Some Countries Want To Ban 'Information Weapons' 321
DrgnDancer sends in an NPR piece on recent efforts to control so-called "information weapons" on the Internet. What's interesting is that the term "information weapon," as defined by many of the countries trying to limit them, doesn't mean what you would think. It's closer to the old Soviet term "ideological aggression." "At a UN disarmament conference in 2008, Sergei Korotkov of the Russian Defense Ministry argued that anytime a government promotes ideas on the Internet with the goal of subverting another country's government — even in the name of democratic reform — it should qualify as 'aggression.' And that, in turn, would make it illegal under the UN Charter. 'Practically any information operation conducted by a state or a number of states against another state would be qualified as an interference into internal affairs,' Korotkov said through an interpreter. 'So any good cause, like [the] promotion of democracy, cannot be used as a justification for such actions.' The Russians, and a lot of other countries such as Iran and China, apparently consider the free exchange of information to be an information technology threat. One that must be managed by treaty."
Can you cover me too, bro? (Score:5, Funny)
Not happening (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Can you cover me too, bro? (Score:4, Funny)
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can we also make it illegal to criticize individuals?
No. Only corporations and governments have rights. However, if you file papers of incorporation and have sufficient capital and/or connections, we might be willing to have a talk with you.
Meet me under the Whitehurst freeway near the corner of Wisconsin and K. Be wearing a dark suit with a red handkercheif. Bring $10,000 in cash. We'll start from there.
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Be wearing a dark suit with a red handkerchief [wikipedia.org]
Left or right pocket?
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LOL, I'd heard of that but totally forgot about it. Isn't the gay thing always with jeans pockets though? When I said "suit", I was thinking jacket pocket. I just pulled up some images and it looks like all suits have only one front pocket.
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You could just (1) move to another state so relatives rarely visit, (2) block your mom/friends from posting on your facebook (or set it up so they're invisible), (3) answer the phone when mom calls but then say, "Oh I can't talk long. I have an interview today." (i.e. lie)
Information as a weapon (Score:3, Insightful)
Woodie Guthrie's [wikipedia.org] guitar read "This Machine Kills Fascists". And indeed, every musical instrument, poet's pen, comedian's voice, do also.
(Photo of Guthrie and his facist-killing machine) [wikimedia.org]
"This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright #154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin' it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don't give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that's all we wanted to do."
This painting [wikipedia.org] was c
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Short of direct threats of violence, I can criticize any aspect of the government in the US as vehemently as I want. I can also criticize the behavior of my fellow citizens.
And I do. Vehemently.
Funny how I haven't been arrested... or even noticed.
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Catchy, but not true.
The government in a perfect democracy is a reflection of the people, but not of every aspect of the people. There may be things to criticize about the people that have nothing to do with the quality of teh government they produce.
Likewise, to the extent that the purpose of democracy is to promote liberty, you cannot assume that a perfectly-functioning government would produce a people who are above criticism.
For example, I would argue that a high rate of unhealthy obesity is neither a
I certainly hope... (Score:2)
NPR (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:NPR (Score:4, Insightful)
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Well then you might just start a flame war over the user friendliness and ease of use of an apple versus a tuna sandwich.
Technically this is old news. (Score:4, Insightful)
Countries that do not like freedom of expression will do a lot to prevent it, including going into conflicts or trying to push treaties and international agreements that conflate freedom of expression and terrorism.
They have been doing this since people had ideas to argue over. Look it up.
WikiLeaks==InfoWar? (Score:2)
The thing is both sets of countries are in a kind of bind.
Russians and Chinese don't want their citizens to know about foreign economic or political systems.
But the US doesn't want stuff like WikiLeaks getting out. The Administration's statements on WikiLeaks pretty much confirmed that they considered it a kind of "infowar".
