a lament for my country

not really- i haven’t ever written a lament and i doubt like hell anyone would want to read it anyway. many folks aren’t ‘into’ poetry anymore. but a few articles and oh, the past 9 years or so have brought ’round the issue of democracy versus police state and whether this country- and indeed planet- will or can survive.

there are a few of us out here in the middle who look at the world situation with america as a catalyst and wonder if it’s us who are crazy or everyone else. what’s the quote? ‘it’s a mad, mad, mad, mad world?’ there are those of us who are actual living, breathing, thinking human beings and nothing that is going on makes much rational sense. the way words and meanings are twisted or outright lies and propaganda are swallowed as fact- it’s bewildering to me, quite frankly. but it isn’t totally unexpected. not when you realize what the big picture is supposed to look like to the folks who are really in charge.

it isn’t obama or reid or pelosi. it isn’t sarkosy or brown or merkel. there is an oligarchical ruling class made up of old money and corporates who are running the show. as much as i hate rumsfeld and cheney, they were second tier at best carrying out orders. they aren’t smart enough to take down a whole country on their own. and what better way of explaining the apparent ‘deaf ears’ of the supposed left wing democrats to any popular hue and cry? seriously, they don’t have to answer to us- they answer to a ‘higher power.’

so, looking at the bigger picture, looking at the farce of voting and protesting and following the various distractions in the media, i mean domestic issues like health care reform, it stands to reason that voters don’t count. if what we wanted mattered, there would be universal health care for everyone sans penalties or taxes– like yesterday. seriously. as it is, we are being told it isn’t ‘american’ to want ’socialized’ medicine even though every poll to date says that that is exactly what we want.

i discount people on the right as even mattering these days and i am not apologetic for it. right wing is fear based and mean and there is no logic for it. i also dismiss people on the left these days and am unapologetic because left wing is based on willful ignorance to reality and deliberate naivete towards political relevance. the right wing is afraid of people of color and other religions and the left is afraid to admit that their idols have greedy feet of clay and are not saviors. the bottom line is- human beings all look alike on the inside but behave differently on the outside. some are genetically inferior to others and it is not by accident that these folks end up in positions of power.

mom and i have been discussing ‘people power’ versus ‘the power of one’ and we both agree that masses don’t have the power that one human being does. it only takes one person to take away the liberties and individual rights of millions of others. and all of the protests in the streets can be dispersed by the sonic cannons and tear gas and whatever operated by a single person. something to think about.

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Testamony of Honduran Protester: Why she still believes in a free Honduras

The following statement was hastily translated and provided by Carlos Marentes, a US citizen and member of Via Campesina, who is in Honduras to accompany the people:

TESTIMONY OF WENDY CRUZ OF THE HONDURAN PEASANT MOVEMENT

Sisters and brothers of the World,

I write this testimony with my eyes full of tears and a sadden heart after an intensive day of struggle with my sisters and brothers of Honduras.

I am a woman from a humble family. I am a peasant. I have gained my militancy and class consciousness along with the peasants who work every day under the hot sun, and who see no future for their sons and daughters who have to migrate to other countries seeking better living conditions because in our country, Honduras, the bipartisan political system (Liberals and Nationalists have shared the power for more than 100 years) the majority live in extreme poverty, neglected, without access to health, to a dignified home, without access to a piece of land because the national oligarchy owns the whole country and have pushed 90 per cent of the population into extreme poverty and social exclusion.

Today, Sunday July 5, we have completed eight days of peaceful resistance. Today we marched, more than 500 thousand persons in the city of Tegucigalpa towards the airport of Toncontín, with the expectation of welcoming president Manuel Zelaya Rosales. While us where waiting the arrival of our president, the army started to shoot us with tear gases and real bullets. Three Honduran were killed only because they were demanding peace and the right to live in a country with real civic participation, and not the false democracy we have been living for 100 years. The dead persons included 21 year old, Isis Oveth, from the village “Alde de Santa Cruz”, Guayape, municipality of Olancho and another young man, Alexis Zavala is among the many persons who were badly injured by the army’ repression.

Alter the violent attack I was afraid to be arrested by the police because we have a curfew and by the time we escaped the repression it was already night, past the curfew hours. But despite the repression, my spirit is stronger, because I have the dream that one day my son (15 years old) and my daughter (10 years old) and all the future generations will enjoy a country with equality, equity and more than that, a day when all of us will be the actors of our destiny.

I would like to tell all the men and women of the World who have expressed solidarity with our struggle, that all of us in Honduras are determined to achieve VICTORY and to restore the legitimate government of our president Manuel Zelaya in the memory of the martyrs of this Sunday July 5, 2009.

Long live the martyrs for the defense of our rights to be actors of our own destiny!

Long live ISIS OVETH and all the brothers killed today!

WE ARE HONDURAN PEOPLE AND WE HAVE THE RIGHT TO LIVE IN PEACE IN A TRUE DEMOCRACY!

GLOBALIZE THE STRUGGLE, GLOBALIZE HOPE!

THANKS TO THE WORLD FOR THEIR GREAT SOLIDARITY… THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES BECAUSE AS EMILIANO ZAPATA SAID: “IT’S BETTER TO DIE ON YOUR FEET THAN TO LIVE ON YOUR KNEES FOREVER!”

Tegucigalpa, MDC. Honduras, C.A., July 5, 2009.

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the more things change- the more they don’t

most of us started blogging during a time when we had no other way to fight against what we saw as the fascist takeover of our democratic republic.  we signed petitions, emailed our ‘represenatatives’ in congress, and tore apart the falsehoods, lies and propaganda being perpetuated in the media.  we were the truth line- tenuous as it was- and we showed the rest of the world that not all americans were jesus lovin’, gun totin’, flag wavin’ morans.  and we burned out fighting- and november, 2008, we thought we got a reprieve.

i think most folks gave the obama administration and the democratically controlled congress the first 100 days in office.  and, granted, quite a few good things happened during the first month or so.  and i think we all took a much deserved rest.  but, cheney kept talking, fox news kept spewing its hate speech and the gop talking heads continued their lies, propaganda and falsehoods.  and somewhere along the way, we lost sight of what we need to be doing- holding the democrats feet to the fire and forcing change.  because- the right is always going to grab at power and they are always going to be at war with the rest of us.  we have to force change in spite of them.

which leads me to the bigger point of this post- we heard many promises from the dems during campaign season- open government, transparency, a return to the rule of law- and indeed, the obama admin has made some progress on that front.  but, they are dropping the ball on some pretty important issues.  there are still police raids and ice roundups and civil liberties that need to be restored.  we need some accountability and we need to get rid of the odious patriot act and military commissions act- and we need some decisive, actual leadership from obama, pelosi and reid.  and, barring that- we need some decisive action from american citizens.  otherwise,

“Toute nation a le gouvernement qu’elle mérite.”

