I worked in the European Parliament on the ‘Chat Control 2.0’ proposal and trust me, you have no idea how many politicians have no fucking clue what is going on or how many don’t care. I had to explain to my Member who was working on it for almost 2 years what encryption meant. Just wrote a post on some of my experiences working in the Parliament and the 'Chat Control' lobby here: https://essentialeurope.substack.com/p/a-bad-week-for-european-democracy
I wanted to reply that I could write a long post about this, but honestly I could write a book about it! And the sad thing is, I really wasn’t an expert either. In fact, I only worked there for 3 monts when I started working on this proposal. Thankfully I had support from people who knew a lot more
Government work attracts the most worthless and knowledge-free members of society. I spent several years serving Federal and especially DoD customers in the U.S. and almost without exception the more impressive the credential, the less the person knew about the supposed area of expertise. I am constantly reminded of the Premier of Belarus in HBO's excellent "Chernobyl": "I used to work in a shoe factory. Now I am in charge."
As an attorney and sometime donor I was asked to run for this or that local office, but there was no way I could endure the endless boring meetings. It takes a special type of knowledge-free, logic-free, dedicated conformist to do that.
It's also a place where people who have no path to any power can get a lot of power with nearly zero talent or effort. You can imagine who that sort of thing attracts.
I can imagine there were "moments" you just wanted to ... ... well, either box their ears or tell them "mind your own business, this is top secret stuff. We are gonna RULE the whole world!"
Believe my, i share your pain : used to work couple decades in the IT sector and started out as the 'computer guy' who walked around the company and helped with computer troubles - and i swear that all the memes i have ever heard about IT illiterate users are true plus much more, for example got asked for second desktop monitor by the HR director because the first one she had was 'full' yeah, the destop was full of icons... like you, i could write a very thick book about people who really should not be working with technology :D
QUOTE (from E.'s piece): [In] Germany, where surveillance is widely deplored and where our Basic Law guarantees as “inviolable” the so-called Briefgeheimnis – “the privacy of correspondence, posts and telecommunications” ...
The real silent coup d'état happened many years back. Germany's Constitutional Court had originally held - reasonably enough - that "EU law" adopted in Germany may not violate protections under the German constitution. This rule was quietly abrogated a few years back, and replaced with the legal presumption that "laws" adopted through EU mechanisms are presumptively constitutional under the (now moribund) German constitution.
The EU has authorized itself to issue "directives" ordering member states to adopt a certain law, and even to issue regulations that are directly effective with the force of law, WITHOUT adoption by any member state. At the same time, the subject matter areas subject to EU law-making have been steadily widened under various pretexts.
The AfD can use the same playbook as "Chat Control 2.0": they should keep on voting and playing procedural games until they get the result that they want.
Governments, probably all governments, have been, and are, going to great lengths, spending insane sums of money, to ensure that "privacy" is simply another feel good marketing term.
NO, absolutely NO, unencrypted electronic communications are in any way private.
And, given that many government agencies in 'The West' seem no longer constrained by inconveniences like warrants, or due process, one has to wonder about other forms of communication.
I expect what happens here in New Zealand, happens in many places. There are what appears to be very strict privacy laws in place which cover the government and its employees from sharing info and data about everybody. In reality, there are other laws which allow certain govt depts to go 'fishing' - for example police, inland revenue. When you sign up to a GP or visit the hospital, you have to sign forms and somewhere on there in tiny writing, there's a statement about them sharing info with 'partners'. In the meantime, when some poor minor government clerk accidently shares a (usually) minor/meaningless email with somebody who shouldn't get it, there's a huge drama to show how seriously such breaches are taken.
QUOTE: NO, absolutely NO, unencrypted electronic communications are in any way private.
===
You seem to be under the impression that ENCRYPTED communications are somehow private. ENCRYPTED COMMUNICATIONS ARE IN NO WAY PRIVATE, for various reasons that have been well known to anyone interested for decades:
(1) Thorough TRAFFIC ANALYSIS (who communicates with whom, when, how often, how long, in what sequence relative to other communications, etc.) will often give a good idea of what the communication was about. You can find good illustrations of this principle (and much else besides) at eff.org.
(2) Most encryption schemes are intentionally designed with "back doors" through which government-affiliated entities can view traffic in clear (non-encrypted) form.
(3) PC's, phones etc. at both ends of the (allegedly) encrypted channel can easily be hacked by government-supported entities, and may even be pre-programmed to "call home" when certain keywords or events are detected.
IN SHORT, encryption WILL NOT PROTECT your privacy (or that of the counter-party) in most use scenarios.
Nope, that's not at all responsive. I wasn't asking for something demonstrating government intent and budgeting towards such a goal; I take that as a given.
