Not to mention that anyone who can hear the difference of removing a watermark of this nature... could plainly hear the sonic damage the watermark itself causes... and very likely could hear the difference between CD and, say, 20/48 or 24/96 digital.
If it wasn't for the fact that all freely accessible music formats are apt to be declared illegal I'd _love_ the idea of these clowns going ahead with SDMI. I can tell you that it is going to be _noticable_ if you have an ear- perhaps less so if you are 'watermarking' Britney Spears junk, but anyone who is getting a good sound will find that sound _defaced_ by the watermarking. That's not all- radio stations have elaborate equipment to compress and enhance detail on the music they play. Played through that even the Britney Spears stuff will be obviously flawed by the watermarking- it will bring out the distortion and make it audible, that is what this type of equipment is _for_: bringing out hidden detail in sound.
There is a Chinese ideogram (?) which represents both danger and opportunity. This SDMI garbage is just that- both danger and opportunity. There was a time when major label/corporate musical content actually was better than garage stuff- studios were paid for, artists got to concentrate on their work, and a lot of music got created that was really rather good. That's why you're still hearing it 20, 30, 40 years later instead of last year's corporate music product.
That time is gone- now, with SDMI, the corporate music product is boldly choosing to degrade the quality of its product to _substantially_ below what a clued electronic musician (with some sound engineering experience) can produce. That's because the corporate people think they have such a lock on media in general that they can _afford_ to do this to tighten their control- and that is the opportunity.
It's never been a better time to become a musician- not because there is industry support- there's not- not because there's money in it, there has never been money in it compared to, say, going public with a dotcom. The reason it's such a good time to be an indie musician is because the main competition, commercial media, is becoming so arrogant that it no longer cares about any sort of quality. This tends to alienate people, and there are going to be a lot of alienated people milling around trying to find music, entertainment, stuff to listen to or watch or even stuff with a message and a purpose. It's simple mathematics- as the corporate product gets complacent (check), lower in quality (check BIGTIME) and cynical (check), a market opens up for competition to come in. Straight capitalism- capitalism cuts both ways *g*
Sorry: much of that's considered uberleftwing now. The gun control thing will fly with the Democrats, but that's it. Gore will lie about being pro-environment but he has not done and will not do a thing about it- he's just not as directly associated with oil barons etc. as Bush. I'm not sure it's possible to be _reasonably_ anything about abortion- it's too hot an issue- anti==fundie in practice and because of the way it would be implemented. And both major parties would rather have their pork, thank you.
Besides, it's a stupid bit of propaganda anyhow. I voted a straight Progressive ticket plus Nader. If we had a re-vote I would vote the same way again. If we had a re-vote with only Democrats and Republicans available I would NOT VOTE! Just like I didn't vote last election.
How difficult can this be to understand? Go on, claim I'm unique- that doesn't scare me and besides it is a lie.
Oh, that's really cute. Who 'broke' them so conveniently? Oh yeah, there was 'something wrong' with the lever.:)
Sheesh- I'm _never_ going to get to sleep, and I don't even like either of these guys. But if I ever have grandchildren I'll be able to say I watched the 2000 election- on slashdot:)
Yeah, I do believe that was selling out. However I also believe it was your _right_ to sell out. Your vote is yours- you can vote Bush because you like the letter W and I won't argue that you have no right.
It looks like lots of Bush people went out and voted. It looks also like a bunch of Bush politicos cheated. However, that doesn't change the fact that still a lot of Bush people went out and voted. If I don't like the results of that it is MY obligation to continue fighting the political actions taken by the resulting all-republican, all-corporate, all-fundie America. Lord knows it wouldn't be the first time people had to use civil disobedience- if the Bush people are really stupid it could even get to fighting in the streets, like the WTO riots.
None of this alters the fact that if the Bush people won, they won. I think the Democratic party is garbage- I hold them responsible for ignoring the left and swinging totally right in attempts to be 'centrist'. They don't stand for anything anymore, and I particularly distrust Gore from back when his wife was trying to put rating stickers on rock records, the better to let stores ban them.
Assuming the Bush side won, and aren't simply cheating, we can argue with their supporters, we can try to educate them, we can civilly disobey, if things get nasty enough we can turn on the government (with the guns they're in favor of us being able to have- hey thanks *g*) and fight them in the streets and endure another civil war. We might ask Ireland what that's like- and find another country that understands complete desperation.
The one thing we can't do is wish the election away because it seems extremist. Political problems this severe can't be solved with procedural solutions. No matter which way you look at it a large chunk of the electorate are going to be hosed.
Frankly, I think my little snippet is the most hosed- it's not even possible to vote the way the goddamned Vermont voter's oath _obliged_ me to vote, without having this honest result turned into bipartisan politics as usual. I hope at least some of these media idiots can comprehend that some people were _not_ oathbreakers, that some people obeyed their duty to their country and gave their best effort to find a candidate to vote FOR and voted for that candidate.
To disrespect that is the most severe loss I will suffer this election. I knew Nader was probably going to lose. I didn't know that the very context of my vote would be twisted until I was expected to feel _shame_ at hindering Gore. Doesn't anybody understand that I'd like nothing better than to hinder both major parties right out of Washington?
