REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Gender and Violence and Blame

POSTED BY: MAGONSDAUGHTER
UPDATED: Sunday, January 20, 2013 15:56
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VIEWED: 25675
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Saturday, January 5, 2013 11:28 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER


I am no way suggesting that anyone abandon any emotion. All of them have their purpose and their uses and are necessary, at times for survival.

I am indeed talking about the use of falsely manipulated fear for political and or commercial reasons and am suggesting in a cautionary manner that we each consider in what ways we are being manipulated to be fearful, and whether those fears are really justified.

Fear is intended to motivate quick action. It is supposed to be a short, sharp emotion, not to be lived with for extended periods of time. The impact humans emotionally, psychologically and physically when they live with fear for extended periods of time is dramatic and harmful and probably can account for at least some of the mental health problems experienced enmasse in western societies.




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Sunday, January 6, 2013 7:19 AM

CHRISISALL


Quote:

Originally posted by HKCavalier:

Cynicism is the easiest, most disempowered worldview, man. It helps no one. Try a little optimism, try to find meaning and progress in the world and help it along and you might live a little longer.


Nothing really changes.
Major Nelson once asked Jeannie if she could fill the Sahara desert with water to make it arable, she said she could, but it would cause droughts elsewhere.
And that's the way things go; fix one problem, another appears to take its place.
No, the internet won't be swept away, just twisted, regulated, monitored, and ultimately used for societal control & monetary gain for them that are already rich. At this moment (on the internet) we are freer than we will ever be again. Avarice, greed & the general need to frack up anything that works as is will chip away at an increasing pace. It's a forever war.

"It's in your nature to destroy yourselves."
"Yeah, major bummer."

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Sunday, January 6, 2013 7:44 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

Chris. You and Signy with your "Stop thinking because people are dying!"
HKC... My first response was to the word "envy" bc frankly, I stopped reading there. There are many problems one can solve by framing them as emotions, but the problem of sociopaths controlling the world isn't one of them.

On further reading, you went about where I thought you would- "Be the change you wish to see". In using the opponent's tactics, you risk becoming the same thing. War is a poor tool of peace. Etc. Please let me know of I'm off the mark in my restatement.

Well, I don't think I'm proposing any such thing. But here is a question that you, FREM, and TONY need to answer for yourselves: Are democracy and free speech impositions? Is prohibiting the monopolization of the lines of communication a tyranny? Are ALL rules harmful?

Ultimately I see that there are rules that even the most peaceable and equitable societies impose, if only that most agree that self-centered people must not rule society for their exclusive benefit. That's a rule, right? And there must be at least one effective consequence, if the consequences is only banishment. So I think I understand your viewpoint, but in taking it to its logical extreme it stops making sense. Thinking that you can achieve a good society by eliminating ALL rules doesn't address the economic dynamics that we have set up... eg. very fine division of labor, large-scale economic integration, and exchange-at-a-distance. Those particular dynamics make it very easy for the sociopath to operate undetected and completely outside of the realm of individual response.

Also, it doesn't address the fact that we are ALREADY living under a set of rules imposed on us and not for our benefit.

Think of society as like a body... more than individual cells. While each cell carries out the same basic operations, each cell also has a specialized function. There are (or should be) limits to any cell's acquisition of resources and growth, otherwise you have a cancer. The consequences are brought about by the immune system.

The question for me isn't whether there should be rules or not. My view that society is like an organism makes it clear that there are rules that must be followed or the organism fails. The question for ME is... what are the least number of rules, and who implements them, which has the highest chance of being self-sustaining and impervious to corruption. For example, it's pretty clear that democracy was a good idea, but it became corrupted pretty quickly when another source of power (economic power, as opposed to political power) took over.

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Sunday, January 6, 2013 9:01 AM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


"And that's the way things go; fix one problem, another appears to take its place."

Well, life is an endless series of problems that must be solved over and over - getting water, getting food, staying warm ... etc - or life ends. What do you propose as the solution to end all problems - death?

Anyway, in that response I see the American inability to imagine anything better. But hard as it is to imagine, there are whole countries where the people are healthier, happier, more peaceable, better housed, better educated, better fed. Of course one can't fix all problems permanently and make paradise on earth. But there are better choices and worse choices. Why not choose the better?

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Sunday, January 6, 2013 9:05 AM

BYTEMITE


Depends on what the pros and cons are. Sometimes something that sounds good and easy has a lot of strings attached that makes it look less attractive.

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Sunday, January 6, 2013 9:21 AM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


Then you have to look at the result. For example, looking at the US economic system which is SUPPOSED to be superior, does it produce a superior result compared to other countries?

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Sunday, January 6, 2013 9:38 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

Sometimes something that sounds good and easy has a lot of strings attached that makes it look less attractive.
Like cable TV and iPhones?

As my hubby likes to say "Unexamined convenience is the road to extinction."

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Sunday, January 6, 2013 9:49 AM

BYTEMITE


Results are precisely what I'm talking about. You ask me about existing countries, I don't actually like any of the systems of existing countries. Particularly I know you support a mixed economy, whereas I think there are too many strings attached, so I'm a big believer in micro-economies.

Sig: Kinda? Both have their problems, true, and are instrumental in dividing people, isolating people. I'd actually argue the pros for them outweigh the cons though.

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Sunday, January 6, 2013 10:50 AM

CHRISISALL


Quote:

Originally posted by 1kiki:

Anyway, in that response I see the American inability to imagine anything better.

I can imagine a whole lot better, but I live in a country where OJ Simpson can get away with murdering his Wife & I can't beat a bulls**t traffic ticket. The difference is money. It can solve problems, but in acquiring it, create just as many more.
Truth fades before the allmighty Dollar; justice fears it. Individuals and institutions kill for it.

Like I said, nothing ever really changes. Except the window dressing.


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Sunday, January 6, 2013 10:59 AM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


"... I don't actually like any of the systems of existing countries ..."

Well, when I say look at the results, I mean tangible, measurable results. Do more people have nutritious diets, or fewer? Do more people have better health, or fewer? Do more people have an effect on how the society is run, or fewer?

As I see it, there are all sorts of 'isms', both social and personal, which seek to abolish some things and enforce others - mostly based on some theoretical notion of how things 'should' be. And frequently compliance is based on an as yet undemonstrated result - If you do this and don't so that you will get to heaven. If you do this and don't do that it will create a bountiful society for the productive. If you do this and don't do that everyone will be perfectly free. And so on. Those 'isms' I think of as religion b/c they are based on unproven beliefs.

So I propose a society based on actions and measurable results rather than religious 'isms'. Do you want more people to have nutritious, wholesome diets? Which countries achieve that? How do they do it? How can we implement that? Do you want better educated children? Which countries achieve that? How do they do it? How can we implement that? And so on.

The reason why I think things are so fucked up at the moment - and they are fucked up, we are facing environmental collapse the like of which will put any minor economic problem like the Great Depression into perspective - is b/c people are putting their hope in 'isms' rather than demanding results which benefit THEM directly.

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Sunday, January 6, 2013 11:15 AM

CHRISISALL


Quote:

Originally posted by 1kiki:

So I propose a society based on actions and measurable results rather than religious 'isms'. Do you want more people to have nutritious, wholesome diets? Which countries achieve that? How do they do it? How can we implement that? Do you want better educated children? Which countries achieve that? How do they do it? How can we implement that? And so on.


