(V): I don't trust one word that guy says. I wish you'd come up with a more reliable and less biased source.

I'll probably have horrible internet problems from march on.

How about turning this board into a humoristic, real-life satire virtually political cabaret? Just a proposal.

(V): They should support copyright laws that cover all countries.

I can understand companies wanting to protect their creations but I don't believe taking over the internet is the way to support existing copyright laws.

Übergeek has some very good comments on this issue.

Jack: It's EU legislation regarding intellectual property. It's not law yet and may never be. most attempts by the industry to directly interfere with internet have failed and found to be illegal.

Übergeek 바둑이: SOPA and PIPA are dead in America for now but I see Britain has just wrote up legislation that is just as bad.
I am sure our corporate interests will come up with legislation similar to SOPA and PIPA and just try to color it over. Your right about violence and pornography on the internet and even TV is being allowed to use disgusting language now.

(V): The entire republican party supports nothing but big business and communist union busting. It was the republican party that deregulated Wall Street and allowed outsourcing jobs.

I have looked at the news and debates on these laws. It is funny that the American and other governments are so interested in stopping illegally copied and counterfeit goods (mostly music and movies). At the same time they will do nothing to stop truly destructive things.

It is illegal to copy a movie, but it is legal to make a mysogynistic pornographic film. Half of the Internet is full of pornography that objectifies and denigrates women, men and even children. I wonder if they will shut down or fine advertisers of those sites.

It is illegal to copy a video game, but it is legal to make a video game where people get blown up. I wonder if they will make it illegal to feed to children and youth graphic, interactive violence.

As usual, it is all about money. The only reason why they care about this law is to protect the revenues of billionaires. Here are the Hollywood and media billionaires. Not content with having made billions, they want to continue to make billions. I don't blame artists for wanting to protect their interests and money. If they pass SOPA and PIPA, will they also pass laws that ban violence and pornography in the Internet? After all, many of the users of the Internet are children and youth.

At this point the defenders of "free speech" will stand up on their soap box and say that pornography and violence are a necessary evil to protect free speech. I wonder if free speech is on the mind of the mysogynists that make pornography or the sociopaths that make violence a game. They will say it is up to the parents to stop children from watching pornography and violence. Should it be up to the parents to stop kids from copying movies and games?

Here is the ridiculous thing:
It is illegal to copy a movie of a woman being fisted or being penetrated by three men at the same time, but it is perfectly legal to make that movie.
It is illegal to copy a game where people get beheaded or blown up, but it is legal to make such a game.

.... Perfect example ....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXqLwiy2adU&feature=related


Who in the Republican party support base is for tax fraud by the rich and your representatives?

(V): Yes Cuba was a horrible case of the rich and shameless gone mad. It was the same with Iran. People are taught to hate these people and call them terrorists because they are tired of seeing their children starved and and murdered for no reason.

It was a sad day when the American public decided it could trust Hollywood actors to represent them and today all politicians seem to take acting lessons to win elections. Most of our politicians don't have enough eduction to even write a simple speech and only have to suck up to corporations to buy elections.

My own people just whine about things they don't like but keep supporting them.

Look at our TSA at airports. The harassment is nothing but sexual harassment and it is allowed to continue. People will not stop flying for a few weeks to stop this criminal all they do is take the abuse and keep running.

We don't even have a two party system any more it's the same fascism with business regardless who we elect. This endless neocon war profiteering has to stop and it would help if our allies would stop supporting it.

Jack: The new enforcement systems were stupid. They were already useless and would have made no difference to the problem. The only people in the end that would benefit would be the lawyers.

"Our ruling bodies have become so deep in conflicts of interest and insider trading they are no longer able to function as a body that supports the public will or the public good."

Last night on "Question time", I watched as the question of whether the UK government would block the bonus to be paid to the RBS boss (which the UK owns 5/6's of) at the shareholders meeting. His Salary is £1,200,000.... the bonus is £932,000. We were told no bouses would be paid till the bank was back in the 'black'. If the UK government lets him get the bonus, I can see more demonstrations and an increased possibility of social unrest.