Rather, your assertion was about the actual design of commercial encryption systems, and what I am asking about is evidence that any of that above black budget money actually achieved its purpose. Information about specifically which systems would be icing on the cake...
One possibility that has been discussed: encryption typically relies on generating very large random numbers from which encryption keys are created. The suspicion has been voiced that the random number generator function could have been tampered with, such that the resulting keys are much less random than intended, and all possible decryptions can be pre-computed.
It is also possible (indeed likely) that after spending billions of dollars, governments have gained some non-public know-how regarding the mathematics underlying major encryption schemes. A better understanding of the underlying math could provide dramatic shortcuts to "brute force" decryption efforts (i.e. computerized guessing until the clear text is found).
These former legal protections are now a dead letter in all Western countries, and had been quietly disregarded throughout their history whenever an important government interest is involved. The government regards all its interests as important.
The clowns in gowns on the various courts (all of whom are de facto civil servants beholden to the executive) have been happy to run interference for any and all government encroachment into what remained of traditional liberties. Largely the same process happened in all Western countries, under different labels.
I wonder if it ever has. In the European multiparty countries, it seems seldom that the person with the most votes, or even the party with the most votes, gets to be prime minister/lead of the govt. And here in the US, when someone 'unwanted' is in the winning lane, someone 'finds' a bunch of uncounted boxes of mail-in votes and the unwanted person loses. Why do we even vote. I stopped.
A very key aspect of the whole “rigging” project, in addition to screwing around with votes every which way from Sunday, is also to increase voter demoralization.
They are counting on a segment of the population, particularly that of the opposition party, to become exasperated to the point of not voting at all. So, someone choosing not to vote is considered a successful result in that aspect of their plan, making it all the easier for them to “win”.
Until the day voting is outright outlawed or simply altogether done away with, (a fever dream of the Left), I will continue to cast my vote and encourage all my friends, relatives and anyone who’ll listen to do likewise. Otherwise, you’re playing right into their hands.
If both candidates are objectionable, you can vote 3rd party or write in. That candidate probably won't win, but it does register as a vote and as disapproval. It is kind of like voting "none of the above".
I think that the fact that they have to win a popular vote, no matter how they abuse the process, reigns in some of the worst abuses and tyrannies.
Voters do need to get smarter about the tricks and the propaganda that is spewed at them for years, and esp in election season.
The Two Parties in the U.S. have certainly noticed that more and more voters are registering as Independents. Probably the one cause that more voters don't register as Independent is state by state restrictions on who can vote in primaries. In states like Colorado, where over 1/3 of voters are registered Independent, a voter cannot vote in both party primaries, but s/he can choose to vote in one or the other party's primary.
I try to imagine what the reaction would be if a significant percentage of voters cast ballots choosing neither TwoParty candidate. It might encourage voters and some political leaders to organize a viable Third party to unite behind.
I get your point but unfortunately in the system we have voting 3rd party is just wasting your vote. They can’t win in this system currently. It’s not out of the realm of possibility but it would take something pretty dramatic to cause such an upset.
Teddy Roosevelt, when he ran as a 3rd party candidate, garnered the most votes historically, close to 27%, but it only managed to split the Republican Party, which only resulted in ushering in Woodrow Wilson, one the most destructive presidents the country’s ever had. We’re still suffering enormously from the damage his administration inflicted.
Here in the US the only way to “create” a third party is to infiltrate and gradually take over one of the existing parties, as MAGA is attempting with the Republicans and the DSA with the Democrats. Libertarians have tried, too, but kinda sorta settled to align moreso with the Republican/conservative's wing.
Hold your nose: Vote, and vote Republican.
They’re far from perfect but that’s as close as we’re going to get right now. And at least it will keep us in the fight.
If the Democrats win, all bets are off, and the country may very well not survive.
Hell, I'm libertarian myself, and I'm going to hold my nose and *run* as a Republican.
But I think the point that the previous commenter was trying to make was that if one truly simply cannot stand to vote for *either* candidate, at least voting third party at least *signals* that, as opposed to just staying home. It's a very specific message: "I was willing to make the effort to go to the polls and very explicitly throw my vote away rather than cast it for either of those two assholes."
It may not always be the most tactically sound decision, but IMO it *is* still superior to simply "not voting".
😂🤣 "I was willing to make the effort to go to the polls and very explicitly throw my vote away rather than cast it for either of those two assholes."
You said it better than I could.
Yes. We want to be asked who should govern, and we want to choose. But we won't pretend that the candidates on offer meet an acceptable standard. We are not disinterested or lazy. We are opposed.
