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God bless you, bzipitidoo, God bless you....

http://www.democracynow.org/live/democracy_now_livestream_of_aaron_swartz

The reality is, 15 year olds having sex is way too common because changing societal structures and demands make it far more likely that they've been trying to fill a missing emotional connection with parents that are either physically or emotionally unavailable

Although they may have only been trying to provide for a better life for their children, his parents working 100% for the time was almost certainly part of the problem.

"The mass surveillance and mass interception that is occurring to all of us now who use the internet is also a mass transfer of power from individuals into extremely sophisticated state and private intelligence organizations and their cronies," he says. Assange also discusses the United States’ targeting of WikiLeaks. "The Pentagon is maintaining a line that WikiLeaks inherently, as an institution that tells military and government whistleblowers to step forward with information, is a crime. They allege we are criminal, moving forward," Assange says. "Now, the new interpretation of the Espionage Act that the Pentagon is trying to hammer in to the legal system, and which the Department of Justice is complicit in, would mean the end of national security journalism in the United States." [includes rush transcript]

consensus does not mean unanimity, nor does it me, the best agreement that can be reached at this time, which each member of the group can live with and/or support. consensus means PATRICIA ESPINOSA: [translated] I want to concur with some of the delegations that have already expressed here that the rule of consensus does not mean unanimity. And much less does it mean the possibility that a delegation can impose a right of veto on the will of everyone, who have, after so much work, arrived and reached a decision on an agreement, with so much effort and so much sacrifice in some cases.

1) Public opinion polls, including independent ones by the Levada-Center, very pretty close to the official elections results. Which makes allegations of fraud dubious for me. I prefer to trust statistics, than emotions. The elections were free and fair -- for me; as a 1986-born, I've seen no better. Sorry. And if you want some scholarly opinion, look no farther than Stephen Cohen: "though these elections were not free and fair, they were the freest and fairest in 15 years" http://www.democracynow.org/2011/12/30/election_fraud_galvanizes_russian_opposition_communist

2) And albeit it's a trivial defense, I really do not care that much about speech freedom and such. I care more about economical fairness. Why medical nurses are so low-paid, stuff like that. You can see the my pol. views via the political compass: http://evagen.livejournal.com/39052.html

What I really care about is freedom of conscience. I can tolerate the situation where I either cannot say something or I could but my voice would not count. But I cannot tolerate the situation when I am forced to say something I do not want to say. That speaks about freedom of conscience, rather than freedom of speech. As for speech freedom, I help my friends to run an independent political website, which is fine for me.

I can't say whether it would be better or worse for the ITU to "control the internet", especially since the article doesn't even explain what control it is about (DNS? BGP routes? IANA? ...). But the article does contain a whole lot rosy-coloured-glasses stuff:

"These proposals, from the Russian Federation and several Arab states, would for the first time explicitly embrace the concept that governments have a right to control online communications and disrupt Internet access services," Feld said on a blog post.

"This would reverse the trend of the last few years increasingly finding that such actions violate fundamental human rights."

As others have already mentioned, the US everything but shies away from doing those things. It isn't carrying out drone strikes yet, but getting sites removed from Google because they offer travel to Cuba (from Spain!) to taking down various sites (often hosted outside the US) for infringing on US copyright law are fairly common.

Rohmeyer said it was unclear whether a conspiracy was at hand, but that "the suggestion that the Internet is a dangerous place could be used to justify greater controls."

Yes, because the US would never do that. *cough* Echelon *cough* warrantless wiretapping *cough* Thomas Drake *cough* *cough* *cough*

Observers are also troubled by a proposal by European telecom operators seeking to shift the cost of communication from the receiving party to the sender.

Yes, because US telecom operators are completely united in favour of network neutrality and would never dare to make Google pay for the massive bandwidth use triggered by youtube and the like.

Tell ya what, I'm a nice guy in a good mood, I'll make it easy on you: here's a map of all "known" voter fraud cases since 2000.

And even that is a farce, as most cases of "voter fraud" are actually registration fraud. And most of what's left after that are people voting by absentee ballot and then voting in person.