“we watch impassively as the wealthy and the elite, the huge corporations, rob us, ruin the environment, defraud consumers and taxpayers and create an exclusive american oligarchy that fuses the wealth and political power. we watch passively because we believe we can enter the club. it is greed that inspires us. it is greed that keeps us silent. our greed is devouring us.”

chris hedges, ‘losing moses on the freeway‘

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what do we stand for anymore? do we even know?

there have been innumerable assaults on the constitution- pretty much from its inception. the john adams contingent has not been pleased that ‘the great unwashed’ was given any say whatsoever in their own governance. those descendants we see today splashed all over fox noise, hate radio, state and local governments, tea parties, and now….. million militia marches. guess that’s why they are stock piling all that ammo.

but i just don’t know what to say about the torture issue. i have been a strident voice for years- pushing and pushing for people to realize that free societies take the risk of being ‘less secure’ in order to remain free. pushing for people to realize that we, the people, were losing the document that gave us our freedoms- legally- in america. and people were afraid. they were afraid of muslim extremists who may bomb our cities or unleash biological terror in ‘the homeland.’

but the people were wrong. the terrorists lived amongst us- called themselves americans. and willfully and gleefully stripped civil liberties away at a rate unprecedented in our history. and always my question was- why? why are they doing this? when is enough money and power enough? and i didn’t have a good, tangible answer. i still don’t. the closest i get is simply- because they could.

because they knew going in what they wanted to do- they created 9/11 to shock america into swallowing their lines of bullshit about the country being vulnerable. they created the crisis in order to go into war mode- special presidential war powers indefinitely. they manufactured reasons to go to war with iraq and decimated and tortured people and ruined the lives of millions of people.

because they could.

torture is arguably the worst thing you can do to a person. it effects them physically- and mentally- and if they survive- it effects them for the rest of their lives. and their families and neighbors and fellow countrymen- and it does not work for information. and americans authorized this- and carried it out. now, i realize that we have been doing this for years- at the very least training operatives on how to carry it out. but these folks planned to torture other folks to send a message loud and clear- that they were in charge and that’s it.

over the last 8 years or so, folks like me have been called traitors, conspiracy theorists, crazy, etc.- and while it generally came from the right, much came from the left too. folks simply didn’t want to believe that fellow americans could carry out what bushco and the rubber stamp legislative and judicial branches did. this couldn’t happen in america- we are the land of the free. but it did.

and i guess what my purpose in writing this post is- to say simply this- the people on the right are wrong. period. they are the traitors and the unpatriotic people. i don’t consider them americans at all. the people on the left who have been complicit and who have gone along with the right- in the name of power or blackmail or whatever- and didn’t stand up- same thing. there is nothing patriotic about stripping civil liberties away from a democratic republic in the name of security. there is nothing noble or patriotic or brave in advocating torturing another human being. these people are cowards.

for all of the grandstanding and pretending to give a damn about the founding fathers and the constitution- and apparently, the boston tea party- these folks have not actually read the documents. they didn’t listen to saint ronnie about america being an example to the world- ‘a shining city’ and blah, blah, blah- we were set up as the beacon of hope to the world- and we have no right to the title. so, it is time to let the people who claim to be americans know- you aren’t. the rest of us are going to have to grow a set- because if we want any semblance of the country we believed in- we are going to have to fight for it. the right is arming itself- and if you pooh pooh that off- well, you may end up in a detention facility right here in the us of a.

sorry shep- we do torture- did torture- probably still do torture. the next question is- will be hold onto our principles and hold folks accountable? or perhaps the better question is- do we have any principles left?

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news crew arrested for covering news story

just when you thought it was back to having civil liberties- bam!  reality takes over and you realize that not much has changed here in the new america.  nope.  we have paramilitary swat and other special task forces all over america; we have municipalities hiring private security instead of police forces; we have our very own military patrolling within our borders for the first time in our history- and i won’t even go into the homeland security forces.

do we really need that much ’security?’ or is it security for the folks who keep shafting us over and over and over?

at any rate, the few independent journalists who are trying to do their job- get arrested and manhandled for their efforts- ala amy goodman.  i highly doubt that this was a ‘rogue’ cop using ‘misjudgment’- my gut tells me it’s more rampant like the rodney king cops.

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who lotta thinkin’ goin’ on

i would ask forgiveness from jerry lee- but he’s a bit of a dick- so i won’t my partner in crime- mom- put me onto the current thought trail i am on. putting more pieces together like an intrepid nancy drew- without much to go on other than msm pieces and alternative news sources. there was a time a few years ago when folks dismissed my posts out of hand- as doom and gloom and ‘conspiracy theories’- posts about the erosion of civil liberties, an economic crash, drought and famine. well…….

i am willing to let bygones be bygones. as new pieces trickle out of the government- only the ones allowed out mind- we can put more pieces together. and based on international investigative journalism paired with a few brave souls here in america- and a new administration where it seems a few folks have some integrity- at least in doj-i am beginning to get a clearer picture.

here’s my theory- as it has always been- 9/11 was a mix of domestic and foreign terrorism. and indeed, saudis were involved- maybe even from the bin laden family who knows? from what i can pull together from various accounts- the bushes were used for their connections since the beginning of the 20th century until now. oil is king and entire world governments, now run by the international corporate conglomerates, are headed by ‘elected’ mafiosos who funnel money for oil into the saudi coffers. but hey, you don’t have to take my word for it. it seems like a bad mix of friedman ‘trickle down’ capitalism and mafia money laundering. it explains much about the stories coming out now and the way our whole way of life has been largely a facade.

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National Security Opinion Roundup

Retired General James Jones is President Obama’s pick to head the National Security Agency. In my opinion it was a brilliant choice of a brilliant man for a crucial position. Policy making, coordination, advice will be the stuff of his days in the West Wing. With what issues has he been dealing in recent weeks?

Secrecy – “How long will the secret Bush counterterrorism memos stay secret?,” was written by Chisun Lee at ProPublica. At the (2/25/09) confirmation hearing for Dawn Johnsen to head the Office of Legal Counsel, the nominee evaded flatly saying that the memos would be released. Senator Diane Feinstein was not satisfied with her answer, echoing the opinion of many civil libertarians. Before being nominated Johnsen has called the Bush OLC’s secrecy a “terrible abuse of power.”

Jameel Jaffer, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Security Project, told us, “I would have liked to hear a clearer commitment” to releasing the memos and to the public value of doing so. But, he said, “ultimately what matters is not what Ms. Johnsen says but what she does, and when she does it. We’re hopeful that over the next few weeks we’ll start to see some of these memos released.”

Guantanamo Bay – Anthony Romero, who heads the ACLU, urged President Obama to let human rights groups examine conditions at Guantanamo Bay. Romero recently said it is not enough that the Pentagon has just issued a report concluding that the prison complies with the humanitarian requirements of the Geneva Conventions. Here is the action link Romero recommends: Ask President Obama to let human rights groups independently examine conditions at Guantánamo Bay.

Detention policy – “The Obama administration position on detention policy: what he said,” according to Christopher Weaver’s article at ProPublica (2/23/09), is essentially the same as the old policy. To quote:

But the orders didn’t address the broader questions of detention policy that have left the four Bagram prisoners behind bars for years, without due process. The men are basically the same type of prisoners that stirred up fervor over Gitmo. Unlike most of the 600 inmates at Bagram, who were detained in combat on the battlefield, these four were captured outside of Afghanistan or any other war zone, and they’ve been in custody for years. One detainee, according to his lawyers, was captured on a business trip in Bangkok.

Observers weren’t surprised that the Obama administration hasn’t developed a sweeping new policy on combating terrorism in the brief period allotted by the court. Jack Balkin, a Yale law professor, told the New York Times, “It may take some time before we see exactly what is going on — whether this is just a transitory policy or whether this is really their policy.”

