Middle East Uprisings and the Media

Enthralled with the wave of successful protests sweeping across north Africa and the middle east, I've been following as much as I can via daily visits to BBC with their continuously updating live feeds. Western media may be "losing the propaganda information war" as Hillary so boldly put it recently, but compared to the state of American media today, the Beeb is providing exceptional real-time world news coverage that would make McLuhan proud.

They've created thorough in-depth backgrounders on all the players in the region, both good and bad, going the extra mile with demographics and stability/corruption indices for each country presented in one of the many clickable maps on the subject.


But take a closer look at that map. What do you see? Or rather, what don't you see? It seems there is a sizable country comprised of a contented people brimming with peace, love, and tranquility caught right betwixt a hostile Syria and Iran. In the Middle East? Gee, what country could that be? Well, according to the Beeb, it's none other than that latest triumph of the west, Iraq.

Except it's not. You may not find alot of coverage in our western media concerning daily protests throughout Iraq, including the BBC. But it's boiling over just like its neighbors. And its government's tortuous repression tactics make the first days of Mubarik's ouster seem divine in comparison. I wonder, why aren't the aspirations of the Iraqi people being given the same respect by global leaders and their mouthpieces as say the people of Morocco? Do you even need an answer to that question?

On to Libya. Libyans were in full rebel mode a full week before the US had anything of substance to say about it. And our first official words were "we're waiting for other countries to say how they feel first, then we'll say something." I believe a more descriptive term for the administration's reaction would be impotence, and don't think for one minute this won't be thrown back at Obama come next summer. Who remembers GWBush's dogwhistle "we don't need no UN permission slip" targeting Clinton's dismal record of empire underachievement during his administration? Round and round we go.

But speaking of impotence, how about those British special forces, huh? British SAS captured by teenage malcontents! So much FAIL in that little episode. Who would have thought they're just a bunch of halfassed students of Klaatu? So, they set down in a strange land, disembark and promptly state, "take me to your leader?" It may look like failure to the average layperson, and of course it does, but come on, they accomplished their goal of establishing contact with rebel forces didn't they? Maybe they planned perceptions of failure into the mission to throw a wrench in Gaddafi's propaganda machine.

Tonight I was looking around to find out more information about the uprisings in Iraq and stumbled across this little gem. I have no idea who the author is, but I must say even if it's a complete work of fiction despite all the sources provided, it's an exceptionally captivating writeup. And well worth the eyestrain to read it all the way through.

What do you think?

Iranian Revolution of 2009

"I will participate in the demonstrations tomorrow. Maybe they will turn violent. Maybe I will be one of the people who is going to get killed. I'm listening to all my favorite music. I even want to dance to a few songs. I always wanted to have very narrow eyebrows. Yes, maybe I will go to the salon before I go tomorrow! There are a few great movie scenes that I also have to see. I should drop by the library, too. It's worth to read the poems of Forough and Shamloo again. All family pictures have to be reviewed, too. I have to call my friends as well to say goodbye. All I have are two bookshelves which I told my family who should receive them. I'm two units away from getting my bachelors degree but who cares about that. My mind is very chaotic. I wrote these random sentences for the next generation so they know we were not just emotional and under peer pressure. So they know that we did everything we could to create a better future for them. So they know that our ancestors surrendered to Arabs and Mongols but did not surrender to despotism. This note is dedicated to tomorrow's children..."

(extracted from an Iranian student's blog post June 18, 2009 (translated))

For several days I've been casually following the events of the post-election uprising in Iran. While the traditional news media have given some sporadic updates on the situation, nothing comes close to the eye-witness reports scattered far and wide across the internet via social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and hundreds of blogs direct from the ground level by the Iranians themselves.

One of the most concise locations where this information is being collated and shared is none other than the crass link sharing site fark.com. A community best known for its unabashedly crude sense of humor has generated some 36,000 serious posts directly related to the Iranian uprising, almost all of them in support of the Iranian Revolution. Iran discussion thread # XXVI on Fark.com is where I discovered the well-sourced quote you see above.

There is alot of noise in the mix, alot of disinformation surrounding these events for whatever reasons, but the gist of the matter is that the people of Iran are standing up to the current oppressive regime. They've had demonstrations daily since the election on June 12, with estimates of 1-2million people gathering in city squares throughout Iran to oppose the announced election results declaring Ahmadinejad the winner with 60% of the vote (despite Mousavi's lead in pre-election polls), and more broadly to oppose the regime itself. The allegedly defeated populist reformer candidate Mousavi (pictured at right) is the face of this new revolution, but the movement itself has become larger than him and his failed candidacy.

