Tannishblog

Found via a wandering post at Etherialgirl, the documentary Loose Change, a possible contender for the Mother of All Conspiracy Theories, gives pause for thought. The trouble with such outlandish assertions is that they will convince only those who don’t need convincing, and alienate only those who would never believe it in the first place: It’s preaching to the choir.

America is slowly waking up to our situation, stretching and blinking in the light, that our once-admired president (and entourage of sociopaths) might not have the nation’s interest entirely in the forefront of their collective frontal lobes, such as they are. As for me, I’ve always listened to my inner voice, never has it steered me wrong. As such, I’ve distrusted the man on sight - one smirk was all it took.

Given the outrageous things we’ve learned about the neo-cons lately, the message of Loose Change doesn’t seem so preposterous as it might have a few years back. Another provocative movie is Hijacking Catastrophe, which came out a couple years ago, underlining possible motives for our War on Humanity. Watch them together, if you can do so without becoming homicidal, and I assure you the world will look a bit darker in the morning…

Truth hurts.

I learned something this morning.

As I sit at my laptop seeking inspiration for this blog, I receive and email from my friends at Democracy for Illinois. Yesterday the House voted on the “net neutrality” issue. For those just emerging from hibernation, info can be found here. As DFI has it, in collaboration with MyDD, a total of five Democratic congressional representatives voted to end the free internet. To wit:

1. Ed Towns (NY-10) received $22,000 from cable and telecom company interests. I’m glad you can reach him at (202) 225-5936.

2. Al Wynn (MD-04) received $19,100 from cable and telecom company interests. I’m glad you can reach him at (202) 225-8699.

3. Charlie Gonzales (TX-20) received $16,500 from cable and telecom company interests. I’m glad you can reach him at (202) 225-3236.

4. Bobby Rush (IL-01) received $21,000 from cable and telecom company interests. I’m glad you can reach him at
(202) 225-4372.

5. Gene Green (TX-29) received $12,000 from cable and telecom company interests. I’m glad you can reach him at (202) 225-1688 tel.

So what did I learn from this? The average cost of a Democratic vote is $18120. For companies like Verizon, AT&T, and Comcast, this is chump change, and anyone being sold out for so little deserves to be called a chump.

As I am a Chicago native, I am particularly stung to find Bobby Rush on this list of compromised lawmakers. His First Congressional District in Illinois includes Chicago proper and many suburbs to the southwest. To add further injury, he proudly proclaims his affiliation with the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, among other committees and subcommittees. While I am glad that my representative Jan Schakowski did not vote with Bobby Rush, if this train wreck occurs, all will be affected by it.

Be honest: censorship of the Internet is un-American. Never mind the pretense of market forces instigating this travesty. I can’t help the feeling that certain high-ranking government officials would love to shut up the blogocube and it’s unruly participants, what with their crass ways of sowing dissent against an unrepentant tyrannical administration.

Did I say that? But I digress…

To counter the argument by a telecom CEO about needing compensation for the internet using his “pipes,” I looked at my Earthlink bill which kindly breaks down the various charges for my broadband. Of my $43 monthly bill, $20 goes to my telecom. Just over three dollars is tax, leaving the rest for Earthlink. Almost half of what I pay goes to the keepers of the “pipes.” Multiply that by the millions of households having internet access across the nation, and I see a large sum of money rightly going to those who build the conduits for the bits to travel.

I’m seriously considering canceling my Verizon account as it comes up for renewal next month. There are other, more ethical wireless companies happy to take my money. You may remember that they were one of a few companies who generously contributed to Tom DeLay’s defense fund last year. Now this – need I say more?

Unfortunately, but perhaps not surprisingly, we supporters of a free Internet have lost this vote. We have gained in publicity for this subtle yet crucial attack on our freedom of expression. With all that is wrong with our current administration, perhaps this may be one of the largest to affect the lives of Americans for generations to come: the ending of Internet Democracy.

An uninspiring news day, today. Besides being worn out from a tough work week, I cannot find anything to get excited about in the news.

Perhaps that’s a good thing. I’m sure some would think so.

