What If Manning Had Leaked To the New York Times? 348
New submitter minstrelmike points outs a two-page editorial in the NYTimes "about what would have been different legally, morally, and security-wise," had the military information released through WikiLeaks been published by the Times instead.
"'If Manning had delivered his material to The Times, WikiLeaks would not have been able to post the unedited cables, as it ultimately did, heedless of the risk to human rights advocates, dissidents and informants named therein. In fact, you might not have heard of WikiLeaks. The group has had other middling scoops, but Manning put it on the map.' The writers also discusses what the Times would and would not have done, admitting they probably wouldn't have shared with other news outlets, but also admitting they would definitely have not shared everything."
Why he didn't submit to the NY Times (Score:5, Insightful)
He wanted it to get out.
Re:Why he didn't submit to the NY Times (Score:5, Insightful)
exactly. This would never see the light of day with the NY times, because the NY times is not a press/journalism organization. It's a media-spin government friendly organization which refuses to cover actual issues.
Where was the NYT with the revolutions in the middle east? Not covering them, that's where. NYT is instead always too busy not fact checking anything [techdirt.com].
meanwhile the line of unedited cables line is full of shit. minstrelmike is clearly trolling. Whereas NYT can't even get basic information right [nytimes.com], wikileaks actually edited the information before releasing it.
Re:Why he didn't submit to the NY Times (Score:5, Insightful)
Yup.
The media has failed this guy as completely and as utterly as any organization possibly could. He has repeatedly called for the public to have a discussion or debate about the role of the United States' military in the geopolitical landscape. As far as I can tell, no such discussion has been fostered by the media. But why would they? It's the media's job to keep us stupid, to prevent us from learning what is actually happening in the world.
Bradley Manning is simply someone who figured out what is actually going on, and it bothered him. Bothered him enough that he wanted to share that information with the world.
"I also believed the detailed analysis of the data over a long period of time by different sectors of society might cause society to reevaluate the need or even the desire to even to engage in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations that ignore the complex dynamics of the people living in the affected environment everyday." - Bradley Manning
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meanwhile the line of unedited cables line is full of shit. minstrelmike is clearly trolling. Whereas NYT can't even get basic information right [nytimes.com], wikileaks actually edited the information before releasing it.
I think it was intentional lie, not just an omission or lack of fact checking on behalf of NYT. After all this is corporate media producing corporate propaganda on behalf of your corporate government. A while ago they boasted that they "fact checked" all their wikileaks-related publications with Obama administration itself. "Mr President, can we publish this or that ?" I urge to NOT believe anything NYT writes without confronting it with other sources (preferably non-corporate and non-US).
Re:Why he didn't submit to the NY Times (Score:5, Insightful)
Some more examples:
- At Bradley Manning's trial, a case with significant national interest with major implications for whistleblowers and the freedom of the press, and for the Times itself (which had been one of the papers that had gotten the story from Wikileaks), the New York Times couldn't be bothered to send a reporter until there was a lot of public shaming of the paper about it.
- The New York Times has admitted on many occasions to suppressing stories for the sole reason that the White House asked them to. That was true under both the Obama and Bush administrations.
Basically, I read the New York Times the same way I'm guessing a lot of Russians read Pravda back in the day: The point isn't to discover the truth, it's to discover what the government wants you to think is the truth.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
exactly. This would never see the light of day with the NY times, because the NY times is not a press/journalism organization. It's a media-spin government friendly organization which refuses to cover actual issues.
If this is true, how do you explain their willingness to work with Daniel Ellsberg to leak the Pentagon Papers? You could argue that the organization has changed, but simply asserting that the newspaper that published the Pentagon Papers "is not a press/journalism organization" without any evidence is not an argument.
Oh please the NYT of today wouldn't be able to find the the words "investigative journalism" even if they were printed right in front of them. A good portion of classic american press went AWOL at the minimum during the last decade.
Good journalism is done by ProPublica, but I don't know wether they were online when Manning leaked all the documents. And it is still possible that had ProPublica gained access to those documents and published them online, the journalists would have been detained and tortured be
Re:Why he didn't submit to the NY Times (Score:4, Informative)
It's all in a statement he read out at his last pre-trial hearing: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/01/bradley-manning-wikileaks-statement-full-text [guardian.co.uk]
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Well then, you are stupid.
I suggest you look at the history of the NYT.
all they would have done is keep information out that puts peoples lives at risk.
It's called journalistic integrity.
It's true of any good news, regardless of the media in which is distributes information.
Of course, there are several news organizations he could have sent it to all at the same time.
Assumptions (Score:4, Informative)
Spin:
"heedless of the risk to human rights advocates, dissidents and informants named therein"
Reality:
http://www.collateralmurder.com/
Re:Assumptions (Score:5, Informative)
And it wasn't WikiLeaks who published the unedited cables. Wikileaks was careful to redact the ones they published.
It was a Guardian Newspaper journalist who published the secret decryption key to the 'insurance' file and gave everybody access.
Re:Assumptions (Score:5, Informative)
Wikileaks was careful to redact the ones they published.