Eh, save your torture for someone who gives a rat's anus. I knew exactly what I was doing, and Nader politicised me. All this time I've been saying people should vote for WHO THEY WANTED. If Democrats decided to ignore this and cost their man the election it is NOT my problem, and I don't have any sympathy- if I'd trusted that guy I would have voted for him! Furrfu, by noon tomorrow it's going to be spun as "ALL Nader voters were disgruntled Democrats, now aren't you _ashamed_?" Talk about blackmail. I think this charming torture is about equally divided between vengeful, sadistic Bush supporters, and outraged Gore supporters who can't conceive of the notion that their party is useless and bankrupt and corrupt and _should_ be destroyed along with the Republicans.
Anybody who voted Nader because of what he HAD TO SAY will be totally immune from this sort of blackmail. He was and is RIGHT. Both the main parties are so completely corrupt they are indistiguishable. Hell, they are so indistinguishable they produced probably the closest Presidential election in history. It's time for the Demopublicratians to get out of the way. They are _slime_ and their candidates are slime too.
And your question, 'what good has it done you?'?
I didn't vote for slime. I voted based on issues and a platform that backed my personal concerns and beliefs. Try it sometime if you have the guts.
*g* way to guilt those misbehaving democrats, dude! People who actually trust Gore shoulda voted for him.
Kindly don't jump to the conclusion that all Nader voters are racked with guilt. I think Gore is scum _too_. I refuse to consider him a better option than Bush. If I had to choose between the two I'd have refused to vote, same as last election.
Another good point would be this: all you young guys running scared will learn in time that it matters a hell of a lot more who's organising and being politically active as hell when there's _not_ an election.
In this crowd it's a dangerous allusion, but I am reminded of the words of the olden days 'Wobbly' labor organiser Joe Hill, shot to death by the cops. (You think this stuff is _modern?_)
Eh, the only mistake will be rolling over like a whipped dog and not fighting the government tooth and nail if it tries to get away with nasty stuff.
Maybe it's easier for me seeing as I wasn't going to even vote except for Nader coming along- I honestly believe Gore is just as bad, only a different flavor of bad.
Had he won, we'd be looking at really ruthless control of media and electronic surveillance of all citizens, very quickly.
Assuming Bush has in fact won- let me put it this way, I'm damned glad I'm not a gay person in the Midwest (or anyplace other than the 'liberal east'), or a woman, or black, or openly non-Christian. It is going to be open season on these people. In a way that's useful- I have a certain amount of faith that the average American citizen won't approve of beating such people to death, there's a limit to how evil this country can get in that way. I don't see a limit to how controlling and electronic-secret-policelike this country can get with the citizenry not noticing.
I guess that's saying that in both cases, when I look at the proposed President I see a guy with a stiletto out ready to stab me to death. The difference is that one will chop me up face to face, bite my ears off and say it's because I'm evil and bad: the other will quietly stab me in the back without batting an eyelash.
I don't see how one is significantly different from the other. Look at the result.
Granted, I also think the Democratic party is obscene, but yeesh, do you have any idea how it sounds to quote _that_ man and use it as a 'yay' for Dubya? *cringe* man... read some history...
Silly bugger. Whatever gives you the idea I was going to vote at all until Nader came along?
Go tease the Gore boys: I sincerely _despise_ both your stinking candidates, did just what I set out to do, and you're an even greater fool if you think I'm going to stop there.
My only regret is that I am _not_ a terrorist or assassin. But at least I'll stay out of jail better if I refrain from committing crimes.
Hang on- while your reaction is reasonable, I would have to really, seriously question some of your points here.
How on earth can you blithely state Bush is 'not even in the same ballpark when it comes to evil'? You think the Nazis were comic book monsters? They were human beings that conned themselves into believing in and supporting a political system that was _horribly_ wrong.
I get kind of upset when I see reactions like this. The horror of Nazi history is that these were for the most part JUST PEOPLE! There was no special 'evil gene' that made Hitler's Germans specially evil in ways no current people can compare to. That is a damned racist implication. If you think logically about it you can see that Bush is just as capable of moving in the direction of horrors- for instance, he could crack down on homosexuals without really surprising anyone. On the flip side, Gore is capable of pulling off a Big Brother-like informational police state with every communication centrally monitored by the government- this is the guy behind Clipper, and associated with the PMRC attempts to categorise 'harmful' music so it could be more easily suppressed and censored, removed entirely from the mainstream media to control public thought so that America would not have to confront ideas like 'drugs' or 'occult'.
THESE PEOPLE ARE NOT A DIFFERENT DAMN SPECIES THAN THE NAZIS! The potential is there. It is really disturbing to see this immediate assumption that 'nobody we're actually dealing with today could ever be that bad'.
(/godwin)
Ack- s/New Hampshire/Massachusetts/. (In New Hampshire, the strongest third party was in fact Independent)
But still- good job! Also, I think we can boast that we fought a harder fight- Vermont is _split_ by our pioneering Civil Unions law (allowing marriagelike legal status for gay and lesbian couples) and the governor's race was fought brutally. There are 'Take Back Vermont', 'Take Vermont Forward' signs _everywhere_. By contrast, the reason you Libertarians kicked the Republican's butt so hard is he was running against Ted Kennedy:)
Still, it gives you a warm feeling to see either Dems or Reps taking third place or desperately struggling to avoid that fate. Keep it up, and beat the Republican next time- when Teddy gets old and too vague for politics you can pounce:)
Meanwhile, it looks like it's going to be like armwrestling here in Vermont, and that's cool too...
