> Through the years that he has been at the California Institute of Technology (REDACTED) he has in my opinion made a definite point of knowing well and cultivating such persons as the president of California Institute of Technology, the dean of the school of physics, department heads (including REDACTED and Linus Pauling), regents of California Institute of Technology, as well as REDACTED.
Well it shouldn't be too much detective work to figure out what Caltech department head Feynman was buddy buddy with other than Pauling. They seemed to feel need to redact the name for some reason.
From all of the references to Caltech implying a personal knowledge of the school, to the continual references to Feynman being a religious skeptic and critical of Republicans, I'd guess this letter was written by a conservative working at Caltech. It would make sense in terms of the initial FBI contact, the acquaintanceship but not friendship with Feynman etc.
> While Islamic democracies elsewhere (such as Indonesia) are doing fine, in the Arab world the very fabric of the state is weak.
The Western countries and Israel have been doing everything they can for the past century to keep Arab democracy weak.
In the soi disant "only democracy in the Middle East", the West bank, claimed by Israel, where ultraorthodox right off the plane from Russia can go to a West Bank settlement to vote, but in which Palestinians who have been there for thousands of years can not vote for any government which Israel or the US recognizes - why not let the Palestinians vote? Israel is no democracy - they claim the West Bank is Israel, in a defacto sense it is, and they do not let Arabs vote. We see the contemplation of Islam causing problems, why don't we look at Judaism in the same manner in how it is against democracy? Meir Kahane said as much himself, and his policies have been running Israel, and the US and European backing of Israel for the past years.
Meanwhile the US and UK destroyed Iranian democracy, its parliament, Mossadegh, and installed a dictator whose CIA-backed secret police arrested, tortured and killed those who wanted a return to democracy. We had France, the UK and Israel invade Egypt in 1956, and on and on and on.
The economic and military might of the west and Israel has been fighting autonomy and democracy in the Middle East for a century, and will continue to in the next century.
Despite this, as we can see the beginnings of in the Arab Spring, as well as a history rooted in pan-Arab nationalism, in the years to come Arabs will see themselves freed from the shackles of imperialism and Zionism, and restore power in the the Middle East to the people of the Middle East.
Exactly this, the western world has long meddled in the region, drawing arbitrary borders and sowing unrest politically,economically and via force many times.
Palestinians vote(d) for their own leadership. I live in Australia, but I'm not an Australian, therefore, I am not permitted to vote here. I am unlikely to ever gain citizenship here, therefore, I will never be able to vote.
I am confusing nothing. Israel claims the West Bank is part of Israel, and with IDF troops marching through the West Bank and settlements popping up everywhere, it is de facto Israel, and according to Israel, de jure Israel.
Can an Arab in the West Bank vote in the Israeli elections? No. Thus, Israel is not a democracy. The article questioned if Islam was conducive to democracy. On that basis, we have to question whether Judaism is conducive to democracy. Meir Kahane did not think it was, and his policies are what are being carried out on the West Bank.
"Palestinians voted for their own leadership". What does this mean? Can they vote for MPs in the Israeli Knesset? No. Can they vote for representation in a country that Israel or the US recognizes? No.
You moved to Australia. Arabs have been living in Jericho for thousands of years. Yet they are not allowed to vote for any government of a country recognized by Israel or the US. Yet an ultraorthodox Russian off the plane from Russia in a new settlement next to Jericho can vote in the Israeli election. People in the West Bank were invaded in an offensive war in 1967 and stripped of their rights. You moving to Australia was your choice. They had no choice.
What promising idea is that, making a business on the basis of ignoring the laws of the municipalities your business is in, or having the drivers, who were in business before Uber and will be in business after Uber, do all the work and wealth creation while some startup and its VCs and its VCs LP's parasitically suck up profits from all that labor?
The "laws of the municipalities" in most cases were bull shit regulatory capture created distorted market and offered terrible service for the consumers in favor of the old holders of capital (see: token systems)
> In a country with little or no place to gather for the free expression of ideas and no place to talk politics without fear of repression
Edward Snowden revealed that the USA was monitoring its citizens and storing that data in a way that far outstrips anything the KGB was ever capable of. Should he fear repression? He should, the government wants to lock him up and throw away the key for revealing this, just like they did to Manning for what he revealed. Actually, NPR spends most of its time bashing Snowden.
They seem gaga for dissidence in some foreign country, in a government that hasn't existed for over two decades though.
Without defending the NSA excesses, the difference is in the repression, not the monitoring. There is little evidence that the NSA monitoring was used for repression of citizens, and even less evidence of the sort of repression that was rampant in the Soviet bloc.
nice blindfolds you have there. Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, the largest prison population by far among rich countries, institutionalized rape, drone executions without a shred of legal process, militarized police and you're still making excuses for what was not so long ago the beacon of modern civilization and democracy.
I don't feel repressed in any way and I have the freedom of speech, by law, that repressed people do not. Comparing those two is an insult to those that lived in the Soviet era.
Did you seriously just link to an interview in very popular, US-hosted website with a US-based (presumably tenured) professor at one of the best universities in the world (did I mention US based?) in which he lays out in great detail his public academic research on how he considers the US an oligarchy -- as evidence of repression and harassment of those advocating for fundamental change?
Do you understand the words repression and harassment? Do you understand that if he had ventured into such research (much less published it, much much less been interviewed about it in a publication), he (and his wife) would at best have lost their jobs. Probably reassigned a new flat of the sort described in the article, in a remote area (docile academics often enjoyed access to privileged accommodation). Worst case, re-education in a Gulag.
The fact that the US isn't by a long shot perfect doesn't make it Soviet Russia.