Central Intelligence Agency – Old scandals and new beginnings:

1. “Disgraced senior CIA official heads to prison still claiming he is a patriot,” by Marcus Stern, (2/27/09) at ProPublica. Kyle “Dusty” Foggo, who held very senior positions at the agency, has been sentenced to over three years in federal prison for defrauding the government. It stemmed from the bribery scandal that involved Randy “Duke” Cunningham a few years ago. Foggo claimed he plead guilty in order to spare the government the cost of a trial where national security secrets might have been revealed.
2. “Biden says Bush gave Al Qaeda a recruiting tool,” Scott Shane reports at the International Herald Tribune (2/20/09). Speaking to the employees of the CIA after swearing in its new director, Leon Panetta, Vice President Biden’s words implied criticism of the organization’s record under the previous administration. To quote:
   

   Biden said the new president’s actions “reverse the policies that in my view and the view of many in this agency caused America to fall short of its founding principles and which gave Al Qaeda a powerful recruiting tool.”

   Such remarks . . . did not appear to dampen the enthusiastic reception from CIA employees. Panetta, 70, a former California congressman and White House chief of staff who has never before worked for an intelligence agency, also made glancing references to the recent history of the CIA, which was blamed for mistaken assessments of Saddam Hussein’s weapons programs in the months before the Iraq war.

The Democratic Left/Progressive/Civil liberties wing of our party is sometimes of the opinion that President Obama has given us several disappointments on the Constitutional vs. national security front. At this point I believe that he is feeling his way, trying to avoid making mistakes that he feels might jeopardize his presidential prerogatives or risk national security. It is my hope that some of these decisions will be softened or reversed as time passes and he gains confidence. In order for that to happen, however, he must be kept aware that we expect better things, better support for the place of the Bill of Rights in the decision mix.

See also Behind the Links, for further info on this subject.

Carol Gee – Online Universe is the all-in-one home page for all my websites.

Technorati tags: news news and politics politics civil liberties national security guantanamo opinion obama administration

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Police State Update

“Police state” stories, about the sad turn of government events in the United States, came to my in-box in stacks from my regular contributors in recent weeks. The following set of posts about the same news story is my post’s lead today.

Overturning Posse Comitatus? Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com, asks about an article at Global Research, “Why is a U.S. Army brigade being assigned to the homeland?#.” Also, from News With Views, Chuck Baldwin asks, “U.S. Army troops To Serve As U.S. Policemen?#” At Truth Out, the author asks the question* again, about how it will be when U.S. regular troops become law enforcement authorities within U.S. borders.

As domestic surveillance takes center stage, the FBI’s traditional law enforcement role diminishes. And that is the reason why the vigilance of the American Civil Liberties Union is so crucial. The ACLU sends me a regular newsletter. Anthony Romero’s Sept. 29th letter got my attention. To quote from it: 

Bush and Mukasey are at it again. They’ve announced dangerous new FBI guidelines that will severely jeopardize the personal privacy of innocent Americans. These regulations need no congressional approval and are terrifying.

Just how far can the FBI go without any factual basis for suspecting improper — let alone illegal — activity? Under far-reaching new guidelines proposed by Attorney General Michael Mukasey, the answer is frightening. All the FBI has to do to put you or any American under prolonged physical surveillance is assert an “authorized purpose” such as detecting or preventing crime or protecting “national security.” Sound familiar? It’s the same Bush/Cheney/Gonzales/Mukasey “just trust us” policies that have been eroding our rights for the past eight years.

. . . These new guidelines would allow the FBI to interview you, your friends and your family under a false pretext. The FBI could recruit secret informants and have them infiltrate peaceful protest groups. And the FBI could initiate investigations based on little more than race, ethnicity or religion. The FBI could also search commercial databases for personal details about your life with no real reason. And all of this would be allowed without an ounce of evidence that you or anyone else has done anything wrong. 

The right to privacy is increasingly under assault by the U.S. federal government. This is another example of the police state mentality that turns more and more away from law enforcement and towards domestic surveillance. This article from The Raw Story (9/23/08),”DHS quietly expands border search policies,*” explains. To quote: 

The Department of Homeland Security quietly expanded its authorization to examine, copy and archive an array of documents and electronic files from citizens and visitors crossing US borders, according to reams of internal documents released Tuesday.

The changes implemented last year reverse a two-decade-old policy requiring border agents to have reasonable suspicion of a crime before reading documents someone is bringing into the country; probable cause was required before documents could be copied.

Those standards have been thrown out the window in favor of lenient standards that allow Customs and Border Patrol agents to read or copy essentially anything they would like from a person entering the United States. The new policies also make it easier for CBP to share documents it copies or confiscates with other law enforcement agencies. 

Within the Bill of Rights is another under assault, that of free speech. And we also have the right to petition our government for redress. We see more and more of this under the current administration. The story is from After Downing Street (9/15/08): “Three peace activists arrested in front of Federal Building in Madison.*” To quote: 

Three Madison area peace activists were arrested during a peaceful demonstration, blocking the door to the federal building at 215 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd at 1:00 pm on Monday September 15, 2008. Cassandra Dixon, Bonnie Block, and Joy First were charged with obstruction of building during a peaceful vigil calling for an end to war and for an end to the deployment of our national guard to Iraq. They were cited and released.

The three joined about 30 other activists for the peace vigil that has been a fixture on Monday noon in downtown Madison for the past 26 years. 

The USA is in a very sorry state of affairs when the cops act as an “arm of the state,” in the worst sense of the term. Here is a relatively benign example that is still unnervings. It comes from The Raw Story (9/28/08), “Denver cops get T-shirts that mock DNC protesters*.” To quote: “. . . commemorative T-shirt that makes light of the use of violence by police, particularly in the wake of 154 arrests during the week of Democratic National Convention this past August.”

A “police state” climate could be contagious. Here is an example of such absolute insanity, from the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram (9/25/08): “Student who wore gorilla suit says he was trying to boost school spirit#.” To quote: 

Curtis Patton said he and Sean Kight, seniors at Flower Mound High School, thought sprinting across the school football field dressed as a gorilla and banana during last Friday’s homecoming game would be good for school spirit.

“I thought it would unite the student body, but not like this,” he said, referring to a large segment of students who – from online postings – seem to believe administrators and police overreacted when they hauled the two off to jail for 16 hours. 

More police state silliness – For those of us who call themselves civil libertarians, this story from Yahoo! News (9/25/08) reinforces the sense of disquietude that pervades these times. The headline, “Hot dogs outside Philly ballpark cause bomb scare.#” makes my head spin. To quote: 

But someone inadvertently left three of the duct taped hot dogs outside the ballpark, sparking security fears. Stadium employees were evacuated and the bomb squad was called in.

Only after the packages were blown up did authorities realize they’d just exploded some sausages. 

This police state update is not just another of my regular civil libertarian gripe sessions. It is my way of reinforcing what registering. . . and phoning . . . and distributing yard signs . . . and, then voting for Barack Obama and Joe Biden is all about. It does not hurt to say again, the stakes could not be higher.

Reference – on one of the chief architects of the Police State, Vice-President Cheney:

• “Talking with the Washington Post’s Barton Gellman,” by Eric Umansky of ProPublica - September 23, 2008. It is on the new book about Dick Cheney. To quote:
  

  But, part of Cheney’s legacy is that he over reached and got pushed back. The Supreme Court said, for the first time, that the president needs permission from Congress to have military tribunals, for example. Even though Congress turned right around and said, “well okay, you go right ahead,” that doesn’t mean that the presidency is not constrained by this.

  So ironically, precedents of limitations of power have been set.

  Yeah, precedents have been set that are not good for the presidency or for the unilateral declaration of executive power. Sometimes Cheney’s tactical victories led to strategic defeats. 

• About Civil Liberties: McCain vs. Bush (9/21/08) Yeah, precedents have been set that are not good for the presidency or for the unilateral declaration of executive power. Sometimes Cheney’s tactical victories led to strategic defeats.

 

Hat Tip Key: Regular contributors of links to leads are “betmo*” and Jon#.

