FBI Wiretapped Hemingway 254
Hugh Pickens writes "On the fiftieth anniversary of the death by suicide of author Ernest Hemingway, his friend and biographer A. E. Hotchner writes in the NY Times that the man who 'had stood his ground against charging water buffaloes, who had flown missions over Germany, who had refused to accept the prevailing style of writing but, enduring rejection and poverty, had insisted on writing in his own unique way, this man, my deepest friend, was afraid — afraid that the FBI was after him, that his body was disintegrating, that his friends had turned on him, that living was no longer an option.' In the midst of depression and under treatment at St. Mary's Hospital in Rochester, Minnesota, Hemingway was convinced that his room was bugged, his phone was tapped, and suspected that one of the interns was a fed. Decades later, in response to a Freedom of Information petition, the FBI released its Hemingway file. It revealed that beginning in the 1940s J. Edgar Hoover had placed Hemingway under surveillance because he was suspicious of Ernest's activities in Cuba. The surveillance continued all through his confinement at St. Mary's Hospital, making it likely that the phone outside his room was tapped after all. 'In the years since, I have tried to reconcile Ernest's fear of the FBI, which I regretfully misjudged, with the reality of the FBI file,' writes Hotchner, author of Papa Hemingway and Hemingway and His World. 'I now believe he truly sensed the surveillance, and that it substantially contributed to his anguish and his suicide.'"
But they only snoop on terrorists (Score:5, Interesting)
The immunity to telecoms that accepted requests to wiretap without warrants, the revenge taken on Qwest for not doing so, the new rules that pretty much allow warrantless wiretapping at will...those powers would never be abused by today's FBI. They are all staunch and true. There's no chance of this happening now. No way are they going to snoop on friends-of-relatives-of suspected possible terrorists. Zero chance that people who impress a girlfriend by going to a march to support that Gaza blockade ship (which helps Gaza, which helps Hamas, who are terrorists, who no-doubt support other terrorists that might attack us some day) will find themselves on a list.
Don't be paranoid. We don't need a government of laws when we have a government of such good men who only want to protect us.
From terrorists.
And communists.
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those powers would never be abused by today's FBI.
That may be true. But laws aren't here to protect us against current threats, they are here to protect us against future threats as well. Although today's FBI may be sincere, someday we will have another Hoover in power, which is why we need proper judicial oversight of these people.
I have not heard of any wiretapping abuses by the FBI recently. But eventually there will be if they don't have oversight. That is an absolute guarantee.
Re:But they only snoop on terrorists (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:But they only snoop on terrorists (Score:4, Insightful)
Your sarasm-meter is overdue for its 100,000-mile checkup.
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Although today's FBI may be sincere...
I have not heard of any wiretapping abuses by the FBI recently.
I guess that means it doesn't happen, right? I mean, our innocent little lambs would never destroy evidence [foxnews.com] now, would they? Of course nothing will come of it. You're not to be taken seriously..
Authority should come at a very high price.. They should have to prove they're not violating the rules they impose on us.. Consider them guilty until proven innocent to keep them in line
All this makes the tin hatt
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I guess that means it doesn't happen, right?
I don't know. It may be 50 years before we know, in fact.
They should have to prove they're not violating the rules they impose on us
What? No, police better not be imposing rules, they are not the ones in charge of that. They are merely enforcers, who need to ask for permission from the judicial branch.
All this makes the tin hatters look a bit less crazy
Although it seems you lack understanding of separation of powers, and the checks and balances placed in the constitution.
God save the Queen!
If you're British, that might explain it.
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If we could trust authorities, there would be no need for the inefficiencies of democracy.
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.....I think your sarcasm detector needs checked for defects and malfunctions.
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I have not heard of any wiretapping abuses by the FBI recently.
The only possible reason you haven't heard of wiretapping abuses recently would be because you have your fingers jammed in your ears and you are yelling "I'M NOT LISTENING! I'M NOT LISTENING!" There is ample documentation and there was substantial news coverage of abuses. In 2007 congress authorized an investigation into abuses and the numbers were shocking.
"Fine's review, authorized by Congress over Bush administration objections, concluded the number of national security letters requested by the F
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And Gay Marriage
And Marijuana,
And Cubans,
And Native Americans,
And Mexicans,
Britain? Not so much anymore...
But don't forget about those pesky Canadians...
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You're retarded. This is the most obvious case of sarcasm in the written word I've ever witnessed.
