Posts tagged ‘Politics’

August 6th, 2010

Censorship, the fear of free thought

Image representing Digg as depicted in CrunchBase

Image via CrunchBase

Those who fear the free exchange of ideas will find any means at hand to silence those with whom they disagree. Censorship involves eliminating opposing ideas and voices, ensuring that only a single opinion can be heard.

You’d think in a democratic republic such as ours, those with passionate political beliefs would value the open and honest exchange of opinions. The best solutions to any social problem can only be found when a number of opposing and divergent views can be aired and considered by all of the citizens. The hope is that the best and most practical solutions will rise to the top.

This process is circumvented, though, when one group of like-minded people decide to silence views that don’t agree with theirs. It starts by labeling those with whom you disagree unpatriotic, anti-American, enemies of the state. Once portrayed this way, the road is clear to imprison them or worse. Traveling down this road begins with small steps.

Consider the follow report from oleoleolson at AlterNet:

A group of influential conservative members of the behemoth social media site Digg.com have just been caught red-handed in a widespread campaign of censorship, having multiple accounts, upvote padding, and deliberately trying to ban progressives. An undercover investigation has exposed this effort, which has been in action for more than one year.

The concept behind the site is simple. Submitted webpages (news, videos, or images) can be voted up (digging) or down (burying) by each user, sort of a democracy in the internet model. If an article gets enough diggs, it leaves the upcoming section and reaches the front page where most users spend their time, and can generate thousands of page views.

This model also made it very susceptible to external gaming whereby users from certain groups attempt to push their viewpoint or articles to the front page to give them traction. This was evident with the daily spamming of the upcoming Political section with white supremacist material from the British National Party (articles which rarely reached the front page). The inverse of this effect is more devastating however. Bury brigades could effectively remove stories from the upcoming sections by collectively burying them.

One bury brigade in particular is a conservative group that has become so organized and influential that they are able to bury over 90% of the articles by certain users and websites submitted within 1-3 hours, regardless of subject material. Literally thousands of stories have already been artificially removed from Digg due to this group. When a story is buried, it is removed from the upcoming section (where it is usually at for ~24 hours) and cannot reach the front page, so by doing this, this one group is removing the ability of the community as a whole to judge the merits or interest of these stories on their own (in essence: censoring content). This group is known as the Digg “Patriots”.

A group of nearly one hundred conservatives have banded together on a Yahoo Group called Digg Patriots (DP), and a companion site at coRanks to issue bury orders and discuss strategies to censor Digg and other social media websites. DP was founded on 21 May 2009. Since then, over 40,000 posts have been logged at a steady rate of around 3000-4000 per month. The “Patriots” Network on coRank is a tool to submit Diggs to a group list as opposed to sending an e-mail every time. It also has some tools that make submitting to the list as easy as clicking on a bookmark.

The ring leader of the group is Bettverboten, who issues multiple digg and bury orders everyday. She is a Digg power user who has dugg 70,000 articles and has 1500 submits of her own (18% have gone popular) in one short year on the site. She was previously known as Lizbett before her lifetime ban for offensive and inappropriate comments, and has two sleeper accounts waiting if she gets banned again at loquaciouslola and MsBoop. She is also on Twitter, although her primary focus is Digg, where she has acquired a huge following of power users who are likely unaware that she is gaming the system, and even calling to bury some of her mutuals.

There are a few differences of opinion within DP, although for the most part, they are extremely similar in perspective. They hate Obama. They hate progressives. They hate the UN, diplomacy, and peace/disarmament efforts. They hate reforms of health care, Wall St., and immigration. They hate science, in fact many are creationists, and some even blog about it. They hate the secular nature of our nation. They hate environmental protection, requiring polluters to be responsible for their own cleanup, and especially hate climate efforts. They hate unions and any attempt to level the playing field to give all Americans economic opportunities. They hate the government, except the military-industrial complex. They hate abortion rights. They hate public schools and really hate higher education. They hate anyone in the media except far right personalities like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Michelle Malkin. They hate anyone who doesn’t think Obama is a secret islamist and/or marxist who was born in Kenya. They just love to hate.

