I recall my father's birthday in 1989 when my grandmother presented him with a piece of family history, land deeds issued as pay to a Confederate soldier that were signed by the President of the Confederate States, Jefferson Davis. Up until this moment I had no idea. "Our family owned slaves, grandma?"
My grandmother was this amazingly serene, disarmingly slight woman, raised in the deepest recesses of pre-civil rights Crenshaw, Alabama that every once in awhile made brow-raising comments that at that time defied narrative. I remember how she just looked at me and smiled before saying, "Oh no dear, our family was too poor. Slaves were for the rich people. We just fought the war for them," and left it at that. Like other such statements, her soft-toned response remained emphatic and I knew not to question it any further. We had these conversations a lot.
This morning though I was thinking about that distant relative. The man that left his small tobacco farm where he eked out a meager living for his wife and family to fight for another's Laissez-faire interest in maintaining an impoverished class. In effect he was fighting against his own interests. He had a tract of land that he and his family farmed without the luxury of growth and free labor. The land he was paid in was sold on his return to cover the lost expenses of fighting for an institution that really didn't care for his competition. Southern plantations flourished while southern farms withered and died.
In our society we operate on the supply and demand interests of capitalism. The more workers that are available for production, the lower the wages. Slavery naturally brought that the supply side to near zero when you consider that all a slave owner had to do was pay the initial purchase price, and set aside resources for housing and food.
Some slave owners even made money back by further exploiting slaves as a resource through breeding or lending their pregnant slaves to the care of Dr. J. Marion Sims in his less than kind effort to perfect the practice of episiotomy. This is indeed on the level of innovations in hypothermia research, skin grafting, and plastic surgery as perfected by Dr. Josef Mengele's experiments on prisoners at the Auschwitz concentration camp.
Overall the subject is innovation through exploitation. Innovation isn't just new technologies as it's also recognized in new philosophies, business practices, and economic models. Were we to turn off all of the electronics we would still see that innovation is all around us, but not all of it is OK.
Certainly I've been criticized on the left as embracing protectionism on the side of preserving the American middle-class just as I've been criticized on the right for being critical of free trade agreements that undermine the American middle-class. But I've never been criticized for my stance on human rights. And it makes me wonder why we're OK with outsourcing our slavery? Part of what makes multinationals successful is their ability to acquire labor in areas not only free of tax and tariff, but free of labor and safety laws. That is innovation through exploitation.
Looking back to where we've come from I found this Reason.com article from 2006 advocating free trade. That means it was written pre-Wal-Mart empire and pre-Dhaka, Bangladesh factory fire. It was written before we learned the hard lesson that always low prices come at a human premium. So why don't we make the next innovation one that demands equality through labor and safety laws for American companies using foreign labor for the American market? At the same time lessen some of the domestic agricultural subsidies while taxing the outsourced market that seeks to cut corners by de-legitimizing their costs through dismissing livable wages and workplace safety. Obviously free trade has become the new slavery.
Thursday, January 10, 2013
Saturday, November 24, 2012
The Tenth Amendment Elephant in the Room
The War on
Drugs is no more successful than the War on Terror. Cocaine trafficking didn’t magically
stop when the CIA/DEA Centra Spike Team assassinated Pablo Escobar. That was a termination of
employment, not enforcement. Just like with any other management level
termination or assassination, another person simply took his place. The well-established fact that your government has been in bed with the Cartels with evidence going back to the Reagan Administration is not up for debate, but does lend to the idea that the
deck is stacked against you, whether you’re a drug user or not.
In 2010 the
Federal Government budgeted $15 billion dollars for drug war enforcement. Here
just three years later they are nearly doubling that amount with a 2013 budget of $26 billion to combat the ever growing menace, on which in 2009
it was estimated that Americans spend $64 billion on each year. The incongruity of the numbers alone means to me that
the nation’s policy is not one of enforcement so much as it is a regulation of
trade.
Currently
the United States is spending about $500 every second on fighting
the drug war. These costs are seen in specialized police and military deployed
here and abroad. A penal and judicial system that sees’s nearly half of its
cases being drug related. People, time, equipment, and money, spread across the
states through enforcement and judicial systems adds up to more than $36.7
trillion drain on the economy so far this year alone, as of this writing.
Where this
comes back to roost is when you consider that an estimate one of every 100
US adults is currently behind bars, although DoJ statistics
suggest that number is starting to plateau or even fall. While this number is
dropping, it does not change the fact that the Land of the Free has the highest incarceration rate in the world. While the plateau or drop could easily be
attributed to prison overcrowding that has resulted in early intervention and release programs, the fact remains that one in 31
adults are currently under some form of court supervision where they enjoy as
much as a 90% recidivism rate meaning that 90% of participants will be arrested again for
the same or related charges. That’s not success. That’s your money.
Given that
information, 52% of all drug arrests in the United States are marijuana related meaning 48%
are parsed out between harder drugs like your government subsidized cocaine and heroin
habits, healthcare subsidized abused medications, LSD, banana peels, whatever. In as much as the first two are exclusively manufactured
abroad, marijuana accounts for 60% of imported narcotics while domestically cultivated cannabis accounts for as much as 80% of marijuana consumed in the US. The point of course being that the policy of attacking
marijuana as a gateway drug is a fool’s errand as its popularity and
availability lends to its potential growth as a used and abused substance that
on its face has less of a negative impact than either tobacco or alcohol.
Using the
numbers provided by the Office of National Drug Control Policy and the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness, legalization in Colorado and Washington
alone can translate to as much as $46.2 billion dollars being retained in local
economies. Of the $114.2 billion spent annually on drug treatment, only 14% of persons being admitted listed marijuana which may only be as much since
18% of all admissions were for co-occurring addictions where one or more other substances
such as cocaine, heroin, or alcoholism were in play. Even if we disregard the co-occurring
factor, marijuana would only account for $16 billion in annual treatment costs.
By way of comparison in 2006 Americans spent $83.6 billion on tobacco related products. In the period leading up to those numbers, 2000 – 2004, cigarette
smoking alone was estimated to be responsible for $193 billion in annual health-related economic losses in the United States. The
economic costs of alcohol consumption in 2006 were estimated at $223.5 billion
while Americans are expected to account for around $120 billion in sales. Clearly the matter of regulation and enforcement is arbitrary
as it is not substantiated by matters of health, morality, or economy. So what
is it all about?
First of
course there is the money that goes into the states from the federal level to
subsidize drug control initiatives by way of grants from the Office of National Drug Control Policy.
