Isebrand.com

ABC gives in to Religious Right

Via the Wedding Party:

ABC has decided not to air the reality show, “Welcome to the Neighborhood,” a show where multi-racial couples, including a gay couple, vie for the community’s vote to be their neighbor. The show was yanked prior to being aired because the gay couple was chosen by a conservative Christian neighborhood to be their neighbor after undergoing a tremendous transformation from hate to understanding. But the American Family Association and their cronies have forced ABC to pull the show. Write or call ABC and tell them to air “Welcome to the Neighborhood” at:

ABC, Inc.
500 S. Buena Vista Street
Burbank, CA 91521-4551

(818) 460-7477

Pentagon admits psychological weapons hit American citizens

In a shocking admission, the Pentagon concedes that "psychological warfare" messages intended to target foreign enemies are hitting the American people themselves, according to a 78-page Pentagon document obtained by an organization called the the National Security Archive via a Freedom of Information Act request.

Of course, a senior adviser to Sec. of Defense Rumsfeld, Larry Di Rita, according to an Associated Press article, says that since October 2003, when the document was signed, the Pentagon has come to understand the "importance" of creating "'firewalls' between the military's psychological warfare operations and its public affairs efforts, which are intended to be truthful at all times." Ah, blessed assurance.

The document opens with a signed section by Donald Rumsfeld.

According to the National Security Archive, the document says that the Pentagon shouldn't explicitly target Americans with psychological warfare messages, but beyond that, "any leakage of PSYOPS [(psychological operations)] to the American public does not matter."

The National Security Archive and I both beg to differ. "Leaking" PSYOP propaganda--by definition a weapon of war--towards the American people certainly does matter. By definition, PSYOP propaganda is a weapon of war, and like the poisonous "juice of cursed hebenon" poured into King Hamlet's ear, subtly deadly.

I find this abhorrent.

First, almost every republic the world has seen traveled a road to ruin paved with so-called good intentions. A political body guard for Rumsfeld telling us the Pentagon intends to be truthful with us, the citizens of the U.S., who surrender 48% of every tax dollar taken from our paychecks to the military isn't good enough. The military--the Pentagon--works for me, not the other way around, and I don't want them to intend to tell the truth, I want a guarantee that they always will, and always prove that they do so.

Secondly, it has already been revealed that the Pentagon lies readily: about torture, about civilian casualty figures--which they did not even record during the Iraqi invasion, about details of flight interception possibilities on the morning of September 11, 2001, about many things. Therefore, an assurance that the Pentagon has "learned" something since October 2003 ought to make one wonder what manner of lies we were fed before then, before all this "learning" took place. (Who, or what occurrences, gave the Pentagon its new remedial lessons?)

I urge you to contact your members of Congress and urge them to demand an investigation into the Pentagon's allowance for psychological warfare "leaks" against the American people.

Gore Vidal agrees: the rise of despotism and religiosity going hand-in-hand

Gore Vidal explored in his essay posted (with an audio file, too) on TruthDig.com and HuffingtonPost.com something I touched on in my "Orientalism" post specifically the way the public's religiosity and approval of a imperium go hand-in-hand. Vidal specifically mentions 4th-century Rome, about which he became an expert while researching the Emperor Julian for his novel, Julian.

From Vidal's essay:

The British historian Charles Freeman published an extended discussion of the transition that took place during the late Roman empire, the title of which could serve as a capsule summary of our current president: "The Closing of the Western Mind." Mr. Bush, God knows, is no Augustine; but Freeman points to the latter as the epitome of a more general process that was underway in the fourth century: namely, ‘the gradual subjection of reason to faith and authority.’ This is what we are seeing today, and it is a process that no society can undergo and still remain free. Yet it is a process of which administration officials, along with much of the American population, are aggressively proud.” In fact, close observers of this odd presidency note that Bush, like his evangelical base, believes he is on a mission from God and that faith trumps empirical evidence. Berman quotes a senior White House adviser who disdains what he calls the “reality-based” community, to which Berman sensibly responds: “If a nation is unable to perceive reality correctly, and persists in operating on the basis of faith-based delusions, its ability to hold its own in the world is pretty much foreclosed.”    