Time for some light fare: I would like to share this touching article from the NY Times, written by Tom Hanks. He shares an insiders view of a unapplauded art form and says farewell to a friend.

As a practicing Buddhist, I have begun to realize the nature of aggression. Both within and without, aggressive behavior has dominated much of my years in this life. What I’ve discovered is that such behavior – anger, hatred, arguments and fighting, are all based upon fear. As such, they are outward signs of cowardliness. No matter the scale, from rude gestures in traffic to preemptive military campaigns, aggression stems from fear.

As a Buddhist, I try to curb my fears, tame my aggressive nature by investigating it and being open and honest – not only with others, but with myself. I try to tread the path of peace. Peace is the opposite of war. So, too is the motivation of peaceful conduct the opposite of fear.

Peace takes courage. But that kind of courage is not celebrated in America. I admit to liking Jimmy Carter for trying to take the more difficult path to peace during his tenure. Most Americans, indeed all of the right-minded ones, view his as a weak eccentric at nest, and a failed president at worst. As President, Jimmy did many good things, taking tiny yet essential steps toward world peace. His downfall was the inherent impatience of the average American and the insurmountable greed of its corporate interests. Neither camp is interested in world peace, then or now.

I write this in response to a website named Peace Takes Courage. Just the title sparked my imagination. Its message cannot be spoken enough: End the Iraqi War. Our conflict is unique in American history, perhaps in world history. To take a horrible disaster perpetrated upon a nation’s innocents and mastermind a fictitious campaign of deceit toward a premeditated goal of warfare against people not actually involved with that disaster has no precedent. Iraq had nothing to do with the attacks on September 11, 2001; no one can deny this truth. To perpetrate the most expensive war in history, a dream that was in the making long before our President and his cronies tipped the electoral scales in 2000, and to base the execution of that dream upon the convenient excuse of a national disaster, is nothing short of criminal.

Criminal behavior, like all expressions of aggression, is rooted in cowardice. Fear drives the criminals in Washington: fear of disclosure forces slander campaigns and identity leaks; fear of the American public manifests in lying and further lying to cover for the previous falsehoods; fear of foreign entities is ultimately expressed in a global conflict of mastery. That is exactly the kind of game the Bush administration is playing. Their fear is so great that no one is exempt from paying the price for their cowardly actions.

America must stand up against this tyranny of fear. We must demand accountability, first with censure, then with impeachment proceedings. If our leaders are as innocent of wrongdoings as they would claim, then to submit themselves to the scrutiny inherent in any public figure, and allow such procedures to commence. Justice, if done well, will prevail and the truly guiltless will emerge unscathed. Only the guilty will be punished, as the law allows.

But that’s another thing their afraid of…

While Nepal celebrates its political victory, the newspapers return to their navel-watching of American politics. The top story is how the GOP “leaders” (I hate to use those terms together) are urging our Favorite Shrubbery to launch an investigation into alleged price-gouging by US oil companies.

I’ll wait until you stop laughing…

I’m trying to think up a suitable punch line. Such a blatant publicity stunt must have some comical precedent – help me out here.

OK. It’s an election year. Republicans have fumbled the ball on almost every issue they’ve tried. Corruption abounds, lies are exposed, cronyism and incompetence. Now, the annual driving season approaches, and their friends in petroleum that helped pay for they’re jobs are doing business as oil companies have done every year since the 1950’s: Hike the prices on gasoline to reap a higher profit margin during the peak season.

This is not news. What makes it difficult for congress, is the deregulation of the past few fiscal budgets, and the outlay of pork – not to mention the major his to refineries thanks to Katrina. Increase drain on oil reserves for an ongoing conflict and our failed attempt to secure and rebuild the Iraqi oil pipeline may have contributed to the record-high oil price. Finally, the fact that we arguable have reached the tipping point called “Peak Oil.” All of this adds up to a great deal of pressure on the ruling party.

I’m just thinking, here, but maybe all this leads to our Conniver-in-Chief to finally start funding (with what little money the government has left) alternative energy research.

Why do I thing of cart-and-horse or horse-and-barn analogies? Maybe we should all but a horse for the upcoming energy crisis. Then we can all remember just how much energy is produced at one horsepower. Besides, in another few years a horse will be cheaper than a tank of gas.