Yep, WL spent a couple of months redacting informants names, the Guardian, Der Speigel, and (you guessed it), the NYT, all worked on the reactions together. All 4 organizations then published the story at the same time. But at the end of the day all 4 organizations are competitors, so I'll just file it under editorial sour grapes.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Came here to rage about this. Holy bloody hell, you'd think that as a journalist Bill Keller would have done even rudimentary research into how Wikileaks operates. Actually, no, since it was such a big story directly in their field you'd kind of expect him to be cognizant of the basics.
Seriously, what kind of revisionist history is this? Is Bill just being a bitter old fool?
More to it than that... (Score:5, Insightful)
Wikileaks was being actively supported by several media outlets at the time (which IIRC included the Associated Press). As such, they were acting agents of the press doing work that the papers themselves hadn't dared for decades.
However it was the Guardian's blunder that caused the real breech, IMO. There is no denying they bungled it.
Re:Assumptions (Score:4, Insightful)
And it wasn't WikiLeaks who published the unedited cables. Wikileaks was careful to redact the ones they published.
You might want to check facts before speaking, although around here that's obviously not a requirement for an "Informative" rated post. I read a LOT of those cables, and frankly speaking most of them were boring drivel that didn't have anything to do with any wars at all, and didn't reveal any kind of criminal activity.
So... I take it you don't know what "redact" means? Because nothing you said there contradicts what the poster you're replying to said.
The point is that if the NYT had received a mass of cables, they would have picked through them to identify the ones which actually had newsworthy material.
And that's just the thing. They would have picked through to identify what they thought was newsworthy. And since human labor is expensive, they probably would have done it by a bunch of keyword searches, then reading the ones that the searches caught on - or, more likely, getting some interns to read those.
By publishing all the cables, Wikileaks allowed the public to determine for themselves what is and isn't important, and allowed a "many eyeballs see all things" approach.
And if they would have posted the infamous "helicopter video" they'd have published the whole thing instead of editing it down to make it look worse like Assange did.
Don't know anything about that, so can't comment on it.
The world needs a NEUTRAL place for leaks and whistleblowing, not a site used to pump a particular political agenda, which is what Wikileaks has become.
Until someone starts one, though, Wikileaks is what we have. Anyone who wants to make a leak site with another slant is free to - having multiple ones would be a good thing!
Re:Assumptions (Score:4, Insightful)
And it wasn't WikiLeaks who published the unedited cables. Wikileaks was careful to redact the ones they published.
You might want to check facts before speaking, although around here that's obviously not a requirement for an "Informative" rated post. I read a LOT of those cables, and frankly speaking most of them were boring drivel that didn't have anything to do with any wars at all, and didn't reveal any kind of criminal activity.
Do you know what redacting is...?
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The point is that if the NYT had received a mass of cables, they would have picked through them to identify the ones which actually had newsworthy material.
So we would have never learned how close an influential (far-left, anti-imperialist, pacifist) politician in my country is with the local US ambassador - to whom he openly admitted that some of his public positions are populist drivel.
The NYT's verdict for this and many dozen similar cases would invariably have been "not newsworthy enough to harm US interests" - despite the demasking of many politicians (who did in secret collaborate with the US while lambasting them in public) being extremely newsworthy in
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Are you paid to lie?
The Collateral Murder [collateralmurder.com] site has had the full video available from the beginning. I viewed both, from that site, the day it was announced.
Wikileaks actually went above and beyond the accepted standard by providing the full file. Most news organizations edit heavily and don't provide the original.
Wow, and yet you slogged through to be able to deliver your critical insight.
I'd hope most of
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Let me put it this way. If your bank put up your encyrpted bank details for people to download at will, then the key/password gets compromised, would you go "Oh, my bank did nothing wrong and shouldn't receive any criticism, it was that nasty XxDeEpburNxX!"?
If XxDeEpburNxX openly publishes the key then blames the bank for leaking the data I might have a problem with XxDeEpburNxX's credibility, yes.
Re:Assumptions (Score:5, Insightful)
The best interview I saw on the whole episode was on the Colbert report. Where Colbert pointed out the obvious. Even calling it "Collateral Murder" is stepping out of the bounds of journalism and into editorial. It's fine to have an opinion. But selective editing and inaccurate wording meant to push an agenda that is not completely factual... That's propaganda, and just as bad as some/much of the whitewashing done by the DoD. Difference is, the DoD doesn't intend to be anything other than what it is.
Re:Assumptions (Score:5, Insightful)
You might argue about the first strike, but the second strike was obviously targeted at the relief efforts, that is collateral murder.
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You really believe this or are you just trying to justify your beliefs. Someone who is trying to help injured people and has his kids in his car is not part of the insurgents. You do know there are actually people who live there and are trying to continue their lives, not everyone in Iraq is part of the insurgents.
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not everyone in Iraq is part of the insurgents
Right! But the people hanging out with guys who've shooting up the town all day, or who pull up on the scene to help out the armed guys - those aren't the people who are trying to avoid the insurgents or work against them. When you've been hunting them all day (and being shot at by them), and a truck pulls up to help them out, combat zone issues absolutely apply.
Re:Assumptions (Score:4, Insightful)
But it's stick with Manning. He was basically IT like most of us. IT staff see and hear people PLAN to violate contracts or the law, or just plain be dicks a lot more than most people. But at the point you dump your bosses email box and hand it to the press, you better have a really good reason. We all miss that what he did was a MASSIVE breach of trust that would get ANY of US fired just for discussing on the job.
