Follow Slashdot blog updates by subscribing to our blog RSS feed

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
The Almighty Buck

National Phone in Sick Day? 270

Posted by CmdrTaco from the never-heard-of-that dept.
bor xitwise writes "i dont know if anti-capitalist sentiment and the open source community necessarily go hand in hand (cough), but i thought you might want to mention "world phone in sick day", which is coming up on the 6th of april. hopefully we can get a larger participation in the u.s. this year!! " Thats strange. I wish I wasn't my own company- could use a sick day.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

National Phone in Sick Day? More

National Phone in Sick Day?

Comments Filter:

  • baseball (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    If you are going to call in sick, do it monday.
    That is when the baseball season starts in the US.
    It should be a national holiday IMO :)
  • There a critical difference between Open Source and socialism. Open Source is voluntary, not compulsory, is based on goodwill, and decentralized, and merit-based, and oriented twoards quality..

    Oh Hell, in fact, there are dozens of critical differences. Capitalism gives us the freedom and leisure time to do open source. Note Linus' employer.

    How did you get to be so wrong, and so stupid?

  • McCarthy ? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Claiming that detractors of socialism don't know its differences from communism doesn't wash. In a socialistic state, you are most definitely not allowed to not pay taxes to support what you don't want. Unfortunately, every day we seem to be moving more toward socialism in the U.S. Socialism (and any sort of 'benevolent' government) is the moral equivalent of pointing a gun in your neighbor's face and forcing them to pay your bills. The only material difference is that you elect people to hire police to point the guns and run the tax courts and you avoid the distasteful experience of having to do it yourself.

    ugh. This is why nerds (and everyone else) who don't know two shits about political theory should just shut the hell up and keep their ignorant opinions from poisoning those who really want to learn and not be spoon-fed proaganda.

    Socialism definitely == bad.
  • Communism isn't about central control. It's just that Russian Communism degenerated into a simple dictatorship under Stalin. Under real Communism, each person would contribute what he thought society needed. The catch: production has to be efficient enough that if even a small percent of the population contributes, everyone still survives (marginal cost of production in software is zero, so it works there; it'll work elsewhere once elsewhere is much more automated).

    As far as providing computers to 50% of the households, what country that had a completely backwards economy 100 years ago can provide computers to everyone? The US can do it because it was in a kick-ass position at the end of WWII. Even a fairly mismanaged economy could keep itself in a decent position. The problem is that a Communist revolution occured in most countries far before they were ready for it. The US is just now getting to the point where it's ready, and the revolution is happening in the ready industries (software, and soon, other information). Information became ready with the Internet, when the marginal cost of production fell to zero.
  • Hmm... while I certainly agree that most communist governments have failed to achieve their stated goals, it's not fair to claim that capitalism is winning any prizes either. The United States has had to resort to heavy subsidies of its core businesses (agriculture, manufacturing, and education), Canada has had to implement socialist programs to provide the services its people need, many Central and South American countries are unable to stimulate their own economies, and Europe has formed their economic union in order to compete. It would seem that capitalism has its flaws.
  • Actually, I'd say its anarcho-socialism, socialism without an enforced hierarchy of power. I don't see why people are so blind to think there is no socialism but totalitarian and bureacratic socialism.
  • Hitlers National Socialism had nothing to do with socialism at all, Hitler was vehemently anti-socialist, and had socialists killed. National Socialism = right wing totalitarianism, communism = left wing totalitarianism. Equating all socialism with totalitarian socialism makes about as much sense as equating all capitalism to fascism.
  • What is so wrong with taking a sick day?

    - A.P.
    --


    "One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promotional Ad

  • How does May 19th sound? :)

  • prank (Score:1)

    by gavinhall ( 33 )
    Posted by Dean Collins:

    Read the texts. Look at the sites on their "Links" page. It's primarily a prank, folks. They're performance artists. That doesn't mean some people aren't going to really phone in sick, just that their purpose is less political and more like a pie in a billionaire's face.
  • Posted by The Mongolian Barbecue:

    Let's say DA has their way and the economy collapses. Then what? What usually happens when an economy collapses? You get fascism, totalitarianism, and war. What does DA have to say about that? Will everyone just magically become socialist if a capitalist economy collapses?

    This is an idea you might expect to hear from a seventh grader.
  • Posted by The Mongolian Barbecue:

    I don't think this quote really has much to do with what DA is about. There is the freedom to be sick- one that everyone supports- and then there is shirking responsibility. I'm sure franklin has another insipid quote about this. At any rate by acting responsibly and understanding that if everyone followed the DA's "ideals" of laziness then society would collapse, one certainly does not give up freedom. If anything he preserves it, for in anarchy a lot more freedom would be lost than having to go to work every day (if you can consider this oppression under the working conditions for most of the people who post to this site and would participate in such an event)- how much freedom would you have if there were no food, or internet connection

    As far as the US economy being good because of oppression, etc. you may be right to an extent, but this has little to do with the argument that you present.
  • ...at the mass absence of a sense of humor by my fellow /.-ers. These guys (Decadent Action [demon.co.uk]) are a riot! And, no, Joshua, this isn't an Open Source thing -- that's why Rob used this graphic [slashdot.org] for the article, though the Gilliam-esque giant foot might have fit as well.

    It's Easter Sunday (Happy Easter to all! He is risen indeed, etc, etc...), a very special day to some people. So it's interesting to see all the offended reactions at a bunch of performance artists who dare to poke some fun at what is apparently the Great Y*hw*h of the West -- El Capitalismo!

    Browse through the site. Read the articles and the press clippings. Enjoy! The best humor often contains a grain or two of truth. (I also recommend Petreley's April Fools column, if you haven't seen it yet).

    --

  • I assume you're talking about Tail-Gunner Joe, and not Clean Gene. McCarthy was in over his head, having shot to prominence via hyping a very trendy meme (The Commies are tryin' to take over!). It got to the point where he was faking some of his evidence, e.g., theatrically holding up a list of random names and saying that these were the people who blah blah blah. That kind of dishonesty may have exacerbated his drinking problem and shortened his life. A true pity.

    It is a lesson to be learned. If the mainstream press hadn't kow-tow'd to the meme-hypers of the day, but instead had challenged their various inane assertions, we wouldn't have gone through those dark days. The lesson has yet to be learned.

