It has become totally legal for rich people to run politicians the same way they might run horses or greyhounds

the above title is taken from a common dreams post by jennifer browdy de hernandez...

As in Germany before the Kristallnacht, none of us here in the U.S. wants to believe that anything could happen to destroy our cherished freedoms, our vaunted “American way of life.” We don’t want to admit, even to ourselves, the extent to which our freedoms are already being encroached upon, day by day.

Just last week, for example, there was an outrageous episode in Arizona, where the government declared a whole long list of books to be unsuitable for school use, and went so far as to direct the school librarians and teachers to pull them from the shelves, box them up and put them into deep storage.

Among the authors banned are some of my favorite writers—Gloria Anzaldua, Elizabeth Martinez, Paulo Freire.

Yes, that Paulo Freire, the famous Brazilian educator and free thinker who wrote Pedagogy of the Oppressed, a brilliant analysis of the way that traditional education indoctrinates students into conformity and submission to authority.

Freire proposed that instead of a banking style of education, where knowledge is deposited into students, who are then required to spit it back upon demand, education worth its salt should empower students to think for themselves.

Such a simple idea, but so powerful, too. Education should teach people to think for themselves, and to work with each other to come to consensus on issues of importance to the larger society.

Isn’t that just what the Occupy movements have been trying to do? If Freire were alive, he would be out there in the thick of the Occupy action, inspiring the young to shake off the false animation of Zombieland, and insist on dancing to their own authentic beat.

isn't it totally bizarre that education that empowers people to think for themselves should be so threatening...? of course, taken in the context of the super-rich elites who are so desperate to maintain their hold on money and power, i suppose it makes sense to keep people dumb, docile and locked in a fear-based mindset...

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What's going on with Twitter...? Are we seeing censorship take hold...?

disturbing...

Welcome To The United Police States of America, Sponsored By Twitter

Imagine my surprise this morning when, without warning, my shiny new Twitter account (@d_seaman) was suspended and taken offline.

No more tweets for you. You now have 0 followers.

My crime? Talking too much about Occupy Wall Street (I'm not an Occupier, but as a blogger and journalist it strikes me as one of the most important stories out there -- hence the constant coverage), and talking too much about the controversial detainment without trial provisions contained in the FY 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which would basically shred the Bill of Rights and subject American citizens to military police forces. The same level of civil rights protection that enemy combatants in a cave in Afghanistan receive!

But no, my tweets were 'annoying our users,' according to Twitter's suspension notice.

Well, not so much: nearly everyone following me appreciated my coverage of this issue, when few others in the media have had an interest in the NDAA or the widespread Occupy turnouts all over the country last night.

If they didn't appreciate it, ignorant bliss is only an 'unfollow' away. So why was I suspended only for covering two very serious news stories, and offering my own brand of commentary? I wasn't harassing users. I wasn't spamming. I wasn't hawking affiliate or porn links or any of the trash that should get one swiftly suspended from Twitter. (I've received some spam direct messages already; funny that those aren't suspended, but I was.)

I have contacted Ev Williams, co-founder of Twitter, and several tech journalists hoping to get some answers. I don't want to start a big thing -- I just want my account reactivated. This is America, not Iran, thanks in advance.

Also: it's worth questioning why #NDAA and #OWS, which are receiving consistently VERY high volumes of conversation/tweet traffic are not trending at all on Twitter, yet their featured 'worldwide trends' this morning include: Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory, #myfavoritefood, and Kindergarten Cop.

yes, i know, everyone's on edge right now, and rightly so... we don't need to leap to any hysterical conclusions but, at the same time, we would be foolish not to be looking at anything and everything with a very critical eye...

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Good news - SOPA vote delayed in House

let's hope the damned thing goes away and never comes back...

from the chicago tribune...

A key House vote on controversial anti-piracy legislation has been delayed.

The House Judiciary Committee adjourned on Friday without deciding on whether or not to send the so-called Stop Online Piracy Act to the House floor.

