| Broadcast Bill 2009 |
[May. 8th, 2009|01:52 am] |
Ireland's Broadcast Bill 2009 is about to be passed by the government here and it has come to the attention of a few watchful souls that something looks a little off.
Part of the bill deals with changes to the TV license. One of the these changes is the definition of "television set":
"television set" means any electronic apparatus capable of receiving and exhibiting television broadcasting services broadcast for general reception (whether or not its use for that purpose is dependent on the use of anything else in conjunction with it) and any software or assembly comprising such apparatus and other apparatus;
This means that any household which has a device that allows the receiving and viewing of RTE programmes is now required to pay the TV license fee.
Oh! RTE just launched their online RTE Player. Now anyone in the republic with a broadband connection can use it to receive RTE programmes. What a coincidence!
That's right, as it stands anyone with a broadband connection will need a TV license even if they don't own a TV!
However, there is just one additional facet to this pitifully obvious money-grab that Irish commentators are not mentioning, probably because, for them, it is the status quo. The thing is, our national, publicly-owned broadcaster, funded by the TV License Fee, runs commercials. I can tell you that, beyond its mandate to serve a small amount of Irish language content and Gaelic sports coverage, the services RTE offer are indistinguishable from other wholly commercial stations. And I'll offer this simple observation: if every RTE service currently available were to suddenly cease, it would be months before I'd even notice - that's just how little I value them.
When I moved here in 2K I was put out, to say the least, that I was asked to pay a tax for what was clearly a commercially funded enterprise. The extra reach on this double-dipping farce afforded by the new Broadcast Bill is not endearing me to the system at all. |
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| Work Once, Paid Forever! |
[Apr. 26th, 2009|04:49 am] |
The EU has decided that we, the public, must continue to pay performers of musical works for 70 years after they have completed the work. That's another twenty years closer to perpetuity.
Perhaps I should write to my MEP and enquire if this scheme could be extended to other areas of employment. Wouldn't it be wonderful if we were all paid for the rest of our lives for every job we've ever done? I could really do with getting a half-dozen paychecks every month.
So how about this alternative: performers are paid a decent wage when they perform, and when the performance stops, so does the money! |
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| UK Government Under the Control of Hollywood |
[Feb. 22nd, 2008|10:18 pm] |
You may have noticed that the UK government, with the kind assistance of Andrew Burnham MP of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, is bowing to Hollywood and the record labels' various enforcement groups, essentially handing them the power to control the uses that UK citizens may make of their internet connections. ISPs have been given until April 2009 to comply with new regulations that will force them to inspect all data transferred through their systems and magically deduce whether or not it involves the sharing of copyrighted material. In the event that sharing is suspected (nothing more is required) the ISP subscriber will receive a strike against them, if they receive three strikes their internet service will be terminated.
No allowances have been made for the technological requirements for deep packet inspection of all traffic that passes through a service providers system. It may safely be presumed that the customers will end up paying extra to have their private data transmissions intercepted and analysed. I have yet to find any comment form Burnham on the morality of cutting off an innocent user when someone else who makes use of the same connection is suspected of sharing - if one family member breaks the rules then everyone in that household loses access this increasingly essential communications service. Nor have I seen any indication from those involved that they have any understanding of the encryption arms race they are about to enter and immediately lose - that will be an awful lot of money spent and trouble caused for a system that will be worked around before it is even put in place. Naturally there is no hint of how the ISP's are to identify copyrighted works from any other shared files. And what are the procedures for proving one's innocence? How does someone with a strike based on a suspicion show that they are not guilty of sharing (baring in mind the technical hurdles already involved in proving positive proof of sharing).
The most sensible response I have heard comes from a Slashdot commenter:
"if all ISPs in the UK staged a strike by cutting Internet access everywhere for two or three days and claim that would be the only possible way to ensure their customers aren't pirating anything, I am sure that the outrage would force another look at the law. And if they did this 2 different times, like once on Thursday Friday and Saturday, it could cause direct deposit information and payroll services to be interrupted. If they did this on again a week later on lets say Monday and Tuesday, there would be so much upset and confusion that those who think they wasn't effected will be."
