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31 Responses to “Does Obama hate open source?”

1. Henry Emrich Says:
   May 14th, 2009 at 8:06 pm

   Y’know, I’m really getting tired of these scare-stories and hype mongering, which is all this is.

   1. First, it’s exceedingly unlikely that “Obama” even has any clear idea about most of the issues involving copyright law (much less the open-source/”Free Software” movement, and/or it’s petty internal squabbles.) So it’s exceedingly unlikely whether he — OR “his” administration — have any specific opinion on open-source, whether “love” OR “hate”.

   2. The RIAA is NOT “in charge of the DOJ” — much as we’d all like a convenient boogyman here. A few of the higher-ranking guys in the DOJ have had dealings with the RIAA, but this in no way means that they are “working for” the RIAA.

   3. Let’s also leave aside the fact that the guy quoted is ABSOLUTELY RIGHT that the whole open-source/free software movement absolutely DEPENDS on some form of copyright law to be able to “license” stuff via the GPL.

   I realize that it’s trendy to view the president as the “world’s most powerful man” and all, but thankfully, the checks-and-balances designed into the U.S. government itself ensure that he is, at best, a highly-visible figurehead. Let’s assume that Obama’s personal views on open-source were favorable. What exactly would you have him do? Use the famous presidential pen to PERSONALLY ram copyright revisions through (and thus, resort to the “imperial presidency” everybody complained about with Bush)

   I don’t buy any of it:

   Realistically, what we all want to see as “pandering to the RIAA” is just another politically-expedient moral panic, to give the impression that the administration is “doing something”.

   The RIAA knows full well that even with enhanced search powers or whatever else they manage to get rammed through, they and their puppets don’t stand a chance of actually getting trials with any rapidity. That also goes for non-U.S. trials. How long was the TPB thing gearing up? Three years?

   One of the things I most hoped about the “new media” — blogs and podcasts and such — was that it wouldn’t be all headlines, buzzwords, talking-points, and scare mongering. Unfortunately, I was wrong:

   The “New media” can’t HELP but resort to the dumbed-down, FUD-powered talking-point bullshit we THINK we don’t like about the “lamescream” media. Why? Because it works — a nuanced discussion of how Barrack Obama probably doesn’t even HAVE an opinion on open-source/how the GPL is actually in bed with copyright law/how the president doesn’t really have that much power after all since we have checks-and-balances — would probably bore a lot of people to tears.

   We like hype, and we also, paradoxically, like to think “our” particular battle is Quixotic and foredoomed, because the corporations are “so powerful”.

   But hey, just keep going for the hype-factor. It’ll bring the readership up, at the cost of whatever substance we DO manage to bring.

2. Jon Says:
   May 14th, 2009 at 8:23 pm

   Hey Henry:

   “checks-and-balances”

   Oh really ? !

   Dream on.

   Meanwhile, I promise you this, and similar stories, have absolutely nothing to do with bringing the readership up, and I’m sorry you think that. You should know better.

   The only time that happens is when I do a post on Miley Cyrus.

   Cheers!

3. Reader's Write Says:
   May 15th, 2009 at 12:23 am

   It’s OBushma, other alternative being McBush

   http://rawstory.com/blog/2009/05/obama-considering-indefinite-detention-for-gitmo-prisoners/

4. Reader's Write Says:
   May 15th, 2009 at 12:24 am

   By the way,

   http://riseuprochester.org/wp-content/images/TheObamaDeception.png

5. Henry Emrich Says:
   May 15th, 2009 at 12:55 am

   “Hey Henry:

   “checks-and-balances”

   Oh really ? !

   Dream on. ”

   Heh.
   I’m talking “ideals” here, Jon — not how Der Fatherland actually does things
   (Waiting with baited breath for “Bob” or somebody else to show up and complain at me again for being insufficiently jingoistic)

   Honestly — I’m pretty sure some Germans were “ashamed” after the second world war (and THEY weren’t even DOING the stuff anymore).

   Yeah, I’m dismayed.

   That wasn’t directed at you, specifically, Jon — just at the generalized tendency toward sensationalism as such that pervades world culture.

   (We saw a nice instance of that over on the “Electronic police state” thread — I merely express doubt that the U.S. ever intended to live up to it’s supposed principles, and we get Bob’s butthurt little soap-opera. Niiiice.)

6. Robert Says:
   May 15th, 2009 at 7:44 am

   @Henry:

   An observation… and by no means an insult to you or a request for you to change. I can usually count on your comments to be critical and therefor look forward to them, most of time.

   The Police State thread seems to be mostly you trying to “school” people. It’s OK to disagree with someone, it’s another to toss insults with partial facts and bombard with “information” (insults combined with your interpretations of ‘facts’) so no one has the chance to speak.

   In other words, Henry, I think the mess that is the Electronic Police State thread could have been avoided by everyone relaying their points in a professional, courteous manner and discussing only the points relevant to the arguments/statements made by individuals in the comments. If each provides points and allows others to relay counterpoints, you can have an intelligent discussion. Unfortunately, that’s not how it is on blogs/newsgroups/anything with comments.