Neither of which would be solved by requiring ID's to vote.

Precisely! I award you +5 Internets.

Here's a link to a Democracy NOW! story about the billionaire bandits who engage in registration and absentee voter fraud, and how they never, never get prosecuted for it. Here's an excerpt I found particularly infuriating, as it involved fucking over our deployed troops:

You have something called "caging," in which we have, again, caught Karl Rove sending letters to, if you can imagine, active-duty soldiers. They send letters to these active-duty soldiers at their military bases. In the letters, they write, "Do not forward." Those letters come back. Those voters, who are active-duty soldiers, lose their vote because they’ve been challenged as fraudulent voters. So, in other words, if you go to Afghanistan and you’re a black soldier in Florida, you can expect to see your ballot challenged. And you don’t even know it. We talked to one of the voters, who said, "I got to mail in my ballot from overseas," while he was on duty. But he didn’t realize that his ballot had been challenged by the Rove machine.

A real eye-opener, IMO.

I believe Democracy Now! has what you're looking for. Here's a link to the latest in the series they've been calling "Expanding the Debate".

I believe Democracy Now! has what you're looking for. Here's a link to the latest in the series they've been calling "Expanding the Debate".

There's this thing called the internet, it's new. You can go to a "website" and post videos of your own debates. You may not reach all the population but you could reach a good portion of it. A Youtube account and some quality production equipment could get you "underground" debates by the 3rd party's. They could even talk about real issues. Gasp! If people care about what they debate at some point they could not be ignored. Could you imagine a write in candidate winning the presidency. You can keep claiming the system is against you or try to do something about it. As other posters have said don't play by their rules.

You mean like this? Yah, that had a huge impact on the race!

You see, there is this demographic called "old people" that almost single handedly decides national elections. Together with "low-information voters" they literally will decide this election via the so-called swing states. These two groups of people watch TV. For many of them, the debates will be the first time they see the two candidates talk about issues, which is why Romney was able to swing the polls by almost 10 points in a single debate. If you think a video on a "website" can do that, then I have a bridge to sell you.

An on-line video certainly will reach a good portion of the population, but 99% of that audience will be people who are already aware of third-party candidates and their issues and will vote third-party if they are in a safe state. No matter how hard to close your eyes and click your heels together, polls are moved by micro-targeted ad buys in carefully selected voting precincts, not by driving traffic to a website. Third party candidates are systematically excluded from the machinery that underpins this process, from media coverage to fund-raising to state election laws. If the reality were otherwise, you would be unable to escape Romney and Obama ads on the Internet; personally I see more ads for cloud storage solutions.

Well, Jill Stein didn't know the questions beforehand, because she spent the night shackled to a chair in a warehouse.
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/10/17/green_partys_jill_stein_cheri_honkala

Third party candidates have the benefit of knowing what the questions are and are able to give prepared answers.

You don't seem to understand just how badly this debate process has been subverted. From Democracy NOW!:

"The town hall debate we’re going to see tonight is the most constrained and regulated town hall debate in presidential debate history. The first town hall debate was introduced in 1992, and no one knew what anyone was going to ask, none of the audience members were going to ask. The moderator could ask any follow-up questions. It was exciting, and it was real.

Well, President George H.W. Bush stumbled in response to an oddly worded question about the federal deficit, and the candidates—the campaigns have panicked and have attempted to avoid that kind of situation from happening again. In 1996, they abolished follow-up questions from the audience.

In 2004, they began requiring that every single question asked by the audience be submitted in advance on an index card to the moderator, who can then throw out the ones he or she does not like. And that’s why the audience has essentially been reduced, in some ways, to props, because the moderator is still ultimately asking the questions.

And this election cycle is the first time that the moderator herself is prohibited from asking follow-up questions, questions seeking clarification. She’s essentially reduced to keeping time and being a lady with a microphone." -- George Farrah, author of No Debate: How the Republican and Democratic Parties Secretly Control the Presidential Debates.

It's a goddamn circus, and an obvious one at that. anyone who can't see the forest for the trees in this situation, is probably one of the clowns.

Democracty NOW! covered that topic as well.

