Little Red Book Draws Government Attention 1088
narcolepticjim writes "An unnamed Dartmouth student was visited by Homeland Security for requesting a copy of Mao Zedong's Little Red Book for a class project." From the article: "The student, who was completing a research paper on Communism for Professor Pontbriand's class on fascism and totalitarianism, filled out a form for the request, leaving his name, address, phone number and Social Security number. He was later visited at his parents' home in New Bedford by two agents of the Department of Homeland Security, the professors said."
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quick (Score:4, Insightful)
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This is unfortunately predictable (Score:5, Insightful)
government is given power, it is human nature to abuse it. What I
don't understand is why people fall hook, line, and sinker, for the
same techniques throughout history over and over again.
1) Instill fear in the population somehow, by either orchestating or latching on to
a catastrophic event,
2) Tell the population that you will take care of it, blame enemies of the state,
3) Go to war, claim critics of the war are unpatriotic, out of touch, part of an "elite".
This is all classic power grab politics, and yet it happens again and again in
history.
Why do people not learn from history? It is clear that those in power have a
vested interest in having a sheeple populace. A critical thinking, well informed
electorate, is the biggest enemy to would be dictators in a democratic society.
Start with the children. I guess fear really is the mind killer. And, at the risk of
pulling a Godwin, two quotes from Hermann Goering, leader of Hitler's Luttewaffe.
"Education is dangerous - Every educated person is a future enemy"
"Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."
Finally, just a minor nit. The submitter claims the student was a "Dartmouth" student, whereas the article states that the student was from "U Mass-Dartmouth".
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Re:Wait, WTF??!?!?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
The governments are paranoid of anything with knowledge, scared they'll lose their grip around the publics neck. A book or a bomb.. in the right hands a single word can change the world..
Mixed feelings (Score:1, Insightful)
Sounds like this prof is actually trying to educate his students instead of being one of these pro-terrorist cranks the university system seems to enjoy hiring, but shouldn't we be wanting the Feds to go have a look for themselves to make sure everything was on the level? Be careful before tossing out the standard issue slashbot line, because when something eventually goes BOOM you won't be allowed to ask "Why didn't the spooks connect the dots and prevent it" if you are now howling that they shouldn't be looking for the dots.
Does sound like this was a case for them to have done a more quiet investigation though instead of coming in flying the colors. Good spook action is invisible, the quiet defenders of Truth, Justice and the American Way of life and all that stuff.
No, what shocks and confounds me is what sort of instituition is Dartmouth anyway! No copy of Mao in the library, they have to request one via ILL? Shocking.
Re:Now you know (Score:5, Insightful)
To quote Will Rogers, "Be happy you don't get all the government you're paying for."
Re:Well, hey... (Score:4, Insightful)
Luckily his next assignment is on George Orwell's 1984.
Re:Wait, WTF??!?!?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
To the Powers that Be, a single book is far more dangerous than any weapon of mass destruction, real or imagined. As was once said (Henry Peter Brougham),
Let the people start to read, to educate themselves, and how the hell are you going to rule them?
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two months? (Score:3, Insightful)
It strikes me as troubling that this stuff waits a while before hitting the presses. So in two months we'll hear about the stuff happening now.
Re:Wait, WTF??!?!?!? (Score:4, Insightful)
Se7en (Score:2, Insightful)
Why would the Dept. of Homeland Security tip their hand in such a visible fashion? Perhaps the agents themselves are uncomfortable with the practice and are seeking to shed light on it?
Re:Mixed feelings (Score:1, Insightful)
WTF? Why should reading a book be suspicious. Of all things why are the feds protecting US citizens from people reading Mao. Are they trying to stop terrorists or a Cultural Revolution?
Re:Mixed feelings (Score:5, Insightful)
But a *book*? And what's more, a book that contains nothing but *quotations*? It's not even the anarchist's cookbook or something - just a collection of quotes. Sure, it was Mao who wrote it, but seriously - this is no more justified than McCarthyism was. You could just as well advocate paying someone a visit for trying to obtain a copy of, say, de bello gallico (Julius Caesar was a dictator, too, and not exactly squeamish when dealing with his enemies).
Re:Mixed feelings (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Mixed feelings (Score:3, Insightful)
Typical "the government needs to be totalitarian to protect me" BS. Don't let them run roughshod over my rights and it's my fault if something happens? Let me give you clue, Einstein. Reading Mao or anything else like it isn't a good marker for a potential terrorist threat. It's a great marker for someone who may be thinking for themselves, not like the direction this country is going, and actually might stand up and say something about it. And if you think that isn't the danger that the people in power are currently most worried about, you're even more naive than you sound.
and if... (Score:2, Insightful)
What would the public outcry be? "Where was the government? Why did they drop the ball on this, they had the guy's info and did nothing.... " We all know it.
It was proven during the last four years...
Re:Mixed feelings (Score:1, Insightful)
If it makes me a Slashbot to oppose government intrusion and censorship, then call me one (for one of the few times I agree with the majority of people here).
Re:This is unfortunately predictable (Score:5, Insightful)
Human nature wants someone to protect us, we want to believe the world is a happy place and all will be well. Because if we look in the mirror we see someone we don't like and a world we can't stand.
It works the same way religion does. If you look at something else, you don't have to see the real world. It's the same reason so many body builders work so hard to get great bodies. They often hate the person inside so much they want to change it.
People believe what they are told.. because if they don't, they end up broken..
