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Code that helped end Apartheid

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Re: Code that helped end Apartheid

#201

Post by gramie »

motohagiography wrote: post #101

I remember the activist campaigns and the movie Cry Freedom about Steve Biko, another SA activist, had a significant impact on my worldview growing up. As revolutions and coups go it was clearly a success. I'd wonder how much of a role their electronic opsec played in it. I think it was the ANC and its activists organizing the coalition of other countries to sanction and isolate the government that ultimately caused…

I watched the movie shortly before going to Lesotho (the enclave country Donald Woods and his family escaped to) and crossing the border into "Transkei" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bantustan) at the same bridge he entered Lesotho.

To be honest, I was prepared to see all white South Africans as evil oppressors, and it took me a while to see that there was a spectrum -- many of whom I met -- from oppressors to opportunists to passive enablers to freedom/justice fighters.

One of my distant relatives in South Africa was decidedly racist, but mourned how his son had gone from playing with the children of black farmworkers to, after a stint in the South African Defence Forces, being a vicious white supremacist.

Re: Code that helped end Apartheid

#202

Post by gramie »

rsynnott wrote: post #6

You know it's _proper_ vintage crypto code because it uses the now very unfashionable word 'encipher'.

Traditionally, encode meant to use one word/symbol to represent another, while encipher meant to transform one (usually mathematically) into another.

For example, "Tora, Tora, Tora" was a code that had no intrinsic meaning, but was the signal to proceed with the Pearl Harbor attack. No way to reverse that.

Meanwhile, "THE QUICK BROWN FOX JUMPS OVER THE LAZY DOG" can be transformed with a Caesar cipher to "QEB NRFZH YOLTK CLU GRJMP LSBO QEB IXWV ALD". It can easily be reversed.

Re: Code that helped end Apartheid

#203

Post by wahnfrieden »

cempaka wrote: post #127
eastbound wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

What percentage of Gaza, would you say, has to be leveled and carpet bombed before you would no longer characterize the Israelis as "limiting collateral damage"?

Total nuclear annihilation. They consider their restraint against doing the temptation laudable

Re: Code that helped end Apartheid

#204

Post by andrepd »

psd1 wrote: post #186
anthk wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So did the Italians, and I'm not sure if I would like Meloni ruling either Madrid or Barcelona... or the whole Mediterranean Europe and a chunk of Asia.

user fldsk means to say 6000 year history, of course. But I'm willing to come down on that, since Genesis is a bit of a chronological hand-wave. I'm relying on whatever Synod counted the ages of people in the talks and arrived at a creation date of 4004 BC, of course If we grant that Italy is Rome, which is a separate conversation, then we're still left with Roman conquest, which we don't consider legitimate today, a…

> Genesis is a bit of a chronological hand-wave

What do you mean? Genesis is not remotely a historically accurate narrative at all

Re: Code that helped end Apartheid

#205

Post by ein0p »

fldskfjdslkfj wrote: post #197
ein0p wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seek different news sources. That earthquake in Iran wasn’t an earthquake. It didn’t have aftershocks and USGS couldn’t determine the depth.

Enjoy your speculative theories. Lots of minor earthquakes don't have aftershocks, not to mention that Iran is one of the most seismically active countries in the world. But please feel free to provide a trustworthy news source backing your claim.

What is a “trustworthy news source” these days. I saw the seismograph charts on Twitter. If you expect any “trustworthy” news in an environment where US MIC could get another trillion dollars in (borrowed) taxpayer money, I have a bridge I’d like to sell.

Re: Code that helped end Apartheid

#206

Post by robertoandred »

Qem wrote: post #121
anovick wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no similar context because the Apartheid system that existed in South Africa has no resemblance to today's Israel. In particular: - There's no racial segregation laws; an Arab-Israeli can travel anywhere a Jewish-Israeli can. In fact, Arabic is an officially recognized language by the state of Israel, and throughout the country, every public service has signs in Arabic alongside Hebrew. - Jews are not a minor…

> There's no similar context because the Apartheid system that existed in South Africa has no resemblance to today's Israel. According to Human Rights Watch[1], Amnesty International[2], and many other human rights organizations, the regime in Israel today is in fact recognized as a system of apartheid. Mandela himself shown a lot of solidarity to the palestinian cause[3]. [1] https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/th…

So, believe biased organizations or the dictionary. I'll go with the dictionary.

Re: Code that helped end Apartheid

#207

Post by [deleted] »

ein0p wrote: post #205
fldskfjdslkfj wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Enjoy your speculative theories. Lots of minor earthquakes don't have aftershocks, not to mention that Iran is one of the most seismically active countries in the world. But please feel free to provide a trustworthy news source backing your claim.

What is a “trustworthy news source” these days. I saw the seismograph charts on Twitter. If you expect any “trustworthy” news in an environment where US MIC could get another trillion dollars in (borrowed) taxpayer money, I have a bridge I’d like to sell.

[deleted]

Re: Code that helped end Apartheid

#208

Post by fldskfjdslkfj »

ein0p wrote: post #205
fldskfjdslkfj wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Enjoy your speculative theories. Lots of minor earthquakes don't have aftershocks, not to mention that Iran is one of the most seismically active countries in the world. But please feel free to provide a trustworthy news source backing your claim.

What is a “trustworthy news source” these days. I saw the seismograph charts on Twitter. If you expect any “trustworthy” news in an environment where US MIC could get another trillion dollars in (borrowed) taxpayer money, I have a bridge I’d like to sell.

A news source that has confirmed with at least one seismology expert who has conducted a thorough (preferably peer reviewed) analysis showing that the charts are abnormal for an earthquake and are more inline with those of an explosion.

It seems to me like it's should be extremely easy to distinguish the two, there's more than enough earthquake data - and that fact that there is no such report says it all. For starters i'd even take an amateur analysis, but just some dude on twitter saying "there was seismic activity - must be a nuclear test" - nah.

Re: Code that helped end Apartheid

#209

Post by gspencley »

oa335 wrote: post #118
gspencley wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> Because my personal operating definition is where you have one single country that has a different set of laws for different groups of people living in that country based on their ethnicity or skin colour. “ Walk around Hebron, look at the streets. Streets where Arabs are no longer allowed to go on, only Jews.” - says Amiram Levin, former head of the Israeli army’s Northern Command. https://www.haaretz.com/israel-n…

Hebron is not part of Israel & is not governed by Israel. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebron_Governorate

Also, and I don't want to take a position here, my advocacy is for learning as much about the history and current state of affairs as possible in order to form an informed position, because not only is there fog of war going on right now, but there is a decades long conflict with lots of narratives and propaganda.

I say that to offer a counter narrative in pursuit of objectivity: if you ask an Israeli, there are many areas in the West Bank that are deemed "no go zones" for for Jews, but there are none that apply to non-Jews.

And as for the security and the "check points", those are applied equally to everyone who is there, regardless of citizenship or ethnicity or any other considerations. So even if it's a shitty situation, it's not targeted at any specific ethnic group.

So given that a) Israel does not govern Hebron and b) the security check points are not specific to any ethnic group, how is Hebron a data point that supports the "apartheid" charge?

Re: Code that helped end Apartheid

#210

Post by fldskfjdslkfj »

Cyph0n wrote: post #199
daseiner1 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

South Africa’s done great since the end of apartheid

Only a privileged fool would think that prosperity justifies the continuation of injustice.

Oh to the contrary - It would be the privileged who would be fine chasing some ideal in the name of justice while sacrificing all the unprivileged people who are actually suffering day to day.
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