This program alone boasts of funding 17,000 state, local, and tribal officers,
analysts, and other representatives while removing a combined $32 billion from
the illicit drug trade while dismantling 2,925 drug trafficking organizations.
Funds from the individual seizures go directly back into the departments that
made the arrests. At the same time prisons are given state and federal money for each prison held that has given rise
to the private prison industry, many of which have a required occupancy rate. States will actually have to pay a penalty for not keeping
a set number of citizens in jail which disincentivizes rehabilitation. So long
as there’s more money to be had by enterprise, nothing will change.
In this
manner the transfer of taxpayer money into private hands is nothing new. The
early War on Drugs itself started as a matter of legislating in favor of
business beginning with the Uniform State Narcotic Drug Act of 1932 of which Dow Chemical was a lobby
in the inclusion of Marijuana whose naturally insect resistant production competed
with the cotton industry that was dependent on Dow Chemical for pest
management. At that same time DuPont had also patented nylon of which hemp was a direct competitor, and William Randolph Hearst, whom had heavily invested himself in the deforestation of North
America found that hemp was a major competitor to wood-pulp paper production.
These same groups were also mentioned as co-conspirators to the Business Plot of 1933 in which
a group of American businessmen approached General Smedley Butler
for his help in overthrowing the United States government. None were ever
charged.
Up until
this time hemp production was a part of American life going back to the
Colonies when King James I in 1619, ordered every colonist to grow 100 plants specifically for
export that was used in the manufacture of rope and other textiles. Industrial
hemp had many uses in early America as at the time it was used in the
manufacture of textiles and even paper production where as much as 90% of the world’s paper was hemp until regulation began in 1883. The turning point
was two-fold in that the period coincided with the influx of Chinese immigrants
building the continental railroad that brought with them hashish parlors and
opium dens; complaints from soldiers that the drug didn’t provide a long-term
alternative to injury treatment; and that marijuana cigarettes were commonly
smoked by Mexican soldiers during the US-Mexican War. The latter argument was resurrected
in 1932 when the marijuana prohibition lobby put into the American psyche that
marijuana incited “Mexicans and negroes” to go on murderous rampages; innocent white women seduced into
ruin; and teenagers going instantly insane. It is from this period that we get
the movie, Reefer Madness.
Since that time much knowledge has come by way of legitimate
research into the field of cannabis that has seen its returning to medicinal use in a few states and
the recent legalization for recreational use in Washington and Colorado. With the exception of supporters, few recognize this as being
the will of the people suggesting that the majority doesn’t support the
measure, regardless that the majority of those that bothered to actually vote
did. While the two states wait for their cue from the Federal Government before creating a
control policy, the United Nations has begun pushing the federal Government for a fight on the issue
of state level legalization despite of Obama saying that the issue belonged to
the states.
The issue of
legalization has truly become an issue of states’ rights, once
the call of Reagan
that leading up to the 2012 election and immediately afterwards was the rallying cry of the GOP. They’ve been remarkably silent on this issue, so much to the point
that a Democrat
had to pick it up in seeking not to allow the Federal Government to usurp local
authority. The same as they were silent on the issue of raids inside California
and their legal dispensaries. This hypocrisy
is perhaps best exampled in laws in states like South Carolina and others that require employers to perform a mandatory check on
the residency status of immigrants unless they are employed as nannies or
groundskeepers, AKA employed by the affluent.
Clearly the
only right they care about is their right to do as they please. Otherwise Rush Limbaugh wouldn’t shut up about
it, even though he was caught up in substance abuse. Glen Beck would be on the television
drawing us pictures of some grand conspiracy to keep him from smoking pot. Bill O’Rielly would be screaming on Fox
News about this lapse in freedom. Rep. John Boehner would be standing at the speaker, crying about Obama ruining his
country. Sarah Palin would of course say something about how great Alaskan weed is. In
fact, I’m sure even Mitt Romney would
be seeking the endorsement of Snoop Dogg.
But none of that happens. They don’t have your interests at heart. They’re only
in it for themselves, and the sooner everyone recognizes whose interests they are working for, the better.
Thursday, November 1, 2012
Monday, October 15, 2012
Some of why I'm not voting for @MittRomney
How the Invisible Hand of Government works is
by taxing activities that it wants to limit while incentivizing
activities it wants to encourage. Taxes over and above sales-tax, such
as on alcohol or tobacco are meant to regulate their use while
incentives like deductions on home, work, education, and family size
are meant to encourage settling down, buying a home, and having kids.
It's a system of punishment and reward that's been effectively used for
quite some time. You can take the red pill or you can take the blue pill, it's called free will, but I'll slap your hand if you take the red
pill and tell you that you're a 'good boy' if you take the blue. It's
simple training and we all respond to it.
See a toddler playing with a set of keys near an electrical socket? Dog shits on the floor? You know what to do. That's you enforcing the invisible hand of government that modifies behavior to affect the decisions of others for those moments of when someone is not looking over their shoulder's. Failure to heed these social controls can result in taxes, fines, incarceration, or even death when it's taken far enough. It's just what makes society function. Encourage. Discourage. Seriously, it's the foundation of capitalism. The person that conceptualized it is the only non-monarch or politician to be pictured on a British Bank Note. Adam Smith rivals Ben Franklin on his impact in creating the world we live in today. His writing helped inspire Theodore Roosevelt in creating the National Parks System. It was from his and the writings of John Locke that we got the US Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution.
Now of course on the side of encourage and discourage, larger corporations are being encouraged to outsource work while small businesses are being heavily taxed to make up the revenue. Our government signing into free trade agreements only compounds the issue because it limits their ability to bring American industry back. Adam Smith also wrote about this.
On the individual level just as taxes on alcohol or tobacco are meant to discourage, that same discouragement is used to regulate industries in other ways through secondary means. You may smoke or drink and pay the taxes because you can afford that little extra bite in the wallet. You may speed because you're OK with getting that ticket or the increase in your car insurance premiums. Just like Paul Ryan, as an avid bow hunter, could afford the extra taxes on archery equipment when he created a law that added taxes to its cost and use. It's the same as when Mitt Romney passed a law that increased fees on horseback riding instructors. He could afford to pay the little extra because after all his wife Ann is an avid fan of equestrian events. Or even when as the Governor of Massachusetts when Romney raised gun licensing fees from $25 to $100. He could afford it, but also on its face was an attempt to limit availability of the right to carry a firearm. It's the same as Romney's secondary function would limit the amount of people that his wife Ann would be made to compete against in an event, or Paul Ryan's would limit competing bow hunters in the same forest he was hunting. It wasn't exactly poaching that got Robin Hood in trouble when he was found in King Henry's forest.