Don't let their identical DNA fool you. They differ on some key issues!

But if you really want to throw your vote away, you could be interested in the extended debate:
http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2012/10/4/expanding_the_debate_watch_democracy_nows_full_three_hour_special

You hit the nail on the head. I don't agree with the entire Green Party platform, but their candidate was ARRESTED for trying to get into the debate. Why wasn't she (or any of the other 3rd party candidates) included? Because they are not high enough in the polls. Why aren't they polling well? I expect it's because they cannot get media coverage for love nor money.

The whole damn political system is owned, rigged, and horribly corrupted. But because the worst of the corruption is legal, we're supposed to turn a blind eye to it.

The polling threshold is set at 15%, which would have excluded all third-party candidates for the last hundred years. The debates used to be run by the League of Women Voters, who kept them open, transparent, and honest, and who set a reasonable threshold for third-party candidates, such as being on enough state ballots to be able to theoretically win.

Ever since Bush I stumbled at a town hall debate in 1992, the "town hall" debate format switched to pre-screened questions with no followups because the handlers fear letting their candidates out of their hermetically sealed rhetorical bubble. These days, they negotiate a contract that explicitly bars third-party candidates with the "Commission on Presidential Debates," which is chaired by party hacks-turned-lobbyists and funded by private corporations.

Bush I let Perot into the debate because his campaign thought that Perot would steal votes from Clinton, who didn't want him in. When the opposite happened, Clinton suddenly welcomed Perot into the debate. They even struck a deal to schedule one of the debates during a baseball game because neither side wanted to draw a big audience to the debate because it was too unpredictable. Now, third-party candidates are seen as wild cards, and are systemically excluded from the debates exactly because they might do something unexpected, put one of the major party candidates on the spot, or otherwise disrupt the carefully-choreographed kabuki theater that is presidential politics.

How many republican primary debates where there? 27? 28? So why only three presidential debates? Why no third parties? Why no spontaneity? It blows my mind how effectively campaigns manage to limit every discussion to the recitation of talking points, focus-grouped spin, and how effectively they manage exclude new ideas and substantive arguments.

A detective, Shannon Dowell, from a Fusion center has been implicated in setting up the "Gulf Port 7" (Occupy protesters) for felony charges:

http://houston.culturemap.com/newsdetail/09-06-12-a-chilling-police-infiltration-of-occupy-houston-port-protest-shines-a-harsh-spotlight-on-undercover-cops/

Last I heard about the case the detective claimed that he lost the USB drive with subpoenaed evidence down a storm sewer on the way to work the morning of his court appearance. Even finding out that a detective from a fusion center had been assigned to infiltrate occupy was difficult.

One of the protesters and his lawyer was interviewed on Democracy Now, here's the transcript: http://www.democracynow.org/2012/9/10/infiltrating_occupy_austin_activists_face_charges

Right now, suspected terrorists don't get any privacy. That's why we have people getting molested at airports.

Sure but that's just a side-effect of the fact that right now none of us get any privacy.
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/4/20/whistleblower_the_nsa_is_lying_us

I wonder how they compare with the Americans: http://www.democracynow.org/2012/4/20/exclusive_national_security_agency_whistleblower_william

if they are already demons. Even the Catholic Church campaigns against Paul Ryan's Economic plans. Meanwhile the 1% has 2 or 3 times the national debt tucked away in offshore accounts. You want to know where our debt comes from, there's your answer.

First, apologies for not consolidating my two posts. This is a recent example: http://www.democracynow.org/2012/5/22/attorney_nato_3_activists_detained_on

I'm glad your local jail is well-staffed, although I don't know where it is. If it's a good program, it's unusual.

