[Cryptography] Politics - probably off topic here.

[Ray Dillinger]

-------- Original message --------
From: Phillip Hallam-Baker <hallam at gmail.com> 
Date: 10/06/2013  08:18  (GMT-08:00) 
To: "James A. Donald" <jamesd at echeque.com> 
Cc: cryptography at metzdowd.com 
Subject: Re: [Cryptography] Crypto Standards v.s. Engineering habits - Was: NIST about to weaken SHA3? 
 
Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:

But when I see politicians passing laws to stop people voting, judges deciding that the votes in a Presidential election cannot be counted and all the other right wing antics taking place in the US at the moment, the risk of a right wing fascist coup has to be taken seriously. 

Well, yes.  That is my main concern as well.  The recent tactics of the Republican party are more an attack on the process of constitutional government than ordinary tactics of the sort that make sense within the process.  This sort of issue used to get solved with simple and relatively harmless horse trading and pork barrel deals where the minority members would "sell" their votes for something to bring back to their constituents. Shutting down the whole system is mad - and horribly damaging - compared to just taking the chance to bring home some pork.

And this concerns me more than it otherwise might because of the recent economic trouble we've been having.  When economies go bad is when fascist parties tend to come to power. Or more to the point in our case , when existing parties veer further in a fascist direction.  I'm seeing the golden dawn party in Greece gaining popularity that it could never have gotten when its economy was in better shape.  I see the recent elections in a few euro zone nations giving seats to far-right parties, and I just can't help starting to worry.

Most of the history I'm aware of regarding genocides and the emergence of dictatorships is that everywhere from Rwanda to Germany to Haiti,  they have always followed close on the heels of a particularly severe and long sustained economic crisis. 

I don't want the country I live in to become another example. And I don't want the world I live on to suffer through more examples. 


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