Congress Caught Defacing Wikipedia

[Gizmo]

By now, you're all probably aware of the flap surrounding Wikipedia and how bogus information sometimes finds its way into the content.

What you may not be aware of is that your fine representatives in Congress, the people whose salaries are paid by YOUR taxes, YOUR hard work, YOUR sacrifice, are somehow finding the spare time to go surfing on Wikipedia and make changes to entries in order, NOT to correct factual errors, but to HIDE the truth.

As reported by CNET News, the problem got so bad that at one point, IP Addresses known to belong to Congress were blocked.

This is childish behavior from people who should know better. This is childish behavior from people who are supposed to looking out for YOUR interests. This is childish behavior from people are supposed to be looking out for the future of our nation.

Far too many people will look at this and say "Well, it wasn't MY representative" or "It wasn't someone from MY party" and conclude that it doesn't matter. It DOES matter. It matters in a very fundamental way. When your elected representatives are liars, cheats, and scoundrels; people who rather lie than tell the truth even when the truth sounds better, then you cannot expect to have a system of government in which the needs of the people are met.

Our form of government is not broken, but our leaders in government are. It's time to replace them. When a vote on practically any issue can be counted on to go straight down party lines, you don't have a government 'of the people, by the people, and for the people'. You have a government that is controlled by a very few, and that has no interest in serving anyone but those in control.

How long are you willing to continue allowing people who have no interest in your life and hardships continue to rule you? When Strom Thurmund died in 2003 at the age of 100, he was the oldest serving Senator in the history of the U.S. He had served 47 1/2 years in Congress.

Why?

When our government was established, the guiding principle was that of the 'citizen statesman'. Those who served and created the laws would then go back home to LIVE under those same laws. Is that true today? Do you live next door to your Congressman? Do you even KNOW your Congressman? Better yet, do you even know who your Congressman IS? For our government to work, YOU have to take part. That means casting an INFORMED vote. The first question you have to ask yourself about anyone that you are thinking about voting for is "Can I trust this person?" These days, the answer to that question seems to be "No" if they are a politician.

Why?

Ultimately, the people we choose to lead us say something about the kind of people we are. I know a lot of good, decent, hard working people, who are just trying to get from one day to the next. Yet, the people we have elected to lead us suggest that we are lazy, lying, childish ingrates who are only interested in our own gratification.

I think we are better than that. It's time we proved it.

[Kaitain]

Ah, so they've been caught in the act, this time. It's funny that we've made a meal out of companies facilitating foreign governments' censorship policies, yet have completely failed to address those of our own government.

Our respective governments have had an unhealthy interest in information control ever since the value of information became known. Don't forget that WW2 was won both in Germany and Japan by superior information systems, not by any military advantage (indeed, in Europe, the Allies fought at a disadvantage). This is a lesson learned, and well learned.

Information control is paramount: you can lie to people if they cannot disprove you. You can tell barefaced lies if people cannot back up their suspicions. You can change your story halfway through, but if you can assert strongly enough that you have always held these opinions, people will believe you.

I really wish I'd had the wit in 2002 to take newspaper cuttings of the buildup to the latest Iraq war. I would love to have evidence of the number of times the general populace has been persuaded to believe changing stories. I would also love to compare the cuttings I would have filed with those in the British Library today... would be highly revealing if they were different.

Gizmo, you're right we need to call our politicians to account, re-invigorate the meaning of democracy, and reclaim some of the rights we've foolishly allowed to slip. How to go about persuading an apathetic, politically dim-witted population to take notice, though....

[Daniel ~]

But Gizmo! They been doing that for dog years! We call it History class or sometimes we call it "The State of the union."

The only real hope I see is that we are pron to violence, at a certain point, history, real history, says we will quite simply kill them all, feel badly later and start over...with a whole big bunches of excuses as to why we did it, none of which will reflect the truth, we simply don't know any other way to cut through the crap they have buried us in without having to learn to think....

[Gizmo]

Originally Posted by Daniel ~

.....we simply don't know any other way to cut through the crap they have buried us in without having to learn to think....

The problem, Daniel, is that even if you try to find out the truth, it takes so long to get to the truth of just one thing, and they lie about so MUCH, that at some point you simply throw up your hands and say "Kill 'em all, let God sort 'em out".

[Daniel ~]

And that's exactly what we will eventually do! Of course we will also kill their wives and children, a lot of people who just happen to teach subjects we don't like, our boss at work and any number of women will be raped and murdered. We will for a time subsist upon dog and cat meat. Millions will in fact starve and we will eat them as well.

Of course this hasn't happened for a long long long time..not since WWII in fact!

We are pron to excesses in our violence. Once the blood starts flowing we can't drink enough of that heady brew!

A good revolution is a hard to find as a good government!

[kellamne]

Sounds like a job for Winston Smith

[Kaitain]

Naw, he hasn't been the same since he stayed in that hotel with his big brother...