The same goes for the AC above you.
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I think you missed his point that terrorists are the new communists.
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"Are you, or have you ever been, a member of the Communist Party?"
Given the number of people who have successfully immigrated to USA after the collapse of the Soviet Union, I doubt that this question was actually looked at in the last few decades.
One thing worth pointing out (Score:5, Interesting)
Worth pointing out is that there is a competing school of thought, which regards his suicide as likely having been an accident.
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As ackowledged in TFA.
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Yeah, he didn't mean to kill himself for real, it was just a joke gone wrong, right?
No, the CIA got the wrong guy.
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There were TWO guys.
At least it goes to prove that (Score:5, Insightful)
you're not paranoid if they're really out to get you.
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you're not paranoid if they're really out to get you.
No, you can still be paranoid even then, if it's unreasonable to believe that they're out to get you. Of course, they can still get you.
Even paranoiacs have enemies. (Score:4, Insightful)
The fact that he was wiretapped does not exclude he may have been a paranoiac.
Re:Even paranoiacs have enemies. (Score:5, Interesting)
He was bipolar, with paranoid delusions most amplified during mixed episodes (happy and not happy psychosis in the same package -- a bad trip).
And you're right, that he was a manic depressive with persecutory delusions and that he was indeed being spied upon by law enforcement doesn't mean he wasn't nuts -- obviously the case in Hemingway's case. Maybe it was self-fulfilling.
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"Maybe it was self-fulfilling."
I must admit, I've heard anyone blame someone's being wiretapped on their prior paranoia. Live long enough, amazing what you'll get to read.
An advantage our communications are monitored? (Score:2)
http://www.pdfernhout.net/on-dealing-with-social-hurricanes.html [pdfernhout.net] :-) :-) :-)"
"Our biggest advantage is that no one takes us seriously.
And our second biggest advantage is that our communications are monitored, which provides a channel by which we can turn enemies into friends.
And our third biggest advantage is we have no assets, and so are not a profitable target and have nothing serious to fight over amongst ourselves.
Let
i generally laugh at conspiracy theorists (Score:5, Insightful)
but, when the conspiracy is shown to be real, i have nothing but venom and hate for the power abusing assholes who think they can get away with it
hoover was a cross-dressing pinhead (not that there's anything wrong with cross-dressing, but there's plenty wrong with hypocrisy). the fbi under him was an extension of mccarthy era hysteria and witch hunts. so fuck you hoover, thanks for contributing to the destruction of the composure of a great man and a great writer
those who seek to protect us, in the name of hypocritical assumptions about what we need protection from, are the real enemies of the usa
down with them all
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Re:i generally laugh at conspiracy theorists (Score:5, Funny)
You missed a perfect opportunity for a good pun by not opting for "dam(n) you Hoover" or even "Hoover sucks"
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> mccarthy era hysteria and witch hunts
You do know that the fifty year seal on the Senate records from the McCarthy hearings finally expired and that between that and the other reveals from the end of the Cold War we now know (Not believe, know. There is a difference.) that Joe McCarthy's only real sin was in failing to realize just how far the rabbit hole went. It wasn't just an infestation of Communists in the State Dept., the rot went all the way to the heart of our government, including the US Sena
hey, asshole (Score:2)
the damage done to the usa by communist infiltrators was less than that by the hystertical overreacting nitwits
the damage done to the usa by terorrism today is less than that by the hystertical overreacting nitwits
the usa isn't weak. why do you think it is so fragile? it isn't. YOU are. stop projecting your pantywaist fears, asshole. YOU and your kind do more damage to this great country than it's genuine enemies. at least this country's enemies intend malice. you damage the country in the name of helping i
Re:hey, asshole (Score:5, Informative)
the damage done to the usa by communist infiltrators was less than that by the hystertical overreacting nitwits
This statement is not true. Joseph McCarthy was actually correct. The Venona decrypts, declassified in 1999-2002, identified a lot of the Communist Party CPUSA members and revealed them to be Soviet agents. And the Mitrokhin Archive, an internal KGB record of their own history, smuggled out of Russia in 1992 by their former senior archivist Vasily Mitrokhin, shows quite clearly the depths of penetration of the Soviet agents, as well as their strategies of spreading disinformation. These documents are readily available, go check them out at your local bookstore or library.