How much will it cost? What is the profit margin? How much can be skimmed? And so on.

Cynicism would be saying we are all doomed. But we aren't. You don't doom your servants, you control them. It's an endless push & pull is all.

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Sunday, January 6, 2013 11:24 AM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


Then I must be cynical, b/c I think while we aren't ALL doomed, the vast majority already is. I'd been thinking that environmental collapse would be gradual, but I see accelerating changes. And some scientists think the system could become unlivably unstable in as short a span as 5 or 10 years. Not that it will happen in the next 5 to 10 years (though it might) but that when it does happen it will be faster than most people think. And the belief people have in their 'isms' will keep them marching till we go right over the cliff. So, uhm, my current thinking is ...


Always have an exit plan.

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Sunday, January 6, 2013 11:28 AM

BYTEMITE


Quote:

Do more people have nutritious diets, or fewer? Do more people have better health, or fewer?


Yes, money determines nutritious diets and education and health care. The systems you argue for still seem to have people who are richer than other people, and therefore who live more healthy and are more educated. I see those countries and think that their strings outweigh the effectiveness of their solutions.

I think we may need our own solution. Even those countries with national health care didn't wholesale copy each other.

Quote:

Always have an exit plan.


I agree with this.

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Sunday, January 6, 2013 11:46 AM

MAGONSDAUGHTER


Quote:

Originally posted by 1kiki:
"... I don't actually like any of the systems of existing countries ..."

Well, when I say look at the results, I mean tangible, measurable results. Do more people have nutritious diets, or fewer? Do more people have better health, or fewer? Do more people have an effect on how the society is run, or fewer?

As I see it, there are all sorts of 'isms', both social and personal, which seek to abolish some things and enforce others - mostly based on some theoretical notion of how things 'should' be. And frequently compliance is based on an as yet undemonstrated result - If you do this and don't so that you will get to heaven. If you do this and don't do that it will create a bountiful society for the productive. If you do this and don't do that everyone will be perfectly free. And so on. Those 'isms' I think of as religion b/c they are based on unproven beliefs.

So I propose a society based on actions and measurable results rather than religious 'isms'. Do you want more people to have nutritious, wholesome diets? Which countries achieve that? How do they do it? How can we implement that? Do you want better educated children? Which countries achieve that? How do they do it? How can we implement that? And so on.




Interesting, Ikiki. What you are proposing is something I see few Americans ever suggest, look to see what others are doing elsewhere, see what works, what can be adapted, and which bits you might be able to do. That would seem to be a self evident place to start.

And then I see Byte's response, which is, why bother looking elsewhere, all those systems suck.

It seems kinds of pervasive attitude that the rest of the world is a basketcase and only the US is capable of coming up with any answers. Makes for a certain degree of isolationism, which is probably not helpful.

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Sunday, January 6, 2013 11:48 AM

BYTEMITE


While I have issues with the systems elsewhere, my problem is they simply won't translate here. Any attempt we make to have a national health care system, which is something that I'd actually like, would inevitably be subverted as a massive gimmee to the insurance companies.

So until we wreck the insurance companies and the stranglehold big business has on this country, it's a futile effort. Adding in government isn't going to help, because government is currently in their pocket.

The way I see it, in order to fix the system, we have to strike at the massive amount of power and stake that various entities have in it. And it can't be one or the other, it has to be both, simultaneously. That is why both the anti-government conservatives and anti big-business liberals parallel my objectives.

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Sunday, January 6, 2013 11:55 AM

CHRISISALL


I'm mad as Hell, and I'm not gonna take it anymore! - ?

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Sunday, January 6, 2013 2:19 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER


Quote:

Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
While I have issues with the systems elsewhere, my problem is they simply won't translate here. Any attempt we make to have a national health care system, which is something that I'd actually like, would inevitably be subverted as a massive gimmee to the insurance companies.

So until we wreck the insurance companies and the stranglehold big business has on this country, it's a futile effort. Adding in government isn't going to help, because government is currently in their pocket.

The way I see it, in order to fix the system, we have to strike at the massive amount of power and stake that various entities have in it. And it can't be one or the other, it has to be both, simultaneously. That is why both the anti-government conservatives and anti big-business liberals parallel my objectives.



How do you know it wouldn't work any better in the US? Do you think you are the only society in the world where government is in bed with big business? Isn't a public health system with flaws better than none at all. I'd say yes, because that is what we have.

The only way you can envisage change is with some monumental restructure of power? How is that going to happen? It's a classic case of entrenched helplessness. The only way any change is possible is when some other monumental change takes place. "I'll be happy when I lose 20 kilos" "I'll do what I want with my life when I win the lottery".

No system is perfect. No system is capable of being perfect. As Ikiki says, life sets us a series of problems and you have to work out how best to resolve them, and when one set gets resolved a whole new set will appear. That is life.

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Sunday, January 6, 2013 2:30 PM

BYTEMITE


Hmm. In fairness, I suppose that my argument against national health care is rather like Sig's argument against the subversion of arts.

So in that case, I guess I object to both not having it as well as forcing mandatory participation.

Can you imagine, if there were laws passed that said citizens had to watch certain political speeches/conventions/debates, under the umbrella of claiming that watching is necessary for citizen action in society, but then only a few points of view get shown? So it becomes a vector for one group or another to profit immensely from it.

Now imagine there are laws passed that citizens have to get insurance, but there are only a few providers.

I concede that maybe you're right and we should try to have both art and national health care, but participation can not be mandatory in order to maintain any kind of claim about societal freedom.

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Sunday, January 6, 2013 3:32 PM

CHRISISALL


Quote:

Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:

No system is perfect. No system is capable of being perfect.

Bruce Lee's system of martial arts was perfect. Applied to other fields it would improve them greatly, but it would require a dropping of ego & dogma, and a sincere exploration of what works vs. what doesn't. This would disturb established norms, accepted conventions, and entrenched idiocy- in short, it would disrupt the flow of MONEY, and that is not acceptable in the United Society of Affluence (USA).

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Sunday, January 6, 2013 3:54 PM

CHRISISALL


Quote:

Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
Can you imagine, if there were laws passed that said citizens had to watch certain political speeches/conventions/debates, under the umbrella of claiming that watching is necessary for citizen action in society, but then only a few points of view get shown? So it becomes a vector for one group or another to profit immensely from it.


Not hard to imagine at all.

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Sunday, January 6, 2013 4:18 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER


Quote:

Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
Hmm. In fairness, I suppose that my argument against national health care is rather like Sig's argument against the subversion of arts.

So in that case, I guess I object to both not having it as well as forcing mandatory participation.

Can you imagine, if there were laws passed that said citizens had to watch certain political speeches/conventions/debates, under the umbrella of claiming that watching is necessary for citizen action in society, but then only a few points of view get shown? So it becomes a vector for one group or another to profit immensely from it.

Now imagine there are laws passed that citizens have to get insurance, but there are only a few providers.

I concede that maybe you're right and we should try to have both art and national health care, but participation can not be mandatory in order to maintain any kind of claim about societal freedom.



Frankly, Byte, a lot of guff is talked about societal freedom, which generally means looking at things in absolutes.