Re:Is anyone else scared shitless? I'm not kidding
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Election Wrapping Up
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So get off your butt and get to work! You think politics only happens every four years?
I just helped a Progressive candidate for governor pull roughly 10% in a _close_ and hard fought gubernatorial race. (The Libertarians, in Massachusetts, damn near beat the Republican candidate for Congress- though the race predictably went to 'Teddy'. In that race the _Republicans_ were damn near the 'third party')
Get up tomorrow, read the final results for the elections and then go to whatever organizations genuinely represent you (Greens, Progressives, Libertarians, Socialist Worker Party, _whatever_) and ask them, "Now what should I do?" Start building it into your regular life that you're going to put a certain amount of effort into supporting politics you can LIKE- and you're going to see who else you can find who feels the same way.
I don't know what's more impressive, pulling 10% in a hard fought race, or nearly whipping the Republican candidate in a race where it's a foregone conclusion- but either way this illustrates the people are out there.
Let's see to it that it's ten times as many people next time- always assuming we get a next time! It must be great to roll over and go back to sleep politically, but whether it's Greens on environment issues, Libertarians on government spending or Progressives on corporate rule and correlation between work and wealth, a LOT of us just do not have that luxury. Don't just be scared- organise!
I'll concede we didn't split the opposing vote half as well as you guys did, but you've also answered one question of mine- in Vermont, Libertarians made an awful showing, very little turnout. I wondered what happened to them. Clearly they were all in New Hampshire! And doing themselves proud- good job:)
Tip of the hat from one third-partyite to another!
Ha, Vermont beat ya- Nader got 8% by some reports.:)
Also, I voted the Progressive Anthony Pollina for Governor- he got 10%! That's damn good- that's about 10X any of the other third party candidates.
By all means go to sleep for another 4 years, CmdrTaco- that sounds nice. Us third party loonies are not going to go to sleep- the Presidential race in particular is a Pyrrhic victory no matter who wins, and we need to do better than that next time, assuming we _get_ a next time. I for one am _sold_ on Voting For (and will never 'vote against' again). Who knew? It looks like every third party candidate I voted for (Progressive/Green in Vermont) got a _big_ chunk of the mainstream, easily enough to swing an election. It's about being noticed. You ask Gush or Bore, "You wouldn't want, oh, 7% of an edge in your race?" You ask the Vermont gubernatorial candidates from the major party if they are paying attention to the _10%_ neither of them got because Pollina grabbed it. A lot of the third party results are like "Baz Foobar, 0% (27 votes)"... but NOT all of them.
I voted a straight Progressive ticket, and Nader for president, and got my little 'I voted' sticker. It felt good, in a quiet way, to have done so- I'm 32, and I had never, not once in my life, voted _for_ anybody. Only 'against'.
After a little agonizing and hard thinking I ended up making no other votes- such as voting for people who 'sounded like' they were on the same page as the Progressive candidates, or voting for Libertarians simply because I like encouraging slashdot libertarians to get out there and vote their butts off:)
I think this was right- when I got right down to it, I looked at the Vermont ballot and was psyched to see all the Libertarian candidates all over it. I was like 'alright! good going!'. Then, when I thought about it, I realised that I did indeed wish them well but that they were about as far from what I was voting _for_ as I could possibly imagine- and the only one I'd heard word one from was Browne. I had no way of knowing if any of them had common sense or if they were all rabid randite fundamentalists- so I simply refrained from voting against them by picking the Democrat or whatever- essentially I only made a vote where I'd done my homework and knew what I was voting for.
The libertarian thing amuses me- I was thinking about being charitable and give them votes solely because I thought they as a third party deserved a respectable showing, even though they can be starkly opposed to my interests. Instead, I went with my self interest, and voted only the candidates that shared my concerns, and did _not_ vote Libertarian. Does this attention to my own interests, moderate selfishness, and refusal to support a contrasting view on principle, then make me more Libertarian? O_O so if I'd voted Libertarian against my interests I'd be proving I'm not one, but by withholding my vote I illustrate a self-interest streak that is more Libertarian. And now my head hurts:)
Seriously, good going guys- _lots_ of Libertarians all over the VT ballot. Keep up looking after your interests and I'll keep looking after mine...
Anything related to universities has got to be _top_ priority in the triage. It's not just that disk space etc. can be hard to scrounge (I once had a small collection of gorgeous tiger pictures from the 'Exotic Feline Virtual Sanctuary' and allowed them to not be backed up- the site can still be connected to but the pictures are all _gone_ and I've never seen them anywhere else)..
The real problem isn't that- the real problem is that universities have to be considered an endangered species at this point. Their funding is terrible and corporations are stepping in, buying up these resources and taking control of them, essentially co-opting their purpose. As a result, more and more uni resources on the web and electronic media are going to be withheld and removed- in some cases to the extent of legal assaults on the 'public domain' status of these resources.