Does the public DESERVE to see that important WAR decisions are made based on grade school playground spats. ABSOLUTELY. Did he violate his employers trust, absolutely as well.
Re:Assumptions (Score:5, Insightful)
Does the public DESERVE to see that important WAR decisions are made based on grade school playground spats. ABSOLUTELY. Did he violate his employers trust, absolutely as well.
Some might argue - and I'm not sure I'd be amongst them - that ultimately his "employers" are the citizens and taxpayers of the United States of America, and the superior officers - up to and including the President of the United States - are just middle managers. As such, Manning was working for the good of his "employers" by reporting other, problematic employees.
Still, the whole idea of equating public service to basic employment - essentially, reducing a country so it is just another large corporation - is somewhat disquieting to me. I know the concept of patriotism is oft times spurned on Slashdot but - in moderation - I think it is a worthy thing. A country is, after all - more than just a material thing; it incorporates (or it should) the beliefs and philosophy of its people. Saying "I respect that and I'll support those goals and beliefs" is honorable. Patriotism only becomes a problem when it is blindly given and assigned to individuals (politicians, military leaders) without leaving room to question whether those individuals are supportive of the philosophy behind the country. I'd rather we look at public servants in that light than simply equate them to the hirelings of a corporate master, and judge them not on their "efficiency" but whether they are standing true to the ideals of the nation.
The question with Manning truly boils down to his motive; whether he released the documents based on an earnest belief that it was necessary for the citizens of the United States to have this information, or if it was the result of his personal issues spiraling out of control. Sadly, it more and more looks as if it was the latter and - necessary as his actions may have been - they were not taken with adequate judgement or forethought. As such, discipline does not seem an outrageous expectation, although the punishments suggested do seem excessive, given the beneficial (for the citizenry, not the politicians) results of the leak.
Re: (Score:3)
Ultimately:
With his security clearance, he signed a form that said: if he breaks confidence, he goes to jail. End of story there.
And Ultimately:
His "employer" is the US Army, which, constitutionally, answers to the Civilian Leadership (POTUS), who ultimately, answers to US voters every 4 years and/or congress when or if they decide to impeach. So, no, his "employers" are not the citizens and taxpayers of the United States of America.
I do think that I have a right to know what's going on with how they're sp
Re: (Score:3)
And it severely undercut the trust needed to bring an end to those crimes. Not that I expect anyone at /. to actually understand any thing more complex then a binary decision.
No, thye damage relationships, put peoples lives at risk for nothing.
Hear the answer from Manning himself (Score:5, Informative)
all well and good after the fact (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:all well and good after the fact (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought Manning shopped it around to all the big existing media and they didn't want to know, it was only after Wikileaks picked it up that THEN they came back.
Did you read the article? That's exactly what they said in the article:
In his statement to the military court, Manning said that before he fell in with the antisecrecy guerrillas at WikiLeaks, he tried to deliver his trove of stolen documents to The Washington Post and The New York Times. At The Post, he was put off when a reporter told him that before she could commit to anything she’d have to get a senior editor involved. At The Times, Manning said, he left a message on voice mail but never got a call back.
The only problem with this NY Times article is that the author is completely ignorant of why a whistleblower would use something like only payphones and not e-mail to make contacts for divulging this information:
It’s puzzling to me that a skilled techie capable of managing one of the most monumental leaks ever couldn’t figure out how to get an e-mail or phone message to an editor or a reporter at The Times, a feat scores of readers manage every day.
DUR, well, I guess if you can't figure out why he didn't want a paper trail or electronic message then he shouldn't have given you the information after all! Did the voice mail start with "I'm calling from a payphone with a physical disc in my possession ... "? Because unless he wanted to be easily caught, I'd guess that'd be the way to go.
Quite simply lies (Score:5, Insightful)
There is absolutely no way NYT would have touched Manning's cable archives. They would have feigned interest and then shopped him. Bill Keller knows this.
The OP is the biggest piece of self-serving balderdash I've read in weeks. It's nauseating, and teeming with distortions and outright lies about Manning and Wikileaks.
Re:Quite simply lies (Score:4, Insightful)
Yesterday I had 14 mod points. Today I have none. I wish I could have given them all to you for that insightful comment, rather than have them vanish. You are spot on, and sum up perfectly what the correct response to this article is.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
The NYT would probably play by the rules for handling classified material. At best they would filter it our and post the most useful information in it. The simple truth is, if you are in the press there is a limit you can annoy the people you are publishing about.
Re:Quite simply lies (Score:5, Informative)
There is absolutely no way NYT would have touched Manning's cable archives. They would have feigned interest and then shopped him. Bill Keller knows this.
The OP is the biggest piece of self-serving balderdash I've read in weeks. It's nauseating, and teeming with distortions and outright lies about Manning and Wikileaks.
Lest we forget...Bill Keller was the executive editor of the NYT from 2003 to 2011, and perhaps the most telling decision of his tenure was to delay the story on NSA wiretapping for over a year, until well after the 2004 election. (OK, we don't know the timing for sure, because Keller has refused to any questions about it.)
IMHO, the man is a tool, pure and simple.
