[Arm-netbook] OT: The U.S. Needs to Stop Lecturing the Rest of the World About Internet Values

[Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli]

On Mon, 28 Nov 2016 03:51:00 +0000
FaTony <fatony at fatony.net> wrote:

> > Furthermore,
> > much of the Chinese and Russian political class believe the West’s
> > insistence on democracy and human rights is not merely distasteful
> > and unnecessary, but a concerted way to weaken and destabilize
> > them.  
It doen't look very different from the "west", that is the "US empire".
As the "US empire" I mean the USA and various countries under its
cultural influence, which affects business practices, the laws, people's
opinion, etc.

> Here's a view from inside of Russia. Russian TV is full of anti-west
> propaganda. Every day I hear ppl discussing how some bad stuff is
> happening in US, Europe or Ukraine and how Russian patriotism and
> Orthodox Church are the foundation upon which you should live.
The same is happening in US, Europe and around the world trough
propaganda too: Many US movies contains very heavy propaganda, and
heavily uses classical conditioning[1]. In such movies,
eastern-type people are often the bad people (criminals, etc).

> But it is forbidden to talk about Russian issues. Anyone who dares
> gets sued, arrested, tortured or killed.
In the "US empire", talking about issues is called whistleblowing,
and you also get sued, arrested, tortured.
- Some got sued (Thomas Drake).
- Some got sued, arrested, and tortured in prison[2] (Chelsea Manning).

As for being killed, I don't know any clear example with a smoking gun,
but that doesn't mean that it didn't happen.

> Russian authorities use a
> blacklist of sites and do DPI to make sure that nobody will find a
> way to opposition sites that bring up Russian issues.
As for the DPI and websites blacklist, I don't have enough inforamtion
on that.
DPI and websites blocking do exist[4], but it seems to be less way less
extensively. Propaganda is probably way more efficent.

> They also have
> the legal capacity to store all internet traffic for 6 months.
On many countries of the "US empire", there are also legal requirement
to store at least part of the trafic.

> But most people don't care about these issues, they are simply trying
> to survive and not die of starvation.
Same in the "US empire", due to unemployment, people are also trying to
survive.

Ironically, starvation and unemployment are deeply linked to the lack
of political freedom, because:
- The law is a really powerful coercion mechanism which can
  constraint even the most powerful companies.
- The law is supposed to be the expression of the general
  will[5]. And people can decide among themselves how they want to
  live, and might decide that tackling starvation is more important
  than other objectives.

And the "US Empire" isn't free either, most of its countries are
tyranical[6].

PS:
- Privacy is necessary. Its absence benefits totalitarism.
- Public discourse is necessary too, its absence also benefit
  totalitarism.

As an individual, balancing the two in a world that try to attack both
is complicated.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_conditioning
[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelsea_Manning#Detention
[3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Murdock#Death
[4]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiLeaks#2006.E2.80.9308
[5]La loi est l'expression de la volonté générale
[6]https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Dictionnaire_philosophique/Garnier_%281878%29/Tyrannie

Denis.