University resources that are public need to be mirrored and backed up by outside interests because the universities cannot or will not protect themselves and their primary mission- I would guess that within ten years there will be no schools as we understand them, it'll be purely corporate propaganda arms, doubling as press-release research facilities with a clear mandate to 'confirm' whatever the parent corporation wants confirmed. It's possible that 'name' schools, such as MIT, might maintain a certain amount of independence, but only at the cost of locking down its IP, consolidating it, and effectively becoming yet another corporation, except based around research and teaching students rather than based around selling products. The product would be the research- Negroponte's shown himself pretty capable at playing off corporations against each other and has been doing that for years.
Actual education will just have to go underground because it will not exist in recognizable form in the mainstream. I hope home schooling becomes a lot more common. Unfortunately, the newly privatised education sector may move to make home schooling illegal.
All very speculative to be sure! But I do think this is extremely likely, to a greater or lesser extent.
Who's counting the votes? Who's giving lastminute instructions to Democrat voters as they go into the polling places? But most of all, who's counting the votes? I do think at least some of the Dem voters are going to renege on 'swapping' plans and vote their people in. Who is going to stop them? If they cared about supporting the Green Party, why wouldn't they just vote for it rather than professing to be supporting Nader (in efforts to get 5%) from the Democratic Party? I'm afraid I am very skeptical about this. How important could it possibly seem to a Gore supporter? By contrast, wouldn't it seem important to get more Gore votes wherever possible to fight Bush?
I think when people go into the polling places and the curtain falls behind them- they better vote their own interests, because that's what the other guy is going to be doing.
I respect your feelings but don't agree with your conclusions.
If these people really have that broad a support for the horrid acts you describe they _should_ win the election. Faking the election and trying to kluge better results isn't going to help in the long run.
I don't think they do represent the will of the people in that. I think most people are apathetic or conditioned to 'vote' for only certain parties, in a gamelike way rather than an expressing-their-concerns way.
Finally, it looks like you're arguing Gore's case as in 'he's not as bad as Bush'. I don't agree with that. Another slashdotter was distiguishing 'DemoGreens' and 'Protest Greens', with the latter being the ones who would not even vote if Nader wasn't running. I wasn't going to vote because I think both the Democrats and Republicans are fronting for the same damn crud as ever.
I'm going to quote a little something from the book I'm reading. It's called 'Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail 72', and as you might guess it was written in 1972. That's almost 30 years ago. *ahem*
"How many more of these goddamn elections are we going to have to write off as lame but 'regrettably necessary' holding actions? And how many more of these stinking, double-downer sideshows will we have to go through before we can get ourselves straight enough to put together some kind of national election that will give me and the at least 20 million people I tend to agree with a chance to vote FOR something, instead of always being faced with that old familiar choice between the lesser of two evils?" -Hunter S. Thompson, 1972
I think it's obscene that it's taken this long, but I would say that it took almost 30 years. I am voting FOR something. And I admit to an emotional reaction here- I am _angry_ at the suggestion that I should throw that away and vote for Gore and same old same old, in the blind and retarded faith that some Democrat is going to vote Nader _for_ me. Have you considered the idea that voting _for_ someone is something that I've wanted to be able to do for a long time? That it is both a privilege and my obligation as a Vermont voter to vote for the guy I _want_ to win?
I don't think so. I don't think you've considered these things in your attempt to enlighten me that this is serious... so it would be wrong to be angry at you directly. But I am angry, angry at this disrespect for the system we have. It may suck but it's the only one we've got- and please don't forget that as a Nader voter I'm the one being asked to completely ignore this chance, this opportunity that HST lamented about almost _thirty_ years ago... and play politics games just like always... and actively vote for a guy who I think is treacherous and untrustworthy and a lot slipperier than Bush.
I ain't budging. I don't _want_ all-singing, all-dancing websties to actively reprogram my computer for me. "Submit to the brain scan of brainitor.com!" yech.
Yes, I did mean to type websties... started out as a typo, then I fixed it, then looked at it and fixed it right back again. Guess why;)
The democrats could quietly endorse this coalition at the local level with the understanding that any Gore 'swappers' are to renege on their agreement with a wink and a nod, in the privacy of the polling booth.
But then, if you trust the Democrats- you might as well vote for them- and where's the 'coalition' then? Same old same old.
Again- if I trusted them I would VOTE for them. Nader happens to express my concerns well- I'm voting my interests in voting for him, there is no mistaking what my Nader vote represents. It's dead obvious. I'm going to be counted as representing the issues I care about, not some game theory nonsense that doesn't convey any information other than 'we won!' and doesn't lead anywhere.
I'm just one guy and just one vote but I have to say, ditch the voteswap idea! It's pitifully naive. If all us Nader people voteswapped I'd give more than a 50% chance that when the votes were counted, "Unaccountably, the third party Nader makes a very weak showing with 3% of the popular vote- apparently grassroots support for him was not very effective"
No kidding. And why would that be? Because they voted for Gore!! Furrfu! One would think that effective support for a political candidate would include _voting_ for him! If you think the Democrats are equally naive you've got a lot to learn- I have _huge_ respect for their tremendous experience in power politics, all the more if this 'vote swap' thing is orchestrated from the Gore camp to trick Nader supporters into voting against their own guy. (Worse has happened- the Republicans broke into Dem campaign headquarters in 1972, as well as directly financing huge NYT fullpage ads from supposed 'coalitions' supporting Nixon.)