 

(Cross-posted at The Reaction.)

My “creativity and dreaming” post today is at Making Good Mondays.

Technorati tags: news news and politics politics 2008 election national security constitutiondomestic surveillance civil liberties

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A Sign of Things to Come?

This post originally appears at Anok’s blog Identity Check. She has graciously allowed us to crosspost it here at Sirens Chronicles.~Dusty

For the last two weeks there have political hububs, heated discussions, and protests both peaceful and violent surrounding the Democratic and Republic Conventions. While I have been paying close attention to both conventions, as an activist I have focused, for the meantime, on the protests and activities outside of the conventions. There seems to be a pattern emerging, at least to me, that the protests, actions of activists, and actions of police are telling the tell of what’s to come in the next four years.

Let’s compare and contrast, shall we?

Democratic National Convention

At the Democratic National Convention protesters came, people marched, Anarchists were arrested. From the news reports out right now, the numbers were relatively small about three thousand from what I understand, the marches relatively peaceful, and the police relatively unaggressive. There is a report from Rocky Mountain News that two young men were arrested for giving false information. You can see a list of protest related articles here. There is news that about ten other arrests were made.

I do know that more arrests were made during an anti-capitalism march, but the numbers are unknown to me. Socialistworker.org released an article explaining why the Alliance for Real Democracy was there, protesting:

My reasons for protesting the Democratic National Convention, which are also the generally shared reasons why most in ARD are protesting, are to call this party to account for its record and to make sure that progressive, and specifically antiwar politics, are heard loud and clear.

To paraphrase the rest of the article, essentially the protesters weren’t marching against the Democrats in favor of the Republicans, but rather in an effort to let the Democrats know that they simply are not doing what their constituents want them to do. Interesting to me, is the fact that there were few, if I can recall any, who were there to lambaste Obama. I’m sure there were a few, but it didn’t make the news.

There were, of course, reports of pepper spray being used on protesters in the anti-capitalism march, but generally the reports did not come back that bad. Protesters can be seen in photos yelling, or singing, linked arm in arm, marching, and observing.

The police in the photos seem fairly passive.

It bears mentioning that when Obama spoke, the convention was open to the public. I think this openness and willingness of a presidential candidate who has been under serious scrutiny and personal attacks from politicians and citizens alike is something important to think about. Yes, security was present at the convention (and, he’s had secret service protection for some time). Yes, you needed to have a ticket to get in. But allowing normal citizens in like a sports event is dangerous, according to some people. Allowing ordinary people near conventions of this magnitude is an invitation for whackos and nutters, according to some.

Obama took a chance, some might say, but judging by the night, and the end results of the protests, I think he made the right decision. Remember this point, however.

Republican National Convention

In stark contrast to the activities outside of the DNC were the activities outside of the RNC, both from protesters and police. Large groups, up into the ten thousands it’s reported, showed up to march this time, not to bring points to light for the Republican Party, but to march against what the Republican Party, and McCain stands for.

Most activists who were there were peaceful. But before they could even march, the police took the preemptive strike against the “RNC Welcoming Committee” and arrested eight people, searched the premises for weapons. You can see a press release here and here.

From Sanfransisco Bay Indy Media:

Twin Cities authorities have moved hard against the activists by pre-emptively raiding a convergence space and numerous houses, confiscating equipment, and making arrests. Despite that, actions have been going off all over in the streets of St. Paul. [...] Saturday, 8/30/08: Following the convergence center raid the night before, Ramsey County Sheriffs began raiding a half dozen houses across the Twin Cities in the morning and confiscated more items. Several Welcoming Committee members have been arrested and are being held without bail on various “conspiracy” charges. Undeterred, activists continued to hold meetings on August 30th in public parks and later at the convergence center again to plan actions for September 1st .

For more on the preemptive strikes against protesters, go here.

Now, I have previously reported about the protests, and acts of violence that took place during the convention, the main convention on Thursday, prior to and during McCain’s speech here and here.

Violence had erupted, as was reported, early in the week by Anarchists, but on Thursday no such groups were in attendance. As reports come out, and the media is slowly covering what happened, people are beginning to understand just how violent it did get, against peaceful protesters and journalists who were, in fact, trying to comply with law enforcement.

Tear gas, smoke bombs, and flash bombs were hurled at first near protesters, then directly at them to get them to disperse from a bridge on which they were blockaded, and couldn’t leave. Hundreds of people were arrested that night alone, never mind the arrests made earlier in the week. The tally coming in from varying sources is up to over eight hundred arrests. That works out to about ten percent of protesters who were arrested at the RNC, versus approximately .3 percent at the DNC. That is a rather large gap.

It also bears mentioning that McCain and company maintained a closed convention, and the convention center was actually barricaded up fortress style with metal barricades on the street, and around the building, complete with riot police working the borders, as well as the surrounding areas, effectively closing down streets, and bridges from pedestrian access.

Yeah so, what’s your point?

Let’s take a very good look at, and analyze the various tactics and tones set by each convention. Now, some may argue that the protests near the Democratic convention were milder because of size, participation, etc.. and the protests at the Republican Convention were simply larger, more aggressive, and more violent over all. This is certainly partially true.

But in no way is it the only reason for the disparities.

Some may argue that Democrats who oppose McCain are dangerous, stupid, or violent by nature, and it is some sort of telling characteristic of the party itself. Some may blame the Anarchists, and others, perhaps, have a multitude of reasons to go on. However;

• Anarchists were present, and disruptive at both conventions.
• Democrats and various ad hoc groups were present, and equally peaceful, at both conventions
• Permits were used at both conventions
• Marching and protesting commenced similarly at both conventions
• Numbers may be vastly different, however percentage wise the arrests and incidents should be fairly equal, but were not.

What differed however, was;

• Obama’s convention did not engage in preemptive arrests, McCain’s did, and sought to prevent protesters with legal permits from rightfully protesting.
• Obama kept his convention open to the public, while McCain did his best to keep the public out.
• Police reactions at Obama’s convention were far milder and opted not to treat peaceful protesters the same way they did aggressive protesters, where as police reactions at McCain’s convention were swift, harsh, and blanketed to treat all protesters as if they were dangerous, violent, or terrorists.

If anyone isn’t seeing the problem, I’ll outline it in a simpler, McCain support style format. The dangerously pervasive ideology among the camp supporters of McCain and Republican and socially conservative views after 9/11 have come out against protesters as being dangerous, violent, and deserving of whatever harsh treatment they got. Regardless of warrant or merit.

Some have gone so far as to compare them to terrorists.

If anyone is under the impression that the candidates and their security teams have had no hand in organizing security measures with the local police, they would be sadly mistaken. I see that the McCain camp opted to go with the “treat everyone like a threat” method, regardless if they were peaceful and cooperative, or not.

With a campaign underway with one moderate conservative hell bent on war and Patriotism, and a vice president who is very conservative, both of whom have centered their platform around terrorism, National Security from foreign and domestic terrorism, and smear campaigns with the notion that legislation will lean towards social conservative wills…it’s no wonder those with opposing views are considered dangerous.

The real question, however, is one that burns and worries. If, if, the McCain ticket actually took the presidency, what then will happen to those who oppose openly?

There is a common misconception that the “Liberals” are afraid of the McCain/Palin ticket because they will lose the bid, as if we were talking about a baseball game. People , both Liberal and Conservative are supportive of, and confident in their candidates, that is not the issue. Concern and worry, however are warranted and spoken about not because of the election itself, but will will happen after the new president and vice president have been sworn in.

