3 ms·

The US government is also actively conspiring to silence hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people, and they have been doing so since before Martin Luthe

by debacle 12y ago

The US government is also actively conspiring to silence hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people, and they have been doing so since before Martin Luther King's days. They're just far more subversive about it because they're sitting on reams of money.

melling 12y ago
Could you be more explicit and provide some examples.
- debacle 12y ago
  "Freedom zones," trying to get MLK to commit suicide, the Red Scare, subversion of activist groups during the Nixon years, Kent State, manipulation of social networks and Wikipedia, controlling the media to the point that it might as well be called the state media unless you're watching BBC or Comedy Central. I could go on and on. The Russians are not worse than the US, they're just not as good at hiding it.
  - muglug 12y ago
    The US government does not "control" the media, and allows private news organisations (Fox News, The Wall St Journal) that effectively act as a mouthpiece for the opposition party to flourish. Not so in Russia, where independent news organisations are under constant attack. You're absolutely right that the US has done some deplorable things in its past (including, as we now know, the recent state-sanctioned torture of probably innocent foreigners). That doesn't make what Russia's doing today, in fairly plain sight, any less repugnant.
    - debacle 12y ago
      Your problem is comparing Russia's censorship to the US's spying. Russia has its own intelligence gathering programs that we know little about, but we know a lot about the US's censorship (and how they manipulate the media) and it would make more sense to compare those two. For the same reason that it makes no sense to compare the US GDP to the size of Poland's navy, there's no value in comparing Russian censorship to US intelligence.

3 ms·

The US government is also actively conspiring to silence hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people, and they have been doing so since before Martin Luthe

by debacle 12y ago

melling 12y ago
Could you be more explicit and provide some examples.
- debacle 12y ago
  "Freedom zones," trying to get MLK to commit suicide, the Red Scare, subversion of activist groups during the Nixon years, Kent State, manipulation of social networks and Wikipedia, controlling the media to the point that it might as well be called the state media unless you're watching BBC or Comedy Central. I could go on and on. The Russians are not worse than the US, they're just not as good at hiding it.
  - muglug 12y ago
    The US government does not "control" the media, and allows private news organisations (Fox News, The Wall St Journal) that effectively act as a mouthpiece for the opposition party to flourish. Not so in Russia, where independent news organisations are under constant attack. You're absolutely right that the US has done some deplorable things in its past (including, as we now know, the recent state-sanctioned torture of probably innocent foreigners). That doesn't make what Russia's doing today, in fairly plain sight, any less repugnant.
    - debacle 12y ago
      Your problem is comparing Russia's censorship to the US's spying. Russia has its own intelligence gathering programs that we know little about, but we know a lot about the US's censorship (and how they manipulate the media) and it would make more sense to compare those two. For the same reason that it makes no sense to compare the US GDP to the size of Poland's navy, there's no value in comparing Russian censorship to US intelligence.