    --

  • It's this one [slashdot.org].

    --

  • What may have been partially true in '47 (many of those people were as dangerous as the people on the entertainment industry blacklist -- i.e. not a danger or threat at all, and probably not commies either) was out-and-out falsehood by '51 or so -- McCarthy reached the point of self-parody pretty quickly. I'm not out to convince some YAF wacko; I just felt the need to challenge your unusual assertions, so our readers outside the US wouldn't be confused. If it'll make you feel any better, I believe Alger Hiss was a communist. OK? I stand by my previous post. Every word.

    These "communist subversives, infiltrators, and fellow travelers" were just human beings. They may have been socialists or communists during the Great Depression, or had friends and relatives who were -- it was not all that uncommon back then. And the name-calling of the day was only a hair's breadth away from the taunts of "liberal" and "socialist" today, to put it in a more modern context; what was different then was the widely-held belief that these people were somehow agents of Stalin (99.9% of them were, in fact, not). Even the flouridation of the water supply was thought by some to be a Soviet plot; take Joe's opportunist hype with a grain of salt, keeping in mind the political and cultural climate.

    How old are you? I'm old enough to have had neighbors and babysitters who had first-hand stories to tell. Grow the fsck up, and get your history from books, not pamphlets. Hell, at least grab some of Herblock's books that touch upon that era -- lots of nice pictures for you to look at, if the text is a bit too much for you.

    --

  • And what exactly did those "Russkie agents" accomplish while they were ensconced at State? I'm sure there's plenty of names that match the KGB docs; it still means nothing (plenty of 30's/WWII-era communists were in touch with Moscow, either literally or figuratively; they weren't spies -- they just looked there for their ideological "marching orders", often with agonizing results, like the aftermath of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact). I'm sure the KGB also has John Lennon, Fat Billy Blythe, Lucille Ball, Paul Robeson, Clark Clifford, and Marina Oswald in their files as well; it means nothing. Why don't we go after FDR and Churchill as well? They were in cahoots with Stalin up to their asses, certainly to a much higher extent than the poor schlubs who got politically gang-raped by McCarthy and all the other opportunists of the day. I won't even bring up the subtle anti-semitism that comprised part of the "Get the Commies!" hysteria of the 40's and 50's.

    I still stand by every single word I've uploaded. Including the admonition that you should take the time to study the era (circa 1930-1955).

    It's opening night for baseball. You go hunting witches if you want; I'll just sit and watch some stud paint the corners. You'll have to wait 'til tomorrow to catch some Reds.

    Say "good night", Gracie.

    --

  • NSDAP (Score:1)

    by pingouin ( 783 )
    It's just a name. The National Socialist German Workers Party -- the actual German name will give you the letters that form its more famous nickname. They were fascists and capitalists; they didn't give two shits about workers or socialists, other than the fact that they imprisoned/killed several of the latter, along with Jews, communists, gypsies, and homosexuals.

    "Kinder, Kirche, Küche" was, IIRC, a big slogan of theirs (though my German sucks nowadays -- someone can correct me). If anything, the slogan isn't far removed from all those "family values" and "God-and-Country" US pols. Socialists? Come on.

    --

  • Well here are some of the things they accomplished...

    Alger Hiss

    That's a person, not an accomplishment.

    The Bomb

    I don't see what Stalin's German scientists have to do with a bunch of ordinary State Department employees (they wouldn't have known a Klaus Fuchs from a Klaus Flouride). You're confusing the issue of a list of people (the "Wheeling List") with the very real activities of a bunch of very real spies. McCarthy's "commies" had as much to do with the bomb as they did with Truman's German scientists.

    12hr notice of the invasion of Korea at Inchon

    See previous riposte.

    notice of the Berlin Airlift

    See previous paragraph.

    The knowledge that Marshall told Chang Kai-Shek we weren't going to intervene militarily in China

    See previous. Chiang was a bastard, but he was our bastard, eh?

    Pre-knowledge of the creation of West Germany

    Like that one was a big surprise. East and West Germany were essentially created from day one, just like the Koreas and the Vietnams. It was a secret only in the sense that Double-U Bush's presidential candidacy is. The Berlin Wall was a surprise; the Federal Republic was not.

    Notice that none of the witch hunts did anything to eliminate spying. That's probably because the "witches" by and large weren't the spies. The "they" that achieved this list of "accomplishments" are not the "they" that McCarthy were after. Only paranoiacs (and, at the time, cheap publicity-starved opportunists) will take the time to connect the dubious dots.

    ... and lots of other fun little tidbits.

    I know how stubborn pride can make you stand by your incorrect assertions. I was a communist once, too.

    I was always a conservative, and I've never much liked being lumped in with morally and ethically challenged "conservatives" like McCarthy, Reagan, and Gingrich -- that's why this is a big issue to me. And I stubbornly stand by my correct assertions. We were off topic to begin with, and now you're saying a bunch of cowed deer-in-the-headlights government employees were the master spies of the age. I don't think so.

    --

  • I would encourage you to read the works of the Comte de Saint Simon. His frankness about the realities of socialism (in all its forms) will turn your hair white. His explanation of his plan and the variants of his socialism is extraordinarily prophetic.

    It's crap, just like your posts (I've read all of the above). Where was Saint-Simon in '33? Where was he during Peron's heyday? Until he writes his accounts of the reigns of Hitler, Peron, Pinochet, Suharto, Franco, and Franjo, your parrotings are no better than those of a Nostradamus freak. "Socialism" the word and "socialism" the 20th Century reality are two different things, especially in the hands of someone so virulently and irrationally anti-"socialist" like you. Given that Saint-Simon was dead long before Marx published a single word and long before Keynes, Lenin, and Harrington were born, maybe you shouldn't drag him into this without his permission. Learn to do your own thinking and learn to write in your own words, not half-assed misappropriations of vaguely tangentially-relevant dead Frenchmen.

    --

  • I appear to be getting under your skin... good.

    No it isn't. This is very stupid.

    All modern socialism sprang from Saint-Simon. He was the first to coalesce (sp?) all the fragments of envy and hatred under one philosophical roof. He even coined the term "Socialism." Understand this, and understand history better.