The primary function of the Digg Patriots is to censor politically progressive content from the upcoming Political, Political Opinion, World News, and Business sections, so that conservative stories have a better chance to get more traction. To do this, they constantly monitor these sections, progressive submitters, and news websites.

This censorship is not restricted to political articles either. Articles about education, homophobia, racism, science, the environment, economics, wealth disparity, world events, the media, green energy, and anything even slightly critical of the GOP/Tea Party/FoxNews/corporations are targets.

The good news in all this is that soon a new version of Digg will be put in place that may restrict this sort of activity. Still, it’s worrying that our public discourse is so vulnerable to censorship on this potentially powerful force for good called the internet.

The one thing that these people, who prefer to work in the dark and under cover of anonymity, cannot stand is exposure. The best way to curtail their dishonest behavior is to shed light on it. No one on either side of the debate over the future of this country should be to silence their opposition through such underhanded and devious means. Let’s keep the debate open to all. Let’s make sure every citizen has a chance to be heard.

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June 6th, 2010

Pondering the future

GO TO THE FUTURE

Image via Wikipedia

These are some random thoughts I’ve had about the future. Share your opinions and speculations in the comments.

  • We’ve taken thousands of young people out of our society at a time of their lives when they are still impressionable and not yet fully mature, trained them to be hunters and killers and transported them to a foreign country unlike ours in so many ways. We’ve kept them there for much of their formative years. Eventually they’ll come home. Is America prepared to deal with thousands of 20 and 30 year old people who essentially grew up as warriors in a foreign land? Do the means exist to help them adjust, to reintegrate into our society? How will we put their skills to use?
  • America has more people in prisons per capita than any other country on Earth. In 2008, over 7.3 million people were on probation, in jail or prison, or on parole at year-end — 3.2% of all U.S. adult residents or 1 in every 31 adults. (Source) Far too many of these people were imprisoned for violations of moral law, drugs, gambling and prostitution, and will eventually be released back into society. While in prison many of these “criminals” associated with and learned from more hardened criminals. Having been branded as criminals, many will employ these new skills when they find themselves unemployable and rejected by their society. By enforcing our useless moral laws we have created a entire criminal class that will affect all the rest of our society. Our federal and state budgets cannot even provide services for the law-abiding among us. How will we provide the funds to rehabilitate this class of criminals? How will we be able to afford to monitor them in case they backslide? What will happen to our culture when a million adult former prisoners re-enter our neighborhoods?
  • Our dependence on oil and other non-renewable resources has not waned, even in the face of the worst environmentally catastrophic oil spill in U.S. history. Electric vehicles and those running on alternative fuels continue to sell poorly. Manufacturers do not see a compelling reason to produce more environmentally friendly vehicles when people aren’t buying them. We don’t even appear to be willing to make small sacrifices that might reduce the amount of oil we need, like reducing freeway speeds. Not only are we a wasteful nation but one unwilling to sacrifice for the common good. Will that attitude change in the future? Will our children be more willing to make the sacrifices we aren’t willing to make? Will we ever acknowledge our addiction to non-renewable resources and do whatever it takes to kick it?
  • Over time we have come to inseparably associate democracy with capitalism. We have enshrined both as the epitome of human society. Anyone who suggests that democracy may not be scalable and workable in the 21st century or that capitalism may not be the best way for people to engage in the exchange of goods is castigated from all sides. We cannot accept the idea that our system may be breaking down and not have much of a future. We are faced with abuses of Wall Street and corrupt government officials and persist in considering them anomalies, not indicators of a weak system. Will we ever be able to consider alternatives to our present systems? Will we be able to listen to and consider alternative theories without demonizing those who suggest them? Can we admit that perhaps, just perhaps, our current models aren’t destined to last forever?
  • Will technology be our savior or present us with a host of new and frightening possibilities we haven’t envisioned or provided for? What will we do with all the workers displaced by the inevitable increase in robotic manufacturing? Will we be able to provide for citizens without jobs? Can we make leisure profitable? Will we have to return to a barter system when money becomes worthless? If a future court makes abortion illegal, how will we cope with an increasing population born to unemployed and unemployable couples? Are increased taxes the answer, smaller government? Will neighborhoods have to take over the maintenance of their infrastructure from the federal government?

