A thing barely noticed

Wikipedia: the Enemy Expatriation Act

Stephen D. Foster Jr., Addictinginfo.org: New Bill Known As Enemy Expatriation Act Would Allow Government To Strip Citizenship Without Conviction, January 6, 2012:

The new law would change a part of US Code 1481 which can be read in full here. Compare 3166 to 1481 and the change is small. The new section makes no reference to being convicted as it does in section (7). So even though the language of the NDAA has been revised to exclude American citizens, the US government merely has to strip Americans of their citizenship and the NDAA will apply. And they will be able to do so without convicting the accused in a court of law...

The SOPA/PIPA legislation encountered massive push-back, whereas the NDAA passed with BHO's signature, after language was inserted to exclude American citizens. And now this. SOPA is dead, at least for now, but the interests that favor it learned lessons about how to better market their wares, and in the meantime MoveOn.org types got to bask in the warm relevance of a still functional democracy. As with the Keystone Pipeline, one imagines SOPA/PIPA will be back, if in some other form. Of course as Arthur Silber recently pointed out, all of these measures are just designed to make legal (and seemingly respectable) things the government does anyway.


...

Le Torrent, etc

photo: ZDNet/CBS News

(Sarko likes my title, but I stole it. Evidently stealing's swell, 'cept when it isn't.)

Zack Whittaker, ZDNet:

12.18:
Everybody pirates: RIAA, Homeland Security caught downloading torrents

12.19 French presidential officials caught illegally downloading music


Truthdig.com, "30 Companies Paid Lobbyists More Than the IRS"


Roy Edroso, Village Voice:"Running Scared"
(via BDR)


"James Kirchick, who chronicled the hair-raising statements from Paul's newsletters in the New Republic four years ago, returned in the most recent edition of conservative magazine The Weekly Standard to amplify on them.
[...]
"...the Wall Street Journal's Kimberley Strassel, who, after some blahblah about Paul being "in many ways, the ideal candidate for a conservative electorate hungry for a principled GOP nominee" and "the 'intellectual godfather' of the tea party movement," disqualified Paul on the grounds that he "fundamentally denies American exceptionalism and refuses to allow for decisive action to protect the U.S. homeland."


Naked Capitalism, Philip Mirowski: The Seekers, or How Mainstream Economists Have Defended Their Discipline Since 2008 – Part I

(I think the video below may be the one Mirowski is referring to. The link he supplies doesn't work, although this snippet(from 2009) isn't particularly illuminating one way or another.)


Inside Look - How Did Paul Krugman Get It So Wrong?


Uploaded by Bloomberg on Sep 20, 2009. Interview with University of Chicago Finance Professor John Cochrane (Bloomberg News)


Leslie Thatcher's December 5th interview with Mike Lofgren is well worth reading, even if the title is something of a misnomer. He only discusses Democrats beating Republicans in passing, but it suggests to the casual reader that it's another one of those tedious messaging and strategy pieces when in fact it's a broader discussion of US political trends over the past 20 plus years. If you missed Lofgren's article from the summer, it's also worth reading.

"I Know How to Beat Republicans": Interview With Former GOP Staffer Mike Lofgren

Some highlights:

"...the crystallizing event for me was the 2002 State of the Union speech identifying the axis of evil as Iraq and Iran - which had fought a long and devastating war and hated each other - and North Korea, which might as well have been on the dark side of the moon from the point of view of the other two countries. At that point, I thought, "This guy is going to war forever. There are no adults in charge." All subsequent events were merely confirmations of that intuition.
[...]
Establishment liberals just don't understand what's happening and are too often supercilious, condescending and off-topic.

Maybe I'll create a vocabulary primer. For example, take "empower." "Empower means "cut 'em off; you're on your own." Empowering seniors by cutting off social security means they're going to be mopping the floor at McDonald's.

The problem is that, for years, liberals coasted on the coattails of FDR, got very complacent and generated no new ideas. So, when the GOP came to the waterhole and stole their clothes, they didn't know what to do; they thought they had hegemony. Group one retreated to the ivory tower: effete crybabies, they became useless politically. Group two, the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), became GOP-lite and a pure fundraising operation.
[...]
And somehow all this nonsense about how he is a Muslim and not a US citizen is perfect cover for how he slid in as a center-right president who pretty much followed George Bush in everything."