According to the Journal of the American Medical association, prison health care is bad around the country. One of the problems is that services are contracted out to a few big corporations, like Correctional Medical Services, which according to JAMA was providing incompetent care which led to many deaths. Another problem is sheer budget-cutting.

http://www.aaskolnick.com/jama/28oct98a.htm
http://www.aaskolnick.com/jama/28oct98b.htm
http://www.aaskolnick.com/jama/28oct98c.htm
http://www.aaskolnick.com/baddoc1.htm
http://www.aaskolnick.com/baddoc2.htm
http://www.aaskolnick.com/baddoc3.htm

That was the most comprehensive series. Here are some more recent stories:

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2009/03/jailhouse_doc.html
http://www.democracynow.org/2005/3/4/harsh_medicine_new_york_times_exposes
http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2010/11/care-prison-healthcare.html

Parent said, "Prisoners receive better medical care than most Americans, and it's illegal to let them go untreated."

It's not true that prisoners receive better care than most Americans. If it is, I'd like to see the supporting data.

It may be illegal to let them go untreated. So it's illegal. Prisons do it all the time. Many organizations are suing prisons over health care, and often getting court orders. Sometimes the prisons respond to the court orders, and sometimes they don't.

If they get arbitrary 10% budget cuts, as they did in Texas, they couldn't improve their health care even if they wanted to.

Sheesh. Here are links to the first three. Lern 2 Google and do the rest yourself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BART_Police_shooting_of_Oscar_Grant

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/4/24/death_on_the_border_shocking_video

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/3/29/killed_at_home_white_plains_ny

Sheesh. Here are links to the first three. Lern 2 Google and do the rest yourself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BART_Police_shooting_of_Oscar_Grant

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/4/24/death_on_the_border_shocking_video

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/3/29/killed_at_home_white_plains_ny

We're talking about seeing your face in a crowd in a public setting.

In the age of ubiquitous CCTV cameras and facial recognition software, massive government databases for domestic spying, laws criminalizing protesting under flimsy pretenses, and increasing police state laws and tactics, one year after the death of Bin Laddin and more than 10 years since the last terrorist attack. Don't ignore the forest for the trees. And besides, you are now on the record of wanting to know who people were, merely for showing their face in a public setting.

Whereas before, you could have 20 cops for every single protester (like in Toronto where a squad car was conveniently left parked unattended for hours as a target for vandals). 20 cops could look at your face....and unless you did something to stand out, you would be gone from their short term memory in about....3 seconds.

If you want to hide your face in public then we have a problem. And if you want to be unreasonable about that, then two can play at that game.

Too bad. If someone wearing a mask commits a crime, we already have laws to prosecute said crime. If someone is peaceably wearing a mask for the sake of anonymity or as a political statement, it's none of your damn business what's under the mask.

Bandits cover their faces. Robbers cover their faces. You can either take my word for that or you can find out the hard way.

So tell us about your annual Halloween rampage, you gung-ho condo commando, you.

You'll notice, in the Democracy Now transcript of the next (not-to-miss!) piece, https://www.democracynow.org/2012/4/26/targeted_hacker_jacob_appelbaum_on_cispa (and definitely see the NSA whistleblower's horror story of which this follows on the heels: http://www.democracynow.org/2012/4/23/more_secrets_on_growing_state_surveillance ) how Amy Goodman smartly points out that B.O. just recently "threatened to veto" the horrendous NDAA.. but those of us who've been around awhile never believed it for a minute, and were proven right yet again as he didn't veto squat. The Dems appear to be quite a calibrated bit of machinery at "look over there" jujitsu.. keeping would-be concerned citizens constantly SPUN-- too behind the curve to effectively take part in informed democracy when putting food on the table is so all-consuming for most of us..

Also key, is the fact that GOOG et al aren't creating the huge "netroots" groundswell like for SOPA.. they stand to gain (collecting databases on users is after all their biz..) -- says a lot about the nature of the Net Roots, how relatively swiftly/quietly this is sailing thru so far.. hopefully the real citizenry, sans Big Bro Google's help, can raise enough stink by the time this hits Conference Committee. A huge affront to the Bill of Rights-- should be a dealbreaker for any Pol who supports it this election year!
Bottom line: contact your congresscritters, yes. But that's always pretty unrewarding, really-- I've found that printing up many many flyers and posting them widely can be way more satisfying. Perhaps incorporate the well-thought-out Take Action ideas from EFF: https://eff.org/cyberspying
note: they also have a keen infographic on their site somewheres, to entice the visually-orientated.