No one single person on this planet is totally free. All of us have things which bind us, things we must participate in, be it certain laws, taxation, systems of governance, family obligations, cultural imperatives.

Most people in western societies live in a kind of financial servitude, locked into mortgages and jobs and insurance obligations, and in reality have bugger all freedom.

IF you move away from absolutes, from the dogma, you can start looking at solutions. I don't know enough about your health care system to argue it one way or another, and having compulsory insurance sounds pretty stupid to me, but a national health care system by its very nature will have to cover everyone. So somehow, whether by tax or a levy or insurance, everyone will have to participate.

In the end absence of decent healthcare for everyone doesn't seem more free to me. Just seems unfair.





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Sunday, January 6, 2013 4:55 PM

CHRISISALL


Quote:

Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
a national health care system by its very nature will have to cover everyone. So somehow, whether by tax or a levy or insurance, everyone will have to participate.


Our taxes fix roads, but our taxes don't fix people.
Kinda tells what's important here, eh?

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Sunday, January 6, 2013 5:53 PM

BYTEMITE


As I've said, I like national health care, but I'm concerned how it might be implemented here. I don't think the horror stories about death panels are remotely true, but it is clear to me that the national health care idea we came up with is to force everyone over 26 to buy mandatory insurance through their employment. If they can't afford the regular insurance programs or they are unemployed, there's a reduced cost coverage they can buy from so-called called "health care exchanges"... That cover bugger-all. And if you can't afford those, IF you qualify for medicare and medicaid, you get federal health care coverage... that doesn't even cover contraceptives and birthcontrol.

Quote:

IF you move away from absolutes, from the dogma, you can start looking at solutions.


WHAT dogma? The only one here I see speaking in absolutes is you. No one is free? And we can do nothing about this, I suppose? I tell you what doesn't help create freedom, creating more restrictions, more drain on poor families.

You think, oh yay, they've got national health care! But what we have is a lot of profits for insurance companies and still no real coverage for the at risk groups. What we have is still a major wealth gap for different groups of society, created by cost of living issues that fall the most heavily on the poor, unemployed, and self-employed. And we keep piling that cost of living expenses higher on them until they're buried.

The only good thing about the law is that they set rate caps and made it much harder for insurance companies to reject a claim... But if you think the insurance companies won't find loopholes, you're going to be disappointed.

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Sunday, January 6, 2013 9:57 PM

MAGONSDAUGHTER


Quote:

Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
As I've said, I like national health care, but I'm concerned how it might be implemented here. I don't think the horror stories about death panels are remotely true, but it is clear to me that the national health care idea we came up with is to force everyone over 26 to buy mandatory insurance through their employment. If they can't afford the regular insurance programs or they are unemployed, there's a reduced cost coverage they can buy from so-called called "health care exchanges"... That cover bugger-all. And if you can't afford those, IF you qualify for medicare and medicaid, you get federal health care coverage... that doesn't even cover contraceptives and birthcontrol.



I'm really not in a position to discuss the ins and outs of your proposed health care system, so I can't possibly comment. I guess how this started was that you had disputed Ikiki's proposal to look elsewhere to see what works, which you disputed claiming that you didn't like other systems. I can't see how your disappointment in the proposed health care system supports your argument. Did Americans actually look to leading systems of health care to see how they worked before coming up with some options? It doesn't appear so.

Quote:



WHAT dogma? The only one here I see speaking in absolutes is you.


That is not my intention. I don't *feel* like I speak in absolutes. I feel like i talk a lot about compromises.

Quote:


No one is free? And we can do nothing about this, I suppose? I tell you what doesn't help create freedom, creating more restrictions, more drain on poor families.


No one is totally free. And yes, I think that absoulute freedom is a myth.

You think that governments are the only hindrance to people's freedoms? DO you think poverty = freedom. Ill health = freedom. You don't think people are restricted by inequality, by social structures that keep them living in poverty. You don't think private corporations have ever restricted people's freedom?

Your the one that speaks in absolutes because you see, as many Americans aparantly do, that a public health system = infringement on liberty. And don't say you support public health that doesn't cover everyone, because that if you can choose to opt in or out, that makes it a private health system.

If having a public health system is such a socialist/freedom reducing construct then why don't people opt out of public education funding? Why can't you choose whether or not you want to pay for roads with your taxes? Or the military?

Quote:

You think, oh yay, they've got national health care! But what we have is a lot of profits for insurance companies and still no real coverage for the at risk groups. What we have is still a major wealth gap for different groups of society, created by cost of living issues that fall the most heavily on the poor, unemployed, and self-employed. And we keep piling that cost of living expenses higher on them until they're buried.

The only good thing about the law is that they set rate caps and made it much harder for insurance companies to reject a claim... But if you think the insurance companies won't find loopholes, you're going to be disappointed.



Yeah, well again can't comment on the effectiveness of your system.

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Monday, January 7, 2013 4:59 AM

BYTEMITE


Quote:

Did Americans actually look to leading systems of health care to see how they worked before coming up with some options? It doesn't appear so.


We did. The problem is, THIS is the only shit that can get passed here. That's the point I'm trying to make. Until something fundamentally changes within the American system itself, any improvements we try to make to the system end up subverted and potentially making things worse.

So saying we need to look to other systems is way more problematic than you realize.

Quote:

You think that governments are the only hindrance to people's freedoms?


Okay, so now we're going to strawman me. Yeah, I think GOVERNMENT is the only hindrance when I've been saying ALL ALONG that all the big corporations are a threat as well and that there's real problems in this society created by the wealth gap. That's an INTERESTING interpretation.

You know, I've actually been trying to not attack socialism, if you guys want that, you can implement that where you live and it doesn't affect me whatsoever. I could not give less of a damn. It's not a system I personally want to live under, because I see strings attached, but this is a big damn world and I can move somewhere completely remote, where enforcement of any law would be a joke, or I could become a vagrant as I care nothing for your creature comforts. It's not even a problem for me to move - hell, it's my contingency plan ready to go anytime.

What does PISS ME OFF though is when you all decide that I'm attacking socialism and then you start making WILD claims about what I believe that aren't remotely true so you can discredit me. Like how you assumed I was against national health care, or how you think I think government is the only danger to our society. I'm against bullshit private insurance company based "national health care systems".

I actually wouldn't have a problem paying taxes for a national health care system, like I don't have a problem paying taxes so my grandmother can get her medicare and social security. I spend so little money as it is that it doesn't even matter to me, and while it chafes somewhat to know that those systems will be broken well before I can benefit, I don't intend to live that long anyway. What I have a PROBLEM with is paying money to goddamn greedy insurance middlemen, and a government that gives them FREEBIES, forcing me to PAY THOSE ASSHOLES without my having any say in the matter. Forcing poor families and the self-employed to pay insurance companies more than they would have to pay in an adjusted tax pool for a national health care system.

This is a complicated world, the arguments are complicated, the problems are complicated, the solutions are complicated, and the people are complicated. So don't tell me to look to others because they know better, can do better, or are just plain BETTER than me, and don't tell me what *I* think or feel. You clearly don't KNOW what I think or feel even after five years of familiarity.

And frankly, that's incredibly disappointing.

