Irregular Times Diaries: Unfit Discussion

Earlier this year Barack Obama accused John McCain of have a “sudden 2008 urge to drill for offshore oil”. Barack Obama’s campaign called offshore drilling “a distracting idea which won’t reduce gas prices but will boost oil company profits.”

So, why is it that, as of August 1, 2008, Barack Obama is supporting John McCain’s “distracting idea” to boost oil company profits without benefitting the American people? Why is it that Barack Obama has joined George W. Bush’s crew to push for offshore drilling?

Wasn’t Barack Obama supposed to bring an end to the politics of greed and the power of lobbyists? Why is Obama now doing their bidding?

Why is Obama siding with the Republicans against progressive Democrats, in favor of offshore drilling?

Source: New Energy for America (http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/newenergy) - August 2, 2008

Obama cites faith as key to change, says today’s headline for the Boston Globe (Actually, it’s an Associated Press article - the newspapers don’t bother writing their own stories much any more).

Is it true? Is Obama right? Is faith the key to change?

Well, gosh, but that’s sure how it looks with the FISA Amendments Act.

Barack Obama says that the FISA Amendments Act isn’t a cover up of Bush’s criminal spying against millions of Americans without any criminal suspicion, any search warrant, or any notification of any court as required by law and the Constitution. Yet, the FISA Amendments Act gives retroactive immunity to the telecommunications companies that helped George W. Bush break the law, preventing information about the illegal program against the American people from entering the public record. Gosh, that sure looks like a cover up. Oh, but Barack Obama says it isn’t, so have faith, and don’t think about it any more.

Barack Obama says that the recent Inspectors General report into illegal hiring practices is a “strong example” of how there might still be some accountability for Bush’s crimes, in spite of the FISA Amendments Act blockage of the normal forms of investigation. Yet, the Inspectors General report that Obama cites resulted in no accountability whatsoever for anyone responsible for the crimes it describes. Gosh, that doesn’t look anything at all like a “strong example” of accountability. Oh, but Barack Obama says it’s true, so have faith, and just don’t think about it any more.

Barack Obama says that the FISA Amendments Act will stop George W. Bush’s massive programs of physical searches of Americans’ homes and eavesdropping on Americans’ electronic communications. Golly, if you take the time to read the FISA Amendments Act, though, it allows the President to continue those programs, without any actual restraint. Oh, but Barack Obama says that all the spying is going to stop, so have faith, and don’t worry your little head about it any more.

Barack Obama says that the FISA Amendments Act restores the exclusive jurisdiction of the FISA court to control George W. Bush’s big spying programs against Americans. Gee whillikers, though, the FISA Amendments Act that I’ve read actually gives the Attorney General of the United States the exclusive power to both operate the spy programs against Americans and to be the watchdog of those same spy operations. The FISA Amendments Act that I’ve read actually cuts the FISA court OUT of the process. Oh, but Barack Obama says it isn’t so. He says it’ll be okay. He says you don’t have to worry. He says yes you can send him a big donation. So, have faith.

See, with the power of faith, there can be change! The change in this case, is that the FISA Amendments Act and its attack on the Constitution gets passed, but who needs to be picky?

Change is change, right? Who cares about the details?

Yes we can! Baaa! Change we can believe in! Baaa! Hope! Baaa!

I just quit MoveOn. It isn’t because I disagree with their politics. It’s because they have compromised their politics.

Just yesterday, I got an email from MoveOn expressing their opposition to H.R. 6304, the FISA Amendments Act. That’s the right stand, because the FISA Amendments Act is a terribly abusive law that violates the Constitution and breaks trust with the American people. It allows massive, unrestrained spying programs by the government against American citizens, without any search warrant or any form of probable cause required.

The people who voted for the FISA Amendments Act won’t tell you this. They’ll tell you that the powers granted under the bill are just fine, and there’s nothing to worry about. But, have you actually read the legislation? Don’t believe what they tell you until you’ve read the bill yourself.

It’s bad enough that 105 Democrats in Congress turned coat and joined forces with George W. Bush to pass the FISA Amendments Act. What’s worse is that Barack Obama has announced he will join them. Barack Obama is betraying the supporters who helped him win the Democratic nomination.

