Singers jailed for lyrics

Tyler Durden camera_lumina at hotmail.com
Sun Dec 28 09:49:31 PST 2003


MK wrote...

>I find it always interesting how people (especially from the US) seem
>to have prefabricated ideas about how other countries are, but are at
>the same time so much in denial about their own society that it is just
>frightening.

Well, that's true. It's a point I've made on Cypherpunks many times, that 
many economic, political, or legal analeses of other countries (particularly 
non-Indo-European) only hold up at the surface...
My comment was more general, and not necessarily aimed at Germany per se. 
For instance, there theoretically seems to be laws about everything in 
Italy, but nobody seems to obey them and they are only enforced 
half-heartedly, and for as long as it's in vogue to give a crap.

Likewise, Communist "Land Reform" in mainland China isn't communist so much 
as it's Chinese: land reform and nationalisation of salt production and 
other industries have regularly occurred throughout Chinese history. 
"Communism" in mainland China was a mask that seemed to last about as long 
as Mao was alive. (Of course, the hardheads on this list will reply by 
saying that Chinese culture has always been more "communistic" than other 
countries, but then this statement ignores just how truly capitalist China 
has become since 1984 or so. It remains oppressive, of course, if you're 
discussing the wrong subjects....)

>
>One huge difference I have noticed between the US and Germany in
>particular is that discussions LIKE these are still happening in the
>mainstream press, not only in the "left" or "right" wing propaganda
>papers.

Yes...because we Americans have only had one government, we tend to equate 
"legality" with morality, and then assume the discussion is over. No doubt 
that causes us to look at laws "over there" as being far more important than 
they really are...at least some times.

-TD

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