Many voters don't like much that either party is offering. But between specific candidates, both Dem and Repub, they may have a preference sometimes for one party's candidate, sometimes from the other's candidate.
With our many gerrymandered districts, which the TwoParties often collaborate in, one party or the other often dominates individual district, or even a state. Unless a voter can vote in a primary, they may never have a chance to vote for the preferred candidate. And as we have seen repeatedly, quite often the candidate most popular with voters is not the choice of the official party.
Part of the function of popular voting is so that voters feel that they have a voice in who rules them. If more than a third of voters, being Independent, cannot vote in primaries, they are effectively cutoff from any meaningful choice.
The alternative is for voters, who are disillusioned with the TwoParty system, to change their party registration for every election, depending which primary has the candidates they prefer in that particular election.
If there were realistic alternative candidates to the two Uniparty candidates, who had a chance of winning, it might not matter whether Independents could vote in the Uniparty primaries. As long as the Uniparties have a lock on winners, and the donors have a lock on the Uniparty, letting Independents vote in those primaries is a way of maintaining an element of democracy in elections and somewhat offsetting donor dominance.
The growing number of Independents is a clear signal that many voters have lost confidence in both parties, their political leadership, each party's method of nominating candidates.
Other functions of the party, such as Party conferences, where policy questions are decided, and official administrative positions within the Party, are still limited to Party members.
If all it takes to become a "member" of the Republican party is putting it on one's voter registration, that's not exactly a high bar to clear. As I well know, having registered explicitly as a Democrat this go around in order to vote *against* one of their candidates for Governor. Not that it did any good, the person I wanted to not be on the ballot won the primary by a landslide. Here's hoping we can at least keep her out of the office in the actual election.
Both parties do the same. there is just one party. We all know who rule the US. It is not the president. I will go vote for someone whom I think deserving of it. In the last 2, there was no one I thought worth waiting in line for.
> We all know who rule the US. It is not the president.
Definitionally. He's not supposed to. Despite all the opprobrium I've thrown at the so called "No Kings" jackasses lately, the US really *isn't* supposed to have a king. We're *supposed* to have a CEO. At least Trump actually has some experience in that role. But of course, essentially *none* of the original architecture of the founding of the country is operating as it is intended, these 250 years onward.
Yes, there is definitely a highly sophisticated campaign of demoralization through control of "news" and entertainment media, education etc. that has been in place throughout the West (aka "the Free World") since WW II.
The current hullabaloo about AI etc. is in reality aimed at entrenching even more granular and effective censorship and mind control.
In 1994 Californians approved prop 187 by 62 % . The proposition was to curtail the Mexican invasion by cutting off ALL public assistance including schools and housing .
I on the other hand went to google to find out so as not to trouble you . In the age of the internet there is no excuse for ignorance . Thanks That is exactly right
OK I have to confess I had to do a search on this term.
As it turns out and hey! oddly enough, this concept has come up recently in whatever horse hockey the algorithms are dosing me. Now I'm not sure just how alarmed I need to be. At a minimum, I feel smarmy.
Look, darlin', they were *very clear* every single time they spoke about "Our Democracy". It's not *their* fault you didn't realize they meant "our" in the *proprietary* sense.
I'd think no one goes into bureaucracy without the secret dream of being a little tyrant in whatever tiny domain he manages to achieve rule over. The remarkable aspect of this story is that a majority of the MEPs actually voted for the right thing.
The whole European Union organisation needs to be disbanded. It is totally disfunctional. It serves only itself. Why do European citizens indulge it? Why do politicians like it? Why do German national politicians kowtow to it? Why do UK politicians want to rejoin it? A handful of absolute fanatical nutjobs with their own special projects get to control the whole continent and everyone is OK about it or simply grumbles into their coffee. Total civil disobedience across the whole of Europe is required!
Best I can understand from a distance, the EU was organized for the purpose of giving a European elite more control and taking it away from most European citizens.
Does the (elected) EU Parliament have power to do anything more than conduct investigations and veto actions of the (appointed) EU Council, if that Parliament can muster a majority?
One reason was to try and "colonise" Eastern European countries after WW2, the ultimate aim being to carve up the USSR. That became easier after perestroika/glasnost as Russia is discovering to its cost.
Europe as a whole lost all its colonies after the war and partly as a result is esentially bankrupt - morally as well as financially.
So, Russia needs to be colonised. Fortunately Russia has known this for centuries. Not for nothing are they become a nuclear superpower.
Unfortunately for Europe there are those in power who actually believe Russia can be defeated - but neither they nor their children will be on the front line.
@eugyppius, thank you for this. Am I right to conclude, based on your report, that the European Parliament can actually override national laws? I'd always been under the impression that the EP was basically a toothless, symbolic institution whose main real purpose was to provide additional jobs for rhetoricians and bureaucrats.