Gosh, I wonder... (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder if they would have simply sat on them for a year, like they did with the NSA wiretapping matter [nytimes.com] just because the feds asked them to?
At this point, "Why didn't he leak to the Times?" is only slightly less risible than "Why didn't he just register his concerns with the chain of command?"
Re:Gosh, I wonder... (Score:5, Insightful)
At this point, "Why didn't he leak to the Times?" is only slightly less risible than "Why didn't he just register his concerns with the chain of command?"
According to the article, he tried that too. When he uncovered what was supposed to be damning evidence of anti-Malaki propaganda was actually just an academic pamphlet on his regime (translated by a colleague), they told him to "drop it". Interesting stuff.
So... (Score:4, Insightful)
Heedless of the risk (Score:5, Informative)
WikiLeaks would not have been able to post the unedited cables, as it ultimately did, heedless of the risk to human rights advocates
That's one whopper of a half [techdirt.com] truth [nytimes.com].
Re: (Score:3)
"Half truth"? Lie.
Re: (Score:2)
But unfortunately it is half-true.
Wikileaks at least shares some of the blame [spiegel.de] for leaking the information. At least gross incompetence over the handling of sensitive information.
I'm not saying the NYTimes would have done any better, but I know if I handled sensitive information in my job as clumsily as Wikileaks did, I'd be shown the door pretty damn quick.
The New York Times publishes lies (Score:5, Insightful)
> WikiLeaks would not have been able to post the unedited cables, as it ultimately did, heedless of the risk to human rights advocates, dissidents and informants named therein
The unredacted cables were published by accident, with Wikileaks and The Guardian being about equally neglectful. The op-eds claim of "[publishing] heedless of the risk" here is a lie.
I know that it is an op-ed, and therefore not the New York Times' opinion, but the New York Times still have a responsibility to do a basic fact check before posting it.
Re: (Score:2)
actually, they do. But it varies massively.
Here's a story about how it took three months of jumping through hoops to get a single op-ed published : http://mondoweiss.net/2012/02/how-sarah-schulman-managed-to-get-pinkwashing-into-the-new-york-times.html [mondoweiss.net] . It wasn't nice to Israel you see.
In defense of the nytimes, it does make sense to be a
Alternate title: (Score:5, Funny)
What If The New York Times Still Mattered?
Re: (Score:2)
I know I've grown more conservative as I've gotten older, but I've been a long-time reader and subscriber to the NY Times (regular reader since college, subscriber since the first Clinton administration) and for me the NY Times seems to have gotten more and more politically strident in its editorial.
I don't mean to sound like a Fox News drone, either, but it's increasingly easy to see the Times simply avoid asking some questions in favor of others; too often it seems like the Democratic party and the left g
Nobody would have known (Score:4, Informative)
WTF?! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
There we go again (Score:2)
WikiLeaks would not have been able to post the unedited cables, as it ultimately did, heedless of the risk to human rights advocates, dissidents and informants named therein.
Either if the poster is a troll, has political motives or is just ignorant of the facts I cannot say. What I can say, is that, there are no unedited cables in the open the cables where edited to remove the names and only 3 names came out to the public, for reasons explained by the WikiLeaks team.
No one would know about it (Score:2)
The New York times would censor anything that would piss off major politicians. They simply would not want to lose their access to these folks and as such would have buried any cables on the backpages and censored anything too embarrassing.
It's really easy to say this now (Score:2)
Unless you show me an internal NYT document that can be clearly shown as having been written BEFORE the wikileaks thing that describes their policy on such matters, this is all revisionist history. How many times has the NYT published something they should have either a) confirmed or b) thought twice about because it would get someone killed?
What If Manning Had Leaked To the New York Times? (Score:2)
I read those Wikileaks in the NYTimes (Score:2)
Makes me glad (Score:2)
he sent them to WikiLeaks rather than the Times....
Looks like the Times is still pissed at assage. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think its because they are titled, old newspaper snobs who think its not only their duty, but their right to decide what the people get and do not get to hear. They are pissed that things like wikileaks exist in the first place and the old order of newsmedia is being shaken up.
The NYT thinks the people OWE the Times news stories, and they should just for them over, as if they are a perennial authority figure on everything news related.
Again with the leaks, they think it was their sole right to censor the government cables of what and what should not be shown to the public.
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/20/opinion/keller-wikileaks-a-postscript.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/28/julian-assange-press-wikileaks-documentary_n_1116599.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/26/new-york-times-assange-wikileaks_n_814434.html
So althought it was not wikileaks who outed Manning, but a hacker named Adrian Lamo, who Bradley Manning bragged to about leaking the docs.
So what got Bradley Manning caught was ultimately his own big mouth.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/03/adrian-lamo-bradley-manning-q-and-a
This article is nothing more than some weasel words to get potential informats to go back to the news media instead of new media, for all the wrong reasons. I wreaks of typical news trickery, and self-promotion.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Do you produce anything besides drivel?
Re:Left wing bird cage liner (Score:4, Insightful)
Okay, I'll bite.
The end result of a journalist's work is a product (called a newspaper even if it's only rehashes of things we all know and it's posted digitally).
What's your job, and what's the end product?
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Left wing bird cage liner (Score:5, Informative)
Be careful what you wish for.
