With teachers being underpaid, schools in need of renovations, and the entire system in bad need of a full scale reform, there's no doubt that money is a tight resource and must be carefully budgeted.
There are important matters to be handled, and the system should be transparent, of course. Despite whether or not you believe in federal transparency, there's no doubt that a small-scale, public education system has no need to be making monetary deals behind closed doors.
At least that's what it would look like to any educated, or not-paranoid citizen, but not Casey Wardynski.
You see, Casey Wardynski has spent over $150,000.00 on spying on children's Facebook account.
That is a lot of money, and could have been put to any number of important projects, like renovations, or teacher's salaries, or serving food that isn't primarily Class-D meat to the children in your district. Instead he used it to expel children from school on pretenses that these kids should sue over.
Not only that, but he has waltzed around with statements about how this program he has been using, so called "SAFe", has expelled over a dozen children. (Uhm... Yay?) Does he understand that his job is to progress learning, not halt it, and in every situation possible throw out the bad eggs?
Apparently, the Superintendent things he's still in the military fighting enemies of the states and mass-surveillance is a necessary step.
Well, let me go ahead and send out a message to Mr. Wardynski:
Dear Casey Wardynski,
You are not the National Surveillance Agency, you are a superintendent of a school system in Huntsville, Alabama. You have no over-arching power, and your job is to ensure the education of children. It is an important job, and you are currently failing it.
You have spent immense amounts of money on tests to prove how intelligent your students are, and receive more funding. Test more, keep testing, test until the kid's brains are melted onto the desk and are begging for legitimate education.
Education is the most important value to our society, and we should all know this by now. The Next Generation is the most powerful weapon that can ever be wielded. However, Papa Bear, this weapon is not for your hands. They must decide their own way to walk and the decisions that they believe will help make progress, because so far you have failed to do that.
Education is not, not, not memorizing facts and meaningless data, retaking tests over and over to learn their strategy and perfect it to line your pockets, or sit in the back of a classroom, make A's, but intake no true lessons. Education is about learning how to think, how to exist, deciding your own route, taking in the lessons of those before us, and then putting it into action.
You've hammered into children's minds that they are worthless because they are beautiful dolphins that can't climb trees as well as monkeys can. And you are wrong.
So, superintendent, learn your priorities. Spying is not your job, organizing true teaching is your job. Although you made it rudely clear that you believe you somehow are the voice of the people, just remember that you're not.
You had better learn to be, and learn soon, or your job won't be so assured once the kids in HCS's system come back as voters, activists, and the new power.
Sincerely, someone who actually cares about education.
That's all I have for today, but I'll be back again Monday!
"Forcing academics to pay to read the works of their colleagues? Scanning entire libraries but only allowing the folks at Google to read them? Providing scientific articles to those in elite universities in the First World, but not to the children in the Global South? It's outrageous and unacceptable." -Aaron Swartz
Thursday, November 13, 2014
Wednesday, November 12, 2014
Boots On The Ground
With Veteran's Day come and gone, there is an undeniable, and minorly over-dramaticized state of patriotism throughout the union.
We spend Veteran's Day thinking of the soldiers who have died in war fighting on the side of America. We make them heroes, and we honor them in every way we, as a country, can do. There's nothing wrong with that, of course.
You see, America currently spends more than any other country in the world on it's military than the next 8 countries do combined.
We throw our troops into battle for any reason that we see fit, and have tricked our citizens that we do it all in the name of global democracy, when it's more commonly in economic benefit for America.
We thank the troops, but are quick to destroy any veteran's benefits bills if it calls for any personal sacrifice from the American people, or goes against any partisan belief. They won't reform the Veteran's Affairs, and they lie to us about our wars.
So if we really care about our veteran's, a good way to show it is by not making more.
America has recently sent an additional 1500 ground troops into the Middle East to combat ISIL, which as of the moment hasn't seemed entirely necessary considering the previously agreed-upon bombing campaign by multiple countries.
So, do I support our troops? Yes, I do. It is the men that are sending them into battle on false pretenses, lying to them, and refusing to help them I do not support.
You do not have to support a battle to support the people who fought it. I do not support high-militarism, I do not support corporate and political deceit, and I do not support the terrorizing of innocent people in the benefit of a better economy.
That's all I have for you today, I'll be back tomorrow with another post!
"There's a reason you separate military and the police. One fights the enemies of the state, the other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state become the people." -Admiral William Adams
Tuesday, November 11, 2014
It's Time To Make Some Real Change.
I have often said that I do not support Republicans, and I do not support Democrats, that is because I do not support politicians in general.
I do, in all truth, believe that our Congress has become unsustainably corrupted. With the influence of corporations to provide campaign funds to a candidate, which leads to the inevitable siding of these candidates toward the sides of these corporations, has become a deciding factor in modern government.
And before it's brought up, no I do not think it is a good idea for billion dollar companies to influence politics in any way what-so-ever. I thought we lived in a democracy, not an oligarchy. I cannot even imagine why this is a legitimate debate.
Also, we have the largest library in the world, if you weren't aware. It is called The Library of Congress, but socially, historically, philosophically, and educationally speaking we have one of the most ignorant legislative bodies in the world.
They are no longer the voice of the American people, there aren't many politicians that are. They pass laws that we don't ask for, and they call it freedom. There is no right minded citizen in favor of the destruction of net neutrality, however just recently there was a big push for that against the will of U.S. citizens.
So we live in a state by the people, for the people, but it isn't run by the people, and definitely not for the people... So what is it?
If at the will of corporations government can decide that they're going to go against the will of the public, then what freedom is it that the American people actually have?
However, things don't change, because not only is the American Congress uninformed, a large majority of the American people are also uninformed.
Congress has an 11% approval rating, but has a 96.4% re-approval rating. The American people are not preparing, ready, or worried about changing.
I would like to suggest to all those who read this, that in order to fix a problem, we must first accept that we have one.
I think it's time we make this king of change.
That's all I have for today, but I'm also going to leave a copy of the Guerilla Open Access Manifesto below for all those to read. If you aren't aware of what this is it is an open-source letter Aaron Swartz wrote on the subject of the freedom of information.
I'll be back with a new post tomorrow.
"I encourage people to remember that 'No' is a complete sentence." -Gavin deBacker
"Guerilla Open Access Manifesto
Information is power. But like all power, there are those who want to keep it for
themselves. The world's entire scientific and cultural heritage, published over centuries
in books and journals, is increasingly being digitized and locked up by a handful of
private corporations. Want to read the papers featuring the most famous results of the
sciences? You'll need to send enormous amounts to publishers like Reed Elsevier.
There are those struggling to change this. The Open Access Movement has fought
valiantly to ensure that scientists do not sign their copyrights away but instead ensure
their work is published on the Internet, under terms that allow anyone to access it. But
even under the best scenarios, their work will only apply to things published in the future.