Berman does a brief tour of the American horizon, revealing a cultural death valley. In secondary schools where evolution can still be taught too many teachers are afraid to bring up the subject to their so often un-evolved students. “Add to this the pervasive hostility toward science on the part of the current administration (e.g. stem-cell research) and we get a clear picture of the Enlightenment being steadily rolled back. Religion is used to explain terror attacks as part of a cosmic conflict between Good and Evil rather than in terms of political processes.... Manichaeanism rules across the United States. According to a poll taken by Time magazine fifty-nine percent of Americans believe that John’s apocalyptic prophecies in the Book of Revelation will be fulfilled, and nearly all of these believe that the faithful will be taken up into heaven in the ‘Rapture.’

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LEGO my Jefferson

LEGO pic for today:

There's some winning going on

If you've not been following the two incredible Internet-based take-downs of blowhard Chris Matthews and Deborah Howell of what many see as the increasingly rightwing-leaning Washington Post, you're missing an important chapter in the history of the progressive blogosphere, but you can catch up quickly by way of this great post on Daily Kos here.

The only background you need is this: Chris Matthews recently compared Democrats to Osama Bin Laden, and Deborah Howell declared that the massive scandal enveloping Jack Abramoff and numerous Republican member of Congress was a bipartisan affair, not a Republican scandal per se...which is clearly is to anyone who isn't blind in one eye and unable to see worth a damn out of the other.

Gore Vidal on "President Jonah"

Gore Vidal has an essay at Truthdig.com (and there's an audio file there of him reading the essay).

The Religious Right's Orientalism

Christianity came of age in what the Roman scholar Keith Hopkins calls, "A world full of gods"--the era of Rome's history, not terribly long after the republic became an empire, marked by the rise of: 1. mystical religiousity and 2. megalomaniacal monarchs.

As Rome warred hard and played hard, said mystical religiosity became only more prevalent, politically relevant, and distracting, and the state become only more deified in the person of the emperor, corrupt, and militarized.

Does this perhaps sound strangely familiar?Arguably, in the Religious Right's support of the imperial presidency can be heard echoes of Rome's fall, and perhaps omens of our American adventure's end, too.

This rise in the irrational and the abandonment of any pretense of republicanism among Rome's populace satiated by violent entertainment and gross consumption (the Romans bought and bought, and produced shockingly little; most of their luxury items and many staples came from conquered lands) was often characterized by scholars of Antiquity as a result of the influence of "Orientalism" on the Roman Empire.

First, let me point out that the term Orientalism suggests slightly different things in different academic disciplines. Also, it is considered politically incorrect. I stress that I use it here ironically. The way Western Civilization as a college or high school course was taught for generations in American classrooms was that the "Oriental" influence on Rome was a bad thing. And since America traced its style of civic spirit and government to the Roman republic, such "Orientalism" was seen as also un-American.

By that standard, adherents to nationalistic Christianity today in the US are behaving in an absolutely un-American, an "Oriental" fashion: advancing religiosity within the republic and backing the concept of a strong, sole national leader. One can see this in the Religious Right's injection into the nation's consciousness and political discourse and activity everything from Intelligent Design to praying, Bible studies, or the laying on of hands or anointing with oil in The White House and federal chambers.

When scholars of ancient Rome used to refer to "Orientalism," they didn't mean influences from China or India or Japan, but influences from what scholars today term the Near East, including but not limited to Persia (modern Iran), Egypt, and Asia Minor, (modern Turkey). The ancient foe of both the Greek republics and the Roman republic (and Empire) was Persia. It followed a monarchical model of government in which a royal person and his court had all the rights, and the masses--the populace--had few if any. This was the way things worked in Egypt, too, with its Pharaohs and later Ptolemaic and other rulers, and the many kings of the lands of Asia Minor.

And born of these same numerous lands, the outlaying regions of Roman geo-political influence and beyond, were the mystery cults, of which Christianity (or more correctly "early Christianities," for there were competing versions of the faith for some time), comprised only a representative sample. There was the cult of Mithras from Iran, the cults of Attis and Cybele from Asia Minor, the cult of Isis from Egypt, and the list goes on and on. They were referred to as mystery cults because they involved privileged mystical knowledge or tended to have elements of secrecy and symbolism in their rites--such say, say, the symbolic eating of the flesh of a god-man, or submersion in water.