Battlefield USA

photo: Steve Rhodes


Monday, Nov. 28th : Robert johnson, Business Insider: Secret Bill To Be Voted On Today Would Allow The Military To Sweep Up US Citizens At Home Or Abroad

Either Monday or Tuesday the Senate will vote on a bill that allows the US military to imprison civilians with no formal charges and hold them with no trial.

The ACLU reports even US citizens wouldn't be immune as the legislation aims to declare national territory part of the "battlefield" in the War on Terror.

Termed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and drafted behind closed doors by Senators Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.)

Tuesday November 29th: Dave Dayden, Firedoglake: Udall Amendment Fails, Setting Up Showdown on Defense Authorization Bill | FDL News Desk

Mark Udall’s amendment to strip out indefinite detention provisions from the defense authorization bill failed today, and the bill will likely pass.


Senate rollcall for the Udall amendment:
Which reads, "To revise the provisions relating to detainee matters."


Incidentally, voting against the Udall amendment included

Bob Casey (D-PA)
Kent Conrad (D-ND)
Kay Hagan (D-NC)
Daniel Inouye (D-HI)
Mary Landrieu (D-LA)
Carl Levin (D-MI)
Joe Manchin (D-WV)
Claire McCaskill (D-MO)
Ben Nelson (D-NE)
Mark Pryor (D-AR)
Jack Reed (D-RI)
Jean Shaheen (D-NH)
Debbie Stabenow (D-MI)
Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI)

While Republicans Rand Paul(KY) and Mark Kirk(IL) voted for the amendment.

And FDL commenter wrote:

Dayden: If Obama follows through with the veto, there will have to be some change to the bill, if the 37 voting for the Udall amendment hold out. I smell an unsatisfying compromise.

There really aren’t 37 votes it’s all staged when the chips are down. That’s why they have cloakrooms to decide who’s the hero and who’s the Goat . And the waiting for the “peoples” president to veto it Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha .

Over at the libertarian Daily Paul, another commenter wrote:

Cowards Udall and Ron Wyden both voted FOR warrantless wiretaps – twice this year, but got favorable publicity for coming out against warrantless wiretaps.
In a nutshell, this bill will provide a loop-hole to our legal system, effectively nullifying the 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th amendments.

I'll admit that BHO saying he'll veto doesn't reassure me. And as far as the second comment goes, I'm reminded of how back in the '90s Phil Gramm supposedly took credit for social programs he'd voted to ax beforehand, and how some New Republic writer referred to it as Gramm-standing.

I note also that neither senator from Alaska voted.(the vote was 60-38.) Maybe they were fishing.


Politically engaged bloggers and others often think Americans are especially dense, and certainly too many are. But I note that if you rely on major news portals to tell you what's been going on today, you're far more likely to have heard about Ann Coulter cursing on a talk show or Conrad Murray being sentenced than any of this, so it's not all the fault of ignorant people that they're ignorant. We often hear of "low-information voters," usually referred to disparagingly. Maybe another part of the problem is "medium-information voters", who are led by CBS, CNN, ABC, MSNBC, et al, to believe that they are in fact high-information voters and getting all the information they need. Ironically, Fox News as a reassuringly nutty counterpoint probably helps reinforce this impression for some. And if you are one of those medium-information voters and somebody tells you about these things, after such a convincing portrait of the lay of the political land has been offered to you, what must you think?

"Oh, what a whack-job."

Yes, a lot of people are goons who if they knew about this would cheer it on. While still others might feel squeamish about such a development, but would try to reassure themselves that the purpose is to protect us, and surely "they" wouldn't abuse it, etc, not because they necessarily believe it, but because it makes not fighting and just ducking your head and abiding with how things are a bit more bearable.(I have a feeling this group is much larger.) But how many people who would oppose this will even know?

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they attack you, then you win."