See a toddler playing with a set of keys near an electrical socket? Dog shits on the floor? You know what to do. That's you enforcing the invisible hand of government that modifies behavior to affect the decisions of others for those moments of when someone is not looking over their shoulder's. Failure to heed these social controls can result in taxes, fines, incarceration, or even death when it's taken far enough. It's just what makes society function. Encourage. Discourage. Seriously, it's the foundation of capitalism. The person that conceptualized it is the only non-monarch or politician to be pictured on a British Bank Note. Adam Smith rivals Ben Franklin on his impact in creating the world we live in today. His writing helped inspire Theodore Roosevelt in creating the National Parks System. It was from his and the writings of John Locke that we got the US Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution.
Now of course on the side of encourage and discourage, larger corporations are being encouraged to outsource work while small businesses are being heavily taxed to make up the revenue. Our government signing into free trade agreements only compounds the issue because it limits their ability to bring American industry back. Adam Smith also wrote about this.
On the individual level just as taxes on alcohol or tobacco are meant to discourage, that same discouragement is used to regulate industries in other ways through secondary means. You may smoke or drink and pay the taxes because you can afford that little extra bite in the wallet. You may speed because you're OK with getting that ticket or the increase in your car insurance premiums. Just like Paul Ryan, as an avid bow hunter, could afford the extra taxes on archery equipment when he created a law that added taxes to its cost and use. It's the same as when Mitt Romney passed a law that increased fees on horseback riding instructors. He could afford to pay the little extra because after all his wife Ann is an avid fan of equestrian events. Or even when as the Governor of Massachusetts when Romney raised gun licensing fees from $25 to $100. He could afford it, but also on its face was an attempt to limit availability of the right to carry a firearm. It's the same as Romney's secondary function would limit the amount of people that his wife Ann would be made to compete against in an event, or Paul Ryan's would limit competing bow hunters in the same forest he was hunting. It wasn't exactly poaching that got Robin Hood in trouble when he was found in King Henry's forest.
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Die Religion ... ist das Opium des Volkes
I hated onions as a child. I recall entering a store with my mother when I was a child of three or four years old. She'd planned to make a potato salad and some calamari for a BBQ we were attending and ran a list of items needed. I questioned their necessity in the potato salad when she read off onions. "Because it's illegal not too," was the short answer. I seriously thought there would be police involved and I continued believing this until I was about 6 or 7 when I learned otherwise.
Why I bring up this uncomfortable episode from my childhood is that it perfectly illustrates how a person in authority will effectively lie in an effort to suit their own agenda. I don’t fault my mom for this. It’s really no different from other tools of indoctrination such as Santa Clause or other pseudo non-corporeal authoritarian figures meant to affect individual behavior for the benefit of a community. She could have said, “Because I like onions. Deal with it.” Or, “Because everyone else likes onions. It’s you that’s different.” But she didn’t. I was a small child and my mom never really was that abrasive. Besides children that age don’t exactly have a handle on their position in the world and are oft likely to test boundaries. Thus we have Santa Clause or other pseudo non-corporeal authoritarian figures to fit whatever occasion.
There are literally thousands of gods, goddesses, saints, prophets, and other incarnations to choose from to suit a specific purpose. Do you want help winning the big game? Make an offering to the Greek Goddess of victory, Nike. You want to express humility for that amazing touchdown? There’s a Jesus for that. Problem training your dogs? Try St. Hubert. Need a standard of food safety in regards to pork or shellfish? The Talmud, Qu’ran, and Holy Bible all have variations on the Book of Leviticus. In fact if you see something in society that you don’t like be they the actions of a group or individual, you can take comfort in that their mortal actions will carry on into the afterlife by mechanisms of karma, being removed from the light of god, or just outright eternal damnation. What better way of manipulation is there to modify a person’s behavior short of physical abuse?
It’s simply cheaper and easier to tell a person that they will face some unseen punishment than it is to explain the truth of a matter, thus it is easier to control an uneducated population.
Do we need institutions that reinforce morality? It helps, but whose morality and necessarily are they just compounding intolerance towards others of dissimilar faiths. Three of the religions that I referenced earlier have the same foundation, so legitimately the same god, but one split off and decided that god should have a son, and then another split saying that son was just another prophet before their current one. They sit like riders on a Bill before it’s ratified into law. Religion is a governing body with its own purposes and agendas that knows no border, though depending on where you are born more than divine planning. If you’re born in the United States, you are likely to be born a Christian. In the Middle East, overwhelmingly you’re likely a Muslim. In Israel, by law you should be a Jew. Each is culturally specific to be inclusive of the society following its edicts, and exclusionary of those devices that may challenge it. Why? Because fuck you. That’s why.
We can of course contrast and compare all day long in regards to how you are of the chosen in this divine plan while 72% of the population has been condemned to burn in hell on the day that they were born. Or that 98% of the population will await resurrection in Gehenna. Or that all but the true believers will suffer in Jahannam for all eternity. We can discuss why the first European immigrants came to the Americas, what our founding father's had to say about our Christian nation, the sanctity of marriage, immaculate conception verses rape and contraception, contributions to contemporary culture, charitable extensions, or even that moment when you really felt alone. But let’s discuss historical fact where in American history alone we can also discuss burning people at the stake, manifest destiny, the segregation of communities, the subjugation of women, or the firebombing of clinics and the assassinations of medical personnel. Globally we can discuss 77 dead in Norway, inquisitions that lasted up until 1988, the 6 million dead at the hands of Nazi ideology, or even the one-thousand years of history called the Dark Ages.
But society is better than all that. God after all is a fluid being designed in the image of man to suit the purposes of an individual’s idea of community that are not necessarily in line with communities competing for the same resources. Whether it was yesterday, 32, 80, 400, or 900 years ago, it’s not today. It’s not here. It’s not this moment. It’s not until the next terrorist, martyr, or patriot rises up to rampage a youth camp, mixed singles event, or family planning clinic, and even then the people will bury their heads in the sand looking for ways they are different rather than seeing how they are the same.
"Die Religion ... ist das Opium des Volkes"
Why I bring up this uncomfortable episode from my childhood is that it perfectly illustrates how a person in authority will effectively lie in an effort to suit their own agenda. I don’t fault my mom for this. It’s really no different from other tools of indoctrination such as Santa Clause or other pseudo non-corporeal authoritarian figures meant to affect individual behavior for the benefit of a community. She could have said, “Because I like onions. Deal with it.” Or, “Because everyone else likes onions. It’s you that’s different.” But she didn’t. I was a small child and my mom never really was that abrasive. Besides children that age don’t exactly have a handle on their position in the world and are oft likely to test boundaries. Thus we have Santa Clause or other pseudo non-corporeal authoritarian figures to fit whatever occasion.