[surlyjoe]

it's our own faults these dolts are in control. we have allowed the government to elevate itself to the upper echelons of our society. governemt employees are the best paid, most rewarded, highets compensated service workers in the country. they reap benefits that would bankrupt a legitame company were they to attemp to offfer the same. Problem is, its so ass backward only a dolt can tolerate the in-efficiancy and nepetism. we are now at a 40-60 ratio of goverment emplyees to citizens. we have put hordes of idiots in control of our basic civil structure. we even have gone so far as go out of our way to create a quota for the number of employees that have disabilities. and then we pay them more than a competent able worker in the public sector.

america is now supported by blue collar tweakers, as the rich are able to skirt taxes on the coattails of policies the politicians have made only in self interest, and the poor are untaxed and paid to be lazy. the 30% of americans that struggle to make ends meet being just above the poverty level are the ones taxed the hardest, and every day the inflation gap widens on their salaries.

savings are at a low not seen since the depression. millions of americans are only able to own homes by refinancing every year to help pay the motgage.

and we have promised thousands of government employees that we will pick up their career sick day at their current 2006 wages, some with hundreds racked up over the years.

our country is in a flat spin, and I fear only the revolution Daneil speaks of can cut through the corruption. Unfortunatly we have armed these dolts extremely well, while we surrendered the public arsenal to them.

I have almost no hope left that the damage done to our scociety in the last 6 years can be repaired.

[SteveI]

Amen surlyjoe.

[Daniel ~]

We do have one invincible weapon.

When enough of us have suffered beyond our fears of suffering and are willing to endure more that their brothers children won't have to suffer anymore;

we can call a national strike.

We can stop the world in her tracks and take it all back in a single day.

With this weapon M.L.King freed black America of oppressive laws. With this weapon M. Gandhi drove the British from India. With this weapon N. Mandela freed South Africa.

We can say no and not be moved.

But first we must understand the need to take upon ourselves the burden of suffering humanity. We must learn to feel their pain. We must be willing to sacrifice our own well being to secure for others that which we seek for ourselves.

Jesus didn't just give the world a Saviour, he gave us the means to our own political salvation and one need not be a Christian to recognize it's effectiveness nor to employ it. One must simply be a fully mature human being.

But before that day arrives there will have to be years perhaps decades of slow and painful work painstakingly carried out behind the scenes.

King had to prepare his shock troops for decades!

Gandhi had to intensively train his army!

Mandela had to give S. Africa an example, a symbol which no man nor women could fail to recognize. A light to gather men around him. Men without any self deception or illusions about what the cost would be. Men who understood that many would die.

But what they archived is this, they annihilated the gray area! They cut a razor sharp line between good and evil and left no where for men to hide from the choice between the two.

As such absolute conviction is the most dangerous thing in this world in the hands of the common man; so they first married it to non-violence. Then they took it to the river of humanity and let it find it's own way to the sea of changes.

We are not faced with a political problem, but a spiritual problem. There can be no political solution until there is in place a spiritual solution.

One might think that each of the men I've mentioned failed in his revolution. Look at the state of the world now that they are gone! Yet in this dark hour who does not now know who each of these men are and who can fail to recognize the hope they offer us?
If the hope they offer us does not terrorize you, you are not encountering their truth and the truth of this world.

Spiritual gain is always paid for in blood, the blood of the innocent. We must first become innocent to be worthy of allowing our blood to be shed that humanity may come at long last out of her travail and be born into this world. It is for this that these men sacrificed. Not for one people nor one time or place. But for all people and for all times and places. We must make ourselves worthy to recive them....or die trying....or be damned to being what we are now become.

(from the album 'SONGS OF LEONARD COHEN')


Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river
You can hear the boats go by
You can spend the night beside her
And you know that she's half crazy
But that's why you want to be there
And she feeds you tea and oranges
That come all the way from China
And just when you mean to tell her
That you have no love to give her
Then she gets you on her wavelength
And she lets the river answer
That you've always been her lover
And you want to travel with her
And you want to travel blind
And you know that she will trust you
For you've touched her perfect body with your mind.

And Jesus was a sailor
When he walked upon the water
And he spent a long time watching
From his lonely wooden tower
And when he knew for certain
Only drowning men could see him
He said "All men will be sailors then
Until the sea shall free them"
But he himself was broken
Long before the sky would open
Forsaken, almost human
He sank beneath your wisdom like a stone
And you want to travel with him
And you want to travel blind
And you think maybe you'll trust him
For he's touched your perfect body with his mind.

Now Suzanne takes your hand
And she leads you to the river
She is wearing rags and feathers
From Salvation Army counters
And the sun pours down like honey
On our lady of the harbour
And she shows you where to look
Among the garbage and the flowers
There are heroes in the seaweed
There are children in the morning
They are leaning out for love
And they will lean that way forever
While Suzanne holds the mirror
And you want to travel with her
And you want to travel blind
And you know that you can trust her
For she's touched your perfect body with her mind.

[kellamne]

Its not that Im obsessed with the book - I just love Orwells observations, but:

"If there was hope, it must lie in the proles, because only there, in those swarming disregarded masses, eighty-five percent of the population of Oceania, could the force to destroy the Party ever be generated."

Rock on Anarchy.

[Daniel ~]

"He who can unite the masses can rule the world"
I-Ching

[Azriel]

I really don't see the problem. The catholic church has been doing this for 2000 years. Maybe not in the wikipedia, but they have sealed documents they don't want people to see, and completely rewritten large portions of the bible. It's the same end goal. The US government wanted to be the richest, most powerful nation on earth. The catholic church IS the single most wealthy private organization on the planet. If the government lies to us, it must be for our own good. They are only following the model of the church.

[hoinar]

Maybe so Azriel...but actually...I fail to see how my own good is protected by lies...but I admit I fail to see many things..

[Daniel ~]

That's because we won't show them to you!! ":O}

[Azriel]

Sarcasm, btw.I just saw a chance to take a cheap shot at christianity, and I had to take it.