What about MoveOn? They’re pretending nothing has happened. They’re moving ahead with fundraisers for Barack Obama.

That’s not the kind of politics that MoveOn is supposed to stand for. That’s why, until they repudiate Barack Obama or convince Barack Obama to change his position, I have quit MoveOn.

I encourage you to do the same. Here’s the short message I sent to Moveon explaining why I’ve quit.

“Barack Obama just endorsed the FISA Amendments Act. MoveOn says it’s against that law, as it should. It’s a betrayal of the Constitution and an abuse of our trust. Barack Obama should lose the endorsement of MoveOn because of this betrayal. When MoveOn repudiates Barack Obama, I will rejoin MoveOn. Until then, I will not be with you - and no bake sales for Obama.”

In the aftermath of the long-delayed Supreme Court decision to reassert the right of all people held prisoner by the United States government to have the ancient protection of habeas corpus, there has been a lot of hand-wringing among right wing pundits about whether the USA is strong enough to handle this level of freedom. Can we deal with a society where people are not thrown into prison at the whim of political elites, they ask, with anxious wrinkles crossing their foreheads.

The short answer is: Of course we can handle it, if we, the citizens of the USA, can avoid the temptation to buck and run. The structures of American democracy are not so limp and wimpy as right wingers seem to think.

Beyond that short answer, it’s important to understand what these right wing pundits are really concerned about. They purport to be worried about the nature of the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and other secret torture prisons run by George W. Bush. More honestly, these right wingers are concerned by the very idea of justice, applied equally and fairly. They worry their meek little hearts about whether a fair system of justice will protect them from the people they fear.

They ask, Should the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay be allowed to have access to lawyers? However, their question really amounts to this: Should we restrict prisoners’ access to lawyers, period?

The essence of the law under the United States Constitution, which applies everywhere that the United States government has authority, is that all people, no matter what they are accused of, should have equal protection under the law. That means that if we restrict some prisoners’ access to lawyers, we are declaring that our system has the right to restrict access to lawyers for any class of prisoners, if they should happen to offend us. If we make that choice, we are choosing to upend the Constitution, and to make our legal system unbalanced and unjust.

For that reason, no, the prisoners of war at Guantanamo Bay should not have their access to lawyers restricted. If we believe that justice works, we have no reason to be afraid. If we are afraid that justice does not work when applied without prejudice, we need to learn to control our fears. This is no time for right wing sissies to come along with their hands shaking, muttering that America can’t be safe unless we throw away our Constitution and the system of justice that it has established.

Get some backbone. Support justice, especially for the people you think are guilty of terrible things. If they really are guilty, a fair system of justice will find them guilty.

Just when you thought that Barack Obama had every single constituency wrapped up comes one more important endorsement: Caterpillars for Obama.

Why not? Caterpillars, with their penchant for metamorphosis, epitomize change we can believe in. John McCain, on the other hand, doesn’t even seem to believe in the butterfly stage. He’s stuck just being an old worm.

I’ll leave it to you evaluate the importance of this buggy endorsement.

Northeastern University has revealed that a team of its researchers used people’s cell phones to track their movements without their knowledge and without their permission. 100,000 people were spied upon by the Northeastern University team. That’s illegal for academic researchers to do in the United States, so Northeastern University chose to spy on people outside of the USA, in some foreign country that they refuse to name.

The Associated Press is reporting the story, but only part of the story. “That type of nonconsensual tracking would be illegal in the United States, according to Rob Kenny, a spokesman for the Federal Communications Commission,” the AP writes.

What the AP quotes Rob Kenny as saying is not exactly true. Academics, and other private citizens like you and I cannot legally use cell phone networks to spy on people’s private movements and communications, but the government can.

Thanks to the Patriot Act and the Protect America Act, the American federal government has the power to do the same thing here in the United States that the researchers from Northeastern University did outside of the USA.

The White House can take the information your cell phone beams back to its network, and use that to see where you go and what you do, not just who you talk to with your cell phone. They don’t need a search warrant to do it. They don’t need your permission. They don’t even need to tell you they’re spying on you. No judge approves the spying. No one can stop it.

This kind of spying is a tool of political power.