I'm sorry- my voting for Nader may be naive, might even be futile (especially if I stop being politically active _after_ Nov. 7- not!) and I might be politically stupid- but I am _not_ THAT stupid, to be gulled into voting against the guy I'm trying to support. It all comes down to the popular vote in the end- and I only have one- I am _not_ going to use it against my own interests thank you.
You won't see a lot of _Democrats_ blithely pulling the lever for Nader just because they informally agreed to 'swap votes'. They are veterans of the political battlefields, they are playing for keeps- why the hell does anyone think these people are going to THROW votes away to support a dangerous potential left vote-splitter? Just forget it- it's not going to happen. I don't agree with them but I wouldn't insult them by thinking they were that stupid and naive. They aren't...
Yeah- I hear that. I just hope the Nader supporters in 'swing' states aren't gonna be hosed by their good intentions.
A vote for Gore is a vote for Gore- don't con yourself that you can make deals with people on the other side. Vote your data- for me that means voting Nader as that's the data I want to put into the system. Expecting some Gore person you don't even know to vote Nader just because you ask them is 'trusted client'- and we already know that's stupid!:)
I wouldn't trust Gore enough to vote for him- I think he's treacherous and untrustworthy and I'm voting for Nader regardless.
If I don't trust Gore, why would I trust Gore _voters_ to vote for Nader in exchange for me voting for their guy? Nobody's watching inside the voting booth. I bet they all go and vote for Gore anyhow regardless of the promise they made. Explain why supporters of Gore should be considered trustworthy? Smart, I'll grant- Gore's pretty smart too. But trustworthy? I don't think so- not in this context. We're talking about making bargains that can't be checked up on, with people who have a vested interest in defecting on the agreement. I just don't trust that...
If they're voting Nader because they would have anyway and it's not a swing state- I wouldn't call that a Gore vote in the first place.
Slashdot Mirror
If it wasn't for the fact that all freely accessible music formats are apt to be declared illegal I'd _love_ the idea of these clowns going ahead with SDMI. I can tell you that it is going to be _noticable_ if you have an ear- perhaps less so if you are 'watermarking' Britney Spears junk, but anyone who is getting a good sound will find that sound _defaced_ by the watermarking. That's not all- radio stations have elaborate equipment to compress and enhance detail on the music they play. Played through that even the Britney Spears stuff will be obviously flawed by the watermarking- it will bring out the distortion and make it audible, that is what this type of equipment is _for_: bringing out hidden detail in sound.
There is a Chinese ideogram (?) which represents both danger and opportunity. This SDMI garbage is just that- both danger and opportunity. There was a time when major label/corporate musical content actually was better than garage stuff- studios were paid for, artists got to concentrate on their work, and a lot of music got created that was really rather good. That's why you're still hearing it 20, 30, 40 years later instead of last year's corporate music product.
That time is gone- now, with SDMI, the corporate music product is boldly choosing to degrade the quality of its product to _substantially_ below what a clued electronic musician (with some sound engineering experience) can produce. That's because the corporate people think they have such a lock on media in general that they can _afford_ to do this to tighten their control- and that is the opportunity.
It's never been a better time to become a musician- not because there is industry support- there's not- not because there's money in it, there has never been money in it compared to, say, going public with a dotcom. The reason it's such a good time to be an indie musician is because the main competition, commercial media, is becoming so arrogant that it no longer cares about any sort of quality. This tends to alienate people, and there are going to be a lot of alienated people milling around trying to find music, entertainment, stuff to listen to or watch or even stuff with a message and a purpose. It's simple mathematics- as the corporate product gets complacent (check), lower in quality (check BIGTIME) and cynical (check), a market opens up for competition to come in. Straight capitalism- capitalism cuts both ways *g*
Sorry: much of that's considered uberleftwing now. The gun control thing will fly with the Democrats, but that's it. Gore will lie about being pro-environment but he has not done and will not do a thing about it- he's just not as directly associated with oil barons etc. as Bush. I'm not sure it's possible to be _reasonably_ anything about abortion- it's too hot an issue- anti==fundie in practice and because of the way it would be implemented. And both major parties would rather have their pork, thank you.
How difficult can this be to understand? Go on, claim I'm unique- that doesn't scare me and besides it is a lie.
Sheesh- I'm _never_ going to get to sleep, and I don't even like either of these guys. But if I ever have grandchildren I'll be able to say I watched the 2000 election- on slashdot :)
It looks like lots of Bush people went out and voted. It looks also like a bunch of Bush politicos cheated. However, that doesn't change the fact that still a lot of Bush people went out and voted. If I don't like the results of that it is MY obligation to continue fighting the political actions taken by the resulting all-republican, all-corporate, all-fundie America. Lord knows it wouldn't be the first time people had to use civil disobedience- if the Bush people are really stupid it could even get to fighting in the streets, like the WTO riots.
None of this alters the fact that if the Bush people won, they won. I think the Democratic party is garbage- I hold them responsible for ignoring the left and swinging totally right in attempts to be 'centrist'. They don't stand for anything anymore, and I particularly distrust Gore from back when his wife was trying to put rating stickers on rock records, the better to let stores ban them.
