July 18, 2006
You know your government sucks when…
Discovered this article about China’s move to spread propaganda online in chat rooms and forums…
fun with totalitarianism… my favorite excerpt…
“Beijing has created a special Internet police force believed responsible for shutting down domestic sites posting politically unacceptable content, blocking some foreign news sites and jailing several people for their online postings.”
“full article”
“Beijing — China has formed a special force of undercover online commentators to try to sway public opinion on controversial issues on the Internet, a newspaper said on Thursday.China has struggled to gain control over the Internet as more and more people gain access to obtain information beyond official sources. The country has nearly 100 million Internet users, according to official figures, and the figure is rising.
A special force of online commentators had already been operating in Suqian city in the eastern coastal province of Jiangsu since April, the Southern Weekend said.
Their job was to defend the government when negative comments appeared on Internet bulletin boards and chatrooms, the weekly quoted local officials as saying. Suqian city’s propaganda department recruited the commentators from among government officials, the weekly said, adding that they must “understand (government) policies, be versed in (political) theories and be politically reliable”. “They will guide public opinion as ordinary netizens. This is both important and effective,” Ma Zhichun, one of the recruited commentators, was quoted as saying.
Zhan Jiang, dean of journalism at China Youth University for Political Sciences, did not approve of Internet special forces writing anonymously on the Internet.
“It’s okay if they voice their opinions on the government websites as officials, but it is suspicious if they do it this way,” Zhan said. “It’s not good for the natural expression of public opinion.”
But city governments in at least three provinces were recruiting online commentators, the weekly said.
“We are not the first and won’t be the last (to have online commentators). The whole nation is playing the same game,” Ma was quoted as saying.
The Communist Party’s top disciplinary and supervision body trained 127 officials for such jobs last year to “strengthen Internet propaganda on its anti-corruption undertaking”, the weekly said.
Beijing has created a special Internet police force believed responsible for shutting down domestic sites posting politically unacceptable content, blocking some foreign news sites and jailing several people for their online postings.
In March, bulletin boards operated by the country’s most prominent universities were blocked to off-campus Internet users as part of the campaign to strengthen ideological education of college students.”
Doesn’t your government suck?
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/07/28/SURVEILLANCE.TMP
looks like the devil’s been busy in your backyard….
Hey..this is the devils world… You didn’t know? Rex Mundi and all… lol
I did read that article earlier… Now your mission.. if you so choose to do it… is show connections in this case between Federal mandate and middle man mismanagement… This was a city and state issue after all. hmmm… This does lend itself to the idea that that less government is better however…
This is SOP in the goverment intelligence circle…what? didn’t you know?… I’m sure ya did.. you seem a lot smater than that.. If you have an organization of influential value.. the best thing for the opposition, other than outright defamation, is to infiltrate and distract the movement from changing the status quo… ever heard of counter intellegence? Still thinking the country you live in wants to uphold the citizens’ rights? Read any Machiavelli lately? That system works for people who are prepared to fuck anyone over to get their own way… otherwise known as a sociopath/psychopath… they seem to be much more prevalent than 3% of the population… but then again… psychiatrists can only study the ones they catch… which are the dumber ones who leave evidence…… the smarter, more careful, methodical people can take over countries without anyone noticing….
ever heard of ponerology?
Perhaps my past defending of this nation is confused with defending the modern “status quo” In no way would I or do I condone any government that practices totalitarian behavior… that being said… I think this system still has hope before it needs to be “rebooted” as it were… All systems can be misguided by socio/psychopaths… this system merely allows for a more civil way of disposing of said criminal… As I’ve always maintained… it is the duty of this society to guard against these problems…
What do you do when the society has been compromised by said socio/psychopaths?… what happens when the majority has assimilated this meme?
Well… I would assume that dependant upon the form of government the Socio/Psychopaths would either be ousted through election/revolt/defeat in war or they would be successful. When this philosphy infects the public body, said society will either be successful or it will be destroyed/declawed. That is what history has shown. You need not look any farther back than the forties. Mussolini was overthown… the Nazi’s were conquered… And the Empire of the Rising Sun was eradicated and reborn as modern Nipon/Japan.