With this power, the President can track political activists.

The President can eavesdrop on congressional aides.

George W. Bush has the power to spy on Barack Obama’s campaign.

The tricky part is that you can never be sure that you’re being spied on when you’re carrying your cell phone… and you can never be sure that you aren’t being spied on either.

Never being sure if someone from the government is watching where you go, or listening to what you say, you can never be sure that you’re alone.

That kind of environment stifles free speech, free association, and even free thinking.

On this, the day when Barack Obama finally clinches the Democratic nomination, there are two different ways to look at what lies ahead. One way is to say that all the work is finally over. People who follow that way will let the summer begin, and not even think about lifting a finger to support Barack Obama until September.

That’s a tempting way, because it’s an easy way. There’s a problem with it, though: Do you think that John McCain and the Republicans will take that approach?

Don’t you bet on it. The trouble is that, with the long Democratic primary, the Democratic National Committee has almost no money left. The Republican National Committee, on the other hand, has a lot of money - about 40 million dollars on hand.

With that money, within the week, the RNC is going to start sending out vicious attack ads against Barack Obama. They’re going to try to make Obama into mud before he even has the chance to start his general election campaign.

Are you going to let that happen? No? Okay. Then there’s the second way: That way is to get to work NOW, to help the Barack Obama for President campaign hit the ground running, prepared to deal with the nasty Republican attacks to come.

To take this second proactive approach, I suggest two steps:

1. Go to Barack Obama’s official campaign web site and sign up as a volunteer. You don’t need to give money, but giving your time is essential.

2. Get a bumper sticker for your car, a button for your jacket and a lawn sign for your yard. These all spread the message that ordinary people, folks who live in your neighborhood, support Barack Obama. That kind of statement is much more effective than an impersonal television commercial, no matter how slick it is. This campaign is going to have to be a grassroots one, and showing campaign gear is a great way to demonstrate a grassroots Obama presence in your community.

Here are some sources we’ve got for Obama campaign gear:

- Obama 2008 t-shirts made in the USA made over at Skreened

- Campaign Lawn Signs and Banners for Obama

- Obama bumper stickers over at My President and New White House

- Barack Obama campaign buttons and magnets over at Irregular News

Each of these different sources has unique Barack Obama campaign gear so that you can stand out with a pro-Obama message that’s just right for you - to keep. This stuff will have greater historical meaning as the years pass, and you’ll be able to take these things out to prove to your children and grandchildren that you were there, helping to elect Barack Obama as President of the United States.

This week, CafePress sent us a cap as a free sample, to get us excited about selling clothes using a technology they call InfiniStitch. It’s a way to get an image made on a computer automatically stitched as a badge on a piece of clothing.

That sounds really great, but there’s a problem, as seen on the sample cap filmed in the movie below: The stitching doesn’t actually look very good, and the words in the stitching are almost impossible to read.

That’s small stuff compared to the problem I found on the tag: The cap is made in China by a company called Alternative Apparel. The name Alternative Apparel sounds great, but there’s more to a business than just a name.

Alternative Apparel makes a lot of promises when it comes to the ethical treatment of workers in its Chinese factories, and it says that it inspects factories a few times a year in order to see if things are on the up-and-up. However, Alternative Apparel doesn’t really know what’s going on in those factories in China except on those special inspection days.

What’s going on in Chinese factories has been exposed: Forced prisoner labor, worker abuse, and even child slave labor. The New York Times recently reported that “Big corporations have stepped up inspections of factories that produce goods for them. But suppliers have become adept at evading such scrutiny by providing fake wage and work schedule data that suggest they abide by labor laws.” They report the use of Chinese child slave labor as “quite typical”.

Alternative Apparel surely knows about these problems, and the insufficiency of inspections in revealing the problem. Yet, they choose to do business in China anyway.

Why? That’s easy. They do it for the money.

Alternative Apparel chose to have the clothes it sells made in China in order to save money, so that they could make big profits. They knew that China has low labor costs because it has low standards of worker protection.

Alternative Apparel chose to outsource its manufacturing to China in order to avoid American laws that guarantee fair treatment of workers and environmental protections.