What do you think? Is a bright future for ourselves and a bright future for those who come after us assured? Have we really given sufficient consideration to the future we are creating?  Share your thoughts.

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July 15th, 2009

The Family a.k.a. the Christian mafia

Has anyone else been slightly blown away by the recent revelations about “The Family”, another secret organization for the wealthy and powerful White cabal in D.C.?

Just when we thought “Good old boy” clubs had become passé, just when we thought we’d seen the last of former Skull and Bones members holding positions of power and influence, here comes “The Family”.

As the Republican Party implodes, the public is becoming aware of a secretive Christian society known as the Family or the Fellowship. The group was founded in 1935 in opposition to FDR’s New Deal and its adherents subscribe to a far right Christian fundamentalist and free market ideology. A minister named Abraham Vereide founded the Family after having a vision in which God visited him in the person of the head of the United States Steel Corporation (no, I’m not making this up). The Family has a connection to house on C Street in Washington, D.C., known simply as C Street. Officially registered as a church, the building serves as a meeting place and residence for conservative politicians.

Few members of the fellowship talk about the group’s mission. The organization organizes the annual National Prayer Breakfast that is attended by the president, members of Congress, and diplomats from around the world. Earlier this year, Obama presented his Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships at the event. According to Jeff Sharlet who wrote a book about the group, the Family’s philosophy is based on “a sort of trickle-down fundamentalism,” that believes that the wealthy and powerful, if they “can get their hearts right with God … will dispense blessings to those underneath them.” True believers in market orthodoxy, Family members think that God’s will operates directly through Adam Smith’s “invisible hand.”

The Family’s current leader Doug Coe is secretive but enjoys considerable political influence as a spiritual adviser. When South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, himself a visitor and a kind of honorary alumni at C Street, compared his political difficulties involving his affair with an Argentine woman to those of biblical King David, the South Carolina politician was falling back on a central figure in Family theology. You could “almost hear Doug Coe’s voice” coming out of Sanford, Sharlet remarks.

C Street’s stately red brick, $1.1 million building is subsidized by secretive religious organizations and is located a mere stone’s throw away from the Capitol. Lawmakers who live there include Reps. Zach Wamp (R-TN); Bart Stupak (D-MI);Jim DeMint (R-SC); Mike Doyle (D-PA); and Sens. John Ensign (R-NV), Tom Coburn (R-OK), and Sam Brownback (R-KS). The lawmakers, all Christians, live in private rooms upstairs and pay an incredibly low rent — a paltry $600 — to live at C Street.

When they’re not philandering and violating their own professed Christian morality, C Street members push for the projection of U.S. power abroad. As Obama went to Port of Spain, Trinidad for the Summit of the Americas in April, Ensign who criticized the president for shaking Hugo Chávez’s hand. (Source-http://blog.buzzflash.com/contributors/2016)

According to the Washington Post the house is owned by Youth With a Mission D.C. Youth With a Mission is one of the most extensive Christian fundamentalist para-church organizations on Earth, and YWAM founder leader Loren Cunningham has publicly outlined a vision for Christian world-control.

In a 2008 promotional video, “Reclaiming 7 Mountains of Culture”, Loren Cunningham describes a vision he shared along with the late Campus Crusade For Christ founder Bill Bright and late Christian theologian Francis Schaeffer, in which Christian fundamentalists could achieve world domination by taking over key sectors of society such as business, government, media, and education.

Francis Schaeffer is widely credited as one of the most influential theologians of the 20th Century Christian right. Among the myriad ministries of Bill Bright’s behemoth Campus Crusade For Christ is the Washington D.C. ministry Christian Embassy that targets Pentagon leaders for evangelizing.