Re:A little skepticism? (Score:5, Insightful)
Instead of enforcing constitutionally protected freedom of speech, its better for you to choose what people can read. Your constitution doesnt really matter.
yup, there's no chance that anyone could possibly read the book and not come away a devout communist. Yup, no one has ever read the writings of such figures purely to try and figure out how they think, with the understanding that it will lack a true representation of what happened to the people.
If you choose this repression, then you are simply walking down the same path that Mao himself followed.
Remember Kids... (Score:5, Insightful)
Freedom Is Slavery
Ignorance Is Strength
(http://www.studentsfororwell.org/ [studentsfororwell.org])
Re:Real funny given the latest news (Score:2, Insightful)
The way Bush has been treating the Constitution, most of the founding fathers would have just disappeared by now (probably to a secret CIA prison overseas [kansascity.com]).
Re:Mixed feelings (Score:2, Insightful)
A book is far more dangerous than any gun ever was. You see guns aren't dangerous, it is the person holding it and it is ideas that animate us.
So you are saying that thoughts should be controlled? That sounds very much like the principles America was founded on.
Why is even being Communist a crime?
What about all the innocent people who got hauled up to congress to testify and lose their jobs because of the public embarassment just simply because McCarthy got wind of some something he didn't like from them and wanted to see them publically smeared.
What about that Secretary of the Army guy who totally debunked all of his accusations and resulted in McCarthy being censured?
Heh. (Score:3, Insightful)
Irony (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
But that's the american way
But that's just inside your borders. It's far worse if you include the atrocities your country commits outside your borders, pretending that you don't need to uphold your own values when its not US soil, and not US people, as if they are any less human than you.
Re:Pretty darn scary... (Score:3, Insightful)
It's unlikely that if you ordered this book, you'd get the same treatment. The article states that this student had a history of traveling overseas, etc. So it sounds like he wasn't investigated simply for ordering the book, but that the book was the final straw in a series of other "suspicious behavior", whatever that means.
Of course, because I point this out, people will probably complain that I'm rationalizing their behavior or whatever. Such is life, I suppose.
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Re:and if... (Score:4, Insightful)
At which point do we surrender our liberty to travel the world and have the freedom of conscious to learn about anything we want to a world where people who deviate from the norm of being a Patriotic American(tm) are investigated and grilled for not being "normal"?
Unfortunately, most people support this kind of thing. What can we do? Not much. The very constitution that Bush claims he loves by nominating "strict constructionists" is "just a damned piece of paper". Pretty soon, the "strict" interpretation of the constitution will mean that anyone who mentions the Bill of Rights is a "liberal activist" who likes to misinterpret our "rights" to be "protected" from evil terrorists weilding Mao's book.
This reminds me of the old joke (Score:3, Insightful)
Agent A: How are we going to catch some terrorists?
Agent B: We could inflitrate their organizations and to track their activities.
Agent A: Nah, that'd take years. I was thinking of a quick fix.
Agent B: Technical?
Agent A: Preferably.
Agent B: OK, we intercept their commnications.
Agent A: Whose?
Agent B: The terrorists.
Agent A: And who are they?
Agent B: Uh. I don't know. Why don't we monitor everyone's communications.
Agent A: We do.
Agent B: So, why don't we know who they are?
Agent A: You speak Arabic?
Agent B: No.
Agent A: You know anybody who speaks Arabic?
Agent B: No. But we could learn it.
Agent A: That'd take years too.
Agent B: Well, hire some translatos.
Agent A: Spend money? You got money for friggen towel heads in your budget? Just clearing them will take years.
Agent B: You clear them?
Agent A: Well, no. But it doesn't change the fact I dont' have the budget. I need to put some numbers up on the board this quarter, otherwise they'll ship me to New Mexico to do Indian shit.
Agent B: Oh, is that all. Just do the usual.
Agent A: You mean pick a source of data that's convenient to monitor and jump over anything that's different?
Agent B: Yep. Throw your weight around and make a lot of noise.
Agent A: I like throwing my weight around.
Agent B: And I hate people who are different.
Re:This is unfortunately predictable (Score:5, Insightful)
Because they think of themselves as the "good guys", and the history they are taught (by school, Hollywood, the media, etc) portrays bad things being done by "bad guys". In reality, there is no good and bad, just a mixture of greys.
How often is it that a movie about Nazi Germany includes the democracy that Germany had beforehand? How often do you hear about how Osama bin Laden called for jihad against Iraq for invading Kuwait? How often do you hear about how Saddam Hussein reformed Iraq into a secular state instead of a theocracy, or how he increased equality and women's rights?
As long as people are taught that some countries are good and some countries are evil, so long as their enemies are demonised, the majority of people will continue to think of themselves as the "good guys", and therefore immune to committing atrocities and war crimes.
Re:A little skepticism? (Score:5, Insightful)
Your repression is the act of trying to substitute another book in the place of what a FREE person CHOSE to read.
He was not looking for a historical perspective, he wanted to read the actual propaganda for himself.
But yes, you are right books are not harmless, they are bad bad dangerous things because they make you think. I'll see you at sunday's book burning.
Re:A little skepticism? (Score:2, Insightful)
Besides, I'm far from a Marxist or a fascist, but I've read plenty of both and found it enlightening. Whether or not you like it, both were powerful forces and need to be understood. When a basically fascist candidate is able to come so close to victory as in France (who knows how much more successful he'll be in lieu of the Parisian riots), it's time to turn to Mein Kampf and read up. Marx is indispensible too. And I'm sure someone like Condoleeza Rice, who has to deal with China more and more everyday, might make some use of reading Mao's book of quotes to learn a thing or two about the nation she's dealing with, regardless of where her sympathies lay.
