Cries in the wilderness
“The only premise of the book was to just go out and listen.”
And the book, edited by Miles Harvey, who is quoted above, is remarkable. It’s one of a kind, as far as I know – How Long Will I Cry? – the first publication of a newly formed nonprofit organization called Big Shoulders Books, which is affiliated with Chicago’s DePaul University. It’s available free of charge, because . . . how could a cry in the wilderness be otherwise?
It’s a cry in the wilderness punctuated by gunfire. Usually all we hear is the gunfire, emanating from “those” neighborhoods, the violent ones, “so physically and spiritually isolated from the rest of us,” as Alex Kotlowitz describes them in his foreword. How Long Will I Cry? is an attempt – no, I mean a beginning – at ending that isolation.
And the book, edited by Miles Harvey, who is quoted above, is remarkable. It’s one of a kind, as far as I know – How Long Will I Cry? – the first publication of a newly formed nonprofit organization called Big Shoulders Books, which is affiliated with Chicago’s DePaul University. It’s available free of charge, because . . . how could a cry in the wilderness be otherwise?
It’s a cry in the wilderness punctuated by gunfire. Usually all we hear is the gunfire, emanating from “those” neighborhoods, the violent ones, “so physically and spiritually isolated from the rest of us,” as Alex Kotlowitz describes them in his foreword. How Long Will I Cry? is an attempt – no, I mean a beginning – at ending that isolation.
The Obamacare Disaster and the Poison of Party Loyalty
Four years ago, countless Democratic leaders and allies pushed for passage of Barack Obama’s complex healthcare act while arguing that his entire presidency was at stake. The party hierarchy whipped the Congressional Progressive Caucus into line, while MoveOn and other loyal groups stayed in step along with many liberal pundits.
Lauding the president’s healthcare plan for its structure of “regulation, mandates, subsidies and competition,” New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote in July 2009 that the administration’s fate hung in the balance: “Knock away any of the four main pillars of reform, and the whole thing will collapse -- and probably take the Obama presidency down with it.” Such warnings were habitual until Obamacare became law eight months later.
Lauding the president’s healthcare plan for its structure of “regulation, mandates, subsidies and competition,” New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote in July 2009 that the administration’s fate hung in the balance: “Knock away any of the four main pillars of reform, and the whole thing will collapse -- and probably take the Obama presidency down with it.” Such warnings were habitual until Obamacare became law eight months later.
No Clemency for Snowden, profit for Feinstein and business as usual for the NSA
NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden has asked for Clemency so he can come home. The debate his revelations ignited has spawned multiple reform bills in Congress including one from Senate Intelligence committee chair Diane Fienstein. However, the White House and Feinstein continue to scream for his blood in the media. The media has failed to report that Feinstein's bill normalizes rather than reforms the NSA spying on the whole world. The media has also failed to report on the massive profits Diane Feinstien reaps from her husband’s business dealings with the intelligence community and the military.
According to Associated Press reports, Feistein responded to Snowden's clemency appeal by describing it as an "enormous disservice to our country," and declaring "I think the answer is no clemency." Only the President may grant clemency. It is that same legal theory that underpins all of the expanded powers the NSA has been granted in the last twelve years. These are the powers that Senator Feinstein's “reform” bill, the FISA Improvement Act of 2013, further regularizes and entrenches.
According to Associated Press reports, Feistein responded to Snowden's clemency appeal by describing it as an "enormous disservice to our country," and declaring "I think the answer is no clemency." Only the President may grant clemency. It is that same legal theory that underpins all of the expanded powers the NSA has been granted in the last twelve years. These are the powers that Senator Feinstein's “reform” bill, the FISA Improvement Act of 2013, further regularizes and entrenches.
Tweet this story -- or, maybe not! The murky world between the intelligence community and social media
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Far from the centers of worldwide financial trading, Ohio State University gave an award to an intelligence industry academic, while he called for more secrecy. Less than 24 hours earlier, the intelligence community ensured itself a tighter grasp on one of the key tools that we, the global public, use communicate amongst ourselves – Twitter.
On November 8, Joshua Rovner came to OSU to present his book “Fixing the Facts: National Security and the Politics of Intelligence,” a study of the influence of intelligence (as in CIA) on decision making in national policy. Rovner also received a prestigious award for its publication. The Edgar S. Furniss Book Award commemorates the founder of OSU's Mershon Center for International Studies and is given once a year.
Rovner began by presenting his book as a study of how intelligence professionals are manipulated into presenting estimates to national leadership figures that fit into the latter's pre-decided upon policy positions. He claimed that this historical tendency was caused by leader’s attempts to use intelligence estimates as public political tools.
Daniel Ellsberg and other luminaries send letters to judge on behalf of Hacktivist Jeremy Hammond
Daniel Ellsberg, infamous for releasing the Pentagon Papers that exposed government lies and coverups during the Vietnam War, is now publicly supporting a fellow whistleblower in trouble. Ellsberg wrote a letter of support for “hackivist” Jeremy Hammond who is facing 10 years in prison for hacking into a corporation’s private security and public safety servers and releasing the garnered information to Wikileaks.
Hammond faces sentencing on November 15 after a non-cooperating plea agreement he accepted on Thursday, May 30, 2013 in a Wikileaks related hacking case. He was arrested in March 2012 for his role in the LulzSec hacking attacks. The LulzSec collective was a subset of the worldwide hacktivist group Anonymous, which was responsible for a number of high profile actions including a hacking attack on the private security corporation Stratfor. Hammond has been held in solitary confinement since January without visits from his family and will not have full visitation privileges for at least another year.