There are literally thousands of gods, goddesses, saints, prophets, and other incarnations to choose from to suit a specific purpose. Do you want help winning the big game? Make an offering to the Greek Goddess of victory, Nike. You want to express humility for that amazing touchdown? There’s a Jesus for that. Problem training your dogs? Try St. Hubert. Need a standard of food safety in regards to pork or shellfish? The Talmud, Qu’ran, and Holy Bible all have variations on the Book of Leviticus. In fact if you see something in society that you don’t like be they the actions of a group or individual, you can take comfort in that their mortal actions will carry on into the afterlife by mechanisms of karma, being removed from the light of god, or just outright eternal damnation. What better way of manipulation is there to modify a person’s behavior short of physical abuse?
It’s simply cheaper and easier to tell a person that they will face some unseen punishment than it is to explain the truth of a matter, thus it is easier to control an uneducated population.
Do we need institutions that reinforce morality? It helps, but whose morality and necessarily are they just compounding intolerance towards others of dissimilar faiths. Three of the religions that I referenced earlier have the same foundation, so legitimately the same god, but one split off and decided that god should have a son, and then another split saying that son was just another prophet before their current one. They sit like riders on a Bill before it’s ratified into law. Religion is a governing body with its own purposes and agendas that knows no border, though depending on where you are born more than divine planning. If you’re born in the United States, you are likely to be born a Christian. In the Middle East, overwhelmingly you’re likely a Muslim. In Israel, by law you should be a Jew. Each is culturally specific to be inclusive of the society following its edicts, and exclusionary of those devices that may challenge it. Why? Because fuck you. That’s why.
We can of course contrast and compare all day long in regards to how you are of the chosen in this divine plan while 72% of the population has been condemned to burn in hell on the day that they were born. Or that 98% of the population will await resurrection in Gehenna. Or that all but the true believers will suffer in Jahannam for all eternity. We can discuss why the first European immigrants came to the Americas, what our founding father's had to say about our Christian nation, the sanctity of marriage, immaculate conception verses rape and contraception, contributions to contemporary culture, charitable extensions, or even that moment when you really felt alone. But let’s discuss historical fact where in American history alone we can also discuss burning people at the stake, manifest destiny, the segregation of communities, the subjugation of women, or the firebombing of clinics and the assassinations of medical personnel. Globally we can discuss 77 dead in Norway, inquisitions that lasted up until 1988, the 6 million dead at the hands of Nazi ideology, or even the one-thousand years of history called the Dark Ages.
But society is better than all that. God after all is a fluid being designed in the image of man to suit the purposes of an individual’s idea of community that are not necessarily in line with communities competing for the same resources. Whether it was yesterday, 32, 80, 400, or 900 years ago, it’s not today. It’s not here. It’s not this moment. It’s not until the next terrorist, martyr, or patriot rises up to rampage a youth camp, mixed singles event, or family planning clinic, and even then the people will bury their heads in the sand looking for ways they are different rather than seeing how they are the same.
"Die Religion ... ist das Opium des Volkes"
Friday, August 3, 2012
The Forgotten Issue with Chick-fil-A
Like many, I am upset over Chick-fil-A donating large amounts of money to lobby for anti-gay legislation that is based on the faith
of the company's owner, Dan Cathy.
IMO Dan Cathy (President and founder of Chick-fil-A) is
entitled to his freedom of speech and is entitle to donate HIS money as he sees
fit because he is a person. Indeed
people are upset over how he exercises his freedom of speech and that is sad.
People should be allowed to believe as they want just as those that disagree would
be doing a better public service by seeking to understand a person’s beliefs and
by educating the public on the specifics of the issue. Not doing so is a failure in society. And just like the conservative furor over
Oreo's, the protesting side too forgets about the recent, and not so recent
past. These protesters attacking Cathy for exercising his freedom of speech
threaten the credibility of protesting Chick-fil-A supporting anti-gay legislation with
criticism that cannot even withstand the scrutiny of Sarah Palin. They’ve
already lost.
The issue that should be focused on here is that unlike Cathy,
Chick-fil-A is not a person. It is a business and regardless of the 2010 US
Supreme Court decision in Citizens United vs. The FEC, corporations are not
people and are not entitled to exercise their freedom of speech. Corporate
influence is one of the gravest threats to the US political system.
Unfortunately there is no such thing as bad advertising
which is why I am bothered that protesters have allowed the issue to be made one of free speech.
It will only compel others to patronize the offending institution while still others that
don't give a shit about its practices one way or the other will not change their
buying patterns. Educating the both sides of the debate would be a more
constructive manner of affecting change in the system rather than the planned Kiss-In that will only likely affect employees and franchise owners.
Just as where many were already afraid to speak out against their employer, and in this case, franchises speaking out against corporate policy, the issue is made a bit more complex in today's uncertain economy. Affected employees my find prospects of finding new employment a bit scarce, especially for the people with only a high school diploma or less that makes up a the majority of the unemployed population. This of course emphasizes the problem of downward mobility and a shrinking middle class.
Just as where many were already afraid to speak out against their employer, and in this case, franchises speaking out against corporate policy, the issue is made a bit more complex in today's uncertain economy. Affected employees my find prospects of finding new employment a bit scarce, especially for the people with only a high school diploma or less that makes up a the majority of the unemployed population. This of course emphasizes the problem of downward mobility and a shrinking middle class.
Beginning with an organization that Chick-fil-A made donations to, Exodus International, they went beyond shaping American
politics to shaping politics in countries that are noted for human rights
violations and acts of extreme cruelty such as Uganda that made it legal to
execute homosexuals for being homosexuals. That's not supporting free speech.
That's supporting state terrorism.
It wasn't until five months after the passage of the Uganda's Anti-Homosexual Law, following public outcry
and a possible threat to their status as a 501(c)(3) in a March 2010 that
Exodus International publicly distanced themselves from the Ugandan government
with an open letter to the President of Uganda by saying, "Exodus
International believes that every human life, regardless of an individual’s
sexual behavior, is of inestimable worth to God and that defending this
principle is foundational in offering a Christian response to any issue."
It's amazing how easily a God made in man's image changes
his mind. The Biblical God would have stood by the Ugandan law requiring execution as it pretty much mirrors His own.
Just as in 2009 with Exodus International, it will
take an all-around effort of educating the public to influence
the corporate policy of Chick-fil-A. At the same time the invisible hand of government may do well to encourage Cathy to start a private foundation through
which he can support anti-gay groups on his own.