In retrospect, this argument has nothing to do with blaming victims of assault and violence. Are we doing anything here at this point anymore except attacking each other for various long-standing political disputes and mischaracterizing each other? If so I have no further interest.

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Monday, January 7, 2013 7:26 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


MAGONS RE PUBLIC HEALTH
Quote:

Did Americans actually look to leading systems of health care to see how they worked before coming up with some options? It doesn't appear so.
A consistent 60-65% of the American population supported the public option. It was yanked by Obama and Congressional Republicans and conservative Democrats and replaced with.... what we have... because of strong insurance lobbying. "Americans" overall wanted something different, but the insurance companies wouldn't let it happen. This is just another example of our thoroughly corrupted government... hardly a day goes by that Congress and the President don't agree on something that the majority of Americans hate and fear.

BYTE has every right to be wary, and Chris every right to be cynical, because if there is one thing our current government has perfected 100%, it's the ability to take the crisis du jour and turn it into another torture for the American people. I cite NAFTA, the DOMA, the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, the Patriot Act, Obamacare, the financial system collapse (rewarded with $17 trillion dollars, mostly off the books).... every time we face a crisis of some sort, the American people go thru the wringer and come out looking like hamburger.

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Monday, January 7, 2013 7:51 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


BYTE
Quote:

Sometimes something that sounds good and easy has a lot of strings attached that makes it look less attractive.- BYTE

Like cable TV and iPhones? As my hubby likes to say " Unexamined convenience is the road to extinction." -SIGNY

Sig: Kinda? Both have their problems, true, and are instrumental in dividing people, isolating people. I'd actually argue the pros for them outweigh the cons though.-BYTEMITE

You seem to be responding to this as "cable tv and iphone or nothing?" In other words, your imagination seems to be following the pattern of choosing among what's presented on TV, versus... nothing. Can't you imagine better? This is what I meant by Americans being saturated in propaganda. The first thing that you are made to believe is that the only choices that you have are the only choices presented to you.

HKC, TONY, BYTE- Little story here on centralized media... before the election there was a groups of older reporters tackling the question of "why is the American political landscape so polarized?". They went mistily back to the old days, when everyone watched broadcast TV and everyone learned the same news at the same time from David Murrow, Walter Cronkite, Chet Huntley and David Brinkley. The national narrative, all from the same source and all at the same time. And then they went on to contrast cable news, and the internet and being some horrible divisive force, and I kept thinking.... But... but that's a GOOD thing!. It struck me that centralized broadcasting is a very successful medium of social control. That is the basis for eliminating one-way communication... ie. when the listener is unable to respond to the broadcast.

HKC You think the inet is free? It is hostage to a series of interlocking corporate and government controls. The NSA already has spliced into every backbone internet server operated by the main telecoms. A 30-year veteran of the NSA-turned whistleblower just came out several months ago to tell us all that the NSA ALREADY collects every email every written by everyone on the USA.

Quote:

'Everyone in US under virtual surveillance' - NSA whistleblower

http://rt.com/usa/news/surveillance-spying-e-mail-citizens-178/
Everything you post on LinkedIn, on Instagram, FB, on ANY of these websites becomes their property. Your prize photos? Theirs. Your thoughts on building a better fusion-powered reactor? Theirs. All of your google searches, your FB entries, your Amazon purchases, your bank transactions? Bagged and tagged, to go to that great database in the cloud which anyone with any money or a warrant can and will mine for THEIR interests, not yours.

Use Apple products??? Well, aside from the fact that you must absolutely run ONLY Apple products, they have all of those nifty little apps that keep track of where your phone is ever second of the day. Apple, MSoft, AT&T, Verizon... my god, they can't wait to hand over your data to the FBI and "fusion centers" to see if you're planning to demonstrate or are illegally downloading copyrighted material.

Quote:

The document – reproduced here in an easily searchable format – shows a terrifying network of coordinated DHS, FBI, police, regional fusion center, and private-sector activity so completely merged into one another that the monstrous whole is, in fact, one entity: in some cases, bearing a single name, the Domestic Security Alliance Council. And it reveals this merged entity to have one centrally planned, locally executed mission... to target, arrest, and politically disable peaceful American citizens [who were protesting banks].

The documents, released after long delay in the week between Christmas and New Year, show a nationwide meta-plot unfolding in city after city in an Orwellian world: six American universities are sites where campus police funneled information about students involved with OWS to the FBI, with the administrations' knowledge (p51); banks sat down with FBI officials to pool information about OWS protesters harvested by private security; plans to crush Occupy events, planned for a month down the road, were made by the FBI – and offered to the representatives of the same organizations that the protests would target; and even threats of the assassination of OWS leaders by sniper fire – by whom? Where? – now remain redacted and undisclosed to those American citizens in danger, contrary to standard FBI practice to inform the person concerned when there is a threat against a political leader (p61).



That is why we need to rework communication tools.

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Monday, January 7, 2013 8:20 AM

FREMDFIRMA



Magons

Yeah, that's the rub, I see "Self-Defense" as a huge range of options rather than holding to a ridiculously narrow viewpoint and interpretation, words are a hell of a lot cheaper than bullets, although in some cases they can be damn near as harmful.
(See Also: Abuse victims)

This bit stood out though, cause I wanna refine the point here.
Quote:

but I don't know if I see your conspiracy to respress...

As I am fond of pointing out to PN and others, there's never any great grand single conspiracy, what you get is a bunch of little ones all mixed in with personal agendas, office politics, incompetence, fingerpointing, blamestorming and fearmongering, which is generally not even half as effective as the folks involved wish it was - however sometimes they get that push anyway by sheer weight of collective effort regardless of how incompetent their execution, the social version of a brute force attack.

Example - you see a bunch of crabs walking in lockstep on a beach, you could take that for evidence of a hivemind, but it's not, it is that their limited worldview, primitive cognitive, and reflex response causes them to all react in much the same fashion to the same stimulus.
This is actually a weakpoint of the powers that be, and the foundation of follow-the-money, strike-the-money tactics, given that avarice and greed for power breed extremely predictable responses.

And while not so much a great, grand overwhelming one, there's ALWAYS been some level of conspiracy in american media, here's some cases in point for you.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Production_Code
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comics_Code_Authority

The latter is why american comics are generally considered garbage even today, having been used as a propaganda engine ever since their inception (which hasn't at all stopped, See Also: Civil War) and plagued by generally awful writing as within the CCA there wasn't room to tell decent stories.
Sadly that ain't improved much...

Then there was the PMRC, one of the reasons I would not have voted for Al Gore, cause the notion of him and especially his wife having the position and power to try to force their moral standards on us gave me the wiggies - although Ashcroft under Bush did about the same bullshit, it just mostly went unnoticed under worse abuses.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parents_Music_Resource_Center
If you can find it, the video of Dee Snyder from Twisted Sister handing Al Gore his ass on the Senate Floor is downright epic, cause they made the *dire* mistake of taking him for an idiot.
He's not.

But what really shows some of the sad underbelly of this, and how deliberate it was, is some stuff from Mark Evanier.
Link 1: http://www.newsfromme.com/archives/2008_12_11.html#016337
Quote:

TV networks, because they reach so many people, are always being sued and/or protested, often over things you could never imagine would create problems. Most of the time, the network position is defensible and the outrage falls into the "nuisance" category...but even nuisance suits and protests can be a nuisance. And expensive to defend against. In kids' television, the stakes seem higher. A protester yelling, "This show is poisoning our children" will usually get more traction than someone bitching about a show for general audiences. The sponsors of kidvid are especially frail and known to atomize over very little negative feedback.