Now McCarthy was indeed a zealot, and used improper means of "persuasion" instead of following legal channels, but his claims were fairly accurate. Much of Hollywood was infiltrated, as well as the U.S. State Department, and even Congress. But McCarthy was unable to publicly back his claims with the data because the Venona project itself and all its data was classified top secret, and was not to be revealed in case they gave away the secret that we were reading Soviet "one-time pads". (Hint: they used their pads two times, which broke their security.) This was an operational mistake that happened from 1946-1948, and so they could have safely used the data then as the Soviets had corrected the mistake before he went public, but the FBI had no way of knowing that. Among other interesting tidbits, the Venona decrypts proved conclusively that the Rosenbergs were indeed the traitors that gave the secret of the bomb to the Soviets. The campaign to cloud their guilt with doubt was just one of the many Soviet disinformation campaigns. (These campaigns included such crap as "AIDS was created by the U.S. Army as a bioweapon", which even the Russians now regret having spread.)
the damage done to the usa by terorrism today is less than that by the hystertical overreacting nitwits
I agree with you and believe this statement is true. Many of our rights have been stripped by the misnamed USA PATRIOT act, and our government has gone apeshit crazy, all even better than the results UBL hoped for when he attacked. I'd much rather have the occasional terrorist attempt than the current form of the DHS. At least an idiot on a plane today is going to be jumped by a hundred very pissed off travelers. Nobody's ever going to fly another plane into a building on our soil again, not while there are solid cockpit doors and a few real Americans on board.
However, there is quite a bit of difference between the two. McCarthy acted alone, from secret knowledge. The DHS is acting as the face of the U.S. government. The politicians are bringing war to all kinds of new places in the name of terrorism. They've completely soiled this country and her reputation, and they should be stopped.
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i don't understand how you can think the observation is true about terrorism but not about communism. it's the same form of trumped up threat. you swallow the koolaid about communism, but not terrorism. so you're half redeemed
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There were communists and they were a threat - just not the massive threat that they were portrayed to be.
There are terrorists and they are a threat - just not the massive threat that they are portrayed to be.
The point of all this paranoia is it lets those who are "dealing" with the threat take control of a lot of power and exercise it.
Learn your own history (Score:2)
No, he merely used a shotgun approach in the hope that someday he would hit something solid to find a truth that would obsure his pack of lies. His offer to stop harassing Arthur Miller if he could get a vote winning publicity photo taken standing next to Marilyn Monroe really summed the slimy weasel up as the man he was. It was all about making a lot of noise so he could get a chance at being President and the commie threat bullshit was just his scam to get there. Re
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So in your world view, McCarthey was correct in destroying innocent lifes, installing a culture of fear in Hollywood so that they would not make critical films about the current administration, making it hard for people with different political views to get a decent jobs and being able to bully people in general without having to prove anything? All this because there were some soviet spyes (what a shocker that is!) during the cold war?
How should one put it? "Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long las
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maybe if you finished reading the words you cut off mid sentence you would have your answer? sorry if that's a strange idea
Obligatory Clue (Score:3)
Mr. Green: Why is J. Edgar Hoover on your phone?
Wadsworth: He's on everybody else's! Why shouldn't he be on mine?
Just because you think there is a conspiracy (Score:2)
...doesn't mean there isn't one. I am quite sure a large percentage of the paranoid notions out there are not true, but then there are the facts that surface much later that prove to have been true.
it's exactly this kinda crap that keeps the seeds of doubt sewn in my mind each and every time the government tells the people something.
Re:Just because you think there is a conspiracy (Score:5, Interesting)
...doesn't mean there isn't one. I am quite sure a large percentage of the paranoid notions out there are not true, but then there are the facts that surface much later that prove to have been true.
it's exactly this kinda crap that keeps the seeds of doubt sewn in my mind each and every time the government tells the people something.
Put it this way: every single time some government official, from the President of the United States on down says, "we need new power 'x' in order to make you safe from 'y'", We the People need to reply with a resounding "Prove it!" Make these bastards fight for every new power they try to assume. Sometimes they're right ... but I want to hear more than fear-mongering and manufactured statistics.
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John Lennon once said on a TV talk show he had reason to think his phone was bugged. Sure enough, it turned out it was, as later-released files proved.