The fear is that if the conventions, and actions outside of the conventions are any indication of how those with opposing view points will be treated by the administration and supporting camp alike along with proposed policies and ideologies, then we are in serious trouble.

It is cause for concern.

{The photo is a still from raw footage taken during the riot on the bridge, the flashes and smoke are from flash bombs, and smoke bombs or tear gas, aimed directly at protesters. For phenomenal photos of both conventions, please go to Fear and Loathing}

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reflections

i am going to hazard a guess that most of us remember 7 years ago vividly. i worked with teenaged girls who had their own issues but we sat and talked about world events that day. they transcended daily life for days after. it didn’t occur to me at that point to question anything we were being fed by the white house or the media and i was supportive of the effort going into afghanistan. that changed almost instantly. it wasn’t because i felt that america was wrong to go after bin laden- it was the word after that that stopped me cold– iraq.

it has only been since i began researching the corrupt leaders who have squatted in the white house for the last 8 years or so that i began to question the original story of how 9/11 happened. do i believe that the towers fell? yep. do i believe that the pentagon was hit? yep. do i believe middle eastern folks were used as hijackers? yep. hell, until recently, i even believed bin laden was involved. until i started piecing together facts that have leaked out of the administration and homeland security. many high level officials have begun to speak out about lies and secrecy from the admin. – from former fbi and cia agents to military personnel. google it- you’ll find it.

what struck me recently is the fact that bin laden is a persona non grata. in fact, he has been so for years. bush himself said that finding bin laden wasn’t a priority in 2006- and now, dana perrino says that bin laden wasn’t the mastermind of 9/11.

so, he goes from being the prime suspect; to never being charged with 9/11 by the fbi; to not being a priority to not being the mastermind. huh.

so, tell me again why i shouldn’t believe that an administration that has it’s roots in the pnac movement and the neo con movement- an administration grounded in secrecy, corruption, staged photo ops, feeding news stories to the press, bullying, bribing, spying, manipulating other countries into invading sovereign nations- tell me why it is such a stretch to believe that they orchestrated the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

the cia and the nsa have orchestrated attacks similar to these around the world. in fact, these organizations have had leaders overthrown- and usually assassinated- since their inceptions into the american government. working with a sympathetic arab nation, and pinning the blame on people who americans have been primed to hate- voila`! and now, we have an executive branch with considerable power and civil liberties shredded.

so, while we remember the innocents murdered on 9/11/01, bushco is gleefully celebrating their good fortune with disaster capitalism and toasting one another on a job well done.

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Bush administration — who gets to break the rules?

George W. Bush has 133 more days at the White House; it is 57 days until the 2008 presidential election. This post is a reminder of the national garbage that will be left behind when he moves out. Just so you remember, because John McCain’s election would retain 90% of it all over the floor (I think that is the figure used). I agree with this rather sweeping headline from Global Research (9/5/08): “The Bush Administration Is an Ongoing Criminal Conspiracy Under International Law and U.S. Domestic Law*.”

The Forever War – What rule covers that idea? From The Raw Story (8/31/08) comes the headline, “Bush quietly seeks to make war powers permanent, by declaring indefinite state of war.#” To quote:

As the nation focuses on Sen. John McCain’s choice of running mate, President Bush has quietly moved to expand the reach of presidential power by ensuring that America remains in a state of permanent war.

Buried in a recent proposal by the Administration is a sentence that has received scant attention — and was buried itself in the very newspaper that exposed it Saturday. It is an affirmation that the United States remains at war with al Qaeda, the Taliban and “associated organizations.”

This Week in Scandal Watch – Torture is just not about to leave the headlines. This is from ProPublica, 9/5/08:

#2. Detainee TreatmentThe legal advisor to the Gitmo military tribunals has been barred from yet another trial for appearing to favor the prosecution. Three Gitmo detainees were released to their home countries this week as well.

A former Canadian police commissioner blamed U.S. political interference for bungling the rendition to Syria – and subsequent alleged torture – of Canadian terror suspect Maher Arar. Condoleezza Rice admitted last October that his case had not been “handled particularly well.”

And finally, in response to an ACLU lawsuit, a federal judge ruled that the government must produce its memos on abusive CIA interrogation methods or explain why it cannot.

More of the leftover garbage – No bigger rule-breaker than our current president (OCP)’s good friend Alberto Gonzales. The news comes from TPM Muckraker (9/3/08): “OIG Report May Indicate Gonzales Perjury,” by Kate Klonick. But, of course the DOJ will not press charges. There’s more in the full story. To quote:

We noted yesterday that the Justice Department Office of the Inspector General issued a report on the found that former Attorney Gen. Alberto Gonzales had mishandled classified documents during his time in office. . .

John McCain prefers to bend the rules just like OCP.  It is no coincidence that hundreds of protesters and journalists were arrested during the Republican nominating convention. These police state tactics were documented at Survival Acres “Minneapolis arrests photographed*” (9/3/08). Also
at Survival Acres (8/22/08)was this earlier post titled, “Dead Men Walking*.” It is the author’s fierce response to the news about the new more permissive rules for FBI investigations, about which I have recently written. To quote:

This is one of those terrible stories with insufficient details, but enough so to make your hair stand on end. . .

Of course this is terrifying and unnecessary and nothing will or can be done about any of it. This is really no different then what is being done by cops all over the country, who using their positions of paid terrorism in service of the State, can target anybody (and do) for personal gain or vendetta.

This homeland security section concludes with this entry from CQ Behind the Lines, by David C. Morrison (9/5/08) To quote (author’s links):

Feds: “An influential New Jersey Muslim leader accused by DHS of having terrorist ties but praised by others as being an important ally won his fight to gain permanent U.S. residency,” The Associated Press‘ Samantha Henry reports – while another AP item has a federal judge ruling that justice must either produce memos on water boarding or explain why they should be kept secret. “DHS showed some continuity and steady progress this year, and leaders took the initiative to ensure a smooth transition to a new administration,” David Silverberg weighs in a Homeland Security Today “2008 Report Card.”

On “Hamdan,” the SCOTUS justices said this particular rule bending must stop — The last section of today’s post focuses of the various news or opinion items I have recently collected regarding the Salim Hamdan detainee case. The following is from an earlier CQ Behind the Lines newsletter (8/13/08):

. . . If the Pentagon plans on holding al Qaeda chauffeur Salim Hamdan indefinitely, “what, then, was the point of putting him on trial in the first place?” a FindLaw commentary questions – while NPR quotes a juror saying the man just didn’t seem like a terrorist. . .

Eric Umansky at ProPublica has been following the Hamdan case with some very good investigative work. This link will get you to all the latest. Tom Head, who writes regularly about civil liberties for About.com, also has some very good material on this notorious case. And this from ConsortiumNews, (8/13/08) is titled, “The Hamdan Principle and You#” . It was written by Robert Parry on August 7, 2008. To quote from the piece:

The U.S. military commission’s split guilty verdict on Ahmed Hamdan, a former driver for Osama bin Laden, has drawn praise from the Bush administration and criticism from civil rights groups, but what has been overlooked is the chilling message that “the Hamdan principle” sends about future prosecutions in the “war on terror.”

George W. Bush is a lame duck president at this point, thank goodness. The next couple of months are particularly important ones for the well-being of our nation. Unless the citizenry is vigilant, the pile of national garbage left behind will smell up the next four years: John McCain and Sarah Palin’s election would retain 90% of it. You cannot get a sheet of paper between Bush and McCain on national security./p>

Hat tip to regular contributor for the links: “*betmo” and #Jon.

(Cross-posted at The Reaction.)

My “creativity and dreaming” post today is at Making Good Mondays.