Censorship of broadcast television has declined greatly in the era of HBO, Showtime and DVDs...but in the early eighties, if you were creating a show for CBS, NBC or ABC you usually found yourself in the following dilemma. You had to please the Programming People who bought the show and prayed for ratings. They wanted your program to be edgy and sexy and full of action and excitement. And then you had to please the Standards and Practices People. They wanted your show to be nice and quiet and non-controversial. The two divisions rarely spoke with one another. In fact, in some cases, they hated each other too much to converse. Either way, they fought their battles by playing tug-o'-war with you and your show.

We quarrelled often and usually unproductively with these folks over what we called "action" and they called "violence." Sometimes, their definitions were insane. You'd write a scene where the good guy grabbed the fleeing bad guy and held onto him until the police could arrive and the Broadcast Standards people would react like your hero had chopped off someone's head. Criminals could rob banks and cops could stop them but neither could brandish weapons. One time, a writer friend did a script (a pretty good script, I thought) where the climax depended on the hero cutting a rope at a precise moment. The hero, it had been established, was a former Boy Scout...so my friend had the hero whip out his Boy Scout pocket knife and use it to cut the rope.

Well, that couldn't be allowed. Encouraging children to carry knives, even though the Boy Scouts do? You might as well have them packing howitzers and blowing bodies away on the playgrounds of America. There was much arguing and the scene ended up being staged with the rope being cut by the edge of a sharp rock, which was just silly. The rope was being used to lower a car. Given how sturdy it would have to be to do that, it was already stretching reality for it to be cuttable with a pocket knife. A sharp rock was ridiculous.

At times though, the bickering went beyond Broadcast Standards trying to prevent the network from being sued or having its advertisers shrink from advertising. Every so often, someone there got it into their heads that childrens' television could mold the youth of today into the good citizens of tomorrow. That's a questionable premise but let's say it's so. The question then becomes what you teach, how you mold. I found that those who approached the arena with that in mind had some odd ideas of what we should be trying to impart to impressionable viewers. Acts of extreme violence — like carrying a pocket knife — weren't as big a problem as what they called "anti-social behavior" and what I called "having a mind of your own."

Broadcast Standards — at all three networks at various times — frowned on characters not operating in lockstep with everyone thinking and doing as their peers did. The group is always right. The one kid who doesn't want to do what everyone else does is always wrong. (I rant more on this topic, and show you a cartoon I wrote years later for another show just to vent, in this posting.)


The posting he is referring to - Link 2: http://www.povonline.com/cols/COL145.htm
Quote:

Dungeons & Dragons was a series about six kids who were transported to a dimension filled with wizards and fire-snorting reptiles and cryptic clues and an extremely-evil despot named Venger. The youngsters were trapped in this game-like environment but, fortunately, they were armed with magical skills and weaponry, the better to foil Venger's insidious plans each week.

The kids were all heroic — all but a semi-heroic member of their troupe named Eric. Eric was a whiner, a complainer, a guy who didn't like to go along with whatever the others wanted to do. Usually, he would grudgingly agree to participate, and it would always turn out well, and Eric would be glad he joined in. He was the one thing I really didn't like about the show.

So why, you may wonder, did I leave him in there? Answer: I had to.

As you may know, there are those out there who attempt to influence the content of childrens' television. We call them "parents groups," although many are not comprised of parents, or at least not of folks whose primary interest is as parents. Study them and you'll find a wide array of agendum at work...and I suspect that, in some cases, their stated goals are far from their real goals.

Nevertheless, they all seek to make kidvid more enriching and redeeming, at least by their definitions, and at the time, they had enough clout to cause the networks to yield. Consultants were brought in and we, the folks who were writing cartoons, were ordered to include certain "pro-social" morals in our shows. At the time, the dominant "pro-social" moral was as follows: The group is always right...the complainer is always wrong.

This was the message of way too many eighties' cartoon shows. If all your friends want to go get pizza and you want a burger, you should bow to the will of the majority and go get pizza with them. There was even a show for one season on CBS called The Get-Along Gang, which was dedicated unabashedly to this principle. Each week, whichever member of the gang didn't get along with the gang learned the error of his or her ways.

We were forced to insert this "lesson" in D & D, which is why Eric was always saying, "I don't want to do that" and paying for his social recalcitrance. I thought it was forced and repetitive, but I especially objected to the lesson. I don't believe you should always go along with the group. What about thinking for yourself? What about developing your own personality and viewpoint? What about doing things because you decide they're the right thing to do, not because the majority ruled and you got outvoted?

We weren't allowed to teach any of that. We had to teach kids to join gangs. And then to do whatever the rest of the gang wanted to do.

What a stupid thing to teach children.


(emphasis mine)

Now it's gotten a lot better over the years, or at least less blatant, but that whole violence-is-always-wrong meme that's thrown in so often is usually clobbered together in a fashion that demonizes self-defense, even when it does not involve violence.
It's jarringly noticeable to me, and is one of the many factors which caused me to look to foreign media for better stories.

But it's also why I consider critical thinking, skepticism of power and a strong personhood to be key points of self-defense because without them a childs consciousness becomes buried in this notstop flood of influence designed to make them an obediant consumer-drone.
Not to say there shouldn't be standards, I just suspect the agendas of the people behind them - the only time I can recall taking downright offense at something like this was a TV network airing an ad for a friggin plastic surgery clinic in between saturday morning cartoons aimed at young girls, THAT had me on the phone to them in under a minute.

For adults I think the key point of self-defense is situational awareness, not only of immediate threats and risks, but an awareness that Power and those who hold it are at all times dangerous to you - more folk have been killed by the stroke of a politicians pen than any war or violence ever.
And that needs to be kept in mind when those people in power WANT you to do something, or not do something, and you damn well needs be questioning their motives, cause it's NEVER "for your own good", but for theirs, period.


Siggy

Re: "Rules"

There's a HUGE difference between rules generally agreed on, accepted, or at least tolerated by the majority of people, and rules created by tiny, vocal minorities for their own benefit forced down on people by threat of force - one need look no further than the "War on (some) Drugs" to see the happy consequences of that, so if one wants to make a rule universal, rather than getting Power on-side to force the issue, perhaps better to CONVINCE people of its merit.
And if the argument intended to do that fails, is rejected, consider why this is.

A good example of the former kind of rules is our highway system, it ain't fear of punishment that guides most people but rather the knowledge that it only really works if everyone plays along, which they mostly do without threat or coercion, it ain't perfect and sometimes it ain't pretty, but it's functional and you can't ask for more than that.

The difference I suppose is between "Asking" and "Telling", cause the more "Or Else" you put behind something, the more violence you are introducing, even if it's so far down the line you believe your own hands are clean.

-Frem

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Monday, January 7, 2013 8:22 AM

BYTEMITE


Quote:

You seem to be responding to this as "cable tv and iphone or nothing ?" In other words, your imagination seems to be following the pattern of choosing among what's presented on TV, versus... nothing. Can't you imagine better? This is what I meant by Americans being saturated in propaganda. The first thing that you are made to believe is that the only choices that you have are the only choices presented to you.


