David Graeber, A Practical Utopian’s Guide to the Coming Collapse
(via bostonreview)
(via theamericanbear)
Congressional caucus leaders want actual jobs for actual unemployed people, not tax breaks for corporations.
I know there has been controversy about the promotion of democracy in recent years, and much of this controversy is connected to the war in Iraq. So let me be clear: no system of government can or should be imposed upon one nation by any other.
That does not lessen my commitment, however, to governments that reflect the will of the people. Each nation gives life to this principle in its own way, grounded in the traditions of its own people. America does not presume to know what is best for everyone, just as we would not presume to pick the outcome of a peaceful election. But I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn’t steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose. Those are not just American ideas, they are human rights, and that is why we will support them everywhere.
There is no straight line to realize this promise. But this much is clear: governments that protect these rights are ultimately more stable, successful and secure. Suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away. America respects the right of all peaceful and law-abiding voices to be heard around the world, even if we disagree with them. And we will welcome all elected, peaceful governments – provided they govern with respect for all their people.
Obama’s 2009 Speech in Cairo (video)
(Source: kateoplis)
Here’s to this most beautiful & brave guerilla redecoration being wrought in Egypt. Let such magnificent images stand. That way, in the future, in the Alexandria, Cairo, Tunis, Paris, Detroit, London, Nairobi, Moscow &c we deserve, we can take our daily constitutionals below such shreds & remnants of defeated enemies.
tentacular aka china mieville
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/world_news_america/9359973.stm
I met Ernesto Yerena Montejano through a mutual friend, and had the pleasure of viewing some of his artwork at a preview show he held in Los Angeles about 6 months ago… I’m excited and very proud to see his artwork (and the message behind it) get the attention it deserves, with a feature on BBC News - America.
Congratulations Ernesto!!!
Via: ZDNet January 8th, 2011
By Zack Whittaker
The US government has subpoenaed Twitter in a bid to support an ongoing criminal investigation into whether Wikileaks and people involved or connected to Wikileaks, including an Icelandic member of parliament, broke the law.
According to Wikileaks lawyer Mark Stephens live on the BBC News a short time ago, it is believed Facebook and Google (see here) have also been contacted regarding Wikileaks members and potential whistleblowers.
Update (12:20am GMT): Mark Stephens on the BBC News also makes clear that the court order will also cover the “600,000 odd followers that Wikileaks has on Twitter“.
The order asks specifically for names of those attached to selected accounts, user and screen names, and any registered mailing or postal addresses. It also asks for email addresses, credit card details where possible, and even content relating to connected mobile phones.
The server logs which could identify the computer and geographical location of where even private messages were sent from have also been ordered to be handed over.
(Source: listenthefuckup.com)
Gallic Cool
Alphaville combines the genres of dystopian science fiction and film noir.
My three favorite genres plus Anna Karina
6 armed Mahakala – tantric protective deity with a kapala in the hand.
F. Scott Fitzgerald was right when he declared the rich different from you and me. But today’s super-rich are also different from yesterday’s: more hardworking and meritocratic, but less connected to the nations that granted them opportunity—and the countrymen they are leaving ever further behind.
By CHRYSTIA FREELAND
Via: The Atlantic Monthly
IF YOU HAPPENED to be watching NBC on the first Sunday morning in August last summer, you would have seen something curious. There, on the set of Meet the Press, the host, David Gregory, was interviewing a guest who made a forceful case that the U.S. economy had become “very distorted.” In the wake of the recession, this guest explained, high-income individuals, large banks, and major corporations had experienced a “significant recovery”; the rest of the economy, by contrast—including small businesses and “a very significant amount of the labor force”—was stuck and still struggling. What we were seeing, he argued, was not a single economy at all, but rather “fundamentally two separate types of economy,” increasingly distinct and divergent.
This diagnosis, though alarming, was hardly unique: drawing attention to the divide between the wealthy and everyone else has long been standard fare on the left. (The idea of “two Americas” was a central theme of John Edwards’s 2004 and 2008 presidential runs.) What made the argument striking in this instance was that it was being offered by none other than the former five-term Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan: iconic libertarian, preeminent defender of the free market, and (at least until recently) the nation’s foremost devotee of Ayn Rand. When the high priest of capitalism himself is declaring the growth in economic inequality a national crisis, something has gone very, very wrong.
