MI6 Boss Agrees with Mega..........

[Mega]

http://news.sky.com/story/1411409/ex...o-insult-islam

Mike

[FrankL]

Re: MI6 Boss Agrees with Mega..........

http://news.sky.com/story/1411409/ex...o-insult-islam

Mike

Basically it comes down that he's saying that certain parts of western culture (the right to ridicule religion) has to be conceded on, because of the relatively recent arrival of minorities that cannot deal with this part of indigenous culture.

I'm not saying he's right or wrong; the biggest mistake (that's likely impossible to turn around) was letting people in that didn't accept the indigenous culture, nor did assimilate this culture over time.

Here in France there's a similar situation, where people like Le Pen sell the idea that we can 'send back' those immigrants that failed to assimilate and that reject the French culture. I think that's an imprecise description of possibilities, as most problems are caused by third generation descendants from immigrants that have French passports. Trying to send them 'back' (wherever back would be as they are French) would also likely trigger some form of civil war.

However, the secret services in the western world seems to propose that we _need_ to surrender the right of privacy in order to more effectively combat religious extremism. I will fight that tooth and nail, as the secret services themselves form a much greater risk to western society than the extremists they fight.

Some countries have different approaches of fighting religious extremism, that don't necessarily involve surrendering societal safe-guards to secret services that are not themselves sufficiently monitored against potential abuse of their powers.

Three countries that come to my mind for their 'interesting' approach on immigration policies (at least relating to religious extremism) are: Japan, the United States and Denmark. I think these countries prove that we don't need to turn into the nightmare described in 1984 in order to reduce the issues resulting from religious extremists.

Maybe we should also review our relationship with some of the bigger exporters of hate and instability: Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

Finally, the foreign policies of the western world are completely contrary to establishing stability in far away countries as well as blow-back at home. On one hand we say we fight ISIS, on the other hand we have partners (such as Turkey) that supply material, training and turn a blind eye to fanatics entering Syria to fight for Sunni extremist groups. We bomb away country's leaders such as Kadhaffi and Saddam Hussein, who, while terrorizing part of their population, on the other hand keep their country stable and relatively free from religious extremism (as well as provide healthcare and education to their population).

[lakedaemonian]

Re: MI6 Boss Agrees with Mega..........

I wonder if there's another Al-Yamamah giga-project up for grabs in Saudi that the UK wants it's fair share of?

On 14 December 2006, the Attorney General Lord Goldsmith announced that the investigation was being discontinued on grounds of the public interest.^[44] The 15-strong team had been ordered to turn in their files two days before.^[36] The statement in the House of Lords read:

The Director of the Serious Fraud Office has decided to discontinue the investigation into the affairs of BAE Systems plc as far as they relate to the Al Yamamah defence contract. This decision has been taken following representations that have been made both to the Attorney General and the Director concerning the need to safeguard national and international security. It has been necessary to balance the need to maintain the rule of law against the wider public interest. No weight has been given to commercial interests or to the national economic interest.^[45]

The Prime Minister, Tony Blair, justified the decision by saying "Our relationship with Saudi Arabia is vitally important for our country in terms of counter-terrorism, in terms of the broader Middle East, in terms of helping in respect of Israel and Palestine. That strategic interest comes first."^[

[Josh H]

Re: MI6 Boss Agrees with Mega..........

Sir John said there cannot be any "no-go areas" either in the physical or virtual world and said there cannot be a trade-off between security and privacy.
"If the technology companies allow to be developed, areas that are simply impenetrable, you're inviting problems," he warned.

Lovely.

[don]

Re: MI6 Boss Agrees with Mega..........

With the at-least partial normalization of relations with Cuba, a full court press on re-directing public perception has begun. Started by screaming headlines in the Sun Sentinel, the Cuban crime wave expose ran for days, the results of a year-long investigation. That was followed by a front page NYTimes piece on the 35,000 Cubans the US wants to deport back to Cuba but can't under the present conditions.

