informant38
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...But of these sophisms and elenchs of merchandise I skill not...
Milton, Areopagitica

Except he had found the
standing sea-rock that even this last
Temptation breaks on; quieter than death but lovelier; peace
that quiets the desire even of praising it.

Jeffers, Meditation On Saviors


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30.11.13

The United States has long championed these rights domestically and internationally,
 and as we have said before:

The United States remains firmly committed to working with all States to promote freedom of expression and privacy online. And we applaud this resolution’s recognition that full respect for the right to freedom of expression requires respect for the freedom to seek, receive, and impart information.
Mr. Chairman, human rights defenders, civil society activists, and ordinary citizens the world over are using the Internet and online resources in new and innovative ways, to protect human dignity, fight against repression, and hold governments – including mine – accountable. It is imperative that they can use these tools freely without inappropriate censorship and fear of reprisals, to continue their vital work to protect and promote human rights worldwide. Thank you.
United States Mission to the United Nations
Ambassador Elizabeth Cousens
ScoopNZ 26.Nov.13
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Yeah well. The US is not now if it ever was a monolithic single-consciousness. The disjunct between the common people's ideas and wants - when they can be heard at all through the noise of artificial thought - and the ideas and wants of an elite that's surrounded by chromatically sliding degrees of the partial elite, out to the voiceless and mostly powerless mass, that's the US.
So the people believe in and champion freedom of expression, sort of, in theory, while the real power sets aside "free speech zones" and limits the dominant voice, the media, which is still, in spite of the atomization of the net, the big sound, to a self-censoring bank of sycophantic chancers with career-driven values that have little or nothing at all to do with truth or justice.
But okay, freedom of speech - with some dweeb just sitting there reading your free speech, monitoring your free speech, cataloging it, archiving it, but not actually doing anything directly to stifle it. Just watching.
Disney-fascism, cartoon tyranny, pastel-colored jackboots that don't break down your door, because they're already inside, just sitting there.

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