Personally I will be happy to lose access for a few days if it will do anything to prevent this travesty from going any further. Frankly, the harm done to individual users will not even register compared to the harm done to UK financial sector, not least the content industry. They must learn that the environment has changed and all the legislation in the world cannot change it back. Technology has moved forward and they have failed to follow. Their demise is inevitable, and is only hastened by making enemies of us all. |
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| The Only Solution |
[Jan. 11th, 2008|03:18 pm] |
A growing number of Swedish MPs are questioning the logic and legality of the recording industry targeting file sharers and forcing ISPs to help identify them. They have a simple and obvious solution that many of us will find familiar:
"Decriminalizing all non-commercial file sharing and forcing the market to adapt is not just the best solution. It’s the only solution, unless we want an ever more extensive control of what citizens do on the Internet. Politicians who play for the antipiracy team should be aware that they have allied themselves with a special interest that is never satisfied and that will always demand that we take additional steps toward the ultimate control state. Today they want to transform the Internet Service Providers into an online police force, and the Antipiracy Bureau wants the authority for themselves to extract the identities of file sharers. Then they can drag the 15-year-old girl who downloaded a Britney Spears song to civil court and sue her."
Those of us with any insight into the industry already knew that this had gone too far, that the recording industry was seeking powers far beyond those required for commerce and that such grasping power-hungry manoeuvring was a sing of bad things to come. Now it seems they have finally push hard enough to raise the heckles of more than a few politicians. Six members of the Swedish Moderate Party drafted the article quoted above taking into account some uncomfortable questions from various government bodies including the Data Inspection Board and The Competition Authority. It draws attention to the issues of privacy, authority, due process and human rights. Since it's publication support has continued to grow and a second article has been signed by 13 members of the Swedish parliament.
Finally there are politicians who are walking into this argument with open eyes instead of overstuffed wallets. Hopefully this movement will produce something akin to reasonable and workable legislation in Sweden, something that protects private citizens and forces the recoding industry to accept that it no longer has a place in the modern world. With a little more luck, such common sense thinking will prove infectious and we will start to see this attitude spread to the rest of Europe. |
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| Glitch |
[Dec. 5th, 2007|10:49 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | civil liberties, copyright, drm, economy, movies, mpaa, music, net neutrality, news, p2p, politics, rant, technology | ] |
Listen, Glick, the movie industry is already doing the one thing that guarantees I will never illegally download their 'products', namely they are now making such deficient, low-brow, half-assed, worthless, over-hyped, over-funded, overwritten, sub intellectual, inadequate, substandard, ridiculous, inferior, scoff-worthy, malodorous, cringe-making, mismanaged, shoddy, insufferable, incompetent and defective low-com-dom crap, that I would never ever even consider wasting one single byte of my precious bandwidth on any of it. I would be perfectly happy to see every last bit of your meritless trash forever erased from the internet were it not for the fact that you are trying to do it by introducing a radically disproportionate mechanism: ending Network Neutrality!
Don't cover your ears Glickster, you need to hear this: Shrek 3 is not important enough to bring an end to our freedom. The only reason the movie industry can say it's losing money now is because they spent way too much on producing something that nobody actually needs and nobody really wants. The Western World will not crumble because they can't turn a profit, but it might if we lose the integrity and security of the single most important communications tool in history.
One way or another the IP delusional industries are one the way out. It's only a matter of time before the average consumer figures out that their 'entertainment' just isn't worth it any more, that the busker on the street outside the cinema is a hell of lot more creative, interesting and memorable than the claptrap movie they just walked out of. How long do you think they'll watch their technology subverted, their personal data ransacked, their legally purchased media disintegrating, and their communications tapped and blocked before they think: "But I didn't even like the Bourne Appendectomy!"
Anyone invested in the movie or recording industries with even an iota of common sense should be selling up now, while their stock is still worth the ferromagnetic material it's stored on. You know it can't go on like this. It just isn't reasonable in consider this a survivable scenario for anyone involved. I mean it. Get out now. This is going to end badly, and you know it.