In my 3 years in South Florida I have never before seen anything like this concerning the Cubans here. It appeared to be hands off. This is a coordinated change. Otherwise i can't see it being allowed.

[Polish_Silver]

Terrorism destroying rights

However, the secret services in the western world seems to propose that we _need_ to surrender the right of privacy in order to more effectively combat religious extremism. I will fight that tooth and nail, as the secret services themselves form a much greater risk to western society than the extremists they fight. . .

Some countries have different approaches of fighting religious extremism, that don't necessarily involve surrendering societal safe-guards to secret services that are not themselves sufficiently monitored against potential abuse of their powers.
. . .
Three countries that come to my mind for their 'interesting' approach on immigration policies . . .

Finally, the foreign policies of the western world . . .

Frank,

How do we fight the loss of privacy, when so many people seem to accept it?

Terrorism is the smallest possible public safety risk, yet it dominates our national dialog.

And what are these innovative immigration policies?

I thought Japan's policy was "no immigrants." All things considered, I'm not sure that's such a bad idea.

[vt]

Re: Terrorism destroying rights

http://variety.com/2015/film/news/ti...ck-1201413203/

[FrankL]

Re: Terrorism destroying rights

Frank,

How do we fight the loss of privacy, when so many people seem to accept it?

Terrorism is the smallest possible public safety risk, yet it dominates our national dialog.

There are some ways.
- Contribute/participate in organizations that oppose giving up civil rights for more perceived security, such as EFF. Participate in their lobby campaigns to let your representatives know what decisions should vote for in order to get your vote (and how to lose it)
- Bring attention to abuse of privacy-breaching rights. This can be in many different forms, such as artists doing art projects on the 'big brother' society, but also TV shows showing how useless 'full body scanners' are in airports. Classical media that report on abuse by airport security and national security agencies (TSA, NSA, etc.), e.g. based on information from the Snowden docs, Wikileaks, etc.

The main problem doesn't seem to be that people don't realise that giving up privacy for security is a bad thing (they do). It's when media induced mass-hysteria hits the population, usually after a high impact event (such as the Charlie Hebdo massacre), the population gets anxious and politicians see a window of opportunity to push through wildly unpopular laws that give up protection of privacy at the expense of increasing the surveillance state capabilities.
The opposite direction should be just as easy in normal times (especially when abuses by agencies come are reported by media).

And what are these innovative immigration policies?

I thought Japan's policy was "no immigrants." All things considered, I'm not sure that's such a bad idea.

Yes, Japan very much has a policy to try not to have too much immigration, but more relevantly, has an active policy for 'no immigrants with a foreign religion that is actively trying to convert, or has aggressive tendencies'.

The US has an official policy regarding immigration, that they allow immigrants with high levels of education and/or skills in areas where they have a shortage of labourers. I assume (but this might very well be wrong) that this group is at lower risk of exerting religious extremism.
Secondly, the US has an active assimilation policy. There used to be sub-populations of Irish, Italians, and others, but nowadays they seem to consider themselves mostly as 'American'. In many European countries, there's a (terribly misguided) progressive idea that we should not force any culture and behaviour onto the newly arrived.

Denmark might be a big exception, for Denmark is a very social conservative society, and they have very strict views on how people should adapt to their culture (and they do not let in too many uneducated immigrants). Note that this does not mean that Denmark is a great place to live.... the social conservatism can be hard even for the native Danish. I've heard an example where someone (educated) moved from Copenhagen to different part of Denmark, and he couldn't break into the social life of the locals. Giving up after some years of trying, he only hang out with students and expatriates.

Lastly, a main differentiator between Europe and the US might be the 'unofficial' stance towards immigration of unskilled labourers. The immigrants in the US that perform cheap labour that depresses the salaries of the uneducated class are primarily (illegal) Mexicans. In Europe this group is mostly consisting of north-African Arabs (from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia) and Turks from the uneducated and deeply religious countryside.
In Europe, these major immigration waves happened in the sixties and seventies of the last century, creating new social under-classes, (often grouped together in social housing creating ghettos such as in France), combined with the lack of assimilation policies adapted to this immigration wave, destructive foreign policies (as mentioned in my previous post), the export of religious extremism by countries like Saudi Arabia that target the easily influenced children of immigrants, struggling with their identity, and create a very toxic mix here in Europe...

