The UN does not have much actual power and can not effectively oppose the big powers of the world (economic forces; banks/corporations) therefore, they serve their tiny purpose quite effectively without much corruption interfering with their purpose. Now if you go and empower the UN in any significant way like giving them the internet they will either become corrupt since then they will have real power to attract corruption OR they will continue to be ineffective so the corruption motive will continue to be minimal.
One reason they do as well as they do is because they are so weak and easily thwarted by ineffectiveness -- which is actually better than being corrupt. Sure, some people think the result is the same and to you I say: Being unable to fix something is not the same as being the one who BREAKS it.
Given their history of being unable to gain the needed support to do the right thing; I would say if they drew up the regulations properly (which is actually possible) they would do a better job in keeping freedom on the internet over the downward spiral we are in today all over the world. That having been said, the multinational corporate groups are going to limit internet freedom 1 way or another as far as Music and Movies -- creating a single target to influence at the UN might make it better for them; although, again, this is the UN and its only slightly easier than "convincing" nations 1 by 1.
Fox News had a documentary on how the moon landings were faked by JFK. It was done in a more traditional styling.
As far as Moore, he could be so solid he is untouchable to any reasonable person-- but I don't think as many people would watch his films and regardless, the powerful groups he upsets have so much P.R. dishonestly defending them its disingenuous to claim they are being unfairly slandered -- which the P.R. firms would claim REGARDLESS, and spend millions to smear Moore as they have been. Moore isn't perfect, but my point is that millions of dollars of expert smearing and next to nothing on his side to counter puts him in a worse situation than a modern presidential candidate-- it doesn't matter what the truth is because propaganda creates its own "truths" and he'd be in no better shape if he was 100% factual just like the moon landing "hoax." (Which has almost no money promoting it; just an experiment in propaganda fox news tried a decade ago.)
Parent's lion king comparison is over the top but I'm not going to call him a liar for his misinterpretations.
FYI: I am a Moore customer but I'm not a "fan" - if you have heroes / profits you need to grow up.
I've seen people debate obvious stuff; you can argue anything - I've seen it and you can even be cogent and logical and still be completely off the deep end - no tricks are needed, just some skipping of facts or misinterpretation. I've seen people trying and believing themselves to be honest come up with some stupid BS and not realize what they are skipping or misunderstanding. Its hard not to do on something emotional let alone people purposely twisting things just slightly which is equally difficult to prove-- intent is hard to prove.
Moore can be completely honest but can get pretty close to somebody intentionally trying to fool people. Look up: Cognitive Dissonance. No, read a book on it, you can't "get it" just looking it up on wikipedia.
I knew a philosophy prof who argued extremely well that the moon landings were fake and to this day I don't know what he really thinks but he can raise a ton of good questions on multiple levels on something so obvious-- in fact he can do a really good number on science itself since its almost entirely based upon inductive reasoning and observation. Anyhow the point is, that there are lies debunking truths Moore tells or misleading things Moore does that are blown up that shouldn't be or fail to change the point being made that are not worth consideration and then there are things where he is outside of reasonable fair play (like dramatizing) that may or may not be dishonest about. Its also possible he is just wrong sometimes... you know, like most Americans were suckered into stupid things for YEARS after 9/11 (I wasn't and all I get is being smug; no t-shirt.)
Documentaries have bias; being boring and overtly factual does not change anything - if you think his documentaries are merely commentaries than you have a LOT to learn.... you'd probably not object to Texas school books either...
Its likely far beyond your comprehension; as many highly complex social systems the size of governments are even to the people within them. Its a distributed system with tons of fractal like emergent behaviors on top the tons of other stuff all running on human brains.
I'm an outsider, but from what I've read about your situation in Venezuela, I'd say it wouldn't matter a whole lot. The perfect man getting to that position and staying alive during the climb would be difficult but to keep the position and make things better for the majority (who are poor) its nearly impossible. It takes a bit of an asshat to play dirty with the powerful; problem is that human nature causes the environment to rub off so that perfect leader can not remain that way over the long term. You've had a less than perfect man at the beginning who is going against decades of corruption and a corporate empire (made in the USA) engaging in an info/propaganda war.
Personally, I think the power of modern psychology is great enough that concentrated powers are unstoppable and can at times get working control or even open control of a nation. I wonder just how long democracy will be possible and if it has not already been overtaken.
The only solution going forward would be a religious level adherence to the separation of powers to prevent any individual or group from obtaining dangerous levels of power. At present, attempts at this type of solution is highly improbable - the people only like the idea of separating government powers a little bit; separating private powers is still too new a concept. This is an idealistic solution; no real foolproof solutions exist.
We are all in for a ride as all nations fall into similar control schemes; and we have squabbles between the various controlling groups -- even well intentioned ones will have to play the game because counter measures are not really well known and while truth works really well, it takes too much effort and you only have a short window before even the truth is ineffective (if not strengthens the belief in the lies.) Therefore, the successful have to play by similar tactics to get anywhere - educating people to THINK isn't effective enough. Yes, it looks bleak-- but don't worry, at some point you'll fall into the trance like everybody else or your children will.
The security they had was poor because of incompetence, the same incompetence will "secure" it again. Will it work?;-)
This isn't even really secure information and its extremely likely spies have always had this level of access. What I'd love to know is how secure the actually secure or extremely secure information is... and how easily accessed that is by foreign governments (and future internet leaks as the US government falls deeper into the authoritarian black hole.)