Wow... so everything is aggression then (Score:2)
So saying "The Russian government is wrong on this issue" could be considered an attack. Maybe that is taking it to the extreme, but what if it's "The Russian government is wrong and the Russian people shouldn't stand for it". And then there is the slightly more blunt "...and the Russian people should rise up against it". So at what point does that become aggression? I ask in all honesty, I feel like this could have a major chilling effect on negotiations between nations where legitimate arguments could
Re:Wow... so everything is aggression then (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, and the UN is also contemplating a ban on Defamation of Religion [ifex.org].
Sadly ever ass-hat oppressive regime who doesn't like to be criticized, and every stupid idiot who believes in the tooth fairy wants to remove my right to criticize them or point out that they're idiots. People who embrace living in the stone age want to make it illegal for me to say that they're stupid for doing so.
So, allow me to preemptively say ... your country sucks if it takes away people's freedoms, your religion sucks if it confers an obligation on those of us who don't believe, your government sucks ... well, your government probably sucks no matter where you are. I retain my right to give offense, and if you don't like it, too damned bad.
Any religion or government which can't stand some criticism should be banned.
I'm all for the UN, but increasingly the backwards and the stupid are pushing an agenda that wants to wipe out the last thousand years of progress in human endeavors.
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I'm for the UN Security Council, and various commissions and agencies, but I'm not in favor of the General Assembly doing crap like this.
Like when a UN forum on Racism keeps calling Zionism racist but won't label movements like Hamas, Fatah, Hezbollah or Arab Nationalism as racist. Nor will they call out and attack Saharan and Sub-Saharan slavery.
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You may want to take protective measures (like arming yourself). You just pissed off a lot of people (if they read slashdot that is).
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Only if they explicitly believe in the tooth fairy or embrace living in the stone age. I specifically didn't highlight any one group -- so, they would have to believe those things to be true of themselves before they could take offense.
And, if they do, good. If you have the critical reasoning skills to apply what I said to you, and take offense, then you're twice the idiot.
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>Yes, and the UN is also contemplating a ban on Defamation of Religion.
Will this also stop the EMACS-bashing?
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Sadly, no.
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Any religion or government which can't stand some criticism should be banned./quote.
No, they should simply be firmly told that if they do not like it, its their problem. That's one reason governments need to be reigned in by well designed constitutions.
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Plus theres no way in hell countries like the US are gonna sign onto it.
until they add a trailer to the treaty involving copyright
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New World (Score:5, Interesting)
Summary is a troll (Score:2)
If you don't want to hear of all the wonderful ideas the rest of the world has
Wrong. Compare this quote from the beginning of the summary:
anytime a government promotes ideas on the Internet with the goal of subverting another country's government
with this one at the end:
The Russians, and a lot of other countries such as Iran and China, apparently consider the free exchange of information to be an information technology threat
Two things immediately wrong with this: First, Korotkov, according to the former quote, is opposing the subversion of another government, not the free exchange of information. He's not talking about blogs and Linux isos, he's talking about propaganda. Second, if he posits that the internet should not be a permitted avenue for propaganda, how is this suddenly a threat to information technology? Pure hyperbole.
So demanding of
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Definition of "propaganda" (Score:4, Informative)
Second, if he posits that the internet should not be a permitted avenue for propaganda, how is this suddenly a threat to information technology?
There are three different ways you can use propaganda to destabilize an opponent:
When one country is trying to destabilize or take down another country's government, the most effective approach is to use a blend of truth, lies, and mixed statements. The government attempting to resist outside propaganda will declare that all incoming propaganda are sheer lies, but the danger there is that the public will realize that at least some of the propaganda is true, which will make them suspicious about government statements about the false information.
But consider recent comments from Iran about America's use of the death penalty. The statement that we are putting a woman to death are completely true, even though the Iranian government is making the statement in order to cast America in a poor light. It would be easy under a system of rules designed to prohibit outside subversion, to classify such a statement as subversive propaganda.
