>>>>>Right..until some radio DJ tries to organize a protest. Anyway wouldn't you feel safer having a phone / internet service than not? Seems to me they created more of a safety hazard than they solved.
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>>>>I spent the far greater part of my life without a cell phone and the internet, and somehow, difficult as it was, I managed to get by. I hate to bring up the old saw, but what did people do before cell phones and the internet? I know the answer to that because I was there. Life went on. Now that I think about it, it seems to me there were far fewer riots and far less looting.
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>>>Of course, your stuff was looted by the same system, but you didn't know. Before internet, corporate and government secrecy was so much easier, you actually knew very little about it. Which is why it seems so.
>>>
>>>Don't blame the mirror...
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>>My stuff wasn't looted by the government any more then than it is now. If you think the government is any more honest now, then you're just not paying attention. But there were far fewer rioting idiots smashing up small storekeepers windows and stealing their stock.
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>Don't confuse cause with consequence (confuse it with a large hammer, that might work :). Back then, capitalism had competition. Now it has fallen under its own influence, and doesn't feel a bit of a need to pamper its subjects.
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>Besides, the best (and probably the only) way to make protests unattractive to the greater populace is to plant agents provocateurs (and provocators as well) who will start smashing shop windows. That was the favorite tactic of Milošević back in the day. The organizers of the protests had to have their own security to prevent these, and when they caught the guys, they often found police walkies in their pockets. The symptom for you to catch is how come the cameras are so frequently around the looters. A protest may run for hours, and the breaking of the windows may occur at a random time... and yet the cameras of the major stations are always there, even when they don't catch other main events.

Mostly the 'cameras' are in cell phones belonging to people who are in the area. These days an awful lot of the TV stuff is donated by ordinary citizens. I think you and I disagree on one very critical idea. It is my opinion that not everything is a government conspiracy.

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>Who writes history, wins.