The C Street House is run by a secretive Washington ministry known as The Family, or The Fellowship. Over the past year and a half, The Family has gradually come to public attention, mainly due to journalist and Harpers editor Jeff Sharlet’s ground breaking book The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power. The Family runs the yearly National Prayer Breakfast and maintains a network of Capital Hill prayer groups which have enjoyed the participation of both top GOP but also top Democratic Party Congress and Senate members.
As Cunningham introduces Reclaim 7 Mountains of Culture, “It was August, 1975… and the Lord had given me, that day a list of things that I had never thought about before. He said, ‘This is the way to reach America, and nations, for God.’ ”

The video continues with a narrator who declares, “In every city of the world, an unseen battle rages for dominion over God’s creation and the souls of people. This battle is fought on seven strategic fronts, looming like mountains over the culture, that shape and influence its destiny. Over the years, the church slowly retreated from its place of influence on these mountains, leaving a void now filled with darkness. When we lose our influence, we lose the culture and when we lose the culture we fail to advance the kingdom of God. And now, a generation stands in desperate need. It’s time to fight for them and take back these mountains of influence.” (Source-http://www.open.salon.com/blog/tre_gibbs/2009/07/11/c-street_house_and_the_family_-_america_needs_to_see_this)

…what makes it a little bit different than other Christian conservative organizations, two things, you said that it’s secretive. Indeed the leader of the group describes, he says, the more invisible you can make your organization, the more influence it will have. And the other things is the nature of the influence they want to have.

The family began, it’s the oldest Christian conservative organization in Washington and it goes back seventy years. And the founder believed that god gave him a new revelation saying that Christianity had gotten it wrong for two thousand years and that what most people think of as Christianity, as being about, you know, helping the weak and the poor and the meek and the down and out, he believes god came to him one night in April in 1935 and said what Christianity should really be about is building more power for the already powerful. And that these powerful men who were chosen by god can then if they want to dispense blessings to the rest of us, through a kind of trickle-down fundamentalism. (Source-http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/rachel-maddow-show-christian-conservatisms)

Think of C-Street as a TWO-WAY half-way house — except all of the house residents and visitors hold positions of tremendous elected power.
Some of the residents and visitors are RECEOVERING addicts, like former long-time cocaine addict Zach Wamp.
Others are heading into or dealing with CURRENT addictions, like sex addicts John Ensign and Mark Sanford.
And either way, the ultra-secretive house sponsor (who praises Hitler, Mao, and Stalin as role models) get free access with, and leverage over, these former and new addicts.
Nice set-up — that is, if you are a powerful politician who needs a place to live, who is willing to swear to secrecy, and who is willing to pretend not to see evil. (Source-http://blogs.nashvillescene.com/pitw/2009/07/wamp_defends_c_street_house_as.php)

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November 15th, 2008

Child Abuse-Turning Kids into Political Zombies

Free thinkers envy children with their unbiased perception of the world. Training children to become mental zombies, mouthing responses they don’t understand and can’t possibly have arrived at on their own is tantamount to child abuse. People who force their children to act as though they believe in the parent’s politics or religion are doing their kids no favor. In fact, the harm they do may not become evident for many years.

Here’s an example of the political child abuser. Look at the faces of his children. This isn’t a family, it’s a cult.

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October 8th, 2008

The Liberal Insult Generator

For all those who proudly call themselves Conservative, who subscribe to any far right position without reason or consideration and who cannot manage on their own to compose a killer comeback to those pesky, commie-loving, homo-supporting, anti-god, anti-troops, anti-American, spineless, sushi-eating, terrorist-coddling, Hollywood-humping, liberal defeatocrats: the internet brings you the The Liberal Insult Generator.