Thus facts, lies, and mixtures of facts and lies can all be considered subversive propaganda. Is there any other form of discourse left after these three are removed?
Memetic Warfare (Score:2)
I'm forced to wonder how much the likes of Jesus, Muhammad, and Gandhi keep these sorts of folks awake at night. Someone wraps up an easily expressed idea about how the world should be in a world that needs changing and all of the sudden you have an immortal on your hands - killing them won't stop the idea.
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Actually, someone did come up with such an idea. See, one Thursday, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, a girl sitting on her own in a small café in Rickmansworth suddenly realized what it was that had been going wrong all this time, and she finally knew how the world could be made a good and happy place. This time it was right, it would work, and no one would have to get nailed to anything.
Sadly, however
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I have an idea that that part came after Jesus was a pincushion. A reasonably careful reading of the Bible shows two Jesuses. The Hippie, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" Jesus and the "Hey God is my Daddy, do what I say" Jesus. I suspect that the real Jesus (or possibly real men who were amalgamated into Jesus) was the first. The second came when a bunch of people realized that they could sell Jesus(A) as a product to buy them the power of Jesus(B). This idea is reinforced by the fa
How dare they. (Score:2)
1984 newspeak (Score:5, Interesting)
If that can be illegal under international law, we will slid quickly to ideological and religious islands with physical and idea walls around. It is censorship for sure. Not unlike the laws against circumventing content protection schemes. Thats illegal.. When I saw we had done that then I knew we were going to see more tightening and control of information, for profit and in this case for political control (well that is a different kind of profit that controls profit). Years before there were laws passed that made it illegal to listen in to certain radio frequencies or transmissions. That I think may have been one of the first steps in this control of information slide. They acually passed laws that Short wave radio's in this country could only tune to certain frequencies, but of course the fix to open that up to other parts of the electromagnetic spectrum that bathes us all with its sunsine was easy and provided.
When will it stop, those that want to control and profit? Ya need to vote.
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Ya need to vote.
Or just start killing them. Assassination politics, seriously.
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If the other three boxes [wikipedia.org] fail, better the limited and judicial use of the fourth rather than an all out engagement.
_
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Wow, are you trying to be ironic w/ your use of the term USian or are you just a moron who doesn't understand the accepted term for someone from the United States of America is American. Or did you mean USian to be an abbrev. of United Mexican States?
Easy solution... just cut yourselves off (Score:2)
This doesn't need a UN charter or treaty to put such a plan in place. Any country that opposes the free exchange of ideas can just cut themselves off from the free world. Problem solved.
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The problem is marketing, it works. Just look at the Republican parties' ability to pull the wool over everyones eyes. Claiming fiscal responsibility and running up record deficits, not once but every time in control, yet people were fooled and voted for them. That is the problem. It's so much easier if you don't have to fight a disinformation campaign or mount your own to counter the control threat. Look at the swift boating and other whisper campaigns that have been so evil and effective with a popula
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Apparantly they didn't fool you, so what's the problem?
We Must Fight *Against* Cyber Warfare (Score:2)
Because no rich companies will lose face or contracts like they do when we fight *for* better software less subject to attacks.
Yeah, I don't think so (Score:5, Insightful)
Couldn't this just be a matter of altering... (Score:2)
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Every expression advocates the use of violence, if you're creative enough in describing how. It's usually just a matter of say that your statement is similar to statements made by Group X, and Group X is violent, therefore you're endorsing violence.
That kind of twisting of words happens constantly once the political correctness starts. There was an article this year from the UK about a man who saw the inside of a police station, because he posted a comment on a government web site, and someone complained
Re:Couldn't this just be a matter of altering... (Score:4, Interesting)
You don't get it. If you say "I think that dogs shouldn't wear hats", I can say "PETA engages in violence and arson and thinks dogs shouldn't wear hats. Therefore any expression supportive of hatless dogs is implicitly supporting violence and arson and cannot be allowed." That sort of shit happens all the time in the UN, and all the time in opressive regimes. The very governments who would abuse this employ staffs of hundreds of very smart people who's only job is come up with a nearly reasonable interpretation of any statement such that it can be seen as breaking the rules. And since the decision will be inevitably be made on a political basis, not any sort of neutral basis (since we're talking about the UN), nearly reasonable is all that's needed.