Monday, July 30, 2012
The Police State Act: An Issue With Which Everyone Should Be Concerned
It would seem that the Large Capacity Magazine Ban has been inserted into the Cyber Security Act of 2012 in Section 2575 as a compromise move with the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) and is set for a debate tomorrow with a push towards a vote being made for later this week. Of course compromise is good. It's what politics are about in ensuring that we are equally represented, but this compromise is at the detriment to the people. Left or right, everyone would be equally disfranchised by this legislation.
I'm assuming of course that we are all aware of CISPA, but let's cover the finer points of the Large Capacity Magazine Ban in the Cyber Security Act of 2012. It's important to note that the magazine ban would ban the sale or transfer, public and private, of magazines with a capacity of more than ten rounds to anyone other than law enforcement or military. Law enforcement or military? Let me repeat that, to anyone other than law enforcement or military. Take as long as you need to think that one over.
Law enforcement or military, but not you.
That being said most double stack magazines hold around 14 rounds so this ban would include popular concealed carry firearms like Glock, Beretta, and CZ. In turn I've read that many police departments require their officer's service weapons to be large capacity magazine and that is why you don't see cops carrying a Colt 1911, which is a combat tested gun. In fact the Colt 1911 is so popular with the military that the US Marines recently put in a $22.5 million order for their armories. This of course is not connected with the Department of Homeland Security March 2012 order of 450 million rounds from local manufacturer ATK. The ordered rounds were .40 caliber while the 1911 is a .45.
The more common civilian caliber is the 9mm for the estimated 80 million private owners in the United States. So let's say that you were one of these owners and you passed away. What happens to your semi-automatic? Better question, what would happen to your family?
Well...whoever would be heir to that firearm would be a felon since the private transfer of not the weapon, but the magazine would be illegal. Your wife your husband, your now adult child over the age of 21, anyone who comes into possession of that magazine after you would be a felon thus making them ineligible to own a firearm. I assume you would be expected to call the police so they could come collect it, thus it becomes a legitimate war of attrition.
Whether you are for or against the private ownership of guns, this is an important issue. Think about this quote from one of the key framers of the US Constitution, "The strongest reason for the people to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government." Thomas Jefferson said that. He also said, "When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty." But best of all he said, "Tyranny is defined as that which is legal for the government but illegal for the citizenry." He also said something about the "Tree of Liberty," but that is a conversation for another time.
Now I don't know about you, but I know quite a few liberal minded protesters that are pretty concerned with the government, today. Last night one even dropped the F-word, fear, and when a liberal fears the policies of a Democrat President, it's time to start having some frank conversations with your politicians. Here is a list of Utah's current Congressional delegation. Feel free to contact them regarding this issue. If you are outside of Utah, then you can lookup members of your own delegation HERE.
Tell them NO on CISPA, S.3414 and NO on the Large Capacity Magazine Ban, S. 2575. In the same call, tell them YES on another measure in the bill, the Geolocation Privacy and Surveillance Act that would require law enforcement to get a warrant before tracking your movements surreptitiously.
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT)
Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT)
Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT 1st District)
Rep. Jim Matheson (D-UT 2nd District)
Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT 3rd District)
I'm assuming of course that we are all aware of CISPA, but let's cover the finer points of the Large Capacity Magazine Ban in the Cyber Security Act of 2012. It's important to note that the magazine ban would ban the sale or transfer, public and private, of magazines with a capacity of more than ten rounds to anyone other than law enforcement or military. Law enforcement or military? Let me repeat that, to anyone other than law enforcement or military. Take as long as you need to think that one over.
Law enforcement or military, but not you.
That being said most double stack magazines hold around 14 rounds so this ban would include popular concealed carry firearms like Glock, Beretta, and CZ. In turn I've read that many police departments require their officer's service weapons to be large capacity magazine and that is why you don't see cops carrying a Colt 1911, which is a combat tested gun. In fact the Colt 1911 is so popular with the military that the US Marines recently put in a $22.5 million order for their armories. This of course is not connected with the Department of Homeland Security March 2012 order of 450 million rounds from local manufacturer ATK. The ordered rounds were .40 caliber while the 1911 is a .45.
The more common civilian caliber is the 9mm for the estimated 80 million private owners in the United States. So let's say that you were one of these owners and you passed away. What happens to your semi-automatic? Better question, what would happen to your family?
Well...whoever would be heir to that firearm would be a felon since the private transfer of not the weapon, but the magazine would be illegal. Your wife your husband, your now adult child over the age of 21, anyone who comes into possession of that magazine after you would be a felon thus making them ineligible to own a firearm. I assume you would be expected to call the police so they could come collect it, thus it becomes a legitimate war of attrition.
Whether you are for or against the private ownership of guns, this is an important issue. Think about this quote from one of the key framers of the US Constitution, "The strongest reason for the people to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government." Thomas Jefferson said that. He also said, "When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty." But best of all he said, "Tyranny is defined as that which is legal for the government but illegal for the citizenry." He also said something about the "Tree of Liberty," but that is a conversation for another time.
Now I don't know about you, but I know quite a few liberal minded protesters that are pretty concerned with the government, today. Last night one even dropped the F-word, fear, and when a liberal fears the policies of a Democrat President, it's time to start having some frank conversations with your politicians. Here is a list of Utah's current Congressional delegation. Feel free to contact them regarding this issue. If you are outside of Utah, then you can lookup members of your own delegation HERE.
Tell them NO on CISPA, S.3414 and NO on the Large Capacity Magazine Ban, S. 2575. In the same call, tell them YES on another measure in the bill, the Geolocation Privacy and Surveillance Act that would require law enforcement to get a warrant before tracking your movements surreptitiously.
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT)
- Washington DC: 202-224-5251
- Salt Lake City: 801-524-4380
- Provo: 801-375-7881
- St. George: 435-634-1795
- Ogden: 801-625-5672
- Cedar City: 435-586-8435
Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT)
Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT 1st District)
- Washington DC: 202-225-0453
- Ogden: 801-625-0107
- Brigham City: 435-734-2270
- Salt Lake City: 801-532-3244
Rep. Jim Matheson (D-UT 2nd District)
- Washington DC: 202-225-3011
- Salt Lake City: 801-486-1236
- St. George: 801-627-0880
- Price: 435-636-3722
Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT 3rd District)
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
ObamaCare and You
“Obamacare is socialized medicine,” says the Republican
Party. No, no — excuse me — socialized medicine is what we have now! People
without insurance can go to an emergency ward or throw themselves on the mercy
of a doctor, and the cost of all this uncompensated care is shared by all those
who have insurance, raising your rates and mine. That is socialized medicine
and that is what Obamacare ends."
