dandelion:

The biggest fear of invasion of privacy up to now...was the giving out of social security numbers years ago.

Scripture writes that ...everything is known by God, that he knows our sitting down, our standing up. And if you accept pre- determination...that everything is already planned...that free will and predestination go happily hand in hand in a mystery beyond human comprehension.... then man, in his morbid, 'off the target', broken way...will do everything to mimic God in his personal, his social behavior... in everything he does....including privacy...

"A personal question to you, which of course doesn't have to be answered out loud: who do you trust more, CNN, Al Jazeera or the BBC? To an objective person without acess to absolute truths about certain events, all three are equally valid."

For me, they are not equally valid. Al Jazeera was reporting no Americans in Bagdad even while troops on television rolled through the city. Facts are facts and are not dependent on individual perspective. If you're arguing that there is NO capability of objective truth, I disagree. There is plenty of room for subjectivity, but there are things that are simply facts.

I don't deny that the BBC and CNN have "agendas" but they at least pretend to stick to facts. They may distort, withhold, spin, etc., but the idea that they would report something that is in direct violation of observable phenomena is something I'm not sure I believe.

I disagree that the idea of laziness presupposes that people know everything. I think just the opposite. I think that people in totalitarian societies or persons from within the context of very strong cultures, are able to see beyond that IF THEY ARE NOT TOO LAZY OR FRIGHTENED to see beyond it. I think contradictions begin to create a congnitive dissonance, and I think one-sided, incomplete information begs to be supplemented. The fact is, in each culture, that there are some people who seek out answers to these kinds of feelings and those who don't.

It is one of the interesting arguments in Marx's writings. Marx denies that individuals can influence societies, the way we see it in "the west". His view is that societies create people. Thus, the focus on changing society, as it in turn, changes people. In America, the focus is on individual initiative because it is thought that individuals can rise above their culture/environment and create change. I see some evidence of both perspectives.

I don't buy the argument that individual adults are somehow excused from being responsible. We still have to seek out truth, study, question, challenge assumptions, investigate claims, etc. The fact that it is harder in some cultures than others simply means we have to acknowledge the difficulty. It does not mean we deny that man can rise above the crap of a bad culture. There is hard work in finding truth, and there is risk in finding truth. But there is no excuse for ignoring the responsibility we have as adults to define our lives and take responsibility for them. That path is a path of perpetual childhood.


[This message has been edited by Mr. Dark (edited 04-15-2004).]

Mr. Dark:

Who were you posing the questions to. All of us...or one particular person?

By choosing to respond to the question, you've helped prove my point. Al-Jazeera was reported as quoting some sources, notably the then-Iraqi minister of Defense Aziz as saying that there were no soldiers in Bagdad, but then it quoted some other sources, both independant as well as those embedded with the US troops, as saying that the americans have taken over the Bagdad airport. They even showed photos and clips of the american soldiers on the airstrips. They let the public make the decision of what and who to believe - empty words of Aziz, or footage of american troops. Who is responsible for your (and don't take this as an offence against you) ignorance of the other side of Al-Jazeera? The other media sources. To my knowledge, BBC was pretty good at the coverage and managed to stay away from critisizing Al-Jazeera; CNN, on the other hand, launched a vicious attack on the news station and tried to discredit it any way it could. It focused on Al jazeera showing Aziz and claimed that Al Jazeera is a bogus news service that obviously spreads lies, forgetting to show the other half of the Al Jazeera program (the one about the americans). The final effect of this is that most people, including you, I guess, now think Al Jazeera is a lies-spreading propaganda outlet for every muslim fundamentalist out there. That is simply not the truth, and real facts support this claim. Of course, it does critisize the americans heavilly, but don't they have a right to? When during the war some american missiles fell into a fruit market in Bagdad, CNN reported that in all probability those missiles were Iraqi; that they simply misfired and fell on their own people. Al Jazeera had reporters on the ground, and was at the spot within minutes, televising the carnage as well as the american identification marks of the missiles. When people see such up-close, live pictures of the war, it's hard not to be critical.
Cheers, Translator

I never took Al-Jazeera seriously once I saw them saying (and I don't remember the details) the Americans were lying about their take-over of Baghdad (sp?, running out the door) when troops were in the streets. The airport was a different matter. You've linked them, I don't. I don't take CNN or BBC as independent sources of truth, either; altough I see them as more credible. My perspective on this doesn't "prove" your point; it illustrates mine. I seek out information from multiple sources (radio, tv, internet, etc.) and then try to think through what I think makes the most sense. I don't draw automatic conclusions based on any single source of information -- no matter how pervasive it may be.