... Last December our UK gov wrote off £25,000,000,000 known to have been lost in tax fraud...

"since Reagan all presidents regardless of party have continued on his path to destruction."

Because the US political system is a joke from too many politicians at all levels being quite happy to take bribes from lobbyists.

"It was hard to believe people do not know about WWII and what created it but now it is easy as I watch my fellow citizens continue to cheer on their own destruction."

With so much home ed based on people not wanting their children to learn certain aspects of why we got here and other matters of life. With certain liberties that allow neo Nazism (probably as many German immigrants actually supported the Nazi's in WWII) .... I ain't suprised, just a little shocked the figures were over 30%

"Not so long ago our schools taught civics as a mandatory subject but today civic classes are unheard of unless people study political science in college and then they are getting a healthy does of fake history."

Not as bad as when I was a kid, we did have one savvy teacher though who taught economics.... it was more of that in the books, some details were missing.. like the reason for the Cuban revolution was greedy American corporations turning Cuba into a virtual new 'slave' labour force.

"Since corporations bought up all the media outlets their is no more news just the version that pays the highest profits. I find foreign news services more reliable than our own media outlets."

The Guardian and Independent are recognised as being the only unbiased papers in the UK where real news is still accessible. The rest is basically right wing fear merchants. And thanks to digital and the internet we can finally question what we are told to fear.

.. Unless we are taught not to question and punishment for such was hellish

(V): It seems now all I can do legally is buy copyright material for my own personal use and I am breaking some law if I decide to just give it away.
The laws being created today are targeted to give complete control of the public to corporations. When I pay for something shouldn't I have a right to use it as I will and not be dictated to as long as I don't use it in a harmful way?

Corporate personhood http://john101b.ipage.com/politics/citizensunited.html is a good example of what America has degenerated to. Our ruling bodies have become so deep in conflicts of interest and insider trading they are no longer able to function as a body that supports the public will or the public good.

You are right about Reagan and the harm he did but since Reagan all presidents regardless of party have continued on his path to destruction. Bush was placed in the white house by the supreme court instead of allowing the election process to be carried out and then we go worldwide claiming rogue governments are destroying democracy.

It was hard to believe people do not know about WWII and what created it but now it is easy as I watch my fellow citizens continue to cheer on their own destruction.

Not so long ago our schools taught civics as a mandatory subject but today civic classes are unheard of unless people study political science in college and then they are getting a healthy does of fake history.
The media has a lot to do with this takeover to. Since corporations bought up all the media outlets their is no more news just the version that pays the highest profits.
I find foreign news services more reliable than our own media outlets.

Bwild: It's not that the rich are rich. It's the difference in the scales of pay that has widened over the last few decades.

That the CEO's now earn 260 times+ the wage of the average earner (in the USA) compared to in 1965 when it was 26 times, and that the Church support them because of the donations they make. Often, not as much as declared on tax returns.

Bernice: Particulary funny as that video was made pre party switch over. Ironically now Republicans should be substituted for Democrats.

And after hearing some polls and studies as reported by Bill Maher...

... How can people not know who the allies fought against in WWII?

Jack: Since the 80's and Raygun started getting 'religion' ingrained in the election process. Yes.

It seems now a battle of who's the better Christian and therefore negates the separation of state and church. That churches are now being used as pulpits for political parties using that old tool fear.

"I just wish Free Europe would stand up to American corporate war profiteering and stop supporting it."

I wish that fines and consequences of white collar crime were as tough as for those who commit speeding and based on the amount. But with the lobbying that goes on.... or not if our politicians are to be believed!!

Jack: Yes... mostly very good and rightfully there. I did (when in place) disagree with the law that disallowed copying of bought content to preserve the original or to allow playing on another media, such as in the old days vinyl to tape for ya walkman.

The only thing that to a degree is stopping alot of people going legit is price even through just watching it via a purely digital medium.