You'll notice, in the Democracy Now transcript of the next (not-to-miss!) piece, https://www.democracynow.org/2012/4/26/targeted_hacker_jacob_appelbaum_on_cispa (and definitely see the NSA whistleblower's horror story of which this follows on the heels: http://www.democracynow.org/2012/4/23/more_secrets_on_growing_state_surveillance ) how Amy Goodman smartly points out that B.O. just recently "threatened to veto" the horrendous NDAA.. but those of us who've been around awhile never believed it for a minute, and were proven right yet again as he didn't veto squat. The Dems appear to be quite a calibrated bit of machinery at "look over there" jujitsu.. keeping would-be concerned citizens constantly SPUN-- too behind the curve to effectively take part in informed democracy when putting food on the table is so all-consuming for most of us..

Also key, is the fact that GOOG et al aren't creating the huge "netroots" groundswell like for SOPA.. they stand to gain (collecting databases on users is after all their biz..) -- says a lot about the nature of the Net Roots, how relatively swiftly/quietly this is sailing thru so far.. hopefully the real citizenry, sans Big Bro Google's help, can raise enough stink by the time this hits Conference Committee. A huge affront to the Bill of Rights-- should be a dealbreaker for any Pol who supports it this election year!
Bottom line: contact your congresscritters, yes. But that's always pretty unrewarding, really-- I've found that printing up many many flyers and posting them widely can be way more satisfying. Perhaps incorporate the well-thought-out Take Action ideas from EFF: https://eff.org/cyberspying
note: they also have a keen infographic on their site somewheres, to entice the visually-orientated.

You'll notice, in the Democracy Now transcript of the next (not-to-miss!) piece, https://www.democracynow.org/2012/4/26/targeted_hacker_jacob_appelbaum_on_cispa (and definitely see the NSA whistleblower's horror story of which this follows on the heels: http://www.democracynow.org/2012/4/23/more_secrets_on_growing_state_surveillance ) how Amy Goodman smartly points out that B.O. just recently "threatened to veto" the horrendous NDAA.. but those of us who've been around awhile never believed it for a minute, and were proven right yet again as he didn't veto squat. The Dems appear to be quite a calibrated bit of machinery at "look over there" jujitsu.. keeping would-be concerned citizens constantly SPUN-- too behind the curve to effectively take part in informed democracy when putting food on the table is so all-consuming for most of us..

Also key, is the fact that GOOG et al aren't creating the huge "netroots" groundswell like for SOPA.. they stand to gain (collecting databases on users is after all their biz..) -- says a lot about the nature of the Net Roots, how relatively swiftly/quietly this is sailing thru so far.. hopefully the real citizenry, sans Big Bro Google's help, can raise enough stink by the time this hits Conference Committee. A huge affront to the Bill of Rights-- should be a dealbreaker for any Pol who supports it this election year!
Bottom line: contact your congresscritters, yes. But that's always pretty unrewarding, really-- I've found that printing up many many flyers and posting them widely can be way more satisfying. Perhaps incorporate the well-thought-out Take Action ideas from EFF: https://eff.org/cyberspying
note: they also have a keen infographic on their site somewheres, to entice the visually-orientated.

You'll notice, in the Democracy Now transcript of the next (not-to-miss!) piece, https://www.democracynow.org/2012/4/26/targeted_hacker_jacob_appelbaum_on_cispa (and definitely see the NSA whistleblower's horror story of which this follows on the heels: http://www.democracynow.org/2012/4/23/more_secrets_on_growing_state_surveillance ) how Amy Goodman smartly points out that B.O. just recently "threatened to veto" the horrendous NDAA.. but those of us who've been around awhile never believed it for a minute, and were proven right yet again as he didn't veto squat. The Dems appear to be quite a calibrated bit of machinery at "look over there" jujitsu.. keeping would-be concerned citizens constantly SPUN-- too behind the curve to effectively take part in informed democracy when putting food on the table is so all-consuming for most of us..

