[Foundation-l] Chapters, deductibility and donation profiles (was Wikimania 2006 - host city contest to open onSeptember 1st 20)
Lars Aronsson
lars at aronsson.se
Thu Aug 18 15:42:11 UTC 2005
Kelly Martin wrote:
> IIRC, The American branch of the Red Cross has specific enabling
> legislation for it in US federal law and enjoys a federal charter.
> [...]
> Obtaining the same status for Wikimedia would require a massive
> lobbying effort.
The [[International Red Cross]] was established in 1863 followed
in 1864 by the first [[Geneva Convention]] that recognized the red
cross symbol in warfare. This happened at the same time as
warfare got mechanized, in the decades immediately after the
innovations of steam railroads ([[Stephenson's Rocket]], 1829),
steam propeller ships ([[USS Monitor]], 1862) and machine guns
([[Gatling gun]], 1861).
Supposedly, a "Red W" (Wikinews: neutral reporting) can be adopted
as soon as we have a fully developed information war. The current
wars (against terrorism, and in Afghanistan and Iraq) are not of
this kind, because of the overwhelming information supremacy of
the winning (western) side, which makes the information aspect of
the current conflicts look more like a minor colonial uprising.
For the nearest decade, it seems unlikely that the Arab world,
Africa or communist China would be able to catch up with the
western information supremacy. It seems more likely that the
first real information wars will be fought within the current area
of supremacy.
If we just add 150 years, the Gatling Blog will be invented in
2011, the "Red W" could be adopted in 2013, at the height of the
U.S. civil information war, followed in 2021 by the
Franco-Prussian information war, and World Information War I would
be scheduled to take place in 2064-2068.
--
Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se
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