Politics and Sustainability

Israel under attack and the IDF is posting alarming tweets

2012-03-10T20:34:00.001-08:00

I stumbled across these tweets - and had no idea that Israel was under any kind of attack. I'd glanced through the news earlier this evening, and seen nothing. Not until accidentally finding these tweets. One thing that stands out is the idea of, every 30 minutes having to take cover. This reminds me of one of the Battlestar Galactica episodes in which the Cylons would attack every 33

Oldest Bible found in Palestine - Jesus was a servant of God and not God himself - Trinity False

2012-01-26T14:06:00.000-08:00

One of the core tenants of Christianity is the Trinity - The Father, The Son and the Holy Ghost. The figure we know of as Jesus is The Son, and the other two are individuated spirits off in the heavens somewhere. I don't know the theology of it perfectly, but that's the model we all learned in Sunday School (at least, all of us who went to a Christian church while growing up). The key of this

Hawaii may keep track of all Web sites visited

2012-01-26T09:22:00.000-08:00

CNET News is reporting that Hawaii's legislature is considering a proposal to require Internet Service Providers to record every web site their customers visit. The measure, H.B. 2288, says "Internet destination history information" and "subscriber's information" such as name and address must be saved for two years. The required data is "subscribers information and internet destination history

Haiti Social Media Disaster Monitoring Initiative

2012-01-19T18:23:00.000-08:00

Homeland Security Given Permission to Monitor (a.k.a. spy on) American Journalists Haiti Social Media Disaster Monitoring Initiative (function() { var scribd = document.createElement("script"); scribd.type = "text/javascript"; scribd.async = true; scribd.src = "http://www.scribd.com/javascripts/embed_code/inject.js"; var s = document.getElementsByTagName("script")[0];

2010 Winter Olympics Social Media Event Monitoring Initiative

2012-01-19T18:20:00.000-08:00

Homeland Security Given Permission to Monitor (a.k.a. spy on) American Journalists 2010 Winter Olympics Social Media Event Monitoring Initiative (function() { var scribd = document.createElement("script"); scribd.type = "text/javascript"; scribd.async = true; scribd.src = "http://www.scribd.com/javascripts/embed_code/inject.js"; var s = document.getElementsByTagName("script")[0];

April 2010 BP Oil Spill Response Social Media Event Monitoring Initiative

2012-01-19T18:15:00.000-08:00

April 2010 BP Oil Spill Response Social Media Event Monitoring Initiative Homeland Security Given Permission to Monitor (a.k.a. spy on) American Journalists April 2010 BP Oil Spill Response Social Media Event Monitoring Initiative (function() { var scribd = document.createElement("script"); scribd.type = "text/javascript"; scribd.async = true; scribd.src = "http://www.scribd.com/javascripts/

2012-01-19T18:03:00.000-08:00

Supporting documentation for: Homeland Security Given Permission to Monitor (a.k.a. spy on) American Journalists Publicly Available Social Media Monitoring and Situational Awareness Initiative Update (function() { var scribd = document.createElement("script"); scribd.type = "text/javascript"; scribd.async = true; scribd.src = "http://www.scribd.com/javascripts/embed_code/inject.js"; var s =

Homeland Security Given Permission to Monitor (a.k.a. spy on) American Journalists

2012-01-19T17:19:00.000-08:00

Freedom of the Press? And how do you define "the Press"? Are bloggers and social media mavens part of the Press? And what if the government starts collecting information on those it deems are "the Press"? Freedom of the Press is a nice principle that isn't really encoded in any laws. It's not like Freedom of Speech that's so important it was the first Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Occupy Martin Luther King's Birthday .. an Occupy oriented candle-light vigil on Jan 15 2012 honoring Dr. King

2012-01-08T18:26:00.000-08:00

How does a global scale leader-less open source no owners movement coordinate a global call for action on a given day? Say if there is an interest in organizing a global candle-light vigil on Martin Luther King's birthday (Jan 15) how do all the individual branch organizations individually and collectively decide to take part? Why, someone organizes a conference call, organizes one or two

CNN: CIA report: No issue with spy agency's partnership with N.Y. police

2011-12-23T21:00:00.000-08:00

According to a CIA investigation, the CIA is doing no wrong by collaborating with the NY Police Department in "covert surveillance" of Muslims in NYC. "The CIA inspector general has completed a review of the CIA's relationship with the NYPD and has found no violation of law or executive order on the part of CIA," said agency spokesman Preston Golson. "The IG also found no evidence that any

The case of Ron Paul and the bigoted libertarians

2011-12-23T10:51:00.000-08:00

Seems that Ron Paul has some serious baggage in his background, that has been known for years. That in the past he published a political newsletter which routinely printed, under his name, bigoted screeds that include saying all black (afro-american) people are criminals, and such things like advice from a supposed ex-cop to carry a gun with you at all times to protect yourself from black

3 Things That Must Happen for Us To Rise Up and Defeat the Corporatocracy

2011-12-21T16:52:00.000-08:00

I'm cleaning out the posts I'd star'd in Google Reader and came across this one from last August. Yes. August. Anyway it's a thought piece outlining what "we" need to do to "defeat corporatocracy" given that we are pitiful weak individuated citizens. It's an interesting read given what's happened since August, namely the campout in Zucotti Park that sparked the Occupy movement. Especially

Occupy Portland gets mired in (successful) military tactics, losing sight of the goal of fixing our society

2011-12-19T07:33:00.000-08:00

A couple weeks ago Occupy Portland spontaneously developed a riot defense tactic that they're proud of. They'd set up an encampment, got "cleared" out of the park where they set up camp, then by using the tactic they developed in the moment, they were able to retake and keep the encampment in the park from which they'd just been cleared. The blog post linked below discusses military tactics in

Do we let abandoned buildings rot while our people are homeless and unemployed?