Now, not so much as the industry has listened to Joe public, yet in the pre digital age it was strange that in the UK we paid £10 for the same item that cost in the USA $10 (at the time £5)

... or as (don't know now) that it was cheaper for a person who worked on cruise ships to buy an item in the USA, pay the import duty and get it converted to 240V.

Übergeek 바둑이: you summed it up in a nutshell. theres no "left" or "right" but corporate and money changers.

gogul: Their is no capitalism anywhere now it's all fascism. Corporate control of the world by pigs feeding at the troth.

Jack: No ox or moke stop capitalism on its ride !!


http://www.stuttmann.de

gogul: http://john101b.ipage.com/politics/oie_25124156p3YkPOTL.jpg

Follow news from the dark side at the wef in davos .. :-)^џ

Übergeek 바둑이: You forgot, "Just like a Guatemalan."

Übergeek 바둑이: What changes everything is that informations reach almost every corner of this world. The degree of exploitation explodes in regions where soils get destroyed, homes and home get taken and given lost for these people to go to the factory, estranged from their own countrylands. I mean, I know adresses of Nestlé, Syngenta, ABB and so on, USB or rich Egyptians btw. Our multis are classical xenophobes, "hostile to foreigners", literally. Maybe not demagogs, but hostile to foreigners. Absolutely.

gogul: Henry Ford was one of the greatest robber barons of all. He paid his workers $5.00 a day when his cars finally started selling.

Übergeek 바둑이: Their are no capitalist governments they have all become fascist sucking up to corporate money and creating poverty in what was once called the free world.

gogul:

People forget that the entire "Representative Democracy" scam exists with one and only one purpose: To stop the people from going into another Fench Revolution. Capitalist governments fear revolution more than anything in the world. So the entire political and financial system exists only to stop revolutions from happening so that the rich and powerful can stay where they are. All the crisis and fear mongering exists to distract the population so that they can keep consuming like automatons. As long as the working class lowers its head, the rich and powerful are happy. Democracy and capitalism simply ensure that those heads stay lowered. We no longer need chains to be slaves. We use wages and money to keep the lower classes where they belong. Then we tell the wage slaves that they are "free" because they can consume anything they want. Then we tell them that they have "political power" because we let them cast a meager vote once every four years. Meanwhile the rich and powerful stay where they are: ruling everybody.

Bernice:

Hilarious! You could put just about anything at the end of that line. "Just like a democrat." "Just like a Communist." "Just like a Tea Partier." "Just like a shopper in Walmart." It works with just about anything!

And here a religious joke: When individuals like intriguers realize that their game will be lighted, they start to fear to get hanged one day. But this makes everything worse. They should face up to eternal hell instead, that could lead them to the right path.

You know, if governments would start to do useful things with money, people could realize how cheap money currently is, they seem to fear this.. As if Henry Fords words would be true, that if the people realize how the monetary system works, there would be revolutions of the worst and such. The contrary is true. We, the people, would in fact be very happy and even grateful.

At least generations die.

European Stability Mechanism under the lead of Germans, forward deployed for a year, just like that, with a snap on one's fingers. 500 billion Euro. Not as stimulus for starving villages and districts, but for finance metropoles to do business as usual in our much-vaunted waste economy, exploitation elsewhere for our consumption sedation. I'm proved (you can smile) in my assumptions to see dreadful earth destroyers in our top politicians.

(V): Besides their are already copyright laws in place to protect all countries from theft and all we need to do is get together and start supporting the rule of law.

(V): Unfotunately America is becoming more fascist all the time. The supreme court with their citizens united rul of corporate personhood has really put American politics into buying elections instead of electing good leadership. I just wish Free Europe would stand up to American corporate war profiteering and stop supporting it.

Jack: I hope so, rather strange that they target the sites rather than the companies advertising on them. I would have thought if they really wanted to stop file sharing, they would approach the problem from all levels.

But.. I guess going after companies is so hard for the USA as they seem to be protected by the constitution and lobbyists of said country.

(V): It was a good protest to stop corporate government takeover of the internet.

