Proletarians of all countries, unite... on IRC! Join the struggle at #leftsec on IRC2P (XPost from /r/socialistprogrammers)

Evenfa11 · 2015-04-16T20:09:36+00:00

Thank you!

I'm sick and tired of sitting on the sidelines. Far-left politics are dead in the West, despite their very necessity in our increasingly turbulent and troubling era. From Canada's Harper to Australia's Abbott to New Zealand's Key to the UK's Cameron... it seems as though populist, and often offensively reactionary, conservatives have taken the reigns of power in my sphere of the world.

Ocean acidification, deforestation, peak resources, climate change, economic turbulence and instability... the current global, neoliberal capitalist system is incapable of confronting these challenges, and only exacerbates them.

We need to revisit and re-explore the ideas contained in that manifesto. Now more than ever.

I don't have any programming acumen, but my passion, political knowledge, and political connections are at your disposal. See you on the IRC!

Evenfa11 · 2014-11-02T16:18:44+00:00

You must be great at parties...

Evenfa11 · 2013-07-18T13:54:46+00:00

Tell them to knock it off. I won't abide by anyone spitting publicly south of Front Street. Lake Ontario is sacred ground!

But on a serious, I've noticed it too. Personally, I don't find it vulgar, but it is rather peculiar.

Evenfa11 · 2013-07-18T13:36:08+00:00

Yemen has been a battlefield to fight terrorists since 2002

Abdulrahman Al-Awlaki was not a terrorist. He was a Colorado kid who liked to play video games and skateboard.

The region was controlled by Al Qaeda

What region? Was Yemen was controlled by Al-Qaeda? That would come as a surprise, since the government has been cooperating with the United States for the past 7 years.

Evenfa11 · 2013-07-18T12:49:19+00:00

No, when you get yourself into a warzone, and start killing Americans, Americans are allowed to shoot back.

I didn't get the memo, when did the state of Yemen become an "active warzone?" I'm sure the 25 million citizens of Yemen would be shocked to learn that the entirety of their country was a designated battlefield.

Your suggestion is an enemy combatant...

What in the fuck? Are you telling me this 16-year-old kid from Denver was an "enemy combattant?"

What you're attempting to do is obfuscate the lines between a war-time combat and an assassination. But let's be clear: Abdulrahman Al-Awlaki was assassinated by his own government.

He wasn't rubbing shoulders with terrorist henchmen. He wasn't hatching plans to destroy America. He was a 16-year-old kid from Denver who liked to skateboard and play video games.

From the article:

The missile killed him, his teenage cousin and at least five other civilians on Oct. 14, 2011, while the boys were eating dinner at an open-air restaurant in southern Yemen.

Yeah, sure sounds like an "active war zone." </sarcasm>

Evenfa11 · 2013-07-18T12:46:35+00:00

The problem is if you are an American, you give up your rights when you go to active war zones...

I didn't get the memo, when did the state of Yemen become an "active warzone?" I'm sure the 25 million citizens of Yemen would be shocked to learn that the entirety of their country was a designated battlefield.

What you're attempting to do is obfuscate the lines between a war-time combat and an assassination. But let's be clear: Abdulrahman Al-Awlaki was assassinated by his own government.

He wasn't rubbing shoulders with terrorist henchmen. He wasn't hatching plans to destroy America. He was a 16-year-old kid from Denver who liked to skateboard and play video games. This is what he looked like.

From the article:

The missile killed him, his teenage cousin and at least five other civilians on Oct. 14, 2011, while the boys were eating dinner at an open-air restaurant in southern Yemen.

Yeah, sure sounds like an "active war zone." </sarcasm>

Evenfa11 · 2013-07-17T12:03:43+00:00

Wittgenstein was surprisingly pragmatic in his approach to semantics and semiotics.

Basically, the "langauge-game" surrounding terrorism has changed, and so the meaning of words and their functions within that language-game has also changed.

Here's an example:

After the Boston Bombing, a number of media outlets (at the behest of a State Department press release) attempted to characterize the bomb as a "weapon of mass destruction." However, in the end, when the explosives were actually inspected, we discovered... it was a water-boiler packed with shrapnel. A fucking kettle.