Everything up until now will have been lost.
That is too high a price to pay. Forcing academics to pay money to read the work of their
colleagues? Scanning entire libraries but only allowing the folks at Google to read them?
Providing scientific articles to those at elite universities in the First World, but not to
children in the Global South? It's outrageous and unacceptable.
"I agree," many say, "but what can we do? The companies hold the copyrights, they
make enormous amounts of money by charging for access, and it's perfectly legal —
there's nothing we can do to stop them." But there is something we can, something that's
already being done: we can fight back.
Those with access to these resources — students, librarians, scientists — you have been
given a privilege. You get to feed at this banquet of knowledge while the rest of the world
is locked out. But you need not — indeed, morally, you cannot — keep this privilege for
yourselves. You have a duty to share it with the world. And you have: trading passwords
with colleagues, filling download requests for friends.
Meanwhile, those who have been locked out are not standing idly by. You have been
sneaking through holes and climbing over fences, liberating the information locked up by
the publishers and sharing them with your friends.
But all of this action goes on in the dark, hidden underground. It's called stealing or
piracy, as if sharing a wealth of knowledge were the moral equivalent of plundering a
ship and murdering its crew. But sharing isn't immoral — it's a moral imperative. Only
those blinded by greed would refuse to let a friend make a copy.
Large corporations, of course, are blinded by greed. The laws under which they operate
require it — their shareholders would revolt at anything less. And the politicians they
have bought off back them, passing laws giving them the exclusive power to decide who
can make copies.
There is no justice in following unjust laws. It's time to come into the light and, in the
grand tradition of civil disobedience, declare our opposition to this private theft of public
culture.
We need to take information, wherever it is stored, make our copies and share them with
the world. We need to take stuff that's out of copyright and add it to the archive. We need
to buy secret databases and put them on the Web. We need to download scientific
journals and upload them to file sharing networks. We need to fight for Guerilla Open
Access.
With enough of us, around the world, we'll not just send a strong message opposing the
privatization of knowledge — we'll make it a thing of the past. Will you join us?
Aaron Swartz
July 2008, Eremo, Italy"
I do, in all truth, believe that our Congress has become unsustainably corrupted. With the influence of corporations to provide campaign funds to a candidate, which leads to the inevitable siding of these candidates toward the sides of these corporations, has become a deciding factor in modern government.
And before it's brought up, no I do not think it is a good idea for billion dollar companies to influence politics in any way what-so-ever. I thought we lived in a democracy, not an oligarchy. I cannot even imagine why this is a legitimate debate.
Also, we have the largest library in the world, if you weren't aware. It is called The Library of Congress, but socially, historically, philosophically, and educationally speaking we have one of the most ignorant legislative bodies in the world.
They are no longer the voice of the American people, there aren't many politicians that are. They pass laws that we don't ask for, and they call it freedom. There is no right minded citizen in favor of the destruction of net neutrality, however just recently there was a big push for that against the will of U.S. citizens.
So we live in a state by the people, for the people, but it isn't run by the people, and definitely not for the people... So what is it?
If at the will of corporations government can decide that they're going to go against the will of the public, then what freedom is it that the American people actually have?
However, things don't change, because not only is the American Congress uninformed, a large majority of the American people are also uninformed.
Congress has an 11% approval rating, but has a 96.4% re-approval rating. The American people are not preparing, ready, or worried about changing.
I would like to suggest to all those who read this, that in order to fix a problem, we must first accept that we have one.
I think it's time we make this king of change.
That's all I have for today, but I'm also going to leave a copy of the Guerilla Open Access Manifesto below for all those to read. If you aren't aware of what this is it is an open-source letter Aaron Swartz wrote on the subject of the freedom of information.
I'll be back with a new post tomorrow.
"I encourage people to remember that 'No' is a complete sentence." -Gavin deBacker
"Guerilla Open Access Manifesto
Information is power. But like all power, there are those who want to keep it for
themselves. The world's entire scientific and cultural heritage, published over centuries
in books and journals, is increasingly being digitized and locked up by a handful of
private corporations. Want to read the papers featuring the most famous results of the
sciences? You'll need to send enormous amounts to publishers like Reed Elsevier.
There are those struggling to change this. The Open Access Movement has fought
valiantly to ensure that scientists do not sign their copyrights away but instead ensure
their work is published on the Internet, under terms that allow anyone to access it. But
even under the best scenarios, their work will only apply to things published in the future.
Everything up until now will have been lost.
That is too high a price to pay. Forcing academics to pay money to read the work of their
colleagues? Scanning entire libraries but only allowing the folks at Google to read them?
Providing scientific articles to those at elite universities in the First World, but not to
children in the Global South? It's outrageous and unacceptable.
"I agree," many say, "but what can we do? The companies hold the copyrights, they
make enormous amounts of money by charging for access, and it's perfectly legal —
there's nothing we can do to stop them." But there is something we can, something that's
already being done: we can fight back.
Those with access to these resources — students, librarians, scientists — you have been
given a privilege. You get to feed at this banquet of knowledge while the rest of the world
is locked out. But you need not — indeed, morally, you cannot — keep this privilege for
yourselves. You have a duty to share it with the world. And you have: trading passwords
with colleagues, filling download requests for friends.
Meanwhile, those who have been locked out are not standing idly by. You have been
sneaking through holes and climbing over fences, liberating the information locked up by
the publishers and sharing them with your friends.
But all of this action goes on in the dark, hidden underground. It's called stealing or
piracy, as if sharing a wealth of knowledge were the moral equivalent of plundering a
ship and murdering its crew. But sharing isn't immoral — it's a moral imperative. Only
those blinded by greed would refuse to let a friend make a copy.
Large corporations, of course, are blinded by greed. The laws under which they operate
require it — their shareholders would revolt at anything less. And the politicians they
have bought off back them, passing laws giving them the exclusive power to decide who
can make copies.
There is no justice in following unjust laws. It's time to come into the light and, in the
grand tradition of civil disobedience, declare our opposition to this private theft of public
culture.
We need to take information, wherever it is stored, make our copies and share them with
the world. We need to take stuff that's out of copyright and add it to the archive. We need
to buy secret databases and put them on the Web. We need to download scientific
journals and upload them to file sharing networks. We need to fight for Guerilla Open
Access.
With enough of us, around the world, we'll not just send a strong message opposing the
privatization of knowledge — we'll make it a thing of the past. Will you join us?
Aaron Swartz
July 2008, Eremo, Italy"
Happy Veterans Day
Today's post will be short, for it is Veteran's Day, and is a time to celebrate and honor the military of the United States.
I would simply like to remind you that, although today is a day of patriotism, there should always be a moment where we are no longer scared to be unpatriotic.
This country, and this government, no matter what we try and say or do about it, is not permanent. All empires must eventually fall.