Mainly the function of the EU Parliament is to rubber-stamp the laws which are proposed by the European Commission which is led by 27 Commissioners, one for each member state. According to Google:
"EU law generally overrides conflicting national laws in areas where Member States have ceded sovereignty to the European Union, a principle known as the Primacy of EU law.
Under this precedence principle, if there is a conflict between domestic legislation and a binding EU regulation or directive, the EU norm takes priority. National courts and authorities are required to disapply the conflicting national provision to ensure European laws are applied uniformly across all Member States"
This was one of the main reasons behind Brexit. A majority of Brits wanted their sovereignty back, i.e. the ability to make their own laws, which I'm sure Americans would understand. Unfortunately, for the democratic Brits, most of their élite preferred Rule by Brussels and sabotaged the roll-out of Brexit. Today, the current British govt. is working to rejoin the EU, having already ceded its rights to EU member states to freely fish in British waters.
I am truly horrified. I used to be so hopeful for the "European project" before it became a "keep bureaucrats in power"-power grab, after centuries of war it seemed like such a promising idea.
The EU was from its inception a transatlantic project to give the U.S. ANOTHER avenue of influence and control in Europe.
Ursula von der Lyin's father Ernst Albrecht was an important agent of U.S. influence in the early EU organization in Brussels where Ursula grew up, so she is a true EU blue blood.
Ursula and her husband apparently made billions through various vaccine and drug deals, details of which were regrettably "lost" when her phone was reset. Apparently, telecom companies serving the Brussels élite conveniently do not store past SMS messages.
How many child sex rings has this surviellance broken up? Are there any numbers to show the success of this invasion of privacy? Of course not because it is all bullshit. It’s nothing but gaining information on your political leanings or hatred of migrants who are destroying your countries. The EU was made as a central bank and look what it’s grown into. The leaders you elect don’t even matter. What a shitshow.
The nice thing is that I've been following it via Reddit r/austria, and the people there are absolutely kicking off about it. In terms of legitimacy, the EPP (ÖVP locally, and SPÖ which, although not part of EPP, also voted for ChatControl like zombies) is dead to many.
Why, when the EU is already (often legitimately) so often demonised, does its machinery then do _exactly_ what its critics accuse it of doing? The only clue I can follow is another commenter's idea of "voter demoralisation".
> " if we are honest with ourselves this battle was already lost. "
----
lost, not sure, but the totalitarian nature of EU is clear since long. All the core restrictions of individual liberties originates in the dominant German factions of EU.
This will end in two ways:
- either people become fed up and generate mass insurrection with bloody actions, like for instance killing the Albrecht, Von der Leyen, usw
- either the expected and planned full scale high intensity war of the USA-EU gangs, and this time there will be NO reconstruction of Germany.
As Juncker, president of the EU commission, said in 1999:
"We decide on something, leave it lying around, and wait and see what happens. If no one kicks up a fuss, because most people don't understand what has been decided, we continue step by step until there is no turning back."
Hyperdemocracy is just Democracy limited to those results acceptable to current political elites. Defending democracy means defending it against unacceptable results. "Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black."
I worked in the European Parliament on the ‘Chat Control 2.0’ proposal and trust me, you have no idea how many politicians have no fucking clue what is going on or how many don’t care. I had to explain to my Member who was working on it for almost 2 years what encryption meant. Just wrote a post on some of my experiences working in the Parliament and the 'Chat Control' lobby here: https://essentialeurope.substack.com/p/a-bad-week-for-european-democracy
Comforting to know at least one person in the building knew what was going on. Curious how that knowledge translated into action... or didn't
I wanted to reply that I could write a long post about this, but honestly I could write a book about it! And the sad thing is, I really wasn’t an expert either. In fact, I only worked there for 3 monts when I started working on this proposal. Thankfully I had support from people who knew a lot more
Well. You seem young. And im super stoked you get it
We need brave folks like you going forward.
Its are only hope obi wan kenobi!...:)
Thank you, very kind!
Government work attracts the most worthless and knowledge-free members of society. I spent several years serving Federal and especially DoD customers in the U.S. and almost without exception the more impressive the credential, the less the person knew about the supposed area of expertise. I am constantly reminded of the Premier of Belarus in HBO's excellent "Chernobyl": "I used to work in a shoe factory. Now I am in charge."
This is typical of a kakistocracy. "Western democracies" are actually kakistocracies controlled by a global occultocracy.
As an attorney and sometime donor I was asked to run for this or that local office, but there was no way I could endure the endless boring meetings. It takes a special type of knowledge-free, logic-free, dedicated conformist to do that.