Glicky, you are not adding to our culture in any positive way beyond uniting the rest of us against you. You are not curing any horrible diseases. You are not on a crusade of righteousness. You are not special. You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. You are not welcome here. |
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| Forever Less One Day |
[Apr. 27th, 2007|03:02 pm] |
"I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston Strangler is to the woman home alone."
- Jack Valenti (1921 - 2007), President of the MPAA, in his testimony to the House of Representatives, 1982.
Lest we forget. |
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| iPRED2 |
[Apr. 12th, 2007|06:15 pm] |
I hope you will take a moment to go sign this petition against the Second Intellectual Property Enforcement Directive (IPRED2) which is due to go before the European Parliament on April 24th:
If IPRED2 passes in its current form, "aiding, abetting, or inciting" copyright infringement on a "commercial scale" in the EU will become a crime.
Penalties for these brand new copycrimes will include permanent bans on doing business, seizure of assets, criminal records, and fines of up to €100,000.
IPRED2's backers say these copycrimes are meant only for professional criminals selling fake merchandise. But Europe already has laws against these fraudsters. With many terms in IPRED2 left unclear or completeley undefined - including "commercial scale" and "incitement" - IPRED2 will expand police authority and make suspects out of legitimate consumers and businesses, slowing innovation and limiting your digital rights.
- copycrime.eu
Besides the fact that we simply do not need any more IP law (really, we need far, far less) the wording of this directing is vague to the point of disingenuousness. Personally I would give the phrase "commercial scale" as much meaning is as "square scale" or "red scale". It leaves the door wide open for interpretation in the effort to punish this newly invented crime.
If you physically copy a CD and give it to an acquaintance, and they then use that CD to create a hundred thousand copies to sell for profit, does that mean you are guilty of 'aiding commercial scale IP infringement"? What if you happen to show up in the same P2P swarm as someone downloading a movie with the intention of making physical copies to sell?
How many copyfight oriented forums and personal blogs out there, including this one, might be considered "incitement" because of their anti-copyright, pro file-sharing stance? I hope the doom9 folks have their ID trails thoroughly obfuscated since their attempts to return our fair use rights are easily interpreted by this directive as aiding, abetting and inciting. Who knows if this law could be used to criminalise something as simple as describing the means to circumvent DRM (like burning iTunes tracks to audio CD then ripping them back into an open format).
Will hardware manufacturers now face criminal investigation for creating devices that might be used in the commission of a crime (where a weapons manufacturer would get off scot-free)? Is this nothing more than a way for the recording industry to persuade hardware developers to sell broken machines?
This directive may be aimed at large scale criminal activity but with language like this it is nothing more than a dragnet for IP-delusional companies and their equally deranged legal departments. Rather than having to pursue civil cases all they have to do is report infringement and present themselves as victims and witnesses.
So-called IP infringement is so simple today that it requires no significant knowledge, no more resources than a networked computer and no more criminal intent than two friends sharing their love of music, movies or any other expression of our culture.
If you do nothing else today, go sign that petition. Don't let bad laws come into force, and certainly not bad laws with such open and easily abused language.
Update: in their article, 'European ISPs: "Aiding and abetting" copyright violations could land our CEOs in jail', Ars Technica points out that recent amendments to the bill now suggests fair use exceptions to national laws and explicitly excludes "acts carried out by private users for personal and not for profits purposes". Good news. But that still leaves this directive with enough interpretive swing to throttle future technical innovations in information technology, to put increasing pressure on our internet service providers to limit our use of what is supposed to be a neutral network, and ultimately tighten the recording industry's grip on our culture. |
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| Telefonica - The Silent Network |
[Jun. 29th, 2006|05:28 pm] |
A little flurry of mod-envy on /. is the herald of more IPD news from Spain (tmcnet.com).
It seems that Spanish lawmakers are going to ban "unauthorized peer-to-peer file-sharing" as they introduce the blank media levy. Whoop-de-doo, welcome to the world, you may cry. But there is a twist.