Technorati tags: news news and politics politics bush national security mccain guantanamo 2008 election rule of law

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Reflections on an Emerging Election Process

The 2008 election process reflects good news and bad news, depending on where one stands. Reading about or watching what has happened during recent weeks would leave anyone with the distinct impression that the United States is in a huge transition. Jim VandeHei and David Paul Kuhn at Politico.com (9/2/08), assert that “Palin reignites culture wars.” The salient fact here is that the next president will undoubtedly make a number of appointments to the Supreme Court, potentially one of the main battle grounds in the culture wars. To quote:

The culture wars are making a sudden and unexpected encore in American politics, turning more ferocious virtually by the hour as activists on both sides of the ideological divide react to the addition of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to the Republican ticket.

The campaign of Democrat Barack Obama put up an ad in at least seven key states Tuesday lambasting GOP nominee-to-be John McCain as an enemy of abortion rights.

At the Republican convention here, former Tenn. Sen. Fred Thompson took a shot at Obama’s stand in favor of legal abortion.

The Palin choice was disturbing for a very large number of people. “Sometimes the truth hurts; McCain chose a mate with a lot of baggage#.” This “Top Ten Most Disturbing Facts and Impressions of Sarah Palin#” is from AlterNet, 9/1/08. Regarding the Palin premise — that McCain’s choice for Vice-President will be divisive, many believe there is too much polarization already. Rather than uniting, either within or without the Republican party, people have split apart along ideological lines, even if many of them will not say so publicly. And it has disturbed Senator McCain as those of us who know him could have predicted:”McCain Turns Sour on His Onetime Media `Base’ as Election Nears#” (via bloomberg at Yahoo! – 9/2/08). And Jonathan Martin writes illustratively at Politico.com (9/3/08). It headlined: “McCain lashes out at press over Palin.” To quote:

Faced with tough questions about Sarah Palin, John McCain’s campaign and other Republicans are responding with a defensive crouch – lashing out at the media to deflect Palin from scrutiny and to rally a party base that has fallen hard for the conservative Alaska governor.

McCain aides, responding to questions about Palin’s qualifications to be vice president as well as her family life – including her pregnant and unwed teenage daughter – have aggressively turned the tables on the media by questioning reporters’ motives and suggesting a sexist double-standard.

Turning the Palin premise to the advantage of Democrats is the thought of Ed Kilgore at The Democratic Strategist 9/2/08. He offers these resources:

1. A strategy memo by Ed Kilgore suggesting the best way to challenge Sarah Palin.
2. A series of six targeted messages to important voter groups regarding the selection of Palin.

Things were not looking so bad before the Republican convention started, according to Politico.com’s Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei in their 8/31/08 piece, “GOP sees potential redemption in Gustav” To quote:

Republican officials say their radically curtailed convention offers a big political opportunity for the party to redeem itself on the competence issue – and for John McCain to step out of President Bush’s shadow once and for all.

There’s no doubt it’s a bit morbid to think about (and write about) the politics of a potential natural disaster, and the thoughts – and prayers – of those gathering here are keenly focused on the Americans who face potential peril in Gustav’s path. That’s true for Republicans, Democrats and members of the media alike.

But this is a national political convention, and the potential political fallout of Gustav is a topic that was consuming Republican Party and McCain campaign officials on Sunday – one day before the official start of what had been planned as four days of festivities here.

”

Hurricane Gustav to the rescue#” has more on this idea. My blog friend “betmo” linked on 9/1/08 to this from AlterNet, and wrote this no-nonsense summary of the whole bizarre Republican Convention situation:

“they are praying thanks to their god” –bush and cheney skipped the convention- i think that the whole thing would have collapsed- the rnc- anyway after mccain picking palin. there were already untold numbers of important gop vips not going. these people disgust me. they jump ship when they know that they are going to lose- and they attempt to capitalize on the sufferings of others. the sad part is- they have followers who will still vote for them.

Was the USA founded as a Christian Nation? HT to contributor Jon for this very pertinent reference from bmccreations-One nation with quotes from Jefferson, Adams, and Washington. The author’s argument that it was not begins, “The statement that is commonly made is that ‘the United States was founded as a Christian Nation’. To examine this statement we will look at the founding documents: the Declaration of independence and the Constitution. As well as the Treaty of Tripoli and The beliefs of the Founding Fathers.”

Regarding protest and the police state in Minnesota, the news about the health of the U.S. Constitution is not good. Professor Marjorie Cohn, President of the National Lawyers Guild, posted this full analysis today at Dandelion Salad: “Police State Methods: Preemptive Strikes Against Protest at the Republican National Convention.” It is not clear that the Constitution is even on life support, according to Glenn Greenwald’s full and updated expose of the government’s involvement at Salon.com. Pam’s House Blend (9/2/08) reported, “Donna Brazile pepper sprayed,*” and Greg Palast (on 9/1/08) headlined, “Amy Goodman arrested.*” Lindsay Beyerstein reported today at firedoglake/CampaignSilo that, “Police Gas Docile Crowd Outside the RNC.” The ACLU reports, “More from the RNC.”

Minneapolis and Denver — Dr. Bruce Weinstein’s e-mail asked the basic question, “Is Protest unpatriotic?” in promoting his Business Week column. Denver evidently decided that protest was a basic right during the Democratic convention. Mainstream media, however, all but ignored it.”huh?” from betmo at the (8/27/08) Rocky Mountain News: by Patti Thorn. “3,000 march in largest demonstration of DNC.” To quote:

Marching behind a police vehicle that flashed the words “Follow Us. Welcome to Denver.” on an electronic sign, at least 3,000 Iraq war veterans and anti-war protesters made their way through downtown Denver on Wednesday during the largest demonstration of the Democratic National Convention to date.

Though the event, co-sponsored by the anti-war group Tent State University and Iraq Veterans Against the War, was unpermitted, the parade proceeded peacefully.

Regarding the election itself , a story by Paul Kiel at ProPublica (on 8/18/08), headlined “States Still Struggling With Voting Machines.” Some states want to go back to more reliable methods, but may not be able to do so this year. That is bad news for everyone. To quote:

Ohio’s secretary of state recently sued to recover the $83 million in state funds spent on touch-screen machines, yet the machines will nevertheless be used in November.

In 2002, Congress passed the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), which allocated nearly $3 billion to the states for election administration. But eight years later, with an election fast approaching, the system is still characterized by the same panicked improvisation.

Reference: ProPublica : Decoder — What Rules Govern Spending by Big Biz and Lobbyists at the Conventions?

The 2008 convention process reflects differently on each political party. In my very biased opinion the Democrats’ convention was well run, peaceful, for the most part and served the nominees well. On the other hand, also in my biased opinion, the Republican convention is not looking successful. And Hurricane Gustav is not the main reason. That is good news for Democrats and bad news for the opposition, from where I stand. The United States is in a huge transition; dare we hope it is going to get better? It just must!

Contributor credit goes to #Jon and to *”betmo.”

(Cross-posted at .)

Technorati tags: news news and politics politics republicans mccain Palin minneapolis civil liberties amy goodman 2008 election

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Will the Iraq War affect the Convention as much as the Vietnam War did in 1968?

My knee jerk reaction is nope. The 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago was a watershed moment in our history and it appears the various law enforcement groups have taken steps to insure nothing even close to the melee in Chicago will occur in Denver. The Denver Police have issued a bulletin, according to RawStory, that alerts all officers what to be on the look-out for. It is a real hoot, check it out. Meanwhile the ACLU has been busting their asses trying to get the courts to support our rights to free speech and assembly, but they haven’t made much headway.