    This is also very stupid. If you're going to reduce socialism to "envy" and "anger", then there's a hell of a lot of stuff that you need to understand.

    It is very common these days for socialists to marginalize Saint Simon, since he openly endorsed the horror that socialism would eventually spring upon the earth. In this, he was not only the father of socialism, but it's greatest adversary, since he flamed other socialists for their dishonesty.

    Dishonesty comes in all political flavors. I would refer Saint-Simon to Matthew 7:3-5. I'm sure there's many reasons for people to marginalize Saint-Simon. Your post does nothing to change what I wrote in the previous post; the guy who coined the word "television" would probably not be the best person to manage the hardware at an HDTV station.

    To quote someone else: "Signs are signs, and some of them are lies."

    --

  • I wonder if you are not just arguing for the hell of it, because you are acting like you are.

    No. I'm just not a big fan of mindless anti-communism.

    You make a lame assertion with no backup, I supply facts which deny your assertion, you slander and make new lame assertion.

    Your scattershot "facts" have little to do with the argument. Yes, there were -- and are -- spies afoot. No, I don't think McCarthy was being honest; like many politicians these days, he demagogued the surfaces of a popular issue without wasting time with relevant facts. It was extremely successful until enough people from both parties called him on the pointlessness of his "quest".

    Sen. McCarthy wanted to know why there were communist agents working at the State Department. He was stonewalled. His personality didn't help matters, but he understood the brevity of the situation. He understood that communism seeks the violent enslavement of productive people. He understood that communism kills. He understood that communism lies. He understood that communism was (and still is) the single greatest threat to life and liberty.

    Communists, real or imagined, have some sort of monopoly on lies? You make it sound like some sort of alien virus. If Communism is so uniquely a threat, then why is life and liberty threatened all around the world today without the help of communists? There haven't been riots in Paraguay and Indonesia because of communist oppression -- it was good old "democratically elected" governments that were at fault. American governments have enslaved and "ethnic cleansed" their own populace without the help of some sort of "Agenda from Moscow". It's not about ideology; it's about people. An anti-communist like Hitler did as much damage as a "communist" like Stalin. An anti-communist like Chiang was every bit the toxic despot that Mao was. Do you get it now? They all summoned their boogie men as a means of getting or holding onto power, but it would be ludicrous to take their words seriously.

    There were communists in the State Department. There were communists in the Defense Department. There were even communists in the White House staff. Are we to believe your assertion that they were simply doing their jobs and minding their own business? Alger Hiss and the Rosenbergs proved that they weren't. KGB documents proved that they weren't. The HUAC proved that they weren't.

    I'm sure there were "communists" in those places before, during, and after this era. It's just name-calling in your hands and in McCarthy's. You even labeled me a communist just because I point out McCarthy's making use of the era's hysteria to advance his career.

    To the communists, every little bit helped. Every communist government employee, every communist labor leader, every communist school teacher, and every communist film director meant as much to the cause of communism as any pair of scientists or any Undersecretary of State, because a twisted mind means with influence over others means as much a tidbit of information.

    The United States and Western Europe was in serious danger in the 40s and 50s from a communist insurgency, and it took the Red Scare and the help of the Kruchschev report for that danger to subside.

    For that Joe McCarthy was a hero.

    Geez! You're sounding like Frank Burns and J Edgar. To equate the popularity of a Communist Party in Western Europe with some sort of impending Soviet takeover is just paranoid; in a sane person, that popularity might be cause to be wary, but it's not the same thing as actual guerrillas like there must have been in Greece or Turkey. This silly line of thought led to all those corrupt Italian governments, among many other things, like the "redistribution of wealth" that was the Marshall Plan, the rape of East Timor, the murderous governments of Pinochet and Videla, and the utter sham known as the "Vietnam War".

    Give it a rest, Major Burns. Joe McCarthy is a dead two-bit politician, not a martyr.

    --

  • You'll have to explain to me the logic that went into that "socialismo == muerte" jive. A site that includes links to The Times of London, Robert Fripp, Lydia Lunch, Clarissa Dickson Wright, CmdrTaco, Société Radio-Canada, Noam Chomsky, jwz, and the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League doesn't strike me as socialist or communist.

    --

  • My complaint wasn't about the Marshall Plan, but about who foot (footed?) the bill. Had there not been a drain of capital from Europe to the United States (I hope I'm not misrepresenting Chomsky's argument here -- it was part of an essay [zmag.org] that has little to do with the Cold War), there would not have been a need for the American taxpayers to fork over as much cash as they did. It's a minor complaint, one that doesn't equate to the lies and treachery that was done elsewhere in the name of "fighting communism". The Marshall Plan itself was legit.

    --

  • ...it's just that there was a "redistribution of wealth" that's no different than the kind that (Merkin) "conservatives" complain about when they spread FUD about some "socialistic liberal" policy ideas. It works both ways; any transaction is a redistribution of wealth - it need not involve any Marx, or any liberals. It can come from institutions like banks and the State Department, too.

    --

  • Been there, done that. from Marx to Marcusa.

    Then why can you spell Marcuse? Or Khrushchev, for that matter?

    --

  • Spelling gremlins. But the fact remains, a rabid ex-communist should be able to spell the names of Khrushchev (any common transliteration is acceptable) and Marcuse.

    --

  • They changed the numbers to be much larger and clearer (sans-serif, bold font), to be more easily readable to those with poor eyesight. They also used some more special, glittery ink, and new watermarking designs and interwoven metallic strips to stop counterfeit operations.
  • Since there are well over 140 regular season games I think you'd have trouble scheduling them all so they fall on a weekend.
  • I've yet to see a place where socialism has worked. I've NEVER seen any place successfully implement communism. The USSR tried but failed miserably as their fat cat Big Brother government got too power hungry to actually give a shit about the people. Sorry, but if communism means waiting in lines that stretch around the corner to pick at bare grocery store shelves for stale bread then I'll happily stick to my money-grubbing capitalist system. I work, I make money, I go buy whatever I want, whenever I want, and however much I want.
  • youre gonna call in sick on saturday? remember that the 6th is a tuesday :)
  • Too bad I can not participate:
    1: I am unemployed,
    2: I am sick for real. =)
  • Actually it worked reasonably well for China, and would have worked well for Cuba if it wasn't for completely unjustified US interference.