Do you want to support that choice? It’s your freedom to do so, but if you buy from companies like Alternative Apparel, please don’t act shocked when you hear about children being forced to work as slaves in China. You helped make it happen, after all, with every cheap thing you bought that was made in China.

There is a true alternative in apparel. You can buy a shirt from Skreened, which prints here in the USA, only on shirts that are made in America, by American Apparel.

American Apparel is the real thing. They follow American labor and environmental laws. Alternative Apparel doesn’t. They went for the ethical loophole. They’re just posers.

Do you want to wear clothes made by posers?

Oh, dear Zoroaster wake me up! The ABC News presidential democratic debate, likely one of the last opportunities for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to earn the support of voters, should have been a lively event.

Instead, the first 45 minutes was spent on superficial nonsense like 1960s Weatherman bombings, who’s bitter, Bosnia, and disowned preachers, with followup questions.

Then, Charles Gibson and George Stephanopolous went hunting for inconsequential distinctions such as who, between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, thinks that Iran should not have nuclear weapons the most.

Help me! I want to care. I want to be motivated. I want to be active and a good citizen, but I have been struck by the ABC News hypno-mind-mister laser beam, which has caused me to hear the words coming out of Clinton’s and Obama’s mouths as if they are spoken in Czech.

Is there an antidote?

It’s been about 24 hours since we installed the new version of the Wordpress blogging software on our main Irregular Times page, and at first, everything was working great. Right now, however, I’ve got steam coming out of my ears trying to work with the software.

There are out-of-memory errors popping up everywhere, making administration of the site, and sometimes even just viewing it, a difficult task. It just took us 30 minutes to get up a simple article, as the new WordPress 2.5 software kept stripping out tags, reassigning categories, giving the name of the wrong author, and even making the title of the article blank.

WordPress 2.5 looks to be full of errors that dramatically cripple the operation of a previously healthy blog.

Avoid this update, bloggers, until WordPress comes out with a fix.

Network Solutions is a company of wimps.

A web site, fitnathemovie.com, was registered through Network Solutions, but Network Solutions blocked access to the web site before there could even be a real web site uploaded onto the net. Why? Network Solutions apparently has a group of employees who are in the position of guessing what a web site might say in the future, and then recommending censorship of the site if they suspect that this future content might cause “unrest”.

The idea is that because fitnathemovie.com had the potential, in the future, to publish anti-Islam material, it would be best just to not allow anybody anywhere in the world to see the site, out of fear that Muslims somewhere, sometime, might get offended, and then might be unrestful.

According to the Washington Post, “a company spokeswoman said Sunday evening that Network Solutions decided to pull the plug on it due to the potential unrest that could follow if Wilders followed through on his pledge to post his film on the site.”

COULD lead to POTENTIAL unrest? Oh, what a low standard for running and hiding under the table! What a sad decline there has been in Silicon Valley culture, now that Internet companies are wetting their pants in fear over the possibility that people speaking their minds on the Internet might lead to unrest.

They’re worries about potential unrest? Since when is the Internet for resting? Last I checked, AfternoonNap.com is not the most popular web site around.

What’s next? Is Network Solutions going to start refusing to host anti-Christian web sites? Refuse to allow anti-Buddhist domain names to be registered? Block WhoIs information for anti-Hindu sites?

Oh, look! At Metro, there’s an article that claims that Jesus Christ has indeed risen again… with his head reincarnated as a dog’s anus. Come on, Network Solutions! Aren’t you going to censor that? Aren’t you going to smack that down?

Why stop at religion, Network Solutions? Why not ban web sites critical of John McCain? Political arguments can lead to unrest, right? Well, if potential unrest is now the criterion for censorship by Network Solutions, then all political web sites must go!

The action of Network Solutions reminds me of nothing so much as the action of the government of China to refuse access to the web sites that have content it doesn’t approve of.

I hereby call upon Network Solutions to change the title of W. Roy Dunbar, its CEO, to General Secretary.

Censor THIS, Network Solutions.

I don’t know if I support the ideas that the people behind fitnathemovie.com were planning on publishing. But then, I can’t know that, given that those ideas were never allowed to get online.