(Source: thecourseoftheexchange.blogspot.com)
U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords, in an interview with MSNBC after her office was targeted with death threats, vandalism and harassment following her vote for healthcare last Spring. Watch the entire interview here - it’s kind of amazing in retrospect. (via misterhippity)
If Palin had the capacity for shame, it would certainly come in handy right now.
(via aatombomb)
(via anewbody)
The machinations of the secret courts get exposed to the light of day as Twitter lets some of it’s users know the Government wants access to their private tweets. It has been said in comments else where that Twitter had no obligation to tell it’s users their private correspondence had been subpoenaed, kudos to Twitter for the notifications.
Via: The Guardian Online
A member of parliament in Iceland who is also a former WikiLeaks volunteer says the US justice department has ordered Twitter to hand over her private messages.
Birgitta Jonsdottir, an MP for the Movement in Iceland, said last night on Twitter that the “USA government wants to know about all my tweets and more since november 1st 2009. Do they realize I am a member of parliament in Iceland?”
She said she was starting a legal fight to stop the US getting hold of her messages, after being told by Twitter that a subpoena had been issued. She wrote: “department of justice are requesting twitter to provide the info – I got 10 days to stop it via legal process before twitter hands it over.”
Are they smoking Iranian shit in the Justice Department now?
vruz:
by Scott Horton, Harpers
vruz: happy new year from the ministry of accountability.
Polish prosecutors looking into the torture (including waterboarding) of prisoners held at the former CIA black site in northeastern Poland near Szymany air base turned to the U.S. Department of Justice with a request for help in collecting information relevant to the case. Polish Radio reports:
The U.S. Department of Justice has rejected a request from prosecutors in Warsaw for assistance in the investigation into the alleged CIA prisons in Poland, where captives claim they were tortured. On 18 March, the Prosecutor’s Office of Appeal in Warsaw filed a motion for legal assistance from the US Department of Justice into the probe. On 7 October, reports the PAP news agency, the US informed prosecutors that the motion had been rejected on the basis of the international Agreement on Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters and that the U.S. authorities consider the matter “to be closed”.
According to the agreement, a country has the right to refuse to provide legal assistance if the execution of the request would encroach on this country’s security or another interest of this country. The revelation that the US will not be cooperating with the investigation into the alleged black site, thought to have been in northern Poland near the Szymany air base, comes after a second man followed al-Qaeda suspect Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri in asking prosecutors in Warsaw to look into his case.
Former Polish president Aleksander Kwaśniewski and former prime minister Leszek Miller have insisted to criminal investigators that they knew nothing about a CIA black site in Poland. However, Polish air traffic control in Warsaw confirmed the regular use of the Szymany air base by two aircraft used in the CIA’s extraordinary renditions program, and prosecutors have apparently collected substantial additional evidence that the CIA used the facilities to house and interrogate prisoners. Public pressure to continue the criminal probe is growing.
Polish Radio reports that a new billboard has appeared in Poznan featuring a person hooded and bound to a chair with a tattered American flag in the background. The legend in Polish and English reads “Welcome to Poland—Where they torture people.”
Via: Los Angeles Times
Voters approved Proposition 13 in 1978, when Brown was governor the first time. The measure slashed property taxes, which were used to fund schools and local governments, and made it harder for cities and counties to raise taxes.
Prop 13 was the first shot in the battle to shrink government or as conservatives say “starve the beast”. Since the election of Regan and the supply side economics the battle to shrink government has been continuous. The idea of shrinking government has become so popular that even the “liberal” democrats have gotten on board, either from fear of loosing an election or fearing the loss of contributions.
With austerity and cuts is in the news everyday, it is important to realize who benefits, not the poor or the working poor and not the middle class, the only ones who really benefit are the very wealthy. Government is not perfect and of course there is going to be some waste or worse, but focusing on fixing those problems should be the work of our elected officials and the press, shutting down social services and crippling government is not their purpose.
So I hope Jerry Brown can start a new trend in fiscal reform, the first step is getting the rich to pay their share.