2011-12-17T08:25:00.000-08:00

I woke up this morning thinking about the stereotype of The Bronx, the abandoned tenement buildings with abject poverty, homeless people everywhere, squatters in the abandoned buildings, and so on. My girlfriend lives in a part of the Bronx that doesn't fit this stereotype, so it's nice to know the Bronx is not entirely a destroyed city full of abject poverty and abandoned buildings. At the

Republicans afraid of being seen as inheriting Bush legacy, and are willing to Kill America in order to damage Obama's presidency

2011-12-15T07:25:00.001-08:00

On the occasion of bringing the Troops home from Iraq, Rachel Maddow opened her show with a strong piece about the conflicted emotions and moral stances we collectively hold about the Iraq war. It's been a long war, nearly 9 years since Americans invaded Iraq and about 20 years since the Operation Desert Storm thing. It's a long war that has cost a certain 1% of the population a great deal,

The Agenda Project: Patriotic Millionaires' Message to Congress "Tax Me"

2011-12-10T12:20:00.001-08:00

Ten years ago GW Bush was sworn into office after a contentious election, and launched a political effort to cut taxes for the wealthy. His meme was to "return your money" saying that the budget surpluses (which were already evaporating by the time he was sworn into office) indicated that the government was taking in too much money and that the taxes should be cut. That created an enormous tax

Grace Lee Boggs: You Have a Chance To Change The System

2011-12-04T18:02:00.001-08:00

Wise words for our current times from 96 year-old Detroit based radical activist Grace Lee Boggs, whose seven decades of political involvement encompass the major U.S. social movements of the past hundred years. Grace was involved in extensive Civil Rights and Black Power Movement activism in Detroit in partnership with husband and black autoworker, James Boggs (1919-93) and together they

Why the Occupy movement should avoid getting pinned down with specific goals or specific demands

2011-12-03T17:50:00.001-08:00

A critique of the Occupy movement is that besides being leaderless, they don't stand for anything. They don't have a list of 10 demands (or whatever) that helps us understand what the movement is about. Supposedly this makes them weak minded or something. In a meeting last night between Occupy groups in Silicon Valley, Transition Silicon Valley, and Transition Palo Alto, a very cogent apt

Neither America nor any other country are Businesses .. We are not electing a CEO

2011-12-03T08:43:00.001-08:00

Perhaps this is a sign of the corporatization of American government. That it's the next step after the Supreme Court's Citizen United ruling saying that Corporations had unlimited ability to spend money in politics, and there was surely a step before that which looked like an egregious example of the corporatization of our Politics and Government. What I'm concerned about is a tagline attached

The lost generation that knows it can change our society for the better

2011-11-24T21:57:00.001-08:00

This video came out a couple years ago, and was part of an AARP contest in which it won second place. I just came across it again and think it's really appropos to the OccupyEverywhere events going on right now. Basically - there's are societal memes that would say we're stuck, that we can't change things in any appreciable way, that we just have to put up with whatever lumps life knocks us

Lobbying Firm's Memo Spells Out Plan to Undermine Occupy Wall Street

2011-11-19T20:40:00.001-08:00

An exclusive report from Up With Chris Hayes exposes a lobbying firm pitching to the American Banking Association that the Occupy movement is dangerous, which must be killed in order for the Bankers to be safe. The piece concerns a proposal written on the letterhead of the lobbying firm Clark Lytle Geduldig & Cranford and addressed to one of CLGC’s clients, the American Bankers Association.

Police Captain Ray Lewis is Up with Chris Hayes to discuss the role of Police in Occupy protests, and the potential for Police to become Mercenaries for the Rich

2011-11-19T18:44:00.001-08:00

Retired Philadelphia police Captain Ray Lewis was arrested on Thursday at the Occupy Wall Street protest. Today he was on Up With Chris Hayes to explain his arrest, his stand, the role of police in situation and even the role of the police hierarchy to keep police violence in check. He had retired over 8 years ago and was living what he described as a "Walden Pond" existence of solitude in the

Occupy Wall Street: Robert Greenwald and Ed Schultz Discuss the Media Spin

2011-11-19T16:50:00.001-08:00

Robert Greenwald, director of movies such as Outfoxed (showcasing Fox News' pattern of lies and deception) and Iraq For Sale (showcasing the military industrial complex), is working on a new project - WhoAreThe1Percent.com. Greenwald was on The Ed Show recently to discuss who the "1 percent" is, and their project. The idea is to NAME who the "1%" are, those ultra-rich who are gaming the system

A key core item to remain focused on .. money in politics?

2011-11-19T16:20:00.001-08:00

Supposedly the Occupy movement is going to fail because it isn't focusing on a coherent set of demands. I think it would be a mistake to focus on one small set of demands, because the real problem with the system is comprehensive, it's built into the design of the system, and the system is fundamentally flawed on many levels. I also think the people of the Occupy movement know this. I found

Charles Eisenstein on Occupy Wall St as the The Revolution of Love

2011-11-19T15:58:00.001-08:00

"You can't evict an idea whose time has come". The Occupy message is so compelling that it's catching everyone's attention. But, says Charles Eisenstein says, the movement can't be about defeating the 1%. That is, we had better not end this with a bloodbath of the rich. If that's how it ends up, well, we've seen that story before. For example the French Royalty was killed off in the late