The arguments on /. have to do with the spin placed on the article by the poster suggesting that all P2P use is about to be banned. Remember those statistics from yesterday? - 90% of network traffic in Spain is Internet use and 80% of that is P2P, and any guess on the level of P2P traffic that is "unauthorised" is going to involve a percentage higher than 95. By that estimation the Spanish Telcos are about to find their networks suddenly and deathly quiet! However, Slashdotters have been pointing out that it is only "unauthorised" use that is banned and not P2P use in general.
The thing is, a complete ban on P2P networks is not so easily dismissed, as the article goes on to say "the government is going after Internet service providers; it's a criminal offense[sic] for ISPs to facilitate unauthorized downloading." I'm going to be generous here and suggest that the reporter made an unintentional generalisation - after all, the only way for an ISP to prevent all unauthorised downloading is to block all traffic which would put them out of business. So let's say that it's facilitating unauthorised downloading through P2P that will become a criminal offence. But how can an ISP discriminate between authorised and unauthorised P2P traffic? The answer is that they can't not with any reliability and not without a vulnerability to exploitation, so the only option is to block all P2P traffic.
It's a fair guess that Spain could turn out to have the most draconian anti-file-sharing, pro-IP measures of any country to date. I have to admit, it's kind of exciting to watch the IP industry whipped governments of the world froth and flail over this, especially when their efforts are so ridiculously out of touch and so hopelessly late. It's like watching an enemy army form up exactly as predicted.
The only thing this legislation will do is force file-sharers into darknets, and what will the ISPs do then, ban encrypted traffic? The Spanish government has taken a fateful step into an arms race they can't possibly win. And it's a step that might prove the tipping point for a global shift in file-sharing technology, one that would make policing the Net for supposed IP crime a truly Sisyphean task - a punishment they truly deserve. |
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| Universal Licence |
[Jun. 29th, 2006|02:05 am] |
This is a fascinating (if short) editorial based on this article (both at the very badly designed typicallyspanish.com via /.) about proposed changes to Spain's legal recognition of Intellectual Property Delusions. The proposed law will demand a mandatory levy on blank media as in Canada and Finland - strangely including memory sticks, mobile phones and scanners but excluding hard drives - with the resulting revenue distributed to copyright holders. How this revenue will be distributed in this instance remains unclear.
There are arguments that this is an indiscriminate tactic to regain the supposed lost revenue of the content industries, when there are many uses of the taxed products that do not infringe copyright. For instance, this law would mean that people backing up their own data to DVD-R are paying copyright holders for nothing.
But, there is another way to look at this: if you have already paid the copyright holder then surely you have the right to use the copyright holder's work. This tax can be seen as a universal licence to copy and to distribute copyrighted content. This might be considered analogous to the proposed (and subsequently shot down), broadband tax in France that would have made it legal to share copyrighted material over P2P networks. The Spanish levy is a socialistic response to the problem of IP in a capitalistic environment where such property can be reproduced infinitely and distributed globally at virtually no cost and very little effort.
The most interesting thing in the editorial are the quoted statistics on Internet use in Spain. Telefonica, which is not only the largest corporation in Spain but the also the largest telephony company in the world, has estimated that 90% of the traffic on its network is Internet use, and that 80% of that Internet traffic is P2P. There's a claim that the average Spaniard now buys only one CD a year (and who can blame them if that one turns out to be Shakira?) and that DVD sales have dropped by almost 30% between 2004 and 2005 (though for the life of me I'm not sure what they are supposed to have bought in that period). It may seem, from first appearances, that the Spanish government is reacting to this new reality by offering a way for both the content industry and the consumer to get what they want without a litigation war.
However, as mentioned in the article neither broadband connections nor HDs are to be covered by this tax - very strange, I think you'll agree, seeing as HDs have far more storage capacity and DSL lines are far better for distribution than any of the other media mentioned... unless transmitting copyrighted material over a DSL line and storing it on a HD will continue to be treated as infringement. I have to wonder what this will mean for HD based media players?