Also key, is the fact that GOOG et al aren't creating the huge "netroots" groundswell like for SOPA.. they stand to gain (collecting databases on users is after all their biz..) -- says a lot about the nature of the Net Roots, how relatively swiftly/quietly this is sailing thru so far.. hopefully the real citizenry, sans Big Bro Google's help, can raise enough stink by the time this hits Conference Committee. A huge affront to the Bill of Rights-- should be a dealbreaker for any Pol who supports it this election year!
Bottom line: contact your congresscritters, yes. But that's always pretty unrewarding, really-- I've found that printing up many many flyers and posting them widely can be way more satisfying. Perhaps incorporate the well-thought-out Take Action ideas from EFF: https://eff.org/cyberspying
note: they also have a keen infographic on their site somewheres, to entice the visually-orientated.

[apologies, pholks.. I hit Submit instead of Preview by accident, and am just figuring out that I can't edit a comment. Here's the handy-dandy, and proofread, HTML...}

college&community&public stations a-plenty-- make sure yours is among them:
https://www.democracynow.org/2012/4/26/cispa_critics_warn_cybersecurity_bill_will

And here are the go-to sites for leadership/updates on the issue:
http://www.eff.org/
http://www.epic.org/ (though, just checking.. not sure why EPIC is lagging on this issue thus far.)
And though I don't like ragging on sd'ers, it's a bit troubling that the site which is heralded as bringing the news is "hothardware".. I guess a peeve of mine is overspecialization. Ever the humble polyglot, I make it a point to check aggregators of alternative news daily:
http://www.alternet.org/
http://www.commondreams.org/

and as re Your Rights specifically, a good podcast is http://www.lawanddisorder.org/
... also, CNet puts together a good "Politics and Law" rss feed: http://news.cnet.com/8300-13578_3-38.xml

AMANDLA!

There was an interview with Jacob Appelbaum in Democracy Now . He was asked about anonymity in Tor. It seems when the whole of the network is being continuously surveilled on, even Tor can not provide anonymity. So, be careful what you do even if you use Tor.

They should start with the good old USA.
The NSA is currently building a huge data center to capture email, phone, sms, etc. data.
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/4/23/more_secrets_on_growing_state_surveillance
This includes an interview with hacker Jacob Appelbaum, who has volunteered for WikiLeaks and now works with Tor Project and others.

Selling missiles / funding Contras - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Contra_affair

Colluding with terrorists to win the 1980 election - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_surprise#1980_Carter_vs._Reagan

Colluding with terrorists (Al Queda/Mujahadeen) - http://www.democracynow.org/2004/6/10/ghost_wars_how_reagan_armed_the

Reminiscent of back when Harry Shearer's Le Show (http://www.harryshearer.com/leshow) had scathing content in its "Tales of Airport Security" segments, I found Democracy Now quite interesting today: http://www.democracynow.org/2012/3/28/lawsuit_seeks_halt_to_tsas_use/

The fact that the OP you replied to was voted 'flamebait' together with your reply are really quite disturbing. The fact that the FBI has been using paid informants to create 'terrorists' out of people who otherwise would never have the means to commit terrorist acts is well documented and the fact that people such as yourself believe this to be only within the realm of 'conspiracy theory' shows me just how horrible the mainstream media really is at doing its' job properly.

I highly recommed you to get your information from higher quality news sources like Democracy Now:

http://www.democracynow.org/2011/8/25/terrorists_for_the_fbi_how_the

Freedom of the press is an illusion, has been for a long time now.

Freedom of the press is reserved for those who have one, and most of the press is controlled by a few companies which also just happen to be the big content companies.

Lack of imagination detected, on both your parts.

Democracy Now

PBS

Al Jazeera

No one needs to limit themselves to the likes of MSNBC, CBS, ABC, NYT, Forbes, Fox, Mother Jones, ..., not to mention the plethora of webbish stuff (blogs & etc.). Anyone who does is just being lazy (or has kids, so no time :-).

I don't know why JWR is pussyfooting around, here's explict quotes without the ambiguity of the WSJ article.

Israel "aided Hamas directly -- the Israelis wanted to use it as a counterbalance to the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization)," said Tony Cordesman, Middle East analyst for the Center for Strategic Studies.