So we just understand that we are not God's gift to this Earth. We have committed crimes against the world, and we have sinned, but that's not what decides our history and our fate as a nation.
We must fight for what comes next, and make it better.
So simply remember to not take too friendly to the idea that we should always back up the government and let them tell us what to believe, because that is not the society we are supposed to raise. My only hope is that we can make this world better than it was when we got here, for the generations that come after us.
Happy Veterans Day.
"Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious." -Oscar Wilde
Monday, November 10, 2014
The Internet's Own Boy: Aaron Swartz.
They called him the Internet's Own Boy. There's no mystery as to why that was, either. For those who heard him speak, and listened to what he stood for, he was the embodiment of this generation's voice.
Today I'm going to tell the story of the late Aaron Swartz, how he fought for the freedoms of each person in America, and how we shunned him and left him to be outcast anyways.
Aaron came from a family of three brothers who were all notoriously and exceedingly bright for kids their age, and Aaron in particular, as his brother said, "learned how to learn at a very young age. He loved learning, and teaching, and reading.
He was a prodigy.
His parents introduced him to computers at the age of 2 and he fell in love with computers and the internet. He saw programming as a way to make things that otherwise couldn't exist.
At the age of twelve he created the theinfo.org where anyone could edit information that they thought was important or wrong, and could correct it.
He believed in high school that public education was a joke, and he started reading educational alternatives and origins. Aaron said that's what led him down a path of questioning; questioning his education system, questioning the facts they were regurgitating, and the government that built the system.
As a 15 year old, he helped write the creative commons (sort of a 'Some Rights Reserved' system) code for the Supreme Court Copyright case. Adults saw him as an adult.
He was a kid who wanted desperately to make the world a better place.
He went to Stanford but was not at home there. Odds are Swartz felt out of place at the time, however. He wanted to learn, he wanted to make people happy, but he was locked in a place of over-grown high schoolers and future 1%-ers.
So after a year he left and became a part of a Y-Combinator site, which would eventually merge with another Y-Combinator start-up site called Reddit.
He became more and more philosophical with his views. He said "It's no longer who has a voice, because everyone can have a voice now."
Aaron was miserable in an office space and stopped coming to work. He said on his first day at Wired, by lunch time he locked himself in the bathroom and cried. Eventually, he got himself purposefully fired, and it was a nasty break-up between Aaron and Alexis Ohanian and the reddit crew.
Swartz threw all his energy into a new set of public projects, such as OpenLibrary.org. He grew to believe more and more that corporations were being greedy with information.
Aaron Swartz fought for public access to the public domain. Seems like common sense, right? No, Americans will be fought day and night for public record. The government website PACER made public domain 10 cents a page, and was in fact illegal to do by the government.
So the Thumbdrive Corp became people who would take these public files and upload them to a third-party website.
Someone gave Swartz a copy of code that downloaded mass amounts of these Public Access documents at a time (the government had set up 22 libraries in the U.S. where PACER documents were free as a sort of compromise), and within a few hours Swartz had started uploading over 700 Gigabytes of these documents to this third-party site, that totaled out to about 20 million pages.
The FBI tried to come after Swartz and his family, and camped out around his house. So, the FBI was investigating someone making public documents that explain the law, on the grounds he may be committing a crime. Somehow.
He fought corporations who locked up papers and put a price on them. It enraged Swartz that there was human knowledge out there that only the likes of Google was allowed to have.
He ended up hacking into JSTOR's database in the MIT technical building as Gary Host. This registered the computer into the system as GHost_Laptop. Instead of using WiFi to access the database, he broke into an MIT closet and plugged his laptop directly in.
However, the authorities found his laptop and hard drive plugged directly into MIT's database, and instead of unplugging it installed a surveillance camera. Days later, they found Swartz while he was replacing a hard drive.
All of Aaron Swartz's areas including his apartment and Harvard office were searched by police, and a court case was given over to Stephen Heymann.
Swartz's arrest ate away at him, and he was constantly stressed and a nervous wreck.
Suddenly unprecedented amounts of activism took place. Time Magazine named Person of the Year "The Protester". Wikileaks was releasing unknown amounts of government files, Anonymous was getting it's feet off the ground, LulzSec was taking down the FEMA, UN's, and NATO's websites.
The U.S. government gave him a deal that if he spent 6 months in jail, a year on house arrest, and time in a half-way house, along with pleading a convicted felon, and they'd drop their case.
Swartz wasn't a murderer, he wasn't trafficking drugs, he wanted to teach people for free. That's all he cared about. They wanted to take away his right to vote, his right to office, and make him spend time in jail.
On July 14th, 2011 Aaron Swartz was indited for four felonies, they strip searched him, and left him in solitary confinement. He faced up to 35 years in prison and fines of up to 1,000,000 dollars.
JSTOR immediately dropped all prosecutions against Swartz, and that it was the U.S. government who wanted to prosecute. The U.S. government said they wanted to make an example of Aaron Swartz, however, and still refused to drop the case.
MIT refuses to defend Aaron, and that infuriates the culture and students of MIT. Hacking was encouraged by MIT, that was their culture that they had created, but now they wouldn't defend it. They turned their back on their own kind.
Swartz founded Demand Progress against the SOPA bill. SOPA was a bill that was designed to get rid of online piracy, however, it was taking a sledgehammer to a problem that needed a scalpel.
SOPA got a long way without any expert getting involved, because Congress didn't want experts. They said they needed to "bring in the nerds".
Finally, the white house released a statement said that they did not support the bill.
Within 24 hours, all the major websites went black. The blacked out in defiance of SOPA; Reddit, Craigslist, Wikipedia, and anyone who was anyone on the internet. The internet had finally grown up and shown it's power. This was an extremely important moment for the people.
Aaron Swartz's prosecution was designed to be a message. It was a message to anyone like Swartz (Barrett Brown, any member of LulzSec, Anonymous) to let them know, to tell any informationalists, pro-democracy fighters, and the rebels, 'We know that you have the power, we know you're the opposition, and we know you can trouble the establishment. But don't.' This was the moment where the subculture became the power.
Aaron rejected their final plea deal and a trial date was set. The entire matter was weighing too heavily on this barely-a-man's shoulders. Keep in mind, all this had happened before Aaron Swartz had turned 26 years old. He became depressed, he became anxious, and he was scared.
It was too much for this man-of-a-boy. At 26 years old Aaron Swartz committed suicide in his Brooklyn Apartment. We lost one of the best and most creative minds of our generation.
Aaron Swartz had so much more to do with his life, and no matter who you were at the time, you lost a child.
The internet exploded.
He was the Internet's Own Boy, and it was his fight that killed him. Despite whether it was a gun wound to the head, he died fighting his battle. The outdated law that was accountable for most of Aaron's charges was reformed, and renamed "Aaron's Law".