How clean is John McCain? For that matter, how clean is the news media? Bloomberg news, which as a telecommunications company is mixed right up in the very telecom lobbying business it purports to report objectively upon, has quoted “a senior adviser to John McCain” as saying that John McCain is not inappropriately influenced by the large number of lobbyists that he associates with. This “senior adviser to John McCain”, Charles Black, is quoted as saying that “John McCain does no favors for, nor gives no special treatment to, any lobbyists — even if they are a friend of his.”

The thing is, Charles Black isn’t exactly a neutral, objective source in the matter. Charles Black is a top official in the John McCain for President campaign, but what’s more, Charles Black is a lobbyist himself.

Charles Black is the chairman of BKSH & Associates Worldwide, a powerful lobbying company. Here’s what BKSH itself has to say about its lobbying work “BKSH’s capabilities encompass a broad range of economic, social, domestic and international issues. Our professionals have managed “front-page” issues and have worked quietly on behind-the-scenes projects. Our mission can be as targeted as securing the inclusion or deletion of specific language in congressional legislation, or as broad as strengthening the bilateral relationship between a foreign country and the United States.”

Charles Black runs a lobbying firm with the goal of “securing the inclusion or deletion of specific language in congressional legislation”. So, what is he doing serving as a top adviser of the presidential campaign of John McCain, a member of the U.S. Senate? Why is John McCain forming close political alliances with lobbyists who have openly declared their intention to help their corporate clients manipulate congressional legislation?

Furthermore, why does Bloomberg News cite Charles Black, a lobbyist who is professionally dedicated to influencing legislation in Congress through contact with politicians like John McCain, as a credible source to reassure Americans that John McCain does no special favors for lobbyists?

To use lobbyist Charles Black as a source on this story, Bloomberg reporter Edwin Chen makes himself appear either incompetent and naive or as corrupted by the influence of media business lobbyists as John McCain.

The national government of Iraq, as well as the regional government of Iraqi Kurdistan have demanded that Turkey end its invasion of Iraq and withdraw its soldiers from Iraqi territory. The US military, on the other hand, continues to share information with the Turkish military in order to assist in the invasion.

It’s a clear test of Iraqi sovereignty: Do the Iraqi central government and its provincial governments have control over Iraq’s borders and military security? No.

There is no Iraqi sovereignty. There is no genuine Iraqi government. Iraq continues to be a possession of the United States military.

The following is from a conversation I had with a white woman, maybe fiftyish.

We need to have a Methodist for President.

First of all it’s not true that Methodists are going to all vote for Clinton. The ones that are voting for Obama have their own reasons.

The country is really messed up after so many years of Bush, so we need someone really pious in the White House. It’s going to take someone really religious, like a Methodist, to straighten everything out.

Did I really have this conversation? No, of course not.

If the statement is true, then it’s a stupid thing said by one person. Is there a trend of such stupid things being said, on the record? Are such things being said by the Clinton campaign? If so, then that’s a worthwhile basis for conversation. If not, then it’s just about as informative as me saying that I had a conversation with a person who said that we should not vote for Bill Richardson because Hispanics should be working at gas stations.

The real moral values of the Republican Party are demonstrated in brutal, sadistic form in the last federal budget proposed by George W. Bush.

The federal budget President Bush proposes for 2009 begins a program of cutting 196 billion dollars from Medicare health care benefits for the elderly and extremely impoverished Americans.

Why would the Republicans do such a cruel thing? Well, part of that money taken away from Medicare will go to pay for policies that make rich Americans even richer.

But, some of the money the Republicans will save by cutting Medicare benefits for senior citizens will go to pay for something even more inhumane. The Republicans propose using some of the money taken away from Medicare to pay for a new generation of nuclear bombs.

What do we need new nuclear weapons for? Terrorists cannot be defeated with nuclear missiles. Nuclear weapons are designed to kill civilians by destroying entire cities, vaporizing them, melting them, burning them into nothing more than radioactive cinder and ash.

These are the moral values of the Republican party: Less medicine for the sick, and more nuclear weapons to kill people by the millions.

This isn’t about getting tough, or being fiscally conservative. It’s inhumane. It’s just plain insane.

The Republican Party agenda, led now by George W. Bush, and to be continued by John McCain, leads on a path of fear and destruction.