The declaration of independence is akin to a mission statement, the goals... Which the founders also supported. Its not the constitution, which sadly is only a legal document and does not include the specificity of intent/purpose which weakens the document and is a large reason why the federalist papers were written to fill that void but those lack the weight of placing the intention in the document itself. The declaration is the best mission statement of intention from the same group; arguably a better supported document by the people of the day.
If you want to be picky, then you are incorrect that the bill of rights enumerates rights because it often prohibits GOVERNMENT instead of granting rights; its phrased this way because of the purpose expressed by the declaration of independence.
Prohibiting government action against free press logically applies to everybody. This is not a legitimately debatable matter, its a simple fact of logic.
The US government constitutionally can not make any laws prohibiting a free press. period. end of story. If the press releases some information that gets people killed, SO BE IT. Tough luck if you happen to get screwed over by some newspaper. I do not give a rip. Why is this such a huge deal?? The government kills many people directly and indirectly ALL THE TIME (in the middle east its over 1 million in the wars) often INTENTIONALLY so why can't the 4th branch of government (the press) acting on its own in the process of doing its job have a little collateral damage? Hell, we don't even seem to care about collateral damage. The press can by the fact the government has no right or power to prohibit a free press.
Many things the press has printed can be argued to have caused the death of somebody, proving that in court is a huge problem especially 1st degree... but like I said, they can't be put into court for doing their job. I suppose some reasonable limits might make sense; however, the cost of imposing "reasonable" is far too great when its done by politicians.
Parent is correct- it has NOTHING to do with citizenship whatsoever!
The unalienable rights endowed by our creator (sound a little familiar?) concept has nothing to do with government GIVING you rights - you have them inherently already and it also has nothing to do where you live or come from just that you are "mankind" which was later expanded to include women and other races (which the generic term always could apply to.)
Far too often it is asserted that we are GIVEN our rights or that foreigners have no rights or even that its a rights issue in the 1st place! Free press has nothing to do with their rights and everything to do with PROHIBITING Congress's rights to fool with the press doing it's job. I would argue that taxation of the press abridges the press especially in difficult times. Its more clear than not taxing churches which is entirely legit (as long as you tax them all evenly otherwise it can be seen as establishing 1 over another... which isn't anymore of a leap than I just made with taxing the press.)
Clearly the Chinese need to read the US memos and bone up on their diplomatic skills. You are not supposed to openly do these things you hide it and attack anybody who might leak out your real activities.
The typical "left" is usually less opposed to changes to new things than the "right" which tends to cling to past memories or current status. The "real world" is complex and not likely to map to any world view so the side who's less attached to their current state is going to have less cognitive dissonance to deal with. The "right" generally has A TON of cognitive dissonance going on these days you are probably better off defining them by that because its the most common thread they have.
As the leaks show, its just how the USA works. They threaten the other government in many ways, possibly even blackmail using that DNA, passwords, credit card info that they have been gathering...
Details are not need, simply tell your slave its their problem you just want results ASAP or else! They will come up with something on their own. Sex is a common tool to use and the locals must know they have bad laws on rape... In the process of looking into the man, they'd figure out there was more than 1 woman rather quickly and when the women find out about each other is the best time to make your move. Wouldn't be hard to let the women find out about each other.
Then you have the pressure employed on the gov to do the dirty work for the USA, they employ their own pressure to get their job done. Possibly more since they are desperate to get the pressure off their back and onto the target. The women may give in to pressure as well and if they do not they will likely have a harder time.
USA orders the Swedish peasants to find something to take him out; every nation has crazy laws on something. They find their rape laws are really easy and the bonus is that they looks bad; "The master (USA) will be pleased..."
Then they find some women (somehow) to decide to turn against him and even if it is not true, they can pressure those women to give evidence against him-- Remember, if the SWEDISH GOVERNMENT can be forced certainly they can force a few women to go along enough to get him into court. The can make anybody 'regret' having ever known him... Even if dropped they get a smokescreen and propaganda from it. Remember, it didn't work initially until they found the right Swedish stooge to play along.
Read some of the leaks, the USA heavily pressures others to do its bidding against all laws,ethics,morals of their own country on issues that are FAR WORSE than just nailing a foreigner on rape charges.
Why are we accepting the attacks on wikileaks seemingly being tied to their founder who isn't the organization but the man being targeted? It seems that all these attacks on the organization are being smoke screened by the founder's personal problems (due to his involvement in the group and volunteering to be the frontman/target for it.)
The US Media is useless and most people I've heard are quite misinformed about Wikileaks. This is NOT news, WikiLeaks has been working with major news outlets (mostly not in USA) for a while now. Back when the politicians were claiming lives lost and the huge evil of the war log leaks the Media didn't report that WikiLeaks was also working with news partners and the NYTimes was working on it with the Gov to make the leaks "responsible." Sure, mistakes were still made - it was not the big deal like it was blown into. The US Media doesn't think or work for a living, they just repeat what the Gov or talking heads or AstroTurf group says and hardly even moderates between those.
I'm all for redundant news about how WikiLeaks isn't the only one involved.