Yeah, sure. If you like the Gandhi quote, there's also this:


"The incestuous relationship between government and big business thrives in the dark"- Jack Anderson

I've never once seen that on the bumper of an automobile. Why, I don't know.



see also Information Clearing House, Senators Demand the Military Lock Up American Citizens in a “Battlefield” They Define as Being Right Outside Your Window
(via Mr Pez)

Fort Worth Star-Telegram/AP "Senate panel pushes defense bill with detainee provisions White House opposes"






...

Two birds with one stone

PROTECT IP Act Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

update, 14 Nov: Hi Sideshow-ers, and welcome to our wee nanoblog. And thanks for the kind, Avedon C., as BDR would say. And yes, she has been pointing out that we'll miss the internet when it's gone for some time.


Or maybe, "two birds with one stone(around your neck)"?

Many bad things are happening but this is one of them, and it's not just because you'll miss the internet.

The video above is via Cory Doctorow at Boingboing.net and Gary Farber. Doctorow notes that SOPA has been characterized as an end run around net neutrality, but he's right that it's much more than that, and it sounds like it's being pushed through the congress PDQ.

Doctorow:

PROTECT IP (S. 968)/SOPA (HR. 3261) creates the first system for Internet censorship - this bill has sweeping provisions that give the government and corporations leeway and legal cover for taking down sites "by accident," mistakenly, or for NOT doing "enough" to protect the interests of Hollywood. These bills that are moving very quickly through Congress and can pass before Christmas aim to give the US government and corporations the ability to block sites over infringing links posted by their users and give ISPs the release to take any means to block peoples' sites, including slowing down your connection. That's right, some say this bill is a workaround to net neutrality and is bigger than net neutrality.

I'm reminded of how quickly Visa, Mastercard and Paypal accommodated the government's request to shut down Wikileaks' funding, even though it wasn't necessarily all that clear that they were doing anything unlawful, just so the money people could demonstrate their fealty to the state, that they were going to be accommodating, while it also demonstrated how close the relationship is between the federal government and big corporations. Likewise, this doesn't sound like it's just about shutting down media piracy, but shutting down non-corporate speech, gadfly speech, whistle-blowers, etc.

Sometimes I feel like I inhabit a neighborhood of the blogosphere where the denizens usually feel like activism and demonstrating anything resembling civic earnestness just proves you're naive, and I mostly concur. All the same, I still feel this is something we should try to stop, whoever we is, via writing(or faxing) your congresspeople, etc. Even if stopping may be prove to be just delaying, it's worth it, because tomorrow's another day, etc. Anyway, the kids with the bongo drums can't do it all by themselves.

23 October 2011

Where Do We Go From Here? Occupy Wall St. from Ed David on Vimeo.

This video above from OWS is from earlier today, here.

Below: Keiser Report 200, October 22nd



The subject of discussion above, at 5:00-6:00 regarding BofA, is also referred to here:

Federal Reserve and Bank of America Initiate a Coup to Dump Billions of Dollars of Losses on the American Taxpayer | www.zerohedge.com

Bloomberg reports that Bank of America is dumping derivatives onto a subsidiary which is insured by the government – i.e. taxpayers. Yves Smith notes: If you have any doubt that Bank of America is going down, this development should settle it...

Below: Keiser Report 196,"Dog & Pony Show"(Oct 13th)





see also Speculum Criticum Traditionis, "The liberal bias of American media" [via Jack Crow]


Two from CNN:
Six-figure salaries, but homeless,
Foreigners are buying U.S. homes

Grief Porn

update below

If I assume the overwhelming majority of people watching football on television this weekend aren't doing so because they're coping with 9.11, but just because that's what they like to do on Sunday afternoons in September, I suppose I must be hating somebody, somewhere, for their freedom. Did the government and the news people make this kind of a fuss on December 7th, 1951? I'm not old enough to remember, and of course Yahoo! wasn't around in '51 to drape a black banner across their masthead, but my guess is no.

Even Saint Reagan, whom I am old enough to remember, didn't cry to the heavens in 1985 about the 10 year mark of our exit out of Vietnam, recalling those last helicopters which we threw into the ocean. I do, however, remember the fuss made in some quarters about his visiting the Bitburg cemetery on the 40th anniversary of the end of WWII, because of the SS troops buried there. Certainly it would have been more sensitive to visit a cemetery of Nazi conscripts.

