What good is hundreds of thousands of songs from independent labels when the RIAA is still on the service? The only way independent labels can compete is with the RIAA's off the service.
Why not support a service which boycotts the RIAA and just supports independents like magnatune?
s. For a $0.99 song apple gets $0.30 to cover bandwitdh and server charges, about $0.65 goes to the labels and $0.05 goes to the artists. Of course the last two things vary depending on the contracts signed for each artist.
Where do you get these figures? From what I've heard Apple doesnt make a penny. Artist's dont make a penny. Just the RIAA.
show me where on the Apple site this is stated, show some proof.
The more money labels make from the selling of music online, the more money they will be able to kick back to the artists in the end as new contracts are written up. Until the labels see big changes in the cash flow, things will stay the same.
Yeah but why would they kick anything back to artists? This is like saying "If we buy more music from the RIAA the prices of CDs will go down"
Do your research. Michael Robertson owned Mp3.com. They wered sued by the RIAA, an RIAA company purchased Mp3.com in a hostile takeover. Then they sold Mp3.com to Cnet.
Itune sales are just average. Mp3.com was doing a billion times better than Itunes but never put up articles every month staying how they were doing. Ah a million downloads. Ah 10 million downloads. Ah 25 million downloads. Thats marketing.
E-music is doing pretty good. Magnatunes is off to a strong start. Napster is actually doing fine also and catching up to Itunes. I expect Napster to surpass Itunes by far simply due to brand recognition.
The difference? Napster wont announce numbers until they are number 1, Apple will announce numbers even if they are in last place. Thats good marketing but its not real. It does not prove a business model is working. Apple has not made a profit at all off Itunes and is losing money on this. The RIAA is the only one profiting from this while Apple, Consumers, and Artists lose money.
But they cant start a record label until they ditch the RIAA labels. Once they ditch those labels yes they can do that. I'm sure the RIAA will sue them though like they sued Mp3.com out of existance.
The RIAA hated Mp3.com and hates competition. Mp3.com was actually very successful
Remove all RIAA music from the service so that its just Apple, independent labels, and artists.
Apple can become an intrim music label, having artists sign up to them and even pay them a fee to put their music on Itunes. This would make Apple money.
Then Apple can use their marketing powers to sell the artists music.
When you purchase an Album from Itunes, where exactly does your money go? IF you don't know, why are you throwing money down the toilet? Afraid of getting arrested? Are you paying because you are a coward?
I'd support Itunes if it were its own industry, with its own music, like mp3.com. The problem with Itunes is it takes the flawed recording industry and extends their monopoly. This would be like steve jobs releasing a version of Microsoft Windows for the Mac, and expecting us all to use that. Its bullshit.
If I wanted to support the RIAA I'd buy buying CD's right now. Take a hint!
Apple does a nice job marketing. 25 million downloads is not alot of downloads at all. Kazaa gets that many downloads in a few days.
The flaw with the Itunes model? No one knows how much money actually goes to artists. Its legal but most people using Kazaa don't give a shit about the law.
So you have a situation where someone like me who currently boycotts the RIAA has no intention of ever supporting Itunes simply because Itunes hurts artists. Artists don't make a penny. Customers get robbed paying $1 for a low quality audio rip. You don't see that you are still paying the RIAA $1?
I support Magnatunes, I supported Mp3.com, I even support Emusic. I'll never support Itunes, I will never pay for music on a per song basis unless at least 50% of my money goes to musicians. I will not pay $1 a song, songs should be priced by the market and not buy record execs.
If you want to continue to pay content owners, go ahead and waste your money. If you want to save the music industry and help the artists and yourself Itunes is not the answer.
Here are some alternatives
MagnatunesWeed
The Itunes business model will never be mainstream. When TV was invented, pay TV was not the mainstream and while cable did make money, most people had reguar TV.
Netscape is superior for the average user. AIM/iCQ is built into netscape, thats more important than every new feature Mozilla has over netscape.
Netscape supports more plugins also. Mozilla may be better, but they have no idea what the user wants nor do they care. They buiild for what nerds like you want and thats why everyone uses bloated slow buggy hackable IE.
The USA at one point had Chinas technology. Japan and Germany had superior technology. Why did we win? Heart. We had the will. Economy isnt everything, people in China will fight for China because they love China and believe in the cause. There are a million military soilders. China does have the ability to produce massive amounts of ships.
We could use airstrikes on China, and we could attack China by sea, but they would never have an air or sea war. What they would do is either slowly bring Chinese spy/agents into Taiwan over the course of years to prepare an attack from within, or they will simply fly their choppers into Taiwan in mass and parachute down. Point is they can easily take Taiwan. Yes we can take it back, but they could take Taiwan in a matter of weeks, long before we'd have our troops in position to do anything about it. Like I said if China is serious about taking taiwan they have planned this for years and already have everything in place, they know the logistics, they have everything already have troops/spys in taiwan. Just like when we took out Iraq, most of the work was through the intelligence officers, and alot of fighting happened from our troops within. Taiwan is the same.
China could assasinate all the main officials in government, or they could simply tell their agents that now is the time and suddenly all of taiwans defenses and communications would be shut off while a surprise attack of thousands of troops occurs. Just like we took out parts of vietnam by flying in, establishing bases etc. China could fly into a defenseless Taiwan and try to establish themselves.