    --

  • I suspect that this is due (on all sides) primarily to frustration with repeating oneself over and over and over to people who refuse to listen past the first word, which is fairly common here. (although less so since the new moderation system went into effect)

    Daniel
  • I can work 20 hours a week and spend the rest on charities or at my daughter's softball games because most of my income is generated by investments that I made 20 years ago. Thankfully, my taxes are low enough that I get to keep most of what I make and spend/invest it as I see fit rather than waste it on the whim of some 'crat in DC. It's not too bad being a semi-retired 40 year old lamer that never graduated. ;-)

  • dollars are pretty lame looking. They are going to stick with the "greenback" motif because it is "classic". Oh well. AFAIK, they have never addressed the size or texture issue. Probably there would be some problem with changing too many cash register drawers and automatic money changers for that to ever fly.

    I wonder, do those folks with varied bill sizes have changers?

  • Perhaps redhat.com should apply some of slashdots new preference features to customise the content that appears on their site so only relavant slashdot information gets published.

    I don't think this news item is very techie-oriented, it's more of an ideological nature, so it's arguable why it's on Slashdot.

    But it's here, so it's there at Red Hat's portal as well, which I think is a good policy: Mirror Slashdot without filtering out any articles. If they would censor the news, there wouldn't be much point to it, it would raise suspicion. Since they do not censor, I made Red Hat's portal my starting homepage. Gives me a great overview over all of my favorite sites which I visit afterwards when I noticed some interesting stuff. Saves me the time to visit several sites if they haven't updated or interesting news, so if they would limit their mirrors, I'd have to go there all the time. Personally, I think the advantage of making this kind of comfortable surfing possible outweighs the disadvantage of a few unrelated items on their site. Of course it would be nice if we could customize Red Hat's portal just like Slashdot, but still, the uncensored overview is what counts.

    Regarding unrelated news, well, get a Slashdot account and filter it out. Maybe we'll get a score system for topics as well. Would be nice, but I'm happy as it is. Thanks to all who made this possible, both here at Slashdot and there at Red Hat, keep up the good work.
  • Agreed. I have no idea what they're trying to accomplish except possibly publicity (hoorah for the media). I can just see some PHB sitting in his office thinking "Damn, 1/3 of my people didn't show up today. Maybe capitalism is all wrong after all."

  • A Reasoned response (Score:3)

    by mikpos ( 2397 ) on Sunday April 04, 1999 @12:12PM (#1949759) Homepage
    Uhh I hate to burst your bubble, but there's more to the world than capitalism and communism. This article makes no mention of communism...it just seems to take a strong stance against capitalism. For all I know these guys could be communists, but it's darn near impossible to tell for sure.

    Although (hopefully I won't offend any communists here :P), but this seems like the kind of "cheap-shot" that communists are known to do to bring down capitalism. I agree capitalism is pretty heinous, but organising meaningless "protests" like this just makes things worse. And quite frankly I'd rather have capitalism or whatever the hell this is called than have communism.

    And free software isn't necessarily communist-like. Communism was still just an oligarchy trying to control one big-ass nation of far too many people, and being mighty restrictive as well. It was still based on currency and money, but the government had control over it. Money doesn't factor in at all with free software -- communism, socialism, capitalism, feudalism, monarchy, you name it, any political system that's been devised doesn't really lend itself to or away from free software as far as I can see.
  • As a lifelong purveyor of that "propaganda," I have to inform this loser AC that there is no difference between what he calls socialism and what he calls communism except the number of bodies.

    It's a shame that the philosophy of liberty is only understood in the US, and even then by so few. We should have listened to Pres. Washington and left Europe to destroy itself.

    BTW, if you would stop throwing that McCarthy moniker around as if it were some sort of slander and bother to research Sen. McCarthy's actual beef with the State Department at that time, you would actually realize that HE WAS RIGHT!

  • umm... sorry. Your information is quite mistaken. The list he held up at Wheeling was a list of names determined by the House in 1947 to be communist subversives, infiltrators, and fellow travelers working in the state department at that time, all but two of which were still working at State when Sen. McCarthy in 1950 made an issue of it.

    That list was surpressed by both the Speaker of the House (a Republican!), the committee chairmen (Democrat in '50, Republican in '47) and in executive orders by Truman himself (in '47 and again in '50).

    McCarthy was in over his head, but only because the Truman (and later Eisenhower) administrations put politics above national security.

    Sen. McCarthy demanded answers as to why these people were still working at State after three years, and he was fsck'd for it.

    Get your facts straight.

  • I guess you've resorted to the typical tactic of bashing the messenger, ignore the message. Let me set you straight with some more "unusual assertions" known by so many to be FACTS.

    KGB documents demonstrated that McCarthy's original Wheeling list(i.e. the '47 list) was extraordinarily accurate WRT who were communist agents. In fact, the KGB docs show that the '47 list was not only VERY accurate as far as WHO was a Red in State, but it was also very accurate as far extent of involvement these individuals had with Moscow. There are only two or three instances where the House findings differ from the KGB docs.

    Now, are you going to slander me some more, or are you going to get some facts yourself? Oh, but wait! The facts support Sen. McCarthy and my position! I guess you have to bash me and bash YAF some more!
  • Well here are some of the things they accomplished...

    Alger Hiss
    The Bomb
    12hr notice of the invasion of Korea at Inchon
    notice of the Berlin Airlift
    The knowledge that Marshall told Chang Kai-Shek we weren't going to intervene militarily in China
    Pre-knowledge of the creation of West Germany
    ... and lots of other fun little tidbits.

    I know how stubborn pride can make you stand by your incorrect assertions. I was a communist once, too.
  • I will grant you that nazism was significantly more virulent than other implementations of national socialism (mussolini, franco, peron, tudjman in modern croatia) but all of the horrible activities of Nazi Germany are philosophically supported by pre-existing national and international socialist philosophy, as are the horrors of Stalin.

    I would encourage you to read the works of the Comte de Saint Simon. His frankness about the realities of socialism (in all its forms) will turn your hair white. His explanation of his plan and the variants of his socialism is extraordinarily prophetic.
  • I appear to be getting under your skin... good.

