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NutAgain!
Trad climber
South Pasadena, CA
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Our internet access is more brittle than you realize, and very subject to government shutdown. The problem is we have a relatively small number of physical chokepoints that all traffic goes through. Already government agencies have placed physical devices at each of the chokepoints to capture all of the traffic for CALEA legal monitoring and other nefarious monitoring. That was done 15 years ago and has probably been continually refreshed with more powerful tools. I would not be surprised if there were specific scenarios/plans to remotely trigger the shutdown of the different chokepoints in a "marshal law" type of situation.
The protocols and technology are very robust to support decentralized deployment. It was originally designed for battlefield communications, to be able to use any available path without dropping connections.
But, it all has been deployed to minimize cost and enable corporate profit because companies are the ones who invested to build out the infrastructure. The design objective of maximizing robust communication access between people in the event of targeted destructions or administrative desire to shut it down, that was not a design requirement.
That said, knowledge of the protocols and technologies are out there, and ad hoc networks of point-to-point microwave and ethernet and fiber and other connections would be rebuilt through grass-roots efforts, albeit with access for far fewer people and at slower speeds, and with access to corporate information sources cut off and just people putting up their own stuff and posting to ad-hoc bulletin boards and forums.
I suspect there is going to be more effective and deadly means of controlling our press. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is dramatically changing the laws for internet service providers, making them the kings and toll arbiters (highway robbers)of the information superhighway. There are only a small handful of these very large corporations that would need to be influenced to block access to certain media streams, or to slow them down so much that people stop using them. A slow bleed of this behavior over a period of months and years will be similarly effective as shutting down free press but it won't raise the same alarms and public outrage.
How many of you understood or cared when I was harping on the FCC killing net neutrality and the changing regulations for Internet Service Providers? How many of you wrote a letter during the open comment period? (as if it would have mattered with this administration).
So I think we will die of thousands of little cuts, rather than some grandiose overt aggression. Trump will make us bleed faster, he will be out at some point, but the assault of little cuts will continue, faster with Republicans than with Democrats, but the little cuts won't stop.
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Jon Beck
Trad climber
Oceanside
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I just watched the Bannon's War episode on Frontline. Pretty creepy stuff, Rove on steroids, with a dash of Klan.
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
Sands Motel , Las Vegas
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NWO2... Excellent question...What's your take on the Trump-Putin election tampering ..?
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WBraun
climber
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Putin had nothing to do with election tampering.
Zero proof, you brainwashed idiots have no clue how easy it is to manipulate this bullsh!t to make it look like anyone could do it.
But what can be done anyways since you Americans are the most stoopid brainwashed idiots on the planet .....
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knucko
climber
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"Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind.
And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so.
How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar."
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dirtbag
climber
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A bigger problem is a continual degradation of informal democratic norms, which is happening daily in real time.
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
Sands Motel , Las Vegas
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Duck Man... Which planet...? Weiner or Mars.. .Goon Boi
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Fat Dad
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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Randisi, don't expect an intelligent response from Ward. Just in case you were wondering. A programed responses, yes. A thoughtful reply, no.
Well, we already have right wing, self appointed storm troopers likes the Alt-Knights, the Proud Boys and Promise Keepers, who are happy use confrontation and polemics to support their Fuhrer Drump (oops, I mean keep the peace) at political rallies. I'm 53 and I've never seen anything like it in my lifetime, at least not in the open.
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Winemaker
Sport climber
Yakima, WA
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sycorax, I quote from snopes.com about this 'Caesar' quote:
Yet as popular as the quote is, it’s not real. These words are not anything Julius Caesar ever wrote or said. No biographies of Caesar or histories of Rome contain these lines, and scholars who have made it their business to know everything about the man draw a blank on this quote. Likewise, Shakespeare did not stuff this soliloquy into the mouth of the title character in his play Julius Caesar, nor did any of the Bard’s other characters utter it. No record of this quote has been found prior to its appearance on the Internet in late 2001.
So what’s going on here, then?
As Ralph Keyes explains in Nice Guys Finish Seventh, his compendium of misattributed and false quotes, “Famous dead people make excellent commentators on current events.” The dead do not reappear to challenge words assigned to them, an attribute much prized by those looking for convenient spokesmen to lend authority to their convictions. This “quote” called for a strong and respected military leader and statesman, hence Caesar was resurrected to give it voice.
Edited to add: Still a good 'quote' though.
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mtnyoung
Trad climber
Twain Harte, California
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Perhaps the duck can tell us whether Ceasar said it or not?
After all, I suspect that he suspects that he was there then ;)
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crankster
Trad climber
No. Tahoe
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It's really quite simple. Resist and organize. Stay focused and angry...then work like hell to get Democrats elected in '18.
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Fat Dad
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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Yeah, but it's all for the good of the Republican Party, so what could go wrong?
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MikeL
Social climber
Southern Arizona
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Randisi: A violation of it?
I think he meant another instance of it.
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BASE104
Social climber
An Oil Field
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The original post is almost a carbon copy of the kind of trash that the right wing used to say about Obama. None of it came to pass. Not even close.
I have no love for Trump, but please be realistic.