Notice how WikiLeaks is being targeted so much stronger now when instead of WAR information? This had to be the last straw, can't let average to stupid people think badly of our 'diplomacy'! Forget the losing of two wars and the MILLION+ dead people you can't give away our diplomatic policies! I don't think most people would be surprised if they leaked that Iraq was ONLY for oil but WikiLeaks would get bombed and Bush still wouldn't be within eyesight of protesters let alone prosecuted.
Arguing about the corrupt system's structure is like eating healthy to stop HIV. Representation that doesn't work can be structured any way you want and there would be only minor variations on a broken representation system.
Assange is the point man for all the attacks, intentionally or not, which helps his organization, members, volunteers, and donors who could just as easily be attacked by the USA propaganda machine. He is even more of a hero if it is intentional to draw the fire towards him.
As far as US centric- the USA, as shown in the leaks now more than ever, show the USA is pushing around the world from doing anything they do not like. Not that it will change USA policies since the public believes what they are told to believe and easily distracted by all this hype over rape charges, commentary, lies about not working with the gov, how its all Assange or wikileaks and not the NY times and others who heavily participated, and how the press is never supposed to embarrass government by self censoring and only saying the government talking points (like they did for the Iraq war.)
The US media is geared to focus on 1 man and never grasp groups of major newspapers and hardly even wikileaks -- in fact people here don't know what wikileaks is despite being aware of past scandals which broke because of wikileaks which didn't get credit. The real meaning of the leaks is being covered up by hype around all the meaningless side issues.
Anybody remember when the press printed how a nuclear bomb worked? (they essentially won - United States of America v. The Progressive) This is nowhere near the "risk" of that one. It makes the USA look bad so they are acting badly in the same ways that were disclosed to abuse their power to get revenge - Assange knew what he and his org was getting into because the leaks give away the kind of disregard of freedom & law that the US gov has.
Treason is not even a realistic charge for the leaker(s); the founders define treason in the constitution and even the overly abused new laws on terrorism can't apply here. Its political buzzwording. Forget passing any whistle blower protection laws now... not that they ever had much chance - we have too much corruption which many people can see but so much is not being exposed/leaked - not that it seems to matter because what we do know about has no accountability.
A FREE PRESS should be demanded by everybody worldwide. No exceptions. Ever. If they don't like it they shouldn't leak the info in the 1st place or they can punish those who leaked the info but they can not stop the PRESS. We must preserve the internet because its the last place for the free press ideals to exist even in nations who do not respect liberty - even if the internet is not the best place or as good as the press of long ago its better than nothing which is what everybody appears to be headed towards.
Corporate funding of propaganda machines dressed up as "think" tanks, institutes, and chambers have gone a long long way to sucker a whole lot of Americans into supporting whatever they want done. You can't fool everybody all the time but you can fool enough people all the time to make a big impact on society and the system; especially since the suckers go vote effectively doubling the impact of their small numbers.
AMAZON needs to pay sales tax as a part of doing business in the state, because that tax is a CONSUMER TAX that amazon merely collects at very small expense to themselves-- if they do not collect it then they shouldn't be allowed to conduct business in that state, they can't brake long lists of other state laws just because they are located out of state; like selling alcohol to minors for example.
Sales taxes reasonably equally applied don't harm business; the impact is negligible. (You can't be reasonable and say that consumption taxes are going to stop American consumers.) Most people do not think about sales taxes enough to stop most their purchases; however, it is enough to greatly impact choosing BETWEEN businesses. Shifting those taxes to property or income wouldn't have a huge difference - but whatever works best isn't important its the politics/social engineering that decides it.
Its not a competitive market when 1 games and bribes the system for an unfair advantage. Local businesses must pay taxes and everybody local should be equally treated and with outside businesses the state NEEDS to protect its constituents (the local businesses) and if the system worked, they'd actually protect their citizens. A sales tax is NOT on the business, its on the consumer, its just one of many ways to tax the people which have to be devised because citizens can't stomach the actual costs for the services they demand (but expect for free until they need them...)
One solution could be to charge all out of state packages more.... although that would be unfair to people shipping everything into a state. a CO2 tax might have a similar impact plus the green people would support it in addition to SANE local business people who need distances to cost more. Freight would be exempt or at a lower rate. Amazon could do freight by train... but they'd need a biz in state to transfer and ship which means added costs and/or state taxes; similar results.
Without hard proof - its a he said - she said situation. No need to risk faking anything other than to pay somebody to lie and pressure officials (who are weak opponents to an empire like ours.) A clever person would bring cases like this against him rather than risk a leak or mistake in something that involves too many people and too much room for error; however, doing something practically is not what the Pentagon or the CIA is known for...
He wins, reputation harmed, money lost, possibly some jail time served. Bring another suit. Just find a poor kid who needs some money... or who doesn't want his parents jailed...
I don't see why they didn't just go into full blown pedophilia? Why would that be too much? A teenage girl might be risky I suppose... but hey, they can keep their eyes open. In the end, they may get him on some stupid charge nobody believes or cares about; like drugs or tax evasion - at that point he won't have the support / reputation to cause much of a stir when they screw the law to nail him.
Government people don't get in trouble for lying - even big lies that lead to war - not much is done. The damage is not undone with vindication in part because the media and the public are less interested in dull vindications they like juicy shocking scandals / accusations. Then there is the impression psychological aspect where most people are guilty until proven innocent (unless you have a counter bias) and the extreme power of repetition -- the bad stuff gets repeated over and over while the vindication or retraction is lucky to be heard once. Then there is the whole illogical human side where people don't judge truth by logic or facts by appearance and feeling.