Weeks later, a 14 year old kid with access to JSTOR files, while looks through them found a new way to detect Pancreatic Cancer. Normally, Pancreatic Cancer is already too late to stop before it kills you. It's because of this database and this knowledge that Aaron fought for that progress is being made, and lives are saved.
Aaron Swartz was not a criminal.
We are ruled by criminals.
Aaron Swartz was a hero.
So, yes I support Aaron Swartz. I support Edward Snowden. I support Bradley Manning. These are the people that are doing good. These are the people that are trying to make a true difference, and to make this hell of a world a better place.
Not Republicans. Not Democrats. They don't care about you, they don't want to help. Politics is all about money. These fighters want to help. That is why I support the Freedom of Information.
"Information is power. But like all power, there are those who want to keep it to themselves." -Aaron Swartz (1986-2013)
Today I'm going to tell the story of the late Aaron Swartz, how he fought for the freedoms of each person in America, and how we shunned him and left him to be outcast anyways.
Aaron came from a family of three brothers who were all notoriously and exceedingly bright for kids their age, and Aaron in particular, as his brother said, "learned how to learn at a very young age. He loved learning, and teaching, and reading.
He was a prodigy.
His parents introduced him to computers at the age of 2 and he fell in love with computers and the internet. He saw programming as a way to make things that otherwise couldn't exist.
At the age of twelve he created the theinfo.org where anyone could edit information that they thought was important or wrong, and could correct it.
He believed in high school that public education was a joke, and he started reading educational alternatives and origins. Aaron said that's what led him down a path of questioning; questioning his education system, questioning the facts they were regurgitating, and the government that built the system.
As a 15 year old, he helped write the creative commons (sort of a 'Some Rights Reserved' system) code for the Supreme Court Copyright case. Adults saw him as an adult.
He was a kid who wanted desperately to make the world a better place.
He went to Stanford but was not at home there. Odds are Swartz felt out of place at the time, however. He wanted to learn, he wanted to make people happy, but he was locked in a place of over-grown high schoolers and future 1%-ers.
So after a year he left and became a part of a Y-Combinator site, which would eventually merge with another Y-Combinator start-up site called Reddit.
He became more and more philosophical with his views. He said "It's no longer who has a voice, because everyone can have a voice now."
Aaron was miserable in an office space and stopped coming to work. He said on his first day at Wired, by lunch time he locked himself in the bathroom and cried. Eventually, he got himself purposefully fired, and it was a nasty break-up between Aaron and Alexis Ohanian and the reddit crew.
"I think you should always be questioning. I take this very scientific attitude. That everything you've been taught is up for questioning."
Swartz threw all his energy into a new set of public projects, such as OpenLibrary.org. He grew to believe more and more that corporations were being greedy with information.
Aaron Swartz fought for public access to the public domain. Seems like common sense, right? No, Americans will be fought day and night for public record. The government website PACER made public domain 10 cents a page, and was in fact illegal to do by the government.
So the Thumbdrive Corp became people who would take these public files and upload them to a third-party website.
Someone gave Swartz a copy of code that downloaded mass amounts of these Public Access documents at a time (the government had set up 22 libraries in the U.S. where PACER documents were free as a sort of compromise), and within a few hours Swartz had started uploading over 700 Gigabytes of these documents to this third-party site, that totaled out to about 20 million pages.
The FBI tried to come after Swartz and his family, and camped out around his house. So, the FBI was investigating someone making public documents that explain the law, on the grounds he may be committing a crime. Somehow.
He fought corporations who locked up papers and put a price on them. It enraged Swartz that there was human knowledge out there that only the likes of Google was allowed to have.
He ended up hacking into JSTOR's database in the MIT technical building as Gary Host. This registered the computer into the system as GHost_Laptop. Instead of using WiFi to access the database, he broke into an MIT closet and plugged his laptop directly in.
However, the authorities found his laptop and hard drive plugged directly into MIT's database, and instead of unplugging it installed a surveillance camera. Days later, they found Swartz while he was replacing a hard drive.
All of Aaron Swartz's areas including his apartment and Harvard office were searched by police, and a court case was given over to Stephen Heymann.
Swartz's arrest ate away at him, and he was constantly stressed and a nervous wreck.
Suddenly unprecedented amounts of activism took place. Time Magazine named Person of the Year "The Protester". Wikileaks was releasing unknown amounts of government files, Anonymous was getting it's feet off the ground, LulzSec was taking down the FEMA, UN's, and NATO's websites.
The U.S. government gave him a deal that if he spent 6 months in jail, a year on house arrest, and time in a half-way house, along with pleading a convicted felon, and they'd drop their case.
Swartz wasn't a murderer, he wasn't trafficking drugs, he wanted to teach people for free. That's all he cared about. They wanted to take away his right to vote, his right to office, and make him spend time in jail.
On July 14th, 2011 Aaron Swartz was indited for four felonies, they strip searched him, and left him in solitary confinement. He faced up to 35 years in prison and fines of up to 1,000,000 dollars.
JSTOR immediately dropped all prosecutions against Swartz, and that it was the U.S. government who wanted to prosecute. The U.S. government said they wanted to make an example of Aaron Swartz, however, and still refused to drop the case.
MIT refuses to defend Aaron, and that infuriates the culture and students of MIT. Hacking was encouraged by MIT, that was their culture that they had created, but now they wouldn't defend it. They turned their back on their own kind.
Swartz founded Demand Progress against the SOPA bill. SOPA was a bill that was designed to get rid of online piracy, however, it was taking a sledgehammer to a problem that needed a scalpel.
SOPA got a long way without any expert getting involved, because Congress didn't want experts. They said they needed to "bring in the nerds".
Finally, the white house released a statement said that they did not support the bill.
Within 24 hours, all the major websites went black. The blacked out in defiance of SOPA; Reddit, Craigslist, Wikipedia, and anyone who was anyone on the internet. The internet had finally grown up and shown it's power. This was an extremely important moment for the people.
Aaron Swartz's prosecution was designed to be a message. It was a message to anyone like Swartz (Barrett Brown, any member of LulzSec, Anonymous) to let them know, to tell any informationalists, pro-democracy fighters, and the rebels, 'We know that you have the power, we know you're the opposition, and we know you can trouble the establishment. But don't.' This was the moment where the subculture became the power.
Aaron rejected their final plea deal and a trial date was set. The entire matter was weighing too heavily on this barely-a-man's shoulders. Keep in mind, all this had happened before Aaron Swartz had turned 26 years old. He became depressed, he became anxious, and he was scared.
It was too much for this man-of-a-boy. At 26 years old Aaron Swartz committed suicide in his Brooklyn Apartment. We lost one of the best and most creative minds of our generation.
Aaron Swartz had so much more to do with his life, and no matter who you were at the time, you lost a child.
The internet exploded.