We could always move the tax rates back to where they were when Reagan was in office.
It might actually pay for all of our military traipsing around the world.
Re: (Score:3)
Commenting on having no clue: Way to read too far into it.
My comment is saying that we spend waaaaay too much money being the world's police.
Re:Left wing bird cage liner (Score:5, Insightful)
you stupid elitist pricks all have a big laugh about the EVIL CONSERVATIVE and you pat each other on the back to cheer on yet more and more government, more regulations, more taxation, theft and erosion of the civil society.
You know, it takes a truly exception level of delusion to think that it's the elite in this country who want more taxes on themselves, and the average working people who want to cut all benefit programs and social safety nets for the average working people.
Yes, I'm sure all the billionaire power-brokers in this country are all Democrats who just hate it when Republicans pass tax breaks and pro-corporate laws that benefit themselves greatly. "Oh no, please make me pay more taxes and take away these laws that allow me to lord over the poor like a God!" I can hear Donald Trump and the Koch brothers saying.
Tell me, what color is the sky in your world?
Re:Left wing bird cage liner (Score:5, Insightful)
We just think it's funny that you keep calling Obama a socialist. All it shows is that you have no clue what the word means. Obama is not a socialist. The American Socialist Party doesn't even think he's a socialist.
I don't like or support Obama, but not because of his economic stance. The fact is that he'd be able to get a lot more done to help the country on the economic front if the Republicans weren't bound and determined to block everything he attempts to do.
Re:Left wing bird cage liner (Score:4, Insightful)
Republicans are on the record as vowing to block anything the Obama attempts to do.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/26/democrats-gop-plot-obstruct-obama [guardian.co.uk]
And yes, Obamacare is so socialist that it is virtually identical to a health care plan the the Republicans came up with several years back.
Obama is not trying to take away your guns or your Second Amendment rights. If you had been paying attention, you would have realized that he's trying to take away your Fourth Amendment rights.
Re:Left wing bird cage liner (Score:4, Insightful)
The constitution is and always has been a flawed legal document. It was amended before it even took effect to fix some of the flaws; it has been repeatedly amended since. It has too much bolt-on shit that's ineffective and poorly works around the framework it provides, and needs to be torn down and rewritten.
Gun crimes are committed by both legal and illegal gun owners--legal gun owners with your psychological profile are the likely to commit gun crimes, while those with more reservation and less paranoia are less likely. Legal gun owners with your mentality also commit more "justifiable homicide" because of a pattern of zero tolerance--of immediately and fatally employing a firearm where it would be legally and even barely justifiable, more concerned with "he had it coming, I was protecting myself" than trying to stay human. The strict, mechanical decision process of "there is a threat, I must eliminate it by any force" is inhuman.
Socialism is a good thing... in moderation. Socialist programs support and balance an economy, whereas pure socialism and pure capitalism both concentrate wealth and power into the hands of a few.
Further, context is important: Extremely small economies--for example, colonies of less than 100 people--benefit from full scale socialism because any other economy is infeasible; but as the colony grows, these economies quickly fail. This is because a family unit is inherently socialistic, and a small community must be socially tight-knit to survive. Larger, socially disconnected communities (nations of hundreds, thousands, millions) quickly lose such motivation because they lose sight of the need, and then lose the need outright; thus capitalism comes into play. As nations get quite large, capitalism fails; thus regulations must come into play to retain the benefits offered by capitalism.
Political parties promise the world, while economic theorists are used to back up assertions about capitalism and socialism and how we'd be much better off in a feel-good socialist utopia or a freedom-driven capitalist free market. The truth is all systems can be exploited; on a small scale exploitation is impossible because the risk is unmanageable (exploit your power in a colony of 50 people barely trying to survive as is and you'll probably collapse the economy, then you die with everyone else--if they don't hang you first and get on with their lives), but on a large scale it's too easy.
Micro-managing an economy is simply impossible on a large scale: socialism works, but only when you absolutely understand the needs and constraints of the entire economic system on all levels; you can't, and so capitalism allows for these details to work themselves out (i.e. delegation).
Capitalism is ripe for exploit and stagnation, however, and so minor socialist practices--regulations, tax incentives, etc--are put in place to guide the system. Excessive or improper use of these practices is destructive to the economy, but so is not employing them at all.
There is a balance. Nobody seeks it. Those in power seek more power, or seek to push ideals they believe will universally solve all problems; they won't.
Re: (Score:3)
Socialist systems that didn't work (not always due to their socialist policies but nevertheless): USSR, North VIetnam, DDR, Greece
Governments with many socialist policies that seem to work well for them: Switzerland, Norway, Finland, Sweden, China.
Bear in mind this is a complex issue, the difference between the way things are done in these different countries is massive. It is not possible to com
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Re:Left wing bird cage liner (Score:4, Informative)
NYT journalist?
Here's some fucking news, you cannot tax an economy into prosperity, unemployment is increasing and the cost of fucking hamburgers is going up thanks to Obama and all the socialists elected and supported by the NYT. They do not report news, they spin and transcribe what the elitists in government tell them to say. That's all.
What I do is none of your fucking business.