Yes we could stop it, but our stealth bombers can be shot down by surface to air missles. Our boats can stop their boats, they can stop our boats with their infantry. They can send many units on smaller boats to attack our big boatts. Our sub marines could maybe stop them at sea but like I said, its not going to be easy.
We have alot of money but we are currently in debt. We could win back Taiwan at a cost which would be so great that our economy might be better off if we just give China Taiwan. So this would be a vietnam style pride war moreso than a legit war.
Sure we could win, but you act like they cant shoot us down easily. They can. China does have satelites, they do have satelite guided weapons, and they do have better technology than Iraq. IF we have this many problems with Iraq we will have alot of problems dealing with China unless its a war at Sea or Air. China is not going to allow it to be a Sea or air war and what makes you think they cant position their troops secretly and surprise attack? We Americans cannot tell the Chinese apart from the Taiwanese.
"First, you vastly overestimate China's nuclear capabilities. As I said, China has a very hard time reaching the US with their nukes. The US has been in a cold war with Russia for 50 years and have absolutely no problem blanketing China. The US has vastly more nuclear destructive force then China. Only Russia is a contender when it comes to raw nuclear power. Also recall that our arsenal was meant to take down Russia, which just as spread out as China is."
Our nukes were not designed to beat Russia in a nuke contest. They were designed to deter Russia from nuking us. The same applies to China. We do not plan to use the Nuke as a weapon but as a psychological tool. Also China does have nukes which can rearch the USA, and to say you know for a fact they don't must mean you work for the NSA?
Second, your point is valid in that there exist parts of China that wouldn't notice anything is wrong except for sudden drastically high cancer rates and 'snow' in the middle of the summer. However, you miss the point that these peasants that would be less effected are not the people ruling China. China is ruled from the cities. The leaders live in cities. The leaders are very much creatures of the modern world, and China at the moment is run through its technology. The Chinese government is as helpless as the US government is without its technology.
The leaders can flee to the country into bunkers and we'd have no idea where they are. The Chinese government is also alot older than the US government and unlike the US government the Chinese are all Chinese and all one race. The US would be torn apart because of racial in-fighting.
Finally, China is ruled by rational city dwelling people. The US has stated very clearly how far it will go to preserve the few nations that it has aligned itself with. The USSR never assaulted Western Germany because they realized that our willingness to fight back with all of our conventional might and retaliate to nuclear strikes with all of our nuclear might was very much hardened and set in stone. The US has in the past and will in the future risk total annihilation for these principles. The US might be raging hypocrites on many issues, but not on this one.
Its a threat, but I do not think China fears us. They simply do not want to ruin their economy. China needs us for their economy and thats the only thing keeping them in check. Not our nukes. If we ever were to threaten China's economy with sanctions or to attempt to bully China on that level China would be forced to go to war with us. However right now China is improving their economy because of us so we are on friendly terms.
The invasion of Taiwan would work out simply. China would invade and the US fleet and air force would get in the way. China would loose any conventional engagement with the US. China then has the option to press the button and set both nations back to the stone age or give up their aspirations of owning Taiwan. Either way, Taiwan will never fall into China's hands. If they press the button, lording of Taiwan will the last thing they have to worry about. It is a no win situation for China to invade
Under normal situations you would be right. You forget something. We have troops in Iraq, Afganastan, Korea, Liberia, Colombia. We are just too spread thin right now to beat China in a war. They'd win simply because we'd run out of troops. China could send an endless supply of troops to shoot down out planes, and basically turn it into another Vietnam like situation where half of the US will want us to pull out and the other half want to stay and fight. In the end after enough troops die the US will pull out and because China simply has more troops they can afford to fight for 10 years. If we Nuke they Nuke. If we go to war in Taiwan because of the location and the amount of troops they have they'll have the advantage.
The only way we could beat China is to pull out of all of the other countries we are in and focus fully on China.
" Your logic is very flawed. If the US is not willing to carry out their threat, why would China not simply invade?"
They havent called are bluff yet.
"
China will not "NUKE THE HELL OUT OF THE US" because the US would NUKE THE HELL OUT OF CHINA."
There are more Chinese than Americans. China would win easily in a nuke contest. We fear them nuking us more than they fear us nuking them. Now I admit we could nuke them back to the stoneage, but if they nuke us we wont have any survivors. The US is smaller than China, the US has less people than China, and the people in the USA are all concentrated in specific areas while people in China are more evenly distributed. In nuclear war with China we would lose.
"The US would some day recover as perhaps a shadow of our former nation, they would not."
Ah yes a few thousand rich elite Americans will come out of their bunkers and then what? The US will be an empty wasteland and Bill Gates and other rich powerful people will simply go to Europe.
Who is going to rebuild America? The Native Americans? Blacks? Mexicans? Who? The US is a country of immigrants and when all of the workers die, the chiefs will move to Europe.
"Getting into a game of nuclear holocaust with the US is a very stupid idea because in the end you loose. Period. Every US city could be flatted, but that just means everything higher then a few meters if flattened in China. The US just recently reaffirmed that the consequence of using a WMD on the US is getting a WMD thrown back in your face and then some."