He was the Internet's Own Boy, and it was his fight that killed him. Despite whether it was a gun wound to the head, he died fighting his battle. The outdated law that was accountable for most of Aaron's charges was reformed, and renamed "Aaron's Law".
Weeks later, a 14 year old kid with access to JSTOR files, while looks through them found a new way to detect Pancreatic Cancer. Normally, Pancreatic Cancer is already too late to stop before it kills you. It's because of this database and this knowledge that Aaron fought for that progress is being made, and lives are saved.
Aaron Swartz was not a criminal.
We are ruled by criminals.
Aaron Swartz was a hero.
So, yes I support Aaron Swartz. I support Edward Snowden. I support Bradley Manning. These are the people that are doing good. These are the people that are trying to make a true difference, and to make this hell of a world a better place.
Not Republicans. Not Democrats. They don't care about you, they don't want to help. Politics is all about money. These fighters want to help. That is why I support the Freedom of Information.
"Information is power. But like all power, there are those who want to keep it to themselves." -Aaron Swartz (1986-2013)
Friday, November 7, 2014
I Don't Care About Politics. I Care About People.
So if you have paid attention to any politics, odds are that you know that the GOP (Grand Ole' Party, or the Republican Party) has now taken control of both the House of Representatives and and the Senate.
I wouldn't be so quick to say you're the voice of America if you're putting every effort of your territory to suing the president and rolling back a health care bill, when 75% of America cannot bring themselves to identify to your policies.
Not that I have anything against Boehner and his crew, but I am pro-progress to the highest degree, and Conservatism, by definition, is ideally anti-progress (very simplified of course. Never take my word as law, you should always do your own research.).
Also, I genuinely disagree with many of the affairs that both sides of congress are taking part in, such as the mass-funding of politicians by corporations. Neither primary party is innocent of this, but the concept is a Republican supported ideology.
What's wrong with corporations giving money to politicians? Well, let's look at it this way. As of now, there are many strong opinions being thrown around about the censorship of Internet and information due to cable companies desire to change the way Americans' receive their Internet.
Now, let's say AT&T provides massive amounts of money to the campaigns of half the politicians involved in the voting of bills related to this very pressing issue? Suddenly, we don't live in a democracy, we live in an oligarchy.
That's not what was set up for us over 200 years ago.
So, the Republicans want to show that they can take this country in a positive direction, then I will give them an absolute fair chance to do so. Do I have confidence in the next 2 years of partisan, super-one-sided rule? No.
They have already made it clear their first priority is going to be the roll-back of Obamacare. Do I think Obamacare is a good system? Not quite, no. However, I do believe there are many more pressing issues for Congress to handle than this bill.
How about the IRS scandal that affected your supporter's tax-cuts? The IRS claimed the six involved hard drives "crashed". However, you can still retrieve data from crashed hard drives, so that's okay! No, because afterward they burned the hard drives. They destroyed them.
Just to be clear, you have better odds to win the Florida lottery 342 times consecutively than all six of those hard drives crashing within the month the IRS was under investigation.
There's no transparency, too much censorship, people are living in poverty, and while you keep the rich people happy and the poor angry, you insist you speak on behalf of America? No.
If you want to be respected as a party, or any authority figure what-so-ever deal with the real problems at hand, not a revenge rollback on a bill you didn't want to pass when you were out of power.
If you say the system is broken, you're wrong. The system's not broken.
It was made this way. It's our job as Americans to fix it.
That's all I've got for today, but I'll be back Monday with another post.
"If you're really success at bullshitting, it means you're not hanging around enough people smarter than you." -Neil deGrasse Tyson
Boehner had this to say in his press conference on Thursday;
“The fact is my job is listen to my members and listen to the American people,”Here's the thing about that Papa Bear, a record high of 42% of Americans identified as Independent as of 2013 and Republican identification fell to 25%.
I wouldn't be so quick to say you're the voice of America if you're putting every effort of your territory to suing the president and rolling back a health care bill, when 75% of America cannot bring themselves to identify to your policies.
Not that I have anything against Boehner and his crew, but I am pro-progress to the highest degree, and Conservatism, by definition, is ideally anti-progress (very simplified of course. Never take my word as law, you should always do your own research.).
Also, I genuinely disagree with many of the affairs that both sides of congress are taking part in, such as the mass-funding of politicians by corporations. Neither primary party is innocent of this, but the concept is a Republican supported ideology.
What's wrong with corporations giving money to politicians? Well, let's look at it this way. As of now, there are many strong opinions being thrown around about the censorship of Internet and information due to cable companies desire to change the way Americans' receive their Internet.
Now, let's say AT&T provides massive amounts of money to the campaigns of half the politicians involved in the voting of bills related to this very pressing issue? Suddenly, we don't live in a democracy, we live in an oligarchy.
That's not what was set up for us over 200 years ago.
So, the Republicans want to show that they can take this country in a positive direction, then I will give them an absolute fair chance to do so. Do I have confidence in the next 2 years of partisan, super-one-sided rule? No.
They have already made it clear their first priority is going to be the roll-back of Obamacare. Do I think Obamacare is a good system? Not quite, no. However, I do believe there are many more pressing issues for Congress to handle than this bill.
How about the IRS scandal that affected your supporter's tax-cuts? The IRS claimed the six involved hard drives "crashed". However, you can still retrieve data from crashed hard drives, so that's okay! No, because afterward they burned the hard drives. They destroyed them.
Just to be clear, you have better odds to win the Florida lottery 342 times consecutively than all six of those hard drives crashing within the month the IRS was under investigation.
There's no transparency, too much censorship, people are living in poverty, and while you keep the rich people happy and the poor angry, you insist you speak on behalf of America? No.
If you want to be respected as a party, or any authority figure what-so-ever deal with the real problems at hand, not a revenge rollback on a bill you didn't want to pass when you were out of power.
If you say the system is broken, you're wrong. The system's not broken.
It was made this way. It's our job as Americans to fix it.
That's all I've got for today, but I'll be back Monday with another post.
"If you're really success at bullshitting, it means you're not hanging around enough people smarter than you." -Neil deGrasse Tyson
Wednesday, November 5, 2014
Anon, Take A Bow.
I will keep today's post short, for the sake of convenience.
If you weren't paying too much attention to the news yesterday, Anonymous took to the streets in over 463 locations.
The ideology of Anonymous, that there is no set ideology, is what keeps the movement strong and powerful. No matter what they supported, though, Anons took to the pavement to make a difference against oppression and to fight back against those who claim to rule over them (but who are the real leaders here?).
Call it a bias, but I am always in favor of those who are willing and trying to change the world for good.
So where the internet meets the real world, at the crossroads of protest, realize that these are the people who care enough to change things. These are the crazy people. And I love it.
So the small group of internet kids that started on 4Chan have grown into the mass movement against corruption.
