
Woz compares today's US to the USSR of 30-40 years ago - dotcoma
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOWDwKLJAfo
======
api
There are quite a few similarities. I remember realizing that the typical MBA
is essentially indistinguishable from the Soviet "apparatchik."

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apparatchik](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apparatchik)

"Members of the "apparat" were frequently transferred between different areas
of responsibility, usually with little or no actual training for their new
areas of responsibility. Thus, the term apparatchik, or "agent of the
apparatus" was usually the best possible description of the person's
profession and occupation."

~~~
dotcoma
Best comparison/definition of MBA guys ever :))

~~~
seclorum
You could use the same definition on software developers, too.

~~~
dotcoma
Maybe so. For mediocre ones, perhaps. I'm not a software developer anyway.
Sorry if this will disappoint you, but I'm actually in mktg/sales.

~~~
seclorum
Means nothing to me what you personally do for a living. I'm pretty sure there
are aparatchik sales people, or at least I'm quite confident I might've dated
a few, admittedly rare, in my youth..

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gambiting
As a person who actually used to live in a former Soviet republic, I
completely agree. But that does NOT mean that the US is becoming a
communist/soviet state. No. But it's using techniques we had 30-40 years
ago,and which were part of everyone's life. You could expect no privacy then,
and it seems like in the US you can't expect privacy now.

"Those who don't remember history are bound to live through it again".

~~~
dotcoma
where were you living, and can you (if you wish) tell us something about how
you knew you did not have any privacy?

~~~
gambiting
Sure. Poland.

\- Every phone call would start with the operator informing you that "the call
is being monitored, the call is being monitored". Everybody knew, nobody
cared. US does the same thing, although automatically,not with actual people
listening to what you say - apparently, that makes it completely ok.

\- You couldn't travel out of town before reporting that fact to the police.
US does not need to do that, since they can easily monitor where you are
anyway, using your cellphone, automatic car plate readers along roads, face
detectors in major towns, and transaction monitoring. Again, apparently
completely ok, because terrorists. 30 years ago we had "enemies of the state".
It's just the name that changes, the principle behind it does not.

\- Everyone was equal,but obviously, people in power were more equal than
others. Whatever they said was the law. A regular discussion with an official
would look like that: -"you can't do this" , "yes I can, there is a regulation
x.y that says I can", "no, because I said so". An official complaint could end
with a prompt visit from local police department or even KGB. "Disturbing
public order". "Disruption to government activities". "Stopping a government
official from doing their work". They would find a paragraph for you. There
used to be a saying "show me a man, and I will find a paragraph for him". In
my personal opinion, the US is pretty much the same nowadays. You have secret
courts from which decisions you cannot appeal from, you can be given an
official order and at the same time not be allowed to speak about it, or a
most recent example from today - a US official saying that complaining about
the quality of water can be treated like terrorism. Or complete inability to
find out why one has been placed on a no-fly list. Government says so, so it
goes.

\- Speaking of no-fly lists, you had to apply for a passport if you wanted to
leave the country, it would be issued for a limited number of days, and then
had to be returned to the nearest police department. US is not keeping your
passports,but then it doesn't need to - someone,somewhere, in a secret office
that will deny its own existence, a decision can be made to put you on the no-
fly list. Effectively banning you from leaving the country forever. The same
method has been used before to exile people out of US - you can't fly back,
and most companies that travel by sea won't accept people who are on the no-
fly lists too, so your options are limited to nearly zero.

\- Post offices would regularly open your correspondence to check for any
"illegal" material. This is the same to me as your border agents and TSA
agents strip-searching people,their cars and their baggage without a warrant,
for no reason(pardon, for "national security" reasons), not only at the
airports,but also within the 100 mile radius from the boarder.

\- Journalists were obviously monitored and could only write about state-
approved matters. In the US journalists have been threatened with prison for
writing about some of the processes of Guantanamo prisoners. Personally, I
don't see a difference here.

\- People would be send to prisons without a trial. As far as I
understand,this is how Guantanamo works, nothing more needs to be said.

\- People were rewarded for spying on each other and telling on one another.
Noticed your neighbor has more shiny things than you do? Report him and our
glorious party will reward you. It was reported today that Obama wants to
prosecute people who don't report on whistleblowers. Again, I don't see the
difference here.

\- Most people had files on them kept by the secret police, where agents would
write down every detail about you, if you happened to catch their attention
somehow. Then all of that could be used in court against you. And existence of
such archives was always denied, even though everyone knew they existed. Once
again - I absolutely don't see a difference between this and what NSA has been
doing.

I could go on and on about this. But once again - I don't think the US is
turning into a Soviet state. But I am saying that US is using surveillance
methods that have been used in the past, and it can and will escalate into
something ugly if not stopped early on. I can understand however, that people
who have not lived in a soviet state would not recognize the looming danger
here. But they need to if they want to remain what the US was always to me
when I was a kid - a land of freedom.

~~~
dotcoma
The comparison is quite spot on. And troubling.

And this, I find really quite alarming...
[https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/06/21-3](https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/06/21-3)

~~~
hga
Lots of discussion of that in these current HN items,
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5927726](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5927726)
and
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5926967](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5926967)

------
Drakim
It's easy to say that this comparison is silly because the US still has free
press (well, kinda) and such, but it really does make you look twice when you
read about the US government making people disappear off the streets without a
trial, and has been engaging in torture.

------
seclorum
The Communist party for years discussed ways of turning American high society
into Communists, whether they liked it or not, or .. at least Socialists, if
but a little more willingly. It didn't matter to the Communists if it was
_called_ Communism; what they wanted was to get the actions of American
society in alignment with Communist goals, whatever the terminology used to
describe it.

This was a very big deal. In the 50's. So, maybe we're seeing the shock-wave
of these efforts, in the culture and manners of the current suite of
politicians and other cultural leaders promoting the ways of the new Socialist
order. Whether they like it or not. (cf: FoxNewSpeak, et al.)

------
ubernostrum
Alternate title: Woz preaches to the choir.

