This is what it felt like in the 60's when a plane stopped in the USSR ...

... Many Americans may not perceive it, but much of the world, as a result of such actions, sees the U.S. not as "Leaders of the Free World" but one of the greatest threats to privacy and other core liberties. Watching people afraid to fly through the U.S. -- including its own citizens -- is just remarkable. And the spectacle of Homeland Security agents detaining whomever they want, and then unilaterally stealing their laptops and cellphones and keeping them and digging through them for as long as they want -- all without a warrant -- is a powerful sign of how far things have fallen.

I remember sitting practically holding my breath when a plane I was on made an unplanned stop in Russia. Now it's us in the role of the big bad bully. How proud-making!

A blatant sign that the US as a free country no longer exists? ...

No U.S. distributor for Charles Darwin movie because of fear of fundamentalists

A rare kind of courage ...

Fronzo West Jailed for Telling Authorities "Fuck the Police"

Phoenix civil liberties activist Fronzo West is currently doing time in the Maricopa County jail for exercising his freedom of speech rights as enshrined in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Folks like to say we have freedom of speech in this country, and in theory, we do. But in practice, it's a whole 'nother matter. West, 65, challenges that theory nearly every day of the week here in Phoenix by riding around in a car emblazoned with the slogans "Fuck the Police" and "Stop Police Brutality." He goes further than that. Everything he wears, from the cap on his head to his loafers also bears the same anti-cop messages.

... read on ...

When the press refuses to inform the public ...

Another must read at ECHIDNE OF THE SNAKES.

The freedom of the press is primarily important in so far as it is a necessary part of the right of The People to govern themselves. When the press not only refuses to inform the public of reality but actively undermines that function through propaganda, their right to freely publish effectively disappears. Our broadcast and cable media have reneged on the implied contract and have actively sought to undermine the ability of The People to cast an informed vote. I am not going to pretend that they have a right to do that which is superior to the right to self-government. It is stupid for us to promote their right to undermine the conditions necessary for the press to retain that very conditional right

I think the history of the media in the past century to today shows that mass media, in the form of broadcast, cable and others have an enormous ability to damage democracy, much more so than print. Almost all modern despots have used that fact to their advantage. The most dramatic example from recent times was the use of hate-talk radio to incite the genocide attempt in Rwanda. I’d say that example is too clear and horrible not to learn from. And the stuff that issues from our radio is not all that far removed from it. I do think it could incite mass violence. It certainly incites bigotry and I fully believe it incites violence on a more disbursed though hardly less important scale here and now.

As I’ve asked the absolutists, where is the “more speech” they’re always giving as their lofty answer to those of us who have given up on that easily stated position. The clear evidence is that liberals, leftists, even Democrats are not allowed media representation commensurate with our percentage of the population. The very far right, a very small fraction of the population, is given a a megaphone large enough so that even the most willfully denying absolutist should hear the electronically enhanced roar. About the only lesson I derive from their denial of that situation is that they have professional and personal interests unrelated to the desire for decent, democratic government. Many of the professional absolutists have careers in the media and are often quite comfortably affluent and members of groups seldom put at risk from hate-talk media.

...

Media should be entirely free to tell the truth, the facts verified and supported. That right should be absolute and trumpeted as a service to humanity. When the media informs of reality it’s rights are as close to absolute as corporate entities should be allowed. They shouldn’t be allowed to vary from that practice by replacing facts with lies, bias, pseudo-scientific polling and predictions and rumor*. Those have become the dominant content of the American ‘news’ media, they are cheaper than reporting and easier to manipulate for the purpose of propaganda. That it is impossible to effectively ban the opportunistic use of opinion in the electronic media makes the regulation of it for fairness and balance essential. The rise and dominance of right-wing, hate-talk media followed the FCC’s abandonment of those regulations, modern hate-talk media was created by media corporations in order to install politicians who would maximize their profits, impure and simple.

Liberals and others who believe in self-government, equality and a decent society can’t continue to delude themselves on these matters. If we don’t learn from the example that the history of the modern media provides we will lose all three of those. I’d rather take a chance on the status quo media from the period when it was regulated than on what has happened since it was deregulated.

How can logical, reasoned arguments work ...

Democrats, progressives, liberals keep writing as if they were dealing with the rational, the legal, the Constitutional, the just:

The Many Costs of the New HHS Rule Privileging Conscience Over Patients

"It’s really quite astonishing that the Bush administration would seek to implement new regulations — to the costly tune of $44 million — to appease social conservatives during the final months of Bush’s presidency."

No, no. Haven't you been paying attention. This is not 'astonishing' at all. Where have you been for the last 7+ years?

You have to hand it to Glenn Greenwald. He sees, understands and writes accurately and lucidly about all manner of complicated issues:

What's missing from the Democratic convention?

But I think in this case Glenn has missed the critical issue. The US has already been taken over. By the corporate press. If the press can't turn an anti-Bush country into a pro-McSame country, and they are well on their way to doing so, then they will back up any attempts the Republicans make to steal the election.

Democrats don't control the message coming out of the convention. It's massaged, manipulated, ignored, lied about by the media who are in charge of what most US citizens see, read and know about the US and the world.

Would any sane organization let the opposition place their operatives right in their convention and control the information that flows out of it if they could (and wanted to) do otherwise?

Right wing TV Pundits destroy every segment on Democratic Convention

Where's The Hatred?

"So if the hatred isn't among the Democrats, then maybe it's among those who are reporting this crap?"

Those 'reporting this crap' control the message. It will take much effort and money to counter this 'crap' and even then most outlets are controlled by the other party and they have the power to refuse to air the democratic messages. And even when they do air them they have dedicated staff to talk 24/7 against the democrats.

Where the Bush campaigns and administration initially attempted to hide or downplay their flouting of the law and their installation of a system where laws only apply to those who oppose them politically, the double standard is now quite open and pervasive:

Protest Politics

The Obama Plotters: The Republican Double Standard In Law Enforcement Made Manifest

As Glenn Greenwald looks at what's missing from the Democratic Convention, I can't get away from the idea that, for years now, the Democrats have been ignoring the elephant in the room. (pun?) The elephant is the GOP control of the media. That control, and many others have written about this better than I can, that control is both direct and indirect. The Democrats have done absolutely nothing to counter this fact (that I can see).

Mostly what I see is a party that continues to act as if the country was working as it was intended to and 'hoping' that the Constitutional mechanisms will, in the end, work. Well, I hope so also, but I don't see how this will work, nor how the country can rally behind the effort, when the real problems remain unspoken by those who claim to lead us.

---------------------
From the Gender Genie:

Words: 493

(NOTE: The genie works best on texts of more than 500 words.)

Female Score: 578
Male Score: 876

The Gender Genie thinks the author of this passage is: male!

I'm not sure why it matters, but obviously it matter to some, enough to have programs that assign words feminine and masculine values.

Sir: I got your letter ...

Would that more modern day Americans had the courage and wit of ex-slave Jourdan Anderson as demonstrated in a letter he wrote to his former 'boss.' [via Feminist Law Profs]

Maybe Sheriff Dupnik wants to be Bush's successor ...

... now that Guiliani appears to be out of the running.

Pima County Sheriff Clarence W. Dupnik is advising us to watch our neighbors in case they may be terrorists. Those who require special watching are eco-friendly, abortion-rights and animal-rights activists.

Notice its abortion-rights advocates and not their keep em barefoot n pregnant counterparts who shoot doctors in the name of life who bear watching.

Source: Sheriff says terrorists abound in our midst by Ernesto Portillo Jr.