Under these circumstances this new levy is essentially just fleecing consumers while knocking a few more nails into physical media's coffin by making it more expensive and less attractive. At the same time it continues to allow the content industries to victimise their own customers and keep their broken business model afloat for a few more years.
Ultimately this is nothing to get excited about, it's Germolene on a spinal injury. Taxing physical products can only push consumers away and encourage the concept of data divorced from any particular medium, and that can only encourage the use of P2P. It promises a market where the CDs and DVDs are merely the means of transporting purchased data from the point of sale to the customers networked media player, and from there it's only a small step to online-only distribution.
I very much doubt that the companies behind the new (and already far too expensive) Blu-Ray and HD-DVD media will be happy with this proposal. Out of the cradle, into the grave, as it were. |
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| Who's the WTO's Daddy? |
[Jun. 4th, 2006|12:55 am] |
If you're harbouring any doubts regarding the malignant hubris of the IP delusionals in the music industry, here's where you should pay close attention:
PARIS, June 1 - Rising consumer popularity is turning AllofMP3.com, a music downloading service based in Moscow, into a global Internet success story, except for one important detail: The site may well be illegal.
So great is the official level of concern about AllofMP3 that American trade negotiators darkly warned that the Web site could jeopardize Russia's long-sought entry into the World Trade Organization. - NYTimes (via BoingBoing)
These people are actually willing to toy with the future of an entire nation (the largest economy currently outside the WTO) just to satisfy American pigopolists and their busted-ass business models. Granted the WTO has a whole lot of problems regarding ethical conduct, but for better or worse, we cannot ignore the weight of its authority and the advantages it can bring to an economy as a whole. But this isn't oil we're discussing, this isn't energy, it's neither food nor minerals nor weapons, it's just data, just regular data that happens to translate into the sounds pumped out through speakers heedlessly across the entire globe, the vast majority of which you will hear then instantly forget. This is the Sword of Damocles that hangs over Russia's head: not political stability or terrorism or human rights, but Brittany Spears, Cliff Richard and Justin Timberlake.
In other news Iran's proposed membership may be rejected by the WTO unless it halts efforts to produce weapons grade Uranium! The lack of perspective is truly staggering.
So this is the madness you pay for when you buy from these idiots. My conscience couldn't take it. Can yours? |
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| Internet's End |
[May. 21st, 2006|10:22 pm] |
Net Neutrality was a very simple concept that produced two useful conditions. It provided a level playing field upon which all entities were offered an equal opportunity to succeed within the confines of the network. But also, and perhaps more importantly, it made the end points - the content producer and the content consumer - responsible for the nature of the traffic on the network.
This last point is important for two reasons. Firstly the users could make the choice of which traffic deserved priority (that is, their choices decided the distribution of data and this democratic pressure shaped the network). Secondly, the carrier of the traffic was never held responsible for the actions of its users, thus protecting free speech online while also provided a clear path of accountability with regards to illegal activity. Now, with the end of Network neutrality within grasp of the carriers, we will see the end of clear accountability and the end of the democratic Internet.
For the moment, let's set aside the issue of carriers like AT&T extorting money from service providers like Google, who are already paying for the bandwidth they use. Lets also set aside the fact that the double whammy of charges will be a disincentive to those with new services and new ideas to offer, that this will stifle innovation. And we cannot forget that this could end independent IPTV even before it's begun. These things are a disturbing promise but, if you can imagine, not the most worrisome.
The issue of responsibility is far more pressing. You see, if the carriers win this and bring about the end of neutrality, not only will they be able to control the traffic traversing their potion of the Internet, but they could well find themselves under pressure to exert that control beyond the simple economic demands of a tiered system. It is not enough to say the Slow Tier is going to remain free and that it's merely access to the Fast Tier that will be controlled. The fact that the carriers will have provided themselves the ability to discriminate the sources and destinations of any traffic means that they have the capacity to identify and shape all traffic, and with that comes the potential accountability for not doing it.