   This is why blogs are so popular, people use them to “win” arguments and they use any tactic possible, be it insults or hammering information so no one else has a chance to speak. With traditional media, it is unidirectional. Blogs are more like half-duplex communication, with each person fighting to win access to the bus. Some are very good at blocking others from accessing the bus, ensuring their own disproportionate chance to be heard.

7. Henry Emrich Says:
   May 15th, 2009 at 10:25 am

   Robert:

   With all due respect: wrong.

   1. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but ever since 9/11, the U.S. has basically been on a mindless nationalism/world-conquest kick.
   Far be it for me to “school you with partial information”, but our actions, in terms of foreign and domestic policy, have tended to put the lie to our proclaimed goals and standards. (Prime examples of that: Guantanamo torture (oops, I mean “enhanced interrogation methods”), the Iraq war, the USA Patriot act, etc. etc.)

   2. According to the article, the U.S. has now managed to make a list of the worlds top ten nations most closely resembling an “electronic police state”. Given our recent history (post 9-11), nobody should be surprised by this, in the least.
   What’s really disgusting — or should be — is that the more you look at history, it turns out 9/11 wasn’t even that much of a turning point (as I hoped the Wikipedia links would at least indicate.)

   “Bob” asserts that people are “irked off” by the supposed “fact” that the U.S. is the “freest nation that is or has ever been”.
   Follow the links, Robert, and I submit that — if you’re honest with yourself, and can take a step away from the nationalistic rhetoric with which we’re all bombarded during our school-days and afterward, this nation ceases to look like God’s gift to humanity, and instead looks particularly rapacious and hypocritical.

   That’s why I’m genuinely embarrassed to be an “American”: we fail to live up to what we CLAIM are our most basic principles so often, and so consistently, that I’m pretty sure we don’t even believe in them, anymore.

   I provided the Wikipedia links — “partial” as their information may be — in hopes that it would illustrate that our CURRENT failures to actually BE WHAT WE CLAIM TO BE really aren’t that unusual.

   If nothing else, we NEED some remorse, embarrassment and, yes, national shame, so we stop producing people like Lynndie England:

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynndie_England

   Laura Ingraham said “True Americans are white, Christian, southern and Republican.”

   Like I said, I’m pretty sure there were Germans moral enough to be ashamed, post wwII, when they were finally allowed to know what “their country” had done. Why can’t “We, as Americans” nerve ourselves up to that?

8. Henry Emrich Says:
   May 15th, 2009 at 10:36 am

   Anybody else interested in seeing how “Real Americans” react to our national mythos being punctured:

   http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080226210523AAFzgL0

   Yay, team.

9. Henry Emrich Says:
   May 15th, 2009 at 10:48 am

   Sorry if anybody thinks posting another link is “hogging”, but the “Real American” quote from Ingraham got me to thinking.

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%B6lkisch_movement

10. Captain555 Says:
    May 15th, 2009 at 10:53 am

    Turn out Ralph Nader was right.

11. Robert Says:
    May 15th, 2009 at 10:56 am

    @Henry:

    You totally argued something completely different to the points I made, however, you didn’t insert insults.

    I didn’t, at any point, question your points or partial points in support of your arguments that the US is neither free nor something to be proud of as a citizen. I simply pointed out how you chose to argue your points and how it extends an argument by wrapping it with sarcasm and insults, as opposed to just stating the facts you found.

    When we insert anything other than facts, we automatically generate a bias in the intended receiver and this guarantees misunderstandings in any points we try to convey.

    No where did I say any points you made were wrong, and I can tell that my choice of words was not the best as your first line illustrates you misunderstood me.

    Hopefully things are clearer now. I would prefer to not go through my post, sentence by sentence, explaining how it does not argue against your points in the Police State thread, but instead the method at which you frequently choose to debate with people.

    It almost seems like you finish each comment with the internal feeling of “there, now you know you are so incorrect and I am so correct”, but unfortunately your reply to my comment was… inaccurate. I was not clear enough I guess.

12. Henry Emrich Says:
    May 15th, 2009 at 11:13 am

    Robert:

    “This is why blogs are so popular, people use them to “win” arguments and they use any tactic possible, be it insults or hammering information so no one else has a chance to speak. With traditional media, it is unidirectional. Blogs are more like half-duplex communication, with each person fighting to win access to the bus. Some are very good at blocking others from accessing the bus, ensuring their own disproportionate chance to be heard”

    “Bob” MAKES no points, however. He comes in, drops the sort of stupid, nationalistic nonsense to which “Real Americans” always resort when confronted with unpleasant facts about “our” country, and then accuses everybody else of being “little trolls”.
    Not gonna stand for it — not after eight years of the “Forward Strategy of Freedom” (or is that fascism?)

    Radialskid then acted as an apologist for “Bob”, in that he sees the problem as us “not living up to” our principles.
    Sorry, but nope. If we really believed in the principles, would we so routinely violate them?
    If the Founding Fathers had REALLY BELIEVED “all men are created equal”, would they have forcibly relocated/exterminated the indiginous tribal populations, or imported Blacks to be used as chattel? The “middle passage” continued for decades after the American Revolution, and the U.S. continued to permit slavery for THIRTY YEARS after it was abolished in the U.K.