The committee had been engaged in a marathon markup version of the bill, but the session came to an abrupt end, as Congress had to turn its attention to a floor vote on a nearly $1 trillion spending bill that would avert a government shutdown.

The discussion will resume when Congress is next in session -- which could be next week.

it's a bill for censorship, pure and simple, designed to serve the monied interests and has nothing at all to do with the common good, free speech or open internet access...

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We have a power that terrifies the corporate state

chris hedges...

We may feel, in the face of the ruthless corporate destruction of our nation, our culture, and our ecosystem, powerless and weak. But we are not. We have a power that terrifies the corporate state. Any act of rebellion, no matter how few people show up or how heavily it is censored by a media that caters to the needs and profits of corporations, chips away at corporate power. Any act of rebellion keeps alive the embers for larger movements that follow us. It passes on another narrative. It will, as the rot of the state consumes itself, attract wider and wider numbers. Perhaps this will not happen in our lifetimes. But if we persist, we will keep this possibility alive. If we do not, it will die.

All energy directed toward reforming political and state structures is useless. All efforts to push through a “progressive” agenda within the corridors of power are naïve. Trust in the reformation of our corporate state reflects a failure to recognize that those who govern, including Barack Obama, are as deaf to public demands and suffering as those in the old Communist regimes. We cannot rely on any systems of power, including the pillars of the liberal establishment—the press, liberal religious institutions, universities, labor, culture and the Democratic Party. They have been weakened to the point of anemia or work directly for the corporations that dominate our existence. We can rely now on only ourselves, on each other.

[...]

As long as a few of us rebel, it will always remain possible to defeat a system of centralized, corporate power that is as criminal and heartless as those I watched tumble into the ash bin of history in Eastern Europe.

i can't help but feel as though we're approaching a major tipping point...

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The "Fifth Estate"

ray mcgovern in an interview posted at raw story...

"The Fourth Estate is dead," Ray McGovern, of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, told Raw Story in an exclusive interview. "The Fourth Estate in his country has been captured by government and corporations, the military-industrial complex, the intelligence apparatus. Captive! So, there is no Fourth Estate."

[...]

"Luckily, there is a Fifth Estate," he said. "The Fifth Estate exists in the ether. It’s not susceptible of government, of corporations, or advertisers or military control. It’s free. That is very dangerous to people who like to make secrets and to make secret operational things. It’s a huge threat. And the Empire – the Goliath here – is being threatened by a slingshot in the form of a computer and a stone through these emissions thrown into the ether to our own computers."

"It’s quite amazing," he added.

yes, the internet is definitely the "fifth estate" which is why our super-rich, elite masters will stop at nothing to shut it down...

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Why you don't see much of Dennis in the media

courtesy of brasscheck tv...



why...?

Dangerous ideas

Kucinich got a chance to participate in some debates, but overall the US news media has iced him out.

Little or no coverage, not-so-subtle ridicule, exclusion from many of the televised debates.

Why?

Just listen to what he has to say:

* He voted against the Patriot Act,
* He's pro-union
* He's against "new world order" trade agreements like NAFTA
* He's against military intervention overseas and
* He is pushing for Bush's IMMEDIATE impeachment.

In other words, he's someone who represents the citizens of the US, not its corporations and criminal/government class.

brasscheck tv adds this note...

(Note: I'm not endorsing or not endorsing Kucinich. This was the best Kucinich video I found and it happened to have campaign information in the footer.)

p.s. i wish wolf would just go away...

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Sign Wexler's petition

see yesterday's post...

45,109 as of 4:45 p.m. PST, heading for 500,000...

The charges are too serious to ignore. There is credible evidence that the Vice President abused the power of his office, and not only brought us into an unneccesary war but violated the civil liberties and privacy of American citizens. It is the constitutional duty of Congress to hold impeachment hearings.

sign the petition here...