Hammond faces sentencing on November 15 after a non-cooperating plea agreement he accepted on Thursday, May 30, 2013 in a Wikileaks related hacking case. He was arrested in March 2012 for his role in the LulzSec hacking attacks. The LulzSec collective was a subset of the worldwide hacktivist group Anonymous, which was responsible for a number of high profile actions including a hacking attack on the private security corporation Stratfor. Hammond has been held in solitary confinement since January without visits from his family and will not have full visitation privileges for at least another year.
Reclaiming 'Chiraq'
I felt the music and the fire as the civil rights movement rose from its slumber.
“Repair . . . justice!” went the call and response last week, in the basement of an old Chicago church at the corner of Ashland and Washington. “Restore . . . life! Rebuild . . . community!”
There was Gospel music and hand-clapping, passion and politics. The Reclaim Campaign launched and the Rev. Alvin Love said, “This is just the beginning. It’s going to take all of us. We’re going to leave this place mobilized, energized and activated. The work begins NOW.”
Reclaim “Chiraq.”
The kids are dying. That’s what they call Chicago: “Chiraq.” The situation has to change; the community has to rebuild.
“Why is so much violence acceptable?” high school senior Keann Mays-Lenoir asked the audience of about 300 people. “Why are adults sitting back and allowing it to happen? We’re in fear of our lives at school. We don’t know who will be shot down next. It is not OK for any child to die senselessly.
“It is not OK that my friends and I have already planned our funerals.”
“Repair . . . justice!” went the call and response last week, in the basement of an old Chicago church at the corner of Ashland and Washington. “Restore . . . life! Rebuild . . . community!”
There was Gospel music and hand-clapping, passion and politics. The Reclaim Campaign launched and the Rev. Alvin Love said, “This is just the beginning. It’s going to take all of us. We’re going to leave this place mobilized, energized and activated. The work begins NOW.”
Reclaim “Chiraq.”
The kids are dying. That’s what they call Chicago: “Chiraq.” The situation has to change; the community has to rebuild.
“Why is so much violence acceptable?” high school senior Keann Mays-Lenoir asked the audience of about 300 people. “Why are adults sitting back and allowing it to happen? We’re in fear of our lives at school. We don’t know who will be shot down next. It is not OK for any child to die senselessly.
“It is not OK that my friends and I have already planned our funerals.”
Who speaks for the five percent?
“No matter what.” These three words have caused the President a tremendous political headache over the past couple weeks, and as such his credibility is ostensibly on the chopping block. We needn’t recall the campaign details from 2008 and 2012 to remember the slogan, “if you like your insurance plan you can keep it, no matter what.” The remarkable ability of Mr. Obama to condense something as complex and fluid as the insurance market to a memorable one-liner was indeed an assurance to the many Americans who supported the Affordable Care Act when it became law. As with many slogans, however, this one turned out to good to be true.
It is now understood that somewhere around five percent of Americans will be dropped from their health insurance policies and forced into the health insurance exchanges. For five percent of the country, then, ‘no matter what’ did not take effect. Millions of people will have their lives sharply interrupted, like it or not. This is a large number and should not be ducked as a detail in the grand scheme of things.
It is now understood that somewhere around five percent of Americans will be dropped from their health insurance policies and forced into the health insurance exchanges. For five percent of the country, then, ‘no matter what’ did not take effect. Millions of people will have their lives sharply interrupted, like it or not. This is a large number and should not be ducked as a detail in the grand scheme of things.
JFK assassination: CIA and New York Times are still lying to us Fifty years later, a complicit media still covers up for the security state. We need to reclaim our history
We’ll never know, we’ll never know, we’ll never know. That’s the mocking-bird media refrain this season as we commemorate the 50th anniversary of America’s greatest mystery – the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson hijacked a large chunk of her paper’s Sunday Book Review to ponder the Kennedy mystery. And after deliberating for page after page on the subject, she could only conclude that there was some “kind of void” at the center of the Kennedy story. Adam Gopnik was even more vaporous in the Nov. 4 issue of the New Yorker, turning the JFK milestone into an occasion for a windy cogitation on regicide as cultural phenomenon. Of course, constantly proclaiming “we’ll never know” has become a self-fulfilling prophecy for the American press. It lets the watchdogs off the hook, and excuses their unforgivable failure to actually, you know, investigate the epic crime. When it comes to this deeply troubling American trauma, the highly refined writers of the New Yorker and the elite press would rather muse about the meta-issues than get at the meat.
Peaves: Fax Machine
The man on the phone was talking very fast. I thought perhaps he had a lot to say but a short time to say it. I was wrong. It turns out he had lots of time, scads of it, far more time than I would have preferred to allot him. But I am polite on the phone, I listened to the bastard ramble on. What the conversation concerned is unimportant, it was an admonishment at the end that starched my collar.
The fellow wanted to foist some documents upon me. I did not want them, but he insisted. “I can fax them to you,” the cad announced.
I explained that I did not have a fax machine and that he'd be better off emailing them to me. “Just send them as attachments,” I said.
That's when things got interesting.
“You should really have a fax machine,” the meddler mumbled.
I didn't say anything, still being polite.
“If you had a fax machine,” the obtruder continued. “I could just fax these over to you.”
“Yes, but I don't,” I said, still holding my tongue.
“You might want to think about getting one,” he went on.
Still I remained mum.