    If we really believed in the principle of “send me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free”, would we go through recurrent cycles of “nativism”, and anti-ethnic hysteria? I don’t think so.

    If we REALLY believed in “freedom of speech”, then would we have blacklisted people merely for membership in a political party, or held congressional hearings about “Un-American” activities?
    I don’t think so.

    And our vaunted commitment to “basic human rights” rings hollow when “Middle America” can produce something like Lynndie England — but we’re supposed to forgive and forget, because “she was just following orders.”
    (So was Mengele.)

    And yes, Nader WAS — and is — right.
    That’s also why he didn’t stand a chance.

    Before anybody starts back up with the “Proud to be an American” schtick, read the links, and then read THIS:

    http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-gabler5-2008oct05,0,3727511.story

    So long as we continue believing that “American = Good”, we can’t make progress.

13. Robert Says:
    May 15th, 2009 at 12:17 pm

    @Henry:
    Even if “Bob” or anyone else chooses to troll or stir the pot, you don’t need to sink to their level and attack back.

    You’re doing a great job explaining your viewpoints now, though still presenting as if I were debating with you over freedoms or the view of Americans or anything related to that.

    So if you encounter more “Bobs” who wish to attack you, forget about it, keep your points intelligent and free from attitude, and then you won’t engage in mudslinging, completely losing the focus of the points you’re trying to make. Once someone is defensive, most of the logic and reasoning and analytical skills go out the window. Don’t sink to their level.

    If you are worried what readers think, have the confidence that they can detect your criticism as polite, professional, accurate and intelligently discussed. And those who choose to insert half-points and insults at you as people who need to chill, learn to read clearly before reacting, will be views appropriately as trolls or pot-stirrers.

    Have a good day Henry! Be proud to be who YOU are, regardless of what your country of residence does. Then you will start radiating the same vibes and moral energy to others, who in tern will hopefully learn to act the same. Once this spreads you’ll see the Americans once again find real pride in how the world views them because they will have earned the positive praise “American == Good” (no assignment, purely comparison). That, I agree with you, is a long ways away, but it begins with each individual desiring to change their own life for the better, for respect of others.

14. Henry Emrich Says:
    May 15th, 2009 at 1:45 pm

    Robert:
    Oh trust me, I get where you’re coming from on this, and I genuinely respect it (see, I AM capable of “playing nice!”)

    My problem is — and I really don’t know if you’re from the U.S. or not, so this might not really resonate with you — is that ever since 9/11, we’ve had 8 years with “Bob” and “radialskid”-type thinking as the dominant line of discourse. Not coincidentally, we’ve ALSO managed to fulfill EVERY ONE of the “14 points of fascism” — up to and including our own homegrown version of the “volkisch movement”.
    Laura Ingraham and her bullshit about “real Americans” should rightly send a chill of revulsion down ANYBODY’S spine, Robert.

    So no, after 8 years of “They hate us because we’re rich and free”, ’scuse me if I get a tad bit “touchy”.

    And, I really don’t think I “sank to their level”, because — and this is important to notice — I provided links and offsite sources for my contentions that, despite our cultural mythology, we fall FAR short of the “shining city on a hill”.

    But thanks for the well-meant criticism, Robert. I’ll be the first one to admit that I’m extremely “intense”, and damn near every contributor to p2pnet has ended up on the whip-end of it at one time of another.

    But I don’t “go there” immediately, or at least I try not to.

15. Henry Emrich Says:
    May 15th, 2009 at 2:03 pm

    “I didn’t, at any point, question your points or partial points in support of your arguments that the US is neither free nor something to be proud of as a citizen. I simply pointed out how you chose to argue your points and how it extends an argument by wrapping it with sarcasm and insults, as opposed to just stating the facts you found.”

    My problem is that American culture is particularly schizoid, in that not only do our “elected” (!!!!) officials routinely do things which violate the stated principles justifying this nation’s existence, but they do so, with the overt consent of the vast majority of the populace.

    And anybody who steps back and bothers to question it gets branded as “un-patriotic” or somehow not a “real American”, and spends the rest of the discussion falling all over themselves to show that they really ARE “patriotic” or as “American” as the next guy.

    It’s bullshit, and it DESERVES to be met with sarcasm and insults, because the alternative is to allow the “forward strategy of Fascism” to win.

    So hell yes, Okay — the fact that I bothered to read up on stuff (instead of watching “Dancing with the Stars” and thinking flag-pins substitute for discussion — means that I’m not a “real American.”

    Nationalistic chauvinism is stupid and dangerous.

16. Devil's Advocate Says:
    May 15th, 2009 at 2:20 pm

    While Henry may be making some statements here that are obviously going to upset some hardcore flag wavers, he’s certainly not failed in trying to illustrate his point with a few examples. And, like it or not, he’s not alone on this one.