Wikipedia..... Close down or fine the advertisers?

gogul: Certain spaces of european power abuse start to slowly understand that they are completely unnecessary, that the world will run better without them and who start to be mentally ill about bad conscience being a bad bad buzzer. huh, still a lot to do.

Übergeek 바둑이: Video games have been proved to calm down, it's a reducer of aggressions, amok runners take their urge out of other things, even if some of them played these sort of games. Although this game you mention is certainly in anyway nothing for kids. It's the blunted affect militarists are looking for with these games, killing without emotions.

Übergeek 바둑이: the ois*fg business interests of the past two, three decades were ideologic, even if until the end of the nineties, the neoconservatism was transported as rational economical attitude (which was never seen so by the left). At least since 9/11 it became clear to a broad population that the economical thinking was a redistribution program, deeply ideologic and suppressive. Not because of 9/11, but because of what happened after that. At least since then it became clear that this god talking to G.W. Bush has nothing to do with the biblical Jesus at all. This god the american establishment was praying to, and still is, was the god also know under the name "Wall Street", a religious project of commercialisation of every aspect of life, in big parts under the guise of the biblical God - abused and misguided Americans, for a man who demonstrated about 2000 years ago that we give a damn on God, to console his true followers.

I'm not coincidently choosing a religious rhetoric. All nonbelievers out there with their heart at the right place should be thankful that people like me do study the matter this way. Power is magic of a sort common people can't grasp self-evidently. Our powerful man and woman "up there" are drunken by this magic, the economical thinking outgoing from anglo-saxon business schools and wall street not only ideological, but also a religious project. In their ivory towers they feel like greek gods on the mount olympus and this olympus sort of works and humanistic values are a afterwit, there are still of those who just laugh about us the people.

We have to implement morality in leadership and we can't do this with the current personnel at a rate of 90%, because it will be visible soon enough that those man and woman abused for years, telling lies, rearranged language and bought certain to shut up and destroyed others (like me but I didn't mind one, two, three, four, five times etc.), abused the system at their advantage since they climbed up these stairs to power, it's generations of generations of abuse over many, many centuries.

We want to tell these people on power to just move off their seats and positions, it must be an awful trap to be caught in the act of stealing public means to fill up private purses to be drowned in money (it must, it has to be an awful trap). Usury of 90% is the way to go for the upper class, you'll see these words proved by reality, 80% of the suffering worldwide a stupefying unnecessary.

yoyudax:

> We should be looking rather at a society that breeds these types of men, then harnesses and nurtures these instincts and finally celebrates their achievements.

War is a business, and western governments went into war not to promote their ideology but to promote their business interests. Our politicians can talk of freedom and democracy, but the reality is that the entire "intelligence" system exists to justify wars that have as their objective to build ever greater empires. National security is the excuse through which empires are built, and freedom and democracy are the ideological battle cries.

Our governments are made of hypocrites. The best proof of that is the recent visit by David Cameron to Saudi Arabia. His primary objective was to secure the sale of 70 fighter jets to the most despotic kingdom and main supporter of Al Qaeda in the Middle East. When convenient, our governments do business with tyrants, and when convenient, they call them enemies and do war with them.

The American government could have stopped the sale of violent video games to children. Instead they blocked the proposed law and let parents buy war video games that are nothing but propaganda to shape young minds into believing that "war is cool and heroic".

The Pentagon spends milliong of dollars developing video games, financing movies, promoting advertising and using all forms of media to ensure that young people enlist in wars under the hope of becoming heroes. Instead our youth become desensitized, ideologically-blind killers. When they don't come back in body bags, they come back with post-traumatic stress disorder, sociopathic disorder and even psychopathic disorder.

The men who urinated on those corpses became psychopaths because only a psychopath would place so little value in life that he would think it is OK to denigrate and humiliate a dead body. They became psychopaths not to promote freedom and democracy in Afghanistan, but to build and protect a pipeline that will bring oil from the Caspain Sea basin into Pakistan and India.