Albert Einstein, Helen Keller, Margaret Sanger, .. (Score:5, Insightful)
With just a touch of exaggeration, I'll say that any public intellectual in that era who didn't have an FBI file probably was lacking a conscience. Einstein had a 1500-page FBI file [theeinsteinfile.com], having aroused Hoover's suspicion with his involvement in "communist front" organizations like the American Crusade Against Lynching [wikipedia.org]. America had been through the worst era of unrestrained robber-baron capitalism, followed by the Great Depression. It was the height of Jim Crow. If you were engaged in the intellectual life of the country, it was very likely that you were either going to become a socialist or some other kind of radical. Just to pick two more random examples: Margaret Sanger [wikipedia.org] and Helen Keller [wikipedia.org] were both leftists, and both had FBI files. American leftists were the only ones who spoke up against Fascism in Spain and tried to do anything about it -- at a time when right-wingers were often huge fans of Mussolini. For a lot of folks on the left, the big disillusionment came in 1939 with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
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Ernest was a willing red spy since 1941 (Score:2, Informative)
Might make you depressed if you thought your were going to be exposed.
Might even convince you it was time to kill yourself.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/jul/09/hemingway-failed-kgb-spy
Re:Albert Einstein, Helen Keller, Margaret Sanger, (Score:5, Insightful)
Franco kept Spain stable for decades, dealt with old-school Communists in the most effective way, and was a reasonably good steward of his country, which he kept out of WWII.
By which you mean he supported the Nazis and offered them assistance whilst not fighting in WWII himself, summarily executed his political opponents and sent hundreds of thousands more to forced labour camps, totally rolled back women's rights and religious freedoms, and was a least as bad as the Communist states - but that's OK because he wasn't red.
There's a reason the US isn't very popular.
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Those who restrict themselves to "moral" methods cannot win large wars. It was easier to fight a two-front war against Germany than have a Soviet Union (which couldn't be cut off or outflanked) push West.
Morality does not win wars.
There being no reason or benefit to not murder Stalinists and their supporters, and every reason TO liquidate them, it was wise to do that and support those who did that.
The fight against Nazism and Communism was an existential struggle. That justifies (by logic, morality is whate
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Wrongful death? (Score:2)
So did Hemingway's estate ever sue the government for wrongful death or some such, after it was revealed that Hemingway's paranoia was justified and really not so paranoid after all?
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You're presuming facts and intent not in evidence: the goal of a lawsuit does not have to be monetary compensation, and I never said anything to even imply that I expected that would be the estate's purpose in suing. I assumed they might have been seeking some sort of specific performance: a change in practices or behavior, not to mention a very public apology.
Perfect Quote (Score:2)
Just because you're not paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you. - Colin Sautar
Anecdote (Score:3)
He's my favorite author... (Score:5, Informative)
But Hemingway also was, by most accounts, not a particularly happy individual. I am not meaning to absolve the FBI from blame for its misbehavior; but his dad commited suicide, his mom mailed him the gun his father used for that, he couldn't stay in a relationship, and he had a drinking problem - he already had 2.9 strikes against him. His semi-autobiographical Nick Adams stories all seemed to show a poor sense of self worth too.
It seems odd that the FBI would worry about his activities in Cuba, though, given how his writing sure seemed (to me) to be pretty pro-Batista.
If I thought I were being bugged... (Score:2)
If I thought I were being bugged, I would take a sudden interest in the hobby of in-home air horn playing at random times.
In particular, I think I would take to reading spy novels out loud, with random air for interjections to punctuate the juicy bits. Then if they carted me off, and gave as evidence something they had got from me, I'd simply as the time of the recording and give them the page number of the book the quote came from...
NY Times Full Text (Score:2)
July 1, 2011
Hemingway, Hounded by the Feds
By A. E. HOTCHNER
EARLY one morning, 50 years ago today, while his wife, Mary, slept upstairs, Ernest Hemingway went into the vestibule of his Ketchum, Idaho, house, selected his favorite shotgun from the rack, inserted shells into its chambers and ended his life.
There were many differing explanations at the time: that he had terminal cancer or money problems, that it was an accident, that he’d quarreled with Mary. None were true. As his friends knew, he’
I enjoy his books, but (Score:2)
I love Hemingways writings, but Hemingway aside, oh my god - an Adobe Flash application to view their files? It's slow as molasses, unresponsive, has some weird copycat of a hand cursor and has its own scrolling in addition to the page scrolling - in short, it's a disaster! Jesus, haven't these guys heard of PDF, courtesy of the same company? Or are they on LSD or something?
link at bottom of page (Score:2)
there are pdfs available at the bottom of the page.