Actually no, that's still in line with my "if we have lots of media sources it'll spread them too thin to control everything" argument.

It's like how all hackers target internet explorer for the most part because it's the most ubiquitous program. But while they're distracted with that, people using more obscure programs can avoid a lot of the damage and fallout.

I don't want cable tv or nothing, I want cable tv and everything.

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Monday, January 7, 2013 8:50 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


FINAL THOUGHT FOR A WHILE... I've been on vacation, it's the first proper vacation that I've taken in over 20 years, and part of my enjoyment was coming here and yakking with you guys. (Also, I dug the bermuda grass out of my garden.... again.... and am going to invest in a durable root barrier. But that's another story.

--------------

I mentioned that I thought society was like an organism, and I would like to expand on that idea and see if it leads to any further thoughts at your end.

When societies begin with very few members, those members are necessarily rather unspecialized. Everyone does everything. The units are more-or-less undifferentiated, except that some are younger and less capable, and some are capable of budding and others are not. (This puts a little kink into the relationships between these units.) As these units grow numerically and form a larger organism, the individual units themselves cannot absorb water and nutrients directly, they must be brought, so certain units form food-and-water-gathering/transportation structures, while certain other units form waste-excreting structures. Movement thru the environment improves the chances of finding food, so some units propel or extend the organism along. Remembering where one has been and what has been encountered (whether good or bad) also improves the chances for survival, so sensory, memory and response units become feature of the whole. Defense against internal invaders is useful... defensive units develop. There are also defensive units which fight internal renegades.

This could describe an embryo, a beehive, or a society. To analogize societies even further, what could cause a society to collapse?

Well, like all living creatures it could collapse due to environmental catastrophe... the 500-year drought, the cataclysmic volcano. It could use up all of its local resources and die. It could collapse due to all kinds of internal failures... memory failure, internal signalling failure. It could develop a cancer... a portion of the organism which grows beyond the bounds of utility and into the realm of fatal parasitism.

But unlike the organism on which society is modeled, society does not have to remain in its mature form. A lion can become a cow, or a hydra. As far as death is concerned, many societies have atomized so completely that little is known of them today... necrotic failure. But others broke down into smaller semi-independent and still-surviving units... apoptosis.

The ability of society to survive either internal changes or environmental challenges is the ability of the fundamental algorithms to adapt to new circumstances... to change themselves.

I'm going to go back to that paper I mentioned before: The Algorithmic Origins of Life . I think the concept can be applied not only to cellular life, but also electronic life and organizational life.

The Algorithmic Origins of Life
http://arxiv.org/abs/1207.4803

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Monday, January 7, 2013 9:29 AM

RIONAEIRE

Beir bua agus beannacht


Note that no one is even trying to change my mind about TV, because everyone knows that I ain't changin my mind.

Signe, I'm glad you got some time off work and had a relaxing time. But I'm sorry you didn't get to go somewhere, maybe you went to the ocean or something for a few days in there somewhere? I hope so.

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya

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Tuesday, January 8, 2013 7:35 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


FREM: ALL societies have an "or else" in them. You sat around while others sowed, reaped and thrashed? You don't get to eat. You broke what it took many people weeks to build or make? You have to go away. The Constitutional Amendments? Those are rules. Treat others as you wish to be treated? The Golden Rule. Even your beloved "self defense" supports certain rules. The idea of there being a society which has no rules and no "or else" is ludicrous. Rather than talk about things which could not exist and SHOULD not exist, let's talk about which rules and which "or else's" are likely to create the kind of society we want.


On the media: My original proposal (which I will reiterate for roughly the 7th time) was not to ban content, but to simply eliminate one kind of transmission and to ensure that the remaining form(s) were free. The kind of transmission I would ban is the one-way kind. As a rough outline, I would suggest that everyone who has a portal pays a fee (for repairs, expansions and upgrades) that upload and download speeds be symmetric, that the physical backbone be replicated for truly un-interruptable service, and that all transmitted content not be protected by copyright. Part of the problem with our current setup is that we're still operating on the backbone of the old AT&T monopoly... because whatever service provider your think you have, if you have transmission problems the finger will eventually be pointed back to AT&T or Verizon, or Time Warner. (And if you go back far enough, you'll STILL wind up at AT&T or Verizon servers)

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Tuesday, January 8, 2013 7:50 AM

BYTEMITE


Quote:

FREM: ALL societies have an "or else" in them. You sat around while others sowed, reaped and thrashed? You don't get to eat. You broke what it took many people weeks to build or make? You have to go away. The idea of there being a society which has no "or else" is ludicrous. The Constitutional Amendments? Those are rules. Even your beloved "self defense" is based on rules.


Waittaminute, that sounds like the words of someone who's ready to abandon society to go off and live in the woods on their own. Is it true, Sig? Have you become one of us?

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Tuesday, January 8, 2013 7:52 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


NO, because (unlike you) I actually want to live in a society. I also recognize that rules are an important part of society. I'm willing to live with rules, as long as they promote the kind of society that I want.

BYTE, you have no idea what it's like to live without society. I don't mean "without company" I mean "Without society"... all the benefits of society... the food, utilities, the web... If you didn't have large groups of people playing by "the rules" and working cooperatively all of that would be gone. poof!

Yanno, in every population there are some who really really want to be by themselves. They're five standard deviations on from the norm... Hey. it's a dirty job but someone has to do it. Back in the old days they would be "mountain men" (not too many little women filling that role... too physically demanding, I guess) or "hermits" or - if they were wealthy enough' "recluses". Societies with sufficient surplus can tolerate deviations; and in THIS society it is even more possible to participate at arms-length. But society cannot tolerate EVERYONE behaving that way because certain forms of production are necessarily large-scale, requiring many people's immediate input. Also, at this point we have created enough problems for ourselves that... should we ever get to deciding to do something about them in realistic way, we will need large groups of people acting together. Not only that, most people don't WANT to be hermits. So the structures that you are likely to suggest based on your personal preference (again, several standard deviations from the norm) are likely to be impractical in the long run.

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Tuesday, January 8, 2013 8:07 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Riona- at this point, nothing relaxes me more than straightening out the hoarders nest that has become my house and my life!

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Tuesday, January 8, 2013 8:26 AM

BYTEMITE


Um, sure I do. I go camping, multi-nights, don't really bother with a tent or sleeping bag. I hike up into and around the mountains. Sometimes it's cold, but I don't really mind the cold, I can pretty easily sleep in ten degree weather on the frozen ground. I know where to find berries and what mushrooms are edible, I'm learning how to make my own clothes out of natural materials, and frankly, if it doesn't work out, I can't think of a better way to go than to die out there, unknown, unmourned, but part of something that's actually real.

I guess I'd have to actually start eating meat though if I did that full time. Maybe fish. Lotsa fish.

The best possible non-vagrant future I can imagine for myself is to play in the system just a little longer, enough to secure some land for myself since for some reason this society thinks that you can "own" land. And then I'd build a shelter from society. Other fugitives could live there too, I don't really care too much.

