December 2010
“I’m not sure [Robert] Gibbs has a coherent idea of what he means by the “left,” but if opposition to permanent war, extrajudicial assassination of American citizens, boundless state secrecy, and unlimited corporate bailouts constitutes “leftism,” then so be it.”
—
The Mendacity of Hope – Six Questions for Roger D. Hodge — by Scott Horton
via 3quarksdaily(via danielholter)
vruz: that was a strong reply. and I thought I was being tough. I have to harden up somewhat, I feel like a nancy :-)
November 2010
WikiLeaks founder could be charged under Espionage Act →
washingtonpost.com
vruz: turns out Obama was fully honest, and he really is the only thing between the bankers and the pitchforks. meaning he won’t let the people (and Wikileaks) stick it to Bank of America. whenever a government has trouble with the First Amendment, you know there’s something really, really stinky going on. taking the trouble to fetch Assange? the open and transparent white house, what a fraud.
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said the Justice Department and Pentagon are conducting “an active, ongoing criminal investigation.” Others familiar with the probe said the FBI is examining everyone who came into possession of the documents, including those who gave the materials to WikiLeaks and also the organization itself. No charges are imminent, the sources said, and it is unclear whether any will be brought.
Former prosecutors cautioned that prosecutions involving leaked classified information are difficult because the Espionage Act is a 1917 statute that preceded Supreme Court cases that expanded First Amendment protections. The government also would have to persuade another country to turn over Assange, who is outside the United States.
“Here is the answer which I will give to President Roosevelt… We shall not fail or falter; we shall not weaken or tire. Neither the sudden shock of battle nor the long-drawn trials of vigilance and exertion will wear us down. Give us the tools and we will finish the job.”
—Winston Churchill
“Never give in—never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”
—Winston Churchill
“One ought never to turn one’s back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half.”
—Winston Churchill
Wikileaks has 5GB of secret docs on Bank of America →
bit.ly
—via soupsoup:
“At the moment, for example, we are sitting on 5GB from Bank of America, one of the executive’s hard drives,” Assange told the technology site Computer World in an article published on October 9, 2009.
The Wikileaks chief continued: “Now how do we present that? It’s a difficult problem. We could just dump it all into one giant Zip file, but we know for a fact that has limited impact. To have impact, it needs to be easy for people to dive in and search it and get something out of it.”
WikiLeaks Honduras: State Department Busted on Support of Coup →
truth-out.org
by Robert Naiman, TruthOut.org
It is inconceivable that any top US official responsible for US policy in Honduras was not familiar with the contents of the July 24 cable, which summarized the assessment of the US embassy in Honduras on key facts that were politically disputed by supporters of the coup regime.
The cable was addressed to Tom Shannon, then assistant secretary of state for western hemisphere affairs; Harold Koh, the State Department’s legal adviser; and Dan Restrepo, senior director for western hemisphere affairs at the National Security Council.
The cable was sent to the White House and to Secretary of State Clinton. But despite the fact that the US government was crystal clear on what had transpired, the US did not immediately cut off all aid to Honduras except ‘democracy assistance,’ as required by US law.
vruz: incompetence, or second intentions? I couldn’t bring myself to think wrong of Secretary Clinton. but I also fail to see a third option in this case with the damning information available.
“The little guy needs a brand because that’s basically all he’s got. He’s got very little manpower, very little money compared to the big guy. The big guy’s got a ton of manpower and a ton of money. So this small coterie of plotters decides to go after a nation-state. If they don’t have a strong brand, nothing’s going to happen. From the first atrocity on, the little guy is building his brand. And that’s why somebody phones in after every bomb and says, “It was us, the Situationist Liberation Army. We blew up that mall.” That’s branding. By the same token, you get these other, surreal moments where they call up and say, “We didn’t do that one.” That’s branding. That’s all it is. A terrorist without a brand is like a fish without a bicycle. It’s just not going anywhere.”
—
William Gibson (via vruz)
And we know that Al-Qaeda is 99.9% pure brand, which would make this whole eternal war-against-terrorism thing hilarious if it weren’t for all the blood & guts.
(via buffleheadcabin)
vruz: the way I see it from afar is that americans aren’t dealing well with it. hyperventilating and losing control is essentially capitulation when dealing with this enemy. it’s exactly what the enemy wants.
I don’t think Gibson means that because terrorism is a branding-based business it’s any less effective, the opposite seems to be true.