    Some may think Henry’s sentiments are “unpatriotic”. To those that jump on that bandwagon, I would remind you that a true patriot is someone who has the presence of mind to question the actions of his own country. The following is probably the quote Henry had in mind earlier…

    “Civil disobedience. . . is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that numbers of people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of the leaders of their government and have gone to war, and millions have been killed because of this obedience. Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves, and all the while the grand thieves are running the country. That’s our problem.” – Howard Zinn, “Failure to Quit”
    ____________________

    As for me…
    Quite honestly, I think the US has been very actively soiling its self-proclaimed “clean” reputation, and its own Constitution for many years. There seems to be a general “World Consensus” that the US Agenda is arguably the most evil one.

    The Patriot Act is not only a prime example of deliberate, engineered oppression all around, but also, if you look at the way it was implemented, it’s a blatant demonstration of a very questionable and pre-planned agenda. It was the child of another “project” that had been going on since before George Sr. and the “Iran Contra” affair. Google for “Project for a New American Century” (PNAC), if you don’t know what I’m talking about.

    The Patriot Act was drafted and ready before 9/11, and was crammed down the Senate’s throat in the wee hours of the morning about 45 days later. Nobody was given so much as a day to look over its 350 pages and evaluate what in contained.

    The whole “War on Terror” is an obvious farce.
    Supposedly triggered by 9/11, this whole elaborate mission involving “Muslim Fundamental Extremists who don’t like our freedom” was immediately presented… on 9/12! Yet, on the other hand, the entire Administration claimed they simply HAD NO IDEA such a thing could happen to America. If they couldn’t envision what had happened, how could they possibly have assembled the “facts” so quickly, and why was the Patriot Act already waiting for this “excuse” to exist??

    The US has a known history of “false flag” activities, the Pearl Harbour event probably being the most famous. And, if you read what PNAC contained, you will find discussions presented by your beloved Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Jeb Bush, Paul Wolfowitz and George Sr. (!), calling for a “new Pearl Harbour” to justify the “rebuilding of America’s defenses”. That was about a year before 9/11.

    (Interesting note: Jeb Bush, Dubya’s cousin, was in charge of the security of the World Trade Center up until the week of 9/11.)

    The explanations given by the US Government for what happened were an insult to the human intelligence. The blatant avoidance of any true and impartial investigation of the worst criminal event on US soil in history, and the fact they made sure the crime scene was very quickly cleaned up without a forensic analysis, should have been seen by all Americans from coast to coast as further evidence something else went on here they didn’t want them to know about.

    Then, you have an EPA that tells everyone Ground Zero is safe to inhabit – “Go back to your lives and get Wall Street open!”. Meanwhile, thousands more (responders and the public alike) develop health problems and die.

    Doesn’t exactly give me the impression of a healthy government agenda from my southern neighbour. I would certainly be questioning all of this shit. And, I do question my own government’s involvment with these people when we hold secret meetings (Google Bilderburg Ottawa) that are totally blacked out to the public, where American soldiers in full regalia are firing tear gas at our citizens, from our own soil, while trodding all over their dead relatives’ graves. (Happened more than once.)

    I could go on.
    The fact is, those who are awake DO question a lot of things the US does.
    A great deal of it is done on its own initiative, without the approval of any other part of the world, and often thumbing its nose at any voiced objections – whether from its own people, or even NATO. Innocent lives, be damned!

    It’s not just 9/11.
    It seems every time you turn around, the Great War Machine is launched, fully-stocked, primed, locked and loaded. Billions upon billions of taxpayer-financed dollars going literally up in smoke, while citizens in both their own country as well as the ones they’re “liberating” don’t have a pot to piss in, losing their livelyhood, their homes, their lives, over eternal “wars” that can’t be “won” (eg. Viet Nam), and appear to be based on nothing but lies (eg. Iraq/Afghanistan).

    Yes, I’m saying the American People are constantly being lied to.
    And, they’ve been collectively conditioned to wave their flag relentlessly and believe their country can do no wrong, and that anyone who questions that is a “nutjob” or a “terrorist”, no matter how many Constitutional liberties their government tells them are being revoked today.

17. Captain555 Says:
    May 15th, 2009 at 3:16 pm

    Devil’s Advocate said:

    “(Interesting note: Jeb Bush, Dubya’s cousin, was in charge of the security of the World Trade Center up until the week of 9/11.)”

    You obviously have your fact wrong. Jeb Bush is the brother of the former president and was the governor of Florida on 9/11 and had been since 1998. That doesn’t help with the rest of your story which by the way doesn’t make much sense. You probably listen to too many conspiracy theorists.

18. Henry Emrich Says:
    May 15th, 2009 at 3:47 pm

    Captain555:

    What exactly is “the rest of” his “story”?
    The fact that we’re fed bullshit, or the fact that we willingly swallow it, provided it comes in a red white and blue box?

    Got a serious question for you all:
    Why should I be “proud” that I happen to be from a nation which TALKS about all sorts of wonderful principles, but routinely does exactly the opposite? I had nothing to do with the accident of birth involved in where I’m from, and I see no reason to take “pride” in it, especially when “where I’m from” is pretty much the epicenter of some of the most blatant evil around. You don’t see Canada waging preemptive war against a former ally, do you? Bin Laden was armed — and trained — by the U.S., as were a significant proportion of the so-called “insurgency” used to justify our continued presence in Iraq. Look it up, people.