No one should be afraid of reading, and this goes double for the collegiate environment, or the "classic academic bubble" as you say with such disdain. College is a place to explore all points of views and learn more about the world. Mao's red book, a philosophy that is at least ostensibly the underpinning of a government that rules over 1/6 of the world's population, certainly qualifies as something you should learn.
i call bullshit (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Mixed feelings (Score:3, Insightful)
> for someone who may be thinking for themselves
Whatever. Seriously dude, twenty years ago one could be forgiven reading Mao just to see what all the fuss was about. Anyone doing it now falls into a few groups:
1. Historians. Mao certainly has a place in history, a dark one, but there it is.
2. Completeness freaks, reading every crackpot philosophy just to have read em all.
3. Retards. Seriously, show of hands if anyone still believes Mao was anything other than an insane genocidal lunatic.
> not like the direction this country is going, and actually might stand up and say something about it
Sorry pal, hate to break the bad news to you. You can oppose current policy all ya want, it IS still a (mostly) Free Country. But anybody tries to introduce any of Mao's insane political ideas here I'll be fighting my way to the front of the line to answer their challenge with a bullet. I might not know what works, but I damned sure know enough history to know what doesn't. Mao, Stalin, Lenin, Hitler, Pol Pot and Castro are on the ashheap of history for very good reasons and they need to stay there.
Re:WTF? (Score:3, Insightful)
What i find hard to believe that is *just* requesting a 50 year old book on communism theory would prompt a visit from the HSD.
If that is all it takes now to get visitors in the black van, we are fucked.
Re:Mixed feelings (Score:1, Insightful)
Maybe you shouldn't be comparing it with some unsophisticated barbarian like Saddam. Relly efficient oppressive governments hardly need to employ rubber-hoses.
For example, the East German Staatsicherheit while occasionally using such methods, normally wouldn't. If there was suspicion, they would just come and have a nice chat with you. That was usually enough to scare most people into obedience. If not, you would, for example, suddenly lose your job. Making things messy usually only causes a more trouble than it is worth especially if silk-gloved approaches usually work just as well.
DHS: Damned if they do, damned if they don't (Score:2, Insightful)
As for this event, I saw no mention that the book was confiscated or that the student was arrested or even held in custody. Only that he received a visit. Wow. I once got a visit from the cable company to "check my outlets." Doesn't mean that I got all upset with them because they might wonder if I'm stealing cable when I'm not. It's their job and they are doing what they have to do to protect the proper interests. Same thing with DHS. I, for one, am glad to know that they are not taking anything too lightly and also not abusing their powers. And before you jump the gun and say they are and that this all a part of a huge fascist plot by the Bushies, I suggest you provide some evidence from the article. There's none there. It's as simple as DHS following through and checking things out. If, hypothetically, the student was later involved in espionage and cyberterrorism and the press reported that he had requested materials about Zedong, the same people crying out here would be crying out about how DHS didn't do their job and check on the suspicious activity early on.
Like I said... damned if they do, damned if they don't.
Reality Check (Score:2, Insightful)
My guess is that the unnamed student didn't get the book in time, or was otherwise late in turning in his paper. So the student makes up this story to tell his professors.
I'm a senior in college, and in the years at school, I have seen bomb threats called in for buildings on campus, twice for unspecified locations on final exam days, and once for the library, called in by a student who hadn't finished a paper that was due the next day.
With all kinds of conspiracy theorists in the ranks of the professors at my school, I could probably tell them something like this and get away with it, too.
It's all to convenient that the supposed government agents "brought the book with them, but did not leave it with the student". From which library did they get the book they brought, or was it their copy?
This whole thing stinks of a student trying to cheat for extra time or lenience in grading. When this comes out as a hoax, I look forward to hearing about him getting an F for academic dishonesty. It's too bad most colleges don't believe in expulsion.
Wrong Book (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:WTF? (Score:3, Insightful)
I feel as if maybe, just maybe one pair of eyes has been opened. only 300million more to go.
How to Win the War on Terror (As a Terrorist) (Score:4, Insightful)
Step 2 - Have all but one or two act as decoy cells. Keep decoy cells separate from the real cells with no contact whatsoever.
Step 3 - Members of decoy cells check out hundreds of books from librares, surf dozens and dozens of terrorist websites, etc., etc.
Step 4 - While Feds waste time chasing down book readers and web surfers, the real cells continue on with their plans.
Step 5 - As the US government expands powers and searches, create more decoy cells that create more needless searches and wild goose chases.
Step 6 - Repeat steps 3 to 5 as needed.
Step 7 - Obtain US citizenship and vote for politicians that expand the powers and searches in Step 5.
Re:And if you are lonely this holiday season... (Score:5, Insightful)
Freedom of Speech (Score:1, Insightful)
P.S. with this type of gov't conduct the bad guys win yet another round by default. That bearded fucker is sitting in a cave laughing.
Re:Mixed feelings (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Wait, WTF??!?!?!? (Score:1, Insightful)
Books give ideas.. ideas are what make people do things. You could say the Islamic texts killed them people if you follow it back long enough.
Re:WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
-- Leon Poliakov, Harvest of Hate, quoted in Kornberg, "Kristallnacht and the Politics of Anti-semitism Nazi Germany"
-- Albert Fuchs, My Experiences From November 9th to 16th, 1938 [concordia.ca] (Written on November 19, 1938 on the way from Strasbourg to Paris)
Now I'm not saying the situation in contemporary America is anywhere as bad as the situation in Nazi Germany. What I am trying to point out is that beliefs like yours, that, it "can't be that bad", have consistently been disproven.