Sure you can tax into prosperity... Tax pays for services needed for prosperity, like security (police, defense), libraries, transport and communication infrastructure, education, a legal system etc at a minimum. This obviously doesn't mean that "more tax is always better", but some level of tax is needed. Providing care for the elderly and children increases the workforce and thus prosperity, but also requires funding.
The society might also find that handling things like health together through the tax system has benefits - when looked at purely through the numbers, US clearly pays far more (as %GDP) than anyone else with not very good results.
Re:Left wing bird cage liner (Score:5, Informative)
Also wealth redistribution can be good for an economy. It is what made the USA the powerhouse it was. WW2 and the programs of the great depression moved lots of money into the hand of the new middle class, they spent that money thus driving the economy. A single rich person has only so many needs they will spend money on, taking that money and giving it to people who will spend it will improve the economy. Today we see the reverse with a shrinking middle class and a slowing economy as wealth accumulates in the hands of a small few.
These are just facts, they have nothing to do with the morality of such action.
Re:Left wing bird cage liner (Score:4, Funny)
But see, that changes as soon as you call that rich person a Job Creator. A Job Creator can spend infinite money creating jobs, whereas the middle class will waste in on pointless things like mortgages, new technology, and transportation.
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A yes the mythical supply side economic system. One in which the rich hire poor people because they simply have too much profit in their companies. No matter how many folks are standing around getting paid to scratch their asses the "Job Creator" hires more and more workers as his revenue goes up or taxes go down.
These people must believe that the rich are no smarter than your average house cat.
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"These people must believe that the rich are no smarter than your average house cat"
I have come to the conclusion that the rich, indeed, are not smarter than the average house cat.
The economy lives and dies by people spending money.
People without jobs and people with lower paychecks just cant do that.
But still, the "Job Creators" keep sending jobs to other countries, bolstering their economies, bleeding ours....
Re:Left wing bird cage liner (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't know what sort of Communist society you live in, but in America people create jobs for people because they profit from it, not for charity. Jobs will be created when there is demand for those jobs (or the products that those jobs create). If there is no demand (for example, if there is no middle class to buy the products) then the rich people will not the create jobs. And they shouldn't. But, if all the rich people decide to stop creating jobs ("going Galt"), then there will still be demand and middle class or poor people will create the jobs themselves (because there is potential to make money - this is how small businesses are created).
It boggles my mind that all these Republicans think they have to worship rich people as gods or they will take all the jobs away. I don't thank my boss for giving me a job. My boss thanks me for being hardworking and productive by giving me bonuses and raises. My boss (who is a conservative) made a joke right after the election that he is going to have to fire people because his taxes were going to go up. I told him (lightheartedly of course) that if I did not already make him more money than I cost, then he should go ahead and fire me because I don't work for charity. Guess what? I am still working (he did not fire me).
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I think you misread some sarcasm there. Poe's law. It's weird living in a country where there are 2 parties and one defines itself by being factually wrong as much as possible. It makes it impossible to satire.
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Manual redistribution can in theory work, but only if the redistribution is done in a way that everyone understands the full implications and the way the money is applied is not sidetracked by political considerations and corruption. If you artificially buoy the standard of living in a country based on redistribution, eventually, everything will be redistributed and/or the rich will have departed for greener pastures. Then the standard of living will fail dramatically.
There is the strange idea that rich p
Re:Left wing bird cage liner (Score:5, Insightful)
Comeback without the strawman and total misunderstanding of systemic poverty and we can talk. Until then, fuck off.
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Like many conservative arguments, it's the kind of thing that seems like it's an absolutely perfect argument. Right up until you take a look at the world around you, and how things really are.
Because taking everything you've ever earned and giving it to someone that hasn't earned it is bad, therefore, therefore, any sort of taxation, and any sort of social welfare is bad. You always think in absolutes, and the world isn't like this.
Yes, there are some people who would never work if they didn't have to. B
Re:Left wing bird cage liner (Score:4, Insightful)
Because Troll and Flamebait are used since Slashdot has no "-1 conflicts with my ideology" moderation option.
I even address the fact that I was not supporting such a thing, but people still get upset if they see any remark that conflicts with their worldview.
Re:Left wing bird cage liner (Score:4, Insightful)
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Some things are not worth dealing with.
For instance there is no point in arguing with someone who claims the earth is flat. Nor is there a need to go talk to the bum on the corner screaming about the aliens.
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Not necessarily:
Side A: "The sky is blue."
Side B: "No, the sky is green."
Side A: "No, really, the sky is blue, look."
Side B: "I think the sky is really green, so it must be green."
Side A: "No it isn't. Use this camera, point it at the sky, and see what color the camera says the sky is."
Side B: "I still think it's green."
Side A: "See, as described by John Tyndall in 1859, the small particles in the air scatter the blue light more than the red light. This was later quantified by Lord Rayleigh when he determin
Re:Left wing bird cage liner (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure you can tax into prosperity... Tax pays for services needed for prosperity, like security (police, defense), libraries, transport and communication infrastructure,
education, a legal system etc at a minimum. This obviously doesn't mean that "more tax is always better", but some level of tax is needed. Providing care for the elderly and children increases the workforce and thus prosperity, but also requires funding.
One of the clearest indications that political thought is an oxymoron is the idea that everything must come in only 2 flavors and nothing between, and that all lines must be straight lines.