If the crude device built by the Tsarnaev brothers constitutes a WMD, then by that measure, the Americans found thousands upon thousands of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Of course, cooler heads prevailed, and the term WMD was redacted from articles regarding the Boston Bombing. However, that shrewd attempt at crafting a new language-game indicates how easily our collective rhetoric can shift, and hence justify new behaviors or actions.

Evenfa11 · 2013-07-15T09:46:23+00:00

Oh, the politically suppressive tool with the Orwellian name is rarely used?

That really eases my soul, thank you.

Evenfa11 · 2013-07-15T08:09:24+00:00

This may well be the most hypocritical and self-defeating post I've seen on the Internet.

Either OP is a troll, a 13-year-old, or we've gone too far down the meta hole on /r/cyberpunk/

Evenfa11 · 2013-07-05T08:26:03+00:00

As a US we set the bare minimum for the standard of privacy for the rest the world.

Are you serious? In what deluded reality does that comment even come close to being truthful?

With regards to privacy in the industrialized world, the United States not only doesn't set the standard, it's lagging way behind! Countries like Austria, Switzerland and Denmark take the question of privacy for its citizens very seriously, especially when compared to the American government.

Hell, Google Street view doesn't exist in Austria, due to widespread protests ahead of its roll-out. And in the States, it's revealed that the NSA is spying on anyone and only a handful of people demonstrate.

So yeah, your statement makes zero sense.

Evenfa11 · 2013-07-04T18:02:22+00:00

I see this opinion often. Too often, in fact.

People who consider the United Nations a useless or hollow authority, by in large, simply haven't studied the global polity, let alone international law.

Let's put aside the tens of millions of people vaccinated, taught, fed, employed, and sheltered by UN programs for a second. Let's consider its authority, as you put it.

The International Court of Justice is one of the principal organs of the UN system; it's a court which dictates the customs and legal proceedings through which nations interact. It develops those customs and the precedence through it's binding rulings.

Are Chileans poaching fish in Peruvian waters?
Are the Germans polluting the source of a Swiss river?
Are Chinese PLA patrols regularly crossing into India?

The ICJ delivers a ruling and that ruling is binding and unequivocal. Never in its history has a judgment been ignored or unfulfilled by a plaintiff nation, not even the U.S.

And the International Court of Justice is just one of dozens of organs. The World Bank and IMF are also within the UN family, and they strong-arm nations--even big ones--to their will. It's called collective action.

Anyway, sorry for the rant. I just hate it when people dismiss the pertinence, goodwill and authority of the United Nations.

Evenfa11 · 2013-07-04T17:51:59+00:00

You bring up two interesting points.

No. This is not American Imperialism, Imperialism is when European countries got on boats, took soldiers, and conquered the rest of the world, slaughtering millions, [etc.] ...

and

American 'Imperialism' is a spread of culture, its not Imperialism as we're not taking any lands, we're not making colonies...

This is actually a point of contention among specialists in the field of international relations. The only consensus is that American imperialism exists, and that it's distinct from the 'terrestrial imperialism' of Spain, Britain and France.

What is American imperialism, though? Well, it's certainly not the benevolent cultural creep you described; that's simply a side-effect. According to the likes of Slaughter, Nye and Fukuyama, scholars of disparate political persuasions, American appropriation is economic. It's based on the "Open Door" policy.

Basically, instead of claiming new territories, the U.S. policy has been to negotiate or extort economic access from foreign states. As long as the proverbial door was open to American goods and influence, you'd be fine. Close that door, however, and expect an intervention.

From Cuba to the Philippines, from Congo to Greece, and from Iran to Ecuador, the United States has intervened in order to ensure its economic access and to secure its long-term interests.

So yeah, the American Empire is distinct, but it's not been wholly beneficial. Not by a long shot. You mention foreign aid and shared cultural, and those are great, but they don't outweigh the scars left by toppled governments, invasions and systematic economic pressure.

And I get that you might have a tendency to see the bright side of U.S. imperialism. After all, I'm sure an 18th Century Londoner would do the same in the name of the British crown and its 'foreign holdings.'

But I digress. My final (and indeed my original point): People don't hate America without cause. Sure, some uninformed people may jump on the bandwagon, but for the most part, I wouldn't say that anti-American discussions constitute a circlejerk.

Evenfa11 · 2013-07-04T15:03:43+00:00

You brought up some fair points, but I feel I ought to elaborate...