This is the fundamental problem with allowing any sort of government to outlaw any sort of speech - it creates a weapon to be used by the people who judge the merits of speech to attack anyone who says anything. "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him" wasn't theoretical, it was what Cardinal Richelieu did for a living.
Security Counsel Veto (Score:5, Insightful)
Catch 22? (Score:2)
By doing this, are other nations indeed not trying to attack the freedom of speech, religion, and press granted by the very founding charter of the US Government? Is that not in itself a form of agression on another countries Government? Do we then get to hear the UN say "Oh dear, I hadn't thought of that" and vanish in puff of logic?
Good News (Score:5, Interesting)
If this passes we'll finally GTFO of the UN.
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You don't really think the US would stick around if the UN passes a resolution that takes away or unnecessarily limits our freedom of speech, do you?
Sounds like you are the buffoon here, bub.
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God, I would hope not. If the US doesn't keep fighting for rights (even within your own country I fear, for they're being eroded) then we're all screwed. Same goes for all countries which have tried to move forward on rights and freedoms. That's not what I'm advocating here.
If the UN truly does become a race to the bottom whereby we all get the most restrict
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I'll answer your question with a question, because maybe, just maybe we don't hear about it via the mainstream US media: What good has the UN done for the USA lately?
The only thing we ever hear about the UN over here is how they are fucking this, that or the other up or kowtowing to our (the US's) ideological opponents.
(Also the current membership of the UN's Human Rights Council is a absolute joke)
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How often has the US gone to the UN to apply sanctions to another country? How often has the US basically said "fuck it", and gone to war as a "coalition of the willing" when they had no evidence or reason to do it? You've been in Iraq for 8 years now, what has that done for anybody and in what way was it related to the stated goals? Has it
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Quit putting words in my mouth. I never once said to abolish the UN, I said if they pass this abortion of a resolution, then we *will* leave the UN.
Without the UN, the economic stability and political position of the US would be far diminished as a lot of other countries decide they don't want to play by your rules.
I seriously doubt that considering the US has been an economic powerhouse since the before the League of Nations days. The UN needs the USA a whole hell of a lot more than the USA needs the UN.
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Maybe that's because all you ever hear is from the US media, who are notoriously short on any actual information content.
There are problems with the UN. But abandoning it is not an option.
And for a start the only reason that any resolution like this would get through would be because the US (or other permanent members of the security council) didn't use its power of veto, which it uses a lot!
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China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, and the United States have veto power.
The UN would be the least of our problems if such a resolution managed to pass.
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hay no. Many of us understand the UN's law. Sadly we are in a period of time where the media presents morons and anger instead of actual rational, facts, and discussion. So everyone seems like a loon in the US.
That was quick (Score:2)
Too bad they didn't figure that out before the US encouraged all their citizens to give up (yes, the ideal of) social equality in favor of fancy clothes.
Ain't freedom a bitch? (Score:5, Funny)
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I think you're being affected by the same kind of syndrome as those Russians...
Here in Europe we don't really consider America to be the Land of the Free anymore. To begin with, it's a pain in the ass to enter that country, and they take your fingerprints when they let you enter. Then you loose all your rights as soon as someone claims you might be a terrorist. It's a country were Freedom of Speech has been replaced with Political Correctness. Regarding elections, their campaigns are so expensive that yo
Not a new attitude (Score:5, Insightful)
The UN has been fixated on controling the internet (Score:2, Insightful)
for some time now. If they can get the internet classified as a weapon, well then they'll HAVE to regulate it!
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One of the UN's job is to define what is war.