Now your mindless taunts can sound faintly erudite. “Hey, you militant victim-playing defeatocrats, you’re all loony criminal-pampering elitists. You weak, morality-destroying girlie men, you’re nothing but neorotic troop-slandering sodomites! (Feel free to take a moment to Google those words, you’ll find they’re wonderfully nasty)

Isn’t that fun? No more having to actually think up an ass-kicking insult. No need to do any thinking at all. And isn’t that the best part of being a knee-jerk Conservative anyway?

And for all you equally knee-jerk Liberals who mindlessly follow the left-wing agenda without any more thought than your counterparts on the right, I’m sure there’s an equally spiffy insult generator on some website for your mindless enjoyment. If someone knows where, leave the URL in the comments.

After all, everyone knows politics isn’t really about who can do the most good for our country or what policies will produce the most good for the greatest number of our citizens; politics is really about who can sling the most fragrant offal at the opposition.

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September 12th, 2008

Presidents and toilet paper

In a country where we have the choice of 50 kinds of toilet paper, why do we limit ourselves to only two viable candidates for the presidency? Why do we allow ourselves to be convinced that only two parties can possibly represent the views of all Americans?

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August 25th, 2008

Anti-Intellectualism Is Destroying America

From Alternet.org:

“It’s like these guys take pride in being ignorant.” Barack Obama finally said it.

Though a successful political and electoral strategy, the Right’s stand against intelligence has steered them far off course, leaving them — and us — unable to deal successfully with the complex and dynamic circumstances we face as a nation and a society.

American 15-year-olds rank 24th out of 29 countries in math literacy, and their parents are as likely to believe in flying saucers as in evolution; roughly 30 to 40 percent believe in each. Their president believes “the jury is still out” on evolution.

Steve Colbert interviewed Georgia Rep. Lynn Westmoreland on “The Colbert Report.” Westmoreland co-sponsored a bill that would require the display of the Ten Commandments in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, but, when asked, couldn’t actually list the commandments.

This stuff would be funny if it weren’t so dangerous.

In the 2004 election, nearly 70 percent of Bush supporters believed the United States had “clear evidence” that Saddam Hussein was working closely with al Qaeda; a third believed weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq; and more than a third that a substantial majority of world opinion supported the U.S.-led invasion, according to the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland. The political right and allied culture warriors actively ignore evidence and encourage misinformation. To motivate their followers, they label intelligent and informed as “elite,” implying that ignorance is somehow both valuable and under attack.

and from Way of the Mind:

In my opinion, anti-intellectualism is one of the world’s most serious problems, these days.

What is it? It’s the belief that what is good are the “simple people”, the “common people”, who are supposedly more honest and “real” than so-called “ivory tower” intellectuals.

It’s also the belief that thinking and learning are trouble, that they lead people to unhappiness, sinfulness, asking too many questions, and such.

It’s geeks, or more intelligent students, being called “brainy” or “nerds” and harassed by classmates. It’s science being seen as a waste of time and money. It’s a political candidate winning an election because he successfully depicted his opponent as an “egghead”. Incidentally, it’s likely that one of the reasons America currently has one of its worst presidents ever is that, by being less educated and articulate than Gore or Kerry, he appeared “more in touch” with the common man (of course, one should then wonder if you really want the village idiot in charge of the most powerful nation in the world… but I digress.)

There are several sources of anti-intellectualism. Religion is an obvious one, of course, since being intelligent and learning makes one less likely to accept arguments from authority, and to question unproven assertions. An intelligent, learned man has no need for religion – therefore, we don’t want any intelligent, learned men (to paraphrase The Fountainhead’s Elllsworth Toohey).

Besides “normal” religion, there’s also the usual mystical, new age thinking, according to which the mind is “flawed” and imperfect, incapable of perceiving any real “revelations”, which you supposedly can only grasp with “your heart” or “your spirit”. The mind is human, and therefore imperfect, while the heart/spirit are filled with “the cosmos’s love” or any other generic, meaningless terms.

