Soldiers guarding the Guanabara Palace during the 1964 Brazilian coup d'état on March 31, 1964. And now the sides are throwing up their sandbags on new Internet barricades.
This development is a bad thing all of its own, and is at the center of many other bad things -- I wish I had time to cover it all -- for now, I'll just flag it.
Milton Mueller is a very thoughtful and smart man about the Internet, but I've debated him a number of times because he tends to that collectivist, anti-US attitude that all the Internet freedom fighters seem to adopt in order to obtain "independence."
Yes, surprise, surprise, all those alphabet bodies with the humming engineers are now going to flee the US. And...end up right in the arms of Russia, like Edward Snowden, you know, in the end?
He said "don't tell me I didn't warn you" and has all kinds of smart arguments and I get it. But...as I pointed out, these agencies were never so independent anyway with their special interests (US military in the virtual worlds section of IETF, anybody?!) I can guarantee you that even with seething hate and fear of the USG among these organizations, the US military will cling like a bath-house birch leaf to the virtual worlds section and we won't see them go...
People blather about conspiracy in the comments, and I say:
“Conspired” is exactly the word to use here.
And these non-governmental agencies that you claim were in the pocket of the US never really were under US control but under control of factions anyway. Would that they *were* under control so they could have some hope of remaining liberal and democratic and transparent. indeed, given that the major Big IT companies are US based, like Google, it would make sense.
But no, you anarchists had to push for the fake “multi-stakeholder” model which is utter baloney because only some holders get to stake, the rest are fictions.
And you’ll see how this lovely third-world veneer of the lovely Brazilian president is just a cover for Russian and/or Chinese takeover. Enjoy.
To which I get one of those typical perfectly idiotic Latin American leftists ranting about evil Amerika -- these types were all over Occupy, BTW.
October 13, 2013 - 08:34 Gabriel DreadI’m Brazilian and I never heard of any foreign influence over Brazilian government except from US. Can you clarify what do you mean about your claim that we have bonds with Russia and China?
Do you know that your beloved US sponsored a Military Coup in Brazil and was co-responsible for the death and torture of thousands of innocent people during a 20 year dictatorship that ruined our country?
You Americans think you are better that the rest of the world. You support your fascist State and want to own the whole planet, think your laws apply to us and think you deserve more and better because you have an economic system that you imposed to the rest of the world.
How can you sleep with the blood of só many millions of lives in your hands?
My reply:
October 15, 2013 - 02:42 Catherine FitzpatrickHave you heard of BRICS? Do you know they meet and coordinate? Have you ever been to the UN and seen how Brazil behaves, how it votes, how it backs Russia and China? Did you notice how your president just snubbed the US? Of course you have bonds with China and Russia when it comes to sticking it to the US. These don’t have to be some literal blatant collusions, but they can be seen.
Yes, my country is beloved, and no, that doesn’t mean I endorse all its coups or help of military juntas in Latin America. But hey, a lot of those brutal coups and wars were caused by these governments reaction and over-reaction to communism. How could you and your leftist movements never understood the nature of the Soviet Union where the real millions and millions were killed, eh? What kind of disreputable left did you have there that could make common cause with those butchers? ! You made it possible for oppressive right-wing governments to have an argument. There was never any need for that. Cuba was never progressive and harmed many, many people with its alliance with Moscow and the communist ideal.
You leftists think you’re the most pure in the world, but truly, the blood of tens of millions are on your hands because of those years when you blindly ignored the reality of the Soviet Union and blindly ignored the suffering of millions. Shame on you. How can you sleep at night?
International human rights laws are what apply to all of us. As for economic systems, I don’t notice the enormous flow of immigrants from South America to North America ever letting up – and that’s a good thing, we’re a nation of immigrants. Meanwhile, you sulk, and you cannot seem to make that better world your socialism promises. People are right to flee it.
***
Read up on the coup and US involvement here. Needless to say, there aren't "millions killed," but the US played the usual unsavoury role backing right-wing governments against communists -- and I stand by my contention that the root of this problem here is Soviet communism, its infiltration of revolutionary movements in Latin America, and their refusal to make a politics separate from Soviet communism -- you know, like Edward Snowden also refused to do.
This is a hopeless argument to try to fight. It's the new Cold War, and people are taking their sides behind the barricades -- and let them.
I hope they are happy -- as I said -- when they end up in the arms of Russia. They may never know what hit them...
I know it becomes boring when I tell people that all of this was prefigured in Second Life years ago. Yes, truly. First, gadzillions of Brazilians joined Second Life. They love social media. They overran Orkut and Google closed it down for the rest of the world but let them have it...or something like that.
In SL, they opened fabulous islands with amazing nightclubs and talented car and clothing designers, but also some of them became known as the most elaborate and cunning scammers. I must say that some of the scammers I dealt with were so brazen, so bold, but so ingenious, that you had to appreciate them at some level... I think there are less of them than there were, but the funny thing is that during this Brazilian boom in SL, the president of the country appeared in SL at a panel -- some conference in Mexico about the Internet or something. I remember getting into strenuous debates there. This president was for copyleftism and Internet freedom all mangled together and I figured it would not end well...He was supposed to be very progressive for his time -- but I have to say, give me the president of Estonian instead, any day, he has his head on straight about copyright, cybersecurity, and what is really needed for a truly free Internet.
Guys, enjoy your Internet run from Brazil with Glenn Greenwald as advisor, truly... Interestingly, Freedom House rates Brazil's level of press freedom and Internet freedom as only "partly free."
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