Assuming the Bush side won, and aren't simply cheating, we can argue with their supporters, we can try to educate them, we can civilly disobey, if things get nasty enough we can turn on the government (with the guns they're in favor of us being able to have- hey thanks *g*) and fight them in the streets and endure another civil war. We might ask Ireland what that's like- and find another country that understands complete desperation.
The one thing we can't do is wish the election away because it seems extremist. Political problems this severe can't be solved with procedural solutions. No matter which way you look at it a large chunk of the electorate are going to be hosed.
Frankly, I think my little snippet is the most hosed- it's not even possible to vote the way the goddamned Vermont voter's oath _obliged_ me to vote, without having this honest result turned into bipartisan politics as usual. I hope at least some of these media idiots can comprehend that some people were _not_ oathbreakers, that some people obeyed their duty to their country and gave their best effort to find a candidate to vote FOR and voted for that candidate.
To disrespect that is the most severe loss I will suffer this election. I knew Nader was probably going to lose. I didn't know that the very context of my vote would be twisted until I was expected to feel _shame_ at hindering Gore. Doesn't anybody understand that I'd like nothing better than to hinder both major parties right out of Washington?
Anybody who voted Nader because of what he HAD TO SAY will be totally immune from this sort of blackmail. He was and is RIGHT. Both the main parties are so completely corrupt they are indistiguishable. Hell, they are so indistinguishable they produced probably the closest Presidential election in history. It's time for the Demopublicratians to get out of the way. They are _slime_ and their candidates are slime too.
And your question, 'what good has it done you?'?
I didn't vote for slime. I voted based on issues and a platform that backed my personal concerns and beliefs. Try it sometime if you have the guts.
Kindly don't jump to the conclusion that all Nader voters are racked with guilt. I think Gore is scum _too_. I refuse to consider him a better option than Bush. If I had to choose between the two I'd have refused to vote, same as last election.
In this crowd it's a dangerous allusion, but I am reminded of the words of the olden days 'Wobbly' labor organiser Joe Hill, shot to death by the cops. (You think this stuff is _modern?_)
"Don't mourn, boys. Organise."
Maybe it's easier for me seeing as I wasn't going to even vote except for Nader coming along- I honestly believe Gore is just as bad, only a different flavor of bad.
Had he won, we'd be looking at really ruthless control of media and electronic surveillance of all citizens, very quickly.
Assuming Bush has in fact won- let me put it this way, I'm damned glad I'm not a gay person in the Midwest (or anyplace other than the 'liberal east'), or a woman, or black, or openly non-Christian. It is going to be open season on these people. In a way that's useful- I have a certain amount of faith that the average American citizen won't approve of beating such people to death, there's a limit to how evil this country can get in that way. I don't see a limit to how controlling and electronic-secret-policelike this country can get with the citizenry not noticing.
I guess that's saying that in both cases, when I look at the proposed President I see a guy with a stiletto out ready to stab me to death. The difference is that one will chop me up face to face, bite my ears off and say it's because I'm evil and bad: the other will quietly stab me in the back without batting an eyelash.
I don't see how one is significantly different from the other. Look at the result.
Granted, I also think the Democratic party is obscene, but yeesh, do you have any idea how it sounds to quote _that_ man and use it as a 'yay' for Dubya? *cringe* man... read some history...
Go tease the Gore boys: I sincerely _despise_ both your stinking candidates, did just what I set out to do, and you're an even greater fool if you think I'm going to stop there.
My only regret is that I am _not_ a terrorist or assassin. But at least I'll stay out of jail better if I refrain from committing crimes.
_Your_ beloved new President commits crimes.
How on earth can you blithely state Bush is 'not even in the same ballpark when it comes to evil'? You think the Nazis were comic book monsters? They were human beings that conned themselves into believing in and supporting a political system that was _horribly_ wrong.
I get kind of upset when I see reactions like this. The horror of Nazi history is that these were for the most part JUST PEOPLE! There was no special 'evil gene' that made Hitler's Germans specially evil in ways no current people can compare to. That is a damned racist implication. If you think logically about it you can see that Bush is just as capable of moving in the direction of horrors- for instance, he could crack down on homosexuals without really surprising anyone. On the flip side, Gore is capable of pulling off a Big Brother-like informational police state with every communication centrally monitored by the government- this is the guy behind Clipper, and associated with the PMRC attempts to categorise 'harmful' music so it could be more easily suppressed and censored, removed entirely from the mainstream media to control public thought so that America would not have to confront ideas like 'drugs' or 'occult'.
THESE PEOPLE ARE NOT A DIFFERENT DAMN SPECIES THAN THE NAZIS! The potential is there. It is really disturbing to see this immediate assumption that 'nobody we're actually dealing with today could ever be that bad'. (/godwin)
But still- good job! Also, I think we can boast that we fought a harder fight- Vermont is _split_ by our pioneering Civil Unions law (allowing marriagelike legal status for gay and lesbian couples) and the governor's race was fought brutally. There are 'Take Back Vermont', 'Take Vermont Forward' signs _everywhere_. By contrast, the reason you Libertarians kicked the Republican's butt so hard is he was running against Ted Kennedy :)
Still, it gives you a warm feeling to see either Dems or Reps taking third place or desperately struggling to avoid that fate. Keep it up, and beat the Republican next time- when Teddy gets old and too vague for politics you can pounce :)
Meanwhile, it looks like it's going to be like armwrestling here in Vermont, and that's cool too...