However, no matter where the Anonymous movement goes, or what happens to these people, I find comfort in the fact that there will always be rebels, revolutionaries, rioters, thinkers, artists, philosophers, and freedom fighters.
So the big men upstairs better watch out because eventually, one way or another, they will find you. They will always get their way.
So that's all I have for today but tomorrow I will be back, like always.
"While there is a lower class, I am in it. While there is a criminal element, I am of it. And while there is a soul in prison, I am not free." -Eugene V. Debs
If you weren't paying too much attention to the news yesterday, Anonymous took to the streets in over 463 locations.
The ideology of Anonymous, that there is no set ideology, is what keeps the movement strong and powerful. No matter what they supported, though, Anons took to the pavement to make a difference against oppression and to fight back against those who claim to rule over them (but who are the real leaders here?).
Call it a bias, but I am always in favor of those who are willing and trying to change the world for good.
So where the internet meets the real world, at the crossroads of protest, realize that these are the people who care enough to change things. These are the crazy people. And I love it.
So the small group of internet kids that started on 4Chan have grown into the mass movement against corruption.
However, no matter where the Anonymous movement goes, or what happens to these people, I find comfort in the fact that there will always be rebels, revolutionaries, rioters, thinkers, artists, philosophers, and freedom fighters.
So the big men upstairs better watch out because eventually, one way or another, they will find you. They will always get their way.
So that's all I have for today but tomorrow I will be back, like always.
"While there is a lower class, I am in it. While there is a criminal element, I am of it. And while there is a soul in prison, I am not free." -Eugene V. Debs
Tuesday, November 4, 2014
Remember, Remember The Fifth of November.
Today is a big day for the world of activism. It's the Fifth of November, and Anonymous's annual time to shine to the public.
The attempt was led by Robert Catesby, likely in revolt after hopes for more religious tolerance throughout England and many of the English were left in disappointment. Catesby had several plotters working with him including John Wright, Thomas Wintour, Thomas Percy, Guy Fawkes, Robert Keyes, Thomas Bates, Robert Wintour, Christopher Wright, John Grant, Ambrose Rookwood, Sir Everard Digby and Francis Tresham.
Guy Fawkes had 10 years of military experience from fighting in the Spanish Netherlands, and was therefore given charge of the explosives.
However, in an anonymous letter to William Parker, the plot was revealed and a search was conducted. Fawkes was discovered guarding 36 barrels of gunpowder, which would have left the building as a mass of pebbles, and he was arrested.
Many of his co-conspirators heard of the discovery and fled London, gathering support the whole way. Many of them took a stand against the Sheriff of Winchester. In the resulting battle Catesby was killed.
All those who were arrested were found guilty of treason, and were sentenced to hanging, drawing, and quartering.
The resulting holiday on November 5th is often referred to as Guy Fawkes Day, Bonfire Day, of Firework Day and was celebrated even by the pre-revolutionary war British colonials of America.
The modern usage of the day by Anonymous derives from the group's origins of identification with the popular movie V for Vendetta, where the movie's hero and most important character is associated with justice, freedom, and truth. On this day, Anonymous hosts their annual Million Mask March where they march and show the power of their numbers.
If you're not aware of what the importance of the day is, I'll provide some insight.
On November 5th 1605 the Gunpowder Plot, or Jesuit Treason, was a failed assassination attempt on the life of King James I of England and VI of Scotland.
The original intention was to blow up the House of Lords (which was the upper house of Parliament) during the State Opening of England's Parliament.
Guy Fawkes had 10 years of military experience from fighting in the Spanish Netherlands, and was therefore given charge of the explosives.
However, in an anonymous letter to William Parker, the plot was revealed and a search was conducted. Fawkes was discovered guarding 36 barrels of gunpowder, which would have left the building as a mass of pebbles, and he was arrested.
Many of his co-conspirators heard of the discovery and fled London, gathering support the whole way. Many of them took a stand against the Sheriff of Winchester. In the resulting battle Catesby was killed.
All those who were arrested were found guilty of treason, and were sentenced to hanging, drawing, and quartering.
The resulting holiday on November 5th is often referred to as Guy Fawkes Day, Bonfire Day, of Firework Day and was celebrated even by the pre-revolutionary war British colonials of America.
The modern usage of the day by Anonymous derives from the group's origins of identification with the popular movie V for Vendetta, where the movie's hero and most important character is associated with justice, freedom, and truth. On this day, Anonymous hosts their annual Million Mask March where they march and show the power of their numbers.
That guy
So, today is the holiday of rebels, revolutionaries, and fighters. So I support those in the world that are trying to make a difference in a system that desperately needs change, be it taking pedophiles on the internet down or are fighting against oppressive government.
So if you're not afraid of the oppression, and crackdown of tyranny, then today is your day to shine. Bring our your inner rebel.
That's all I have for today, I'll be back tomorrow with another post.
"Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes, the ones who see things differently. They're not fond of the rules, and they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify, of vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them because they change things. They push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do." -Steve Jobs
Monday, November 3, 2014
Education. It's Important. Believe It Or Not.
I've said before that I'm worried the way that education is heading, and if you'd been to a public school lately you would likely be too. There's a lot of issues throughout the system that are, for some reason, widely accepted.
So, I will first tell you the problems, once I get through them, I will tell you the solution I have.
Education is a very important, and in all honesty, very amazing thing that we have come to as a race.
We must pass along what we've learned from the previous generation, but how exactly do we go about doing that? It's a complicated issue to bring a solution to, but I do have one.
You see, we decided as a society that it was important to pass on past knowledges down generations and it would give us the ability to improve on our ideas and works. However, kids aren't excited to learn anymore. They haven't been for centuries.
We have become selective of what we teach, and that is a problem. We have a group of adults who haven't learned much of anything new in years deciding what it is that the generation below them should be understanding.
When we are in Kindergarten, at least where I went, there are always posters about there being no dumb questions. That is a false flag, though.
When you are a student, you're pressured to stick to the program, and don't drift too far from the current.
Also, there is a new disturbing trend where year after year there is test after test after test. This is especially bad in the Huntsville area due to Wardynski's desire to be approved of by outside sources, so he agrees for Huntsville to try all these different tests.
These tests prove nothing about what kids do or do not know. They segregate kids off and make them feel stupid or like they need help, when they don't. This is exactly how kids end up dreading education, and all so the leaders of the system can get more data on their kids. Data they do not need.
Lastly, school is suppose to be about knowing, learning, and branching out. However, school has, from my experience, turned from that sort of educational experience, into something different.
It has become an outlet for authorities to suppress any sort of far-reaching thoughts from the kids of the next generation. It has become a place where people can brand fresh minds with old and outdated ideals. There are ideals that have been inapplicable for decades now, but is trudged on helplessly by people who are scared to let their views die off.
Education has become a place to control children.