It's also a place where people who have no path to any power can get a lot of power with nearly zero talent or effort. You can imagine who that sort of thing attracts.
“Encryption” does have a lot of letters.
I can believe it.
Sadly, I don't doubt that at all.
I can imagine there were "moments" you just wanted to ... ... well, either box their ears or tell them "mind your own business, this is top secret stuff. We are gonna RULE the whole world!"
Haha yes, it did train my self-control!
always one of life's challenges🙄
Ohhhhhhhh, my friend, I feel *that* sentiment most keenly.
As someone who has been a cypherpunk since the mid-90s, I do appreciate your efforts, as futile as they might have been.
Believe my, i share your pain : used to work couple decades in the IT sector and started out as the 'computer guy' who walked around the company and helped with computer troubles - and i swear that all the memes i have ever heard about IT illiterate users are true plus much more, for example got asked for second desktop monitor by the HR director because the first one she had was 'full' yeah, the destop was full of icons... like you, i could write a very thick book about people who really should not be working with technology :D
Perhaps, WHEN the AfD gets into power, they will vote to leave (and, thereby, kill) the European Union.
Seems like the EU is committing suicide anyway .
This sort of suicide takes a long time and the whole population goes with it.
But they're trying to take their member countries down with them. That's the problem.
QUOTE (from E.'s piece): [In] Germany, where surveillance is widely deplored and where our Basic Law guarantees as “inviolable” the so-called Briefgeheimnis – “the privacy of correspondence, posts and telecommunications” ...
The real silent coup d'état happened many years back. Germany's Constitutional Court had originally held - reasonably enough - that "EU law" adopted in Germany may not violate protections under the German constitution. This rule was quietly abrogated a few years back, and replaced with the legal presumption that "laws" adopted through EU mechanisms are presumptively constitutional under the (now moribund) German constitution.
The EU has authorized itself to issue "directives" ordering member states to adopt a certain law, and even to issue regulations that are directly effective with the force of law, WITHOUT adoption by any member state. At the same time, the subject matter areas subject to EU law-making have been steadily widened under various pretexts.
The EU is copying our cancer of Hamiltonian Federalism
Excellent post -- and a perfect example of why we should pay more attention to what our own legislators are up to in Washngton and our state capitols.
The AfD can use the same playbook as "Chat Control 2.0": they should keep on voting and playing procedural games until they get the result that they want.
I guess what surprises me most is that Germany still has “privacy of correspondence, posts and telecommunications.”
Technically, T. Only technically.
Governments, probably all governments, have been, and are, going to great lengths, spending insane sums of money, to ensure that "privacy" is simply another feel good marketing term.
NO, absolutely NO, unencrypted electronic communications are in any way private.
And, given that many government agencies in 'The West' seem no longer constrained by inconveniences like warrants, or due process, one has to wonder about other forms of communication.
I expect what happens here in New Zealand, happens in many places. There are what appears to be very strict privacy laws in place which cover the government and its employees from sharing info and data about everybody. In reality, there are other laws which allow certain govt depts to go 'fishing' - for example police, inland revenue. When you sign up to a GP or visit the hospital, you have to sign forms and somewhere on there in tiny writing, there's a statement about them sharing info with 'partners'. In the meantime, when some poor minor government clerk accidently shares a (usually) minor/meaningless email with somebody who shouldn't get it, there's a huge drama to show how seriously such breaches are taken.
Exactly!
QUOTE: NO, absolutely NO, unencrypted electronic communications are in any way private.
===
You seem to be under the impression that ENCRYPTED communications are somehow private. ENCRYPTED COMMUNICATIONS ARE IN NO WAY PRIVATE, for various reasons that have been well known to anyone interested for decades:
(1) Thorough TRAFFIC ANALYSIS (who communicates with whom, when, how often, how long, in what sequence relative to other communications, etc.) will often give a good idea of what the communication was about. You can find good illustrations of this principle (and much else besides) at eff.org.
(2) Most encryption schemes are intentionally designed with "back doors" through which government-affiliated entities can view traffic in clear (non-encrypted) form.
(3) PC's, phones etc. at both ends of the (allegedly) encrypted channel can easily be hacked by government-supported entities, and may even be pre-programmed to "call home" when certain keywords or events are detected.
IN SHORT, encryption WILL NOT PROTECT your privacy (or that of the counter-party) in most use scenarios.
Have any citations showing (2)?
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/784285-sigint-enabling-project/
-Made public thanks to Edward Snowden
Nope, that's not at all responsive. I wasn't asking for something demonstrating government intent and budgeting towards such a goal; I take that as a given.