Will things become as bad here as they got in Nazi Germany? Like you, I doubt it. But it can happen here. Just ask any Japanese American who sat out WWII in an American internment camp. Hell, ask any black person over age 40 who grew up in the American South, or anyone caught up in the anti-Communist hysteria of the 1950s.
Was Soviet Communism a real threat in the 1950s? Definitely, just as terrorism is a real threat now. But just as in the 1950s, it's also an excuse for government excess and the curtailment of personal liberties in the name of "security".
You can't belive governemtn agents are tracking people who check out books? This has all happened before, rght here in America.
Re:Mixed feelings (Score:5, Insightful)
What if their duty is to make a list of all the {Jews | Japanese-Americans | Communists | Bourgeois Capitalists | Anarchists | Muslims | Armenians | crypto-Christians | Quakers | students reading Mao} on your block?
Will you answer "Jawohl, mein Polizei, Herr Kohn in apartment 103 is one?"
It really amazes me that so many "good Christians" believe in always helping the cops. I mean, their Christ was executed, according to the law of the times, after being seized by the cops for being a troublemaking radical. You'd think they might remember that.
Sometimes, the only decent thing to do is to not help the cops.
Ihre Papiere, bitte!
Why in the hell are we paying (taxes) for ... (Score:5, Insightful)
<sarcasm>I'm so comforted that a noticable portion of my paycheck gets usurped for such important security concerns.</sarcasm>
If you are a taxpaying U.S. citizen, I advise you to see how your contributions to the government are apportioned and spent [natprior.org].
Re:not a free county (Score:3, Insightful)
This is the same way revolution starts.. 1 becomes 2h,4h,8h, 10h,20h,40h,80h, 100h,200h,400h,800h, ... and so on and so forth.
Re:SSNs as College Student ID Numbers (Score:2, Insightful)
Nor is there any such thing as identity "theft". Identity is a mental concept. I can no more steal your identity than I can steal the color of your hair.
The problems you are referring to are not caused by someone carelessly publishing your SSN, nor by the person who claims your SSN is theirs. They result from the incompetence of lenders who promiscuously throw wads of money at nearly anybody who asks for it, without using even a single subatomic particle of due diligence, and then harrass whoever is handy for payment.
Repeat after me: There is no such thing as identity theft. There is such a thing as a false dunning letter. There is such a thing as actionable false prosecution.
Re:Memorize this phrase... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why should they bother? It's so much easier to simply disappear you.
Re:SSNs as College Student ID Numbers (Score:3, Insightful)
If somebody is able to take something from me, or run up charges on my behalf, just by knowing my SSN, it's because somewhere along the way, some person or organization said, "Hmm. He knows the information about the person referred to by SSN 555-55-5555. Therefore he must be the person referred to by SSN 555-55-5555." Which is lunacy.
Make the bad people stop!
Mom meets the g-men (Score:3, Insightful)
The FBI promptly showed up at her doorstep for a little interview.
My, how far we've come.
Re:Mixed feelings (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh course not. But let is be realists for a moment. If we are to prevent madmen from going KABOOM in unwelcome places we have to have spooks doing the sometimes unpleasant things spooks do, right? Now if we can agree that so long as the risk of people going FOOM in a shopping mall exceeds the risk of Bush taking to the podium and announcing a new thousand year reich, we as informed citozens should insist that intelligence agencies investigate. Since they can't investigate everyone, and we wouldn't want to live in a country where they COULD investigate everyone, how are they to pick? I assert that their current methods resemble what we here on slashdot would propose. Computerized sieving of raw information followed up by actual humans asking questions supplemented by old school human intelligence.
From the press account it looks as if this is exactly what happened, this guy was asked some questions because the computer spit out his name, and from the noteworthy items mentioned in the article it probably should have kicked his name out for a human to have a look at. But unless there is a little more than the article revealed, and there probably is, they probably should not have expended the resources to send two agents over to directly question this guy.
Re:Five Words (Score:4, Insightful)
Bored in Boston (Score:2, Insightful)
Imagine you're stationed in Boston.
You spend 99.9% of your time looking into student idiocies which amount to zip. Once in a blue moon, several things come together to make you think, one of these kids is getting serious about a revolution. Wouldn't you pay him a visit? It wasn't a SWAT team that showed up.
Pull that in SLC and I bet the SAC would show up and give you a body cavity search.
I personally believe that all of this security is useless, that the nuts that do these horrible things are spread so thin that it will only ever be random chance that they'll catch one that has a brain at all. So why do we spend billions of dollars when it's all just a crap shoot anyway?
Well, guess who gets the money!
What alarms me even more than this blatant corruption is the number of bad cops that end up being produced by this unattainable "perfect security." Recent example- Everyone on the plane has been cleared, the luggage has been screened. Some guy starts screaming he has a bomb while a female companion starts screaming he's bipolar and off his meds. What kind of cop thinks, "All the systems have failed and I have to put a bullet in this guy to save everyone?" Not a good one. The training is set up the way it is so that bad policemen can make bad calls and it's ok because that's the way they were trained.
The Air Marshalls can say the guys were following training, but that training sucks if they start shooting passengers because they didn't get their meds today.
Seriously, when all of this stuff is going on I don't want Dirty Harry or John McClane protecting me, I want freaking Andy Taylor.
Looks like he found what he was looking for... (Score:5, Insightful)
What better way to learn about fascism and totalitarianism than to live under 'em, eh?
Yes, I'm feeling sardonic today.
Everybody! Everybody! (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe if we flood the world with bogus information, they'll have to go back to, you know, actually running proper investigations instead of wasting our time and scaring people whose only sin is having interests.