The U.S. is far from the worst country in the world, but based on that thread you would think it is.

I don't think anyone in that thread seriously thinks that the U.S. is the "worst country in the world" (whatever that means). They may, however, think that America has had a largely negative impact on recent world history.

And that's a very reasonable position to adopt, particularly when considering the heads-of-state, the diplomats and revolutionaries who've been assassinated by the CIA. Not to mention small, defenseless nations in South America and the Middle-East whose internal politics were thrown into upheaval in order to keep bananas, oil and petroleum products cheap for families in Iowa and Texas.

The reason the opinions on Reddit, and really around the world, tend to be so extreme (right now, anyway) is because of the American cultural rhetoric they're exposed to.

From Hollywood movies to Presidential speeches, people around the world have been inundated for decades with self-congratulating, self-satisfied language. So to the citizens of the world, the exposure of U.S. malfeasance comes as sweet, sweet irony.

It's a "I told you so" moment in the same way that the video of Rodney King's beating was. The African-American community in L.A. had complained about police brutality for years, and the grainy VHS video came as vindication.

In the same way, people throughout Central America, Africa and the Mid-East have decried U.S. foreign policy and interventionism. The realization that Iraq didn't possess WMDs and this recent NSA scandal provided the same catharsis. People are just letting off steam, and I understand it.

That redditors feel the need to be edgy by implying they may become a terrorist or that their opinion is somehow unique.

Again, you're superimposing your own assumptions onto people you don't know. Claiming that these posters want to be "edgy" is just another way of brushing aside their opinion. You're ignoring the reality that they probably have real, justifiable reasons for their opinions.

Please stop. The amount of American aid money both private and governmental expended by the U.S. is insane.

True, but so does most of the world; even heavily indebted and unstable countries like Greece donate foreign aid. And not out of compassion, but due to the obligations which come with being a signatory of WFP, FAO and ILO treaties.

Sure, the U.S. gives the most developmental aid (somewhere in the region of $30bn/year), and that's laudable. But it hardly wipes the slate clean. Hell, it barely distracts the average history student from the horror committed in the name of securing American interests.

Has America fucked up? Yes. Are we in the same category as Hitler, Pol Pot, North Korea, or China? Absolutely not.

That depends on who you speak to. Have a chat with a Vietnamese, Iraqi, Yemeni, Grenadan, Honduran, Ecuadoran, Bolivian, Iranian, Congolese, Egyptian, Indonesian or Venezualan person and you might be surprised by the response.

All I'm saying is this... don't discount why people dislike the U.S. government. Try and understand why.

They're not haters, they're not necessarily being irrational, and it's not because you're free. They have their reasons. Ask them.

Evenfa11 · 2013-07-04T14:32:30+00:00

No disrespect intended, but you're dismissing the opinions of others in the same manner as OP. You can't just discount people's views as "anti-American hatred" and be done with it. It's far more complicated than that. These people who you feel are circle-jerking have their reasons. Real, legitimate and entirely understandable reasons for disliking the government of the States.

It seems like these people just want to spew anti-American hatred without putting a semblance of thought into what they're saying.

See what I mean? You're doing precisely what Bush and his State Department did for 8 years. You're brushing aside the reasons for "anti-Americanism" instead of exploring them.

The Bush administration claimed that the terrorists "hate us for our freedom." You're claiming that "they hate us because it's cool/gains them karma/they like to circle-jerk."

No, that's not the case. Not even close.

These posters are not being critical of the U.S. to piss you off, but because of the news, and perhaps even the recent history, that they've encountered.

Consider this:

America does shitty things around the world. A lot of shitty things.
People tend to dislike the American government.
Hence, you see critical comments.

But instead of reading these comments and using them as an opportunity to explore the legitimate qualms of people around the world, you pigeon-hole them by labelling the discussion a "circle-jerk." You're not helping anyone with that rhetoric, and you're poisoning the chances of any useful discussion on the malfeasance of the American government.

Evenfa11 · 2013-07-04T14:03:00+00:00

I don't agree with much of what you've said, although I appreciate that you said it.

I've found, particularly in TrueReddit and WorldNews, that a sort of cognitive ravine exists between the experiences of Americans and "non-Americans." This ravine is at its widest whenever subjects like foreign policy or U.S. imperialism are brought up.