Rather, your assertion was about the actual design of commercial encryption systems, and what I am asking about is evidence that any of that above black budget money actually achieved its purpose. Information about specifically which systems would be icing on the cake...
EDITED for clarity.
No citations to hand, looked into this ages ago.
One possibility that has been discussed: encryption typically relies on generating very large random numbers from which encryption keys are created. The suspicion has been voiced that the random number generator function could have been tampered with, such that the resulting keys are much less random than intended, and all possible decryptions can be pre-computed.
It is also possible (indeed likely) that after spending billions of dollars, governments have gained some non-public know-how regarding the mathematics underlying major encryption schemes. A better understanding of the underlying math could provide dramatic shortcuts to "brute force" decryption efforts (i.e. computerized guessing until the clear text is found).
I've always understood that random number generators aren't truly random.
Tongue in cheek, Andy, tongue in cheek ;)
Under Leftists, the meaning of terms is often completely inverted.
These former legal protections are now a dead letter in all Western countries, and had been quietly disregarded throughout their history whenever an important government interest is involved. The government regards all its interests as important.
The clowns in gowns on the various courts (all of whom are de facto civil servants beholden to the executive) have been happy to run interference for any and all government encroachment into what remained of traditional liberties. Largely the same process happened in all Western countries, under different labels.
Apparently the majority does NOT count anymore!!!
I wonder if it ever has. In the European multiparty countries, it seems seldom that the person with the most votes, or even the party with the most votes, gets to be prime minister/lead of the govt. And here in the US, when someone 'unwanted' is in the winning lane, someone 'finds' a bunch of uncounted boxes of mail-in votes and the unwanted person loses. Why do we even vote. I stopped.
A very key aspect of the whole “rigging” project, in addition to screwing around with votes every which way from Sunday, is also to increase voter demoralization.
They are counting on a segment of the population, particularly that of the opposition party, to become exasperated to the point of not voting at all. So, someone choosing not to vote is considered a successful result in that aspect of their plan, making it all the easier for them to “win”.
Until the day voting is outright outlawed or simply altogether done away with, (a fever dream of the Left), I will continue to cast my vote and encourage all my friends, relatives and anyone who’ll listen to do likewise. Otherwise, you’re playing right into their hands.
If both candidates are objectionable, you can vote 3rd party or write in. That candidate probably won't win, but it does register as a vote and as disapproval. It is kind of like voting "none of the above".
I think that the fact that they have to win a popular vote, no matter how they abuse the process, reigns in some of the worst abuses and tyrannies.
Voters do need to get smarter about the tricks and the propaganda that is spewed at them for years, and esp in election season.
The Two Parties in the U.S. have certainly noticed that more and more voters are registering as Independents. Probably the one cause that more voters don't register as Independent is state by state restrictions on who can vote in primaries. In states like Colorado, where over 1/3 of voters are registered Independent, a voter cannot vote in both party primaries, but s/he can choose to vote in one or the other party's primary.
I try to imagine what the reaction would be if a significant percentage of voters cast ballots choosing neither TwoParty candidate. It might encourage voters and some political leaders to organize a viable Third party to unite behind.
I get your point but unfortunately in the system we have voting 3rd party is just wasting your vote. They can’t win in this system currently. It’s not out of the realm of possibility but it would take something pretty dramatic to cause such an upset.
Teddy Roosevelt, when he ran as a 3rd party candidate, garnered the most votes historically, close to 27%, but it only managed to split the Republican Party, which only resulted in ushering in Woodrow Wilson, one the most destructive presidents the country’s ever had. We’re still suffering enormously from the damage his administration inflicted.
Here in the US the only way to “create” a third party is to infiltrate and gradually take over one of the existing parties, as MAGA is attempting with the Republicans and the DSA with the Democrats. Libertarians have tried, too, but kinda sorta settled to align moreso with the Republican/conservative's wing.
Hold your nose: Vote, and vote Republican.
They’re far from perfect but that’s as close as we’re going to get right now. And at least it will keep us in the fight.
If the Democrats win, all bets are off, and the country may very well not survive.
Hell, I'm libertarian myself, and I'm going to hold my nose and *run* as a Republican.
But I think the point that the previous commenter was trying to make was that if one truly simply cannot stand to vote for *either* candidate, at least voting third party at least *signals* that, as opposed to just staying home. It's a very specific message: "I was willing to make the effort to go to the polls and very explicitly throw my vote away rather than cast it for either of those two assholes."
It may not always be the most tactically sound decision, but IMO it *is* still superior to simply "not voting".
😂🤣 "I was willing to make the effort to go to the polls and very explicitly throw my vote away rather than cast it for either of those two assholes."
You said it better than I could.
