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posted by
takyon
on Wednesday April 08 2015, @10:30AM
from the I-have-a-vision-for-SIGNAL-LOST dept.
from the I-have-a-vision-for-SIGNAL-LOST dept.
Not too long ago both Rand and Ron Paul were pushing a copyright maximalist agenda. Today the chickens have come home to roost. Rand Paul's presidential announcement has been blocked by a copyright claim from Warner Music Group due to a clip of a song used in the announcement. Even more apropos of the (less and less as time goes by) libertarian-leaning Republican candidate, it wasn't a DMCA takedown raining on his parade, but the purely private ContentID system that Youtube put in place in order to appease the copyright cartel.
Here is a transcript of Rand Paul's announcement.
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Rand Paul Censored by Youtube ContentID Copyright Enforcement System
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Confess your sins to the Lord and you will be forgiven;
confess them to man and you will be laughed at.
-- Josh Billings
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 09 2015, @02:02AM
Hillary has a record as a warmonger.
Anyone who likes the failing-empire-in-its-death-throes meme and the unaccountable-and-ever-more-militarized-police meme should love Hillary.
She also has a record as a supporter of the bailouts of the too-big-to-jail bunch.
Anyone who thinks a return to feudalism|serfdom is something to look forward to should definitely vote for Hillary.
Can't wait for the other shoe to fall in the economic downturn because nothing was done to change the behavior of Wall Street? Hillary is your gal.
She should just declare her membership in the Republican Party and quit the pretense.
Hillary to retain the status quo!
.
I find it interesting that this story about Rand Paul made the front page while my submission on Michael Moore was rejected. [soylentnews.org]
The very first element of Moore's "platform" is only one charge cord for all brands of all electronic devices
Number 13 on his list is Anyone caught using their mobile device inside a movie theater will be subjected to enhanced "rectal rehydration" (thank you, CIA, for that suggestion!).
-- gewg_
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday April 09 2015, @01:58PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 09 2015, @06:58PM
Whenever someone says "We ought to send troops to _____" or "We ought to bomb _____", I ask "How does that entity (thousands of miles away) pose an existential threat to you?"
Why should the USA Department of Defense get involved in this?
I further ask "What if Canada decides that they don't like the current administration here? Would they be justified in bombing Albany? ...and do you think that that would cause regime change here."
The problem with having a giant standing military is that the gov't is constantly looking for a way to use it and to justify its existence.
Having 19 aircraft carrier task forces is a huge temptation to do evil nonsense outside our 20-mile territorial limits.
...not to mention intercontinental bombers with air-to-air-refueling.
George Washington warned us about this shit over 2 centuries ago.
...and, under international law, using deadly force to go after a head of state is a crime.
In addition, killing people without due process of law is a direct violation of our founding document.
That document also defines what "war" is and by that definition we haven't been in a legitimate war since September 2, 1945.
Many will say that we have NEVER been in a legitimate war and that they were ALL avoidable.
...and that we just have historically had really crappy statesmen|leadership.
...and this doesn't even get into the fact that the majority of victims of war are children and their mothers.
(March 16 marked 47 years since the My Lai mass murder incident.)
-- gewg_
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday April 09 2015, @10:00PM
Whenever someone says "We ought to send troops to _____" or "We ought to bomb _____", I ask "How does that entity (thousands of miles away) pose an existential threat to you?"
There are a number of examples of things that became existential threats, like fascism/communism because they were allowed to fester. Other things just shouldn't be allowed in a civilized world such as ISIS's ongoing atrocities. That doesn't mean that every war is magically a just one, most obviously aren't. But ruling out war, which is what you imply you want when you uncritically throw around terms like "warmonger", just means that you rule out war on your terms not on potential foes' terms.
Further, we could also ask the same of your particular hobby horses like a social safety net. Where's the existential need for virtually that whole affair? There might be a need for something just because enough poor people might rebel or commit more crime. Or they might be better off since that social safety net costs not only the wealth of the rich, but of the poor as well.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 10 2015, @12:04AM
fascism
As I already noted, there were thousands of miles of ocean between them and us.
The American homeland was never at risk.
You could argue that USA's imperial possessions in the Pacific were at risk.
The reason for Japan's Pearl Harbor operation was USA's naval blockage on the Moluccan Straits to strangle access to petroleum and rubber.
So, American imperialism is just fine with you but the imperialism of others is wrong?
Your flag waving is ridiculous.
communism
First, you didn't include the appropriate quotation marks around that term.
USSR and Red China were totalitarian governments with State Capitalism as the economic system.
