine. Today's lesson: don't rape, don't torture, don't kill and get out while you can- while it still looks like you have a choice... Chaos? Civil war? Bloodshed? We'll take our chances- just take your Puppets, your tanks, your smart weapons, your dumb politicians, your lies, your empty promises, your rapists, your sadistic torturers and go.
I also hope that you are right that only some few bad apples conducted torture. But that does not seem to be what Iraqis believe. Unfortunately the USA didn't have much credibility in Arab eyes to begin with - now they are of course inclined to believe the worst. It doesn't help that there are some really worrisome reports that these kind of maltreatments might be indeed much more systemic. From Seymor Hersh's article who originaly broke this news:
In his report, Taguba strongly suggested that there was a link between the interrogation process in Afghanistan and the abuses at Abu Ghraib.
At this point I think fairness demands that Bush is reelected. No other president deserves to have to cope with such an ugly legacy that won't bring any good.
If the US is successful, the paradigm shift in the region could be quite profound in a way unattainable by any other means for decades. Actually, I'm somewhat surprised these general facets aren't rather self-evident... or do people really believe that the US is just as bad as Saddam?
That is a big if. From the very beginning the chances that an US occupation could bring about such a chance in an Arab country that sees the US interest completely aligned with Israel has been rather slim. After the way things have going my monitoring of Iraqi blogs lead me to believe that your country lost the war for the heart and minds of the Iraqis. Some Iraqi bloggers even argued that Saddam was better because he at least was a honest tyrant who didn't pretend to be anything else whereas the US now conducts torture in Saddam's prison while posing as liberators.
It was a nice vision to think the USA could bring democracy to Iraq. But at this point is looks to me more like a pipe dream.
The photos have changed their attitudes towards the USA quite a bit (if you take the time to read earlier entries you will notice).
From monitoring these blogs I conclude that the USA already lost this war. Once you lose the support of the Iraqi population there is no way that this occupation will succeed. Although it continue to drag on for a very long time.
DISCALAIMER: I am just a non-American, non-Arab outside observer.
Oh, please. Were you born sometimes in the past year? Did you spend the past year... no, wait; two years... damn, it would have to have been more than FOURTEEN YEARS now. Anyway, did you spend the past fourteen years living in a cave on Mars with your eyes shut and your fingers in your ears?
If you want to participate in this discussion, go read a fucking newspaper. Don't come in here with that "It's all about WMD!" bullshit. The people who are spewing that crap don't believe it; the people who are hearing it don't believe it. The only ones who believe it are the morons who are repeating it.
So what do you think this war is about? As an outside non-american observer I am very much wondering what your country expects to gain from this occupation. Any insight that you can share is highly appreciated.
These houses are referred to as "Nullenergiehaus" in German. Searching for this term on Google will demonstrate that at this point already a whole industry has evolved around constructing these buildings. How else could Europe ever hope to fulfill the CO2 demands imposed by the Kyoto treaty?
It is nice to see that slashdot spends some attention on this but Michael is way of the mark when copying the claim of the article that this is the first fully self-sustainable Eco-home.
From experience I can attest that all these problems can be encountered with closed source software as well.
But software vendors can overcome this hurdle with professional sales organizations.
Even if your UI is weak, your documentation lacking and your product only half baked you can close sales well exceeding $100K. And this is from 1st person experience being on the selling side.
So did I help to rip off my customers? Certainly not. The value that they were able to derive from the product still by far exceeded the cost and they knew that we'd stay with them through-out the implementation and were there to help them to get their feedback incorporated into new releases.
One could argue that this only applies to big enterprise scale software and make the case that there always will be room for proprietary software (what developer wants to write for instance ERP software just for fun?). But I don't think that is the lesson to draw from this. Rather I believe that selling and marketing is what holds OSS back more than anything else. Economists will tell you that you will always sell more products at a smaller price point. People with real world experience know that this is almost always BS. Demand has to be created. The mainframe distros of Linux cost thousands of dollars but sell quite nicely. OSS needs a business model that allows to make lots of $ that in turn can be invested in marketing. Pretty much everybody here on/. knows that MS doesn't dominate the market based on technological merits. When MS was a smaller player what set them apart and catapulted them to the top was one key innovation: Bringing modern marketing techniques to the fledging PC industry. Unless Open Source software can match them on that end the revolution will be delayed indefinitely.