Yes. We want to be asked who should govern, and we want to choose. But we won't pretend that the candidates on offer meet an acceptable standard. We are not disinterested or lazy. We are opposed.
> Probably the one cause that more voters don't
> register as Independent is state by state restrictions
> on who can vote in primaries.
That's a Duh! Why should people who, for example, aren't actual members of the Republican Party be allowed to determine who runs as a Republican?
Many voters don't like much that either party is offering. But between specific candidates, both Dem and Repub, they may have a preference sometimes for one party's candidate, sometimes from the other's candidate.
With our many gerrymandered districts, which the TwoParties often collaborate in, one party or the other often dominates individual district, or even a state. Unless a voter can vote in a primary, they may never have a chance to vote for the preferred candidate. And as we have seen repeatedly, quite often the candidate most popular with voters is not the choice of the official party.
Part of the function of popular voting is so that voters feel that they have a voice in who rules them. If more than a third of voters, being Independent, cannot vote in primaries, they are effectively cutoff from any meaningful choice.
The alternative is for voters, who are disillusioned with the TwoParty system, to change their party registration for every election, depending which primary has the candidates they prefer in that particular election.
If there were realistic alternative candidates to the two Uniparty candidates, who had a chance of winning, it might not matter whether Independents could vote in the Uniparty primaries. As long as the Uniparties have a lock on winners, and the donors have a lock on the Uniparty, letting Independents vote in those primaries is a way of maintaining an element of democracy in elections and somewhat offsetting donor dominance.
The growing number of Independents is a clear signal that many voters have lost confidence in both parties, their political leadership, each party's method of nominating candidates.
Other functions of the party, such as Party conferences, where policy questions are decided, and official administrative positions within the Party, are still limited to Party members.
If all it takes to become a "member" of the Republican party is putting it on one's voter registration, that's not exactly a high bar to clear. As I well know, having registered explicitly as a Democrat this go around in order to vote *against* one of their candidates for Governor. Not that it did any good, the person I wanted to not be on the ballot won the primary by a landslide. Here's hoping we can at least keep her out of the office in the actual election.
Both parties do the same. there is just one party. We all know who rule the US. It is not the president. I will go vote for someone whom I think deserving of it. In the last 2, there was no one I thought worth waiting in line for.
> We all know who rule the US. It is not the president.
Definitionally. He's not supposed to. Despite all the opprobrium I've thrown at the so called "No Kings" jackasses lately, the US really *isn't* supposed to have a king. We're *supposed* to have a CEO. At least Trump actually has some experience in that role. But of course, essentially *none* of the original architecture of the founding of the country is operating as it is intended, these 250 years onward.
Rule of thumb: A candidate that the legacy media says NOT to vote for should always get your vote.
Yes, there is definitely a highly sophisticated campaign of demoralization through control of "news" and entertainment media, education etc. that has been in place throughout the West (aka "the Free World") since WW II.
The current hullabaloo about AI etc. is in reality aimed at entrenching even more granular and effective censorship and mind control.
In 1994 Californians approved prop 187 by 62 % . The proposition was to curtail the Mexican invasion by cutting off ALL public assistance including schools and housing .
We got 10 million more Mexicans instead ..
POSIWID
What in the name of Sam Hill (WITNOSH) does POSIWID mean amigo?
The purpose of a system is what it does.
I think I like your acronym better!
Thanks Tardigrade. It should be TPOASIWID. Then I would have known for sure. (Ha, Ha)
I on the other hand went to google to find out so as not to trouble you . In the age of the internet there is no excuse for ignorance . Thanks That is exactly right
OK I have to confess I had to do a search on this term.
As it turns out and hey! oddly enough, this concept has come up recently in whatever horse hockey the algorithms are dosing me. Now I'm not sure just how alarmed I need to be. At a minimum, I feel smarmy.
Eugyppius wrote about it at length in, I think, the previous post, or maybe the one before that.
Nope, it was the Bad Kitty.
https://www.eugyppius.com/p/the-purpose-of-the-anti-afd-system
Look, darlin', they were *very clear* every single time they spoke about "Our Democracy". It's not *their* fault you didn't realize they meant "our" in the *proprietary* sense.
I'd think no one goes into bureaucracy without the secret dream of being a little tyrant in whatever tiny domain he manages to achieve rule over. The remarkable aspect of this story is that a majority of the MEPs actually voted for the right thing.
Are they angry about having been thwarted?
First paragraph nailed it.
But…the CHILDREN!
**FUCK** the children.
(Not literally, unlike Manfred Weber.)