They are going to ruin his reputation, according to their plans which were leaked and seeing it coming is not much of a defense. We are talking about one of the best government propaganda machines in the world and the birthplace of much of the life altering techniques being used on everybody since WW1. They can demonize whole peoples and races and motivate a significant percentage of normal people to go kill others (whether or not its for a good cause is beside the point.) This is just 1 little man with some truth; he is going to lose overall even if he survives. The truth might set him free in a WORKING legal system but it will not likely do him much good in public opinion.
The wasteful pentagon with money to burn literally (million dollar bombs used on camels) quite likely is putting some effort into this. I wouldn't be surprised if they clone some of his skin cells make them into stem cells and into sperm -- close enough enough to pass a typical DNA test (its not likely he'd get the best expert to point out the flaws) among other dirty tricks which would be well within the history of the pentagon and the CIA (sadly, Americans don't believe such proven acts so they can do the WORST things and people won't think they'd really do it, same concept as BIG LIES go over easier.)
When his job is to put out LEAKS of crime, corruption and conspiracy HE IS BETTER INFORMED than most people about the kinds of things that can be done to him - likely more aware than the government pawns and even some corrupt officials...
It doesn't matter if I'm a nazi. What I say stands on its own; do not decide how cogent my arguments or facts are unless its based upon my neutrality in specific special case situations - this is not one of those. I'm not claiming an expert opinion on how evil the republicans are.
I never cared a whole lot about filibuster DDOS attacks but then I didn't care much about the online DDOS attacks either-- only when it gets really bad do I think it needs to be done. I would not have been happy if the Democrats broke ALL RECORDS either.
Historically, the DDOS attack in the senate has primarily been used for earmarks, pork, and racism - the extremely rare idealistic motivation did not increase when they changed the rules to make it easier; it drew LESS attention to it so even more corrupt abuse occurred. If you want to lower corruption and waste you will remove the power of 1 senator to easily threaten the whole group for their bridge to nowhere. No, it won't remove it but you are not going to really reform anything while the overtly corrupt have so much power.
I do not agree that capitalism is the solution to all problems. There are other tools than just that hammer. But I do agree that it does not fit a normal marketplace which is part of the problem. I go further, in saying this market is not a normal market to begin with. It is health not just selling widgets; CAPTIVE customers.
The big problem today with government is that the corporations have taken it over; the capitalists are running government to create more monopolies etc. Patent system is broken etc. Most people see some aspect of this underlying problem. You can't get your fair competition or much of anything else to work if its against the oligarchy.
Yes, Drugs are a HUGE HUGE problem.
I object to your implication drug companies help society. For drug research, the drug companies do almost nothing in the way of finding new cures they put money into adding sugar to the "new" drug, bribery, doing testing, adapting university discoveries, cheaply paying a university for patent rights, and they spend more on marketing than their so called R&D budget. Just because something has been around 30 or even 60 years doesn't mean that is the way it has been or should be. The corps didn't get us the bulk of the way forward even if they are today (and they are not.) We used to provide more gov funding to institutional research - either way we pay for that research; its better without the middlemen skimming off our money. Intrinsic motivation is key to most people actually doing good in this subject, not extrinsic. Making a stupid widget, not much intrinsic value there...
Insurance. Insurance WASTES about 1/3 of the money in the USA. This is a HUGE waste of money; if not theft if you've had to fight with them to do their job. Even if they functioned properly, they are required to increase profits at your expense and you HAVE to buy the stuff. It is a captive market; not a normal market. Like fire/police privatized was horrible and done away with long long ago. Decent local gov includes such emergency services insurance in your taxes. I don't care if my idiot neighbor burns down for not paying but I do when his fire grows and spreads over to me even though I'd pay, it would still greatly increase the risk/damage to me-- so he should be forced to pay; hence the local tax.
Lawsuits This one is a nightmare. The corps want to limit our only ability to fight back. Bad cases do cost the system; however, even with the mess we have it is a negligible overhead cost. It gets too much attention because the corps want to eliminate your right to fight and the corps bribe the system. We'd be screwed already if there weren't groups like trial lawyers bribing in the other direction (1 slime fighting another)
Personnel. regulation. we need checklists!! accountability is an over used word; but lawsuit madness etc- causes more incorporation which then provides too little accountability... You can keep the lawyers (most powerful lobby group) but limit their pay. I had my father die from human error; I had to threaten legal action or pay the bill for their fuckup! Insurance decided it wouldn't pay any of it by trying pull 1 over on me and sent the bill collectors after me. I payed nothing, its like insurance was just testing to see how much they could screw me... No settlement, they gave in once a "human" looked over the case. Shakespeare would have had worse for insurance people if they had them.
Equipment. Yes that is tough. Although, we have multiple clinics and hospitals here wasting that gear - all duplicates. If we had what the area required and no competing ones it would be a little cheaper.
The one you forget is: PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. In the USA, selfishness is equated with freedom. Most our costs come from the last few years of life; we must not die at any price. Its taboo to address this or discuss enforcing any policies and mere counseling services are mislabeled "death panels." Well, I for one can talk rationally ab
Slashdot Mirror
The UN does not have much actual power and can not effectively oppose the big powers of the world (economic forces; banks/corporations) therefore, they serve their tiny purpose quite effectively without much corruption interfering with their purpose. Now if you go and empower the UN in any significant way like giving them the internet they will either become corrupt since then they will have real power to attract corruption OR they will continue to be ineffective so the corruption motive will continue to be minimal.