Slashdot Mirror
I agree with you that Wahabbism is a big problem, but I think it is a problem that the Saudi people will have to address from the inside. I fear pressure from the Western world will have the opposite than desired effect. Palestine on the other hand is a festering wound because it undermines the West's and especially US credibility in the Arab public opinion. The US is widely perceived as joint at the hips with Israel's interests. Problem is that given the importance of the Jewish vote in the USA there is some truth in it which makes it so much harder to correct this perception. Yet, I think the chances of the Western world to bring piece to this region are much greater. I think a tenth of the force currently in Iraq would be enough to pacify Palestine and I think the Palestinians would welcome any force that keeps the Israeli soldiers out. Why this hasn't been done years ago is beyond me.
Thank you for sharing your blog link and quote, I think it drives nicely home how diverse the situation on the ground is in Iraq. Of course there are many other voices out there as well i.e. Raed and Riverbend I wished more Iraqis would feel the way that Mohammed does. Unfortunately polls of Iraqis show that he is very much in the minority now.
But that does not violate her right to free speech.
You are absolutely right about this. My point is that a democracy needs an open culture that inspires debate in order to flourish.
Given the history of my country I may be over-sensitive to this issue. But from what I've been told by my grandparents the culture of intimidation came before the collapse of the 1st German republic. If people are afraid to speak up for whatever reason your constitution becomes nothing more but another piece of paper.
Funny thing. Having seen Bowling for Columbine I think Moore made exactly your point. It is not the fact that you can get a gun easily in the US that causes all those deaths - rather it's a cultural problem. You can get guns just as easily in Canada but they don't seem to have the same problems.
Being German I was surprised to learn the other day that in terms of guns per capita my country is not that far away from the US. Yet we have far less murders per capita. Why is that? It was that question the culture of violence and anger that Bowling for Columbine explored. I find it rather strange that this movie is simply portrayed as anti-gun. It seems that mainstream America is unable to perceive anything outside pre-conceived notions.
It wouldn't be fair to compare Hitler to Bush. Hitler was a much better public speaker.
And why is your comment at Score:0? I hope the moderator who did this gets meta moderated into oblivion.
Having lived both in the US and the EU I found that there is a culture of intimidation in the US (where I currently live again). A colleague of mine actually told me that she is afraid to show her political leanings because she knows that her boss doesn't share them and she's afraid that she wouldn't get a promotion if he knew. I never heart a similar sentiment expressed to me in Germany. Back there it was perfectly normal to strike up a conversation about politics at the office e.g. at your lunch break.
In Corporate America more often then not policies discourage the employees to discuss such controversial topics.
Democracy can not work without public discourse. I think this is actually the underlying reason why the democractic processes are so broken in the US - people in this country do not talk about political topics any more because they are afraid they may offend somebody and fear the repercussions.
Having lived both in the US and the EU I don't think the statement that "that criticism against Bush is generally regarded as not a wise move" can be that easily dismissed.
I found that there is a culture of intimidation in the US (where I currently live again). A colleague of mine actually told me that she is afraid to show her political leanings because she knows that her boss doesn't share them and she's afraid that she wouldn't get a promotion if he knew. I never heart a similar sentiment expressed to me in Germany. Back there it was perfectly normal to strike up a conversation about politics at the office e.g. at your lunch break.
In Corporate America more often then not policies discourage the employees to discuss such controversial topics.
Democracy can not work without public discourse. I think this is actually the underlying reason why the democractic processes are so broken in the US - people in this country do not talk about political topics any more because they are afraid they may offend somebody and fear the repercussions.
From what I remember Moore's point was that his mother had to commute for such a long time to her low paying job that she virtually had to be absent from her boys life and therefore could not be a positive role model for him.
(The law that took away benefits form single mothers was signed by Clinton BTW.)
As much as I sympathize with your feelings I find that one of the most serious problems with America's democracy is the seeming inability of Americans to have a political discussion with someone from the other side without becoming emotional about it.
That is no a healthy situation. In order to persuade somebody about anything you have to be able to engage in a productive dialog. When it comes to politics most Americans seem to have lost this ability.
When engaging somebody with different political views I first try to listen very hard in order to find out where he is coming from and then present my arguments in a fashion that I believe will make the most sense to him.