Re:Kill tally: 14 to 20 million deaths (Score:3, Insightful)
It's people like you who are a threat to our civil liberties. I don't want to check in with my friendly local FBI agent every time I want to check a book out of the library.
Re:Wait, WTF??!?!?!? (Score:2, Insightful)
Many of the 'great religions' (meaning lots of people believe them) *do* have written books. However, there is a semantic gap between 'based on' and 'relevant to'... Most of the christians I know have hardly cracked the book their belief is 'based on', and cannot quote the most rudimentary content of it. A plurality of Americans think 'Cleanliness is next to Godliness' is in the book. Same with "Idle hands are the Devil's workshop".
Religions are largely social phenomena, not intellectual ones.
Is anyone planning on being remotely skeptical? (Score:5, Insightful)
So, to remind everyone, we have exactly one source for this, the professor, who is at best relaying the story secondhand to all of us - we do not have an eyewitness report, in that the student to whom this supposedly happened hasn't given his version to anyone else, including the paper in which this was reported. Hell, it doesn't look like the paper even bothered to contact DHS for any sort of comment.
I dunno, I really think I'd like a little more info. More than just the say-so of some professor dude, who may or may not have a vested interest in telling tales.
This is what happens (Score:3, Insightful)
This is a surprise? The administration that ships people off to overseas prisons so they can be tortured, spies on his own citizens and labels it "necessary", let's the military spy on US citizens, holds suspects indefinitely with no charges and no access to a lawyer.
After all that anyone's surprised to find out they're investigating innocent Americans for requesting a suspicious book? Get real. How does this compare with all the atrocities you've already tolerated?
There's no lower limit to the behavior of this administration. The only difference now is the clueless 52% is starting to wake up to reality.
Re:This is unfortunately predictable (Score:5, Insightful)
I completely agree that history as it is taught is a mostly worthless mess of "we are infinitely good" and "they are infinitely bad". However, to day that "there is no good and bad, just a mixture of greys" is ridiculous! There are many events throughtout history that are very clearly Bad and others that are clearly Good, regardless of your ethical background.
Let's look at a few extreme examples:
There is no shades of grey in those acts. They were and are evil acts.
Now the fact that American history books as taught in our schools will only go into detail on the first two (non-American "bad guys") and gives only token treatment to slavery and usually don't mention the Native American genocide is an entirely different problem...
Re:Mao? That's nothing... (Score:5, Insightful)
In 10-20 years everyone will be wondering "How the hell did we get in this crappy position to begin with?" Until that time, the uninitiated masses will just continue to ignore everything and mutter "in this day and age we just have to give up some things, I guess."
I'm huge promoter of capitalism, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Frankly, I think the student *should* not only be permitted to read Mao's book, but it should be encouraged, and the DHS should fuck off. Only by understanding where we are coming from, and the sort of horrors for which Mao is responsible -- and doing this can centrally include reading Mao's views that helped catalyze the policies leading to them -- will we be able to avoid such brutal ideologies like communism and totalitarianism.
"Those who do not learn from their past are doomed to repeat it", after all. A free, non-totalitarian society allows its people to read books written by rulers of non-free, totalitarian societies; this is not true in reverse.
Ironically, the DHS is enforcing the sort of totalitarianism the student intended to read about. Apparently the DHS has yet to learn history too...
(His professor is unbelieveable though, saying at the end of the article "Mao Tse-Tung is completely harmless." Given that Mao was responsible for the mass-murder of as many as 70 million people, nothing could be further from the truth. [amazon.com])
Knowledge is NOT power (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:And if you are lonely this holiday season... (Score:5, Insightful)
Translation: the government is not currently acting as a civilian government.
Re:Mixed feelings (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh course not. But let is be realists for a moment.
That would be a very welcome change from our government's current behavior.
If we are to prevent madmen from going KABOOM in unwelcome places we have to have spooks doing the sometimes unpleasant things spooks do, right?
That depends on how unpleasant those things are.
Now if we can agree that so long as the risk of people going FOOM in a shopping mall exceeds the risk of Bush taking to the podium and announcing a new thousand year reich,
A strawman. Simply preventing "a new thousand year reich" is not the goal we should be striving for when it comes to keeping an eye on our government. If that's the best we can accomplish, then we're already screwed.
we as informed citozens should insist that intelligence agencies investigate.
Yes. Investigate things that are relevant, and that have a chance of providing useful information without trampling on those rights that we consider to be important.
There's another aspect to this story that doesn't seem to be getting much discussion. Setting aside, for the moment, the question of whether it is morally acceptable for an allegeldy freedom-loving government to investigate its citizens in this manner, the book in question consisted of quotes from a Communist leader. How many of the 9/11 hijackers were Communists? When was the last time an Iraqi insurgent quoted Lenin or Mao in front of a camera? In fact, not only are these people not Communists, they are diametrically and violently opposed to Communism. Hell, many of the senior Al Qaeda leaders cut their teeth fighting Communists.
So IOW, this investigation had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with counter-terrorism. Which tells me that, at best, these investigations are being run in a haphazard and disorganized manner, and at worst, they are being used to watch people with politically undesireable views and send them a message. Combine that with the fact that many neo-cons use the label "Communist" or "Marxist" to stain anyone with views that even remotely appear leftist -- or, for that matter, just plain critical of the current administration -- and perhaps you can begin to understand why so many people consider this to be a frightening precedent.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:US college students starting peasant revolution (Score:4, Insightful)
If I didn't know any better, we have corporate national socialist running the USA these days, and what is good for GM or WAl-Mart is good for the country. Considering that China is one of the USA's largest suppliers, largest customers, and largest creditors, you would think that the PRC (China) is the USA's newest bestest friend.