According to U.S. administration officials, funds for the movement came from the oil-producing states and directly and indirectly from Israel.

http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Security-Industry/2002/06/18/Analysis-Hamas-history-tied-to-Israel/UPI-82721024445587/

But the Islamic Palestinian leaders viewed the relationship with Israel differently. They were eager to accept Israel's financial backing and an easing on their activities...

http://www.counterpunch.org/2003/01/18/sharon-and-hamas/

So there's plenty of evidence that the Israeli intelligence services, especially Shin Bet and the military occupation authorities, encouraged the growth of the Muslim Brotherhood and the founding of Hamas.

http://www.democracynow.org/2006/1/26/how_israel_and_the_united_states

Thanks to Israel's intelligence agency Mossad (Israel's Institute for Intelligence and Special Tasks), the Islamists were allowed to reinforce their presence in the occupied territories.

http://www.wariscrime.com/2008/12/29/news/hamas-was-founded-by-mossad/

Sure, it's no longer as popular to hate on homosexual people as it was in the past, but we have all new forms of hatred and intolerance which our modern society deems acceptable, and which will be just as subject to the next generation's ridicule and derision.

You clearly haven't been following the GOP primaries very closely... Seriously, though, it's still as popular as ever, but fortunately the laws in many countries now punish this type of persecution, so bigots are relegated to nibbling around the edges of equal rights and stiring up hatred in countries that don't.

Check out http://www.democracynow.org/

It way not be "fair and balanced" like the BBC or any of the other european public service behemoths, but it is a balance against any of the other socalled news produced in the US of A.

"Everyone" may have the tools to broadcast details, but if the mainstream media do not bring it to attention of the masses and takedown notices can keep it out of the online limelight, then only the "fringe" will every hear about it - and so no meaningful political consequences. This latest news about urinating on dead Taliban smells like textbook spin to hide even worse news in its shadow. Control of the news re: war is exactly why the government and pro-goverment media is coming down so hard on the foremost US political prisoner of conscience, Bradley Manning and the rouge publishing site Wikileaks. They are successfully influencing the majority public opinion against the first bit of real solid news to escape the lockdown control of public debate since the Vietnam war. Note: Leaking of sensitive information is obviously NOT why he is being persecuted - more sensitive leaks go without investigation all the time. There is some hope however, with some new professional investigative news channels springing up funded by viewer donations... just need to build their audience - if possible.

Oh, you're right. They don't object to people being allowed to say anything, just to them being heard. Not the the democrats are any better.

1 - You misunderstand the term "Security Theater".

2 - I claimed exaggeration, rather than entrapment. Entrapment is ultimately a call for the courts, but it is a possibility. Like it or not, there is a good chance this guy was just a wind-bag (as opposed to a Terrorist) until the FBI got involved. There is growing body evidence to back up my position

The "civil war" is largely a creation of foreign and now AFRICOM interference.

http://webarchive.ssrc.org/Somalia_Hoehne_v10.pdf

"Thanks to half a century of pouring US arms stockpiles into Africa, the price of an assault rifle in Africa has for some time been cheaper than anyplace else on the planet."

http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/africom-americas-military-foot-africas-doorway

Somali "piracy" is the outcome of the illegal, exhaustive, industrialised over-fishing of Somali waters, by foreign fleets - leaving the coastal towns without any livelihood.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/you-are-being-lied-to-abo_b_155147.html

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/4/14/analysis_somalia_piracy_began_in_response

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1892376,00.html

The US manufactures foreign wars and "terrorists" the same way it used to lead in the creation of Automobiles and heavy manufacturing. But remember your Gibbon: The decline of Rome was seeded from its very rise on world's stage.