At no point have they ever tried to get the internet classified as a weapon. They are trying to figure out what action a country can do on the internet that may fall under RULAC.
This is a good thing.
You have no chance to survive make your time. (Score:2)
eh?
Aww... poor widdle government (Score:2)
Sigh (Score:5, Informative)
Just because you came up with a new name for it, its still "censorship".
Maybe they should call it "High Fructose Information Sugar" and people won't notice.
Non-story. (Score:2)
First, there's no evidence that the blood-stirring interpretation of what the Russian said was the least-bit correct. I would understand the posting by "a country" to refer to material commissioned by and paid for by the government of that nation or by agencies under its direct authority. A person is not a country and "a country" (being a geological formation) cannot post, so that's about the only interpretation I can place on it.
I think that postings by a Government on the Internet for the express purpose
taken to the extreme (Score:2)
I have never understood (Score:3, Interesting)
impossible standard (Score:2)
So, it will be illegal for governments to make propaganda and put in on the internet with the intention of affecting political change in a country other than their own. In the US, where propaganda is perfectly legal, we could argue all day about what is and is not propaganda. So, how does a foreign government make a serious attempt to catch other governments doing it? (spies, perhaps?)
Or will this just be a pretense for unjustified wars? The UN equivalent of yelling "it's coming right for us" [southparkstudios.com]?
it *IS* aggression (Score:2)
Re:Why would the US / EU want to broadcast Democra (Score:5, Interesting)
So Germany isn't reunited, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Ukraine, Latvia, Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Russia, Slovakia, the Czech Republic don't have free multiparty elections now?
The pushing of democracy in the Cold War, along with a healthy cultural push from film, tv, radio and music helped spur the end of one party rule in Eastern Europe.
So in effect what the Russian Minister said the VOA and BBC in the 60s through 90s was an act of aggression.
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>>>The pushing of democracy in the Cold War, along with a healthy cultural push from film, tv, radio and music helped spur the end of one party rule in Eastern Europe
More like a bankrupt treasury.
I give zero credit to the 24 hour propaganda radio.
Re:Why would the US / EU want to broadcast Democra (Score:4, Funny)
The 24 hour propaganda radio was highly effective. Same with the 24 hour propaganda movies and satellite TV broadcasts.
Wait, you're not talking about Warner, MGM, Michael Jackson, and Levi Jeans?
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Russia collapsed in bankruptcy, but it seems almost certain that cultural influences and "24 hour propaganda radio" were contributing factors in that financial over-extension. It contributed to the paranoia and ego spending to keep up militarily, as well as stressing them to support a domestic economic image. The people wanted western goods and envied images of western lifestyles. The population was always told they were the greatest most powerful nation on earth with the best government and best economic s
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So in effect what the Russian Minister said the VOA and BBC in the 60s through 90s was an act of aggression.
Good or bad, it was, and quite deliberately so, but don't give them too much credit. The internal forces were present from the beginning and would have been sufficient without Scorpions and Billy Joel concerts.
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Germany is more the West propping up the East than reunited. Economically speaking.
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>>>Germany is more the West propping up the East than reunited. Economically speaking.
We have the same problem in the US, but opposite (the East props-up the west). Just look at the flow of the US Government's money (from the blue states to the rural red states).
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Why do the red states have the bulk of military bases? Stimulus/pork-barrel spending. As for energy and food... who exactly would the red states sell them to? Let's see what the red-state economies look like when they don't have the blue states to purchase their goods.
We're interdependent. Neither "side" would fare well independently without a sizable period of time to adjust.
What's indi
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So in effect what the Russian Minister said the VOA and BBC in the 60s through 90s was an act of aggression.
Damn right. It was aggression against people who hate freedom, who want to rule, who sent tanks in Poland and quite a few other places as well over the years.
It was non-violent aggression, which is the kind that actually works.
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They do alot better at trying that they did from, oh infinity to 1991.