In my own personal high school, when I was a freshman we had two normal cops at our school that came every day. They were well known by the students and the kids accepted them as authority because, more often than not, they knew how to handle a problem better than we would have.
However, for whatever reason, the Board of Education is apparently scared of children, because they have assigned at 5 more security guards to the school in the past year.
That destroys the process of education.
How are kids expected to think critically or differently than a quo if everywhere they go they are reminded that their elders view them as a threat that needs to be contained?
So here is my suggestion to the diminished education program that we have today.
- Get back to your values. School isn't about control, it isn't about molding children to fit your ideas. It's about having the ability to learn and find their own beliefs and passion. Why are we trying to suppress free thinking?
- Get rid of all the authoritarian garbage. And don't hire an ex-Colonel as a superintendent! You need someone who understands kids, not someone who fears them. Kids don't need to be controlled, they need to be shown the light of education and make their own way of it all.
- Don't stick to such a strict, unchanging schedule of teaching and tests. Get rid of standardized testing multiple times a year. Branch out, and teach widely, not narrowly.
I hope that this gets fixed, for the sake of everyone that goes through the system.
I want things to be better for the people that come next. I hope we all do.
That's all for today, I'll be back tomorrow with another post.
"The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet." -Aristotle
Sunday, November 2, 2014
Get Rid of the Department of Homeland Security. DO IT NOW!
In 2002, during the post-9/11 scare, the United States government created the Department of Homeland Security by combining 22 different organizations (such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency [FEMA], Customs and Border Protection [CBP], the Secret Service, Immigration and Customs Enforcement [ICE] and Transport Security Agency [TSA]) across the spectrum of security responsible programs.
When the program was originally announced President Bush promised that the program would improve security but not expand government, however the president's promise for the self-sufficient and lean-costing never came to be and the department's spending went from $27 billion to $54 billion within 10 years.
These kinds of agencies, such as the TSA and FEMA are more known for their outrageous internal scandals than their contributions to the safety of America.
The TSA, in the time it has existed, has never caught a terrorist, even though that was their sole purpose! Terrorist attacks have not stopped, things haven't gotten better for Americans, the TSA just makes travel hell on earth for Americans.
Also, the Department of Homeland Security has stockpiled over 1.6 billion hollow-point bullets, over 7,000 NATO-grade Assault Rifles, and 30-round magazines. These weapons are not the kind of semi-automatic firearms we are allotted as citizens. They are not under the same restrictions.
That kind of stockpile is estimated to be enough to fight a 24 year Iraq War.
Also, only 39% of the Department of Homeland Security's workers say their department's leaders "maintain high standards of honesty and integrity". I may be alone on this, but if there was one characteristic of an internal-security agency's leaders that is reigning over me, it would be just that.
They're also failing to do just the thing that the entire program was designed to do. Chris Edwards put it thusly;
As a department, they have also funded many wasteful projects including, but not limited to;
So now, Americans have a program that's suppose to protect them form terrorism, but is instead interrogating suspected movie pirates, seizing NBA counterfeit merchandise, and working Albuquerque pickpocket cases.
On top of which, they are being abusive and aggressive to the citizens of America.
So how do we solve problems like this?
FEMA as a whole is corrupted, slow, and bureaucratic and, although is a nice idea, has failed to work as a federal system. I believe that the best way to handle this would be to completely abolish the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Then, leave disaster relief to the private sector in partnership with state and local governments. Also, we must learn to band together as individual communities during times of need, instead of relying on a shaky government.
If you're worried about travel security, then there can still be travel security, but make that a privatized system as well, which has shown success in Europe and Canada.
We should abolish the coalition of security agencies that we currently have and let them tend to their own personal areas. Destroy the bureaucracy and, for now, move to reform each area individually based on the current situation of their program.
So I am officially casting my own, small but existent, hat into the ring as many Americans have done, to once and for all abolish the DHS.
That's all for today, I'll be back tomorrow with another post.
"I'm not too sure what 'I love you' means. I think it means 'Don't leave me here alone'." -Neil Gaiman
When the program was originally announced President Bush promised that the program would improve security but not expand government, however the president's promise for the self-sufficient and lean-costing never came to be and the department's spending went from $27 billion to $54 billion within 10 years.
These kinds of agencies, such as the TSA and FEMA are more known for their outrageous internal scandals than their contributions to the safety of America.
The TSA, in the time it has existed, has never caught a terrorist, even though that was their sole purpose! Terrorist attacks have not stopped, things haven't gotten better for Americans, the TSA just makes travel hell on earth for Americans.
Also, the Department of Homeland Security has stockpiled over 1.6 billion hollow-point bullets, over 7,000 NATO-grade Assault Rifles, and 30-round magazines. These weapons are not the kind of semi-automatic firearms we are allotted as citizens. They are not under the same restrictions.
That kind of stockpile is estimated to be enough to fight a 24 year Iraq War.
Also, only 39% of the Department of Homeland Security's workers say their department's leaders "maintain high standards of honesty and integrity". I may be alone on this, but if there was one characteristic of an internal-security agency's leaders that is reigning over me, it would be just that.
They're also failing to do just the thing that the entire program was designed to do. Chris Edwards put it thusly;
"One might have hoped that putting a layer of expert DHS officials over top of the 22 agencies would improve governance, but it has not. Consider FEMA, which had been a stand-alone agency before 2002. It had already been known for sluggish responses to disasters, but FEMA’s performance during Hurricane Katrina in 2005 was worse than ever."
As a department, they have also funded many wasteful projects including, but not limited to;
Whenever you have a government agency or program that grows large, which seems to happen far too often, there is a notable record of the department becoming corrupted, aggressive, and power-hungry. (Just look at the FBI and NSA.) So, if I may, does it seem aggressive, corrupted, or power hungry to
- Radiation Detectors: DHS spent $230 million over five years on radiation detectors for cargo containers before withdrawing the project as a failure in 2011. The GAO and NAS were highly critical of DHS’s handling of the project.
- Full-Body Scanners: TSA spent hundreds of millions of dollars installing and operating Rapiscan scanners at U.S. airports, but research by a team led by Keaton Mowery of University of California, San Diego, found that the scanners were easy for terrorists to foil. The machines were withdrawn in 2013, but a different type of body scanner is now widely used. Mueller and Stewart find that such scanners fail a cost-benefit analysis “quite comprehensively.” As for the TSA, it did not bother to perform a cost-benefit analysis of full-body scanners before rolling them out nationwide.
- SPOT Program: TSA spends about $230 million a year on the Screening of Passengers by Observation Techniques (SPOT) program, which tries to catch terrorists by their suspicious behaviors in airports. In a 2012 report, GAO found that TSA “deployed SPOT nationwide before first determining whether there was a scientifically valid basis” for it. TSA also did not perform a cost-benefit analysis of SPOT. In a 2013 report, GAO found that there is little, if any, evidence that SPOT works, and recommended that the program be cancelled.