Note that these policies can hardly be considered innovative at all. Just misunderstood by a progressive and misguided population, and abused by politicians with an agenda.

Will this list of problems be fixed by the proposed solution of giving up civil liberties and indigenous culture (to speak out your mind, even when the receiving person might not like what you have to say)? No! It's even absolutely preposterous

[Woodsman]

Re: Terrorism destroying rights

There are some ways...

No there really aren't. There's no getting around ubiquitous surveillance and blanket information operations. Ask an East German.

We were warned and saw it coming but so long as it was directed against people we hated, we looked the other way. Now that it's turned against us, well all of a sudden it's a different kettle of fish. Only come to find that it's not at all different.

For what it's worth, look at this public service announcement from the ACLU. Back in 1974 the New Mexico chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union worked with director Godfrey Reggio to produce a series of public service announcements about privacy. Part of a statewide campaign that included print and outdoor advertising, the PSAs drew so much attention that stations reported viewers calling to ask when the ads would air next.

Did they exaggerate? Fast forward forty years and it's like these rascally liberals had a time machine out there in the western desert.

How do we fight it? We don't. It's a done deal. That horse bolted out of the stable decades ago and she's never coming back. So enjoy the democracy you have. It's never going to get any better, don't look for it, be happy with what you've got.

[lektrode]

Re: Terrorism destroying rights

No there really aren't. There's no getting around ubiquitous surveillance and blanket information operations. Ask an East German.....

hell, ask a beltway regular:
Obama Has Sentenced Whistleblowers to 25 TIMES the Jail Time of All Prior U.S. Presidents COMBINED

= 'so much for transparency' ?

How do we fight it? We don't. It's a done deal. That horse bolted out of the stable decades ago and she's never coming back. .....

BS - it 'bolted from the stable' mostly DURING THE 1990's (when the manhattan-beltway axis of evil took over)

and here's just another little tidbit that wont be appearing on cnn/cnbc (but just might on fox - or the rolling stone, if matt's not too busy with more current events):

Whistleblower: Pelosi Covered Up Role In Crisis

01/22/2015 06:33 PM ET


Subprime Scandal: We've long suspected the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission wasn't honest in examining events before the meltdown. But an ex-commissioner says the probe was actually a full-blown political cover-up.

In a just-released book, former FCIC member Peter Wallison says that a Democratic Congress worked with the commission's Democratic chairman to whitewash the government's central role in the mortgage debacle. The conspiracy helped protect some of the Democrats' biggest stars from scrutiny and accountability while helping justify the biggest government takeover of the financial sector since the New Deal.

Wallison's sobering, trenchantly written "Hidden in Plain Sight: What Really Caused the World's Worst Financial Crisis and Why It Could Happen Again" reveals that the Democrat-led panel buried key data proving that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and other federal agencies pushed the housing market over the subprime cliff. The final FCIC report put the blame squarely on Wall Street.

In 2009, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi appointed her California pal Phil Angelides, a long-time Democrat operative, to lead the commission. The fix seemed to be in, and Wallison's account of the inner workings of the 10-member body confirms it.

Here's what took place during the FCIC's 18-month, $10 million probe:

• Angelides provided no staff to help Wallison and other Republicans interview witnesses, conduct research or draft the report. But commission Democrats were assigned almost 80 staffers to help formulate their single theory that bank risk-taking and greed unleashed by deregulation caused the crisis.

• Angelides never notified Wallison or other commissioners about the hundreds of witnesses he called to testify in closed-door interviews with his staff, denying them the chance to cross-examine the witnesses.