America can do better. We must do better.

Do you doubt how serious a threat to American freedom it is that Congress is about to pass the FISA Amendments Act, unamended, and allow the President of the United States to spy against Americans’ emails, telephone calls and Internet use without any requirement to justify the spying, and without any congressional oversight? Don’t just listen to the warnings of us liberals over here at Irregular Times. Listen to the financial conservatives over on Wall Street.

Here’s what Rex Nutting, the Washington Bureau Chief of Marketwatch, has to say about the consequences of the passage of this law:

“If Al Qaeda is fighting us because they hate our freedoms, as President Bush often says, then they’re winning the war.

Pretty soon, we won’t have any more freedoms for them to hate.

Scratch the Fourth Amendment off the list of freedoms that we thought we had.”

Marketwatch is not some progressive publication like The Nation. It’s “a wholly-owned subsidiary of Dow Jones & Company”.

When Wall Street fiscal conservatives ring the bell of alarm about the imminent loss of American freedom, it’s time for even optimistic skeptics to listen, and move to action.

The Senate is due to vote on the FISA Amendments Act any time now. Get out of your chair and tell your senators to vote NO.

The number of the congressional switchboard is (202) 224-3121.

The still red branches
make autumn planted dogwoods
February’s hope.

Many in the corporate world are having a knee jerk reaction to support the Republican proposal to, through the extension of the Protect America Act in the FISA Amendments Act, give telecommunications companies legal immunity from the assistance they have given to the government in conducting massive electronic spying operations against American citizens while those operations were against the law. Their automatic impulse is to support the Republican Party. In this case, however, to do so is directly in contradiction to their economic interests.

Corporations do have a responsibility to the government - to follow the law. Corporations also have responsibilities to their customers, to honor their privacy agreements. If corporations show that their legal agreements with customers no longer have any weight, what basis is there for trust in the marketplace any longer?

It is absolutely to claim that America can only be secure from terrorism when the government is allowed to conduct massive electronic spying operations against American citizens AND businesses without any judicial review or congressional oversight. In fact, America cannot be secure from terrorism when power over communications is so centralized that free and open communication within and between corporations and citizens is limited by self-censorship. A nation of citizens afraid to talk to each other openly is a nation where no one, including the government can know what is going on.

The FISA Amendments Act legislation goes far beyond reasonable reform. It is a threat to the independence of business from government and to the liberty of the individual citizen.

No one can conduct business when they aren’t assured of private communications. If people in business believe that government spies may be eavesdropping upon any of their electronic conversations, innovation, cooperation and sales will grind down until they are excruciatingly slow. Without the ability to secure proprietary information, all the competitive advantages built up over the last 15 years through the development of electronic communication would come to naught.

The FISA Amendments Act would indeed give legal immunity to corporations like AT&T, Google and Yahoo, for cooperating with the federal government in spying against Americans’ private communications. However, that legal immunity is no protection. In fact, such immunity would strip corporations of any legal justification for refusing to cooperate with government electronic spying programs.

If the FISA Amendments Act, no company could guarantee its customers privacy. That would have a chilling effect on all business, not just individual communication.

The American economy cannot function without freedom of speech, the right to free assembly, and the protection from unreasonable search and seizure. That’s why American business ought to come together with civil libertarians and demand that the FISA Amendments Act be voted down by the United States Senate.

In dissecting what went wrong for Hillary Clinton in South Carolina, some attention needs to be given to the issue of time. Exit polls show that Clinton’s greatest segment of support came from people who had made up their minds over one month ago.

That means that it’s likely that something happened in the last month that made undecided voters choose to not vote for Clinton. What was it that happened? It’s hard to say for sure. It might have been Barack Obama’s come-from-behind victory in the Iowa caucuses.

On the other hand, it might have been the attacks that went back and forth between the Clinton and Obama campaigns over the last couple of weeks. The same exit polls show that while 70 percent of voting South Carolina Democrats thought that Clinton’s attacks against Obama were unfair, only 57 percent of voting South Carolina Democrats thought that Obama’s attacks against Clinton were unfair.

Whatever the reality of which attacks were accurate and fair, it seems that Clinton came out of the squabbles looking the worse.