What's next? Any college student caught studying Taoism or Confucianism will be turned over to the neo(Con)artist religious fundamentalist Inquisition and put on trial for blasphemy?
Know thy enemies--not to know is stupid (Score:4, Insightful)
The real reason this kind of thing is stupid in general is because it prevents us from studying our enemies. If you can't understand what your enemies are thinking, then it is much more likely that they are going to be able to blindside you.
I'll give a concrete example that is actually related to real threats. I have a number of friends and acquaintances of various Islamic persuasions. They would naturally have different perspectives on the real threats of Islamic-based extremism. However, given the ideological climate of America as exemplified by this kind of incident, I'm certainly not going to risk causing them any problems by asking them for their insights.
On the other hand, worrying about potential communist sympathizers at this time is just plain stupid. You'd think the president who'd allow such a thing would have to be some kind of moron.
Oh, wait...
Police State (Score:1, Insightful)
Don't let ANYONE IN YOUR HOUSE WITHOUT WARRANTS (Score:4, Insightful)
The only way to teach these crooked cops is to make them actually do real detective work instead of taking the lazy route by trying to harass a large number of people to get their information.
No sane judge is going to sign off on a search warrant for the entire customer list of a company that sells joysticks that look like real cockpit controls.
The five golden words: "I have nothing to say" also come in handy.
Stuff like 9/11 happened because of this type of lazy and slacked police work that targets the wrong people when instead they could have connected the dots and got the RIGHT people.
Re:A little skepticism? (Score:2, Insightful)
vidarh writes:
Bull. Feathers.
While the Little Red Book isn't more of a threat than any other book (and let me be clear, censorship of books is simply wrong, as is restricting access to them), to say that Mao was a "flawed leader that screwed up badly" isn't too far from suggesting that Caligula had minor impulse control issues.
Check out the numerous bios of the man. Check out the references, especially in those written in recent years --- well-attested archival material from the mainland is appearing that does nothing but back up what has been claimed about his rule for many years. For instance, check out the recent Mao : The Unknown Story by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday. Yes, the authors are decidedly anti-Mao, and anti-PRC. Yes, anti-Mao bias is more-than-likely to be found in this book. Yet the facts it reports surrounding Mao's reign are just that, facts (and why make up anything when the truth is so awful?): the millions upon millions who died in the Great Leap Forward and its accompanying famines --- famines which could have been easily ameliorated had Mao wanted to do anything about them; the chaos, disorder, and madness that swept across the land during the Cultural Revolution (during which the Little Red Book was waved on high and memorized by those most responsible for the craziness and death); the ruthless way in which followers and associates were used and discarded from even his earliest days in the Party --- these things alone are more than enough to show him to be among the worst of the worst of 20th century rulers, if not heading the list. Talk to someone who lived through his reign. Watch their eyes. Listen to them as they struggle to talk about it in any but the vaguest terms. An entire nation went mad for a generation; while it is doing an amazing job of picking up the pieces today, many scars left by Mao are yet unhealed, and will not fade for many years to come.
Re:Memorize this phrase... (Score:4, Insightful)
I dont think this is social control (Score:3, Insightful)
This is coming from the same idiotic line of thinking where they interrogate people who are snapping photos of landmarks or ask a woman on a transit bus to show her or or face more retarded treatment from authroity.
Do the cops get a kick out of fucking with the people? Sure they do, but its not really part of a larger conspiracy, is it? Out of the entire USA population - how many of us are radical leftists? Not all that many. They might be some of the most vocal - but in terms of threatening the grip of the two party power system, they have zero to worry about from them.
At least when you look at other toltaltarian states - i.e. Nazi Germany or USSR, their governments worked with far better efficency and effectiveness than ours at controlling the sheep.
Re:Wait, WTF??!?!?!? (Score:3, Insightful)
So do you seriously think there's enough risk that some student who orders the book is going to be inspired to murder "somewhere between sixty and eighty million people" that they should be personally visited by federal authorities?
The Bible (both old and new Tesaments) and the Koran together have inspired much more murder than that.
This is a simple case of the government having so much money, power, and manpower to fight a mostly non-existent threat that they have to make up threats to investigate. You can be sure, there's some "good old boy" in the organization, three years from retirement, who remembers how sometime back in the old days (when we KNEW who the enemy was) that Mao's Little Red Book was dangerous. He figgered it was a good idea to check out this little commie pinko creep.
It's pathetic. That's all.
Re:of course they're unaware... (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course you probably are not aware of how Wilkins has been screaming for Our Prime Minister to layoff all the complaints about how YOUR country won't honour the trade agreements you freely chose to sign, that it may damage US/Canadian relations
You don't want derogatory?
Re:Real funny given the latest news (Score:3, Insightful)
Furthermore you're asking me to believe that the same Bush administration which couldn't manage the aftermath of a hurricane, which demonstrates massive incompetence every day in Iraq, which can't even out a CIA agent without screwing it up, is capiable of a) engineering the Attack on New York City, and b) keeping their involvement secret. It isn't that I don't believe they have the will and motivation, I just don't think they have the brains and competence to do it.
They *did* take shameful political advantage over an attack which was focused on their political enemies (quick, how many Republicans died in the Attack on NYC? Also, who would Osama hate more, us liberal pro-gay rights, pro-women's rights types, or the Party of Pat Robertson?). But taking advantage of the actions of Osama for political gain is simply politics at its most repulsive, it isn't evidence they were actually involved. As for the ignored warnings, I tend to agree with the people who think its due to the Bush administration's "if Clinton did x we'll do the opposite". Clinton was worried about Osama, so Bush wasn't. Clinton tried to take out Osama, so Bush didn't. The ignored warnings fit the "Clinton did it so it must be wrong" policy perfectly.