Forty years ago Chicago itself was a battleground, a warzone as the police never issued the permits requested by the various anti-war groups. The police in Denver, the federal government and the DNC have already laid down the ground rules for protests and the courts have backed them up for the most part. The ACLU has tried on several occasions to get the rules changed to allow protestors to gain closer access to the Pepsi Center where most of the ‘festivities’ will be held..but to no avail. From the NYT article linked in this paragraph:

A federal judge in Denver ruled against the American Civil Liberties Union in a lawsuit challenging the government’s security rules for the Democratic National Convention here later this month. The judge, Marcia S. Krieger of Federal District Court, agreed with the group that the security plans — including a fenced perimeter and a parade route away from the Pepsi Center where the convention will take place — did affect the ability of protest groups to engage in “expressive activities.” But Judge Krieger disagreed that the affect rose to the level of an infringement of free speech because other means of expression were available and because the Secret Service and Denver Police had shown that the restrictions were “content neutral,” and thus not intended to quash a particular opinion.

Its a damn shame the feds, the Dems and the Denver police are  afraid of allowing people the right to express

their personal grievances with the election process in general and their elected representatives regarding the war in Iraq in particular. The Denver Police have issued a ‘flyer’ that you can check out here (pdf) which tells people what will be tolerated and what will not. Not to be outdone, the Secret Service has declared both conventions to be…cough..National Special Security Events..and given both cities $50 million in federal funds for ’security’. Protesters will be in a huge pen in the Pepsi Center parking lot..like animals. For pictures of the area protesters will be confined to..click here.

The group Recreate 68, who’s logo graces this post, has plenty of plans for events during the convention. These include music and protests, street theater and major anti-war figures will be speaking at rallies. The following is from their website:

The Re-create 68 Alliance also announced that anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan and Green Party Presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney and Green Party Vice Presidential candidate Rosa Clemente will be joining their historic line-up of speakers who include Ida Audeh, Kathleen Cleaver, Ward Churchill, Mark Cohen, Chairman Fred Hampton Jr., Larry Hales, Larry Holmes, Ron Kovic, Glenn Spagnuolo, Pamela Africa, King Downing, Jenny Esquiveo, Mumia Abu Jamal – Current Political Prisoner (Recorded from Death Row for the DNC), Gloria Estela La Riva, Ricardo Romero, Natsu Saito, Ann Erika White Bird, and others.

Of course if any of the protesters get a little..cough.. feisty, there is the Gitmo on the Platte facility. Video below is courtesy of Denver’s Channel Four.

What a grand example of American’s exercising their civil liberties, to be displayed to the world next week in Denver and to be repeated during the Republican convention in Minneapolis-Saint Paul, the first week in September.

Bullshit…its all bullshit designed to keep us from exercising our civil rights. Assholes..

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Exploring Rights and Wrongs

Knowing the difference between right and wrong . . . is at times a murky business. It is not always easy to see what is beneath the surface.

Fallout the so-called “war on terror” — Telecommunications companies achieved immunity from lawsuits in the latest Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act revision. And insurance companies are exploiting terrorism fears as they set museum insurance rates. These items from my CQ Behind the Lines free e-mail newsletter, by David C. Morrison, of 8/15/08:

State and local: . . Vermont’s two-year investigation into allegations that telecoms released customer data to NSA snoops appears to be drawing to a close, The Barre Times Argus tells.

Kulture Kanyon: . . Since terror fears spiked seven years ago, insurance hikes have “threatened to strangle museums’ ability to present important art to the public,” a curator tells the L.A. Times‘ Mike Boehm

“This is so wrong,” – is the headline about this item from the NYT in, “Police State USA” at Yes, I take it personally. “betmo’s” link* describes how a man got caught up in an immigration sweep, was shuttled from facility to facility, and then died due to failure to receive even minimal medical care. The map at this site is also very revealing. To quote:

. . . fifteen years of an exemplary life in the U.S. only to get thrown into a detention center. . . detention watch network has put together this handy map…

Hate speech is flat wrong – Conservatives have long called for the heads of prominent liberals. Looks like they got their wish. This story came from my friend Jon. It was posted by Steven D. at AlterNet, and titled, “The Tragic Arkansas Shooting and Conservative Hate Speech,” taken from the Booman Tribune, August 14, 2008. To quote:

. . . there was no personal connection between the shooter and Bill Gwatney, and apparently there wasn’t one. Instead, there are some initial eerie similarities between the shooter Timothy Dale Johnson, and the man who massacred members of the Unitarian church in Knoxville, Tennessee last month. Both, for example had just lost their jobs, and both were very, very angry about that fact

. . . It’s past time for members of the the right wing wurlitzer to apologize for their hate speech and to renounce any further use of the language of extermination with respect to their political, religious and ideological adversaries, as well as their demonization of minorities.

Stealing the words of another to use as one’s own is wrong. Jody Rosen posted an article* “Dude, You Stole My Article” — How I investigated a suspicious alt weekly — at Slate Magazine on Aug. 6, 2008, about someone at a Texas newspaper, The Bulletin, who plagiarized an article about Jimmy Buffett.
What is wrong with this picture, if anything? This item* came from World Changing: “Virtual Transgender Suit, Avatar Termination and Other Online World Tales,” by Regine Debatty, August 15, 2008. To quote:

You might remember that a year ago Marc Owens designed the Avatar Machine, a system which replicates the aesthetics and visuals of third person gaming, allowing the user to view themselves as a virtual character in real space via a head mounted interface.

. . . A study by psychologists at Nottingham Trent University has found that 54 percent of all males and 68 percent of all females “gender swap”–or create online personas of their opposite sex.

. . . Another of Owens’ projects, Sabre & Mace – Second Death, was concerned more specifically with the online environment Second Life.Collaborating with Tony Mullin, he created SABRE & MACE, a company that offers virtual characters the opportunity to experience death as a way to close their user account permanently. The project examines the notion of feeling sentimental toward a virtual character and examines the link between sentimentality and tangibility.

The ability to become invisible likely would never be allowed by our government’s security apparatus. Homeland Security, the Justice Department, the FBI, the National Security Agency and many other government entities all want their full range of rights to search for terrorists and other suspicious people. This intriguing little blurb* is from The Raw Story, “Invisibility Cloak Now Within Sight: Scientists,” 8/11/08. To quote,

The age-old fantasy of making yourself invisible has taken a step toward reality, with scientists saying they have created three-dimensional materials that can bend visible light.

*Thanks for these links from “betmo,” who writes life’s journey.

(Cross-posted at The Reaction.)

My “creativity and dreaming” post today is at Making Good Mondays.

Technorati tags: news national intelligence ethics and morals domestic surveillance terrorism opinion

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Activism, Investigative Journalism or Conspiracy Theory?

CONSPIRACY THEORY – A Cuil search on “conspiracy theory” returned 2,076,650 results, so the very idea is a big deal in the blogosphere. The theories vary widely all the way from 1) the government’s unwillingness to tell us about earth having been visited by extra-terrestrials; to 2) the neocons have been planning and executing this take-over since the days of Nixon; to 3) the attacks of 9/11 having been an inside job. I do not believe any of the above. So I do not qualify for a tinfoil hat.

INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM, is evidentally a much smaller deal, returning only 149,202 Cuil results. “Book says White House ordered forgery” (8/4/08) by Mike Allen at Politico.com. To quote:

A new book by the author Ron Suskind claims that the White House ordered the CIA to forge a back-dated, handwritten letter from the head of Iraqi intelligence to Saddam Hussein.

