OT: Voting results in NH

Greg Rundlett greg at freephile.com
Thu Jan 29 15:50:56 EST 2004



Ed Robbins wrote:

> Ok, so it's not Linux related, but what a great discussion!

I'm sorry to disagree with Maddog, but I think it *is* Linux related, 
although I never made the connection clear.  Let me try to do so.  
Technology policy, Patent law, Copyright law and our government have 
consistently frightened me over the past couple years.  The DMCA, 
Patriot Act, Sonny Bonehead Copyright Extension Act, RFID chips,  DRM, 
and Carnivore are just a few examples.  I believe that unless we can 
find a way to restore involvement in and greater accountability/clarity 
to the political process, our future will be determined by interestes 
antithetical to Linux.  Our future as Linux developers/advocates/users 
is at stake.  It could easily become illegal to do we we take for 
granted today: write free software and share 'intellectual property'.  
It is already challenged in a number of areas with DeCSS, and Adobe 
e-books being primary examples.

I hope, naievely for sure, that a good leader in the White House might 
influence things in a better course than the one we are currently on.

I do not know where the other candidates stand, but at least Howard Dean 
has released a policy on the Internet that favors 'openness' and has 
demonstrated his understanding of the power of the two-way, free-speech 
internet.  http://www.deanforamerica.com/InternetPrinciples  His policy 
is being attacked as one that "doesn't leave much room for property 
rights or free markets,"  
http://www.avnonline.com/issues/200401/newsarchive/news_011504_8.shtml

If nothing else, I'm happy to have started quite a discussion when it's 
been somewhat quiet lately :-)

>>> However, (and I'm really not looking for flames) I can't for the 
>>> life of me understand why people still would vote for George Bush / 
>>> Republican after 9/11
>>>   
>>
> I'm also intrigued by this statement.  Are you alluding to a cause and 
> effect relationship, i.e. something Bush did that triggered the 
> event?  Or are you talking about the policy and actions after 9/11? 

I'm talking about the attempts after 9/11 to conceal policy and 
intelligence the administration had *before* 9/11 and the large amount 
of evidence that suggests a motive to cause a terrorist attack so that 
we could 'respond'.  And I'm also referring to actions since.  The 
evidence is in, there were no WMD in Iraq, just a bunch of oil fields 
and a good smokescreen to throw at the World.  I'm talking about how 
spending billions on war has only made us more insecure with the War 
industrial machine the only beneficiary.

The following facts gathered from http://commondreams.org

> The Administration - and Condoleezza Rice personally - made repeated, 
> unequivocal statements that they were positive that Iraq had WMD, and 
> that their 100% certainty was justification for an invasion. Some 
> examples: Rice said on 10/30/03 that "Saddam is the only tyrant of our 
> time not only to possess weapons of mass destruction, but to use them 
> in acts of mass murder." Donald Rumsfeld said on 1/20/03 uneqivocally 
> that "Saddam Hussein possesses chemical and biological weapons." 
> President Bush said unequivocally on 1/3/03 Iraq "not only have 
> weapons of mass destruction, they used weapons of mass destruction" 
> and said definitively on 10/7/02 that "Iraq could decide on any given 
> day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or 
> individual terrorists." Vice President Cheney said in August of 2002 
> "there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass 
> destruction...to use against our friends, against our allies, and 
> against us."
>
> *FACT:
> *"For diplomacy to be effective, words must be credible, and no one 
> can now doubt the word of America."
> - President George W. Bush, 1/20/04 [Source 
> <http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/01/20040120-7.html>]
>

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