Society is bogus though. It's not that I like the internet, I'm addicted to it - eats up all useful time. If I don't care about money, and I don't care about dying, and I don't care about luxuries or even basic comforts or my health, then society doesn't really mean anything to me. None of the problems people have, none of the differences people see between people, none of this is actually matters. People have convinced themselves they can trade an electrical impulse or wood pulp or stones from the earth among each other, and if you have a whole bunch of stones or wood pulp or electrical impulses you can buy weapons (instead of making your own?) and boss people around. That's society. Forgive me for thinking it's pretty much a massive joke on everyone.

I don't really care what society people chose, and I don't care what happens to that society, or what that society does, or having any say whatsoever in that society. I might care about the people within that society and what happens to them, but not enough to be part of it.

I'd ask you, like I asked Magons, not to tell me what I can think or feel. I never suggested my isolation as an option for society or for anyone but myself. I asked if you are beginning to think the same - you don't. Good for you.

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Tuesday, January 8, 2013 10:42 AM

MAGONSDAUGHTER


Quote:

Originally posted by BYTEMITE:

I'd ask you, like I asked Magons, not to tell me what I can think or feel. I never suggested my isolation as an option for society or for anyone but myself. I asked if you are beginning to think the same - you don't. Good for you.



Excuse me, I never told you what to think or feel.

Sounds like you are a bit of a transendentalist, Byte. Loved On Walden Pond. Another was "My side of the mountain". Did you ever read it. Wonderful. Read it to my lad a few years ago, and we both wanted to go off and live in a tree hollow somewhere. Had an ancestor who did that. World authority on lyre birds, supposedly.

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Tuesday, January 8, 2013 10:56 AM

BYTEMITE


Quote:

Excuse me, I never told you what to think or feel.


It was in the implying that you don't think I can live outside society because I wouldn't like it. I can and do. But perhaps that was something you just didn't know about me.

Quote:

Sounds like you are a bit of a transendentalist, Byte.


I'm technically more of a cynic, but I'm actually not one for philosophers or their schools. They think they got things all figured out, but I don't think any of them do, and I've never been into the idea that happiness/virtue/meaning of life/whatever can be found by embracing someone else's ideas or methods. The only part of philosophy I ever use is the critical thinking lessons.

I guess that makes me kind of an intractable arrogant jackass. I'm kind of okay with that though.

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Tuesday, January 8, 2013 11:08 AM

MAGONSDAUGHTER


er that wasn't me.

And I think Signy's point is a valid one. Individuals may be able to live on societies fringes, but that doesn't mean that society is superflous. For one person to live in their own cave is quite different to everyone doing it.

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Tuesday, January 8, 2013 11:24 AM

BYTEMITE


Magons. I did say I didn't think this was for everyone.

Whether or not people need the sense of control and support and rules that society gives them is up to them as individuals. But from what I've seen, more often than not, the support and society fails people. They fall through the cracks. Comfort in numbers, even though there are constant threats to health and safety and the numbers make no difference. It all seems illusory to me.

You can collect food and blankets and first aid for hurricane survivors, and that's good. But you can't stop the hurricane from coming ashore. Society is a reassurance, but ultimately it can't really protect anyone in the first place. Society often causes harm that it was meant to prevent, while promoting those who care to game it or who make the rules favour them.

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Tuesday, January 8, 2013 9:38 PM

RIONAEIRE

Beir bua agus beannacht


If living off the land is what it takes to get Byte eating nonbegan again then I'm all for it! Plus some people are happiest that way, just being connected to the earth and I think that is beautiful and something special. I love survival novels, the more clichet tropes the better! I have no chance in the wild and when I was a younger woman, and an older girl, that made me very sad and upset, I could never be truely timeless, I was bound to this world and this modern way of life and that hurt me badly.

But since I've found ways to be timeless inside myself and except the reality I live in, because I have ways of escaping it for a little while and being anything I want to be, and having that way to be something good and beautiful makes real life more manageable and doable and even not so very bad, I can survive it now.

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya

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Wednesday, January 9, 2013 10:41 AM

MAGONSDAUGHTER


Back on track

Quote:

The lawyer representing three of the men charged with the gang rape and murder of a medical student aboard a moving bus in New Delhi has blamed the victims for the assault, saying he has never heard of a "respected lady" being raped in India.

Manohar Lal Sharma said his clients will plead not guilty to all charges tomorrow when they make their next court appearance. His comments come as Indians have reacted with outrage to the opinions of politicians and a religious preacher who have accused westernized women of inviting sexual assaults. Sharma said the male companion of the murdered 23-year-old was "wholly responsible" for the incident as the unmarried couple should not have been on the streets at night.

"Until today I have not seen a single incident or example of rape with a respected lady," Sharma said in an interview at a cafe outside the Supreme Court in India's capital. "Even an underworld don would not like to touch a girl with respect."

Sharma's comments highlight frequently aired attitudes toward women in India. Activists say reporting of sex crimes and police investigations of rape are hindered by a tendency to blame the victim for not following the traditional, conservative social roles ascribed to women.
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"This is the mentality which most Indian men are suffering from unfortunately," said Ranjana Kumari, director for the New Delhi-based Centre for Social Research. "That is the mindset that has been perpetrating this crime because they justify it indirectly, you asked for it so it is your responsibility."

'Chant God's Name'

A spiritual guru, Asharam, sparked an outcry earlier this week when he said the New Delhi victim was equally responsible and should have "chanted God's name and fallen at the feet of the attackers" to stop the assault.

Mohan Bhagwat, the head of the pro-Hindu Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh that underpins the country's main opposition political party, said rapes only occur in Indian cities, not in its villages, because women there adopt western lifestyles.

Sharma said the man and woman should not have been traveling back late in the evening and making their journey on public transport. He also it was the man's responsibility to protect the woman and that he had failed in his duty.

"The man has broken the faith of the woman," Sharma said. "If a man fails to protect the woman, or she has a single doubt about his failure to protect her, the woman will never go with that man."

Sharma, 56, a Supreme Court lawyer for the last two decades, says that his clients are innocent.

Courtroom Chaos

"This is a very complicated case and the matter has not been solved yet," he said. Police have said they have DNA evidence linking all six to the crime.

Ram Singh, the driver of the bus and the alleged ringleader, is struggling to communicate and fluctuating between crying and laughing, Sharma said. Sharma, who has also been appointed to represent Singh's brother Mukesh and Akshay Kumar Singh, who is unrelated, plans to challenge police over their handling of the evidence.

Sharma's appointment comes after chaotic scenes on Jan. 7 that forced the magistrate to order a private hearing over concerns for the safety of the accused. Sharma was one of two lawyers denounced by other advocates for volunteering to represent the defendants. Arguments and scuffles over his offer led the magistrate to order the court room be cleared and future sessions to be held behind closed doors.

The gang rape of the woman on Dec. 16 provoked a sustained and charged debate about the safety of women in the world's biggest democracy. The brutality of the crime and allegations by a male friend of the victim that it took police 45 minutes to respond to calls outraged the nation.



Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/world/victims-in-delhi-rape-case-are-to-blame
-defendants-lawyer-says-20130110-2ch95.html#ixzz2HVq6d7js


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Wednesday, January 9, 2013 11:00 AM

BYTEMITE


Quote:

saying he has never heard of a "respected lady" being raped in India.


