What's really frightening about this is the American corporations' increasing ability to spin their opinion into acceptance in the public consciousness (check out "Trust us, We're Experts" by Rampton and Stauber). This about M$'s consistent FUD approach to competition.
With enough access to the media -- which M$ undoubtedly has though anti-trust publicity alone, political action committees and outright cash assets aside - almost any corporate entity can spin the most absurd notion into public acceptability.
That "education of policy makers" is particularly disconcerting in that it's a clear call to give the policy makers talking points and make them understand that if they oppose position X, a considerable amount of soft and hard money will end up in the coffers of the opponent come the next election.
The way to fix this is to open source government. By that I mean make government transparent to interaction by any citizen interested in participating in it. How? Let's start by replacing the "House" in every state and federal level with open participation by registered voters. In this technological age, we don't need "representatives" to express our opinion, we can do that ourselves through public referendum. And just like the House, We the People can be the sole arbiters in introducing legislation. If it doesn't pass muster with the majority of citizens, we won't make it law.
The United States is increasingly a Corporate state. Business interests are choking out democracy. Citizens are actually being convinced that the interests of the corporation equal to the interests of the people. "What's good for GM is good for America" has, inappropriately, grown to mean what's good for business is good for people. This flies in the face of the real world, where we see that what's good for manufacturers is low labor costs and a lack of environmental regulation.
Now I'm no fascist. Really. But it is absurd to assume that a democratic nation is best served by protecting the ability of corporations to optimize profits.
Having hit some of these issues while setting up an internet presence at a large university library, we found that people looking at porn don't like others to see that they are looking at with porn.
So what do they do? Ever seen someone hunched over the monitor at a public workstation for long periods of time? Well, odds are they ain't reading Martha Stewart.
I'd recommend installing a large monitor, and mounting it on the wall at a height that can't reasonable be blocked by a standing person.
The power of Social Censorware outperforms the software kind handily.
Slashdot Mirror
What's really frightening about this is the American corporations' increasing ability to spin their opinion into acceptance in the public consciousness (check out "Trust us, We're Experts" by Rampton and Stauber). This about M$'s consistent FUD approach to competition. With enough access to the media -- which M$ undoubtedly has though anti-trust publicity alone, political action committees and outright cash assets aside - almost any corporate entity can spin the most absurd notion into public acceptability. That "education of policy makers" is particularly disconcerting in that it's a clear call to give the policy makers talking points and make them understand that if they oppose position X, a considerable amount of soft and hard money will end up in the coffers of the opponent come the next election. The way to fix this is to open source government. By that I mean make government transparent to interaction by any citizen interested in participating in it. How? Let's start by replacing the "House" in every state and federal level with open participation by registered voters. In this technological age, we don't need "representatives" to express our opinion, we can do that ourselves through public referendum. And just like the House, We the People can be the sole arbiters in introducing legislation. If it doesn't pass muster with the majority of citizens, we won't make it law. The United States is increasingly a Corporate state. Business interests are choking out democracy. Citizens are actually being convinced that the interests of the corporation equal to the interests of the people. "What's good for GM is good for America" has, inappropriately, grown to mean what's good for business is good for people. This flies in the face of the real world, where we see that what's good for manufacturers is low labor costs and a lack of environmental regulation. Now I'm no fascist. Really. But it is absurd to assume that a democratic nation is best served by protecting the ability of corporations to optimize profits.
Having hit some of these issues while setting up an internet presence at a large university library, we found that people looking at porn don't like others to see that they are looking at with porn. So what do they do? Ever seen someone hunched over the monitor at a public workstation for long periods of time? Well, odds are they ain't reading Martha Stewart. I'd recommend installing a large monitor, and mounting it on the wall at a height that can't reasonable be blocked by a standing person. The power of Social Censorware outperforms the software kind handily.