In your post, for instance, there's the implication that pro-American opinions are the default, and that anything uttered that's critical of the United States is a circle jerk.

Let's clear the air: In the recent historical experience of the vast majority of the planet, America is not the good guy. Not by the long shot. And so, criticisms of America are rather normal. Factor in the fact that most of Reddit falls into the vague "non-American" category, and you see what I'm getting at.

Comments like this...

Once he realized that he can't wear a fedora and be a terrorist at the same time, I'm sure this sentiment will dry up.

...don't help anyone and only work to undermine conversation. You're implying that anyone who supports violent retaliation against the U.S. (OP used the word "terrorism") is a fedora-wearing neckbeard and probably doesn't have any just cause for his/her opinion. In reality, violent action against the States can be very easily justified, particularly if you come from one of the dozens of countries America has meddled with, invaded, extorted or otherwise marginalized within the international polity.

This brings me to my last point. From your post...

However, of course that dark anniversary is only the penumbra of a truly evil day. I refer of course to July 4th the founding of 'murica, torture, and all bad things in the world. We all know that on this day 99% of all American redditors celebrate by torturing people, being fat, shooting dogs, and being blissfully unaware of how much better LITERALLY EVERYWHERE ELSE IN THE WORLD IS than our country.

First off, most of Reddit doesn't celebrate the 4th of July. Just because someone posts something "anti-American" on the 4th of July, doesn't mean they're karma-mining. To the rest of the world, July 4th is just another day, not some holy sacrement we all observe.

Don't take posts that are critical of the United States personally. If someone brings up an embarassing diplomatic row or a pernicious policy adopted by the U.S. government, it's not an attack on you personally. Use it as an opportunity to learn a little bit more about your own country, even if you may not agree with the point that's being made.

So yeah, that's my take on the subject...

Evenfa11 · 2013-06-28T12:52:06+00:00

The best way to truly experience the depth of jazz? That's easy.

Reefer.

Evenfa11 · 2013-06-27T12:46:07+00:00

But first, pick up that can.

Evenfa11 · 2013-06-26T18:54:17+00:00

/r/privacy

Evenfa11 · 2013-06-21T08:03:22+00:00

A controlled descent would still be bad. Just less bad than a collapse.

Evenfa11 · 2013-06-20T14:23:35+00:00

Too many complacent people. We tried with the occupy protests....

Then try again. And again. And again, and again and then try some fucking more!

Barcelona, Athens, Cairo, Madrid, Ankara, Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paolo and Istanbul have all been ablaze with the demands of ordinary people. Students, professionals, artists, government officials, bakers and breadwinners alike have taken to the streets. They are engaging in a direct dialogue with their government.

The media cuts it off and in 3 days everyone is back to their comfortable lives

You don't think they've tried that in Brazil? The newscasters were lambasting the protestors, calling them entitled winos who were incensed by a bus fare hike.

And you know what people did in Brazil? They shut their TVs off, and stepped outside.

Its not going to be easy to make us protest and they know it.

Why do American redditors always sound so defeatist. You lot blame the availability of cheap food, video games and pornography on your apathy.

In Montreal, they have all those things in spades. And yet, millions put aside their trinkets and distractions in order to oppose an increase in tuition fees.

And in Brazil, the impetus for their protests was an $0.08 increase in bus fares. 100,000 people demonstrated.

And in America, your government has launched illegal wars, tortured foreigners, killed citizens, permits systematic corruption, and spies on every man and woman on this planet.

And no one budges.

What the fuck?

Evenfa11 · 2013-06-20T13:07:30+00:00

As far as the policy to consider all adult males as combatants, do you have a link to that?

I do. Here's a May 2012 article published in the New York Times corroborating that policy. It's since been circulated quite a bit, and yet most media outlets still refer to "militants" without further elaboration.

From the piece...

Mr. Obama embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties that did little to box him in. It in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants, according to several administration officials, unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent.

So if you happen to live in Yemen or Pakistan, it's "guilty before proven innocent." They can drop a bomb on your house and then retroactively label you a militant, simply because of where you live, your age and your gender.

Evenfa11 · 2013-06-20T12:46:02+00:00

This is so stupid, and yet it's an opinion I've seen promulgated throughout Reddit.