~Thomas Friedman, May 26, 2012, New York Times
As an unemployed, uninsured single-father, I had hoped that the US Supreme Court would strike down the Affordable Care Act, but they didn't, so now it's time to adjust. The Affordable Care Act, or as the wags would call it,
ObamaCare does nothing to help those in need of coverage that don't qualify for
federal assistance, and in fact penalizes them for not being covered. This will
only further erode an already suffering middle class.
Yes if you're younger than 26, you can get on your parents
insurance, but how many in that age group have kids of their own? And yes if
you have a pre-existing condition, you cannot be denied coverage. That is if you have access to health insurance. While relative unemployment sits just above 8%, real unemployment in America is around 15% combined with scores of the populations, just under half, living barely above the poverty line
of $23,050 for a family of four making them ineligible for state assistance. People in that group will be on the hook for their own coverage. People in that group are going to be penalized. The President gave the insurance company customers, but he gave a huge chunk of America nothing!
The insurance companies only agreed to drop the pre-existing condition in exchange for agreeing to everyone being required to be insured. There is a voucher program being implemented for those making up to 400% above poverty level, but that voucher will only be equal to the monthly portion of the cost of the eligible employer-sponsored plan which would have been paid by the employer if you were a covered employee. Medical insurance can be expensive when you're working. Imagine if your not working, but still paying that same premium. When you're already covering housing, transportation, and food, then add one more obligation, that "and" could quickly become and "or," and you're forced to choose which one you don't need so much of.
Add to these concerns that a $2,000 penalty to employers that do not offer coverage to full-time employees and you'll see an accelerated push to already alarming employment trends. For one the penalty in many cases will be the cheaper option for the employer over providing membership in a group policy. What exactly defined full-time employment may also change to further exclude employees to avoid the penalty altogether such as 36 hour work weeks just avoid full-time status, longer probationary periods for new employees, or as what's becoming popular in some sectors, contract 1099 workers with an option for a permanent position after one year making them their own entity responsible for everything that the employer would normally manage, except the workload that is.
The insurance companies only agreed to drop the pre-existing condition in exchange for agreeing to everyone being required to be insured. There is a voucher program being implemented for those making up to 400% above poverty level, but that voucher will only be equal to the monthly portion of the cost of the eligible employer-sponsored plan which would have been paid by the employer if you were a covered employee. Medical insurance can be expensive when you're working. Imagine if your not working, but still paying that same premium. When you're already covering housing, transportation, and food, then add one more obligation, that "and" could quickly become and "or," and you're forced to choose which one you don't need so much of.
Add to these concerns that a $2,000 penalty to employers that do not offer coverage to full-time employees and you'll see an accelerated push to already alarming employment trends. For one the penalty in many cases will be the cheaper option for the employer over providing membership in a group policy. What exactly defined full-time employment may also change to further exclude employees to avoid the penalty altogether such as 36 hour work weeks just avoid full-time status, longer probationary periods for new employees, or as what's becoming popular in some sectors, contract 1099 workers with an option for a permanent position after one year making them their own entity responsible for everything that the employer would normally manage, except the workload that is.
The Affordable Care Act is a back-handed attempt to appeal to the masses
that will hurt more than it helps, and will ultimately serve to further marginalize the middle-class. It's time to legitimately socialize
medicine already and to start taking care of the people. The healthcare system
as it stands or even as Obama has designed it to become, even with emergency
care is far from a socialized system, and frankly it's a display of, for lack
of a better term, proletariat ignorance and a slap in the face of 143 million Americans to suggest otherwise! Health care in America is one of the best, but
it's the healthcare system that is a horrible representation of our society,
and serves as an embarrassing reminder that we are incapable of taking care of
our own people.
On June 27 I checked my Facebook and found a notice from a person on my Friend's List advertising a fund raiser for a person's cancer treatment. This is the forth such notice to cross my Facebook account since January, all for different people. One is for cancer treatments, and two are for traumatic brain injuries, and another for a chronic condition. All four are high-school graduates, one holds a middle management position, and two are unemployed. One that I know of does have medical insurance, but the coverage is inadequate which caused much of his therapy to end after 30 days and leaves the quality of his long term care in limbo. So if there is going to be any substantive insurance reform, how about we start with these four people?
On June 27 I checked my Facebook and found a notice from a person on my Friend's List advertising a fund raiser for a person's cancer treatment. This is the forth such notice to cross my Facebook account since January, all for different people. One is for cancer treatments, and two are for traumatic brain injuries, and another for a chronic condition. All four are high-school graduates, one holds a middle management position, and two are unemployed. One that I know of does have medical insurance, but the coverage is inadequate which caused much of his therapy to end after 30 days and leaves the quality of his long term care in limbo. So if there is going to be any substantive insurance reform, how about we start with these four people?
TBI
Cancer
Chronic
Condition
Follow me on Twitter @snokedawg
P.S. To add insult to injury, one in three Americans is unable to visit a
dentist and you realize that we have a real problem that making it illegal to
not have insurance won't fix. Our leaders sold us out. Proud to be an Amerikan,
yo...
P.S.S. Damn, post this article a few times in reply to people celebrating the Supreme Court decision and I get reported for spam? It's the online equivilant of putting your fingers in your ears and shouting "Lalalalalalala." That's a fine defense to your argument.
P.S.S. Damn, post this article a few times in reply to people celebrating the Supreme Court decision and I get reported for spam? It's the online equivilant of putting your fingers in your ears and shouting "Lalalalalalala." That's a fine defense to your argument.
Today's lecture with Baleigh: Reality Shows
So I'm scrolling through Hulu seeing if there's anything interesting.
Baleigh: Hey look, they have the new season of Punk'd!
Me: What? No! I hate the show. Well I don't hate it, but rich people playing pranks on rich people is not something that I want to watch.
In fact, do you know what would make a good reality show? If they took away Ashton Kutcher's home, his cars, drained his bank account and set him on the streets of America just to see how he'd handle it. We'd get to see Ashton Kutcher in the homeless shelter. Ashton Kutcher in the food line. I'd watch that. Hell, I'd watch the shit out of that!
Baleigh: You're mean. </sarcasm>
Me: No, it's just that people like him make me sick. There are three types of wealth: acquired, inherited, and given.
Acquired wealth is when someone comes up with an idea and markets it, which makes money for them.
Inherited wealth is when someone is left money by the person that acquired it. Sometimes they do well with it. Other times they don't.