    If we really MEANT what we say, and believed what we CLAIM to believe, then we wouldn’t keep doing shit like this.

    Should I also be “proud” of my race? What about the fact that I’m right-handed, and some right-handed people did wonderful things?

    Lynndie England should have been a wake-up call, folks.
    All the weep-wail-snarl about “Real Americans” should make us step back and look at ourselves, but does it?

    Not likely.
    But Y’know what? It all makes sense once you admit that we really don’t believe ANY of it, not on any level that matters.
    Nah, it’s enough for us to pay lip-service to “Freedom” while becoming a police-state.
    It’s enough for us to pay lip-service to “free enterprise” while marching toward corporate feudalism.

    So pardon me if I can’t get all choked up over our tribal symbolism anymore.
    THAT’S why I say we deserved Bush, and that’s why I’m ashamed for us all.

19. Henry Emrich Says:
    May 15th, 2009 at 4:01 pm

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Un-American

    Was Nazism “un-German?”

20. Henry Emrich Says:
    May 15th, 2009 at 4:20 pm

    Clinton =Impeached over a cigar
    Bush = NOT impeached, despite 8 years of: gutted civil liberties, torture (oops, I mean “enhanced interrogation techniques), an entire city drowned thanks to failure to maintain levees.

    Difference?
    1. 9/11 — perfect opportunity for scapegoating (despite the fact that 40 nations lost people).
    2. flag-waving, yellow-ribbons, and LOTS of scapegoating (”madmen in dirty nightshirts”, according to Michael Savage.)

    http://www.lewrockwell.com/roberts/roberts120.html

21. Devil's Advocate Says:
    May 15th, 2009 at 5:29 pm

    Correction to my post above:
    I stand corrected…
    Jeb Bush is Dubya’s brother.
    (Not his cousin, as I somehow ended up typing previously.)

    @Captain555:
    Now that the correction is in, does that make the connecting information less ominous, or more?!
    I do find it interesting (well, not really) that, just because the relationship was misquoted, that “automatically” makes me a conspiracy theorist.

    @Henry:
    Do you see what I mean about the term “conspiracy theorist” being twisted into “THE absolute answer” to just about every hard question?

    No counter-point offered, just call the guy a conspiracy thoerist because he failed to remember that W’s brother wasn’t his cousin. Doesn’t matter if everything else stated was completely true and easily verifiable, and happening right under everyone’s noses.

22. Henry Emrich Says:
    May 15th, 2009 at 5:29 pm

    But hey, we’re supposed to be “proud” because — “mission accomplished”

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_Accomplished

    (Gotta love it when 98 percent of the casualties happen AFTER the “major combat operations”.)

    Pardon me if my heart doesn’t exactly beat “Yankee Doodle Dandy”.

23. Devil's Advocate Says:
    May 15th, 2009 at 5:52 pm

    Re: “mission accomplished”
    Yeah, whatever that really means, eh?!
    Wonder what the answer would be if the White House were asked to define “what”, exactly, has been accomplished.

    I know many of us in Canada are still trying to get an answer to the simple question, “why are we even sending our people over there in the first place?” It’s like, we have some sort of “obligation” to our neighbours, but this obligation doesn’t seem to require any logical EXPLANATION.

    I find it appalling and offensive that well-intentioned soldiers are being sent to die, when it’s all obviously based on lies.

24. Henry Emrich Says:
    May 15th, 2009 at 6:08 pm

    “@Henry:
    Do you see what I mean about the term “conspiracy theorist” being twisted into “THE absolute answer” to just about every hard question?

    No counter-point offered, just call the guy a conspiracy thoerist because he failed to remember that W’s brother wasn’t his cousin. Doesn’t matter if everything else stated was completely true and easily verifiable, and happening right under everyone’s noses.”

    I never said it was, DA.
    Where I took issue — and still do — is the tendency among *some* “conspiracy buffs” to disregard anything *except* their own weird “alternative media outlets” as bullshit fit only for the mundanes, because THEY’RE “in the know”.
    The “mainstream media” isn’t always lying.

    Prime example of the ones I was talking abouit:
    Bill Cooper. Crazy, drunken shortwave-radio guy, circulated around the “militia” movement back in the 1990s, but had been involved in the UFO scene back in the 1980s. The thing is, he was batshit psycho in BOTH scenes.

    During the 1980s he came to prominence when he uploaded a document called “Majestytwelve” onto a BBS. Predictably, it circulated like wildfire because the overty-obvious horror-stories aren’t enough for *some* people; to be really intersting it has to involve secret underground bases or “secret societies” or the “protocols of the elders of zion” or some shit.

    His basic thesis was that the U.S. government had made contact with something calling itself “His omnipotent Highness Krill”, and that there was a vast, histoy-spanning plot involving extraterrestrials and Freemasonry.

    He peddled this for a few years, and then (relatively suddenly) completely repudiated the UFO thing, and glommed onto the 1990s version of the “anti-masonic” thing we do here in the U.s. every few decades.