One reason they do as well as they do is because they are so weak and easily thwarted by ineffectiveness -- which is actually better than being corrupt. Sure, some people think the result is the same and to you I say: Being unable to fix something is not the same as being the one who BREAKS it.
Given their history of being unable to gain the needed support to do the right thing; I would say if they drew up the regulations properly (which is actually possible) they would do a better job in keeping freedom on the internet over the downward spiral we are in today all over the world. That having been said, the multinational corporate groups are going to limit internet freedom 1 way or another as far as Music and Movies -- creating a single target to influence at the UN might make it better for them; although, again, this is the UN and its only slightly easier than "convincing" nations 1 by 1.
Fox News had a documentary on how the moon landings were faked by JFK. It was done in a more traditional styling.
As far as Moore, he could be so solid he is untouchable to any reasonable person-- but I don't think as many people would watch his films and regardless, the powerful groups he upsets have so much P.R. dishonestly defending them its disingenuous to claim they are being unfairly slandered -- which the P.R. firms would claim REGARDLESS, and spend millions to smear Moore as they have been. Moore isn't perfect, but my point is that millions of dollars of expert smearing and next to nothing on his side to counter puts him in a worse situation than a modern presidential candidate-- it doesn't matter what the truth is because propaganda creates its own "truths" and he'd be in no better shape if he was 100% factual just like the moon landing "hoax." (Which has almost no money promoting it; just an experiment in propaganda fox news tried a decade ago.)
Parent's lion king comparison is over the top but I'm not going to call him a liar for his misinterpretations.
FYI: I am a Moore customer but I'm not a "fan" - if you have heroes / profits you need to grow up.
I've seen people debate obvious stuff; you can argue anything - I've seen it and you can even be cogent and logical and still be completely off the deep end - no tricks are needed, just some skipping of facts or misinterpretation. I've seen people trying and believing themselves to be honest come up with some stupid BS and not realize what they are skipping or misunderstanding. Its hard not to do on something emotional let alone people purposely twisting things just slightly which is equally difficult to prove-- intent is hard to prove.
Moore can be completely honest but can get pretty close to somebody intentionally trying to fool people. Look up: Cognitive Dissonance. No, read a book on it, you can't "get it" just looking it up on wikipedia.
I knew a philosophy prof who argued extremely well that the moon landings were fake and to this day I don't know what he really thinks but he can raise a ton of good questions on multiple levels on something so obvious-- in fact he can do a really good number on science itself since its almost entirely based upon inductive reasoning and observation. Anyhow the point is, that there are lies debunking truths Moore tells or misleading things Moore does that are blown up that shouldn't be or fail to change the point being made that are not worth consideration and then there are things where he is outside of reasonable fair play (like dramatizing) that may or may not be dishonest about. Its also possible he is just wrong sometimes... you know, like most Americans were suckered into stupid things for YEARS after 9/11 (I wasn't and all I get is being smug; no t-shirt.)
Documentaries have bias; being boring and overtly factual does not change anything - if you think his documentaries are merely commentaries than you have a LOT to learn.... you'd probably not object to Texas school books either...
Its likely far beyond your comprehension; as many highly complex social systems the size of governments are even to the people within them. Its a distributed system with tons of fractal like emergent behaviors on top the tons of other stuff all running on human brains.
I'm an outsider, but from what I've read about your situation in Venezuela, I'd say it wouldn't matter a whole lot. The perfect man getting to that position and staying alive during the climb would be difficult but to keep the position and make things better for the majority (who are poor) its nearly impossible. It takes a bit of an asshat to play dirty with the powerful; problem is that human nature causes the environment to rub off so that perfect leader can not remain that way over the long term. You've had a less than perfect man at the beginning who is going against decades of corruption and a corporate empire (made in the USA) engaging in an info/propaganda war.
Personally, I think the power of modern psychology is great enough that concentrated powers are unstoppable and can at times get working control or even open control of a nation. I wonder just how long democracy will be possible and if it has not already been overtaken.
The only solution going forward would be a religious level adherence to the separation of powers to prevent any individual or group from obtaining dangerous levels of power. At present, attempts at this type of solution is highly improbable - the people only like the idea of separating government powers a little bit; separating private powers is still too new a concept. This is an idealistic solution; no real foolproof solutions exist.
We are all in for a ride as all nations fall into similar control schemes; and we have squabbles between the various controlling groups -- even well intentioned ones will have to play the game because counter measures are not really well known and while truth works really well, it takes too much effort and you only have a short window before even the truth is ineffective (if not strengthens the belief in the lies.) Therefore, the successful have to play by similar tactics to get anywhere - educating people to THINK isn't effective enough. Yes, it looks bleak-- but don't worry, at some point you'll fall into the trance like everybody else or your children will.
The security they had was poor because of incompetence, the same incompetence will "secure" it again. Will it work? ;-)
This isn't even really secure information and its extremely likely spies have always had this level of access. What I'd love to know is how secure the actually secure or extremely secure information is... and how easily accessed that is by foreign governments (and future internet leaks as the US government falls deeper into the authoritarian black hole.)