Like I said China is one country that does not fear us. We could use all our nukes on them and there will still be enough Chinese people to come here on boats and kill the survivors.
"Taiwan is considered US protected property. The US have made it clear in both words and in law that Taiwan is under US protection. The rhetoric Bush is using against Taiwan right now is just that, rhetoric. Bush doesn't want to fight China, but like ANY American president, Republican or Democrat, he will fight China if he has to protect Taiwan. Being a mildly rational person (or at least having some rational advisors) he is going to go out of his way to avoid fighting China. That isn't to say he wouldn't if he had to, but if the cost of keeping China from going after Taiwan are a few harsh words to Taiwan, he will certainly do it. That doesn't change the fact that at the end of the day there will always be a couple of US carrier battle groups sitting between main land China and Taiwan."
The end result of a Nuclear war with China is worse than the end result of letting China take out Taiwan.
We can always do business with China after they take out Taiwan, but if the US and China go into a nuke contest there will be no US left. So I see this as a bluff.
"Saw what you will on the US, on this one issue they are principled to the point of insane fanaticism that makes Islamic terrorist look like sane and rational people. The US would defend Taiwan in an instant from China, and the US wouldn't think twice about respond to any nuclear attack from China with their own. In other words, the US would risk absolute destruction of all parties involved (themselves included) then let a nation like Taiwan fall to a nation like China. "
China has nothing to lose. Most of Europe would not help us in a War with China. What would happen here is the Superpower who everyone loves to hate, the USA would be brought back to the stone ages and in the end will be just like China with the only difference that China will have more survivors. Suddenly some country in Europe will become the super power, perhaps Russia.
Who is going to rebuild America?
You see China has nothing to lose, most of them already are living in the stone ages, so why not take us a step back with a nuclear war which they'd win simply because in the end when we both are in the stone age there will be more Chinese people.
Also do not expect rich CEO's to be loyal, Bill Gates will come out of his bunker and run back to Europe along with most other survivors.
First, let's ignore the fact that the US would do SOMETHING if China invaded. If we had a very very weak president that wouldn't mind the US going into riot, we might be able to avoid a war.
The US will not go to War with China to protect Taiwan. Its called threats, empty threats used to try to keep China in check. If Taiwan somehow provokes China into a War, the USA will give weapons to Taiwan and hope they win. We will not send stealth Bombers over China because CHINA WILL NUKE THE HELL OUT OF US.
Just like we wouldnt directly attack the USSR. There is no way Bush is crazy enough to get into world war 3 over taiwan. And I do not see why people in the USA would riot over this. No one cares about Taiwan, Taiwan is not Isreal.
Where are the stockpiles of nuclear/biological weapons? Where is the uranium from Africa? What happened to those satelite photos and why did our satelites suddenly lose focus/track of the weapons after the war was over while all before the war we had government officials pointing the weapons factories out on a map.
"You just want to hear all of the bad news and use it against the Bush administration. "
Well besides cutting taxes what has Bush done? Reduce the funding for education while raising the standards on students and teachers? Passing a huge healthcare entitlement for people who do not deserve it?
How many times have you seen the news networks speak with an iraqi who is happy we're there?
You don't want to go there. If we compare the number of Iraqis happy to see us to the amount of soilders who died in Iraq I think the numbers are compareable.
Bush is just doing a horrible job. The economy was already on the downfall at the end of the Clinton administration.
Nice try making excuses for Bush but that was 4 years ago. What? Next youll blame 911. "I do agree that Bush administration needs to focus on limited government. They haven't been doing a good job in that respect. If you think Dean is going to do a better job, then think again. Dean may be charismatic, but no amount of charisma is going to convince a psycho with a bomb strapped to his chest to stay out of America."
I'm not worried about bombs. I'm worried about professionally trained Al Qaeda snipers coming here and sniping at us. As far as security INSIDE the homeland, Bush has done absoutely nothing. Sure he can attack Arabs in iraq, the snipers in the USA on the other hand are having a field day on us.
Guess what, Howard Dean agrees with you.
e. I am not a supporter of affirmative action. Personally, I would be insulted if I won a job or received a better score on a test simply because I'm a minority.
Affirmative Action has nothing to do with making qualified workers out of people who are unqualified. To assume by default you'd get a lower test score is racist and it insults your own intelligence. Affirmative Action as it is currently in place is designed so that when a well represented group and unrepresented group with equal qualifications submit a resume, the person of who is less represented should get hired. This means in a company of mostly white males, perhaps a white female will get hired, or a minority when both are equally qualified.
There is no evidence that Affirmative Action allows unqualified groups to have some sort of advantage, and affirmative action is not race based anymore. Finally you should understand that equality is not something the far right is even aiming for. George Bush did have the chance to aim for equality but he was so consumed with getting rid of affirmative action that he ignored all the alternatives which were brought forth.
Want the best alternative? Let the computer and the numbers/scores do the hiring. Suddenly there is no need for affirmative action because people with the better score will automatically be selected by the computer.
Of course when you let humans do all the hiring theres going to be bias, and in an Asian founded company say Japan, you'll have problems getting a job because guess what they are going to favor people of their own culture, who speak their language and who look like them.