They were fascist. Nothing "communist" about them.
The risk of the Cold War was nuclear war.
Guess who had nuclear weapons -first- AND USED THEM ON CIVILIANS.
...then continued to build them by the thousands.
Blaming a country for reacting to the demonstrated aggression of its adversary is a false argument.
Vietnam went "communist" and the dominoes didn't topple.
The Cold War was a giant sham which murdered millions of brown people--many of them children.
We were warned by Orwell about a state of permanent war (which has existed for US since December 8, 1941).
Now that the outrageous expense of keeping up this unnecessarily monstrous military has imploded our economy and the empire is obviously crumbling, all the crap we did "over there" is coming home with hypermiliterized police forces and a complete disregard for human life in the USA.
...but trying to convince a warmonger that war and warmongering is a bad thing is a waste of time.
All I'll get is more denialism.
allowed to fester
The greatest threat to the planet today is the USA.
American-style Capitalism is ruining the lives of most of the people on Earth and the millions of people left as refugees by the American war machine is unforgivable--not to mention the millions murdered in the name of American "democracy".
-- gewg_
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday April 10 2015, @12:28AM
You could argue that USA's imperial possessions in the Pacific were at risk.
The US's existence was also at risk. So I could argue the above or I could argue what I actually did argue.
First, you didn't include the appropriate quotation marks around that term. USSR and Red China were totalitarian governments with State Capitalism as the economic system. They were fascist. Nothing "communist" about them.
Nonsense. There was plenty communist about them. For example, they ruthlessly destroyed capitalist structures and traditions such as private ownership of capital, personal wealth, and free markets. The vast majority of the USSR's labor and industry was organized into cooperatives and such.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 10 2015, @02:12AM
You still haven't described how any Axis power would cross thousands and thousands of miles of ocean and threaten the USA.
Your claim is nonsense.
In the changeover from feudal Imperial Russia to the "communist" USSR, one tiny group of owners was exchanged for another tiny group of owners.
That did NOT give the people Communism; that's CAPITALISM.
Being TOLD what you will produce, being TOLD how you will produce it, and being TOLD how the profits will be distributed is CAPITALISM.
In Communism, the workers are the core; all decisions are democratic and bottom-up.
In the USSR, the workers didn't get a say in anything.
They were still serfs/employees--NOT OWNERS.
Being TOLD that you will "join" this or that cooperative is totalitarianism.
It's definitely NOT Communism.
You have swallowed a whole bunch of Cold War bullshit.
The Shakers in North America had a democratic communal system of production with the means of production being commonly owned and they had that before there was a USA.
The Iroquois, again in North America before there was a USA, also had a democratic communal existence.
Those are examples of Communism--unlike the frauds that *called* themselves "communist".
-- gewg_
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday April 10 2015, @04:19AM
You still haven't described how any Axis power would cross thousands and thousands of miles of ocean and threaten the USA.
I didn't describe how the US could have crossed thousands and thousands of miles to threaten the Axis powers either.
In the changeover from feudal Imperial Russia to the "communist" USSR, one tiny group of owners was exchanged for another tiny group of owners. That did NOT give the people Communism; that's CAPITALISM.
Being TOLD what you will produce, being TOLD how you will produce it, and being TOLD how the profits will be distributed is CAPITALISM.
No, as I noted before, private ownership of capital is capitalism. These other things are not capitalism. We don't have to go back and forth on this, this definition of capitalism is thoroughly established. For example [reference.com],
an economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or corporations, especially as contrasted to cooperatively or state-owned means of wealth.
As to the rest of your post:
In Communism, the workers are the core; all decisions are democratic and bottom-up. In the USSR, the workers didn't get a say in anything. They were still serfs/employees--NOT OWNERS.
Being TOLD that you will "join" this or that cooperative is totalitarianism. It's definitely NOT Communism. You have swallowed a whole bunch of Cold War bullshit.
While I grant that it is possible for a time for communism to be democratic, there's nothing about the system that requires democracy or keeps democracy (just as it is for capitalism). After all, the usual traditional transitions to communism are by force, taking the means of production away from the upper class that used to own this stuff while bragging about how the capitalists are selling you the rope to hang themselves and whatnot. That's not conducive to democratic decision-making.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 10 2015, @04:47AM
Like I already said, you swallowed the Cold War bullshit.
-- gewg_
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday April 10 2015, @05:06AM
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday April 10 2015, @12:29AM
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday April 10 2015, @12:35AM
The greatest threat to the planet today is the USA.
Sounds to me then, like we ought to worry about more important things than threats then. Like global poverty, for example.