- High-Tech Border Control: CBP spent $1 billion on the SBInet virtual fence project for a 53-mile portion of the Arizona-Mexico border. The project, which involved video cameras, radar, sensors, and other technologies, was begun in 2006 and cancelled in 2011 as a failure. Another high-tech system for the Arizona border is now moving ahead, but its effectiveness is in doubt.
- TSA is teaming with state governments to put checkpoints on highways to perform searches of trucks for drugs and other items.
- DHS provides grants to towns and cities for license plate readers and video surveillance systems. DHS is working to gain nationwide access to license plate databases based on the local reader systems.
- DHS provides grants to towns and cities to purchase military-style equipment for their police forces, such as heavily fortified vehicles and sound cannons. Just a comment, if the union is suppose to run on the civil disobedience and protest of its citizens, why use these kinds of things? The answer is that the leaders don't want change, and they shouldn't. However, we should.
- DHS provides grants to towns and cities to purchase aerial drones, and it uses a growing number of drones itself. Why does an internal security agency need drones?
- DHS gave a grant to Tacoma, Washington, to buy a Stingray device that “sweeps up records of every mobile telephone call, text message, and data transfer up to a half-mile from the device,” said one Bloomberg Businessweek story. This type of equipment is becoming widely used by police across the nation, which I am not comfortable with.
So now, Americans have a program that's suppose to protect them form terrorism, but is instead interrogating suspected movie pirates, seizing NBA counterfeit merchandise, and working Albuquerque pickpocket cases.
On top of which, they are being abusive and aggressive to the citizens of America.
So how do we solve problems like this?
FEMA as a whole is corrupted, slow, and bureaucratic and, although is a nice idea, has failed to work as a federal system. I believe that the best way to handle this would be to completely abolish the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Then, leave disaster relief to the private sector in partnership with state and local governments. Also, we must learn to band together as individual communities during times of need, instead of relying on a shaky government.
If you're worried about travel security, then there can still be travel security, but make that a privatized system as well, which has shown success in Europe and Canada.
We should abolish the coalition of security agencies that we currently have and let them tend to their own personal areas. Destroy the bureaucracy and, for now, move to reform each area individually based on the current situation of their program.
So I am officially casting my own, small but existent, hat into the ring as many Americans have done, to once and for all abolish the DHS.
That's all for today, I'll be back tomorrow with another post.
"I'm not too sure what 'I love you' means. I think it means 'Don't leave me here alone'." -Neil Gaiman
Thursday, October 30, 2014
Israel, Quite The Controversy, I'm Afraid...
The United States gives the country of Israel over 3 billion dollars annually, and yes that is a lot of money.
The constant battle between Israel and Palestine has shown the world that any humanitarian does not side with Israel, and deep down, everyone wants to be that humanitarian.
So people hate Israel, right? I'll kill it before it happens: it's not because they're Jewish, it's because they treat other humans like second-rate garbage.
So it is the United States' job to protect and influence democracy in the Middle Easy (which it's not), but at the same time, the one state we protect and influence more than any other is the most notoriously hated country in the region?
Meanwhile, Great Britain and Sweden have both (along with other countries) recognized Israel's personal firing range, Palestine, as it's own independent country.
With the falsely-pretended invasion of Iraq, the lack of education for our children, and supporting the wrong side of every fight, we make democracy look terrible.
A new Google Survey shows that the majority opinion of United States citizens think we provide far too much aid to the country of Israel.
So if most people don't support the country's financial aid, it doesn't benefit us, and it makes our system look flawed and corrupted, why bother sending them the money? That's a lot of money! It could go to schools! It could go to public health! It could go to libraries, or homeless shelters!
Instead it is going into the pockets of Israeli officials so that they can use it to create more weapons and missiles (which we also give them). And it's all because our Congressmen are too scared to lose their jobs to make any pushes what-so-ever.
I pray to the people who have the power to change this, the voters, the politicians, and the leaders, please make this change. It's not our job to push for the defense of a country that provides us nothing in return.
That's all for today, I'll be back Monday with another post!
"When you tear out a man's tongue, you're not proving him a liar, you're only telling the world you fear what he might say." -Tyrion Lannister, Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin
Why, though, do we give so much of our wealth and resources to the country of Israel? There are a few answers. In my personal experience, there are two arguments in particular I find absurd.
The first of the two is that "the Bible says to always stand by Israel". Statistically speaking, if you are reading this, odds are you are Christian. So let me assure I have no intent on offending. However, not only is America not centralized around any religion purposefully, but if we based our laws off what the Bible said we would still live in a time period much like the Medieval Period. I'll say it, I don't want to live in the Medieval Period. We would have made no further progress, society would be corrupted (i.e. Last time we let the Church make laws and children were forced to revolt, only to be sold into slavery by the Church.)
The other argument I've come across is that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East and because of that it is our job to go to every extent to make sure they prosper. At first sight this probably sounds reasonable. Do I agree? No.
As a matter of fact, I believe it is the opposite of just that.
Israel is not popular in their region of the world, and are actually one of the most notoriously hated countries in the world. (Probably not a coincidence) However, Israel is a small nation and although it's army is strong, people aren't attacking it, and it's clear as to why. The United States is all that stands in the way of the destruction of Israel by the entirety of the Middle Eastern section of the world.
So, America fights on in defense of the little nation despite the fact that they mock and humiliate the United States (The Prime Minister of Israel, Netanyahu is popularly quoted saying:
"I know what America is. America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right way. They won't get in our way."
The constant battle between Israel and Palestine has shown the world that any humanitarian does not side with Israel, and deep down, everyone wants to be that humanitarian.
So people hate Israel, right? I'll kill it before it happens: it's not because they're Jewish, it's because they treat other humans like second-rate garbage.
So it is the United States' job to protect and influence democracy in the Middle Easy (which it's not), but at the same time, the one state we protect and influence more than any other is the most notoriously hated country in the region?
Meanwhile, Great Britain and Sweden have both (along with other countries) recognized Israel's personal firing range, Palestine, as it's own independent country.
With the falsely-pretended invasion of Iraq, the lack of education for our children, and supporting the wrong side of every fight, we make democracy look terrible.
A new Google Survey shows that the majority opinion of United States citizens think we provide far too much aid to the country of Israel.
Instead it is going into the pockets of Israeli officials so that they can use it to create more weapons and missiles (which we also give them). And it's all because our Congressmen are too scared to lose their jobs to make any pushes what-so-ever.
I pray to the people who have the power to change this, the voters, the politicians, and the leaders, please make this change. It's not our job to push for the defense of a country that provides us nothing in return.
That's all for today, I'll be back Monday with another post!
"When you tear out a man's tongue, you're not proving him a liar, you're only telling the world you fear what he might say." -Tyrion Lannister, Game of Thrones, George R. R. Martin
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