How will government mandated racial preference ever create racial equality?
Getting rid of it wont create equality either. What solution does George Bush have to replace Affirmative Action? Seems to me he just wants to remove it, just like he removed overtime pay.
Of course I love tax cuts, and I don't like entitlement programs no matter what color your parent's skin was.
You are assuming entitlements have anything to do with race. They do not. There are more whites on welfare recieving entitlements than any other race, are you surprised? This is why many whites vote democrat.
I believe that we need to help people who are in need, but the help is given away too freely thus it is taken advantage of. I am a software developer, and outsourcing scares the hell out of me, too.
This is your own personal opinion. Your opinion however is not the opinion of the majority of people who are working class. College is very expensive, so is healthcare. The average working class individual does want some entitlements. Understand that the libertarian belief system which you seem to follow based on what you have said is just as far from mainstream as the socialists viewpoint that most people need entitlements. No one needs entitlements, but people want them and the majority of people do live paycheck to paycheck and would prefer entitlements over tax cuts.
The philosophy of the working class is, they want higher salaries, they do want tax cuts but they also want entitlements, they want universal healthcare and financial aid. They want public schools. Stuff like Affirmative Action, Abortion, Gun ownership rights,Gay marriage these are issues that only the far right or far left give a damn about.
IF you are a working class white male who is straight, you don't give a damn about any of that and guess who does most of the voting? The working class white male.
" That's rediculous. Firstly, President Bush is not far right. "
If Mr.Bush is not to the far right who exactly is?
Name someone who is more far to the right, what? Lieberman?
That's rediculous. Firstly, President Bush is not far right. The new medicare entitlement is a clear indication of that. Secondly, Dean is by no means a moderate. Howard Dean is a far left radical.
Dean is far left, Bush is far right. Just because you are a republican and to the far right yourself does not mean you should lie and claim Bush is a moderate. Bush wants to move to the center and this is why he supports entitlements. Dean wants to move to the center so he supports being fiscally conservative, state rights, and gun rights.
So what? Both are extreme and neither one is a true moderate like say John McCain.
Give any republican the choice between a republican, non-fiscal conservative and a democratic, radical, liberal, pro-entitlement, pro-socialism
Uh when did Howard Dean say he was for socialism? Howard Dean is more fiscally conservative than George Bush. Howard Dean is liberal on gay rights and perhaps civil rights but hes not a big taxer or spender. So please stop trying to project the image of Hillary Clinton on top of Howard Dean. I mean I could put the image of Nixon on Bush and say how hes a liar, a cheat, and all kinds of other things but thats bullshit.
Can't we talk about politics without some biased far right facist or far left socialist coming into the debate and trying to make the other side look like the devil?
This is why neither side will win. The side that will win is the fringe moderate who is actually a populist. Simple, You are far right just like Bush. You do care if gays have the right to get married simply because its against your religion. You hate entitlements only when it goes to non whites and you love tax cuts.
According to the Conservative agenda (and you arent a conservative), small government is the rule correct? Being far right does not make you a Conservative and most Americans vote to the right because they want smaller government and not because they give a damn about what Gays, Minorities or everyone else is doing.
Real progressives vote Democrat not because they care about Civil Rights, or Gay issues, Abortion, or Gun control, they vote Democrat because they actually want to end outsourcing, reduce corporate influence over government, and they in general do want entitlements.
The Republicans give entitlements too so please stop acting like Bush is conservative. He is no more of a conservative than Howard Dean and you said this in your own post. So why vote for Bush if hes no more Conservative than Dean? How can Bush beat Dean? By making fun of Gay people?
We are in the middle of the road. Which is exactly why Dean has a better chance of winning than Bush. Bush is the extreme religious right wing. Dean is to the far left. The majority of people however will vote for Dean simply because Dean is more moderate or in the middle than Bush. Bush is so far to the right on some issues that even his own supports don't agree with him. I know alot of conservatives who wont vote for Bush because Bush is not a fiscal conservative. I know alot of republicans who are gay who like the fact that Dean supports civil unions.
The downfall of the religious right wing is about to happen. I expect libertarians to replace the republican party thanks to the internet.
We should all thank Mr. George W Bush for starting the internet political revolution.
We should also thank the RIAA, MPAA, and websites such as slashdot.
If any of you would like to see an interesting new political site following the Dean method to success, theres a new pro open source anti RIAA site called http://www.clickthevote.org/
With enough money from donations they plan to actually hire lobbyists. They also keep a list of politicians who support P2P and Open source vs those who dont so the voter can decide who to vote for.
The only reason it was easy to enslave Africans was because Africans did not speak a common language or have a common culture. Unlike China, the cultures between tribes in Africa is vastly different and some tribes in Africa were glad to see their competition taken away into slavery and actually helped.
This is why slavery worked for a couple hundred years. If you cant read and cant communicate its going to be difficult to organize a rebellion.
"The Chinese were not enslaved. "
Yes actually they were when they first came here. As were Native Americans, the difference is Asians and Native Americans did not make good slaves.
Slashdot Mirror
Listeners want to hear whats marketed to them.
I mean thats like saying "Why sell Linux, why preinstall it when 98% of users want to use windows?"