The whole European Union organisation needs to be disbanded. It is totally disfunctional. It serves only itself. Why do European citizens indulge it? Why do politicians like it? Why do German national politicians kowtow to it? Why do UK politicians want to rejoin it? A handful of absolute fanatical nutjobs with their own special projects get to control the whole continent and everyone is OK about it or simply grumbles into their coffee. Total civil disobedience across the whole of Europe is required!
Best I can understand from a distance, the EU was organized for the purpose of giving a European elite more control and taking it away from most European citizens.
Does the (elected) EU Parliament have power to do anything more than conduct investigations and veto actions of the (appointed) EU Council, if that Parliament can muster a majority?
One reason was to try and "colonise" Eastern European countries after WW2, the ultimate aim being to carve up the USSR. That became easier after perestroika/glasnost as Russia is discovering to its cost.
Europe as a whole lost all its colonies after the war and partly as a result is esentially bankrupt - morally as well as financially.
So, Russia needs to be colonised. Fortunately Russia has known this for centuries. Not for nothing are they become a nuclear superpower.
Unfortunately for Europe there are those in power who actually believe Russia can be defeated - but neither they nor their children will be on the front line.
Have they tried going after child predators with, say, the same enthusiasm they do people waving their own country’s flag?
Of course not.
@eugyppius, thank you for this. Am I right to conclude, based on your report, that the European Parliament can actually override national laws? I'd always been under the impression that the EP was basically a toothless, symbolic institution whose main real purpose was to provide additional jobs for rhetoricians and bureaucrats.
Mainly the function of the EU Parliament is to rubber-stamp the laws which are proposed by the European Commission which is led by 27 Commissioners, one for each member state. According to Google:
"EU law generally overrides conflicting national laws in areas where Member States have ceded sovereignty to the European Union, a principle known as the Primacy of EU law.
Under this precedence principle, if there is a conflict between domestic legislation and a binding EU regulation or directive, the EU norm takes priority. National courts and authorities are required to disapply the conflicting national provision to ensure European laws are applied uniformly across all Member States"
This was one of the main reasons behind Brexit. A majority of Brits wanted their sovereignty back, i.e. the ability to make their own laws, which I'm sure Americans would understand. Unfortunately, for the democratic Brits, most of their élite preferred Rule by Brussels and sabotaged the roll-out of Brexit. Today, the current British govt. is working to rejoin the EU, having already ceded its rights to EU member states to freely fish in British waters.
I am truly horrified. I used to be so hopeful for the "European project" before it became a "keep bureaucrats in power"-power grab, after centuries of war it seemed like such a promising idea.
No more.
The EU was from its inception a transatlantic project to give the U.S. ANOTHER avenue of influence and control in Europe.
Ursula von der Lyin's father Ernst Albrecht was an important agent of U.S. influence in the early EU organization in Brussels where Ursula grew up, so she is a true EU blue blood.
Ursula and her husband apparently made billions through various vaccine and drug deals, details of which were regrettably "lost" when her phone was reset. Apparently, telecom companies serving the Brussels élite conveniently do not store past SMS messages.
Breaking news: CDU/CSU once again The Absolute Worst™.
How many child sex rings has this surviellance broken up? Are there any numbers to show the success of this invasion of privacy? Of course not because it is all bullshit. It’s nothing but gaining information on your political leanings or hatred of migrants who are destroying your countries. The EU was made as a central bank and look what it’s grown into. The leaders you elect don’t even matter. What a shitshow.
Glad you've reported on this, eugyppius.
The nice thing is that I've been following it via Reddit r/austria, and the people there are absolutely kicking off about it. In terms of legitimacy, the EPP (ÖVP locally, and SPÖ which, although not part of EPP, also voted for ChatControl like zombies) is dead to many.
Why, when the EU is already (often legitimately) so often demonised, does its machinery then do _exactly_ what its critics accuse it of doing? The only clue I can follow is another commenter's idea of "voter demoralisation".
> " if we are honest with ourselves this battle was already lost. "
----
lost, not sure, but the totalitarian nature of EU is clear since long. All the core restrictions of individual liberties originates in the dominant German factions of EU.
This will end in two ways:
- either people become fed up and generate mass insurrection with bloody actions, like for instance killing the Albrecht, Von der Leyen, usw
- either the expected and planned full scale high intensity war of the USA-EU gangs, and this time there will be NO reconstruction of Germany.
You misspelled EUSSR.
This was the MO of the EU from the beginning.
As Juncker, president of the EU commission, said in 1999:
"We decide on something, leave it lying around, and wait and see what happens. If no one kicks up a fuss, because most people don't understand what has been decided, we continue step by step until there is no turning back."
Hyperdemocracy is just Democracy limited to those results acceptable to current political elites. Defending democracy means defending it against unacceptable results. "Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black."