05
Jul
Is Barack Obama Moving Too Fast To The Center?
NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL: THE NEW OBAMA EMERGING?
LETTER FROM ALWYN CONKLE:
Some are critical of Obama because he says that visiting Iraq, consulting with Generals and troops on the ground might influence his opinions. Would it be better if he stated that no facts, and no opinion, no matter how well-informed, will ever cause him to modify his position on Iraq? Do we really want a leader with the mindset, “I’ve said what I said and that settles it once and for all.”? Obama has made it clear that troops should be withdrawn, and he’s suggested a timetable. But to state that this timetable and withdrawal plan is immutable and untouchable no matter what, well, that’s not leadership, that’s foolishness. We already have a President whose view of the world, even after seven years in office, remains reality-free. We don’t need another brickhead, even one from the other side of the spectrum.
OPEN LETTER TO OBAMA: Please join me in signing this Open Letter to Barack Obama on Iran:
Bill Bowles sends along this item:
It appears Barack Obama supporters have tricked Google’s Blogger service into suspending several anti-Obama sites as “spam” sites. Most were pro-Hillary Clinton blogs, several listed on justsaynodeal.com, an anti-Obama site. “It looks like Google has officially joined the Barack Obama campaign,” says the conservative blog NewsBusters. Bloggasm contacted affected bloggers and “every single one was convinced that it was Obama supporters who had flagged the blogs in some kind of concerted effort to silence them. But when I asked for specific evidence of this, most simply pointed out that only anti-Obama blogs were targeted — a fact that is certainly suspicious but not especially conclusive.” BlueLyon, one of the suspended bloggers, posted Google/Blogger’s apology letter in a WordPress blog. It read: ” …we believe this may have been caused by mass spam e-mails mentioning the “Just Say No Deal” network of blogs, which in turn caused our system to classify the blog addresses mentioned in the e-mails as spam…” Black & Right asks: “What’s next, You.
ASIA MEDIA FORUM: The recent assault and illegal detention of award-winning IPS correspondent Mohammed Omer recently sparked international media attention and have raised questions about the extent of human rights violations by Israeli security forces. Read Omer’s first-hand account about his ordeal in fellow journalist Jim Lobe’s IPS blogsite. In other news, the International Federation of Journalists has set up a ’solidarity website’ that will assist journalists covering the upcoming Beijing Olympics in August, while Arab journalists will tackle one of the most controversial media issues ” ethics” in a forthcoming summit.
IN PRAISE OF DR. HUNTER THOMPSON, GONZO JOURNALIST
AN EMAIL HISTORY OF BILL GATES
I am blogging as I can. Your comments welcome to dissector@mediachannel.org
In regard to Obama’s “move to center,” Jesse Helms’ death got me thinking about the same. I;ve posted a piece on my site noting that while Helms was a barbarian, he was no fool, and had a better handle on Martin Luther King than did (and do) many of us–he recognized that King, whom he feared and despised as he did no other, was not content with “civil rights” for black people, but was after something far more profound, wide ranging, and revolutionary. A vision encapsulated nowhere better than in MLK’s 1967 antiwar speech at Riverside Church in NY:
“I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a “thing-oriented” society to a “person-oriented” society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.”
Helms was a savage, but from the standpoint of his own occult neo-trinitarian commingling of race, religion, and laissez-faire capitalism, King, and all that he stood for, could be nothing other than a mortal enemy.
I would like to say: Helms was the mortal enemy all that WE stand for, we heirs to King’s sense and vision. Sadly, Helms goes to the grave victorious, in the City of Man if not the City of God. Americans have adamantly and pretty much unanimously forsworn giving up “the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investment.” A people who make up 4% of the world’s population and yet consume 25% of its resources must perforce commit its imperial legions to the four quarters of the globe, lest the indigenous peoples demand a living wage for their labors or a fair price for their resources. His death might give pause to those liberals busy castigating him for his outrageously racist, homophobic comments, as the Democratic Party, the financial establishment, the media, and, yeah, the whole military industrial complex goes on merrily perpetuating the vision of Helms and not Dr. King. The angry shade of Jesse Helms will wind round the world for some time yet, will haunt us until we ourselves reject not only racism but the materialism and militarism that lie at the very heart of what’s known as “globalization.”
You yourself are not a racist. Or a homophobe. You’re probably opposed to apartheid and bantuization, too, except in special circumstances, like Obama is, what with the pesky business of the West Bank and all that. But remember, this campaign season, which candidate recently said that he “loves” free trade; which candidate promises to increase the insane defense budget; which candidate recently declared that he would maintain the Cuban embargo; which candidate has said he would expand US combat operations into yet another country; which candidate has said he would leave a residual force of American soldiers (actually, he plans to continue to use mercenaries) in Iraq ad infinitum; which candidate’s campaign war chest is funded primarily by contributions from banks and investment firms and etc. etc. etc.
And ask yourself whose vision is being fulfilled by that candidate–the references above are to Obama, of course, but apply to both candidates equally: is that the vision of Martin Luther King, or of Jesse Helms?
Jesse wins, the world loses.
July 7th, 2008 at 4:46 pmI suspect that many online dirty tricks have been used by Obama supporters, for in addition to the never ending avalanche of nasty sarcastic posts from pro Obama bloggers … the unprecedented online fund raising by the Obama camp … the online dominance by several pro Obama websites, like Huffington … and, this recent blocking of anti-Obama bloggers, several times, when I posted anti-Obama, Pro Clinton, pro McCain posts to sites who guranteed the aminitiy of my email address … I ended up getting hundreds and hundreds of pieces of spam in my mail box shortly after each time I posted.
July 15th, 2008 at 3:53 pmThis is interesting because iGOOGLE also censored the DrudgeReport.com on their site last Thursday. Basically what GOOGLE did was remove all gadgets from their site that allowed their users to link directly too or search articles on Drudge. Users use to be able to search the gadgets section and find lots of different gadgets for the Drudge Report. Since last Thursday all gadgets broke and now don’t work that use to work for the Drudge Report. They are also not allowing any new gadgets for Drudge to be uploaded into their site. So you have legitimate Drudge gadgets removed and blocked but you can still find gadgets that point to Drudge bashing websites, hhhmmm. Not sure what you call this but it sure in the hell isn’t a spam filter causing this. This is something someone at GOOGLE had to deliberately remove and block. Looks and smells like CENSORESHIP to me and right before a political election. Wow how is it such a coincidence that this is happening right now? Don’t get stuck on stupid
August 5th, 2008 at 1:08 pm