I believe it behooves all responsible adults to do likewise. I readily accept that this is easier done in free societies than in totalitarian ones -- hence my belief that it is an absolute truth that free societies are better than closed societies.

Your mention of Al-Jazeera covering the American missle in the fruit stands is not an illustration of the objectivity and factual nature of their reporting unless you can show me that they covered the horrors of Hussein with equal "objectivity" -- which, of course, they did not. Where was their coverage of his brutality? It didn't exist. Therefore, their coverage of the missile in the fruit stands and their failure to cover mass graves, torture/rape chambers, etc., is evidence that they were a political/propoganda arm of Hussein.

Except as this relates to censorship in F451, I'm a bit off-topic here, so I'll stop. We've both made our points and we disagree, I suppose. Nothing wrong with that.



[This message has been edited by Mr. Dark (edited 04-15-2004).]

Fair enough.
Cheers, Translator

There are SO many different strings on the '''Fahrenheit 451''' topic, that I forgot where the one is where we suggest actors that we think would work out in the new movie version...

So...in this situation... I make a suggestion HERE!

I saw the last 40 minutes of the movie, '''Training Day''' with Ethan Hawke and Denzel Eashington... and, boy, that was disturbing. And I watched Denzel Washington, who portrays a corrupt undercop...and afterwards said, this guy has to get better roles than this. Oh, he does a good job, a great job, but he derserves better. And I thought.. HEY!

So I nominate:.
Denzel Washington as Montag.

[ If someone can push my post into the correct position somewheres on the board, sure wouod appreciate it...]

Regarding Mr.Dark on Immanual Kant.
Let me add that talk of courage or lack of it is easy if you do not have to sleep on a cold jail cell floor and keep company with a bunch
of homicidal maniacs as I did for a hundred days here in LA county.My stay as a guest of the county DA was the result of a foolish flamer I sent to a radio talk show here poking fun at our new muscle headed Governor.I could have won my case if I had been willing to stay in jail another six months waiting out the trial.I chose the cowards way out and pleaded
no contest to a charge of making a terrorist threat.I believed that my 1st Amendment rights
allowed me the right to address a public forum such as a radio talk show audience in this manner.But I also was concered about my personal safety and wel being.I could not act on things I knew to be false.I hope for all of you never to have to make such a decision!!!

The 1st amendment does not authorize terrorist threats against government officials. Where did you draw that conclusion? In this current atmosphere, I would suggest in the future that you restrain yourself when it comes to threats against the well-being/lives of government officials.

Not sure what you were thinking there.

Freedom of speech is a touchy subject, libel
rumor, and heresay, can be a major faupau in an upto the minute communication society. Specific validation is difficult when emotions run high. Not to mention when we can't monitor so many forms of mass communication at once. The only thing we can do is triangulate our sources of credible information. Each of us have a specific address per cpu hooked into the net. We have so many sources of independent information, but are we willing to search for
the triangulated truth. I know that as soon as you pass an international border not only does the broadcast news take a different slant, but the broadcast depth becomes evident. The individual has to determine how much we are willing to accept as "truth".
The only frustration I have is what are we willing to accept as fact or spin. In F-451
the govt provided a scapegoat as Montag complete with video in a tight little news blip. How many of us have cell phones, satellite dishes, cable t.v., personal pc's,
Hell my favorite grocery store tracks my purchases. ATM's track & photograph us. I about lost it when we pulled up to a 7-11, and read above a visual of two blue watching eyes that for "my" protection I was under audio, and video surveillance. Not to mention the pop-ups to sell me spyware deterent software on my monitor everytime I log on. 1984, Brave New World, Fahrenhiet 451, I guess with the spysats you could see who goes in the woods, how many ounces, what they ate, and if they tipped...
Kidding aside either we turn a blind I or enjoy watching big brother eat our lunch. I prefer to stay awake, and watch the lions feed....
uncle

I realise I may be repeating an earlier post of mine, with one prior. I just have a hard time when we can be scutinized from so many different angles. To put another point to Dandelions comment the garbage in my home town is video taped as it is dumped into the truck. I wondered why there was a camera in a tough casing mounted right where it can watch all the contents of your trash, but I am assuming the whole route addresses, and all are recorded as the truck makes it's route through town. It should be enough to get junk mail without having the garbage videoed as it is thrown out... That is here in the US of A. Not to mention our municipality asking for volunteers to check on thier nieghbors urban back yard refuse.
That went over well, I also was put on notice last year that I had to keep my lawn a mandatory 6" inches for the complete year of my "probation" or face a fine on the second warning... rant over. so much for urban blight...

uncle:

Your comment:
"...we can't monitor so many forms of mass communications at once."

