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American access to the internet information: limited only by bandwith and patience.
Chinese access to internet information: After the latest revision, may access Chinese communist party website and links to photos of Chairman Mao.
The firewall is largely ineffective at preventing the flow of information and is rather easily circumvented by determined parties by using proxy servers outside the firewall.[66] VPN and SSH connections to outside mainland China are not blocked, so circumventing all of the censorship and monitoring features of the Great Firewall of China is trivial for those who have these secure connection methods to computers outside mainland China available to them.
Also, they generally only block political sites that are critical to the powers that be. Porn is still getting through, as long as many other things that the government probably just doesn't know about. They can't block everything, and there are ways around it. If you believe that China is the only country in the world that blocks some internet access you're wrong.
The firewall is largely ineffective at preventing the flow of information and is rather easily circumvented by determined parties by using proxy servers outside the firewall.[66] VPN and SSH connections to outside mainland China are not blocked, so circumventing all of the censorship and monitoring features of the Great Firewall of China is trivial for those who have these secure connection methods to computers outside mainland China available to them.
Also, they generally only block political sites that are critical to the powers that be. Porn is still getting through, as long as many other things that the government probably just doesn't know about. They can't block everything, and there are ways around it. If you believe that China is the only country in the world that blocks some internet access you're wrong.
Hell, The Bush administration has even tried that.
And actually, they just backed off adding censoring software to the computers sold in the country due to public and industrial outcry. This would have never happened in the past.
You know, when I google "Argentina Human Rights" over 7 milliion hits come up. Human Rights Watch talks of how the population has limited access to contraception, thus trapping the worst off in poverty due to a lack of reproductive rights. Also, Nazis were very welcome in Argentina. You guys must have pictures of Hitler up on your walls.
Are you finally conceeding that the majority of the world is worse off than the US?
And yea, you shoud get a picture of Hitler to put on your wall too. It's great for thowing darts at. I would put a bigger picture of Chairman Mao underneath it, just in case you miss.
American access to the internet information: limited only by bandwith and patience.
Chinese access to internet information: After the latest revision, may access Chinese communist party website and links to photos of Chairman Mao.
How many Americans actually link to and read news and public affairs information that originates with on-line sources outside the USA? How much influence to those people have on public opinion?
Yes, we can, but No, we don't.
Meanwhile, for the overwhelming majority of USA opinion, Big Brother is on TV, and we can't change the channel.
You know, with all the political turmoil, economic strife, and religious mania creeping around the globe over the last several years, I often wonder just how this stage of development will be looked upon by future generations living in this country. Will this be seen as a time of great change and social development, with sweeping socialist reforms changing the face of America for the better? Or will it be viewed as the dark age, when democracy was threatened by dangerous agendas? Or, will there be no conception of a time and place different than what they have, because there is no written word left that remarks about a much different, distant past?
To be sure we can all see the signs and feel the winds of change stirring all around us. But we are unsure as to what end these means will bring us. Thus, the subject of this debate. So tell me, and the rest of us, how you think this time will be seen and represented in the future. Will it be the days of great change and enlightenment, or just another dark smudge in the pages of American history? Respectful posts and debate only please, but feel free to say what you feel.
PS. I am well aware we can't see the future or know what is to come. This thread is merely an opportunity to debate what you think the impact of these times will have on the future and future studies of history.
It will be remembered as business as usual. Technology changes, humans as bone heads do not. The 1950's are usually considered an age of dichotomy. I, personally, believe that we have always lived in a dichotomy and it is stronger today. Saudi Arabia is a dichotomy. Rome was a dichotomy: the law and what was really going on.
Through-out time there has been political and social upheaval. It is never ending. Genocide-the world said never again! And they sure did let it happen again. And again. And in the future, they will let it happen again.
Historically, there has been a dark political agenda sometimes hand in hand with social reform. That will not change. There will always be a group of young idealists who realize that Darth Vader is their father. There will always be that group who justifies Darth Vader. It is never ending.