I somewhat surprise myself by offering this, but in partial defense of Ronnie, maybe the general principle is correct and you are supposed to commemorate the dead of both sides in a terrible conflict. It's the decent and yes, Christian thing to do. Of course if this is true, I wonder when an American president will lay a wreath down at Hiroshima or Nagasaki, or Wounded Knee.



Many people have been posting this video on Facebook today:




The comments[link] are something else.

to everyone that can see this isnt just a BEER COMMERCIAL and that its a tribute to all the victoms on the plane, police officers, firemen and countless voluteers who lost their lives and thier family's God bless you to the rest of you fuckin unpatrioticheartless basterds you SUCK, im a firefighter and i wasnt even old enough to understand the impact of this when it happend but it still hurts to think about all the fellow brothers i lost if your smat enough to understand that then FUCKIN LEAVE
ecfpd3965

Cornygirl2008, please let me know when you want to leave. I will personally buy you a one way ticket out of America with the provision that you will never return. In no way shape or form am I joking.
Christa573

Two others:

They spent 100,000's of thousands of dollars to show this only once. Not for profit or company gain, but to express the sorrow they felt. As for the subhuman monsters that think 9/11 is some kind of joke, well I can't use those words here. The loss for all the faimilys of those who died that day is more than our hearts can stand. Condolences, from me and mine, to all of you. My God be with you aways.
1947gambler

Not only once anymore, they're showing it several times today during NFL games. They spent 100,000's of dollars because its a can't miss commercial that exploits a national tragedy to sell their product.
MrG0dbar

The general trend of the comments crystallizes what I find so creepy about the commodification of 9.11 grief. It's as if scores of people are perversely jealous that they didn't lose anybody and want the voyeuristic pleasure, to enjoy feeling like they're a part of a larger experience other people are having, and want to have "a good cry." And the government and media are all too happy to encourage this impulse for their own ends, as if they're concerned that we're not emotionally stunted enough. (I also wonder if some people who actually did lose loved ones on September 11th might prefer less of this carrying on by others, that may needlessly refresh old wounds.)

Being susceptible to this manipulation doesn't make you a bad person, but that's like saying having deficient critical reasoning skills doesn't make you a bad person. Of course neither negates the value of critical thinking. It's tempting to think that we're collectively stupider than we were 50 or 100 years ago, but this is unlikely. P.T. Barnum made a nice living off of people like this, back in the day.

But, duh, you knew that, because you're cool. Of course some people are just sentimental and easily misled, and even smart people can be suckered by the culture-media message reinforcing machine that alternately tells you to remember some things and forget others. The barrage on your sensibility is endless. How do you resist the simulacrum? Reality and pre-corporate values are a glass of tepid water, and the drink they're offering is sweet and sexy and will make your breath minty fresh, lower your taxes and help you score with chicks.

I realize that the internet and social media have had a huge impact on our conceptions of privacy. Still, wanting to 'get in on the grief' so you can demonstrate how patriotic you are and prove your capacity for depth of feeling, whether to yourself or others, strikes me as sad in an altogether different way than intended.

see also

Gonzalo Lira,"They Didn't Win, We Lost"

James S. Henry, Forbes, "The other September 11"

Doug Mataconis,"December 7, 1951 v. September 11, 2011" [via TPR]

The right to privacy(For us, not you)

Two recent items:


1. "Corporations pushing for job-creation tax breaks shield U.S.-vs.-abroad hiring data"
Posted by Dan Crawford (Rdan) | 8/23/2011 09:23:00 AM
via Avedon Carol

referencing this, from the Washington Post:

The latest data show that multinationals cut 2.9 million jobs in the United States and added 2.4 million overseas between 2000 and 2009.

Which reminded me of this from Jodi Dean from earlier this summer, also referencing a WaPo article:

2. JD:"Business group: Public companies shouldn’t have to compare CEO and worker pay"

Now a group backed by 81 major companies — including McDonald’s, Lowe’s, General Dynamics, American Airlines, IBM and General Mills — is lobbying against new rules that would force disclosure of that comparison.

I suspect a much longer post with many more examples is possible with the title above.

see also "The right to be forgotten."