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Contractor
Boulder climber
CA
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Yes, and it was so plausible that a benevolent constitutional law professor was an existential threat to Democracy.
Meanwhile a plurality of intelligence and former state department officials are going public about the Threat of collusion between Trump and the Russian's.
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Fat Dad
Trad climber
Los Angeles, CA
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Base, that's a reflection that neither Obama nor the Democrats were interested in subverting the government. However, the Republicans were more than happy to contend that to rile their gullible base.
Many Republicans have, distressingly, have shown a willingness to support Trump despite his overeaching. Attacking the press, disinformation, secret meetings that never would have been disclosed were it not for leeks. And then are not apologetic when getting their hands caught in the cookie jar but, rather, claim the only serious wrongdoing is the leaking. In response to the stabbings in Portland, the head of the Republican Party in Multnomah County (where Portland is located) has advocated the use of alt right militias to keep the peace. What person rightfully interested in true law and order and our form of government would advocate such a thing?
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Jon Beck
Trad climber
Oceanside
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Watch Bannon's War, it is on NightLine if you have any doubt as to this administration's goals. Where is the Republican outrage?
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High Fructose Corn Spirit
Gym climber
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Just finished the shortbook "On Tyranny - 20 Lessons from the 20th Century" by Timothy Snyder. Happens to be #1, too at New York Times, Best Sellers...
https://www.nytimes.com/books/best-sellers/paperback-nonfiction/
Snyder discusses the Reichstag Fire and its lessons, too.
"The original post is almost a carbon copy of the kind of trash that the right wing used to say about Obama. None of it came to pass. Not even close....I have no love for Trump, but please be realistic." -BASE
Another prominent lesson of On Tyranny... beware those (eg, BASE 014?) who call you or your admonitions alarmist, exaggerated, paranoid or ridiculous.
Excellent post Fossil Climber. You too Ghost.
Excellent discourse between Snyder and Harris here...
https://www.samharris.org/podcast/item/the-road-to-tyranny
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
Sands Motel , Las Vegas
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9/11 was the start of the last "Reichstag Fire ".. George W. became the "war president " followed by the Patriot Act followed by Wall Street making off with American's retirement savings.. Pucker lips wants to repeal Dodd-Frank...Don't be suprised when Wall Street tanks again ....
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madbolter1
Big Wall climber
Denver, CO
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In response to the stabbings in Portland, the head of the Republican Party in Multnomah County (where Portland is located) has advocated the use of alt right militias to keep the peace. What person rightfully interested in true law and order and our form of government would advocate such a thing?
The biggest fundamental departure I have from the left concerns the logical priority of the individual. The left (generally) believes that society has logical priority and that individuals derive their values, worth, proper priorities, and even sustenance from society.
By stark contrast, I believe in the logical priority of individuals, where society derives its values, worth (and legitimacy), proper priorities, and even sustenance from individuals who agree to band together with a common commitment to prioritize and protect negative rights. Not positive rights; negative rights!
The trend of the last 50-60 years has been the systematic turning on its head of this logical priority, such that now (far too many) people honestly believe that "law and order" just MEANS that individuals CANNOT protect themselves, CANNOT (SHOULD not) band together into militias to protect themselves, and must helplessly wait for "first responders" to show up to "deal with" any situation.
WE are the first responders, and that is one of our most basic rights as human beings--logically prior to the formation of ANY society. The old saw is true: When seconds count, the cops are just minutes away.
So, you can count ME as a "person rightfully interested in true law and order and our form of government" who advocates exactly what you find so horrifying, and I do so BECAUSE I so deeply believe in TRUE law and order AND our form of government, a form of government that you among many others seem hell-bent on utterly subverting while turning the USA into just another democratic-socialist European non-nation.
Here's a thought: GO to one of those non-nations you so want to emulate. Live THERE, not here. Vote THERE, not here.
For people of your ilk, the world has MANY places you could live and find yourself surrounded by like-minded people. But the USA is the last remaining place on Earth in which (amazingly, still) a huge proportion of the population (about half?) are still resisting you and do NOT want to become just like another European non-nation. So, it's EASY for you to find a place that has already adopted your world-view. Seriously, why not leave the USA for people like me that have NO other place to go?
You've got piles of options. People like me have only one. So, you'll continue to turn logical-priority on its head only with a fight. And your question, asked like you think that NO rational person could answer any other way than you, just shows the depths of your echo chamber.
I find the question outrageous. But the difference between you and I is that YOU can go to countless places on Earth in which the vast majority of people surrounding you will echo your question and its implied answer. I cannot. The USA is the "last stand" for people like me.
If you cared at ALL for civil discourse, you would intentionally clamber out of your echo chamber, stop treating people like me as inherently irrational, and seek to truly understand "the other side" that at present shares these national borders with you. You would want to truly understand why somebody like me honestly and rationally believes so differently from you on something as basic as the rule of law.
You fear fascism in the USA? Then you should be most interested in avoiding the civil war that the puppet-masters are orchestrating, a war that can only end with a level of control and fascism that Hitler would have envied. Our enemies are not each other, and we had BETTER learn to have more productive discourse than occurs on this site!
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