Which is exactly the reason why knee-jerk reactions and totalitarian ticks, making the population less free are the exact opposite things of what the U.S. should be doing.
I see how being a prominently individualist society can be a weakness in this context, individuals who believe in individualism too much are too worried to be the lottery winner, as Gibson puts it.
Imagine current day americans living in London during WWII with bombs falling routinely on your neighbourhood, daily, for weeks, and months.
The enemy is really in our heads.
“In 1611 a new English translation of the Bible appeared. It carried the authorization of the British monarch, King James 1. James I was the son of the infamous Mary, Queen of Scots, the rival of Queen Elizabeth, and who had been raised Presbyterian. When he became king of both Scotland and England at the death of Elizabeth there was great hope that he would side with those in the English church that wanted to abolish episcopacy, a party that came to be known as Puritans. He was unsympathetic to the anti-episcopacy crowd, but he was willing to support the translation of a new bible, and so four hundred years ago one of the most influential books in the English language was published.”
—
Celebrating 400 Years of the King James Bible (via azspot)
vruz: and we all know where did the puritans go.
Domain Name Seizures and the Limits of Civil Forfeiture →
larrydownes.com
by Larry Downes, h/t Groklaw
Several reports, including from CNET, The Washington Post and Techdirt, wonder how it is the government can seize a domain name without a trial and, indeed, without even giving notice to the registered owners. The short answer is the federal civil forfeiture law, which has been the subject of increasing criticism unrelated to Internet issues.
See http://law.jrank.org/pages/ 1231/Forfeiture-Constitutional-challenges.html for a good synopsis of recent challenges, most of which fail.)
vruz: update: sorry the link at the bottom doesn’t work too well thanks to tumblr.
here’s a shortened link to the same url: http://goo.gl/6LwFw
“I’m happiest with people who’ve gotten furthest from traditional ideas of nationalism. I’m happiest in wildly multicultural post-national environments, which most large world cities now are. I’m writing about places I like. Last year I thought about the first time I traveled through Europe, which was in 1970. When I traveled through Europe, each country had not only its own currency but its own brands of cigarettes, its own everything. That was such a wonderful experience. Each country in Europe was a pocket universe. That’s gone. It’s just gone. They all just have EU stuff and a lot of American stuff and a lot of Japanese stuff. It’s not as charming. But it’s the way it is. I don’t really see how we could have kept it the way it was. I don’t feel nostalgia for what it was. I’ve become convinced that nostalgia is a fundamentally unhealthy modality. When you see it, it’s usually attached to something else that’s really, seriously bad. I don’t traffic in nostalgia. We’re becoming a global culture.”
—
vruz: I subscribe to this feeling. I adore the difference of the things that make places and ages authentic, but not so much as to become a collector of nostalgia. it’s not just that nostalgia is attached to something seriously bad, to me it’s that the administrative overhead of managing the overwhelmingly huge past precludes all possibility of administering an optimistic future. the past is fixed on stone. therefore I choose to always prefer the future. the future is always better, because it’s something you can improve, a place where you can create new things that come to life.
“…many of the same people who supported the invasion of Iraq and/or who support the war in Afghanistan, drone strikes and assassination programs — on the ground that the massive civilians deaths which result are justifiable “collateral damage” — are those objecting most vehemently to WikiLeaks’ disclosure on the ground that it may lead to the death of innocent people. For them, the moral framework suddenly becomes that if an act causes the deaths of any innocent person, that is proof that it is not only unjustifiable but morally repellent regardless of what it achieves. How glaringly selective is their alleged belief in that moral framework.”
—
Glenn Greenwald (via azspot: jonathan-cunningham)
vruz: some innocent people are more innocent than others. some criminals are less criminals than others. it all comes down to “us and them”.
“The little guy needs a brand because that’s basically all he’s got. He’s got very little manpower, very little money compared to the big guy. The big guy’s got a ton of manpower and a ton of money. So this small coterie of plotters decides to go after a nation-state. If they don’t have a strong brand, nothing’s going to happen. From the first atrocity on, the little guy is building his brand. And that’s why somebody phones in after every bomb and says, “It was us, the Situationist Liberation Army. We blew up that mall.” That’s branding. By the same token, you get these other, surreal moments where they call up and say, “We didn’t do that one.” That’s branding. That’s all it is. A terrorist without a brand is like a fish without a bicycle. It’s just not going anywhere.”
—William Gibson