The declaration of independence is akin to a mission statement, the goals... Which the founders also supported. Its not the constitution, which sadly is only a legal document and does not include the specificity of intent/purpose which weakens the document and is a large reason why the federalist papers were written to fill that void but those lack the weight of placing the intention in the document itself. The declaration is the best mission statement of intention from the same group; arguably a better supported document by the people of the day.
If you want to be picky, then you are incorrect that the bill of rights enumerates rights because it often prohibits GOVERNMENT instead of granting rights; its phrased this way because of the purpose expressed by the declaration of independence.
Prohibiting government action against free press logically applies to everybody. This is not a legitimately debatable matter, its a simple fact of logic.
In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
-George Orwell
The US government constitutionally can not make any laws prohibiting a free press. period. end of story. If the press releases some information that gets people killed, SO BE IT. Tough luck if you happen to get screwed over by some newspaper. I do not give a rip. Why is this such a huge deal?? The government kills many people directly and indirectly ALL THE TIME (in the middle east its over 1 million in the wars) often INTENTIONALLY so why can't the 4th branch of government (the press) acting on its own in the process of doing its job have a little collateral damage? Hell, we don't even seem to care about collateral damage. The press can by the fact the government has no right or power to prohibit a free press.
Many things the press has printed can be argued to have caused the death of somebody, proving that in court is a huge problem especially 1st degree... but like I said, they can't be put into court for doing their job. I suppose some reasonable limits might make sense; however, the cost of imposing "reasonable" is far too great when its done by politicians.
Parent is correct- it has NOTHING to do with citizenship whatsoever!
The unalienable rights endowed by our creator (sound a little familiar?) concept has nothing to do with government GIVING you rights - you have them inherently already and it also has nothing to do where you live or come from just that you are "mankind" which was later expanded to include women and other races (which the generic term always could apply to.)
Far too often it is asserted that we are GIVEN our rights or that foreigners have no rights or even that its a rights issue in the 1st place! Free press has nothing to do with their rights and everything to do with PROHIBITING Congress's rights to fool with the press doing it's job. I would argue that taxation of the press abridges the press especially in difficult times. Its more clear than not taxing churches which is entirely legit (as long as you tax them all evenly otherwise it can be seen as establishing 1 over another... which isn't anymore of a leap than I just made with taxing the press.)
Clearly the Chinese need to read the US memos and bone up on their diplomatic skills. You are not supposed to openly do these things you hide it and attack anybody who might leak out your real activities.
Left vs Right is a false dichotomy to begin with.
The typical "left" is usually less opposed to changes to new things than the "right" which tends to cling to past memories or current status. The "real world" is complex and not likely to map to any world view so the side who's less attached to their current state is going to have less cognitive dissonance to deal with. The "right" generally has A TON of cognitive dissonance going on these days you are probably better off defining them by that because its the most common thread they have.
As the leaks show, its just how the USA works. They threaten the other government in many ways, possibly even blackmail using that DNA, passwords, credit card info that they have been gathering...
Details are not need, simply tell your slave its their problem you just want results ASAP or else! They will come up with something on their own. Sex is a common tool to use and the locals must know they have bad laws on rape... In the process of looking into the man, they'd figure out there was more than 1 woman rather quickly and when the women find out about each other is the best time to make your move. Wouldn't be hard to let the women find out about each other.
Then you have the pressure employed on the gov to do the dirty work for the USA, they employ their own pressure to get their job done. Possibly more since they are desperate to get the pressure off their back and onto the target. The women may give in to pressure as well and if they do not they will likely have a harder time.
USA orders the Swedish peasants to find something to take him out; every nation has crazy laws on something. They find their rape laws are really easy and the bonus is that they looks bad; "The master (USA) will be pleased..."
Then they find some women (somehow) to decide to turn against him and even if it is not true, they can pressure those women to give evidence against him-- Remember, if the SWEDISH GOVERNMENT can be forced certainly they can force a few women to go along enough to get him into court. The can make anybody 'regret' having ever known him... Even if dropped they get a smokescreen and propaganda from it. Remember, it didn't work initially until they found the right Swedish stooge to play along.
Read some of the leaks, the USA heavily pressures others to do its bidding against all laws,ethics,morals of their own country on issues that are FAR WORSE than just nailing a foreigner on rape charges.
Why are we accepting the attacks on wikileaks seemingly being tied to their founder who isn't the organization but the man being targeted? It seems that all these attacks on the organization are being smoke screened by the founder's personal problems (due to his involvement in the group and volunteering to be the frontman/target for it.)
The US Media is useless and most people I've heard are quite misinformed about Wikileaks. This is NOT news, WikiLeaks has been working with major news outlets (mostly not in USA) for a while now. Back when the politicians were claiming lives lost and the huge evil of the war log leaks the Media didn't report that WikiLeaks was also working with news partners and the NYTimes was working on it with the Gov to make the leaks "responsible." Sure, mistakes were still made - it was not the big deal like it was blown into. The US Media doesn't think or work for a living, they just repeat what the Gov or talking heads or AstroTurf group says and hardly even moderates between those.
I'm all for redundant news about how WikiLeaks isn't the only one involved.