Reality isn't that tidy. There is a point where too little taxes fail society and a point where too much tax crushes. There's also a spot in between. Or actually, more of a blob, since there are a lot of variables in the equation. The blob can be larger or smaller or even inside-out depending on whether your demands exceed supply.
We are the most spoiled generation in all human history. We have all - even the eldest - spent all, or nearly all of our lives expecting things to become cheaper every day. Sure, we howl about inflation, but the truth is, anything electronic has been chasing Moore's law for decades, and almost everything we do any more ties into something electronic, even if it's just just sitting down at the PC and figuring out when to plant the South 40.
Matters only got worse when offshoring became economically viable. We've come to expect that Lower Prices Every Day is a right, and not simply being in the right place at the right time. No 16th-century farmer expected next year to require less effort or money to survive than last year.
So we do foolish things like lower taxes right before a recession is due when we should have been saving the money for when the rains came and lowering taxes afterwards. And compound it, by fighting to keep the taxes low even as we embark on expensive campaigns.
There's almost always something that isn't really necessary in any budget, whether it's personal, corporate, or government. And tough times help provide incentive for getting rid of it. Still, historically, we are used to being able to prosper while paying far more tax than we have for the last 10 years. And, frankly, the last 10 years have mostly been pretty miserable, so I don't buy the whole "lower taxes = more prosperity" line. If it can't work in a period that long, I'll likely die before it works at all - if it ever does. Ergo, it's useless for my purposes.
The one thing that more government money can do that no one else can, is spend money when no one else dares to. Governments don't have to show a profit (and shouldn't!), nor do they have to be concerned over-much about daily expenses. They can keep on cranking regardless, and if it isn't very efficient, nonetheless, it keeps money in circulation instead of being hoarded. Hoarded money doesn't really do anyone any good. Not even the hoarders. Until you spend it, money is just potential.
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Re:Controlled Media (Score:4, Insightful)
OK, big shot. Why don't you go ahead and tell me what rampant crime is running through our neighborhoods that isn't being reported on. Because I can tell you, with an extremely high level of confidence, that every single act of violence or criminality is taken by the media to be sensationalized and spun as a talking point for whatever agenda they are being paid to promote this week. Unless of course those acts of violence or criminality are being perpetuated by the people paying them the money, in which case yes, you won't hear a thing about it.
But the kinds of crimes that those people are perpetuating aren't the kind that make you batten down the hatches and dive under your bed. As a matter of fact, as far as real, violent crime is concerned, it's at it's lowest level in decades. But turn on the local ActionNews, and you'd think we're living in some post-apocalyptic Mad Max world, where just going outside is going to get you robbed and killed.
Funny, really. Because when I go outside, I still see the birds and the bees and the trees and things seem to be just like they've always been. It's all a matter of perspective.
Re:Manning is a Hero and a Traitor (Score:4, Insightful)
Unfortunately there's no, "you're an idiot" mod, so I'll leave you unmoderated and tell you directly. If Manning really did leak this information then yes, he's a hero. But he's not a traitor, and he deserves no punishment. He deserves what any hero does, but unfortunately he's getting what heroes too often get. Instead of praise and thanks for highlighting evil, and exposing dark secrets, he's getting punished for it. But that's to be expected, what evil organization actually likes being exposed as evil when they try and pretend otherwise?
People like to say, "oh, you broke the law, accept the consequences", but fuck that shit. If the law is wrong (and any law that forbids a person to revel wrong doing on the scale reveled by Manning, is wrong), then it is your duty to break it. And then to evade injustice. E.g. the mafia come and say, "we'll protect your shop from someone firebombing it", but if you reject their offer, you still have the right to defend your shop yourself from firebombing (which will come from the mafia). The mafia are the government, demanding you accept their laws or face the consequences they decided on.
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He's not a hero. He violated his contract with the US government. All claims to moral superiority on his part are void since he had no authorization to handle the materials in the first place and the indiscriminate nature of what he collected.
That being said I'd like to know who in the chain of command is going to be held responsible for the utter lack of operational security that made it possible for Manning to copy the files in the first place. Obviously nobody will because the higher ups are all going to
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He's not a hero. He violated his contract with the US government.
Those two are not mutually exclusive; in fact, I'd consider them quite strongly linked. The global bully who goes around kicking sand in others' faces is the US and has been for at least 35 years, possibly longer.
Re:Manning is a Hero and a Traitor (Score:4, Interesting)
He violated his contract with the US government.
- OMG and the US government has violated its contract with the entire USA, with all the people and all the States.
USA government was supposed to protect and defend the Constitution and the principles of individual rights, instead it's killing off individuals and is taking a long, stinking dump on the Constitution. It doesn't matter that somebody who signed up TO PROTECT THE CONSTITUTION is not following the orders of the system, that is clearly is violating its own oath to do the same.
He did not sign up to protect the government, he signed up to protect the Constitution.
Manning is doing his job, the rest of the government is not.
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As others have said, being hero and violating a contract with the mafia^W government are not mutually exclusive. Manning is a hero because he violated his contract exposing significant misdeeds and secrets that should never have been secret. He is a hero because he leaked information that has lead to the downfall over governments that were fundamentally undemocratic. He is a hero because in his position he saw a way to try and right a wrong, and he took that way.