    Your irrationality is getting the best of you, because you missed several points.

    You are right that Saint-Simon was dead long before Marx, Keynes, Lenin or Harrington were on the scene. However, it was very helpful for him to have already published his work when the more modern socialists began forming their opinions, otherwise he would not have been the influence he was on them. You seem to think that people come up with ideas in a vacuum. Well they don't. The socialists immediately after Saint-Simon frequently cited him, and those after those cited them, and so on.

    All modern socialism sprang from Saint-Simon. He was the first to coalesce (sp?) all the fragments of envy and hatred under one philosophical roof. He even coined the term "Socialism." Understand this, and understand history better.

    Saint-Simon talked about the Terror, he talked about touchy-feely socialism, he talked about nationalistic socialism, he talked about internationalistic socialism, and he even talked about how every form of socialism requires the violence of the Terror and that to deny the violence is to deny the basic nature of socialism itself.

    It is very common these days for socialists to marginalize Saint Simon, since he openly endorsed the horror that socialism would eventually spring upon the earth. In this, he was not only the father of socialism, but it's greatest adversary, since he flamed other socialists for their dishonesty.

    That is something you can't run away from, no matter how hard you slander. The Comte de Saint Simon talked about what would become all the forms of socialism we know of today, he exposed the lies they would tell to get power, and what they will do when they got that power. He hasn't been wrong yet.

    Waiting for the next slander...
  • I wonder if you are not just arguing for the hell of it, because you are acting like you are. You make a lame assertion with no backup, I supply facts which deny your assertion, you slander and make new lame assertion.

    Sen. McCarthy wanted to know why there were communist agents working at the State Department. He was stonewalled. His personality didn't help matters, but he understood the brevity of the situation. He understood that communism seeks the violent enslavement of productive people. He understood that communism kills. He understood that communism lies. He understood that communism was (and still is) the single greatest threat to life and liberty. There were communists in the State Department. There were communists in the Defense Department. There were even communists in the White House staff. Are we to believe your assertion that they were simply doing their jobs and minding their own business? Alger Hiss and the Rosenbergs proved that they weren't. KGB documents proved that they weren't. The HUAC proved that they weren't.

    To the communists, every little bit helped. Every communist government employee, every communist labor leader, every communist school teacher, and every communist film director meant as much to the cause of communism as any pair of scientists or any Undersecretary of State, because a twisted mind means with influence over others means as much a tidbit of information.

    The United States and Western Europe was in serious danger in the 40s and 50s from a communist insurgency, and it took the Red Scare and the help of the Kruchschev report for that danger to subside.

    For that Joe McCarthy was a hero.
  • After reading your website, I realize I'm wasting my time with you. I'm sorry, but I hope you don't fall as hard as I did when I realized that socialism = death.
  • In the universe there is only freedom and degrees of unfreedom. By definition there are no victims of capitalism, since capitialism is freedom. Unfortunately, when dealing with regimes that are unfree, one must resort to less-than-honorable tactics to secure one's interests. Not that the US is all that capitalist anymore, anyway.
  • I'm going to nit pick a little bit here, so bear with me. It's where the points are...

    Exactly how do big corporations emerge and exactly how do they crush those weaker?

    Exactly how do lobbying groups have more power than citizens?

    Exactly how does Texaco (or any large corp) have more power than a member of Congress?

    What is power?

    Who has it?

    How did they get it?

    Who gave it to them?

    Just to be fair, I'm not setting you up, but trying to get you to understand the hidden fallacy of your statement.

  • Aside from your beautiful, unbiased, factually based assessment of Sen. Joe McCarthy, and your highly knowledgeable indications that Stalin actually cared who he put to death, I have to ask you...

    What is the concept of communism?
  • You didn't quite get my point.

    Why does it matter to a corporation whether to influence governments?
  • Been there, done that. from Marx to Marcusa.
  • What do you know of national socialist philosophy that leads you to this conclusion?

    Did you know that national socialism claims the same philosophical roots as international socialism (i.e. communism)?

    Did you know that modern euro-socialism (what so many refer to as socialism today) also has the same philosophical roots as both national and international socialism?

    Did you know that the term "Socialism" was first coined by the Comte de Saint Simon during the French Revolution and was the philosophical basis for "the Terror"?

    Do you know what are the philosophically determined end results are for international socialism, national socialism, modern euro-socialism, and the socialism first described by the Comte de Saint Simon? (Quick answer: The exact same thing.)

    Do you know the differences in tactics for implementation of the various different types of socialism as philosophically described by each? (Quick Answer: nothing but for degree.)

    Did you know that the tactic of equating capitalism with fascism and with the "right wing" came from Stalin himself?

    Did you know that fascism's anti-communism is not derived from differences with communism, but with similarities with communism and competition for the same people in the marketplace of ideas, and that this was routinely refered to by fascist philosophers and by Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco?
  • I wish I wasn't my own company- could use a sick day.

    I bet youve never been employed the old fashioned way, have you?
    • The callers: They are lying - wouldnt give me a comfortable feeling
    • The employers: Someone steals their money, indirectly at least.
    • (WORST) The ones that are really sick: If this goes mainstream, nobody will believe them, so they will have to come to work, no matter how bad their health is.
  • You logic is flawed.

    The trasition of some set of assumptions in the past does not guarentee the trasition of all assumtptions in the future.

  • Anarchy gets in the way of me getting rich.

    Honestly this is pretty sad. If you're not happy in your current job to this extent, perhaps you need to consider trading off some pay for a job you really enjoy.

    There are a lot of elementary schools out there that could use some dedicated people. Does your system need an experienced technology person to set up Internet access in schools (and spread a little Free OS lovin' along the way)?

    Even if you're not ready to quit your job, you might find yourself a little happier if you do something worthwhile.