We gave him 7% in Vermont...
I just helped a Progressive candidate for governor pull roughly 10% in a _close_ and hard fought gubernatorial race. (The Libertarians, in Massachusetts, damn near beat the Republican candidate for Congress- though the race predictably went to 'Teddy'. In that race the _Republicans_ were damn near the 'third party')
Get up tomorrow, read the final results for the elections and then go to whatever organizations genuinely represent you (Greens, Progressives, Libertarians, Socialist Worker Party, _whatever_) and ask them, "Now what should I do?" Start building it into your regular life that you're going to put a certain amount of effort into supporting politics you can LIKE- and you're going to see who else you can find who feels the same way.
I don't know what's more impressive, pulling 10% in a hard fought race, or nearly whipping the Republican candidate in a race where it's a foregone conclusion- but either way this illustrates the people are out there.
Let's see to it that it's ten times as many people next time- always assuming we get a next time! It must be great to roll over and go back to sleep politically, but whether it's Greens on environment issues, Libertarians on government spending or Progressives on corporate rule and correlation between work and wealth, a LOT of us just do not have that luxury. Don't just be scared- organise!
We in Vermont voting Progressive did almost as well for the governor's seat:
Democrat: 53%
Republican: 36%
Progressive: 10%
(from the Burlington Free Press site)
I'll concede we didn't split the opposing vote half as well as you guys did, but you've also answered one question of mine- in Vermont, Libertarians made an awful showing, very little turnout. I wondered what happened to them. Clearly they were all in New Hampshire! And doing themselves proud- good job :)
Tip of the hat from one third-partyite to another!
Also, I voted the Progressive Anthony Pollina for Governor- he got 10%! That's damn good- that's about 10X any of the other third party candidates.
By all means go to sleep for another 4 years, CmdrTaco- that sounds nice. Us third party loonies are not going to go to sleep- the Presidential race in particular is a Pyrrhic victory no matter who wins, and we need to do better than that next time, assuming we _get_ a next time. I for one am _sold_ on Voting For (and will never 'vote against' again). Who knew? It looks like every third party candidate I voted for (Progressive/Green in Vermont) got a _big_ chunk of the mainstream, easily enough to swing an election. It's about being noticed. You ask Gush or Bore, "You wouldn't want, oh, 7% of an edge in your race?" You ask the Vermont gubernatorial candidates from the major party if they are paying attention to the _10%_ neither of them got because Pollina grabbed it. A lot of the third party results are like "Baz Foobar, 0% (27 votes)"... but NOT all of them.
After a little agonizing and hard thinking I ended up making no other votes- such as voting for people who 'sounded like' they were on the same page as the Progressive candidates, or voting for Libertarians simply because I like encouraging slashdot libertarians to get out there and vote their butts off :)
I think this was right- when I got right down to it, I looked at the Vermont ballot and was psyched to see all the Libertarian candidates all over it. I was like 'alright! good going!'. Then, when I thought about it, I realised that I did indeed wish them well but that they were about as far from what I was voting _for_ as I could possibly imagine- and the only one I'd heard word one from was Browne. I had no way of knowing if any of them had common sense or if they were all rabid randite fundamentalists- so I simply refrained from voting against them by picking the Democrat or whatever- essentially I only made a vote where I'd done my homework and knew what I was voting for.
The libertarian thing amuses me- I was thinking about being charitable and give them votes solely because I thought they as a third party deserved a respectable showing, even though they can be starkly opposed to my interests. Instead, I went with my self interest, and voted only the candidates that shared my concerns, and did _not_ vote Libertarian. Does this attention to my own interests, moderate selfishness, and refusal to support a contrasting view on principle, then make me more Libertarian? O_O so if I'd voted Libertarian against my interests I'd be proving I'm not one, but by withholding my vote I illustrate a self-interest streak that is more Libertarian. And now my head hurts :)
Seriously, good going guys- _lots_ of Libertarians all over the VT ballot. Keep up looking after your interests and I'll keep looking after mine...
The real problem isn't that- the real problem is that universities have to be considered an endangered species at this point. Their funding is terrible and corporations are stepping in, buying up these resources and taking control of them, essentially co-opting their purpose. As a result, more and more uni resources on the web and electronic media are going to be withheld and removed- in some cases to the extent of legal assaults on the 'public domain' status of these resources.
University resources that are public need to be mirrored and backed up by outside interests because the universities cannot or will not protect themselves and their primary mission- I would guess that within ten years there will be no schools as we understand them, it'll be purely corporate propaganda arms, doubling as press-release research facilities with a clear mandate to 'confirm' whatever the parent corporation wants confirmed. It's possible that 'name' schools, such as MIT, might maintain a certain amount of independence, but only at the cost of locking down its IP, consolidating it, and effectively becoming yet another corporation, except based around research and teaching students rather than based around selling products. The product would be the research- Negroponte's shown himself pretty capable at playing off corporations against each other and has been doing that for years.