You can listen to music without buying it. Millions of people already do.
What good is hundreds of thousands of songs from independent labels when the RIAA is still on the service? The only way independent labels can compete is with the RIAA's off the service. Why not support a service which boycotts the RIAA and just supports independents like magnatune?
s. For a $0.99 song apple gets $0.30 to cover bandwitdh and server charges, about $0.65 goes to the labels and $0.05 goes to the artists. Of course the last two things vary depending on the contracts signed for each artist.
Where do you get these figures? From what I've heard Apple doesnt make a penny. Artist's dont make a penny. Just the RIAA.
show me where on the Apple site this is stated, show some proof.
The more money labels make from the selling of music online, the more money they will be able to kick back to the artists in the end as new contracts are written up. Until the labels see big changes in the cash flow, things will stay the same.
Yeah but why would they kick anything back to artists? This is like saying "If we buy more music from the RIAA the prices of CDs will go down"
When has any of this ever been true?
Do your research. Michael Robertson owned Mp3.com. They wered sued by the RIAA, an RIAA company purchased Mp3.com in a hostile takeover. Then they sold Mp3.com to Cnet.
Itune sales are just average. Mp3.com was doing a billion times better than Itunes but never put up articles every month staying how they were doing. Ah a million downloads. Ah 10 million downloads. Ah 25 million downloads. Thats marketing.
E-music is doing pretty good. Magnatunes is off to a strong start. Napster is actually doing fine also and catching up to Itunes. I expect Napster to surpass Itunes by far simply due to brand recognition.
The difference? Napster wont announce numbers until they are number 1, Apple will announce numbers even if they are in last place. Thats good marketing but its not real. It does not prove a business model is working. Apple has not made a profit at all off Itunes and is losing money on this. The RIAA is the only one profiting from this while Apple, Consumers, and Artists lose money.
But they cant start a record label until they ditch the RIAA labels. Once they ditch those labels yes they can do that. I'm sure the RIAA will sue them though like they sued Mp3.com out of existance.
The RIAA hated Mp3.com and hates competition. Mp3.com was actually very successful
Remove all RIAA music from the service so that its just Apple, independent labels, and artists. Apple can become an intrim music label, having artists sign up to them and even pay them a fee to put their music on Itunes. This would make Apple money. Then Apple can use their marketing powers to sell the artists music.
When you purchase an Album from Itunes, where exactly does your money go? IF you don't know, why are you throwing money down the toilet? Afraid of getting arrested? Are you paying because you are a coward?
I'd support Itunes if it were its own industry, with its own music, like mp3.com. The problem with Itunes is it takes the flawed recording industry and extends their monopoly. This would be like steve jobs releasing a version of Microsoft Windows for the Mac, and expecting us all to use that. Its bullshit.
If I wanted to support the RIAA I'd buy buying CD's right now. Take a hint!
Support Itunes(RIAA)> but not the artists?
Apple does a nice job marketing. 25 million downloads is not alot of downloads at all. Kazaa gets that many downloads in a few days. The flaw with the Itunes model? No one knows how much money actually goes to artists. Its legal but most people using Kazaa don't give a shit about the law. So you have a situation where someone like me who currently boycotts the RIAA has no intention of ever supporting Itunes simply because Itunes hurts artists. Artists don't make a penny. Customers get robbed paying $1 for a low quality audio rip. You don't see that you are still paying the RIAA $1? I support Magnatunes, I supported Mp3.com, I even support Emusic. I'll never support Itunes, I will never pay for music on a per song basis unless at least 50% of my money goes to musicians. I will not pay $1 a song, songs should be priced by the market and not buy record execs. If you want to continue to pay content owners, go ahead and waste your money. If you want to save the music industry and help the artists and yourself Itunes is not the answer. Here are some alternatives Magnatunes Weed The Itunes business model will never be mainstream. When TV was invented, pay TV was not the mainstream and while cable did make money, most people had reguar TV.
Netscape is superior for the average user. AIM/iCQ is built into netscape, thats more important than every new feature Mozilla has over netscape. Netscape supports more plugins also. Mozilla may be better, but they have no idea what the user wants nor do they care. They buiild for what nerds like you want and thats why everyone uses bloated slow buggy hackable IE.