It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that, since they have control, they will be under a legal and (some may argue) ethical obligation to exercise that control. The no-brainer example of this, and the one that will most likely be trotted out to force a carrier's hand, would be the restriction of access to sources of indecent images of children. Very noble, I think we can all agree, but also very misguided - if the carriers make themselves responsible for this sort of content then perhaps they deserve the ensuing nightmare, you may think. But what happens when such responsibility extends to political content, or religious, or...
Okay, here's a disturbing connection: what if the promised restrictions on the reporting of Anti-IED technology through the press are extended to network carriers? Will some pages of Wikipedia suddenly become inaccessible, will defence and technology sites have to limit their content for fear of being blocked?
If the carriers start acting as content filters then we face the very real possibility that they could be used as a way of bypassing civil liberties and defeating free speech, limiting the nature of the information that reaches the public without having to deal directly with those who's voices are subsequently silenced. In effect the whole Internet could become an edited publication, a walled garden, no longer a common ground of freedom but rather a state and corporate-controlled medium where only the most innocuous information may be transmitted. Certainly there will be small sites who can say what they like simply because they are beneath regard, but as soon as their outspokenness draws the attention of someone who might be offended or threatened their message will be lost to everyone.
With this in mind, one has to wonder if Google's questionable actions in China were not simply a rehearsal for the coming order in the US.
savetheinternet.com |
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| You take my freedom, I take your power |
[Apr. 24th, 2006|07:30 pm] |
This is insane.
Wiretapping for suspected IP theft? Ten years in jail for just trying to infringe copyright? On-the-spot knee-capping for humming a copyrighted tune in public?
A while back I signed a pledge never to purchase a DRM bearing CD, and I've stuck with it. But I'm starting to wonder if this goes far enough.
I'm considering drafting a new pledge for myself, a pledge never to pay for music or movies again. I'm not suggesting piracy as an alternative, in fact I would pledge not to infringe copyrights or break any related IP law, no matter how draconian. What I am suggesting is a stance that would make these laws irrelevant to me. I would pledge to only accept music and movies that are given to me legitimately and for free. If it is not free then I do not want it!
We have been paying our taxes and we have been buying our music and movies and what did we get? The IP industries are using the money we give them to deploy technology to corrupt our computers and restrict our freedom. The government is using the money we give them to turn those restrictions into law. Granted this is yet more US madness at the moment, but the DMCA made it into Europe just fine, so these extended delusions of intellectual property will likely do the same. And I doubt they care where the funds comes from, some portion of the money I've paid for CDs and DVDs here in Ireland has no doubt assisted in the legal and political machinations of these companies abroad.
Like everyone else I have helped grant power to the content industries, I have bought their 'products' and given them my money and my attention. But I don't like what they've done with that power, now I think I want to take it back, no matter how insignificant it is to the whole.
I cannot in good conscience continue to support any industry that uses my contributions to influence government policy, retard the progress of our culture and pursue the restriction of our civil rights, all in the service of an outmoded business model. I can't keep funding them just so they can break our machines and make it illegal to fix them. I will not help them to do harm, so I cannot help them at all.
It may seem like a drastic step, locking myself out of the majority of new movies and music, but right now I feel as though it might be easy. In the last year I have found very little to engage me in the mainstream, it all seems so bland and uninspired, empty husks of movie remakes and worthless committee-derived sequels, charts full of music that I could swear I was listening to ten years ago. Why would I pay to get into a theatre with lousy AC, overpriced food and patrons who actually answer their mobile phones when they ring, put up with a half hour of adverts and legal notices, all to watch a movie that inevitably disappoints? Why would I buy a wretchedly overpriced CD that might infect my computer with zombiware, might threaten my security and privacy, all for an album of 'new' music that sounds just like the music I already have in my collection from a decade ago? From where I'm standing I see nothing but insipid and tedious repetition in the future of these industries, a profound post-modern malaise. They can keep it.
