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Project Gutenberg Public Domain Library Blocked in Italy For Copyright Infringement:
Project Gutenberg, a volunteer effort to digitize and archive books, is sometimes described as the world’s oldest digital library.
Founded in 1971, Project Gutenberg‘s archives now stretch to a total of more than 62,000 books, with a focus on titles that entered the public domain after their copyrights expired. The library does carry some and in-copyright books but these are distributed with the express permission of their owners.
The project has an excellent reputation and its work is considered a great contribution to education and culture. However, it now transpires that the site has been rendered inaccessible by ISPs in Italy under the instructions of the Public Prosecutor at the Court of Rome.
[...] The seizure/blocking notice states that all of the targeted domains “distributed, transmitted and disseminated in pdf format, magazines, newspapers and books (property protected by copyright) after having illegally acquired numerous computer files with their content, communicating them to the public, [and] entering them into a system of communication networks.”
[...] “The investigation, conducted by a special unit of the Guardia di Finanza, has been developed in the context of monitoring the targeted Internet networks to combat economic and financial offenses perpetrated online.
“In this context, the operators identified some web resources registered on foreign servers which make content and magazines available to the public early in the morning, allowing users to view or download digital copies,” the court document reads. (translated from Italian)
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday June 04 2020, @11:11PM (15 children)
So, "leftist" is just kind of role playing thing then, where people jump back and forth for a fast buck?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 04 2020, @11:56PM
> So, "leftist" is just kind of role playing thing then, where people jump back and forth for a fast buck?
You are confused, jumping back and forth for a fast buck is a Trump thing. And given the number of bankruptcies, he's not very good at it.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Friday June 05 2020, @08:37AM (3 children)
Leftists have to put up with hypocrisy because we were flirting with soviets. You cannot be left and support current leftists, you cannot be right and support those who voted for EU and allied with leftists to fight cinquestelle.
1943-1994 lefties abhor the tricolor flag because Fascism!!! then Lega soars and they adopt it to fight federalism. Lega does a 180deg when immigrants come BTW
1943-1989 lefties love Russia! They kill catholic antifas because they wanted to stay Italian (porzus massacre). Togliattigrad is a russian city named after a leftie. Then comes Putin and OOOOH TRUMP IS IN BED WITH PUTIN THE HORROR... They have been traitors for decades LOL.
Mafia? they have the antimafia champion Saviano, who watches every speck of dandruff of right leaning politicians, to see if it contains a hidden message for the mafia, then the Conte government releases bosses because of covid fears and his reaction is? of course we must be democratic. LOL how about stopping visits and have prison guards doing the same turns as medical staff did in some private nursery house? zero dead there? huh? I defended Saviano till that day, no more. They just use the anti mafia sentiment to promote a modern lifestyle, atomized family, europeism, as opposed to the old catholic order. Not considering that the mafia is quite more jewish-like than catholic (the typical secret society with affiliation rites) and newer than the old order.
The people? The people used to be the CORNERSTONE of lefties. Then the people started disagreeing and now, they call a Minister a bibitaro, guy selling beverages. You know, a prole, it has become an insult. Because now the generation of 68, those who did not even study to get a grade, have the credential to rule, not the bibitari.
Justice? Berlusconi was a mafia guy and they barely scratched him, no matter the 20 year long tirades in the media against each other. Enter Salvini, 48 million euro of fine (tax fine, so you have to prove you are innocent) and their media and tweets write "Salvini give us back the 48 millions". Give back, a fine? no you Pay the fine, it is not stolen money, it is an arbitrary larger amount decided by the tax men because they think you were irregular. Which probably happened, but they punished the organization for the fiscal crimes of the former Bossi management. Responsibility is collective, very nazi of them.
Then, Salvini as interior minister stops migrants as a show, they get him tried for kidnapping. I argue with good friends it is madness, no way they defend the action. Because leftists in good faith. Then tapes emerge (thanks donald I guess) in which the judges literally say "Salvini is right but we must stop him" and talk with leftists in first plural person, We, ours....
Just do your research.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday June 05 2020, @03:16PM (2 children)
I think your definition of "left" is way off. Looks like you're just using it to refer to Russian commies. What you really describe are various competing crooks/authoritarians in a regular turf war, really just scratching at the facade. Real "lefties" are anarchists.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by ChrisMaple on Saturday June 06 2020, @06:36PM (1 child)
Anarchy is a technique used by leftists to gain power. Promote anarchy; when people become sick of the seemingly random looting and violence they yearn for a strong leader. The strong leader comes in, kills the looters and whomever else he doesn't like, enslaves the remainder and calls it the will of the people. Leftism.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday June 06 2020, @06:45PM
Anarchy is not "looting and chaos". It is rules without rulers, like "good without god", which religious fanatics believe is not possible.
The strong leader comes in, kills the looters and whomever else he doesn't like, enslaves the remainder and calls it the will of the people. Leftism.
:-) Heh, not even close. Not even possible. Authority is a "right wing" thing. Authoritarianism, from anybody, defines the "right", anarchism the "left". Desire for authority is the opposite of "left".
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Friday June 05 2020, @08:39AM (9 children)
> So, "leftist" is just kind of role playing thing then, where people jump back and forth for a fast buck?
s/people/politicans/
Politicians care primarily about power, and they will say and do whatever they can to get it. It is not the first time I've heard of a politician, having spent decades on the left (or right) switching to the "other team" to either gain (or preserve) power. Many "hard core" communist politicians, when the soviet system fell, just changed their suits and became "democratic capitalists" overnight, some even swung to hardcore right if it helped them get power.
It helps that "left" and "right" are really the same thing. Both are authoritarian constructs who demand complete obedience to authority. The only difference is the justification used for said domination over people. That is why its so easy for politicians to switch between them, a few minor variations in the "message" and everything else pretty much is the same.
