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So does ours. Read something earlier today where the american government is trying to push through legislation to let them take control of the internet (and other private networks) in an emergency. I'm sure THAT will never be misused...
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Aliasalpha: So does ours. Read something earlier today where the american government is trying to push through legislation to let them take control of the internet (and other private networks) in an emergency. I'm sure THAT will never be misused...

Control the Internet? Don't they ever realize the Internet reaches beyond the US?
I can't believe people still think they can delete history by denying it.
Like Germany has been doing for the past, oh, 60 years.
Still though, I can't find a very logical reason for China to censor Nazis. Seems like an arbitrary piece of censorship since the totalitarian Nazi regime's actions might possibly get linked to certain actions that the Chinese government have committed over the past few decades, and are probably still committing.
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cioran: Half the world has been re-writing WWII to make themselves come off looking better in the last dozen years. The fact that a government with a record of violating human rights is going that extra step doesn't surprise me. Why should it? Parts of Europe's been doing the same thing and they don't have that kind of record for human rights violations. Hell, they're "progressive".
It's really a shame, because if the situation keeps up, the only way we'll be able to reconstruct the Nazi era in the future will be through quotations from allied documents. Doesn't sound bad? Let's put it in perspective.
You get things like the de-Ba'ath-ification controversy. A lesson in history showed de-Nazification had a few lessons for that situation due to a few similarities. Those who don't learn from history....

Every culture rewrites history constantly. Heck, the TV news rewrites it every day. It's been an ongoing battle in the U.S. as well as anywhere else too. Textbooks are notorious for being slanted all around the world. American ones for most of their history have underplayed the importance of slavery, racism, class, and political repression. Japense ones underplay their country's culpability for WW2 and actions during it. Chinese are told Tibet is really just China anyway. England thinks they won WW2. France is famous for everyone having claimed they were not collaborators and were in fact in the resistance, when in fact the resistance was quite small and France did better economically under the Nazis than they did on their own by about a factor of three.
History is alive, at least until someone definitively kills it by wiping out a populace, destroying or hiding source materials, banishing it from the media, or forbidding it to be published or discussed.
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stonebro: I can't believe people still think they can delete history by denying it.
Like Germany has been doing for the past, oh, 60 years.
Still though, I can't find a very logical reason for China to censor Nazis. Seems like an arbitrary piece of censorship since the totalitarian Nazi regime's actions might possibly get linked to certain actions that the Chinese government have committed over the past few decades, and are probably still committing.

Germany does not deny their role in WW2. They are very upfront about it and have had very close ties with Israel since its founding.
Post edited August 29, 2009 by Blarg
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Aliasalpha: So does ours. Read something earlier today where the american government is trying to push through legislation to let them take control of the internet (and other private networks) in an emergency. I'm sure THAT will never be misused...
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michaelleung: Control the Internet? Don't they ever realize the Internet reaches beyond the US?

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10320096-38.html
thats the article
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stonebro: I can't believe people still think they can delete history by denying it.
Like Germany has been doing for the past, oh, 60 years.
Still though, I can't find a very logical reason for China to censor Nazis. Seems like an arbitrary piece of censorship since the totalitarian Nazi regime's actions might possibly get linked to certain actions that the Chinese government have committed over the past few decades, and are probably still committing.

Actually, Germany is quite up front about World War 2 and their history in it. Japan on the other hand...you wanna talk revisionist History! 'We were FORCED in to the war...and what's the Rape of Nanking? We've never heard of it.'
I am really curious what would chinese government do, if japan army was a playable faction in CoH.
Ban it from the game?
Rename it to "Enemy of the People"?
Execute everyone playing them?
@Alias
Patriot Act (+ already existent War Powers Act) did most of this already. Rather egregious violation of civil liberties. When they did it, no one cared. Government here has nearly unlimited surveillance powers, in theory. They snuck it in after 9/11 when none of our politicians would vote aginst anything that had anything vaguely to do with Terrorism. They'll probably expand it, too on a Christmas tree bill. This is in the ballpark. I haven't read the full piece of legislation, but it read like an expansion of the War Powers Act (which grants the president additional powers in an emergency).
Incidentally, Obama is completely ignorant of how Computers operate, so this is also less than shocking. Fortunately, the government has no one competent enough to enforce any of this.
Good article, though. Thanks.
@Blarg
"Germany does not deny their role in WW2. They are very upfront about it and have had very close ties with Israel since its founding. "
*spits out coffee* Now Germans are the great protectors of Israel from its inception? That's blatant revisionism. Who taught you history? The two countries didn't even talk until the 50s, and they weren't on friendly terms until the 60's. They're trading partners now and on rather good diplomatic terms, but that's not the same as being involved from the founding of Israel.
Also, Germans are not "very upfront" about it except in broad strokes. There's a generation of people who do not talk about it. It's impolite to even bring it up. They censor Nazi primary sources. While their intentions on this front are good, the results are fairly horrifying.
There are things that happened and things that didn't even if our interpretations change (the historiographer's dilemma is how much this impacts our recounting). Spouting relativistic nonsense doesn't change that. The holocaust was, bar none, one of the worst events in recorded human history. It was genocide without any sensible motive other than stupidity (not that I'm defending Stalin who killed more people, but killing huge swaths of his country did result in the most rapid economic development in the history of the world). Leopold II is the only other figure in modern history that's even in the same genocidal ballpark. Right, and you probably haven't even heard of him. It's interesting and important to read how normal people got swept up in this.
Destroying how these things happened is bad. I don't think you understand the scope of what's been going on with the destruction of Nazi-era primary sources, especially in Europe (where these sources ARE restricted). When you study the history of heresy in the Early Church, you start to get a picture of how this impacts the future. You're literally unable to reconstruct ideology except secondhand.
Post edited August 29, 2009 by cioran
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cioran: @Navagon - Fyi, the swatstika predates the Nazis - by a few thousand years. The Jains.