Suskind writes in “The Way of the World,” to be published Tuesday, that the alleged forgery – adamantly denied by the White House – was designed to portray a false link between Hussein’s regime and al Qaeda as a justification for the Iraq war.

ACTIVISM, however is the biggest deal of all, according to Cuil. That single word search returned 11,394,749 results. And it also yielded some very interesting drop-down lists, including these category names, Political Advocacy Groups in the United States, Veterans Organizations Opposed to the Iraq War, Canadian Anarchists, Community Organizing, Civil Disobedience, Anti-pornography Activists, COINTELPRO targets, Anti-globalization, Social Movements, and Politics and Technology. This is the category in which I found those of us in the blogosphere (thank goodness, not under “COINTELPRO TARGETS.) The subcategories here are Internet activism, Move On, Howard Dean and Joe Trippi.

Drilling down even more, in the Google Directory, the tree looks like this: “Society> Activism> Internet> Hacktivism, and all the way to an article called, “Activism, Hacktivism and Cyberterrorism: The Internet as a tool for influencing foreign policy.” Written in 2001 by Dorothy E. Denning, then teaching in the computer department at Georgetown University, its summary paragraph says,

Activism

The Internet offers a powerful tool for communicating and coordinating action. It is inexpensive to use and increasingly pervasive, with an estimated 201 million on-line as of September 1999.3 Groups of any size, from two to millions, can reach each other and use the Net to promote an agenda. Their members and followers can come from any geographical region on the Net, and they can attempt to influence foreign policy anywhere in the world. This section describes five modes of using the Internet: collection, publication, dialogue, coordination of action, and direct lobbying of decision makers. While treated separately, the modes are frequently used together and many of the examples described here illustrate multiple modes.

Denning left Georgetown the next year for the west coast. She is currently at the Naval Post Graduate School in in the Department of Defense Analysis at Monterrey, California. Her latest two publications , which I would also love to read, are titled,

• Denning, D. E., “A View of Cyberterrorism Five Years Later,” Readings in Internet Security: Hacking, Counterhacking, and Society (K. Himma ed.), Jones and Bartlett Publishers, Boston, 2006.
• Denning, D. E., “The Ethics of Cyber Conflict,” in Information and Computer Ethics (K. E. Himma and H. T. Tavani eds.), Wiley, 2007.

Why does any of this minutia matter? For one thing, it has made me realize so much more how important it is to use correct terminology. The government thinks about citizens expressing alternate views of reality very differently than I do. We are sometimes lumped together as “dangerous,” for the purposes of domestic intelligence. I have blog friends who are dedicated activists who actually protest. My so-called little bits of “activism” are confined to sitting at this keyboard searching, researching, reading and writing. I feel puny by comparison.

I conclude with these four links sent to me recently by my blog friend, “betmo,” who writes Life’s Journey. I leave it up to you to decide into which category they belong.

1. Rising Hegemon: (8/5/08), is titled “Always the same pathetic story.” To quote the blog author’s comment regarding Mike Allen’s Politico story (above):
   

   Of course, this article is written by Mike Allen so it contains 80% White House push-back – uncritically.

   And that will undoubtedly be the end of that as far as the media is concerned.

2. OurFuture.org: “The question of right-wing terrorism: anthrax,” by Rick Perlstein, 8/1/08). To quote:
   

   Glenn Greenwald has put together a must-read account of how panic over the post-9/11 anthrax attacks, and disinformation claiming Saddam Hussein was probably behind them, convinced various members of the media and political elite to get behind the idea of attacking Iraq. His research follows reports that government scientist Bruce E. Ivins committed suicide Tuesday night because he was about to be charged with staging the attacks. Greenwald writes with scrupulous care, and asserts nothing beyond the known facts-but one of those known facts, and Greenwald’s bottom line, is that ABC News has it within its power to help clear up the mystery, and refuses to do so. . .

   This guy was no down-the-line conservative (“The Roman Catholic Church should learn from other equally worthy Christian denominations and eagerly welcome female clergy as well as married clergy,” he writes in March of 2002), but I hope I don’t exaggerate in claiming a decidedly wingnutty tilt to his thinking. If this is the same guy who composed the note framing jihadists for the anthrax attacks (“This is next/Take Penacilin Now/Death To America/Death To Israel/Allah is great”); and, as Greenwald seems to suspect, and if he was the same guy who misled ABC into reporting the presence in the anthrax of a substance that only Iraq had used to create biological weapons, what we may have on our hands here is an American ginning up a causis belli for a Christian jihad against Islam, and killing fellow Americans to do it.This is very, very heavy stuff. If any of this turns out to be the case, I will, again, take no pleasure in the vindication.



3. “betmo” says this about this link, “why would this be surprising? they outsource and contract everything else.” From The Raw Story comes this perfect illustration of how hard it is to figure out in which theoretical camp you live. “Deleted photo sparks fears DEA hiring mercenaries” by Muriel Kane, 8/4/2008
   

   However, one particular photograph from the Times story has drawn more attention than anything else. That picture, which has now been widely reproduced at blogs, shows a long-haired man, wearing a Blackwater tshirt and with a pistol at his belt, passing a box marked “DEA Evidence” to other agents participating in the raid.

   . . . The photo has since been taken down by the Times, but it has continued to circulate online. Although there has been no previous suggestion of a Blackwater role in domestic drug enforcement, the single picture was sufficient enough to set off furious discussion at both left-wing and libertarian message boards and blogs.




4. AfterDowningStreet: “Cheney, Neocons Considered Killing Americans in Pretext to Attack Iran” This article is the best summary I have found of some of the most predomimant conspiracy theories that have been around since the post 9/11/01 period. There are people that bwlieve that the 9/11 attacks were planned and carried out by the U.S. government. Even earlier another theory posits that the U.S., under Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, planned “Operation Northwoods,” a false flag attack on Fidel Castro in Cuba. British author, Phillipe Sands revealed a discussion in January 2003 between Tony Blair and George Bush involving “painting planes in United Nations colors “in order to provoke an attack which could then be used to justify material breach” and thus set in motion an invasion.” A tape revealed in May 2008 by Paul Joseph Watson regarding “efforts of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and top military analysts to cook up another terrorist attack on America in order to gain support for their ambitious plans to decimate Muslim culture.” To quote further:
   

   Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh reveals how the neocons convened around Dick Cheney and brainstormed ways to kick off World War IV, as they fondly call their pet project to take out the Muslims and foment a contrived “clash of civilizations.”

   . . . In an exclusive Think Progress story, we learn the meeting took place in Cheney’s office and the subject on the table was “how to create a casus belli between Tehran and Washington,” part of an ongoing effort to provide an excuse to attack Iran. “There was a dozen ideas proffered about how to trigger a war,” Hersh explains. “The one that interested me the most was why don’t we build – we in our shipyard – build four or five boats that look like Iranian PT boats. Put Navy seals on them with a lot of arms. And next time one of our boats goes to the Straits of Hormuz, start a shoot-up.”

   . . . Obviously, the neocons will stop at nothing – including the murder of more Americans in a false flag terror attack – to realize their agenda.

Activism, Investigative Journalism or Conspiracy Theory? In the minds of some they all run together. In my mind it is important for me to make distinctions. That helps me continue to behave in good faith and act courageously and with authenticity. It is also about trying to tell the truth, and about trying to make a difference. These are the things all of of us have permission to do without becoming targets of domestic surveillance, as a result of our words being scooped up in mass funneling of Internet material into the NSA.

(Cross-posted at The Reaction.)

My “creativity and dreaming” post today is at Making Good Mondays.

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