Of course, it's a tongue-in-cheek accusation that the Religious Right is guilty of an "Orientalism" that is weakening America; but, is the nod-and-a-wink in the terminology or the argument itself?

I'll let you decide just how valid the argument is.

But let me ask: Could it be--could it possibly be--that our once Enlightenment-inspired, reason-loving, and disestablishment-based republic, increasingly imbued by popular conservative evangelical Christian culture, is eschewing the humanism, rationalism, and secularism enshrined in the Constitution that was embraced by our Founding Fathers, be they the Christians among them or the secular deists like Washington, Jefferson, and Adams?

Roget Toussaint was right

Roger Toussaint, president of Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union (TWU) in New York City, recently led his members in a strike deemed illegal. In doing so, he helped labor members worldwide regain their dignity.

Recently, it has been reported that long-declining labor membership has leveled off. This is good news, especially for U.S. labor leaders who have seen their membership self-destructively turn from Democrat to Republican in a gross abandonment of the power of collective bargaining, which the New York City transit strike demonstrated can still win workers important rights and compensations.

Roger Toussaint did three important things during the strike:

1. He made the strike an issue of civil rights. He invoked Martin Luther King, Jr. and other worthy leaders of the Civil Rights movement--people and a movement a whole generation of American wage-earners are in desperate need of being introduced to, not sufficient having been instructed in U.S. history in public schools.

2. He reminded New Yorkers of just what sort of working conditions many union members have voluntarily--pre-dawn report times, ear-splitting decibel levels, being in and around tens of tons of metal barreling along at 20 miles an hour and electrified third rails, and enduring often irrationally angry, impatient customers all day. (How many financial analysts, Wall Street brokers, or MTA board members lose their lives on the job, or have strangers scream at them?)

3. He demanded dignity for the TWU's members. See the article in New York Magazine. Toussaint demanded dignity, and in so doing, reminded many middle-class New Yorkers that there is "another New York." Also, because Toussaint led the TWU in a strike in one of the financial capitals of the world (note the record level of Wall Street bonuses paid-out in 2005), it occasioned hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers who work for major, Manhattan-based financial and media corporations to switch during the strike from asking: "Why should TWU members be allowed to retire at 50 years of age when I have to retire later?" to ask, "Why shouldn't I be able to retire at 50?" That is, it became increasingly difficult when trudging through the cold as a stranded New York commuter to ignore and not know about what terms the TWU members were fighting for, and applying it to oneself.

Roger Toussaint just may have helped save the labor movement. And for that, American workers should be grateful.

Feds demanding Google search data - Contact Congress now (here's how)

The Bush administration is demanding that Google be made to hand over private and legally guarded data regarding how people use the search engine.

Just type in your address (or even just your zip code) on Contacting the Congress to get the contact information for your U.S. Senators and likely U.S. Representatives. Tell your Congressmembers that you object to this heavy-handed move by the Bush administration.

The Bush administration probably is hoping their desired violation of privacy against American citizens will be acquiescently accepted by millions of Americans ill-informed about American history, current events, or our nation's founding principles. What is shocking is how subservient supposedly proud conservative Americans still are to the Bush White House's whims even as all indications are that fewer of them--Bush's supposed base--state that they actually trust this president or his minions in the federal government to ever be about the business that they claim to be.

Bush and his government are--it has become clear from the secret big business energy meetings, weapons of mass destruction falsehoods, torture cover-ups, and more--almost always really up to something else, something that consistently is no good for the average American, especially the working class, lower-middle- and middle-classes, educated but effectively overworked, making less in real dollars (that is--after adjustments for inflation) than 10 years ago, far less than Americans in the 1950's and 1960's (yes, when all those Democrats were president), and thus with little time to read up on politics and little disposal income to give towards organizations that would defend their rights while they labor.

The article from The Mercury News:

The Bush administration on Wednesday asked a federal judge to order Google to turn over a broad range of material from its closely guarded databases.