    Bill Cooper was batshit insane, even if he managed to have a few good points every once in awhile.

    What pissed me off what your accusation that the other guy was a troll (which you later described as a “feeble attempt at humor”.)

    My whole thing is: who *needs* all the secretive, X-files plots when there’s enough blindingly-obvious shit going on RIGHT IN THE OPEN AND PUBLICALLY VISIBLE to make any sane person shit bricks?

    I dunno, but there’s something about the American culture that allows — or even encourages — us to do blatantly horrible things, and be completely unaware of them (or even DEFEND them), provided there’s enough flag-waving involved.

    It’s appropriate that people saw similarities between 9/11 and Pearl Harbor, because in both cases, the Government had AMPLE warning that something big was going down, and either neglected to do ANYTHING, or actively made the situation worse, only to systematically exploit the horror afterward, for political gain.

    And Y’know what allows that to happen? US. “We, as Americans” seem to be willing to support any and every type of horrible actions, and still pat ourselves on the back for how we’re the “land of the free.”

    Indigenous populations all but exterminated? Routine treaty violations? Aww, shucks, T’weren’t nothin’ but some ornery “Redskins”.
    (Wow, that’d make a spiffy name for a sports-team!)

    “White’s only” lunch-counters and lynch-mobs?
    Nah, it’s not a question of “equal protection under the law” — it’s a question of “State’s Rights” and “Southern Heritage.”
    Great.

    Unemployable merely for having gone to a political rally?
    Who’d possibly bother to object to that? (”What’re you, a *pinko*?)

    And then, somehow, we’re supposed to believe that the Bush era or electronic police-state bullshit is surprising because we’re the “land of the free?” Blow me.

    Torture, prison camps, bombing of civilians, surveillance, sabotage of dissident groups, and outright genocide are VERY “American”, and the sooner we all wake up to that fact, the sooner we might actually realize that it’s something other than a mere accident of birth involved.

    Then we wouldn’t be so easily SOLD on shit like waterboarding etc.

    I mean, really — how hard is it to just admit that we are NO DIFFERENT from any other nation (much less a “shining city on a hill”.)

25. Captain555 Says:
    May 15th, 2009 at 6:21 pm

    @Henry:
    If you don’t like to be an American and think that Canada is better, than switch with me, I would be more than happy to lie in the U.S. and become a proud American.

    @Devil:
    You only corrected part of your statement. The other part was your contention that Jeb “was in charge of the security of the World Trade Center”, which he obviously was not, since he was Governor of Florida.

    The reason I am not taking the time to go thru your argument point by point and refute them is because I know I would be wasting my time. You choose to believe what you believe. Anything I say would be turn around and you would accuse me of been naive.

26. Devil's Advocate Says:
    May 15th, 2009 at 7:17 pm

    @Henry:

    “Where I took issue — and still do — is the tendency among *some* “conspiracy buffs” to disregard anything *except* their own weird “alternative media outlets” as bullshit fit only for the mundanes, because THEY’RE “in the know”.
    The “mainstream media” isn’t always lying.”

    Totally agree!

    And I hear ya on the Bill Cooper thing.
    Naturally, you’re gonna get extremists in every walk of life.
    _______

    “My whole thing is: who *needs* all the secretive, X-files plots when there’s enough blindingly-obvious shit going on RIGHT IN THE OPEN AND PUBLICALLY VISIBLE to make any sane person shit bricks?”

    So true!
    But, “other factors” seem to come into play whenever these “blindingly obvious” injustices are questioned. The People get “resistance” from the responsible authorities when they try to change things. It’s that resistance that often leads one to seek out why things aren’t as simple to resolve as they should be. Often, you find “deeper” motivations are involved, ultimately leading to either the generation of a conspiracy theory, or the discovery of a bona fide scandal.

    And, I think that’s the crux of a lot of America’s problems – that curious lack of transparency on absolutely EVERYTHING. When the People don’t get enough information, or realize that some of the limited information they’re getting is full of lies, conspiracy theories are guaranteed to spring up all over the place, whether or not there really is a viable explanation that’s not being offered.
    _______

    “It’s appropriate that people saw similarities between 9/11 and Pearl Harbor, because in both cases, the Government had AMPLE warning that something big was going down, and either neglected to do ANYTHING, or actively made the situation worse, only to systematically exploit the horror afterward, for political gain.”

    The thing about the Pearl Harbour comparison is, it wasn’t obvious at the time that it was a complete false flag, engineered by the US to appear to be a “defensive action against a Japanese offensive”. It was instigated at sea, and at a time when things weren’t as visible to the US People as they might be now.

    With 9/11, there were too many “holes” left behind after its execution for everyone to see.
    - 2 planes supposedly bringing down 3 buildings.
    - Pentagon hole not big enough to fit the 757 that was supposed to have hit it.
    - No plane wreckage or black boxes recovered from any of the 4 “hijacked” planes.
    - obscene numbers of put-options placed (on WTC companies and United Airlines and American Airlines) the last 2 weeks before 9/11.
    - cellphone calls supposedly made from impossible altitudes, the contents of which supposedly provided the basis for the accepted “Muslim Terrorists with boxcutters” story, that were later proven to never have taken place.
    - Nano-thermate found in the dust, some of which never detonated, from multiple samples from multiple places around Ground Zero.
    - Cars that were not in the path of destruction mysteriously “toasted”, rusted, and/or flipped over, some even missing door handles or parts of engine blocks.
    - About 1/3 of the “known hijackers” were later reported alive elsewhere in the world.
    - FBI states to this day there is “no connecting evidence” linking Bin Laden or Saddam Hussein to 9/11.
    - ….