    In the end it's not really your PHB's fault you don't quit and leave his ass in the dust.
  • Well, if russia had switched to capitalism *before* their economy went down the toilet you might have a point but they didn't. The argument you are presenting is the logical equivalent of: "My wife told me yesterday she was going to divorce me so I immediately switched from christianity to buddhism but sure enough today she divorced me so I now conclude that buddhism does not work".
  • Rob I can tell you're an American because the event is meant to be a 'World Call in Sick day' from the body of the article even though the title called it a NATIONAL call in sick day. I suppose the US thinks they are the world (e.g. world series baseball, etc) ;)

    Well more seriously. I take these ideas with a sense of humour because if everyone was to call in sick then what would happen is they'd probably get sacked as the bosses would know something is going on and there's plenty of people just willing to take a job. It'd probably be bad for people who were *really* sick on that day as the boss would just think they were staying off for the sake of it.

    Anyway talk about this day - but don't be serious about it.
    It should have been on a Monday. As a jingle on a local radio station goes:
    It's a Monday and you know it call in sick
    Got a cold a flu a fever take your pick
    If you want to ditch the day and still collect your pay
    It's a Monday and you know it call in sick
    --
  • Baseball isn't what I'd consider a spectator sport, but then what appeals to the US in the way of sport is usually different to what appeals to the rest of the world. But if they enjoy it so be it but why have major sporting events on days that many people work? If they didn't hold the FA Cup on a Saturday so I could watch it I'd be annoyed.
    All our football (soccer) matches are played outside of normal working hours (Saturday/Sunday afternoons or weekday evenings) so it's very rarely we need to find an excuse to call in sick in the name of sport.

    It's the best way to have it.
    --
  • Q. What does this article have to do with opensource?
    A. It's publicised on the RedHat website!! http://www.redhat.com/
    At this present moment you'll find this article listed on the RedHat.com website as part of their stupid policy of blindly copying slashdot articles. RedHat have a massively supportive policy of supporting open source software and as their site is promoting the event it could be bad for RedHat as well as the open source community in general when these sort of articles are mirrored on a website.

    Perhaps redhat.com should apply some of slashdots new preference features to customise the content that appears on their site so only relavant slashdot information gets published.

    RedHat aren't doing themselves any good with this portal. A few days ago it mentioned that Rob had switched slashdot over to Debian!!
    http://www.redhat.com/news/slashdot/archive/0.ht ml
    (on the JWZ article!!)
    --
  • Yeah tha almighty buck! The currency designed so all the notes look different so you can easily tell them apart and are different sizes to help the blind and people with no eyesight!

    Seriously does the US still have banknotes that all look the same or have they changed since I was last there 8 years ago?
    --
  • I'm not saying that a portal that has articles from sites such as slashdot.org is a bad idea but RedHat have:
    • Positioned the site at http://www.redhat.com/ - the site where people go to look for info on RedHat (this includes people who know nothing about Linux and want to find out more)
    • Dumped the raw articles (spelling mistakes and all) onto the front page of their site - and most importantly there's no way to just click on the article and view the comments - part of the fun of slashdot
    • Related to not being able to view the comments - the articles about slashdot improving it's moderation and comments system are still printed. Someone who reads redhat.com and not slashdot will be thinking 'What comments system - I can't comment to these!'
    Slashdot is 'news for nerds' people in the know about computers. Some of these articles are irrelavent to Linux/Open Source but Rob may want to include them for public interest (it's his right to). They look stupid on RedHat's site. Some articles can be damaging to RedHat such as the 'Is RedHat the next Microsoft?' and the fact Rob admits to changing to Debian in an article.

    RedHat need to do something to improve that site or at least move it to a location more appropriate e.g. www.linux-news.com but that seems to have been taken - RedHat think they must be some more suitable domains around.
    --

  • I wouldn't put it past them to spread fud like that. The question is: as RedHat are promoting this call in sick event by displaying the slashdot article on their page does this mean that RedHat support the event. Well would you announce on your home page an event you didn't agree with - particulary if you weren't paid to do so?
    --
  • Especially given that I'm a temp, and while I can take all the days off I want, I never know when I _will_ have work. Ergo, I work whenever I can, and in fact, was lucky to get to work on Easter weekend for more money.

    However, here in the US at least, National Call In Sick Day is May 19th. We were just talking about it a day or two ago.
  • You realize, of course, that 40% of all sick days are taken on either Friday or Monday. Obvious long-weekend goldbricking. I know this is true 'cuz I saw it in Dilbert.

  • Seems to work as well as anything else up here in Canada. Even our consevatives are socialist.

  • > I can just see some PHB sitting in his office thinking "Damn, 1/3 of my people didn't show up today. Maybe capitalism is all wrong after all."
    Well, if one person understands this, we have done our part.
    Remember - What was the wild fantasy of lunatic communists yesterday becomes the accepted standard today (progressive income tax, anyone?), so what is a wild fantasy of a lunatic communist today, _will_ be the accepted standard tomorrow.
  • that's right-it has nothing to do with linux and actually hurts Redhat's reputation in the business world. Linux is the only non-MS OS that actually has a chance in the corporate world and these guys are blowing it
  • I think it's more about the slashdot First! kiddies
  • but George Lucas will make it all up
  • Too bad much of it is at the expense of the rest of the world. I always love computer geeks who have grown
    up in suburbia, with middle class families, never known poverty, got a decent education, and have a lot of job
    prospects generalizing about how good Capitalism is. Isn't it easy to see things in a vacuum?


    I didn't grow up in suburbia, nor am I from the middle class, I've known poverty both as a child and an adult. I dragged my ass, kicking and screaming through an education, and have fought tooth and nail for every freakin' scrap I own. On top of that, our 1/2 socialist govt takes 43% of EVERYTHING I earn.

    The "slave labor" practices in South American and PacRim nations is abhorent. However, those are the same conditions that most of our ancestors, in the U.S., went through to get where we are. My greatgrandparents all worked in factories (in Maine and New Jersey), in terrible conditions, to make lives for themselves and their families.
    The people, and especially children, in those nasty factories now, will grow up with better access to capital than their parents, and eventually, will be able to pay for educations for themselves and their children. Now, point taken on the factories that actually impliment slave labor: boycott the companies that support that sort of economics. Don't buy Nike or Reebok (they use the same factories). Part of the beauty of capitalism, is that YOU have a CHOICE as to what you buy, and that choice equals a "vote" that hits companies right where they feel it - their income. Use that power if you don't like the conditions those companies allow.