However, there is something that will not be found looking back in the United States that will be missed. Art, music and literature. I think that we will have to look for it in other cultures.
One of the things that I like about history is the literary circle of a specific time. However, there is such a plethora of books that it almost seems as if someone will have to go through a gazillion of them to find a couple of pieces that stand above the rest. Art as well. There is usually a group of artists that challenge each other and I don't see a lot of that right now. Music. Creativity is damned.It is just a huge amount with few that are above and beyond. Playwrights are also going to be hard to find, or at least good ones. There is just a large amount and many cater to the mainstream. I think that many go in and say, I can sell out here to make enough money to do my own thing. Sometimes that works and sometimes it does not.
Plus ca change, plus c'est meme chose. If things were really undergoing meaningful change, you'd be very aware of it. Future historians will regard these times as just another Chester A. Arthur administration, with a few new trivia questions.
I agree. This will be known as a time of incredible mediocrity and lack of togetherness.
No matter how hard we try, we will be "set back" time, and time again by bigger, and nastier wars. It's deeply ingrained in human nature. We will have the haves, and "have less" people. The "middle" won't be anything but a Stepford Wife illusion. I don't see the quality manufacturing coming back to our country. We have sold out for cheap "goods" that often turn out to be nothing more than landfill. Crap it began, and crap it remains. As long as people feel the need to dominate, and control one another, we will always be at odds.
Life was never perfect, but in retrospect, I kind of miss the pop culture of the 50's and 60's. Milk was delivered to my door. We made quality stuff, then, too. Most of my kitchen things are from that era, and still going strong. Worldly objects that I buy now seem flimsy, and substandard. (and I don't mean the dollar store). In general, it's hard to find good, affordable things made in the USA.
I thnik taht most people like presidents are always most remmebr in history by the really great events that happen during thier time. No great eents then they are forgotten.Truman ;for example; was probaly the least popular presdient when he left office but history has made him one of the great presidents.Events;the result ans now it effected hisotry is all that counts ;even if unpopular;thought illegal or otherwsie.FDR was thought a war monger at the time;he did many things thought illegal at the time and since but he turned out to be right on geramny and our need to get involved as soon as possible ;so he is judged well for that.Being right and good results trumpts being wrong and caucious everytime from what I have seen.
Well, I'll make an attempt to keep on track here, our latest debacle is certainly not over by any means, we are just beginning to see the possibility of a diminished supply of our most sacred resource, oil. When the future holds little promise and the past is reknown for being of little educational value, I would hope that the historians are honest in the revalation of our demise being attributed to hubris and arogance in regard to our superiority notions as American's.
This last thirty years have been some of the most revealing in terms of American empire failing to materialize in the form of benefactor to the rest of humanity. After 9-11 we saw the mass show of patriotism and it's fast fade to the ho hum of a society nurtured on new flavors of the day. Since that time we have fought wars in nations that have less resources than some of our largest states, and these wars are probably going to be very significant in the annals of US history. As a nation, we are seeing the polarization of the populace being taken to new heights every day, that division will soon be manifest for all the world to see, if it isn't already.
I believe our long standing legacy will be our failure to get along as fellow countrymen, and because of this we will no longer be the force in the world that we once were. A nation so divided can never be of much help to it's citizens, let alone the rest of the world. I know some people feel the opposite is true, that this divide serves us, makes us stronger, but, when it's all in the history books, we'll probably be remembered for the damage done by such deep divisions.
Last edited by jertheber; 09-01-2009 at 10:43 PM..
Reason: misspelling
Since that time we have fought wars in nations that have less resources than some of our largest states, and these wars are probably going to be very significant in the annals of US history. .
No, they won't. These wars will be surgically removed from the annals of US history. What did your high school history book say about the US operation in the Philippines, where American troops murdered Philipinos and put them in concentration camps to force them to accept US colonial empire status? While people like William Jennings Bryan, Mark Twain, and Andrew Carnegie howled in protest. Almost exactly a century before 9/11, but now all neatly forgotten.
Last edited by jtur88; 09-01-2009 at 11:43 PM..
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