You are worried about how Manning managed to
Re:Manning is a Hero and a Traitor (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Manning is a Hero and a Traitor (Score:4, Insightful)
However, he's also a fucking traitor and deserves the punishment which is coming to him
- I suppose he is a 'traitor' in the same way that an SS soldier would have been in Nazi units designed to burn people alive in concentration camps, for releasing the real information about the atrocities for all the public to find out.
USA government kills civilian children on daily basis with bombs, that's part of the information released by Manning. I don't give a shit what the literal legality is of what he did, he is not a traitor, the US government is the traitor of the principles that the country was founded upon.
USA government, every single fucker in it that knew and authorised that knows and authorises murder of people on daily basis should be rotting in jail, Manning is a normal person that became part of a completely corrupt, oppressive, ridiculously blood thirsty system and he did not stand for it. By releasing this information he notifies the public what atrocities are done in their name under the pretence of 'protecting the Constitution', while in reality completely abandoning the Constitution and destroying every principle that the USA Republic was founded upon.
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This country was founded on the principals of voting only for landed gentry, slavery and theft of land from the natives.
I don't see how bombing brown children is outside the scope of the above.
Should we strive to do better? Yes, but lets not pretend this nation was founded by Saints.
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Disenfranchising the poor is simply evil. Its only purpose is to ensure an underclass that can be continually exploited.
Almost all the people who think are leaches are most likely getting back SS money they paid or are the working poor. Hopefully when you retire you will stop voting. I know you need to feel superior to someone but dumping on the poor is not very classy.
I have no interest in your randian fantasies, take that drivel elsewhere.
Manning got caught violating his oath, he will be punished. If he h
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Without SS their will be old people begging in the streets. The simple fact is either through their own mistakes or by unfortunate circumstances many people will never have enough money to retire. When they can no longer work either we can help them or allow them to starve on the street. No amount of your ideology will change reality.
The free market does not raise all boats equally, that is a myth. Again, look at history not ideology.
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Stop with the ideology.
If we stop SS payments right now, people will be forced onto the street. That is a fact, unless you have some alterative for paying their bills.
For the most of human existence retirement did not exist. People worked until they died. That was it. There is no need to save for retirement when you die in the fields at 50 or in the mine at 45.
There exists a huge class of workers who literally could save every dime they don't spend on necessities and still not have enough to retire ever.
Eve
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So then why is welfare ok but not SS?
Do you think welfare should be used for this purpose? That being the retirements of those without another option.
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HAHAHAHAHAHA, you actually fucking believe that?
Look at the life of the average person before 1913 and get back to me.
We did not get a shorter work week until after 1913. Labor regulation did that, not any magical market.
Go visit puerto rico, pay close attention to all the homeless and those who serve you the drinks with the umbrellas in them. Ask them how they are saving for their retirement.
All the economic freedom in the world does not mean shit when you have no money.
Re:Manning is a Hero and a Traitor (Score:4, Insightful)
Free market capitalism is as removed from reality as ideal communism, and just as unworkable in practice with large groups of people. Social Security has zero contribution to our national debt -- if anything, Congress needs to stop looting it for purposes entirely unrelated to public welfare.
As for Bradley Manning, I wish we as a nation would grow a spine and stand up against the injustice against him, the injustice against other whistleblowers, and the injustices he helped expose. We need to drag the authoritarians kicking and screaming through an equitable process to make this happen, but it's something we would all be better off doing.
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limiting suffrage to land owners was one of those principles, and I completely agree with it, land owners were the ones paying taxes, but today it cannot be limited just to land owners, but it must be limited at the most to the people who are paying taxes
To put it bluntly, fuck that. This would only give the wealthy elite another very powerful tool to disenfranchise less-wealthy voters.
Do I think people who don't own land should be able to vote? Yes. People who don't pay taxes? Yes. Convicted felons in prison? Yes. 16-year-olds? Yes. (In fact, I'm leaning towards not having an absolute age restriction at all.) Every citizen with a civic conscience, no matter how much I may agree or disagree with them, should be able to vote for the people that rule them.
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USA government kills civilian children on daily basis with bombs, that's part of the information released by Manning. I don't give a shit what the literal legality is of what he did, he is not a traitor
USA government, every single fucker in it that knew and authorised that knows and authorises murder of people on daily basis should be rotting in jail, Manning is a normal person that became part of a completely corrupt, oppressive, ridiculously blood thirsty system and he did not stand for it.
Thank you, roman_mir, for telling it like it is. I often rage at your comments, but it's good to see that we agree on some important things.
Re:Manning is a Hero and a Traitor (Score:5, Informative)
I feel the same way, except I believe the cables should have been edited for names of the innocent and so on.
They were. Wikileaks didn't release the unedited cables, and I doubt Manning would have been willing to leak them without assurance that they would redact dangerous information. The problem was that "respectable newspapers" (The New York Times, The Guardian, and Der Spiegel) were involved in the redaction process, and The Guardian used the opportunity for a scoop. Maybe NYT is more trustworthy than The Guardian - I don't know - but it is deeply ironic that they are using this of all things as an example of being better "legally, morally, and security-wise" than Wikileaks when Wikileaks's only shortcoming was involving the likes of NYT in the first place.