The USA at one point had Chinas technology. Japan and Germany had superior technology. Why did we win? Heart. We had the will. Economy isnt everything, people in China will fight for China because they love China and believe in the cause. There are a million military soilders. China does have the ability to produce massive amounts of ships. We could use airstrikes on China, and we could attack China by sea, but they would never have an air or sea war. What they would do is either slowly bring Chinese spy/agents into Taiwan over the course of years to prepare an attack from within, or they will simply fly their choppers into Taiwan in mass and parachute down. Point is they can easily take Taiwan. Yes we can take it back, but they could take Taiwan in a matter of weeks, long before we'd have our troops in position to do anything about it. Like I said if China is serious about taking taiwan they have planned this for years and already have everything in place, they know the logistics, they have everything already have troops/spys in taiwan. Just like when we took out Iraq, most of the work was through the intelligence officers, and alot of fighting happened from our troops within. Taiwan is the same. China could assasinate all the main officials in government, or they could simply tell their agents that now is the time and suddenly all of taiwans defenses and communications would be shut off while a surprise attack of thousands of troops occurs. Just like we took out parts of vietnam by flying in, establishing bases etc. China could fly into a defenseless Taiwan and try to establish themselves. Yes we could stop it, but our stealth bombers can be shot down by surface to air missles. Our boats can stop their boats, they can stop our boats with their infantry. They can send many units on smaller boats to attack our big boatts. Our sub marines could maybe stop them at sea but like I said, its not going to be easy. We have alot of money but we are currently in debt. We could win back Taiwan at a cost which would be so great that our economy might be better off if we just give China Taiwan. So this would be a vietnam style pride war moreso than a legit war. Sure we could win, but you act like they cant shoot us down easily. They can. China does have satelites, they do have satelite guided weapons, and they do have better technology than Iraq. IF we have this many problems with Iraq we will have alot of problems dealing with China unless its a war at Sea or Air. China is not going to allow it to be a Sea or air war and what makes you think they cant position their troops secretly and surprise attack? We Americans cannot tell the Chinese apart from the Taiwanese.
"First, you vastly overestimate China's nuclear capabilities. As I said, China has a very hard time reaching the US with their nukes. The US has been in a cold war with Russia for 50 years and have absolutely no problem blanketing China. The US has vastly more nuclear destructive force then China. Only Russia is a contender when it comes to raw nuclear power. Also recall that our arsenal was meant to take down Russia, which just as spread out as China is."
Our nukes were not designed to beat Russia in a nuke contest. They were designed to deter Russia from nuking us. The same applies to China. We do not plan to use the Nuke as a weapon but as a psychological tool. Also China does have nukes which can rearch the USA, and to say you know for a fact they don't must mean you work for the NSA?
Second, your point is valid in that there exist parts of China that wouldn't notice anything is wrong except for sudden drastically high cancer rates and 'snow' in the middle of the summer. However, you miss the point that these peasants that would be less effected are not the people ruling China. China is ruled from the cities. The leaders live in cities. The leaders are very much creatures of the modern world, and China at the moment is run through its technology. The Chinese government is as helpless as the US government is without its technology.
The leaders can flee to the country into bunkers and we'd have no idea where they are. The Chinese government is also alot older than the US government and unlike the US government the Chinese are all Chinese and all one race. The US would be torn apart because of racial in-fighting.
Finally, China is ruled by rational city dwelling people. The US has stated very clearly how far it will go to preserve the few nations that it has aligned itself with. The USSR never assaulted Western Germany because they realized that our willingness to fight back with all of our conventional might and retaliate to nuclear strikes with all of our nuclear might was very much hardened and set in stone. The US has in the past and will in the future risk total annihilation for these principles. The US might be raging hypocrites on many issues, but not on this one.
Its a threat, but I do not think China fears us. They simply do not want to ruin their economy. China needs us for their economy and thats the only thing keeping them in check. Not our nukes. If we ever were to threaten China's economy with sanctions or to attempt to bully China on that level China would be forced to go to war with us.
However right now China is improving their economy because of us so we are on friendly terms.
The invasion of Taiwan would work out simply. China would invade and the US fleet and air force would get in the way. China would loose any conventional engagement with the US. China then has the option to press the button and set both nations back to the stone age or give up their aspirations of owning Taiwan. Either way, Taiwan will never fall into China's hands. If they press the button, lording of Taiwan will the last thing they have to worry about. It is a no win situation for China to invade
Under normal situations you would be right. You forget something. We have troops in Iraq, Afganastan, Korea, Liberia, Colombia. We are just too spread thin right now to beat China in a war. They'd win simply because we'd run out of troops. China could send an endless supply of troops to shoot down out planes, and basically turn it into another Vietnam like situation where half of the US will want us to pull out and the other half want to stay and fight. In the end after enough troops die the US will pull out and because China simply has more troops they can afford to fight for 10 years. If we Nuke they Nuke. If we go to war in Taiwan because of the location and the amount of troops they have they'll have the advantage.
The only way we could beat China is to pull out of all of the other countries we are in and focus fully on China.