    The U.S. influences in other countries, esp in South America, are so far from what capitalism is supposed to be as to be indistinguishable from totalitarian solcialism. Just because our experiment in capitalism is failing, fast, doesn't mean that capitalism is a bad thing. Capitalism is the most fair economic system possible: if you work, you benefit; if you don't, you suffer. Charity can easily handle (esp. with lower/no tax burden) the few in any society that simply can't work.

    The list goes on... So you see, I can understand why a lot of people love Capitalism, because they don't take the
    time to consider why their country has so much relative to their neighbors to the south. Or maybe they do, and
    just don't care (even scarier).


    I do take that into consideration, in my purchases and my thinking. I try not to buy from companies that use bad labor practices, both in and out of the States. I don't own a car (BIKE!), for a number of reasons. I don't support the American meat habit, for health and global economic reasons.
    However, I am a capitalist. I like earning money for my labors, and like supporting others with that money. I don't like other people telling me what I can and cannot do with my earnings, esp. with the implied violence of our current tax system.

    Last thought on socialism: What would you do when the Worker's Generosity Party tells you that you cannot be a programmer anymore, that you have to go and work in the fields, harvesting grain, for the "good of the people"?
  • This is not a call for censorship but should ethnic "humor" be getting bumped up to a +1?

  • They've severely uglified the hundred, fifty, and twenty dollar bills and supposedly incorporated new anti-counterfeitting(sp) technology. Somehow they just don't seem like "real money".

  • Remember - What was the wild fantasy of lunatic communists yesterday becomes the accepted standard today (progressive income tax, anyone?), so what is a wild fantasy of a lunatic communist today, _will_ be the accepted standard tomorrow.

    Two things:

    One, I would hardly call a progressive income tax a resounding endorsement of Communism. It's just an easy way for the government (any government, Communist or otherwise) to extort more money out of the citizenry.

    Two, even if the ideas of people who were once considered radicals have become acceptable now, it's very faulty logic to assume that the same must always be true for the future. Maybe today's radicals will be considered wacko idiots by future generations. Just being against the status quo does not guarantee anyone eternal hero status. History is littered with a million nutcases for every Galileo...

  • TWIAVBP (Score:1)

    by knuth ( 6137 )

    The World Is A Very Big Place, as they would say in alt.folklore.urban.

    Here in the U.S., the fiscal year begins 1 July, not 6 April.

    Happy Easter, to those /.ers of the Christian persuasion.

  • Interesting to see someone other than an American think the world revolves around their nationalistic ways. The significance of the date is that it is the first day of the financial new year -- in Britain, that is.

    In the US at least, it won't cost your employer a dime usually. Most jobs have a certain number of sick days allowed per year. Take one, so what? Employer had to allow for it anyway.


    --
  • "What's Open Software but Socialism?"

    It's *auto*socialism. As in everybody involved is doing it 'cause they believe in it and want to. Nobody is forced to work for the state and give all of their (oh, sorry, "the people's") stuff to the same.
  • Let me see if I can dumb this down to _your_ level, moron. You _are_ free to believe whatever you want as a United States Citizen, provided you don't transgress the rights of other citizens. Unfortunately communism _demands_ that I give up every right I have for the good of your state-rights which are guaranteed to me by the Constitution, making communism and the US entirely at odds with each other.
  • hopefully we can get a larger participation in the u.s. this year!!

    If you do, it'll be because of the tremendous commercial success of the Internet.

    BTW, where'd the computer you posted that come from? Built by a capitalist company, or did a "benevolent" government just pull it out of their ass?
  • But due to communism being the form of life in most of the countries today that US citizens see as bad (Russia, China) it just proves unless you have an uncorrupt government, it fails.

    There are flaws and benefits of any system. Pointing out all the flaws is not the way to make anyone here happy, or willing to consider other things. Instead of pointing to capatilism as bad sue to Microsoft or other examples, find the good things about other systems.
  • Why do so many people see the US as everyone getting shot by gangs and such? Every country has problems like this, but the fact that I live in a fairly decent sized city in the US and have never herd a gun shot except at a firing range should prove alot against this. No I don't live in a rich suburbia area, I live in an area where about 5% of the cities welfare people live 3 blocks away.

    Also, don't blame crime on capitalism or socialism or any form or government.

    And finaly, revevber what you see on the news is bad. The news does not represent the way of life in a country. If it did, I would think of any country as a bad place due to riots and terrorist attacks and other "news making stories".
  • Here we have a few reasons. No one system is perfect.

    Also, changing from communism to capitalism or vice versa would take alot of work in a country the size of Russia. Let me put this is terms /.'s can understand:

    Take a poorly running Windows system and all it's programs, and try to convert this to a Linux system, witl all functions from the windows programs covered in Linux (including Indeo 5 codecs, IE bookmark importing, etc...) This would take time, and result in a sizeable down time. Now apply this example to communism to capitalism or capitalism to communism.
  • Yep, US money is still the same size and color. Just all the new things added to prevent counterfitting.

    The one thing that I couldn't understand was the bills in Scotland and England. It was nice to see varity, but the fact there is no standard for the bills drove me nuts. Having several 10 pound bills that looked completly different was hard to get used to. What would be nice to see for bills anywhere is different size, and somethign that looks the same. I could even deal with every bank having their own design as long as say the corners or the outer rectangle is the same for bills of the same amount.
  • ...cuz I was sick. I agree with the general sentiment thus far: screwing over your employer doesn't help anyone.
  • F*cked over by capitalism? Please explain.

    Do we have an item in the federal budget called "Foreign Aid" because of money they loan to us? Is it their technology and resources that are helping us to improve our standard of living?
  • communism: a system in which goods are owned in common and are available to all as needed

    This hasn't ever worked, and never will.
  • But once that happens, the choice is gone -- when you create software, you'll have to give it up, or it doesn't get used.

    I don't think this will ever happen. Let's say you have a business problem that my software can solve TODAY, but for a fee. You, as the consumer, have two choices: Assuming it doesn't already exist, you can wait until someone in the open source community decides that it's important enough to THEM to put in the time required, or you can hire a programmer to do it for you. What do you think the most likely choice would be?

  • While oil is an excellent example of a valuable resource supplied by foreign countries, do we "take" it from them? And how many of those who supply us with oil are considered "developing" countries?