Notice how WikiLeaks is being targeted so much stronger now when instead of WAR information? This had to be the last straw, can't let average to stupid people think badly of our 'diplomacy'! Forget the losing of two wars and the MILLION+ dead people you can't give away our diplomatic policies! I don't think most people would be surprised if they leaked that Iraq was ONLY for oil but WikiLeaks would get bombed and Bush still wouldn't be within eyesight of protesters let alone prosecuted.
Arguing about the corrupt system's structure is like eating healthy to stop HIV. Representation that doesn't work can be structured any way you want and there would be only minor variations on a broken representation system.
Anybody find the image confusing-- modern building tools / structures with primitives in the foreground?
Assange is the point man for all the attacks, intentionally or not, which helps his organization, members, volunteers, and donors who could just as easily be attacked by the USA propaganda machine. He is even more of a hero if it is intentional to draw the fire towards him.
As far as US centric- the USA, as shown in the leaks now more than ever, show the USA is pushing around the world from doing anything they do not like. Not that it will change USA policies since the public believes what they are told to believe and easily distracted by all this hype over rape charges, commentary, lies about not working with the gov, how its all Assange or wikileaks and not the NY times and others who heavily participated, and how the press is never supposed to embarrass government by self censoring and only saying the government talking points (like they did for the Iraq war.)
The US media is geared to focus on 1 man and never grasp groups of major newspapers and hardly even wikileaks -- in fact people here don't know what wikileaks is despite being aware of past scandals which broke because of wikileaks which didn't get credit. The real meaning of the leaks is being covered up by hype around all the meaningless side issues.
Anybody remember when the press printed how a nuclear bomb worked? (they essentially won - United States of America v. The Progressive) This is nowhere near the "risk" of that one. It makes the USA look bad so they are acting badly in the same ways that were disclosed to abuse their power to get revenge - Assange knew what he and his org was getting into because the leaks give away the kind of disregard of freedom & law that the US gov has.
Treason is not even a realistic charge for the leaker(s); the founders define treason in the constitution and even the overly abused new laws on terrorism can't apply here. Its political buzzwording. Forget passing any whistle blower protection laws now... not that they ever had much chance - we have too much corruption which many people can see but so much is not being exposed/leaked - not that it seems to matter because what we do know about has no accountability.
A FREE PRESS should be demanded by everybody worldwide. No exceptions. Ever. If they don't like it they shouldn't leak the info in the 1st place or they can punish those who leaked the info but they can not stop the PRESS. We must preserve the internet because its the last place for the free press ideals to exist even in nations who do not respect liberty - even if the internet is not the best place or as good as the press of long ago its better than nothing which is what everybody appears to be headed towards.
Corporate funding of propaganda machines dressed up as "think" tanks, institutes, and chambers have gone a long long way to sucker a whole lot of Americans into supporting whatever they want done. You can't fool everybody all the time but you can fool enough people all the time to make a big impact on society and the system; especially since the suckers go vote effectively doubling the impact of their small numbers.
AMAZON needs to pay sales tax as a part of doing business in the state, because that tax is a CONSUMER TAX that amazon merely collects at very small expense to themselves-- if they do not collect it then they shouldn't be allowed to conduct business in that state, they can't brake long lists of other state laws just because they are located out of state; like selling alcohol to minors for example.
Sales taxes reasonably equally applied don't harm business; the impact is negligible. (You can't be reasonable and say that consumption taxes are going to stop American consumers.) Most people do not think about sales taxes enough to stop most their purchases; however, it is enough to greatly impact choosing BETWEEN businesses. Shifting those taxes to property or income wouldn't have a huge difference - but whatever works best isn't important its the politics/social engineering that decides it.
Its not a competitive market when 1 games and bribes the system for an unfair advantage. Local businesses must pay taxes and everybody local should be equally treated and with outside businesses the state NEEDS to protect its constituents (the local businesses) and if the system worked, they'd actually protect their citizens. A sales tax is NOT on the business, its on the consumer, its just one of many ways to tax the people which have to be devised because citizens can't stomach the actual costs for the services they demand (but expect for free until they need them...)
One solution could be to charge all out of state packages more.... although that would be unfair to people shipping everything into a state. a CO2 tax might have a similar impact plus the green people would support it in addition to SANE local business people who need distances to cost more. Freight would be exempt or at a lower rate. Amazon could do freight by train... but they'd need a biz in state to transfer and ship which means added costs and/or state taxes; similar results.
Without hard proof - its a he said - she said situation. No need to risk faking anything other than to pay somebody to lie and pressure officials (who are weak opponents to an empire like ours.) A clever person would bring cases like this against him rather than risk a leak or mistake in something that involves too many people and too much room for error; however, doing something practically is not what the Pentagon or the CIA is known for...
He wins, reputation harmed, money lost, possibly some jail time served. Bring another suit. Just find a poor kid who needs some money... or who doesn't want his parents jailed...
I don't see why they didn't just go into full blown pedophilia? Why would that be too much? A teenage girl might be risky I suppose... but hey, they can keep their eyes open. In the end, they may get him on some stupid charge nobody believes or cares about; like drugs or tax evasion - at that point he won't have the support / reputation to cause much of a stir when they screw the law to nail him.
Government people don't get in trouble for lying - even big lies that lead to war - not much is done. The damage is not undone with vindication in part because the media and the public are less interested in dull vindications they like juicy shocking scandals / accusations. Then there is the impression psychological aspect where most people are guilty until proven innocent (unless you have a counter bias) and the extreme power of repetition -- the bad stuff gets repeated over and over while the vindication or retraction is lucky to be heard once. Then there is the whole illogical human side where people don't judge truth by logic or facts by appearance and feeling.