" Your logic is very flawed. If the US is not willing to carry out their threat, why would China not simply invade?" They havent called are bluff yet. " China will not "NUKE THE HELL OUT OF THE US" because the US would NUKE THE HELL OUT OF CHINA." There are more Chinese than Americans. China would win easily in a nuke contest. We fear them nuking us more than they fear us nuking them. Now I admit we could nuke them back to the stoneage, but if they nuke us we wont have any survivors. The US is smaller than China, the US has less people than China, and the people in the USA are all concentrated in specific areas while people in China are more evenly distributed. In nuclear war with China we would lose. "The US would some day recover as perhaps a shadow of our former nation, they would not." Ah yes a few thousand rich elite Americans will come out of their bunkers and then what? The US will be an empty wasteland and Bill Gates and other rich powerful people will simply go to Europe. Who is going to rebuild America? The Native Americans? Blacks? Mexicans? Who? The US is a country of immigrants and when all of the workers die, the chiefs will move to Europe. "Getting into a game of nuclear holocaust with the US is a very stupid idea because in the end you loose. Period. Every US city could be flatted, but that just means everything higher then a few meters if flattened in China. The US just recently reaffirmed that the consequence of using a WMD on the US is getting a WMD thrown back in your face and then some." Like I said China is one country that does not fear us. We could use all our nukes on them and there will still be enough Chinese people to come here on boats and kill the survivors. "Taiwan is considered US protected property. The US have made it clear in both words and in law that Taiwan is under US protection. The rhetoric Bush is using against Taiwan right now is just that, rhetoric. Bush doesn't want to fight China, but like ANY American president, Republican or Democrat, he will fight China if he has to protect Taiwan. Being a mildly rational person (or at least having some rational advisors) he is going to go out of his way to avoid fighting China. That isn't to say he wouldn't if he had to, but if the cost of keeping China from going after Taiwan are a few harsh words to Taiwan, he will certainly do it. That doesn't change the fact that at the end of the day there will always be a couple of US carrier battle groups sitting between main land China and Taiwan." The end result of a Nuclear war with China is worse than the end result of letting China take out Taiwan. We can always do business with China after they take out Taiwan, but if the US and China go into a nuke contest there will be no US left. So I see this as a bluff. "Saw what you will on the US, on this one issue they are principled to the point of insane fanaticism that makes Islamic terrorist look like sane and rational people. The US would defend Taiwan in an instant from China, and the US wouldn't think twice about respond to any nuclear attack from China with their own. In other words, the US would risk absolute destruction of all parties involved (themselves included) then let a nation like Taiwan fall to a nation like China. " China has nothing to lose. Most of Europe would not help us in a War with China. What would happen here is the Superpower who everyone loves to hate, the USA would be brought back to the stone ages and in the end will be just like China with the only difference that China will have more survivors. Suddenly some country in Europe will become the super power, perhaps Russia. Who is going to rebuild America? You see China has nothing to lose, most of them already are living in the stone ages, so why not take us a step back with a nuclear war which they'd win simply because in the end when we both are in the stone age there will be more Chinese people. Also do not expect rich CEO's to be loyal, Bill Gates will come out of his bunker and run back to Europe along with most other survivors.
First, let's ignore the fact that the US would do SOMETHING if China invaded. If we had a very very weak president that wouldn't mind the US going into riot, we might be able to avoid a war. The US will not go to War with China to protect Taiwan. Its called threats, empty threats used to try to keep China in check. If Taiwan somehow provokes China into a War, the USA will give weapons to Taiwan and hope they win. We will not send stealth Bombers over China because CHINA WILL NUKE THE HELL OUT OF US. Just like we wouldnt directly attack the USSR. There is no way Bush is crazy enough to get into world war 3 over taiwan. And I do not see why people in the USA would riot over this. No one cares about Taiwan, Taiwan is not Isreal.
Just like its worth killing millions of Arabs in the middle east to protect Isreal and the oil.
Let them go to war. It just means Intel and all these other companies will be forced to deal with American companies and American workers.
We've had countless successes in Iraq.
Where are the stockpiles of nuclear/biological weapons? Where is the uranium from Africa? What happened to those satelite photos and why did our satelites suddenly lose focus/track of the weapons after the war was over while all before the war we had government officials pointing the weapons factories out on a map.
"You just want to hear all of the bad news and use it against the Bush administration. "
Well besides cutting taxes what has Bush done? Reduce the funding for education while raising the standards on students and teachers? Passing a huge healthcare entitlement for people who do not deserve it?
How many times have you seen the news networks speak with an iraqi who is happy we're there?
You don't want to go there. If we compare the number of Iraqis happy to see us to the amount of soilders who died in Iraq I think the numbers are compareable.
Bush is just doing a horrible job. The economy was already on the downfall at the end of the Clinton administration.
Nice try making excuses for Bush but that was 4 years ago. What? Next youll blame 911.
"I do agree that Bush administration needs to focus on limited government. They haven't been doing a good job in that respect. If you think Dean is going to do a better job, then think again. Dean may be charismatic, but no amount of charisma is going to convince a psycho with a bomb strapped to his chest to stay out of America."
I'm not worried about bombs. I'm worried about professionally trained Al Qaeda snipers coming here and sniping at us. As far as security INSIDE the homeland, Bush has done absoutely nothing. Sure he can attack Arabs in iraq, the snipers in the USA on the other hand are having a field day on us.