...is more profound than you realize !

Is this the way society, and the world at large shall end? Likened to this: too many bad things happening at once, in too many diverse places?

Shall it be too many people hollaring '''FIRE''' in too many different theaters in too many different locals, all becoming more and more frequent and expansive?

Too many 'little fires' that deplete the fire departments of their 'power' and create a situation in a city as if it had no fire departments at all?

How about too many little wars that exhaust the ability of any government to handle? Not one Iraq and one Afghanistan...but 10, 20 and more likened to it?

There are more than 50 ongoing wars in the world today, according to the Jimmy 'Carter Center'. But few today affect the direct concerns of USA. How about tomorrow?

In the mid 1960's, magazines faced a pornography -censorship situation that created genuine fear in the publishing world. Everyone cooled it for a long while. No one wanted trouble. Nowadays, the internet has created a condition where regulation is impossible . But, there is no real freedom of speech because freedom of speech requires a 'moral' backbone...and there is no backbone to it. The pit has been opened...and no one is going to close it. This is not freedom of speech, but a mind-set tethered to no absolutes.

I would find it horrifying, to the character, mind and what we would expect from the volumes of work of Ray Bradbury, if we were to see Ray cave in to the powers that be, such as Producers & /or Directors who would decide to depict people memorizing lines from Jerry Springer or Howard Stern in the new '''Fahrenheit 451'' motion picture, because it is a contemporary thing to do....




[This message has been edited by Nard Kordell (edited 04-16-2004).]

Sad to say we need the opposition in all things to appreciate the freedom we enjoy!
Howard is no saint, but without him, and others what do we have to compare with. We cannot become a homogenious society, anymore.
If we did not have our "guilty" little pleasures, then the "truth" would not be as precious to dig for... Montag had his awakening with a simple passing conversation with a girl who was unafraid to talk. How many of us truly realise the value of plain conversation. I make my kids turn off the T.V., and go chuck a glow in the dark football outside. Then I have to give them grief to come in... Sorting thru the media for unbiased info is like catching sand in an ever emptying sieve, Its kind of like Cris Carters Quote from the X-files "the truth is out there". Well my question is who's truth, how well filtered, and to which spin, for who's gain. Are we so conditioned to the soundbite that we forget the soup, and has it
lost its savor... color outside the lines,
search, make your own "machineries of joy"
rock the boat, what the heck if someone is watching, I would rather live, than have my life served to me as a sound bite. We are each individuals, and until they brand me with a chip, or otherwise. I can still choose what to watch, listen to, and read, and if I dig hard enough find most all the data I need.
The hardest thing is living with what I find. Montag, Faber, and Clarisse, all shared the opportunity to think, despite all odds. The only thing is once you close your mind for a moment, it could go up in flames. Like Chris Carter said "the truth is out there" Just whos is the question, and for how long is it valid... It is up to us to never live in "1984" or the world of F-451 or allow it to catch us sleeping at the wheel. We don't need to become the "Pedestrians" caught in a faceless backseat, especially when so many need to kill their toasters, remotes, and learn to really walk again on their own two feet.

[This message has been edited by uncle (edited 04-16-2004).]

When the program "America's Most Wanted" came out, someone wrote that the idea of a show being able to turn attention on one person and say, he is the enemy, be on the lookout for him, made them uneasy. Well, you know EXACTLY what scene from what book leaped to my mind! I guess even back when F451 was written they had APBs on criminals and it was a short hop to imagine them put out against any enemy of the state. So much else about that whole scenario is so appropriate today--including the digital altering of the features of the victim chosen to take Montag's place! And nowadays they can do so much ya really CAN'T believe what you see on film!

The cops are now giving instruction classes to landlords to help recognize meth lab activity on their rental properties. I'll leave you to decide whether landlords spying on tenants is a GOOD thing!

dandelion:

Would you take the class if you were a landlord, with, say, a dozen tenants, in a so-so neighborhood?

uncle:

So you wouldn't mind if in the last scene in '''Fahrenheit 451''', we have someone walking around quoting out of Howard Stern's book? Gee... how 'now'!!


[This message has been edited by Nard Kordell (edited 04-16-2004).]