    I’ll tell ya right now, if I kept typing that list with things that were never properly explained or even addressed at all in some cases, I could make it at least a mile long. The bottom line seems to be that Pearl Harbour may have been a “let it happen” type of false flag, in that, they goaded someone into making the wanted response, while 9/11 could very well have been a completely “made it happen” one.

27. Devil's Advocate Says:
    May 15th, 2009 at 7:44 pm

    @Captain555:

    “You only corrected part of your statement. The other part was your contention that Jeb “was in charge of the security of the World Trade Center”, which he obviously was not, since he was Governor of Florida.”

    I don’t really need to correct anything else, but okay…
    Jeb is W’s brother. It was W’s cousin, Marvin, was the head of Securacom, and in charge of the WTC up until 9/11.
    So, the only mistake made in the original statement was the name of his cousin.

    Hopefully, that makes you a little happier.

    The reason I had Jeb in mind and ended up typing his name is because, as Governor of Florida, he was the one who mysteriously declared MARTIAL LAW for his State on September 7th. That fact is also “suspicious”, and I was probably thinking of using it.
    ________

    “The reason I am not taking the time to go thru your argument point by point and refute them is because I know I would be wasting my time. You choose to believe what you believe. Anything I say would be turn around and you would accuse me of been naive.”

    Are you sure the reason you think that way doesn’t have something to do with the possibility you’re not confident enough in your own convictions to disprove anything I’m offering you? I mean, c’mon! If you don’t know enough about it, that’s fine – I won’t judge you for that. But, if you do have something, trust me, I’m big enough to admit you do – ask anyone here.

    But, since you’re making certain statements here yourself, I would charge you to qualify what you say as much as you seem to want others to. (Otherwise, why would you comment at all against anybody?)

28. Henry Emrich Says:
    May 15th, 2009 at 10:53 pm

    “If you don’t like to be an American and think that Canada is better, than switch with me, I would be more than happy to lie in the U.S. and become a proud American.”

    Okay, that’s just fucking dumb, any way you slice it.
    But what’s to expect? The fact that the mere sight of an American flag doesn’t make me cream my jeans/that I actually admit that THIS nation does stupid, horrible shit on a fairly regular basis/falls short of it’s stated principles quite often, automatically means I “don’t like being an American.”

    Okay, I’ll play it your way, Mr. Flagman:
    1. Yes, Canada DOES “do better”, in that they’ve never (to my knowledge) waged preemptive war on false pretenses (”Saddaam has WMDs! We know he does!!!”). Germany DID invade other countries, but that was back in the 1930s.
    Wake the hell up, and stop confirming everything I’ve been saying.

    You can tell Pavlovian conditioning is alive and well in the Good Old U.S. of A.

29. Henry Emrich Says:
    May 15th, 2009 at 11:12 pm

    “The reason I am not taking the time to go thru your argument point by point and refute them is because I know I would be wasting my time. You choose to believe what you believe. Anything I say would be turn around and you would accuse me of been naive.”

    Uh-huh, just like you and “Bob” chose to regard my failure to regard American culture as intrinsically noble and beyond reproach as tantamount to treason.
    It’s not that you’ve “been naive” — they don’t teach about our numerous sociopolitical fuckups in the schools (despite RadialSkid’s sneering little jibe about “political correctness.”

    They don’t talk about the “Alien and Sedition act”.
    They don’t mention the Whiskey Rebellion, Shay’s rebellion, the Haymarket affair, the “know-nothings”, the CIA’s activities, the intimate connections between the Bin Laden family and the Bush’s. They don’t talk about how the U.S. deposed Mosadek in Iran. They don’t talk about how the pledge of allegiance that Conservatives get so weepy-eyed over was originally penned by a SOCIALIST (despite what wannabe-VPILF Sarah Palin might think, “socialism” isn’t just some slur-word our overlords can toss out whenever they want dissent NOT to be “patriotic”.)

    But key, go for it. Feel free to just ignore what the U.S. ACTUALLY DOES, in favor of the storybook bullshit and arrogance.
    And please, oh please oh please, by the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, don’t forget to roll.
    (Ya gotta love how Bush completely co-opted that one for his “they tried to Kill mah daddy” meat-grinder.)

    Think of it this way:
    If you go to the doctor because you have a weird-looking mole on your back that just keeps getting bigger and more painful, and he tells you it’s skin cancer, and you need surgery, are you going to take the warnings seriously, or are you just gonna say “but, that can’t be! It’s my skin, and everybody knows skin is a really valuable organ! We all NEED skin!”