Three weeks: That’s how long it took for the people of Nepal to gain an agreement with King Gyanedra over reinstatement of their Parliament. Protesters began their efforts on April 6, affectively closing down the tiny nation until their demands were met. CNN writes about the gun battles over the weekend, and about today’s celebrations. The Washington Post insists on painting a picture of an embattled government and an unruly populace, linking the pro-democracy movement with the separate actions of the Maoist rebels and taking the side of established power. Note how WaPo uses the word “opposition” in place of “demonstrators” when referring to the Nepalese people, and how it stresses the refusal of a watered down concession by King Gyanedra to reinstall the Prime Minister instead of the whole Parliament. The NY Times takes a human-interest slant by denoting the troubles of a hospital in Katmandu.

An interesting point is brought up in the NYT articles about the recent urging by the US, India, China and the EU for the protesting parties to accept the king’s earlier offer of reinstating the Prime Minister. The commoners knew this to be a side issue, and would not be distracted by it…

On Sunday, some of Nepal’s best known civic advocates, now in detention in a police barracks outside the capital, sent a letter of defiance to foreign ambassadors. The letter said that the endorsement of the king’s offer by the ambassadors’ countries had “needlessly delayed a peaceful transition in the country at a critical hour.”

“We ask you, in the hours and days ahead, to be more alert to royal machinations and to support the political parties as they challenge the royal palace,” said the letter, signed by 18 detainees, including human rights advocates, writers, lawyers and doctors — among them the director of Model Hospital, Dr. Bharat Pradhan.

…and issuing the above statement to tell outsiders to back off and stay out if it. I’m called to mind the hubris of the industrialized nations and of the collective arrogance that many of the world’s wealthiest nations bring to “negotiations.” America is the worst of the bunch, telling the Nepali people that we know what’s best for them. When has America given two thoughts to Nepal before this past week? Of all the previously mentioned nations, India alone backed off their stance after Nepal’s rebuttal.

Although this drama is not over, a lesson can be learned by the determination of the Nepali people, their courage in the face of tear gas and bullets, and their unwillingness to accept half measures. Three weeks of grass roots politics at its most basic level affected a change that our leaders have been pretending at for three years in Iraq. I cannot stress this lesson enough: Democracy is born from the will of the people involved, not from the will of foreign armies and unrelenting political ideologies.

As a contrast to the Iraqi situation, we can see how a nation reacts when it truly wants a democratic representation, as exemplified in the actions of the Nepalese. And we can see how a nation reacts when democracy is forced down their unwilling throats, as exemplified by the Iraqis.

A Revolution is occurring in Nepal. Western media is misrepresenting the story, subtly backing the entrenched monarchy by careful use of language. Never mind that King Gyanedra killed his own brother to gain the throne; that’s what Monarchies are made of - traitorous family values. Westerners want to believe in beneficial little kingdoms in our modern world; they’re quaint. The reality is more akin to the modern rhetorical posturing reminiscent of a certain self-proclaimed “Super Power,” wherein lying is the defacto methodology and brute force is the path to cowering the people. (Okay: so we’ve not gone the brute force route - yet.)

In response to my last post on Nepal, I received a welcome comment (I don’t get many…) in the form of three links to a blog by Paramendra Bhagat, who is watching the developments closely. I suspect he has family in the region. Nonetheless, he is eloquent and much more knowledgeable than I. Check him out here.

These days, I’m inclined to listen the news spin and instinctively side with the commoners. In such cases as Nepal, people don’t consciously gather to oust a beneficial government, as most humans prefer stability in their lives over chaos. But the media keeps playing on the phrase “…Opposition to the absolute rule of Nepal’s King Gyanendra, who vowed to return political power “to the people” the day before.” As CNN puts it.

How many times can national leaders lie to the public before the media catches on? That’s a rhetorical question, folks. The answer: an exponential number relative to the amount of dollars invested by said government into media-related lobby interests. Just what CNN and it’s ilk has to gain by painting the citizens of Nepal as the irrational party is beyond me. If one reads the news carefully, connections are being drawn via careful phrasing of the facts to link the commons with the local Communist party; a move that is sure to raise the hackles of ignorant Americans and others. Likewise, a new term is being used to further the demonization of the people, who some say are under the influence of “Maoist ‘terrorists.’”