Guess what, Howard Dean agrees with you. e. I am not a supporter of affirmative action. Personally, I would be insulted if I won a job or received a better score on a test simply because I'm a minority. Affirmative Action has nothing to do with making qualified workers out of people who are unqualified. To assume by default you'd get a lower test score is racist and it insults your own intelligence. Affirmative Action as it is currently in place is designed so that when a well represented group and unrepresented group with equal qualifications submit a resume, the person of who is less represented should get hired. This means in a company of mostly white males, perhaps a white female will get hired, or a minority when both are equally qualified. There is no evidence that Affirmative Action allows unqualified groups to have some sort of advantage, and affirmative action is not race based anymore. Finally you should understand that equality is not something the far right is even aiming for. George Bush did have the chance to aim for equality but he was so consumed with getting rid of affirmative action that he ignored all the alternatives which were brought forth. Want the best alternative? Let the computer and the numbers/scores do the hiring. Suddenly there is no need for affirmative action because people with the better score will automatically be selected by the computer. Of course when you let humans do all the hiring theres going to be bias, and in an Asian founded company say Japan, you'll have problems getting a job because guess what they are going to favor people of their own culture, who speak their language and who look like them. How will government mandated racial preference ever create racial equality? Getting rid of it wont create equality either. What solution does George Bush have to replace Affirmative Action? Seems to me he just wants to remove it, just like he removed overtime pay. Of course I love tax cuts, and I don't like entitlement programs no matter what color your parent's skin was. You are assuming entitlements have anything to do with race. They do not. There are more whites on welfare recieving entitlements than any other race, are you surprised? This is why many whites vote democrat. I believe that we need to help people who are in need, but the help is given away too freely thus it is taken advantage of. I am a software developer, and outsourcing scares the hell out of me, too. This is your own personal opinion. Your opinion however is not the opinion of the majority of people who are working class. College is very expensive, so is healthcare. The average working class individual does want some entitlements. Understand that the libertarian belief system which you seem to follow based on what you have said is just as far from mainstream as the socialists viewpoint that most people need entitlements. No one needs entitlements, but people want them and the majority of people do live paycheck to paycheck and would prefer entitlements over tax cuts. The philosophy of the working class is, they want higher salaries, they do want tax cuts but they also want entitlements, they want universal healthcare and financial aid. They want public schools. Stuff like Affirmative Action, Abortion, Gun ownership rights,Gay marriage these are issues that only the far right or far left give a damn about. IF you are a working class white male who is straight, you don't give a damn about any of that and guess who does most of the voting? The working class white male.
" That's rediculous. Firstly, President Bush is not far right. "
If Mr.Bush is not to the far right who exactly is?
Name someone who is more far to the right, what? Lieberman?
That's rediculous. Firstly, President Bush is not far right. The new medicare entitlement is a clear indication of that. Secondly, Dean is by no means a moderate. Howard Dean is a far left radical.
Dean is far left, Bush is far right. Just because you are a republican and to the far right yourself does not mean you should lie and claim Bush is a moderate. Bush wants to move to the center and this is why he supports entitlements. Dean wants to move to the center so he supports being fiscally conservative, state rights, and gun rights.
So what? Both are extreme and neither one is a true moderate like say John McCain.
Give any republican the choice between a republican, non-fiscal conservative and a democratic, radical, liberal, pro-entitlement, pro-socialism
Uh when did Howard Dean say he was for socialism? Howard Dean is more fiscally conservative than George Bush. Howard Dean is liberal on gay rights and perhaps civil rights but hes not a big taxer or spender. So please stop trying to project the image of Hillary Clinton on top of Howard Dean. I mean I could put the image of Nixon on Bush and say how hes a liar, a cheat, and all kinds of other things but thats bullshit.
Can't we talk about politics without some biased far right facist or far left socialist coming into the debate and trying to make the other side look like the devil?
This is why neither side will win. The side that will win is the fringe moderate who is actually a populist. Simple, You are far right just like Bush. You do care if gays have the right to get married simply because its against your religion. You hate entitlements only when it goes to non whites and you love tax cuts.
According to the Conservative agenda (and you arent a conservative), small government is the rule correct? Being far right does not make you a Conservative and most Americans vote to the right because they want smaller government and not because they give a damn about what Gays, Minorities or everyone else is doing.
Real progressives vote Democrat not because they care about Civil Rights, or Gay issues, Abortion, or Gun control, they vote Democrat because they actually want to end outsourcing, reduce corporate influence over government, and they in general do want entitlements.
The Republicans give entitlements too so please stop acting like Bush is conservative. He is no more of a conservative than Howard Dean and you said this in your own post. So why vote for Bush if hes no more Conservative than Dean? How can Bush beat Dean? By making fun of Gay people?
We are in the middle of the road. Which is exactly why Dean has a better chance of winning than Bush. Bush is the extreme religious right wing. Dean is to the far left. The majority of people however will vote for Dean simply because Dean is more moderate or in the middle than Bush. Bush is so far to the right on some issues that even his own supports don't agree with him. I know alot of conservatives who wont vote for Bush because Bush is not a fiscal conservative. I know alot of republicans who are gay who like the fact that Dean supports civil unions. The downfall of the religious right wing is about to happen. I expect libertarians to replace the republican party thanks to the internet.
We should all thank Mr. George W Bush for starting the internet political revolution. We should also thank the RIAA, MPAA, and websites such as slashdot. If any of you would like to see an interesting new political site following the Dean method to success, theres a new pro open source anti RIAA site called http://www.clickthevote.org/ With enough money from donations they plan to actually hire lobbyists. They also keep a list of politicians who support P2P and Open source vs those who dont so the voter can decide who to vote for.
The only reason it was easy to enslave Africans was because Africans did not speak a common language or have a common culture. Unlike China, the cultures between tribes in Africa is vastly different and some tribes in Africa were glad to see their competition taken away into slavery and actually helped. This is why slavery worked for a couple hundred years. If you cant read and cant communicate its going to be difficult to organize a rebellion.
"The Chinese were not enslaved. " Yes actually they were when they first came here. As were Native Americans, the difference is Asians and Native Americans did not make good slaves.