Actual education will just have to go underground because it will not exist in recognizable form in the mainstream. I hope home schooling becomes a lot more common. Unfortunately, the newly privatised education sector may move to make home schooling illegal.
All very speculative to be sure! But I do think this is extremely likely, to a greater or lesser extent.
I think when people go into the polling places and the curtain falls behind them- they better vote their own interests, because that's what the other guy is going to be doing.
If these people really have that broad a support for the horrid acts you describe they _should_ win the election. Faking the election and trying to kluge better results isn't going to help in the long run.
I don't think they do represent the will of the people in that. I think most people are apathetic or conditioned to 'vote' for only certain parties, in a gamelike way rather than an expressing-their-concerns way.
Finally, it looks like you're arguing Gore's case as in 'he's not as bad as Bush'. I don't agree with that. Another slashdotter was distiguishing 'DemoGreens' and 'Protest Greens', with the latter being the ones who would not even vote if Nader wasn't running. I wasn't going to vote because I think both the Democrats and Republicans are fronting for the same damn crud as ever.
I'm going to quote a little something from the book I'm reading. It's called 'Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail 72', and as you might guess it was written in 1972. That's almost 30 years ago. *ahem*
I think it's obscene that it's taken this long, but I would say that it took almost 30 years. I am voting FOR something. And I admit to an emotional reaction here- I am _angry_ at the suggestion that I should throw that away and vote for Gore and same old same old, in the blind and retarded faith that some Democrat is going to vote Nader _for_ me. Have you considered the idea that voting _for_ someone is something that I've wanted to be able to do for a long time? That it is both a privilege and my obligation as a Vermont voter to vote for the guy I _want_ to win?
I don't think so. I don't think you've considered these things in your attempt to enlighten me that this is serious... so it would be wrong to be angry at you directly. But I am angry, angry at this disrespect for the system we have. It may suck but it's the only one we've got- and please don't forget that as a Nader voter I'm the one being asked to completely ignore this chance, this opportunity that HST lamented about almost _thirty_ years ago... and play politics games just like always... and actively vote for a guy who I think is treacherous and untrustworthy and a lot slipperier than Bush.
Not!
I ain't budging. I don't _want_ all-singing, all-dancing websties to actively reprogram my computer for me. "Submit to the brain scan of brainitor.com!" yech.
Yes, I did mean to type websties... started out as a typo, then I fixed it, then looked at it and fixed it right back again. Guess why ;)
But then, if you trust the Democrats- you might as well vote for them- and where's the 'coalition' then? Same old same old.
Again- if I trusted them I would VOTE for them. Nader happens to express my concerns well- I'm voting my interests in voting for him, there is no mistaking what my Nader vote represents. It's dead obvious. I'm going to be counted as representing the issues I care about, not some game theory nonsense that doesn't convey any information other than 'we won!' and doesn't lead anywhere.
I'm just one guy and just one vote but I have to say, ditch the voteswap idea! It's pitifully naive. If all us Nader people voteswapped I'd give more than a 50% chance that when the votes were counted, "Unaccountably, the third party Nader makes a very weak showing with 3% of the popular vote- apparently grassroots support for him was not very effective"
No kidding. And why would that be? Because they voted for Gore!! Furrfu! One would think that effective support for a political candidate would include _voting_ for him! If you think the Democrats are equally naive you've got a lot to learn- I have _huge_ respect for their tremendous experience in power politics, all the more if this 'vote swap' thing is orchestrated from the Gore camp to trick Nader supporters into voting against their own guy. (Worse has happened- the Republicans broke into Dem campaign headquarters in 1972, as well as directly financing huge NYT fullpage ads from supposed 'coalitions' supporting Nixon.)
I'm sorry- my voting for Nader may be naive, might even be futile (especially if I stop being politically active _after_ Nov. 7- not!) and I might be politically stupid- but I am _not_ THAT stupid, to be gulled into voting against the guy I'm trying to support. It all comes down to the popular vote in the end- and I only have one- I am _not_ going to use it against my own interests thank you.
You won't see a lot of _Democrats_ blithely pulling the lever for Nader just because they informally agreed to 'swap votes'. They are veterans of the political battlefields, they are playing for keeps- why the hell does anyone think these people are going to THROW votes away to support a dangerous potential left vote-splitter? Just forget it- it's not going to happen. I don't agree with them but I wouldn't insult them by thinking they were that stupid and naive. They aren't...
A vote for Gore is a vote for Gore- don't con yourself that you can make deals with people on the other side. Vote your data- for me that means voting Nader as that's the data I want to put into the system. Expecting some Gore person you don't even know to vote Nader just because you ask them is 'trusted client'- and we already know that's stupid! :)
If I don't trust Gore, why would I trust Gore _voters_ to vote for Nader in exchange for me voting for their guy? Nobody's watching inside the voting booth. I bet they all go and vote for Gore anyhow regardless of the promise they made. Explain why supporters of Gore should be considered trustworthy? Smart, I'll grant- Gore's pretty smart too. But trustworthy? I don't think so- not in this context. We're talking about making bargains that can't be checked up on, with people who have a vested interest in defecting on the agreement. I just don't trust that...
If they're voting Nader because they would have anyway and it's not a swing state- I wouldn't call that a Gore vote in the first place.