CommonDreams Refugees

The comments on the post below have told me a couple of things.

1) There are actually people who read this site. At least occaisionally. Wow!
2) Anyone who is critical of Obama and the Democrats is being booted off of the CommonDreams website.

The latter makes me thing that people need a place to gather and discuss. Its better if we gather together and stay in touch. While the forums at CommonDreams used to be a place to do this, it seems apparent that the new Democratic censorship is going to make this hard to do there.

I don't know if this site is the place to do that. But, I'm willing to help where I can. CD refugees are welcome to comment here. I'd also be willing to open up the posting privlidges here to allow others to write here if they are interested.

And one thing that could certainly be done is if CommonDreams refugees want to post links or email to stay in touch, this thread could be a place to do that.

But, I'm also thinking maybe its time for a new site. I might try to get something started. Maybe have links to articles on other sites, but with the ability to comment freely on that site. So, for instance it could have a link to an interesting article on CommonDreams, but then it could also allow a free and uncensored discussion of that article.

If anyone is interested, leave a comment below. Not only about my ideas, but with your own.

A new era of Democratic censorship

Its amazing how if you scratch a Democrat, under the fake out outer covering, they act just like a Republican. I dared to post some comments on the CommonDreams site that tried to point out that everything might not be as rosy as the Obamabots are saying it is in the glow of their victory. They tended to point out that Obama still supported the wars, was pushing the wall street bailout, and generally hadn't really promised anything 'progressive' during the campaign. And that he won the campaign with record amounts of corporate money in his accounts, topping the amounts Bush had run on.

Do that on a Democratic site like Common Dreams, and that gets you blocked and banned these days. The Democrats are as intolerant of dissent as the Republicans. That's going to be one of the interesting things to watch in the coming months, as all the 'progressives' start to wake up to that fact. Especially since the Democrats and Obama won't be enacting a progressive agenda and won't be following a 'progressive' foreign policy. When the true progressives start to raise their voices. When they try to do exactly what the Democrats said during the campaign that they should do and try to 'hold the Democrats feet to the fire.', when that colides with the little fact that the Democrats are as intolerent of dissent as the Republicans, then it will start to get interesting.

No issues

Watching CNN, at least for what I can take before the mute button gets pressed again. And I noticed something about their coverage. They are going into great depth about voters where they live and what their demographics are and who is voting for Obama and who is voting for McCain.

If you want to know that in S.Carolina, black voters went 96% to Obama and white voters went 72% to McCain, CNN will tell you all about that. If you want county by county breakdowns in Indiana of how many voted for Bush last time and how many are voting for McCain this time, CNN will tell you all about that.

But, I've been watching for probably an hour and half now, and I haven't heard any discussion of issues. The words 'war' or 'antiwar' are not mentioned. The word 'bailout' hasn't come up once. Wouldn't it be interesting to know how voters who oppose the war are splitting? Or how the minority who supports the war is voting? Wouldn't it be interesting to know how many voters are telling the exit pollsters they opposed the wall street bailout and how the voters who are upset over that are voting?

Of course, there's no difference in reality between Obama and McCain on these issues. So, mainly you'd be seeing the effects of the campaign propaganda. Even though McCain and Obama would follow the same basic course in our middle eastern wars, the two campaigns have tried to use different propaganda to create the illusion of a difference here. The same with the wall street bailout. So, it would be interesting to see the numbers on issues like this.

I'd imagine CNN will show that eventually. At least they usually do. But they are spending a lot of time on what I'd call 'identity politics'. That's telling, because it tells you a lot about an American election. Its not about choosing the course of the nation. Because both candidates will steer close to the same course. So, the election has to be about something else. There has to something to hype or to talk about. The people have to feel that they are deciding something. So, instead we see that blacks are supposed to vote for Obama and rural whites are supposed to vote for McCain. And, I'd suspect if you asked members of either group in person the question of why, the answer that would come back would be more about their identity instead of their policies.

Self Evident Truths

Just because these words should always be said on this day. And the corporate media will stop at just acknowledging the right of the pursuit of happiness.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident,
that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,
that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

That to secure these rights,
governments are instituted among men,
deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends,
it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it,
and to institute new government,
laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form,
as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.
Prudence, indeed,
will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes;
and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer,
while evils are sufferable,
than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations,
pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism,
it is their right,
it is their duty,
to throw off such government,
and to provide new guards for their future security."