And then there's just the given wealth for people like Ashton Kutcher who really did nothing to earn it beyond being pretty. He was a Calvin Klein underwear model before anything else, and people gave him money for it. It's not like he has talent anyway.
Baleigh: Like Paris Hilton?
Me: No. Her's was inherited wealth, and the only reason she got famous was because someone thought it would be a good idea to take two untalented, spoiled rich girls and put them on TV.
Baleigh: Remember when we watched House of Wax just to see her die?
Baleigh: Hey look, they have the new season of Punk'd!
Me: What? No! I hate the show. Well I don't hate it, but rich people playing pranks on rich people is not something that I want to watch.
In fact, do you know what would make a good reality show? If they took away Ashton Kutcher's home, his cars, drained his bank account and set him on the streets of America just to see how he'd handle it. We'd get to see Ashton Kutcher in the homeless shelter. Ashton Kutcher in the food line. I'd watch that. Hell, I'd watch the shit out of that!
Baleigh: You're mean. </sarcasm>
Me: No, it's just that people like him make me sick. There are three types of wealth: acquired, inherited, and given.
Acquired wealth is when someone comes up with an idea and markets it, which makes money for them.
Inherited wealth is when someone is left money by the person that acquired it. Sometimes they do well with it. Other times they don't.
And then there's just the given wealth for people like Ashton Kutcher who really did nothing to earn it beyond being pretty. He was a Calvin Klein underwear model before anything else, and people gave him money for it. It's not like he has talent anyway.
Baleigh: Like Paris Hilton?
Me: No. Her's was inherited wealth, and the only reason she got famous was because someone thought it would be a good idea to take two untalented, spoiled rich girls and put them on TV.
Baleigh: Remember when we watched House of Wax just to see her die?
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Today's lecture with Baleigh: Music and Politics
So we're in the car listening to Public Enemy.
Me: So you didn't know that Flava Flav came from Public Enemy?
Baleigh: No.
Me: Ugh. OK, let's take it back. What did Ice T bring to the hip-hop scene?
Baleigh: I don't know.
Me: A hype-man! That's what Flava Flav did.
Baleigh: I don't care. Well, I knew that, but I don't care.
My poor child gets frequently lectured on the socially significant music of late 20th century artists like Public Enemy, Ice T, Beastie Boys, NWA, et.al. Occasionally others like Slayer, Megadeth, and early Metallica get thrown into the mix for their relationship to politics and the American war fetish. She says that doesn't care, but she listens.
It's at this point that we should maybe feel bad for her teenage self.
Me: So you didn't know that Flava Flav came from Public Enemy?
Baleigh: No.
Me: Ugh. OK, let's take it back. What did Ice T bring to the hip-hop scene?
Baleigh: I don't know.
Me: A hype-man! That's what Flava Flav did.
Baleigh: I don't care. Well, I knew that, but I don't care.
My poor child gets frequently lectured on the socially significant music of late 20th century artists like Public Enemy, Ice T, Beastie Boys, NWA, et.al. Occasionally others like Slayer, Megadeth, and early Metallica get thrown into the mix for their relationship to politics and the American war fetish. She says that doesn't care, but she listens.
It's at this point that we should maybe feel bad for her teenage self.
Monday, June 11, 2012
Losing the First Amendment
The print media may well be the
foundation of the American political system. Since before Benjamin Franklin absconded from his indentured servitude as a printers apprentice and chose to live as a semi-fugitive, the printed media
has served as a platform to incite discussions on fairness and equality. Men
like Adam Smith that authored a series of pamphlets named “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations,” and John Locke with “The Second Treatises of Government,”
laid the foundation for what the new world was to become.
During the framing of the US
Constitution, a series of articles written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay that came to be called the Federalist Papers appeared in the newspaper, The Independent
Journal and were designed to persuade the population into ratifying the US
Constitution. It was from these writings that evolved our Bill of Rights that guaranteed
among other things that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment
of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom
of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble,
and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” But regardless of
this guarantee, our freedoms are fragile, and without due attention can be
fleeting.
The
Fairness Doctrine
The Fairness Doctrine’s
importance was in the limited available spectrum utilized by the various
broadcast networks. The internet did not exist. Cable television was not
available. There was radio, newspaper, and TV. We had television that consisted
of Very High Frequency that covered channels one though 13, and Ultra High
Frequency for channels 14 and higher. Channel one was later reserved for war
purposes after 1941, which is why it is not accessible on your television today.
The Fairness Doctrine was introduced in 1949 to preserve fair and
balanced reporting of important social issues. The mandate had little to do
with providing equal time to contrasting viewpoints as it did require that those
contrasting viewpoints be offered. As a child I remember a stuffy old man that
would come on KSL Channel 5 for 30 seconds to lecture on whatever, that was the
KSL television editorial commentator, Don Gale. He was honoring the Fairness
Doctrine by providing a contrasting viewpoint. And later I found out, he was
far from stuffy. Such voluntary compliance was a testament to the success of
the program as noted by the Federal Communications Commission in 1974 with the
caveat, "Should future experience indicate that the doctrine [of
'voluntary compliance'] is inadequate, either in its expectations or in its
results, the Commission will have the opportunity—and the responsibility—for
such further reassessment and action as would be mandated."
None of this is to say that the fairness Doctrine did not experience
its own set of problems. Multiple Supreme Court challenges questioned the
constitutionality of the program that was upheld under the understanding that
electronic media has limited distribution while newspapers for their maturity
had a more diverse and thus fairly competitive market. Ultimately in 1987 the
US Supreme Court ruled in Meredith
Corp. vs. FCC that the FCC was no longer held to enforcing the Fairness
Doctrine as it was not a mandate of Congress. In response an attempt was made by Congress to
legislate the Fairness Doctrine, but was vetoed in
1987 by then President Ronald Reagan who felt embattled by the three major
networks at the time, and was again stopped in 1991 with a promised veto by then
President George H.W. Bush.
Later that year the FCC in a unanimous decision voted to remove
enforcement of the Fairness Doctrine citing, “We seek to extend to the electronic
press the same First Amendment guarantees that the print media have enjoyed
since our country's inception.”
In the period since 1987 we have met Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity,
and Glenn Beck. We have met John Stewart and Steven Colbert. We have been
witness to divisive media that pits American against American. We have seen the
broad diversity of the public media again become distilled into the hands of a
few media giants that
control everything from the music we listen too, to the newspapers and magazines
we read, to the TV we watch, the movies we enjoy, and the internet we surf. This
is the very action that the Fairness Doctrine was intended to prevent.