Re:Unfortunately... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll refrain from calling you names, as you've characterized LutzSed, but just point out the fact that it the FBI that's the problem. They've been violating the rights of Americans, and spying on us all, for their own reasons, not because they were trying to protect us, since they were formed. There's no hope of curtailing their activities, especially now that we have the big Radical Muslem scare, and a congress full of right wing reactionaries and cowards.
LutzSec isn't bringing on anything, it's already here.
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A: The United States of America.
Ha. Funny. What the GP actually described is nearly every form of government ever invented by the hand of Man. That's the facts, jack. I mean, you wouldn't be claiming that the governments of oh, say, Russia or China don't take extreme steps to protect themselves from their own citizens. Would you now?
Re:Unfortunately... (Score:5, Insightful)
So mr. anarchist, you don't think large companies and corporations are capable of significantly worse effects of oppression on our lives? I know it is an assumption, but judging by what you said I assume you are totally against all government regulations of the corporate world. Using barriers to entry, monopolistic and monopsonistic actions, most US companies have managed to drive prices through the roof while driving wages through the floor, despite the fact that in the past 40 years GDP went from .5 T to 17T, a 34 fold increase. If that isn't oppression, nothing short of China's internet censorship, Soviet Russia, or Hitlers Germany qualifies. When you let corporations exploit people to an unlimited extent, they will. Regulations ARE necessary, if they weren't, we wouldn't be in this shithole situation right now, it would be a lot better as the deregulation of the past 10 years goes into effect, instead of even worsening quality of life. But don't let the facts affect your anarchism.
Governments are the only thing in the world that is by, for, and of the people. Corporations are for profit, by profit, and of profit. Profit isn't a moral imperative, people are. Governments can become too powerful, too strong, and too evil, but they do not have to be inherently, and can and have been controlled by the people for periods of time. This is not true of large businesses, who have amassed so much power that voting with your dollars is either ineffectual or impossible.
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So mr. anarchist, you don't think large companies and corporations are capable of significantly worse effects of oppression on our lives?
Ah ... what? I think you need to re-read the two posts above mine ... and then re-read mine. Cripes.
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Governments are the only thing in the world that is by, for, and of the people.
So, referencing my original post ... you believe that the governments of Russia and China are "by, for, and of the people"? Are you serious? Those governments are by, of and for themselves. Period. End-of-statement.
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Not at all douche-wagon. I said governments can be corrupt and go against the people. But bad governments don't mean governments are bad. That is like saying because chocolate cake with lard filling is bad for you that all food is bad. Governments are the only organizations which can actually be by and for the people, while some fail at that and royally suck, they should then be overthrown and replaced by a real government instead of a tyranny. My point is that you anarchist types are so damn against govern
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Somebody asked me this:
Why does a government must be an evil?
and I replied:
- well, because in history of humanity there was never a government that didn't become evil or wasn't evil from the start? Because government provides people with ability to gather power over people, businesses and resources without too much effort? Because a place that provides such an ability is a magnet for people who want the power over people, businesses and resources? Because government power is used to control people's lives, tax people's work, mis-allocate resour
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There is one major problem that makes everything you just said dead wrong. By amassing large amounts of capital, corporations have far more power over your life than any business possibly could. Any business that reaches even ten or twenty percent of a market share, or a market is dominated by a few large businesses with no serious competition, and barriers to entry are high (which they always are, just on the need for physical capital to produce goods and services), the corporations and companies can emplo
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There is one major problem that makes everything you just said dead wrong
- good start, with a nice general, overall blanket statement.
By amassing large amounts of capital, corporations have far more power over your life than any business possibly could.
- you likely mean to say 'government' there, not business, right?
Here is why the above statement is false: no business can force me to pay them and no business has the ultimate authority to end my freedoms and to end my life, thus that statement is ridiculous on its face.
As to corporations amassing capital - in government regulated world you do have that happening, as government prefers certain monopolies and makes sure they amass more than they
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Governments do not have to favor certain monopolies over others, in fact they can be used to destroy monopolies wherever they form, and for a short period of time after the sherman anti-trust act, it actually was used in such a way.
- a laugh. Anti-trust laws were used to destroy trusts not for any reason, other than the trusts were becoming more powerful than the politicians and didn't want to share their wealth with the politicians.