These men will now be made "an example of", but an example of what? After a few months in jail, they will be released. A slap in the wrist will not be an example of justice, but an example of cold indifference and western hypocrisy. In the meantime, kids can keep playing "Call of Duty" so that they can grow up to become like these men.

"Funny commercial" --> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9RBCr56i08

yoyudax: Yes. This is a war, while you may not agree with it, the guys who are dead were actively engaged in said war.

The standard of military rules established is respect for the combatant dead. They are dead, they cannot shoot, kill, bomb or otherwise pursue the death of anyone else.

Also this act now it has gone viral, is likely to cause a spike in recruitment in enemy combatants..... ie more people attempting to shoot/kill troops active in Afghanistan. So in essence, those four soldiers have contributed to the deaths of their own.

"We should be looking rather at a society that breeds these types of men"

... limited employment prospects, Salusa Secundus style harshness and savage use of country/faith without question.. or that they are kids?

Yes, it is despicable to urinate on a corpse, but this was filmed because they saw nothing wrong with it. They are operating on some moral high, the legitimacy of their cause. They have just killed these men but you guys are complaining because they "peed" on them. What is the penalty for denigrating a corpse? You think 6 months in jail is not enough but murder that is ok? We should be looking rather at a society that breeds these types of men, then harnesses and nurtures these instincts and finally celebrates their achievements.

Übergeek 바둑이: I have to agree with you, our legal systems have been inadequate. Especially when influenced by politicians and agencies wishing to hide their dirty laundry, or use legal jargon that has no real reality bar making justification morally easier for the voting public to digest.

Yet I've noticed over the last decade or so that hiding has become much harder. The reporting and investigation done, even with the various biases revealing much by how they write.

.. and even with the likes of Murdoch and other right wing news outlets, we still have some independent journalistic outlets.

So, while I don't trust our legal systems, I know it is being watched. And I do trust our deep down humanity.

(V):

> Heads will hopefully roll on both sides of the pond.

I wish that I had your faith in the legal system. To me the legal system is an inadequate joke when it comes to war crimes comitted by western military forces. I look at the Abu Graib case, and not a single one of the soldiers involved served a full sentence. Most of them pleaded guilty, "cooperated" with prosecutors and got either reduced or suspended sentences. The ones that served sentences ended up being paroled early. It is a joke to me that these people could torture and sexually abuse prisoners, and get no substantial punishment. Worst of all, they can still return to active duty even if they were demoted to privates. Abuses at Guatanamo bay have received no legal prosecution and have for the most part been swept under the carpet.

These men urinating on corpses will be demoted, have their pay suspended for a month, and serve at most 6 months in prison. It will be another legal joke just like Abu Graib.

Übergeek 바둑이: I think it's more a case of the psychology of someone who kills easily, any elite force is going to have a high degree of this small percentage of humanity (something like only 3-4%) .... and that within this small percentage you are going to have a few some real morons with no respect.

They'll be caught and made an example of. Of course the name of the person filming and uploading it will come out. Then it becomes a matter of how much of a sheep they were.

Artful Dodger: You would have thought knowing what could happen to them if caught, they would've not wanted it videoed. Just as the UK intelligence service is now facing investigation on handing over people to the former Gaddafi regime knowing they would be tortured.

The records found by the rebels are rather incriminating

Heads will hopefully roll on both sides of the pond.

(V):

I suppose that humilliating a dead body shows their courage, determination and devotion to freedom and democracy. As always, the fascist nature of the war rears its ugly head. One would like to believe that it is the exception rather than the rule, but as with Abu Graib, the crime is not in doing something rotten, but in being so stupid as to film it and then expect it never to be seen by anybody else. I am sure the whistleblower who leaked it will end up in a court martial because the real crime is exposing a dirty secret and then "risking national security".

(V): First of all: Why did they video tape it??? And how is it that tapes like this get out??? Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb!!! I hope those idiots all get discharged and lose all their $$ etc. Idiots.

(V): A typical misunderstanding. They don't know how it really works. They, among others, need a lesson in capitalism. (hint --> employment protection).