As Justice
Byron White wrote for the court in its unanimous 1969 Red
Lion Broadcasting Co. vs. FCC decision, "A license permits
broadcasting, but the licensee has no constitutional right to be the one who
holds the license or to monopolize a radio frequency to the exclusion of his
fellow citizens. There is nothing in the First Amendment which prevents the
Government from requiring a licensee to share his frequency with others.... It
is the right of the viewers and listeners, not the right of the broadcasters,
which is paramount."
Jane
Akre & Steve Wilson vs. Fox Broadcasting
The Telecommunications
Act of 1996 was the first significant overhaul of the Communications
Act of 1934, which created the Federal Communications Commission. The new
Act sought to broaden the field of the media industry by allowing anyone to "let anyone enter any
communications business…" but it instead had the effect of concentrating
media ownership that gave large news organizations a direct influence over
local reporting.
Jane Akre and her husband Steve Wilson were a husband and wife
journalism team working for Fox subsidiary WTVT in Tampa, Florida in 1997 when
they began working on a story regarding the agricultural biotechnology company
Monsanto and their use of recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH) in dairy
producing cows. Monsanto responded with a threatened
lawsuit if WTVT chose to air the story. WTVT responded by airing a Monsanto
rBGH positive story. Ultimately Akre and Wilson were
dismissed as a result and in a subsequent lawsuit won their claim under
Florida’s whistleblowing statute, but lost under appeal as The
Communications Act of 1934 did not specifically prohibit the distortion of
news. At no point during the trial did Fox Broadcasting dispute their
distortion of the news, they only cited that it was their prerogative to do so.
The ruling gave Fox the permission to present the news however they saw fit, and this
is the very reason that Fox
News is not shown in Canada. Canadian stations with similar ambitious are
also denied a broadcast license.
Espionage
Act of 1917
The Espionage
Act of 1917 was enacted shortly after the United States entered into World
War I with the expressed intent to prohibited any attempt to interfere with
military operations, to support U.S. enemies during wartime, to promote
insubordination in the military, or to interfere with military recruitment. The
draft originally proposed by the President Woodrow Wilson proposed a measure
that included press censorship, but the House declined and Wilson begrudgingly
signed the Act without the provision on June 15, 1917. The law was made to
include the Sedition
Act of 1918 eleven months later that included a broad range of offenses
that are normally covered by the First Amendment of the US Constitution, but
that specific provision was repealed in 1920. The Espionage Act itself still
remains with infrequent updates and enforcement of the Act is at the
discretion of the US Attorney General.
Notable persons prosecuted under the Act would include columnist and
suspected spies Julius and Ethel
Rosenberg. Ethel was posthumously exonerated, though it was later revealed
that Julius was indeed involved in passing information to the Soviets. Noted whistleblowers
Daniel Ellsberg, and
US Army Pfc. Bradley
Manning had also found their way into prosecution for very similar actions.
Ellsberg was eventually hailed as a hero for his leaking information on the
Viet Nam war while the case remains to be seen on Manning. Five
other relatively recent cases have also found themselves under the
magnifying glass. You may not know the names, but if you’ve been paying
attention, you would know the stories: former senior executive at the National
Security Agency, Tom
Drake; Former FBI translator, Shamai
Leibowitz; former State Department contractor, Stephen Jin-Woo; former
CIA Agent, Jeffrey
Sterling; former CIA Director of counter terrorism operations in Pakistan, John
Kiriakou; and former Department of Justice Attorney, Thomas
Tamm.
Reporters as well are caught up and threatened in the dragnet approach of national security, most notable to me would be New York Times reporters, James Risen and Eric Lichtblau that were awarded the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 2006 for a series of controversial investigative reports that they co-wrote about the National Security Agency's surveillance of international communications originating or terminating in the United States codenamed "Stellar Wind" and about a government program called Terrorist Finance Tracking Program designed to detect terrorist financiers, which involved searches of money transfer records in the international SWIFT database. SImilar to the New York Times, and Risen and Lichtblau, Wikileaks and its founder, Julian Assange remain beset by difficulty at the behest of State Department officials from being made to relocate their servers to having their funding blocked. At least eleven of those 13 names should be honored as national heroes rather than just Ellsberg's, not forgotten in the winds of history along with an unknown number to come. All of these individuals have provided rich context from which we are able to understand the workings of our government.
Reporters as well are caught up and threatened in the dragnet approach of national security, most notable to me would be New York Times reporters, James Risen and Eric Lichtblau that were awarded the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 2006 for a series of controversial investigative reports that they co-wrote about the National Security Agency's surveillance of international communications originating or terminating in the United States codenamed "Stellar Wind" and about a government program called Terrorist Finance Tracking Program designed to detect terrorist financiers, which involved searches of money transfer records in the international SWIFT database. SImilar to the New York Times, and Risen and Lichtblau, Wikileaks and its founder, Julian Assange remain beset by difficulty at the behest of State Department officials from being made to relocate their servers to having their funding blocked. At least eleven of those 13 names should be honored as national heroes rather than just Ellsberg's, not forgotten in the winds of history along with an unknown number to come. All of these individuals have provided rich context from which we are able to understand the workings of our government.
Smith-Mundt
Modernization Act of 2012
As evidenced by the above names, Washington and the military have
long played politics
in the media. A quick scan of your local TV listing would reveal any number
of programs that air with the governments blessing so long as the government is
portrayed in a positive light. Immediate examples on television would include
NCIS and Army Wives. Examples of movies would be Top Gun, Transformers, Battle:
Los Angeles, Battleship, Act of Valor. All play a subtle role in developing
desired behaviors in the public and the enlisted ranks which all dance the edge
of permissible propaganda that has been explicitly forbids targeting American
citizens on American soil since 1948.
The Smith-Mundt
Modernization Act of 2012 is being written into the Fiscal Year 2013
National Defense Authorization Act that would remove the distinction between
foreign and domestic audiences similar to the removal of the distinction
between foreign
and domestic combatants in the FY2012 NDAA. Entirely too much we sit back
and watch this happen. Though these laws may have originated in private, the
smoke filled rooms where this kind of legislation once originated is happening
before our very eyes. The smoke filled rooms of the past have become the House
and Senate floors of today!
These bills are being passed with remarkable swiftness with nary a
debate in the House and
near unanimous votes in the Senate. Our politicians
do not speak for us and those that we depended on to explain these issues for us are falling
silent. This is not America, and this is not our representational republic. As
President Abraham Lincoln said, “America will never be destroyed from the
outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed
ourselves.” And he may well be right.
Channel one may soon be on your TV.
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