They are going to ruin his reputation, according to their plans which were leaked and seeing it coming is not much of a defense. We are talking about one of the best government propaganda machines in the world and the birthplace of much of the life altering techniques being used on everybody since WW1. They can demonize whole peoples and races and motivate a significant percentage of normal people to go kill others (whether or not its for a good cause is beside the point.) This is just 1 little man with some truth; he is going to lose overall even if he survives. The truth might set him free in a WORKING legal system but it will not likely do him much good in public opinion.
The wasteful pentagon with money to burn literally (million dollar bombs used on camels) quite likely is putting some effort into this. I wouldn't be surprised if they clone some of his skin cells make them into stem cells and into sperm -- close enough enough to pass a typical DNA test (its not likely he'd get the best expert to point out the flaws) among other dirty tricks which would be well within the history of the pentagon and the CIA (sadly, Americans don't believe such proven acts so they can do the WORST things and people won't think they'd really do it, same concept as BIG LIES go over easier.)
When his job is to put out LEAKS of crime, corruption and conspiracy HE IS BETTER INFORMED than most people about the kinds of things that can be done to him - likely more aware than the government pawns and even some corrupt officials...
It doesn't matter if I'm a nazi. What I say stands on its own; do not decide how cogent my arguments or facts are unless its based upon my neutrality in specific special case situations - this is not one of those. I'm not claiming an expert opinion on how evil the republicans are.
I never cared a whole lot about filibuster DDOS attacks but then I didn't care much about the online DDOS attacks either-- only when it gets really bad do I think it needs to be done. I would not have been happy if the Democrats broke ALL RECORDS either.
Historically, the DDOS attack in the senate has primarily been used for earmarks, pork, and racism - the extremely rare idealistic motivation did not increase when they changed the rules to make it easier; it drew LESS attention to it so even more corrupt abuse occurred. If you want to lower corruption and waste you will remove the power of 1 senator to easily threaten the whole group for their bridge to nowhere. No, it won't remove it but you are not going to really reform anything while the overtly corrupt have so much power.
Well at least somebody wants to talk about it...
I do not agree that capitalism is the solution to all problems. There are other tools than just that hammer. But I do agree that it does not fit a normal marketplace which is part of the problem. I go further, in saying this market is not a normal market to begin with. It is health not just selling widgets; CAPTIVE customers.
The big problem today with government is that the corporations have taken it over; the capitalists are running government to create more monopolies etc. Patent system is broken etc. Most people see some aspect of this underlying problem. You can't get your fair competition or much of anything else to work if its against the oligarchy.
Yes, Drugs are a HUGE HUGE problem.
I object to your implication drug companies help society. For drug research, the drug companies do almost nothing in the way of finding new cures they put money into adding sugar to the "new" drug, bribery, doing testing, adapting university discoveries, cheaply paying a university for patent rights, and they spend more on marketing than their so called R&D budget. Just because something has been around 30 or even 60 years doesn't mean that is the way it has been or should be. The corps didn't get us the bulk of the way forward even if they are today (and they are not.) We used to provide more gov funding to institutional research - either way we pay for that research; its better without the middlemen skimming off our money. Intrinsic motivation is key to most people actually doing good in this subject, not extrinsic. Making a stupid widget, not much intrinsic value there...
Insurance.
Insurance WASTES about 1/3 of the money in the USA. This is a HUGE waste of money; if not theft if you've had to fight with them to do their job. Even if they functioned properly, they are required to increase profits at your expense and you HAVE to buy the stuff. It is a captive market; not a normal market. Like fire/police privatized was horrible and done away with long long ago. Decent local gov includes such emergency services insurance in your taxes. I don't care if my idiot neighbor burns down for not paying but I do when his fire grows and spreads over to me even though I'd pay, it would still greatly increase the risk/damage to me-- so he should be forced to pay; hence the local tax.
Lawsuits
This one is a nightmare. The corps want to limit our only ability to fight back. Bad cases do cost the system; however, even with the mess we have it is a negligible overhead cost. It gets too much attention because the corps want to eliminate your right to fight and the corps bribe the system. We'd be screwed already if there weren't groups like trial lawyers bribing in the other direction (1 slime fighting another)
Personnel. regulation. we need checklists!! accountability is an over used word; but lawsuit madness etc- causes more incorporation which then provides too little accountability... You can keep the lawyers (most powerful lobby group) but limit their pay. I had my father die from human error; I had to threaten legal action or pay the bill for their fuckup! Insurance decided it wouldn't pay any of it by trying pull 1 over on me and sent the bill collectors after me. I payed nothing, its like insurance was just testing to see how much they could screw me... No settlement, they gave in once a "human" looked over the case. Shakespeare would have had worse for insurance people if they had them.
Equipment. Yes that is tough. Although, we have multiple clinics and hospitals here wasting that gear - all duplicates. If we had what the area required and no competing ones it would be a little cheaper.
The one you forget is:
PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY.
In the USA, selfishness is equated with freedom. Most our costs come from the last few years of life; we must not die at any price. Its taboo to address this or discuss enforcing any policies and mere counseling services are mislabeled "death panels." Well, I for one can talk rationally ab