Why the two-party system in entrenched. (Score:3, Interesting)
So as it stands, the only way to get another party is to break off from one of the two and then devour it's base. Kinda like how the religious right
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The US does it to foment "color revolutions" [google.com], which have succeeded in bringing in pro-US governments in Georgia and Ukraine (though it failed in Iran).
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Seems like a giant waste of money to me. It certainly didn't accomplish much during the Cold war
It certainly didn't accomplish much during the Cold war
It accomplished a lot in the Cold War. Most notably, it gave millions of Soviet citizens the idealistic picture of a perfect life in capitalist states, so much so that, when perestroika came, large part of the population were actually pushing forward because they wanted to see heaven on Earth that would surely come once true democracy is established, and all industry is privatized.
These unrealistic expectations, by the way, are one of the major causes of why Russian democracy quickly collapsed the way it di
Many in eastern europe did turn to democracy (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, it's not like they turned into a Democracy when the government finally collapsed.
Poland, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Georgia, etc did.
The cold war was not waged exclusively against the soviet union. It was also waged against the soviet "client" states throughout eastern europe, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Pact [wikipedia.org]. Much of the info campaign was directed at these states.
Re:Why would the US / EU want to broadcast Democra (Score:5, Informative)
Just because Russia propper isn't the most shining example of a Democracy, it doesn't mean that Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan aren't.
Sure, I'm sure there's corruption in some of those too, but by no means all of them.
for some reason my control-v is broke right now, but looking at wikipedia it's showing a positive outlook on Latvia, Lithuaia and Estonia, and a 'very serious situation' in Turkmenistan.
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Go through the list and count how many are stable, secure democracies. Not Belarus, not Uzbekistan (where they do charming things like boil people to death - read Murder in Samarkand by former British ambassador Craig Murray,), not most of the rest.
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Let's have a closer look at them one by one:
Estonia and Latvia have fascist apartheid laws, denying citizenship rights to one quarter and one third of their respective population.
Lithuania has democratically voted back the commies right after they got a taste of democacy.
Belarus is Europe's Last Dictatorship
Moldova's main export is white babies, prostitutes, slaves and human organs. A European country with a GDP per capita of Sudan.
Ukraine is marginally richer than Moldova, with a similar export profile. Th
And the US state after the same amount of time? (Score:5, Insightful)
Lets see, in the decades after the US became a democracy, it had no votes for women. Had legal slavery based on color of the skin. Denied citizenship to asians and the natives. Slaughtered millions of the natives and deported the survivors to concentration camps where they were expected to slowly die with no natural or mineral resources.
The former USSR nations are not doing great, but most have NOT yet slipped as low as the past of the US of A.
Why do you compare the US after 2 centuries of freedom with newly freed states?
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I have friends in Kazakhstan and it is no shining example of Democracy. In one case a friend's parents had to vote for the last president or the university they worked for would have fired them.
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But Russia and Eastern Europe would have become democratic even without the 24 hour Air America broadcasts.
Re:Why would the US / EU want to broadcast Democra (Score:5, Informative)
Air America, the radio network, was a left-wing radio network in the US.
It was a CIA fronted aviation company in the 1960s.
I think you are looking for Voice of America.
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It might be helpful though if blatant propaganda attempts could be mandated to be labeled as such. Let people read the information for themselves, but with the understanding that what they are reading may not be entirely true, may be quite biased/opinionated, and likely has a motive (of some external government) behind it to undermine one or more presently-held ideals, facts, etc.
It might be easier to label the information that is entirely true, is not biased/opinionated, and does not have a motive behind i
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Seems like this would be a law against propoganda.... which is a great idea, isn't it?
We have libel and anti-defamation laws. How is this any different?
Domestic propaganda would not be covered by this law.
With no foreign ideas for competition, each country would intensify its efforts to brainwash its own citizens in whatever way it sees fit. (see: 1984)