Re:Mao? That's nothing... (Score:3, Insightful)
None of you seem to get it
In Canada, when The Charter of Rights and Freedoms is infringed upon, when the constitution is broken by a law, the courts disalow the law
It's already happened to hundreds in New York when your government decided to crack down on the bike protest rallys. In several occurances there, people spent 3 days locked up without charge, not allowed even to tell their families where they were. The people had simply vanished.
Re:Mixed feelings (Score:3, Insightful)
PATRIOT Act (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Not so scary (Score:3, Insightful)
Now who shall I believe, a friend whom I know to be a medic and to have served in the military, or an AC on Slashdot? It's a toughie.
The version I heard was that the manual is written that way precisely because the medics are trained to read it and follow it, because otherwise they forget the simple things while under pressure.
Re:Know thy enemies--not to know is stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
BUT, to play the devil's advocate . . .
Time has proven that the Department of Homeland Security, the regular milatary, and, heck, even the local police force do NOT appreciate help from citizens when dealing with "the enemy". In their perspective, you are just as much as a loose cannon as any terrorist when you show any interest in working around the official organizations.
In other words, you're unnaccountable to your actions, and therefor may actually be breaking more laws than you're upholding.
That having been said, a visit from the DHS was entirely innapropriate for this single action, and I hope they had other good reasons to put up and investigation.
Re:And if you are lonely this holiday season... (Score:3, Insightful)
What do you mean by "though it was voted against The law against spying on American citizens dates back to the 1970's when their was a Democratic backlash against domesticating spying abuses by the FBI, CIA and Nixon administration so that hasn't been voted on since then.
The Senate did just filibuster the renewal of parts of the Patriot Act which does allow some forms of spying in the U.S. in part because House Republicans rather than reforming it were trying to extend it, and in part because of the New York Time article exposing the fact the Bush administration was abusing its power and most probably violating the 1970's prohibition on domestic spying (without a court order).
It is a bit odd the Bush administration chose to break this law since there is a secret Federal court which rubber stamps nearly all eavesdropping requests so there really was no reason for the Bush administration to do this other than they were:
- just looking to expand their power
- looking to ignore or overturn a law the Republican's have despised since the Democrats passed it in the 1970's
- seeking to spy on American citizens without a valid reason, perhaps anti Bush and anti war activists for example, and they knew the court wouldn't approve it.
Re:Mixed feelings (Score:1, Insightful)
Ahh yes, the "you are criticising me, therefore I'll distract you by pointing out something worse" defence. Now that's disingenuous.
By that logic, Hitler could say: "How dare you call Nazi Germany evil! After all, I didn't hurt as many people as Stalin! Nazi Germany can't possibly be evil, because there's somebody worse!"
Verily, thou art a douche bag. (Score:3, Insightful)
Consider your sig: Stop censorship, eliminate the SLC funding that enables CIPA. You wish to Kill SLC [slashdot.org] to stop CIPA, apparently with the intent of ending some form of censorship. And yet, you talk essentially classify anyone reading this particular book as a "retard", unless they're reading it for purely educational purposes or for the sake of completeness.
Perhaps I'm being too extreme, perhaps I'm simply not understanding your enlightened position. Whatever the case may be, to "answer their challenge with a bullet" sounds like a pretty strong form of censorship to me.
This demonstrates that no matter how old you are, where you work, or how low your Slashdot UID is, you can still be a full blown douche bag.
Re:Know thy enemies--not to know is stupid (Score:3, Insightful)
This is a bunch of hearsay.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Here's an example:
The anti-war left loves to chant that Iraq is a war for oil. Okay, let's assume that statement is true. Now that we "occupy" Iraq, why haven't we gotten our greedy, American pig-dog capitalist hands on it? Why hasn't the worldwide market for oil reflected (via lower, not higher prices) increased supply of oil flowing out of Iraq?
The answer is, because the premise is false. Anyone who takes the time to understand a nit of oil production learns that Iraq's oil reserves are largely untapped because of the difficulty extracting it (Financial Times did a wonderful piece on this in May 2003). At a cost of trillions of dollars to simply prosecute the war and secure the country, if you could somehow extract the oil, it would take decades to earn a return on investment. In short, it would a) financially cheaper, and b) politically more expedient to piss off the environmental kooks and drill in ANWaR than go to war in Iraq if the goal was oil.
But most of you Slashdotters, who otherwise pride yourselves on your smarts, hipness, contrarian thinking and general exclusiveness are eager join the chorus "No War For Oil". Well, all I can say is that is simply lazy thinking. Next time you hear a story about the big bad (the government, george bush, karl rove, "insert your least favorite conservative here"), maybe you'll take a minute to check the facts - apply a little common sense - think about the story, where it's coming from, who's involved and ponder what motivations they might have for furthering that story. And then, God willing, maybe you'll post an intelligent thought about it on Slashdot for others to ponder.
Re:of course they're unaware... (Score:2, Insightful)
The sheer audacity of the US, thinking that it should be releasing statements to the citizens of foreign countries suggesting who their preferred candidates are.
Re:And if you are lonely this holiday season... (Score:5, Insightful)
How long will we be at war? Is the war on terror ever over?
This sounds eerily similar to 1984 - as long as we're at war with somebody, we have to sacrifice our liberties so that Big Brother can protect us.