The move is part of a government effort to revive an Internet child protection law struck down two years ago by the U.S. Supreme Court. The law was meant to punish online pornography sites that make their content accessible to minors. The government contends it needs the Google data to determine how often pornography shows up in online searches.

In court papers filed in U.S. District Court in San Jose, Justice Department lawyers revealed that Google has refused to comply with a subpoena issued last year for the records, which include a request for 1 million random Web addresses and records of all Google searches from any one-week period.

The Mountain View-based search and advertising giant opposes releasing the information on a variety of grounds, saying it would violate the privacy rights of its users and reveal company trade secrets, according to court documents.

Nicole Wong, an associate general counsel for Google, said the company will fight the government's effort ``vigorously.''

``Google is not a party to this lawsuit, and the demand for the information is overreaching,'' Wong said.

The case worries privacy advocates, given the vast amount of information Google and other search engines know about their users.

``This is exactly the kind of case that privacy advocates have long feared,'' said Ray Everett-Church, a South Bay privacy consultant. ``The idea that these massive databases are being thrown open to anyone with a court document is the worst-case scenario. If they lose this fight, consumers will think twice about letting Google deep into their lives.''

Everett-Church, who has consulted with Internet companies facing subpoenas, said Google could argue that releasing the information causes undue harm to its users' privacy.

``The government can't even claim that it's for national security,'' Everett-Church said. ``They're just using it to get the search engines to do their research for them in a way that compromises the civil liberties of other people.''

The government argues that it needs the information as it prepares to once again defend the constitutionality of the Child Online Protection Act in a federal court in Pennsylvania. The law was struck down in 2004 because it was too broad and could prevent adults from accessing legal porn sites.

However, the Supreme Court invited the government to either come up with a less drastic version of the law or go to trial to prove that the statute does not violate the First Amendment and is the only viable way to combat child porn.

As a result, government lawyers said in court papers they are developing a defense of the 1998 law based on the argument that it is far more effective than software filters in protecting children from porn. To back that claim, the government has subpoenaed search engines to develop a factual record of how often Web users encounter online porn and how Web searches turn up material they say is ``harmful to minors.''

The government indicated that other, unspecified search engines have agreed to release the information, but not Google.

``The production of those materials would be of significant assistance to the government's preparation of its defense of the constitutionality of this important statute,'' government lawyers wrote, noting that Google is the largest search engine.

Google has the largest share of U.S. Web searches with 46 percent, according to November 2005 figures from Nielsen//NetRatings.

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Gore's call to reject fear

From Al Gore's speech on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day:

Fear drives out reason. Fear suppresses the politics of discourse and opens the door to the politics of destruction. Justice Brandeis once wrote: "Men feared witches and burnt women."

The founders of our country faced dire threats. If they failed in their endeavors, they would have been hung as traitors. The very existence of our country was at risk.

Yet, in the teeth of those dangers, they insisted on establishing the Bill of Rights.

Is our Congress today in more danger than were their predecessors when the British army was marching on the Capitol? Is the world more dangerous than when we faced an ideological enemy with tens of thousands of missiles poised to be launched against us and annihilate our country at a moment's notice? Is America in more danger now than when we faced worldwide fascism on the march-when our fathers fought and won two World Wars simultaneously?

It is simply an insult to those who came before us and sacrificed so much on our behalf to imply that we have more to be fearful of than they. Yet they faithfully protected our freedoms and now it is up to us to do the same.

We have a duty as Americans to defend our citizens' right not only to life but also to liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It is therefore vital in our current circumstances that immediate steps be taken to safeguard our Constitution against the present danger posed by the intrusive overreaching on the part of the Executive Branch and the President's apparent belief that he need not live under the rule of law.

I endorse the words of Bob Barr, when he said, "The President has dared the American people to do something about it. For the sake of the Constitution, I hope they will."

A special counsel should immediately be appointed by the Attorney General to remedy the obvious conflict of interest that prevents him from investigating what many believe are serious violations of law by the President. We have had a fresh demonstration of how an independent investigation by a special counsel with integrity can rebuild confidence in our system of justice. Patrick Fitzgerald has, by all accounts, shown neither fear nor favor in pursuing allegations that the Executive Branch has violated other laws.

I encourage you to read Vice-president Gore's speech. The full text can be found here.