Another reason is populism, the belief that the honest, hard working “masses” are oppressed by the corrupt, privileged “elites”. While they certainly are, sometimes (in dictatorships, for instance), populism is wrong because of its belief of “the lower, the better”, and its worship of ordinariness. Populism, like most forms of collectivism, punishes people for ability and for success – therefore, it promotes mediocrity and sameness. And a populist certainly hates and feels threatened by anyone with more “brains” or education.

Dictatorships (communism, fascism, etc.) always strongly promote anti-intellectualism, for mostly the same reasons as religion does: an intelligent, educated person is much more likely to question, and to see “what’s rotten”. The “unwashed masses” are much easier to keep in line. Higher education is seen as “dangerous” and “subversive”.

An intellectual isn’t necessarily someone more intelligent or with more knowledge than the norm. It just means that the person highly values the mind, thinking, and the pursuit of knowledge. And it’s frightening, to me, how few intellectuals (by that definition) I personally know. Anti-intellectuals (people who deride the mind, who pride themselves on not thinking, on not using their reason), on the other hand, are everywhere.

During this presidential campaign we’ve heard the terms “elite” and “elitist” used as pejorative terms.  I agree with Bill Maher when he said,

Say it loud: I’m elite and proud! The right-wing crusade to demonize elites has paid off. Now the country’s run by incompetents who make mediocrity a job requirement and recruit from Pat Robertson’s law school. New rule: Now that liberals have taken back the word liberal, they also have to take back the word “elite.” By now you’ve heard the constant right-wing attacks on the “elite,” or as it’s otherwise known, “hating.” They’ve had it up to their red necks with the “elite media.” The “liberal elite.” Who may or may not be part of the “Washington elite.” A subset of the “East Coast elite.” Which is influenced by “the Hollywood elite.” So basically, unless you’re a shitkicker from Kansas, you’re with the terrorists.

I don’t get it: In other fields — outside of government — elite is a good thing, like an elite fighting force. Tiger Woods is an elite golfer. If I need brain surgery, I’d like an elite doctor. But in politics, elite is bad (Source)

It’s not just politics, though.  As the influence of fundamental religion grows worldwide, it is becoming perceived as honorable, honest, down-to-Earth to be ignorant and bad-mouth intellectualism.  A 16 year old kid makes the news dropping out of high school to play Guitar Hero.  Education and the desire to know are no longer priorities.

Do you value the intellect?  Does the negative connotation of “elite” and “intellectual” bother you?

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January 5th, 2008

Mike Huckabee and Christian Duty

Bruce Walker at American Thinker presents Christian Republican concerns with the agenda of Mike Huckabee.

As a Christian Republican myself, I will express support for protecting God’s Creation, fighting sickness, and ending hunger.  All are profoundly Christian ideals.  But Mike Huckabee, as a Christian, is not really talking about protecting Creation, fighting sickness or ending hunger.  Mike is talking about using the coercive power of government to force other people to pay taxes and to comply with onerous and arbitrary laws to do what Mike thinks, as a Christian, he should be doing.

That is the salient fact:  as a Christian, Huckabee can be a witness to Christian behavior; he can exhort others to themselves become a witness to Christian behavior; but he cannot demand the enslavement of others to do those things which, as a Christian, he feels that he should do.  The term “enslavement,” of course, is relative.  Americans are comparatively free.  But everything that Huckabee feels government should do requires a loss of freedom for every American.  Moreover, Huckabee is not just asking for the greater enslavement of Christian Americans, but he is asking for the greater enslavement of all Americans.  This is most un-Christian.  Does my verdict sound extreme?  Substitute “Rome” for “America” and substitute “publican” for “tax dollars.”   

Mike Huckabee is quite right to enjoin all Christians and Jews to help the poor, comfort the sick, preserve the beauty of our Blessed Creation, to give jobs to the unemployed and all the other moral commands of the Judeo-Christian religious and moral tradition.  Mike Huckabee is quite wrong in perceiving this duty as a function of an impersonal, ineffective and unaccountable government.  What Mike says we should do, we should all do individually, as our conscience commands us to do.  We cannot replace our hands and our wallets with the hands of slaves or the federal treasury.

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