    Here's what I don't understand - if foreign aid and military defense are exchanged as part of a TRADE agreement, how is it that these foreign countries are getting screwed (which is what was suggested in the original post)?
  • Why are you people so afraid of oss being called communistic? What's so bad about being communist? Are you people still believing everything you're told in school? There are other socio-economic models that are proven effective other than capitalism.

    -lx
  • Sweden is pretty darn socialist, I think, and they seem to be doing ok. And frankly, in the case of N. Korea, Russia, etc., most of the damage has been done by capitalists trying to destroy them. Yup, Russia seems to be doin ok with its brand new capitalist system. Fixed 'em right up.

    -lx

  • What does this have to do with opensource? (Score:3)

    by jerodd ( 13818 ) on Sunday April 04, 1999 @10:42AM (#1949815) Homepage
    What does lying to an employer about one's own health, which is highly unethical in my opinion, have to do with the philosophy of freed software or the desire for opensource?

    This isn't anticapitalism. If you don't like your employer, then change jobs. At least in the U.S. this should be easy.

    Hey, I have an idea--why not just fudge our billable hours on the sixth? We can all get $50 extra and donate it to worthy causes!

    Uggh. Having this sort of thing associated with good things like freed software makes me ill.

  • While capitalism may not be perfect, I personally do not think that "destroy(ing) the monetary system" is any kind of action that can result in improving our system. Really, if you want to change the system, propose and work for something better, don't just attack the existing state(and those who dwell within)!

    In my case, as I work at a University, if I take an unnecessary sick-day, there is a cost to the institution ... which is funded in a large part by tax-payers!

    And what about the poor schmoes that DO work while their "consumer terrorist" coworkers call in sick? Is punishing them by making them carry a bigger workload part of this whole plan?

    YS

  • Open Source software isn't socialism, as it is totally voluntary. No one is forcing you to pay taxes into some kind of 'software collective' which is then redistributed. People write Open Source because they enjoy it, not because they have to.

  • Open Source vs. Anti-Capitalism (Score:3)

    by Roland Walter Dutton ( 24395 ) on Sunday April 04, 1999 @01:15PM (#1949852)
    i dont know if anti-capitalist sentiment and the open source community necessarily go hand in hand (cough)

    Where does open source have the slightest connection with anti-capitalist sentiment? Through the head of OSI, Eric S. Raymond, a packin' Libertarian? Is it through RMS, the father of ideological opposition to proprietary software? Read the GNU Manifesto [gnu.org]. Is that a work of anti-capitalism? Is it Linus Torvalds, now working for big bucks in Transmeta, an archetypal example of that icon of contemporary capitalism, the Silicon Valley start-up? Is Larry Wall a Marxist? Is Sendmail, Inc. a front for anarchist agitation?

    Some Open Source figures have objections, on principle or on pragmatic grounds, to the intellectual property system. That is NOT a rejection of the right to private property. The very argument that Stallman uses to assert that there is no intellectual property right (at, for example, the "Natural Rights" bulletpoint in his "Why Software Should Not Have Owners" essay), by arguing the contrast between ideas and physical things, implicitly accepts private physical property. (And incidentally, not even RMS argues that operating "intellectual property" systems is wrong in all circumstances).

    But I may have somewhat misinterpreted what was meant. There are pockets of anti-capitalist sentiment around the "open-source community": among the old GNU Usenet hangers-on (or so I'm told), and on Slashdot now (as well as loudmouths of opposing persuasions, too). But neither the heavyweight thinkers of free software (eg. Stallman, Raymond, Wall), nor most people who do serious work for it, endorse that sentiment. Let alone do the supporters of the Open Source program! It is after all thanks to the wealth generated by the scarcity economy of capitalism that the "gift economy" of Open Source can exist at all.

  • I'm sure most of the people against this don't have a problem with calling in sick to work when star wars comes out. And don't say star wars is a better excuse! :)

    -John
  • This whole thing sounds to me like a bunch of schoolkids - with no real clue about social systems - trying to show everyone how rebellious and "cool" they are.

    I'm not sure why I would want to overthrow capitalism anyway. I don't always like capitalism - it's cold, greedy, fiercely competitive (divides the world into "winners" and "losers"), and places money above humanity - but it has shown itself to be the most successful system we have.

    Is this group offering a practical alternative to capitalism for when they've destroyed the current system? Or are we supposed to just die when we suddenly finds there is no food in the stores, no medicine, no hospitals, no transport system etc?

    Their whole manifesto can be summed up as "let's show everyone how cool we are by 'fighting the system'". What sort of philosophy is that? These kids should grow up, maybe read some books on sociology and history, and come back when they've actually reasoned this whole thing out.

  • A Reasoned response (Score:3)

    by PigAlien ( 29865 ) <(moc.oohay) (ta) (neilagip)> on Sunday April 04, 1999 @11:28AM (#1949858)
    I realize that some ideas will never die, communism among them. Although in pricincipal, the idea of a communist utopia where everyone is equal must sound quite appealing to many people, many disastrous experiments in other countries have shown that humanity is not ready for such government.

    Open Source software may reflect the ideals of communism in as much as authors 'contribute according to their means', and everyone is free to 'take what they need', in the truest spirit of communism.

    However, software is nothing without hardware to run on. We have seen how every (so-called) communist regime has failed at providing goods and services to its people. What communist government is capable of achieving the 50% household penetration of computers that we currently see in the United States and similar free-market based economies?

    Secondly, open source software is about choice. Open source software is the antithesis of monopolies like Microsoft, which control the source code. Well, the communist party has a monopoly on power (we have yet to see any democratic communist countries, the true communist ideal, and likely never will for many years to come). A communist government would be very unlikely to resist trying to control the future of software development. Do you want to be told what to program, when and why?

    A truly free market will allow people to contribute what they like to software community, and to exploit their work for profit. It will resist controls put on it by communist and monopolistic dictatorships.

    I read the article calling for the 'sick-out', and find that perhaps it shouldn't be taken so seriously. However, my curiousity was piqued when the submitter of this story made a relationship between communism and open source, and I felt it necessary to respond.


    http://www.nara.gov/exhall/charters/declaration/ declaration.html

Slashdot Top Deals

"It's the best thing since professional golfers on 'ludes." -- Rick Obidiah

Close