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Faced with media censorship, Congressman Wexler pleads for Cheney's impeachment

after getting rejected by the major print news outlets, he set up his own website...

As the House Judiciary Committee continues to refuse any action on proposals to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney, three of that panel's members tried to take their case to influential op-ed pages of the nation's largest newspapers.

They were turned down by every one -- including the New York Times, Washington Post and Miami Herald -- so now one of the lawmakers has taken his campaign to the Internet.

Rep. Robert Wexler (D-FL) on Friday launched a new Web site, WexlerWantsHearings.com to advance his call to impeach Cheney. The site hosts an op-ed article censored by the nation's major newspapers and outlines the case for impeaching Cheney.

this must be what media censorship in the old soviet union felt like, only THEY didn't have the internet...

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American Marketing Genius

via Fox News:

Oh, corruption is — this whole thing is corruption. It's - - it's unbelievable. It's what I didn't believe, Greta. I didn't believe this existed. This is the United States. I thought — at 29 years old, I thought, Oh, my God, we're the great — look, here's what you're taught as a kid. We're the greatest country in the world. This document, this Constitution, this is good everywhere. This — how naive was I? I just — I've been told this my whole life. I didn't know it really works like this.

I thought I had rights. I thought, you know, just — if you didn't break the law, they can't say you broke the law. I didn't know that people use it as a game. These people who have power, they have a police force that they can send after you. They have the ability to charge you and take away your freedom and your life. I just can't believe it. I just, like, every — it went against everything I have been taught my whole life, everything." -- Joe Francis, from the front lines defending the First Amendment

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"Dirty Tricks"

Bill Moyers' September 28, 2007 interview of John Bogle was quite telling. America has gone from about 7.5% of the economy being represented by money managers, to nearly 10 times that at almost 75% of our economy today. These money men chase the cheapest labor on earth, which is called outsourcing America's jobs, to places where human rights are routinely ignored, and the rest of us live large on that exploitation.

But it cannot last. Without sufficient numbers of manufacturing and/or production jobs in the US, our economy cannot sustain our population with just service industry jobs. The rich and powerful will dispose of the surplus population the way they always do.

The movie, "Blood Diamond", reveals the paradigm for the exploitation of all riches. Those in this country still content to act as apologists for the totalitarians need to realize, the small gain they achieve, comes at high cost to many others. A similar scenario is bound to play out here as the 5th Estate continues to crush free speech and other rights like the ability to eek out a living.

Slashdot reports:

Despite a congressional request for that probe, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin quashed the inquiry based on comments from National Intelligence Director Michael McConnell. 'At issue are reports last year that some big telephone companies allowed the U.S. government access to millions of telephone records for an anti terrorism program. The reports have prompted scrutiny by the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Democratic Rep. Edward Markey, the chairman of a key Energy and Commerce subcommittee, asked Martin to investigate. Markey, of Massachusetts, said McConnell's stance was "unsurprising given that this administration has continually thwarted efforts by Congress to shed more light on the surveillance program."

In reports of hearings being held on telcom issues, two names seem prominent: Edward Markey and John Kerry. Edward Markey had previously pushed the V-chip. Some of us were concerned that he had joined America's demagogue campaign of hysteria to marginalize children. These days Representative Markey seems more a voice of reason. He won't be cheap for the totalitarians to buy or kill. His wife made both Rear Admiral and served as Assistant Surgeon General of the United States.

John Kerry on the other hand, is a police state advocate. He is one of the current demagogue forces behind the "Sexual Predator" laws that aim to replace the arguably waning war on Global Terrorism.

John Kerry appears to be in favor of massive police surveillance. The recent incident of a brave young neophyte reporter asking him solid questions and paying for that by being tortured by Kerry's police with a Taser, now seems typically Kerry.

