71–80 of 83 posts
I don't think Ecuador has the infrastructure to support WikiLeaks. Hosting on a different continent seems scary in this situation where you're pissing off governments.
The offer is to Assange, not to wikileaks, so no infrastructure required. All it takes to manage wikileaks is ssh access to a bunch of servers hosted all over the place.
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It's only one walk to the voting booth if there's an alternative available to vote for. Significant changes in US politics have cost lives, blood, and suffering.
The first step is for the majority to recognize the dysfunction of our democracy. People have to realize that self-censorship and self-imposed oppression is keeping them down. As long as the large majority are drinking the kool-aid they will just end up being manipulated powerful elites and they will vote against their own interests. On the other hand, in US most people still have access to the voting booth, and to a…
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That just sounds snarky, knee jerk to put down Ecuador without any context. A coup attempt was made against Ecuadorian President Correa, a coup attempt was made against Venazuelan President Chavez, destabilizing efforts are done against Bolivian President Morales, Haitian President Aristide was kidnapped out of Haiti in 2004, Honduran President Zelaya was ousted in a coup in 2009. The article points out Ecuador's mot…
Sorry, I don't mean it as a slight toward Ecuador. My point is that it's easy to espouse objectivity when it's someone else's dirty laundry being aired. I question whether any nations' leadership (not just Ecuador) would remain friendly to Assange if it were their own diplomats' private communications being exposed.
Edit: Mistake about the 60's being when U.S. women grads surpass men. I think that is more recent in the U.S., like this decade.
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Some people have done a lot, sometimes with government support, but those are a tiny minority when compared to the people they represented. You shouldn't judge a people by the actions of their leaders.
You should judge a people if they fancy themsevles a democracy (especially if they think their democracy is so good it deserves to be "exported" to other countries!)
The US might have the most imperialist foreign policy on the planet, but many democracies have relatively fresh blood on their collective hands, and many more haven't washed off the dried blood.
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> In fact, the one constant in South America is how much they hate the US I am not sure where you have been or what you have experienced, but I wouldn't call it a constant. I never noticed this widespread hatred towards the US you mention in Brazil, Argentina or Chile. I understand most of the northern Latin America may harbor strong negative feelings towards the US, but I can tell you Brazilians really don't care th…
> Besides that, it's really childish to hate a country. Perhaps, but it's rather mature to hate a country's government, particularly when that government is busily taking away people's freedoms, e.g. with the ACTA treaty.
On reflection, I think this is too strongly worded. Hating a government can be counterproductive because the emotion can get in the way of devising an optimium strategy to counter what one doesn't like.
"Never hate your enemies. It affects your judgment." -- Michael Corleone, Godfather III
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The first step is for the majority to recognize the dysfunction of our democracy. People have to realize that self-censorship and self-imposed oppression is keeping them down. As long as the large majority are drinking the kool-aid they will just end up being manipulated powerful elites and they will vote against their own interests. On the other hand, in US most people still have access to the voting booth, and to a…
I am not sure why what a government says about its own qualities should determine the level of responsibility its people bear for it's actions.
When we grew up in Soviet Union, we knew propaganda when we heard it or saw it. We didn't criticize it in public, but in private we laughed at it.
I am surprised at how uncritical Americans are of their own history, political issues, external relations, and media bias,
Most believe they have the most objective and free press and the most democratic government system (they are even willing to export it!).
So if most feel like they live in a democracy and feel like they can vote and their vote can really count, then they should be held responsible for the result of their vote (or lack of).
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"Some people have done a lot?" -CIA backs military coup in Chile to overthrow democratically elected president. Cue almost 20 years of brutal military dictatorship. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilean_coup_of_1973 -Funding and arming right-wing paramilitary militias in Nicaragua to overthrow another democratically elected government http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaragua#Sandinistas_and_the_C... -Hell, blanketting t…
How many people were really involved? A hundred? Two hundred? A thousand? Is that a significant part of all other Americans who didn't know what their government was doing?
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The problem that line of argument runs into is that the American people has also failed to hold its democratically elected government responsible for the shadier things its done (I'll stop just short of calling them atrocities, though some of it crosses that line). Hell, the sorry state that much of Latin America is in right now is largely directly attributable to the direct intervention of the USA (see redthrowaway'…
I agree apathy and ignorance, usually fueled by propaganda, played a role in this mess, but to blame all Americans for that misses the point. Americans should have held their representatives responsible, but they failed to even get interested. How many Americans can point Chile or Nicaragua on a map?
Now when they see their kids getting left behind and brainwashed by the school system they should be doing something about it.
Otherwise they should be held responsible for being apathetic.
Yeah, right. Mr Assange is currently having the time of his life, travelling around the world, pretending to be on the run from authorities which don't seem to have much interest in actually pursuing him, talking to the media a lot and having possibly-consensual sex with hot Swedish chicks. You think he wants to go hang out in Quito for the rest of his life?
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How many people were really involved? A hundred? Two hundred? A thousand? Is that a significant part of all other Americans who didn't know what their government was doing?
They think they live in a democracy and are even willing to export it, therefore they should be responsible for the actions of whoever they voted (or didn't vote).