• Staffers failed to put these private witnesses under oath, even though the final report was based almost exclusively on their testimony with little or no documents or data to back up their statements, which simply validated the Democrat narrative.

• Angelides buried evidence revealing that by 2008, three in four high-risk mortgages wound up on the books of HUD-controlled Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac or agencies such as the Federal Housing Administration. A data-rich memo by former Fannie Mae chief credit officer Ed Pinto proved that government, not the private sector, drove risky lending. But Pinto's research "was never formally made available by the chair or staff to the other members of the FCIC," Wallison writes.

• Angelides withheld the final draft of the report from Wallison and other commissioners until eight days before sending it to the printer, never giving them the time they needed to go over the wording or content of the almost 900-page draft.

• After Wallison filed a 43,000-word dissent, Angelides removed all but 9,000 words of it from the report widely distributed in bookstores.

Angelides effectively censored any hard evidence that the government's housing policies were the predominant cause of the financial crisis. The best-selling report was cooked up from the start.

"The FCIC majority misused its mandate for political purposes," Wallison writes, adding that the panel made sure its findings supported Democrat demands for a "new New Deal" that would put even more of the banking industry under federal control.

Democrats passed the Dodd-Frank Act in July 2010, six months before the FCIC released its report — "a clear demonstration that the Democratic Congress knew well in advance exactly what this well-controlled commission would say."

After Dodd-Frank shockingly left Fannie and Freddie untouched, the FCIC excused the glaring oversight by exonerating the toxic twins and their affordable-housing masters at HUD.

As a result, Fannie and Freddie, now under full federal control, are back making low down payment loans to low-income borrowers, and the Dodd-Frank-mandated Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is forcing banks to ignore credit risks in the name of affordable housing.

A corrupt investigation led to corrupt reforms. What we need now, in light of Wallison's revelations, is an investigation of the investigation, along with a top-to-bottom review of Dodd-Frank rules. It's necessary that Republicans hold public hearings so Americans will know how they were lied to about the crisis and how they're being led down the garden path.

so much for them wascally wabbit wiberals in the lamerstream media keeping us informed - as long as its making the right-wing conseratives look bad - dont ya mean, woody?

[vt]

Re: Terrorism destroying rights

Precisely. They're all complicit. Trouble is the left will never admit their part, and the mainstream press will never tell the full story.

Time to throw all the bums out.

[shiny!]

Re: Terrorism destroying rights

How do we fight it? We don't. It's a done deal. That horse bolted out of the stable decades ago and she's never coming back.

"The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way, and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theatre."
- Frank Zappa (1977)

[lektrode]

Re: Terrorism destroying rights

"The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. ...."

for the tycoons?



altho montana was a bit too far north pour moi...

[Woodsman]

Re: Terrorism destroying rights

Precisely. They're all complicit. Trouble is the left will never admit their part, and the mainstream press will never tell the full story.

Time to throw all the bums out.

Yup, the left is the trouble and the LaMeSTreaM media, too. All we need is a new set of politicians and some better reporters and we're good. Any day now.

[FrankL]

Re: Terrorism destroying rights

Yup, the left is the trouble and the LaMeSTreaM media, too. All we need is a new set of politicians and some better reporters and we're good. Any day now.

Admittedly it's hard to find flaws in your very dark view on what's going on.

However, in the end the DDR fell with its Stasi security apparatus. When the political establishment is intellectually and financially bankrupt, it will annoy its citizen to the point where the tables will eventually be flipped upside down.
Cynical minds would say, that politicians know this, and they'll make sure the frog gets boiled slow enough. Or alternatively, history dictates that in such a system the only possibility is that outsiders with radical/extremist ideas rise to power (the Weimar Republic shows a clear example of this).

That's a depressing thought and prefer to believe that human incompetence is prevalent enough with politicians, and/or they will be unable to stop the system arriving at a situation where there will be widespread revolt/uprising without extremists getting into power. If not, I'll try to move to a country where I think it's more likely to happen, or where the situation has not yet deteriorated to the level where civil liberties no longer exist.