"[New York City] just laid off 500 public school aides who make $18,000 a year, while they’re paying all these [230 software consultants] that are making $400,000 and $500,000 a year for a failed system."
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/3/26/juan_gonzalez_ny_pays_230_consultants

Yeah, I had read about it somewhere where the main people were *raking* in huge annual salaries and the lowest level people were still getting big fat checks (compared to comparable salaried positions occurring elsewhere in that region in that industry during the same period). So, no doubt about it, it was heavy big fat pig teat sucking for sure! What's really amusing to me is that the NYC government officials seemed (to me) to be clueless as to whether it was justified or not. Something was fouled up somewhere but that is normal for NYC. Hell, for $500,000+/year, I'd suck a pig's teat too! :)

"[New York City] just laid off 500 public school aides who make $18,000 a year, while they’re paying all these [230 software consultants] that are making $400,000 and $500,000 a year for a failed system." http://www.democracynow.org/2010/3/26/juan_gonzalez_ny_pays_230_consultants

He's reporteded to have already gone to jail and has reportedly seen several nurses already and has a doctor's appointment on Friday. http://www.democracynow.org/2011/6/21/headlines#13

This took place in Canada. http://www.democracynow.org/2010/9/17/percy_schmeiser_vs_monsanto_the_story

All that claptrap about "the free press" and "guardians of democracy" is a pile of cow dung, as anyone who lived through the last 10 years can easily tell. Read your history books and you will see that it has always been thus.

This is true only if U.S. history begins at World War II. In the late 1800s and early 1900s there were labor papers which were mainly subscription supported, with local news, educational articles, and union events. There were many of these, some small, some with a broader reach. For example as late as the 1930s the Institute for Propaganda Analysis, which taught people how to read and think critically, had significant influence.

The media consists almost entirely of hired shills, whose job it is to influence your opinion in exchange for money.

While this is generally true of US corporate news, here are four exceptions: Amnesty International, Christian Science Monitor, DemocracyNow, and Z Magazine.

It's the ad-supported news that increasingly becomes business-supporting news; particularly when the news media organization is owned by big business.

The free-market economic model misses the point. They're not in the business *just* to make money.

The NYT is run by journalists. They *want* people to read their stories.

Especially when they've worked for months on a big important expose that can demonstrate that they're not (always) craven apologists for power and wealth.

They still take pride in the Pentagon Papers. They went to the fucking Supreme Court with that and won. (Today with the Republican Supreme Court, they probably would have lost.)

Sure, they want to make money. They want to pay for their huge staff of journalists all over the world, they want to pay editors enough to live in Manhattan, they want to hire new people to play with the Internet, they want to be able to pick up and fly to Japan, they want to pay for amazingly expensive bureaus in war zones.

At the executive and star-reporter level, they're also used to a certain luxury that the rest of us may not be that familiar with.

But when you look at the way they've run the newspaper, they haven't maximized their income. The Sulzberger family didn't sell out to Rupert Murdoch for the highest bid the way the Wall Street Journal's Bancroft family did.

And they do a pretty good job, about half the time. Yeah, they bought the whole Iraq war scam (although there were reporters whose stories wound up buried in the middle of the paper who told you what was really going on if you looked for it). Yeah, they grovel before wealth, power and advertisers a lot of the time. But they also exposed the Chinese pharmaceutical industry, a lot of worker safety outrages, the CIA's overthrow of half a dozen democratic governments (usually too late to do anything about it, but whatever). They exposed Giuliani's lies some of the time. They do a pretty good job of covering welfare and education. They gave a good job to a few reporters for a few years who pushed the limits and finally left. Take a look at the NYT reporters and ex-reporters who appear on http://www.democracynow.org./

Anyway, who does a better job?

But the point is that these are people who want people to read their stories, as many people as possible. If they can get more people to read the paper for a little less money, they'll do it. If they can leave a back door open for people to get in around the paywall, it doesn't bother them too much.

Of course, if you steal from the less-well-connected, nothing much will happen to you. Thus the directors of Goldman, AIG, Citi, etc who bet their shareholders' equity, and also risked the pensions of many workers, did not go to jail. Instead, they got themselves installed in the Treasury department, and got their cronies even more money from taxpayers!

As Matt Taibbi said "Why isn't Wall Street in jail?" : http://www.democracynow.org/blog/2011/2/22/matt_taibbi_why_isnt_wall_street_in_jail

Then again, as Billie Holiday sang, "Them that's got shall get, them that's not shall lose. So the bible says, and it still is news!"