The next election is very, very crucial. Being able to persuade swing voters is key. Having emotions take over when discussing politics with somebody who is on the fence may be just what it takes to push him to the wrong side.
Many Europeans were very much for letting the UN weapon inspectors finish their job. Now, Iraq is a mess and it is much closer to Europe than the US. If Turky was to join the EU we even have a border with Iraq.
I think the EU countries are very much for a joint effort to turn around the Iraq disaster and address the route cause for Middle East unrest - the Palestine problem. Unfortunately there does not seem to be much interest on the American side of the Atlantic to cooperate on these issues. This administration seems to be a firm believer in tackling everything solely relying on America's military might. Blair had to learn the hard way that even if you go along for the ride you are just a junior partner without any power to influence decisions.
Not surprising that most Europeans hope for another administration. Not because they want America to fail - but because they want it to succeed. This is not about Bush this is for a foreign policy that recognizes, engages and fully leverages long standing American allies.
Getting information from as far a political spectrum as possible is a very good idea. Yet, I found that only paying attention to American media will still be very limiting. In order to understand what information influence the opinion of European leftists you also may want to sample sources such as the Guardian. I also find it rather instructive to monitor the infamous Al Jazeera in order to understand what kind of reporting influences the public opinion in Iraq and other Arab countries.
If your objective was to insure that Iraq does not fall prey to Islam fundamentalism than removing Saddam was the most stupid plan of action.
Saddam was well contained did not pose any imminent thread and held in contempt by Islamists for being secular.
The strategists of this Iraq war were dreaming of starting a chain reaction of political change in the Middle East. They may get their wish fulfilled. The irony is that even if those countries were to switch to a full blown democracy the first fair election would almost always bring fundamentalists into power (as has happened when Algeria experimented with democracy a decade ago).
This administration played with fire when invading Iraq. The odds were always against them and they played their hand so badly the situation is almost beyond salvaging.
In all fairness I think Bush should be reelected because it'll be a terrible burden for any other administration to have to deal with the inherited mess of Bush's making.
Do you imply that a child this age can be held responsible for such an act?
Glad you brought this up. Here in the US everybody seems to assume the EU is a pureely anti-American project to compete with US world dominance.
Having lived both in the US and the EU I don't even know where to start. You couldn't be more wrong about your concept of liberty by Permit only in the EU. All EU countries have constitutions that guarantee citizens right and protect their human rights - like not being arrested without due process - something that has now happened twice to American citizens who have been labeled enemy combatants and were denied their basic right to make a call to get a lawyer. Such abuse of executive power is simply inconceivable in the EU at this point.
But what I find even scarier is the culture of intimidation in the US (where I currently live again). In Germany it is perfectly normal to strike up a conversation about politics at the office e.g. at your lunch break. In Corporate America more often then not policies discourage the employees to discuss such controversial topics. Democracy can not work without public discourse. I think this is actually the underlying reason why the democractic processes are so broken in the US - people in this country do not talk about political topics any more because they are afraid they may offend somebody and fear the repercussions. A colleague of mine actually told me that she is afraid to show her political leanings because she knows that her boss doesn't share them and she's afraid that she wouldn't get a promotion if he knew. I never heart a similar sentiment expressed to me in Germany.
I hope you are right about the Iraqi mind-set. I just don't see much evidence for it. The Iraqi blogs that I can read are in English and the authors fairly westernized. Of course the handful blogs are not representative but it is reasonable to assume that they are more US friendly then your average Iraqi. That is why it doesn't bode well that you've lost them. . Riverbend ] for instance wrote in the past of her fear of a civil war. That was one of her rationales for keeping US troops in her country. The photos changed all this. In her last entry she wrote:
I sometimes get emails asking me to propose solutions or make suggestions. Fine. Today's lesson: don't rape, don't torture, don't kill and get out while you can- while it still looks like you have a choice... Chaos? Civil war? Bloodshed? We'll take our chances- just take your Puppets, your tanks, your smart weapons, your dumb politicians, your lies, your empty promises, your rapists, your sadistic torturers and go.
I also hope that you are right that only some few bad apples conducted torture. But that does not seem to be what Iraqis believe. Unfortunately the USA didn't have much credibility in Arab eyes to begin with - now they are of course inclined to believe the worst. It doesn't help that there are some really worrisome reports that these kind of maltreatments might be indeed much more systemic. From Seymor Hersh's article who originaly broke this news:
In his report, Taguba strongly suggested that there was a link between the interrogation process in Afghanistan and the abuses at Abu Ghraib.