Government's enforcers make it clear: They isolate and disrupt their targets. This didn't start recently. It has roots back in COINTELPRO:

They used secret and systematic methods of fraud and force, far beyond mere surveillance, to sabotage constitutionally protected political activity. The purpose of the program was, in FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover's own words, to 'expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit and otherwise neutralize' specific groups and individuals."

Now add to that the use of terror and torture by our own government.

Want to complain? Well that's why they want to detect and fight you with packet shaping (sniffing).

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rein in that damn Internet!

From The Nation, "AT&T Censors Criticism of Bush" (08/10/2007)

Telecommunications giant AT&T says no one should worry about their aggressive lobbying to eliminate net neutrality -- the first amendment of the internet that guarantees equality of access to all websites.

AT&T executives claim they would never interfere with web content.

When Americans hear this spin, they should hang up on AT&T.

But on Sunday, when Pearl Jam was performing the song "Daughter" during the Lollapalooza festival in Chicago, the band broke into a version of Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall." Reworking the lyrics of the classic rock song, Vedder sang, "George Bush, leave this world alone" and "George Bush, find yourself another home."

The lyrics that criticized Bush were muted in the webcast.

[...]

AT&T admits that the censorship occurred.

Another Brick in the Wall, indeed.

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Attacking "pornography" in children's books

sometimes i am so embarrassed for my country...

The drawings are harmless really. But a US publisher has decided not to publish a series by [German] children's book author Rotraut Susanne Berner. The problem? Cartoon breasts and a half-millimeter-long willy.

[...]

[T]here were a couple of changes that had to be made before the books could be unleashed on the America public. First off, smokers had to be removed from the illustrations. But that wasn't all. One image shows a scene from an art gallery -- and for realism's sake, there is a cartoonish nude hanging on the wall along with a tiny, seven-millimeter-tall statue of a naked man on a pedestal.

American kiddies, obviously, could never be expected to handle such a depiction of the human body.

[...]

For the author, any kind of self-censorship was completely out of the question. She said she could maybe have lived with putting black bars in front of the problem spots, but "invisible censorship" was out.

[...]

But the US publisher would have none of it -- after all, one hardly wants to call attention to one's own deletions. Meaning, that the Hildesheimer publishing house will have to forego the honor of being published in the US -- and American children are safe from shocking German sensibilities.

check out the truly offensive pornography...

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Free speech in Venezuela, yes or no?

as long as we're on the subject of latin america...

we really need to keep in mind that virtually everything we see, hear, and read these days is being spun... and i mean EVERYTHING... the best we can do is to keep our eyes open for things that are being spun in directions different from the prevailing traditional media spin that permeates our daily lives... take the incessant vilification of hugo chávez in venezuela... if your information comes solely from traditional u.s. media sources, your view of mr. chávez would naturally be extremely negative... i confess that, since i'm subject to the same media deluge as everyone else, i tend to lean in that direction myself... nonetheless, it's extremely important to take into account that there are OTHER views, OTHER perspectives, that may contain more than a grain of truth...

first of all, this about the so-called censorship of free speech in venezuela, a hot topic in multiple news stories over the past few weeks...

some key points made by the author...

• Most of the media in Venezuela is still controlled by people who are vehemently (sometimes violently) opposed to the government.

• All over the broadcast media you can hear denunciations of the president and the government of the kind that you would not hear in the United States on a major national broadcast network.

• Pick up a newspaper -- El Universal and El Nacional are two of the biggest -- and the vast majority of the headlines are trying to make the government look bad.

• Turn on the radio and most of what you will hear is also anti-government.

• Venezuela has a more oppositional media than we have in the United States.

this reminds me of experiences i used to have when working in the corporate world... i would hear from various folks or read in various media, statements to the effect that, "wow, such-and-such an employer would be SO GREAT to work for... they're doing SUCH great things..." however, as an employee of said corporation, i knew better... when you are completely reliant on others in order to form your opinions, just remember, the ONLY truth comes from inside yourself, and nothing, NOTHING, substitutes for first-hand experience...

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