Re:And if you are lonely this holiday season... (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually it is the most painful thing to have to speak out about presidential malfeasance ( Misconduct or wrongdoing, especially by a public official. )
There are some constitutional issues here about illegal search and seizure that the Federal courts will undoubtedly have to deal with.
This administration plainly want the freedom to torture anyone that can provide them information about their enemies (not necessarily my enemies or your enemies but the enemies that the administration percieves as enemies to the State or themselves or their interests). This is clearly shown by there research and stance (a stretch) that they can legally torture some people. These people are "enemy combatants" and who determains who are enemy combatants? The White House. There seems to be a trail of the practices of torture at Gitmo were transfered to IRAQ with the visit of one of the Gitmo people in charge of that sort of thing. Now we find that the CIA probably has had secret prisons that detained and possible tortured individuals.
There is a deep morality issue here. Not whether something is legal but the very idea that our elected leader would treat anyone in the world with the reckless disregard that seems to be the case. The Geneva convention sets up some standards for the treatement of prisoners of war (people remember like you and me, with a mother and father, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, with maybe different ideas (which our Constitution protects here), or a different religion (which our Constitution protects here). But maybe just an asshole set of demagogic leaders which have issues with our
Back to my point. It is my opinion that that attitude and the carrying out of that attitude by action to spy on our citizens, torture individuals (certainly setting it up so our military and intellegence arm felt that it was alright to do) constitures wrong doing and missconduct of a public official. That kind of conduct should be held up to legal and constitutional standard and possibly even the international court (funny how this administration did not want to have anything to do with the international court).
We are having to deal not only with the fundemetalism abroad but here at home.
So it is not fun to bash Bush. It is painful and sad not only that these things seem to have been done. But the destroying in 5 short years what it took 200+ years to establish in the world as a moral authority.
Don't get hung up on the legal issue too much or what others have done. Bush has to live with and answer for His actions and his actions alone. If he does not want the critisim, don't torture people and don't spy on us, and certainly don't send agents out to interview the parents of a boy that ordered a copy of one of the worlds most infuential political books!
I don't know about "innapropriate". (Score:5, Insightful)
He even refuses to give his name now because he "fears repercussions".
You just can't get that kind of gut-level understanding without a visit from the authorities. That is one kid who will have a deeper understanding of the material now than anyone else in class.
freedom...democracy (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Remember Kids... (Score:3, Insightful)
War Is Peace
Freedom Is Slavery
Ignorance Is Strength
I'll add one more to your list:
Wisdom is unquestioning belief of everything in print or on the internet.
Citizen... (Score:3, Insightful)
Remain where you are, a team of highly trained members of the Ministry of Truth have been dispatched to your location to rectify the issue of you believing in this "freedom" nonsense. The Party has seen to it that Bushism is the way, and will be given further terms. Conservatism is irrelevant, it is only one of our tools to help you see the Truth.
Your brothers in Truth,
~The Party
PS - Sounds like it wouldn't happen... heh. yeah right, we who are geeks and READ the words of our wiser ancestors, know better
Re:This is a bunch of hearsay.... (Score:2, Insightful)
The answer is, because the premise is false. Anyone who takes the time to understand a nit of oil production learns that Iraq's oil reserves are largely untapped because of the difficulty extracting it (Financial Times did a wonderful piece on this in May 2003). At a cost of trillions of dollars to simply prosecute the war and secure the country, if you could somehow extract the oil, it would take decades to earn a return on investment. In short, it would a) financially cheaper, and b) politically more expedient to piss off the environmental kooks and drill in ANWaR than go to war in Iraq if the goal was oil.
War for oil doesn't necessarily mean we're going in to take all of the oil with us when we leave. It could mean a war to insure a US-friendly government, which won't start withholding oil from us in the future (not that we've propped up such governments in the past, of course).
Re:And if you are lonely this holiday season... (Score:3, Insightful)
Totalitarianism in the US (Score:1, Insightful)
No, Communism is evil (Score:2, Insightful)
The core of Communism is a very old system of government, called slavery. When slavery and communism are implemented, citizens lose the right to own property, choose their occupation, and take public office. They become property of the State. Communism is just a modern way of selling this type of slavery to the people, who somehow imagine that it will be fairer than living under capitalism, a view that is based on a misunderstanding of both systems.
For more facts about communism, read the fascinating online Museum of Communism [gmu.edu], which is a brilliant read, although rather dated in terms of presentation.
Re:I don't know about "innapropriate". (Score:5, Insightful)
That was the whole point. You don't send agents to knock on the front door of potential terrorists. If someone is dangerous or is believed to be dangerous, they are put under surveillance to see what's going on.
You send agents to intimidate. Apparently people interested in world views contradictory to our own.
Yeah, it's almost time to go.
Re:Know thy enemies--not to know is stupid (Score:3, Insightful)
Most likely the agents have quotas to fulful, in terms of "doing something". Going and bullying a student is a lot safer for them (and their families) than trying to catch real terrorists, gangsters and criminals. Especially since some of the actual "bad guys" appear to to have real political power.
Re:I don't know about "innapropriate". (Score:3, Insightful)
I told him I enjoyed SCUBA diving.
He told me that he had enrolled in a SCUBA course somewhere in the area, and after the first class, had received a visit from government goons. Not sure if it was DHS or SS goons, but while they did not tell him NOT to continue with the classes, he dropped the classes because he did not want any additional scrutiny from the government. He was insulted, hurt, and scared.
It goes beyond just the initial act of having a goon come visit you, which is intimidating enough to decide to stay home and never leave; it is a sense of being threatened by the people who reported you to the government, and a sense of indignity with being considered a threat.