Given the devastating public relation record (remember 57% of all Iraqis already wanted the US to leave immediately before the Fallujah battles and the torture scandal) the Washington Post reports that senior officer of the US military seem to share my opinion that there is nothing left to gain for your country in this war.
At this point I think fairness demands that Bush is reelected. No other president deserves to have to cope with such an ugly legacy that won't bring any good.
If the US is successful, the paradigm shift in the region could be quite profound in a way unattainable by any other means for decades. Actually, I'm somewhat surprised these general facets aren't rather self-evident... or do people really believe that the US is just as bad as Saddam?
That is a big if. From the very beginning the chances that an US occupation could bring about such a chance in an Arab country that sees the US interest completely aligned with Israel has been rather slim. After the way things have going my monitoring of Iraqi blogs lead me to believe that your country lost the war for the heart and minds of the Iraqis. Some Iraqi bloggers even argued that Saddam was better because he at least was a honest tyrant who didn't pretend to be anything else whereas the US now conducts torture in Saddam's prison while posing as liberators.
It was a nice vision to think the USA could bring democracy to Iraq. But at this point is looks to me more like a pipe dream.
There are many Iraqi blogs out there were you can learn how Iraqis feel about this.
The photos have changed their attitudes towards the USA quite a bit (if you take the time to read earlier entries you will notice).
From monitoring these blogs I conclude that the USA already lost this war. Once you lose the support of the Iraqi population there is no way that this occupation will succeed. Although it continue to drag on for a very long time.
DISCALAIMER: I am just a non-American, non-Arab outside observer.
Oh, please. Were you born sometimes in the past year? Did you spend the past year... no, wait; two years... damn, it would have to have been more than FOURTEEN YEARS now. Anyway, did you spend the past fourteen years living in a cave on Mars with your eyes shut and your fingers in your ears?
If you want to participate in this discussion, go read a fucking newspaper. Don't come in here with that "It's all about WMD!" bullshit. The people who are spewing that crap don't believe it; the people who are hearing it don't believe it. The only ones who believe it are the morons who are repeating it.
So what do you think this war is about? As an outside non-american observer I am very much wondering what your country expects to gain from this occupation. Any insight that you can share is highly appreciated.
Look, don't mean to nitpick, but you started it.
There are houses like this in Austria, the Netherlands, Baveria and Swizerland (NOTE: Last two links are to non-English PDF files but contain pictures).
These houses are referred to as "Nullenergiehaus" in German. Searching for this term on Google will demonstrate that at this point already a whole industry has evolved around constructing these buildings. How else could Europe ever hope to fulfill the CO2 demands imposed by the Kyoto treaty?
It is nice to see that slashdot spends some attention on this but Michael is way of the mark when copying the claim of the article that this is the first fully self-sustainable Eco-home.
Heavens no. Live long and prosper.
Greate sig. Make sure to keep it.
From experience I can attest that all these problems can be encountered with closed source software as well.
/. knows that MS doesn't dominate the market based on technological merits. When MS was a smaller player what set them apart and catapulted them to the top was one key innovation: Bringing modern marketing techniques to the fledging PC industry. Unless Open Source software can match them on that end the revolution will be delayed indefinitely.
But software vendors can overcome this hurdle with professional sales organizations.
Even if your UI is weak, your documentation lacking and your product only half baked you can close sales well exceeding $100K. And this is from 1st person experience being on the selling side.
So did I help to rip off my customers? Certainly not. The value that they were able to derive from the product still by far exceeded the cost and they knew that we'd stay with them through-out the implementation and were there to help them to get their feedback incorporated into new releases.
One could argue that this only applies to big enterprise scale software and make the case that there always will be room for proprietary software (what developer wants to write for instance ERP software just for fun?). But I don't think that is the lesson to draw from this. Rather I believe that selling and marketing is what holds OSS back more than anything else. Economists will tell you that you will always sell more products at a smaller price point. People with real world experience know that this is almost always BS. Demand has to be created. The mainframe distros of Linux cost thousands of dollars but sell quite nicely. OSS needs a business model that allows to make lots of $ that in turn can be invested in marketing. Pretty much everybody here on
If you turned the table on Linux and Windows the former would still be Open Source. Big difference.