Standard Oil wasn't a monopoly by the time it was broken up and Alcoa Aluminum was an exceedingly efficient business, so nobody could compete on price, which means the market didn't need it to be broken, to give rise to less efficient businesses. However the less efficient businesses got their act togethe
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I didn't.
oh?
so I'm going to assume you are some sheltered kid who has had life handed to him on a silver platter. Or at least a copper one.
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I have dealt with people like you hundreds of times before, and you all rely on the same fallacious depictions of reality in the creepiest way possible
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Sincerely, whenever somebody starts using arguments of the personal nature, they lose my interest.
you be a deer and do something to help society instead of your mongering to exacerbate t
- I am doing something useful. I build my own businesses and add to the wealth of the society by offering services and products that didn't exist until I built them.
So there will be no 'making wages fair' support from me - the only fair wage is a wage that is set by free market.
So if you truly care about fair wages, you'd support free market and not government destroying the free market.
Oh, and free m
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See, the problem with all of that is that you are ignoring the facts. You say that working for literal slavery is not a possibility in a free market, yet you ignore the reality of the old north when factory workers in the north worked more hours than those in the south and had a significantly lower life expectancy and quality of life. There was HUGE demand for labor, and low unemployment, and yet people like Pullman were still able to force wages so low that employees could no longer afford to eat and rebel
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This article shows, to those that might think otherwise, that the US government can be as authoritarian, repressive, anti-democratic, and destructive as any of its enemies that we US citizens might believe are evil.
I agree that this repression can be minimized by openness and accessibility.
Corporations are another thing entirely, entities enacted to minimize financial risk to individuals and maximize profits, they are a social cancer originally granted license only for a limited short time (2 - 4 years) to
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Awesome, so your concept of an ideal government is China or Russia?
Cool, you got it!
Huh? That actually made no sense. Apparently, whatever there was to get ... you didn't.
Re:Unfortunately... (Score:5, Interesting)
Wrong Way (Score:2)
Stop voting in Evangelical Fundamentalists and you'll see how much push back Congress will actually do to keep a checks n' balance with the FBI
It isn't evangelical types that are doing anything like that. Look at Obama, going after dispensaries now...
If you REALLY want to do something about it, vote in people campaigning for smaller government and reduced spending. A smaller government doesn't have time to waste resources wiretapping random people, nor the resources to do so.
That is the ONLY path which wi
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The solution to malicious behavior in governments is not to dismantle the government, it's to hunt down and remove the malicious people.
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Re:Unfortunately... (Score:4, Informative)
Not to worry. The hope and change we voted for will be here any moment to take us to Candy Mountain.
fool ..... (Score:2)
Re:Unfortunately... (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't blame LulzSec, blame the people who will be putting such laws in place. That is like blaming flaming homosexuals for making gay marriage illegal, or blaming rape victims for the high number of rapists in prison. This kind of douchebaggery attitude is what will lead to improved tolerance of such government policies. Fight the government policies.
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Isn't it more likely that it's exactly because of shit like this that we're seeing groups like LulzSec spring up?
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Freedoms aren't given, they're taken. I'd argue that it's the complacent couch potatoes that are making matters worse. They can only muster up enough willpower to follow American Idol votes. Apathy is killing our government, not internet pranks. If anything, these hacks are but a doorway to more meaningful protest. After all, you can't play by their rules. If you want to fight the system, you have to come out it from the sides. And in this modern world, hacking basically equates to violent protest against s
new red scare started last year (Score:3)
Obama has 6 espionage act prosecutions going against people for talking to journalists. thats more than we have had since circa 1919 when the Sedition Act was part of the espionage act.
You have to realize that several of these cases also involve the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, specifically subparagraph (a)(1), the "Comptuer Espionage" law.
When they came down on manning for the Collateral Murder video, this was one of the laws they used.
When Thomas Drake plead guilty to a misdemeanor, for simply accessing
Re:Unfortunately... (Score:4, Insightful)
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I'm very grateful for lulzsec revealing to the world that all it takes is a group of greedy CEOs and corrupt government officials to cause billions of dollars worth of damage, destroy the credibility and security of world governments and established institutions and reveal the private information for millions of individuals.
FTFY
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*Sigh*
The government and CEOs didn't do those things. A bunch of sociopathic man-children did. The governments and CEOs should have had better security, but blaming them for the damage is like blaming a girl for getting raped while drunk at a party.
