Singers jailed for lyrics
Tyler Durden
camera_lumina at hotmail.com
Sun Dec 28 09:49:31 PST 2003
MK wrote...
>I find it always interesting how people (especially from the US) seem
>to have prefabricated ideas about how other countries are, but are at
>the same time so much in denial about their own society that it is just
>frightening.
Well, that's true. It's a point I've made on Cypherpunks many times, that
many economic, political, or legal analeses of other countries (particularly
non-Indo-European) only hold up at the surface...
My comment was more general, and not necessarily aimed at Germany per se.
For instance, there theoretically seems to be laws about everything in
Italy, but nobody seems to obey them and they are only enforced
half-heartedly, and for as long as it's in vogue to give a crap.
Likewise, Communist "Land Reform" in mainland China isn't communist so much
as it's Chinese: land reform and nationalisation of salt production and
other industries have regularly occurred throughout Chinese history.
"Communism" in mainland China was a mask that seemed to last about as long
as Mao was alive. (Of course, the hardheads on this list will reply by
saying that Chinese culture has always been more "communistic" than other
countries, but then this statement ignores just how truly capitalist China
has become since 1984 or so. It remains oppressive, of course, if you're
discussing the wrong subjects....)
>
>One huge difference I have noticed between the US and Germany in
>particular is that discussions LIKE these are still happening in the
>mainstream press, not only in the "left" or "right" wing propaganda
>papers.
Yes...because we Americans have only had one government, we tend to equate
"legality" with morality, and then assume the discussion is over. No doubt
that causes us to look at laws "over there" as being far more important than
they really are...at least some times.
-TD
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