You can notice this by how few politicians support devolving power to the people. Yet you have many on the side of the left or right fighting for what they think is the "correct" authoritarian rule.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Friday June 05 2020, @12:05PM (3 children)
You want to know the name of a leftie who made the jump to the other side? Benito Mussolini.
Socialists gonna socialist.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Friday June 05 2020, @03:37PM (2 children)
Yes I know, history is full of examples.
The Nazis were socialist (hence the name "National socialist"), and indeed it was due to their socialist policies within Germany that (early on before the war) made them popular both in the country, and the world over.
The problem is that (a) they took the "nationalist" bit to the extreme, with Eugenics/racial purity/mass murder, etc... and (b) they believed their own superiority to the point where they thought they could fight the entire world at the same time, and win.
Hence national socialism is not really popular anymore, what we have instead is "globalist socialism". Mussolini was also a socialist originally, but then shifted into fascism, which is a great example of how the differences between the two systems are really superficial, indeed many of the slogans can be reused with only minor alterations to key words.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday June 05 2020, @04:37PM (1 child)
Looks like it's time for me to repost my "no, the Nazis weren't Socialists" post again.
https://soylentnews.org/politics/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=22973&page=1&cid=607372#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Friday June 05 2020, @10:16PM
Post it all you want, its still wrong.
The Nazis had clearly socialist policies, including a strong social safety net, strong unions, support for workers, state health care, and many state owned/directed industries (e.g. the "Peoples car" in VW). In fact it is those socialist policies that drove them into the public spotlight. They were "populists" that had the solution to the problems of reparations, the economic collapse and hyperinflation (sound familiar?) post WWI.
The difference was that these policies were only for "Germans" as they defined them, which was quite a narrow definition, that is what made it "national" socialism, rather than what we tend to have today..
With the rise of communism, the Nazi party started worrying that they would be usurped, so started cracking down on those who could oppose them (which was those communists to the left of them, who seemed more "in touch" with the workers), but that doesn't change the fact that they very much clothed themselves in "socialism" throughout.
Although the fact we are arguing over nuances in whether the Nazi party was fascist or socialist again proves my core point about how the two are effectively the same authoritarian structure, just with slightly different presentation.
And from your link, I see I am not the only one who is aware of the similarities:
https://soylentnews.org/politics/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=22973&page=1&cid=607415#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Friday June 05 2020, @03:26PM
Yes, "left" and "right" is just cold war bullshit to fling against the hippies. Well, now it's just marketing...
Authority is authority, makes no difference where it comes from.
Even The People™ can be an evil dictator.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by dry on Saturday June 06 2020, @05:24AM (3 children)
Actually both left and right have non-authoritarian groups, it is just that the authoritarians usually win.
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Saturday June 06 2020, @11:04AM (2 children)
> Actually both left and right have non-authoritarian groups, it is just that the authoritarians usually win.
Yes, which makes the modern left/right definitions not really useful.
The "left"/"right" paradigm came from the time of the French revolution, where those who sided for individual liberty sat on the left, and those who supported authority (the King) sat on the right. So the original definition was very much in the "liberty" vs "authority" division, hence even today the left wing is usually known as the "liberal" side, despite them not being liberal at all really.
IMO when Karl Marx came up with "Das kapital", that was roughly the period when the left started becoming authoritarian. I place the blame on Communism, because within the stages of Socialism, until reaching the nirvana of Communism, is a stage of "dictatorship of the proletariat", where there is huge authoritarian system designed to destroy the old order, suppress or destroy the old habits (including killing all the people who refuse to accept Communism), and generally usher the final goal of Communism (which is the full decentralisation of power into local "communes", where people vote on local issues and the means of production is shared).
The problem is no Communist society ever got past the "Dictatorship of the proletariat" phase, because (a) psychopaths always got into positions of dictator, and always dreamt up new reasons that Communism was under threat and the dictatorship must be prolonged to "preserve the revolution". Then (b), any country that would manage to reach Communism, and decentralise, would end up dominated by a larger, centralised authority (even if it includes being invaded by a larger, centrally organised country).
Centralised systems are more efficient than decentralised systems, we see it even in the internet, where the original "decentralised" system was only maintained due to threat of nuclear war. The moment that threat was no longer important, it started centralising like crazy, to the point where an outage of one company (eg, Amazon with AWS) can take out entire chunks of the web.
Same happens in human social systems, absent any need to tolerate inefficiency to keep things decentralised, centralised systems win out.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 06 2020, @02:15PM
Marxist/Communist philosphy is fundamentally flawed and will always devolve into authoritarianism if followed strictly, but many of the concepts have value. The "real communism" that people think of when they say X communist country isn't /real/ communism, is actually anarchy.
(Score: 2) by dry on Saturday June 06 2020, @04:23PM
One of the problems is that the left/right scale is too simplistic. The political compass for example adds the non-authoritarian/authoritarian scale to the mix. Last US election for example, https://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2016 [politicalcompass.org] shows Hillary slightly to the right of Trump, who has focused on traditional left stuff like supporting labour and protectionism but comes in way more authoritarian.
The problem with communism is the Stalinist's always show up and being willing to kill etc, usually win against the libertarians.
Interesting read is George Orwell's experiences in Spain. I think it was published under his real name that slips my memory right now. Basically the socialist revolution was going great and then the Stalinist's showed up. Same with the Russian revolution though that was before Stalin, the authoritarians won out, being better organized and ruthless.
What I've observed is that in Western Democracies, the left is generally much less authoritarian then the right, whereas in the 3rd world, the left is more authoritarian.
The other problem is it is all generalizations and people are too complex to put on simple scales.