LulzSec isn't a group of working class heroes, no matter how much you may wish them to be. They're just thugs, hurting people for their own amusement. They'd do the same to you, if they thought it would be so much as a half-hearted chuckle to their friends' l
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Re:Unfortunately... (Score:5, Informative)
To compare LulzSec with rapists or thugs is rediculous; comparing the CEOs to victims is so outrageous it's almost funny. There are plenty of serious "cyber" criminals who are hacking into people's systems for real money and causing real damage to people like you and me; the consumers who have their data being stored by these corporates. What makes LulzSec different is that, instead of just putting some charges on your credit card and never telling anyone where they got the data they published what they did. That's just bringing to the surface an issue which was already happening before LulzSec got involved.
LulzSec caused public nuisiance and annoyance but that makes them more stupid teenage vandals than thugs. The main bad thing they have done is embarassing the powerful and pointing out publicly what data was already available to the real black hats. It's not just that the corporates should have had better security, it's that:
For now I think there's quite a bit more value in pursuing the CEOs than the
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the CEOs --are-- sociopathic man children (Score:2)
evidence? here are a few books written in the past 5 years.
Fool's Gold, by Gillian Tett
The Zeroes, by Randall Lane
Too Big to Fail, by Andrew Ross Sorkin
The Trillion Dollar Meltdown, by Charles R Morris
All the Devils are Here, by Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera
A Colossal Failure of Common Sense, by Lawrence McDonald with Patrick Robinson
Devil's Casino, Vicky Ward
House of Cards, by William D Cohan
Crash of the Titans, Greg Farrell
Street Fighters, Kate Kelley
Confidence Game, Christine S Richards
EConned, Yves Smit
Re:Unfortunately... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the kind of mindset that fear mongers capitalize on. Hoover had the Red Scare to keep in power. This terrorist stuff is a fear mongers wet dream. Interesting how we have so many ways to keep people "informed", aka in fear. This kind of reptile brained actions are too global in reach. We haven't evolved out of it and we don't look like we will until we destroy ourselves or nature does it for us. Serioiusly, we are wasting time and resources we should be spending on space. Let's try to be ready to avoid a planet destroying event instead of fighting each other? How many asteroids need to wiz by our planet before we realize we need to tend to them?
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An asteroid impact event has the potential to kill billions and end technological civilisation on this planet.
Risk analysis.
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Let's try to be ready to avoid a planet destroying event instead of fighting each other? How many asteroids need to wiz by our planet before we realize we need to tend to them?
Corporate America, their international counterparts and all of their bought dog political lackeys are the progenitors of world destruction. I say that we should whole-heartedly support our troops and bring them home and help the American people to clean out Washington DC and all state assemblies of the rats nest den of thieves that have usurped the American dream in the name of national security. The only thing secure in this nation is the pockets, bank accounts and offshore banking instruments of these car
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Once upon a time, years ago, I was living far out into the countryside. I was trying to tune my radio to something to listen to and came across a religious channel. I sat down for a listen and all I could hear was "money...blah blah blah...money...send us money...blah blah...more money....commericial...money...send us money...if you want to know more buy this book and send us money...blah blah money...money, more money, give us your money please...money". I was disgusted and turned the channel and what was
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Most of Hemingway's paragraphs didn't contain that many different thought
Re:punctuation! (Score:4, Insightful)
Most of Hemingway's paragraphs didn't contain that many different thoughts.
That's because Hemingway actually knew how to write.
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Even if you're paranoid, that doesn't mean nobody is out there to get you.
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6) Question Jon Katz' sexual preference.
Christ, that's a blast from the past (assuming the reason I don't see his articles anymore is because he isn't contributing them, rather than just because I'm blocking them).
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I've dealt with these fuckers, and believe me, they are not about doing what is honest or what is right. They are a tool of the government, and they have been used for plenty of evil and will continue to be used in that manner. Just because that sick bastard J. Edgar Hoover is gone, don't believe for one second that the FBI is suddenly kind and gentle, because that would be very far off the mark.
They never were kind and gentle, nor do I particularly care if they're not. What I want them to do is follow the law.. Unfortunately for us, nowadays they generally are, and that's the problem. After Hoover, Congress reined in the FBI and put a lot of restrictions on their behavior. Most of those were removed (and new powers granted) in the wake of 9/11 by the ill-named Patriot Act and others like it. It's not the FBI you have to blame for this, but a power-hungry and fundamentally irrational Congress.