Quote:

said rapes only occur in Indian cities, not in its villages, because women there adopt western lifestyles.


One of your own female prime ministers was raped in a village. Repeatedly! And you dicks voted for her, guess she suddenly became respectable huh! Because it's not like she was respectable before, or deserved to be afforded any respect because she was a living PERSON!

Respect. I'll tell you fuckers who's gonna get no respect! You assholes stand by while someone who could be your sister, your wife, your mother gets raped, then you animals aren't even fucking HUMAN, and you deserve no respect from any of the rest of us! Fall on a funeral fire, maybe you'll get an APPRECIATION for how it feels to be one of your nation's women!

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Saturday, January 12, 2013 6:58 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


BYTE: I wasn't taking at dig at you about living in civilization, I was being tongue-in-cheek about ME. I guess it didn't translate well. Old as I am, I enjoy not having to work brutally hard 12 hours a day (study of peasant and colonist bones here and in the EU indicate a short lifetime of unremitting toil, starting at the age of 5.) and I like the idea of modern medicine and modern plumbing.


FREM, HKC, TONY... You guys still haven't accepted the fact that even YOUR ideal societies have rules, and you still haven't figured out how to make them durable and less corruptable.

FREM: Raise them right, and everybody will turn out OK. But what if they don't, and what if they don't? Your answer is the monkeysphere but I got news for you... our society is no longer a monkeysphere, and some of our biggest robber barons are very personable. Your suggestion is too primitive.

TONY I include you because you're our favorite libertarian. In YOUR world, there are only two "valid" responses... shooting someone, and individual market response. If you can't fix it using your wallet or your gun, it can't be fixed. Your adherence to "individualism" as the basis of "freedom" is unrealistic. Even our FF realized that in order to create freedom, they HAD to create rules.

HKC: You answer is individual adjustment to the situation, so again, YOUR "rules" rule out other responses which may be more effective.

Yanno, I'm trying to look at this from the broadest possible perspective... freedom might need a structure which promotes it, and that it MAY require some sort of collective and (in a society which is economically integrated over a wide range) relatively impersonal rules. You seem to keep pushing the idea that we're back in the late 1700's and that we can handle things at the individual/ family/ village level. I obviously don't think that will work. Society is NOT just the average response of individuals. If it were, we would never be in the mess we are today. Since this seems to be an area in which people are not looking beyond what they already feel comfortable with, I'll just push on by myself. Thanks for the input.

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Monday, January 14, 2013 6:04 AM

BYTEMITE


Quote:

You guys still haven't accepted the fact that even YOUR ideal societies have rules, and you still haven't figured out how to make them durable and less corruptable.


I'd argue Frem, HK, and Anthony are all for rules - they particularly like the ones about what the government can't do to it's citizens.

Corruption is an abuse of power. The less consolidated power there is, the less impact any corruption can have, and the easier it is to depose.

In fairness it's likely that business entities in our current system are not democratic enough, hence a concentration of power that allows executives to pollute small towns, gut a company, sell it off, and flee instead of run it properly. That concentration of power seeps into the governing body.

I've never thought that more investment in the government and government controls will improve regulations. But an outraged and educated public finally ALLOWED to have a real say in the system and those businesses might.

Ultimately, though, I have misgivings about forcing any kind of system on any individual, much as this shoddy-ass piece of society was forced on me like a pledge of allegiance because I was born here. Hence my individualized rejection of this awful society and its death spiral. Groups of people and individuals should be able to do what they want and organize how they want so long as they don't impede anyone's health, choices, or livelyhood.

Not really free unless you can leave.

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Monday, January 14, 2013 10:02 AM

FREMDFIRMA


Ain't about "Rules" - it's about who makes em, and how they are enforced.

It's one thing to have the community as a whole generally agreeable on them, and enforce them with moral persuation, negotiation, and in extremis giving someone the cold shoulder and cutting them off from trade by virtue of the folks they'd deal with are the ones they've offended....

Yet another for some miniscule group to formulate arbitratry rules which benefit THEM, usually at others expense, and enforce them by ramming the gun barrels of The State down peoples throat forcing them to comply OR ELSE.

I suppose the issue is between asking, and telling.

Funny thing about that, even in military service, my superiors realized very quickly that asking me to do something would get it done quickly and well, with attention to detail and a little extra, as opposed to orders, which would get it done next week sometime-maybe and the halfassed bare minimum if that, and adapted accordingly.

So too could we.
IF we wanted to.
But no, it's just too EASY to manipulate the system into forcing your will on others, unwanted and unwelcome, behind the barrels of the weapons in the hands of The States enforcers, all the while pretending ones own hands are clean.

They ain't.

-Frem

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Monday, January 14, 2013 11:34 AM

MAGONSDAUGHTER


Quote:

Originally posted by BYTEMITE:


Ultimately, though, I have misgivings about forcing any kind of system on any individual, much as this shoddy-ass piece of society was forced on me like a pledge of allegiance because I was born here. Hence my individualized rejection of this awful society and its death spiral. Groups of people and individuals should be able to do what they want and organize how they want so long as they don't impede anyone's health, choices, or livelyhood.

Not really free unless you can leave.



Sounds like you and Maggie Thatcher would have a lot in common.

"There is no such thing as society, only individuals and families."

I think we are compelled as a species to live in societies, and ALL societies, large and small have rules which individuals are expected to follow.

Perhaps the difference between unbearable and bearable societies is how much chance does an individual have in influencing those rules. And if you take a historical view, apart from very small communities, we're probably better off that any other point in time.

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Monday, January 14, 2013 12:22 PM

BYTEMITE


I'm not sure a single quote that I don't know the context from is "a lot in common." Like maybe one thing in common if you kinda squint at it and stick your tongue out to the side.

There is always society, and there have always been people who remove themselves from society.

Quote:

And if you take a historical view, apart from very small communities, we're probably better off that any other point in time.


I think that might be removing like 99% of the human animal family history.

Better, sure. It still sucks.

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Monday, January 14, 2013 6:15 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

Corruption is an abuse of power. The less consolidated power there is, the less impact any corruption can have, and the easier it is to depose.
And so, given the apparently inevitable tendency for power to consolidate, what rules do you put in place to reverse the consolidation of power?

There is a very good description of how power consolidates and societies become corrupted in the Climate Change Hitting Home thread.

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Monday, January 14, 2013 6:29 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Quote:

It's one thing to have the community as a whole generally agreeable on them, and enforce them with moral persuation, negotiation, and in extremis giving someone the cold shoulder and cutting them off from trade by virtue of the folks they'd deal with are the ones they've offended....
Back in the day, you could have people generally agreeable that blacks weren't human. Some people still think that today.

Your idea that giving someone the cold shoulder ignores the fact that they COULD be very nice to you and the people around them, but brutalizing whole populations halfway around the world. What then?

Also, back in the day, banishment wasn't a social inconvenience, it was a death sentence. So, back in the day... a lifestyle my hubby actually lived in during post-war Hungary up in the mountains... social controls actually had teeth in them. We need something equivalent in today's extended economy because ultimately, in the end, someone actually has to enforce fairness on those who choose not to be.

I can't imagine how to translate your ideas on today's situation. It would only work in economies that are self-sufficient and isolated among those who know each other directly.

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