I know. The Jains, and a huge array of nations, religions and cultures since. I was referring to the Iron Cross, which has long been, and still is a symbol of the German military.
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cioran: @Navagon - Fyi, the swatstika predates the Nazis - by a few thousand years. The Jains.
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Navagon: I know. The Jains, and a huge array of nations, religions and cultures since. I was referring to the Iron Cross, which has long been, and still is a symbol of the German military.

Probably because it's a religious symbol (Cross = Christian?). Societies of atheists tend to frown on that sort of thing. Either that or the censors just don't like them, much.
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Blarg: It is still identifiably German. That's close enough, especially if your country and its people are not particularly familiar with Germany in any other context, which they probably in general aren't.

In other words, they're being predictably erratic in their totalitarianism.
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Blarg: It is still identifiably German. That's close enough, especially if your country and its people are not particularly familiar with Germany in any other context, which they probably in general aren't.
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Navagon: In other words, they're being predictably erratic in their totalitarianism.

Pretty much. Censorship is abritrary and stupid. This is one more example of that.
Crosses in videogames are counter-revolutionary! Back to making Gucci handbags!
Post edited August 29, 2009 by cioran
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Navagon: I know. The Jains, and a huge array of nations, religions and cultures since. I was referring to the Iron Cross, which has long been, and still is a symbol of the German military.
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cioran: Probably because it's a religious symbol (Cross = Christian?). Societies of atheists tend to frown on that sort of thing. Either that or the censors just don't like them, much.

Well you're right in that it's a religiously derived insignia. I think it came from the Teutons originally, didn't it? But China does have various well supported religions already. I haven't heard of anything that would indicate that the government is disproportionately harsh on religion. Although, with the Chinese government, it's always so hard to tell.
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cioran: Probably because it's a religious symbol (Cross = Christian?). Societies of atheists tend to frown on that sort of thing. Either that or the censors just don't like them, much.
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Navagon: Well you're right in that it's a religiously derived insignia. I think it came from the Teutons originally, didn't it? But China does have various well supported religions already. I haven't heard of anything that would indicate that the government is disproportionately harsh on religion. Although, with the Chinese government, it's always so hard to tell.

Asian countries are generally not fond of Christian religion. At all. In Japan, there was Shimabara and formal persecution into the Meiji era. In China, the Cultural Revolution sparked widespread persecution and ancestor worship was seen as incompatible with Christianity. Today, in theory, you can practice one of a handful of state-approved Christian faiths. Meeting outside of them leads to persecution. You can't swear loyalty to a faith and the state, or something like that. I forget the company line. More often than not, Christianity is illegal. At least Christianity like what you'd see practiced in the US or UK is practiced in secret churches.
There's always a story about a priest/minister/reverend getting locked up every year or so in our papers. I used to know people who went there on missionary work. I thought they were insane.
Someone form the region probably knows better.
Post edited August 29, 2009 by cioran
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Navagon: Well you're right in that it's a religiously derived insignia. I think it came from the Teutons originally, didn't it? But China does have various well supported religions already. I haven't heard of anything that would indicate that the government is disproportionately harsh on religion. Although, with the Chinese government, it's always so hard to tell.
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cioran: Asian countries are generally not fond of Christian religion. At all. In Japan, there was Shimabara and formal persecution into the Meiji era. In China, the Cultural Revolution sparked widespread persecution and ancestor worship was seen as incompatible with Christianity. Today, in theory, you can practice one of a handful of state-approved Christian faiths. Meeting outside of them leads to persecution. You can't swear loyalty to a faith and the state, or something like that. I forget the company line. More often than not, Christianity is illegal. At least Christianity like what you'd see practiced in the US or UK is practiced in secret churches.
There's always a story about a priest/minister/reverend getting locked up every year or so in our papers. I used to know people who went there on missionary work. I thought they were insane.
Someone form the region probably knows better.

Restrictive. But more so than any other aspect of Chinese law? As for religious figureheads being imprisoned for no logical reason, again it's hard to tell that apart from all the other disappearances and baseless arrests that happen there. China really just is that bad. Any country that makes any claims about being for the people or being democratic in its name are usually the very antithesis.