    Sometimes you skin can “go bad”, and no amount of wishful thinking or denial is going to change that, when it does.
    When I said America is “a cancer on the world”, I mean it: just look at the last 8 years. (Hell, look at every foreign policy decision since 1990.

    We don’t HAVE to be, but at this point, we are.

    But for some reason, Americans are almost completely incapable of taking an honest look at history, noticing how the patterns repeat, and ACTUALLY DOING BETTER NEXT TIME.

    That’s why I said we deserved something like Bush.

    And I gotta ask you? Go outside the U.S. while we’re in global-whupass mode?
    What’re you, stupid? You think I really want to end up on the OTHER end of U.S. foreign policy?
    At least here our overlords tolerate a certain amount of — largely token — dissent and questioning of the system.
    Not much (hence the vaunted “two party system” and corporate-owned mass media) but some.

    And just because I realize we don’t really MEAN any of our high-minded rhetoric doesn’t mean I don’t wholeheartedly believe in the principles for which this nation CLAIMS to stand. I just can’t lie to myself that what we’re doing is good, or that we don’t routinely break our own promises.

    Read some history, starting with the Wikipedia links I provided in the other thread, and I’m pretty sure you’ll come to realize that the U.S. “electronic police-state” thing shouldn’t be that much of a surprise.

30. Henry Emrich Says:
    May 15th, 2009 at 11:47 pm

    “Re: “mission accomplished”
    Yeah, whatever that really means, eh?!
    Wonder what the answer would be if the White House were asked to define “what”, exactly, has been accomplished.”

    Uhhhh…..they ring the bell, we salivate?
    Really big career-boost for Toby Keith/Alan Jackson/Lee Greenwood?
    Lots of Chinese sweatshops producing American flag pins and Yellow ribbon magnets?
    Presidential race reduced to debating about a guy’s MIDDLE NAME?
    Heated debate about whether dissent is “patriotic” or not?
    Militarization of the entire culture (ironic, given the “Founding Fathers” views on the dangers posed by “standing armies”).

    Looked at realistically, the “War on Terror” (terra?) makes a really good replacement for the “Cold War”.
    Y’see, without the Soviet Bloc to keep us paranoid/in line, people were actually starting to ask inconvenient questions about stuff like corporate power, why we have so many bases all over the world/just what the CIA really DID all those years.
    Hell, it was even permeating the mainstream media (X-files, the movie JFK.)

    Can’t have that.
    9/11 — whether it was *allowed* to happen, or *made* to happen (not much difference, given the fact that Bin Laden/Saddam were OUR PALS until relatively recently), reignited the dumbest and most gullible aspects of American culture (exemplified by the vaguely-racist aspects of the McCain/Palin campaign/the fact that my mom — formerly explicitly anti-racist suddenly supported waterboarding.)

    How hard is this to understand, really?
    Whenever folks actually start asking the U.S. to LIVE UP TO IT’S RHETORIC, we mysteriously blunder into another “crisis”, and get distracted.
    Look at the LAST version of the current scenario: Vietnam.
    An entire generation hoodwinked into supporting involuntary servitude as your “patriotic duty”.
    Is it a coincidence that we started fucking around with “French Indochina” at about the same time Blacks started bitching about being second-class citizens across the entire South?

31. Henry Emrich Says:
    May 16th, 2009 at 12:27 am

    “Often, you find “deeper” motivations are involved, ultimately leading to either the generation of a conspiracy theory, or the discovery of a bona fide scandal.”

    My question is — and has really always been — what those “deeper motives” really are?
    Look into something called the “Stanford Prison experiment”. It was an attempt — in a controlled setting — to recreate the power-dynamics involved in dominant vs. submissive social roles, in that particular case, prison guards vs. inmates.

    What was fascinating was just how quickly the “subjects” very literally TURNED INTO their respective roles — up to and including physical brutality from the “guards” on the inmates. It got so bad, so quickly that they cut the whole thing short, basically so nobody ended up dead or seriously psycho:

    http://www.prisonexp.org/

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment

    Y’know what? The mere fact that it got THAT fuckin’ crazy that quickly indicates to me that — under the right circumstances — it’d be really easy to end dehumanized — either turned into a jackbooted thug, or a a whimpering, cringing shell.

    (Our glorious leader calls ‘em “faceless cowards”, Michael Savage calls ‘em “Madmen in dirty nightshirts”, we’re trained from childhood to recite a singsong chant about the flag, and then we stare slack-jawed when we see Lynndie England making some guy jerk off at gunpoint while grinning and giving the thumbs-up sign.)

    I mean, seriously — what the fuck???????
    If ANY other nation was doing any of the shit we’ve become accustomed to over the last decade, we’d probably regard them as some kind of horrible “Evil Empire”, but slap a fuckin’ FLAG DECAL on the thing, and suddenly it’s a fuckin’ crusade from God himself.

    You’re goddamn right that worries me.
    Sure, Cletus, “Dissent is patriotic” when you’re at your fuckin’ stupid, astroturf “tea party”, but anybody who EVEN QUESTIONED the wisdom of Operation “They Tried to kill Muh Daddy”? Well hell, “You just hate America!”

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