-- The Declaration of Independence

Words from a founding father

“Nothing could be more irrational than to give the people power, and to withhold from them information without which power is abused. A people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with power which knowledge gives. A popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy, or perhaps both.”
James Madison
[1751-1836]

(From this page that a google found … http://www.naafoundation.org/pdf/Speaking_of_a_Free_Press.pdf )

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I wonder what Mr. Madison would have thought of today's corporate controlled press? About a press that is at best more concerned with profit than in providing citizens a means of acquiring popular information? Or that at worst is promoting the agenda of its corporate owners to the deliberate destruction of our democracy?

Reading between the lines

You've always got to read between the lines. You've always got to think while you read and ask questions.

Lets take a look at an article in the Washington Post.
U.S. Role Deepens in Sadr City

It starts with

"A four-hour battle Tuesday between U.S. soldiers and Shiite militiamen left at least 28 Iraqis dead in the capital's Sadr City neighborhood, making it one of the bloodiest days in a month of sustained street fighting."

Then, after some other thoughts that the authors and editors felt needed to be emphasized, the standard scene setting stuff that announces Sadr as the other and dismisses any who might take his side, we get our next piece of information about the fighting.

"The battle Tuesday erupted as U.S. forces tried to evacuate a soldier injured by small-arms fire about 9:30 a.m., according to the U.S. military. During the evacuation, the troops were attacked with roadside bombs, as well as rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire from houses, storefronts, alleyways and rooftops, said Lt. Col. Steve Stover, a U.S. military spokesman."

Note, that when the US military says the battle began, there's already a wounded soldier needing evacuation, injured by small arms fire. What happened to lead to the soldier being wounded in the first place, and why isn't that a part of 'the battle'?

I don't know if they just do it to make the story hard to read, but the author and editors then jump to a non-related paragraph about overall casualties before continuing with. And even in the paragraph that contains this next bit, they again jump to non related information other bombings in Baghdad.

"In the Sadr City clash, the U.S. soldiers responded by firing rockets armed with high-explosive, 200-pound warheads, killing 28 fighters, Stover said."

In this piece, that's it. That's what the US military briefers wanted American citizens to know about this. In other words, not much. They can't hide the fact that a major four hour long firefight erupted in Baghdad. Four hours of weapons fire and 200 lb warheads of high explosive going off can't be hidden in the middle of a city of 5,000,000 people. But, they don't want to tell you much about it. They don't want to tell you what the soldiers were doing in Sadr City, about what the effects of exploding 200 lbs of high explosive in an area usually described as a densely populated slum. Air strikes aren't mentioned at all, even though the US military relies on them and I'd be very doubtful that they fought a serious four hour long firefight without them. And, everyone killed was a 'fighter', even though its doubtful you could set off 200 lbs of high explosive in a dense urban area and kill only 'fighters'.

In this case, the reporter didn't just echo the military briefing, although you'll probably find other news sources that just do that. This time you hear a little from the people who live there.

"But Sadr City residents gave a very different accounting of the fighting. They said at least 50 people were killed and 130 injured, many of them women and children.

Falah Hassan Shanshal, a Sadrist member of parliament, said at least five houses were demolished in the airstrike, killing 29 people and pinning entire families beneath piles of rubble. When a bulldozer came to clear the rubble, the driver was shot by a sniper, Shanshal said.

An Associated Press photograph showed a boy being pulled from the rubble. The AP reported that Ali Hussein, 2, died at the hospital."

I guess that Ali Hussein, age 2, is a 'fighter' by US military standards. Is it just because of his last name?

But the last sentence of that is what really struck me. As Americans, we know what those images look like. At the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, at the World Trade Center in New York, we know what the aftermath of that explosion looked like. We know about people trying to dig into the rubble to see if they can find survivors. We honor those people, usually firefighters in the US, who head quickly to the scene and try to save a few lives of people trapped, still alive, under tons of rubble.

What we haven't seen in the US is terrorists placing snipers around the site and shooting at the rescuers. But, read that last sentence closely, because that's what our military has done in Baghdad. The report states that a bulldozer driver, trying to dig out survivors from collapsed houses, was shot and killed by a sniper.

That's the thought the US military spokesman didn't want you to have with his sanitized information about how long the fight lasted and the weight of the explosives in the warhead. They don't want you to think of that image of horrified civilians trying to dig through rubble with their bare hands to try to rescue loved ones trapped beneath. They don't want you to think of the heroism of someone who gets a bulldozer to the scene to try aid those rescues, nor of the relief the paniced survivors must feel when the bulldozer arrived to move the rubble they had been desperately trying to move with their bare hands. They don't want you to think of the horror of when the snipers bullet hits and kills the person who's there to try to save lives, nor of the horror of the desperate people trying to save loved ones when they find that hope was just snatched away.

Sniper fire at people trying to rescue people who've been buried alive.