Excuse me. It seems like you are the one assuming "Not as bad as the Soviet Union" is good enough. My family is from an FSU country, and they would not settle for that.
GP: > Edward Snowden revealed that the USA was monitoring its citizens and storing that data in a way that far outstrips anything the KGB was ever capable of. Should he fear repression?
Me: > There is little evidence that the NSA monitoring was used for repression of citizens, and even less evidence of the sort of repression that was rampant in the Soviet bloc
You: > Do you think that people who want fundamental change in the US are not harassed and repressed, and their activities criminalized?
The context of the discussion is literally about whether the US is better than the Soviet Union. And is is, by a huge margin.
It's not about settling, it's about not derailing a discussion about NSA overreach and legitimate democratic issues in the US (and most other western countries) by making hyperbolic comparisons that aren't even in the same league.
But even then, the article you linked to is not even remotely evidence of anyone being "harassed and repressed, and their activities criminalized" in any sense, Soviet or otherwise. To the contrary, it's evidence that there exists freedom to openly discuss big and fundamental issues of government without fearing repression.
Referring to someone's past actions using their preferred pronouns at the time of those actions is bigotry? Gosh, better inform all those contemporary news articles that they're retroactively disrespectful.
* Argentinian workers begin organizing, get better pay, get Argentinian resources into hands of Argentinian people
* CIA and US military help organize a coup, help kill off opposition to dictatorship
* Dictatorship loads on tons of debt
* Decades later, US international powers invoked to force Argentinian people to pay off debts incurred by the dictator who the CIA and US military imposed on them
And people wonder why Saudi nationalists flew planes into the Pentagon and World Trade Center...
disregarding the last point, which I think is rather disrespectful, you have a good point. The open veins of latin america is a good read for those who are interested
I've been actually trying to figure out when the bonds were actually issued. Can you point me to a source? You seem confident that the bonds at issue were issued by the government under Jorge Videla, which would mean not before 1981, but I'm not sure how you figured that out.
I take this with a grain of salt. You have a security business trying to drum up business, anonymous NSA sources etc. I take the indictment of the five with a grain of salt as well - it very conveniently comes just when US corporations are getting flak around the world about how the US government spies and steals trade secrets via the commodities US corporations are trying to sell.
If you look at espionage over the past century, the James Bond concept is it is countries wanting to get the US military's secret plans. The reality is it is overwhelmingly industrial espionage. Countries behind the curve want to catch up to the industrial power on the bleeding edge. Even the atomic espionage in the 1940s, which was more military, followed this same pattern of wanting to keep up with the US.
One reason I take all this with a grain of salt is Chinese espionage is a little more subtle than western espionage. In the US/USSR spy vs. spy there were dead drops, honey traps, microfilm and all of that. In some ways Chinese espionage hasn't changed much in thousands of years. They get a tiny bit of information from a wide variety of different sources. Then they take all the information and put it together. It's kind of hard to point the finger at someone and say they are a spy since the information given never seems all that much. Of course there are exceptions but this is how it's usually done. You don't find pretty redheads like Anna Chapman sneaking into the country.
> You don't find pretty redheads like Anna Chapman sneaking into the country.
No, China does that too. It's a big problem over at U.S. Pacific Command over in Hawaii. They do the rest of the stuff you mention as well, don't get me wrong, but they're not in love with, or opposed to, any specific method. If it works, it works.
Well the existence of the UK is what erected a border between the 6 north counties of Ireland and the 26 south counties of Ireland. So what might remove some borders is a weakening of the United Kingdom.
your argument ("Americans just love moralizing and pointing their fingers at other countries for the exact same things they do") is called "tu quoque" and it's a logical fallacy.
It does not detract from, or even relate to, the subject of the article in any way.
--
EDIT: Following downvote, to make it clearer:
1.
yes we should not have slave labor in America either, and yes some people are wrongfully imprisoned, and yes we use prison labor. The legal process is probably better in the United States than in China, but that does not mean the American legal process should not be improved. None of this has anything to do with the subject of the article, and does not excuse it in any way. Besides, the New Yorker is a private magazine - the article could be Chinese just as easily, and you would not have to change any of the language in it.
2.
Oh, except for the fact that there is freedom of speech to publish it in the United States (even if the subject of it were American prison labor) whereas it's doubtful if the Chinese are even allowed to read the present New Yorker article, let alone publish it if they had written it themselves. In America, the New Yorker, I, you, or anyone are free to publish a similar article on American prison labor.
it's doubtful if the Chinese are even allowed to read the present New Yorker article, let alone publish it if they had written it themselves.
I'd be interested to hear from those with more direct experience whether this guess is true. Is this article accessible in China? Would a Mandarin translation be censored? Would a native equivalent be publishable? And culturally, is there embarrassment at using prison labor?
> Americans just love moralizing and pointing their fingers at other countries for the exact same things they do.
I guess the issue here(why you're being downvoted) is that what is described in the letter and in other accounts of prison factories in China is nowhere near prison labor here in the US.
Well, that, and we DO find it morally reprehensible as a people, and when we find out about this kind of treatment (I'm from Philly, the kids-for-cash thing was a huge bit of horrible here) the perpetrators are prosecuted.
Well it shouldn't be too much detective work to figure out what Caltech department head Feynman was buddy buddy with other than Pauling. They seemed to feel need to redact the name for some reason.
From all of the references to Caltech implying a personal knowledge of the school, to the continual references to Feynman being a religious skeptic and critical of Republicans, I'd guess this letter was written by a conservative working at Caltech. It would make sense in terms of the initial FBI contact, the acquaintanceship but not friendship with Feynman etc.