That T-word, again! I’m getting sick of its over-use.

These are normal, everyday people rising up against a questionable power. No terrorism is involved here, except the escalating tactics being used by the Nepalese government to suppress dissent - but if a government is doing the suppressing, it cannot by definition be labeled as terrorism; that’s a term reserved for non-government-sanctioned organizations. Nevermind the results being uncannilly similar…

For whatever reason, our news outlets are spinning away, distorting the facts. Don’t believe everything you read. But you knew that already.

The Internet is being besieged by corporate interests. The very same companies that provide internet lines to ISPs are now lobbying congress, to the tune of $10 million, to destroy a long standing principle of the ‘net: Network Neutrality.

Companies like Verizon, Comcast, and AT&T are romancing politicians in this moment of mid-term election fund raising to buy votes on an issue that would exponentially increase profits while closing parts to the internet to citizens.

Imagine paying your ISP for the privilege of searching for links only to the few sites whose owners have paid to have represented, then clicking on such paltry offerings only to be asked to register and pay more for a look. Such a scenario is not too far-fetched is Congress gives in to its election-year greed and passes the law that is currently on the books.

How would this affect us? Read the FAQ. Then take action. You’ll be glad you did.

Scott McClellan has resigned as the White House press secretary. As part of the “shake up” face saving strategy of the new chief of staff. So much for the Mouth of Sauron.

Seriously, I can’t think of a more thankless job than trying to put a smiley face on the horrific job the White House has been doing all these years. I wonder if he has ulcuers…

Despite my snark, aside from all the abuse he’s gotten, I’ve always felt he was a nice guy. I wonder further if he isn’t feeling relieved that the pressure is off. I don’t know how much a person makes in that position, but it couldn’t have been enough. Farewell, Scott, hopefully you have a book contract in your future. I’d read it (assuming it was candid).

Via Mahablog:

A stink is rising about Michele Malkin, who posted private information - in the form of phone numbers - about several UC Santa Cruz students who succeeded in ousting military recruiters from their job fair. As it happened, some of the people who read her blog have issued death threats against these students for the audacity of speaking their mind about their belief that recruitment doesn’t belong in academia. It’s their opinion. Such is the heated nature of political discourse these days that their opinion accompanied by “resoloot” action seemed extreme to certain people who tend to read Michelle’s ravings.

To post contact information gleaned from the header of a press release and pretend that its “published” is just wrong. But that shouldn’t surprise us, considering the source. That less savory individuals would take this information and hound the students with repeated death threats, is sinful. Even as the Right rightly complains about a Purdue University student who was arrested and charged with threatening to kill the president, so like-minded others reverse the rolls, and Michelle thinks that is acceptable behavior. But she whines about her hate mail. She hand picks her favorites, but not one of those threatened her life.

The responses I’ve seen are venomous and foul. But the Left has assembled an arsenal of tempered writers who respond strongly against Michelle’s brand of hatemongering. Some from both sides, however, need to stay rational. In context is Michelle’s admittance of being an alarmist. She has said many times that she wants to be a top blogger. To that end, she will do and say anything. Ask Tom DeLay, Jack Abramoff, or Newt Gingrich just how far a Republican will go to achieve their goals. Ethics is for fools, and anything goes; so too with “conservative” bloggers. (I put that word in quotes, because I really can’t tell just what they think they’re conserving…)

Fact: both political camps have an overabundance of hot-headed, self-propelled pundits. Thanks to the Internet, anyone can say anything. Likewise anyone else can take someone’s ravings and do real harm. As a rule, generalizations about “us and them” are seen as fruit of the ignorance that spawned them.

Fact: Angry words soothe no wounds. To respond out of anger detracts from the message, however just and well thought it might be. Once your reader feels you’re fuming, you’ve lost credibility. Read the careful summary from Maha; feel out who is rational and who is not. Then ask yourself who you’re most likely to believe. Read also the comment section. See for yourself the hatred overflowing in both directions.

This is the wrong path, folks. Wake up!