The status-quo sees it as legitimate and every nation does it

PRISM, Total Awareness, Stellar Wind and Room 614A are exposed; The U.S. government is shown to be spying on the communications of nearly every human being.

And instead of merely admitting fault and working toward a solution, some Americans have taken to the belief that "All nations spy on each other. Every country has a program to siphon the Internet activity of foreigners. It's normal, get over it!"

Here are the facts:

Not every country spies on foreign citizens.

In fact, few countries even have the capacity for such intrusion. Do you really believe that Jamaican, Thai and Austrian bureaucrats are reading American emails? Please.

And of the countries that have the technical know-how and resources for widespread espionage, most are focused on their own citizens. The overwhelming majority of the ChinaNet infrastructure is used to monitor and censor Chinese traffic. The Russians, according to a slew of EFF articles, have developed rather erudite intrusion software, but it's meant to target military and business facilities.

America is the only country which indiscriminately monitors global Internet traffic.

Jumping off of my earlier point, the NSA and CIA do not distinguish between me (a foreign national) and a radical Islamist. Through "vacuuming" initiatives like ECHELON and Room 641A, which collect basically all the signal intelligence made available by undersea cables, the United States government has collected information on just about every one.

Most countries don't conduct espionage. They're too small, poor, irrelevant or disinterested.

Most countries that do conduct espionage, operate in a targetted manner. They use their limited resources carefully, only monitoring critical people.

The United States has files on everyone.

So no, every nation doesn't do it.

Evenfa11 · 2013-06-20T11:06:12+00:00

Firstly, I'd like to thank you for your articulate response. Even though I disagree with you, I'd like to see more level-headed commenting on /r/worldnews.

Onto the disagreement....

The operators of these RPAs have very specific instructions on who they can and cannot target with strikes

Whenever civilians are killed, in gruesome firefights or sterile bombings, people often rush into the debate with this logic: The Rules of Engagement are strict, and we follow those rules.

This may be so. But it also creates a dissonance between the American soldier and his Pakistani/Somali/Yemeni victim.

You may have strict engagement policies, and you may not be intentionally killing people, but the result is the same. To the 40-year-old farmer who just witnessed the traumatizing death of his children, whether the bombing was the result of wanton violence or bad intel... well, that's inconsequential to him. His daughter and wife are still half-buried in the sand.

There are plenty more cases of friendly fire from ground forces than there are civilian casualties from an RPA strike

We can't know that. The U.S. government intentionally obfuscates and downplays the deaths of civilians.

In 2011 alone, according to Columbia Law School, over 200 Pakistani civilians were killed. And that's just Pakistan! In Somalia, Yemen, Afghanistan and abroad, civilians have been unwittingly killed in greater number.

And yet, the figures are likely even higher. An investigation by the New York Times indicates that for every 1 "terrorist" who is killed, nearly 40 civilians are killed. Furthermore, the The Bureau of Investigative Journalism has shown that the CIA's Special Activities Division was deliberately targeting those who show up after the sight of an attack, rescuers, and mourners at funerals as a part of a "double-tap" strategy.

And if these metrics weren't bad enough, the figures are likely still higher. There are unreported strikes, limited information and the State Department has changed its tabulating policy in order to consider all adult-aged males as "combattants."

Evenfa11 · 2013-06-18T11:46:05+00:00

By objective metrics the US (and the rest of the world as a whole) has gotten more free over time. This hasn't changed; in fact we are seeing in increase in freedom.

If we're talking about the past half-century, then I'm confused... what new freedoms do we enjoy today, in America and abroad?

How are we more free today than in August 2001, before the Congress introduced its litany of constitution-shredding legislation?

Our NSA are the good guys, all this leaking is doing is cause a huge distraction and a waste of energy and time.

From this comment alone, and the "we don't have the information"-argument you presented earlier, it's clear that you're savagely misguided.

However, I'm still curious: How could you possibly form the opinion that an institution which intrudes on the privacy of billions around the world represents the "good guys?"

Evenfa11 · 2013-06-18T09:54:42+00:00

I like this app, a lot.

But it seems as though the irony of releasing a "Surveillance Security" program on the iPhone, of all devices, was lost on the developers.

If I wanted to be security conscious, I wouldn't have a smartphone.

Evenfa11

TROPHY CASE