More and more I have found the things that have touched me, made me laugh or fume or hope, things that have changed the way I think, have come from beyond the IP ideal. They did not need the certainty of success nor any reward from me beyond simple recognition of their achievement. The things I have rushed to tell people about have not required them to hand over money or rights or freedom to experience it themselves. There is a world of culture to enjoy without giving more power to despotic pigopolists.
Still, it's not a decision to take lightly. Somewhere down the line I might regret a pledge like this, some glorious phoenix of a movie may rise from the ashes of Hollywood, or we may witness the birth of a whole new genre of popular music. But I doubt it.
I'm not sure yet, I'm thinking on it.
Any suggestions are welcome. |
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| Groceries Order Rescinded |
[Nov. 8th, 2005|10:52 pm] |
The Irish Groceries Order has finally been abolished! (via finfacts.com)
The Groceries Order was a prohibition against the sale of grocery goods below list price. It meant that the seller had to pass the full cost on to the customer including insurance, transport, etc if they were included in the net value. The idea was to prevent the huge supermarket chains from undercutting the smaller independent stores. However it became one of the main reasons that the cost of living in Ireland is so damn high (other reasons are that taxes are too high and Irish business is riddled with dishonesty and crime).
It's being reported that this could cut the groceries budget of the average family by €500 per year!
About time too. |
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| A - B |
[Sep. 6th, 2005|09:44 pm] |
"They died because they were poor." was a perfectly valid statement used far too often even before last week.
In the next few months I fully expect someone to come up with an estimated cost of rescue per-survivor, followed by a guestimated cost of evacuation services per-victim. In your city the difference between those two figures may be the value of your lives. |
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| An Obligation to Confront the Perverted |
[Aug. 3rd, 2005|10:46 pm] |
Britain has pursued a policy of multiculturalism – allowing people of different cultures to settle without expecting them to integrate into society. Often the authorities have seemed more concerned with encouraging distinctive identities than with promoting common values of nationhood. – David Davis, (shadow home secretary and potential Conservative part leader), The Daily Telegraph, 3rd August 2005.
Suggesting that a society is not homogeneous enough just feels wrong. I'm not about go out and look up papers on social thought for the last thirty years but I'm pretty sure that a nation's necessarily manifold identity has been considered a boon, not a curse. Simply because a minority's belief system happens to coincide on some basic level with that of a group of violent extremists is hardly reason to press them into being more like some mythical 'us'. Widening the gap between mainstream and extremist Islam is hardly going to do any good, in fact it may make the situation worse. Matters can't possibly be improved by a further separation between Britain's Muslim community and the developing social identities of its more gullible young people who might be persuaded to perpetrate acts of terrorism. For all we know it is the commonalties between mainstream and extremist cultural concepts that has prevented more so-called "home grown terrorism" by giving vulnerable individuals a path back to a reasonable understanding of their own faith.
[ Davis goes on to say that homosexuals need to stop being so insular in their amorous activities and join the nation's mainstream sexuality. ] |
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| 53rd State |
[Jul. 23rd, 2005|02:14 am] |
What? Did you blink? Well, here it is again in slo-mo:
US INVESTIGATORS, including CIA agents, will be allowed interrogate Irish citizens on Irish soil in total secrecy, under an agreement signed between Ireland and the US last week.
Suspects will also have to give testimony and allow property to be searched and seized even if what the suspect is accused of is not a crime in Ireland.
irishexaminer.com
Did you get that? Even if it's not a crime in Ireland? So even though it's not a crime to burn the US flag here, the feds are going to kick down your door at 5am because it's a crime in America? And not only that but they don’t have to tell anyone they're doing it. The really amazing thing is that we're only hearing about this now, no debate, no protests, no opportunity to contest the decision at all.
The US government wiping it's arse with foreign civil liberties, what a fucking surprise. Colonialism alive and well. Guess we now know who's the boss of us. You know, that Irish language might be used for communication between terrorists, maybe you guys should ban it from Irish schools, huh?
[ Things to do: make 'burnable' flags with an extra star in the shape of a shamrock. ] |
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tarmle's journal
This work is licensed under a 
Oh, such pollution we had... it was delicious!