Today, the Supreme Leader Khamenei delivered a speech in which he declared the opposition protesters to be against Islam, which quite literally translates into a death sentence for anyone who continues to oppose the election and the regime. This is supposedly a huge development that could further ignite or suddenly deflate the reformer protestors.

I think one of the reasons so many Americans on the internet have tacitly or directly supported the opposition is because it's framed as a genuine fight for freedom and self-determination. What red blooded American wouldn't support a people's actions to throw off their oppressors when they've finally had enough brutality, corruption and lies from their dictatorship? It's been an awe-inspiring week watching it develop.

There are reports that the US planted the seeds of instability with our covert meddling in their internal affairs by funneling hundreds of millions of dollars into Iran the last couple of years through various US-sanctioned "democracy" organizations. Some people attribute this Iranian uprising exclusively to our alleged government involvement and consider the ongoing actions over there to be fake and not worthy of our supportive attention. Nonsense I say. For the uprising itself it matters not one bit who may or may not have planted the seeds for it. Of course from a constitutional perspective, our government has no right to use our tax money to spread democracy around the globe. But what is happening in Iran right now is both inspirational and historic: the Iranian people have taken actions into their own hands to determine the future of their country at very grave risk to their own lives and livelihoods.

Freedom is a powerful motivator, indeed. I write this in solidarity with the brave Iranian protesters.

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Amending the Constitution to eliminate the Natural Born Citizen requirement

As I said in my first post on the Obama Birth Certificate/Citizenship issue, the left has been trying for several years to eliminate the natural born citizenship requirement for anyone to serve as POTUS.

While their arguments are based on the requirement's impediment to globalization, something I'm vehemently against, I do tend to agree that the requirement should be expanded to include naturalized citizens. Emotional arguments against it using the spectre of stealth candidates with anti-American ulterior motives fail to consider that those with un-American ideals can just as easily be born here as abroad. Especially since the America we have today isn't so much the land of freedom that once stood in stark contrast to a world of tyranny, a land by its respect for liberty and its equitable system of laws once inspired the sacrifice of life, limb and fortune to preserve, the very rationale behind the Constitution's 14 year residency requirement. The inherent motivation of our natural born citizens to preserve our precious freedoms has been eroded right along with those freedoms themselves through decades of big government liberalism followed by such heinous legislation as the Patriot Act, Military Commissions Act, numerous executive orders and the behemoth that has become our federal government over the last few decades.

I believe that people from abroad who are lured to this country for its historical promise of freedom and prosperity, and who go through the pains of learning about the foundation of those promises, are much more inclined to protect them than the natural born citizens who seem to know little about our founding principles, take for granted what freedoms we still have, and allow the rest to slip into obscurity out of fear. I won't go so far as to call us a nation of wimps, because we face down death every single day as people crowd themselves onto highways, malls, subways, office buildings with a potential bevy of armed or drunken loose cannons in our midst. Not to mention our propensity to establish residence in the belly of earthquakes, tornadoes, floods, mudslides... the risks to life and limb are enormous and we taunt and tease them every single day by virtue of our lifestyles, yet we clamor in fear for 100% protection from a handful of evildoers half a world away, so much so that we throw our freedoms out the window for the mere illusion of gift-wrapped protection. Those who venture here seeking relief from the oppressive regimes of their homelands may indeed be more inclined to stand up for and defend freedom's principles than we are.

Ron Paul Revolution Documentary on PBS

Must see TV. Here's an excellent preview to an upcoming PBS documentary on the Freedom movement of our generation.

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End of America lecture by Naomi Wolf (video)

Video Link

Read the book, The End of America: Letter of Warning To A Young Patriot by Naomi Wolf

Next step: Take it to the Streets - coordinated action to restore the Constitution.

And vote for Ron Paul in your state's primary, the only candidate who respects the founding ideals of America and lives true to his oath to protect and defend the Constitution.

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Definitely time for a Reboot.

So says the Father of Podcasting, Adam Curry, after falling under the spell of liberty cast by Presidential Candidate Ron Paul.

Listen here, sprinkled throughout the podcast.
warning: podcast contains profanity.



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Zero Tolerance destroys another life

Swiss Army Knife In Cobb School Parking Lot Should Not Be Prosecuted
County's 'Zero Tolerance' Program Ensnares Another Student

Wednesday, September 05, 2007 at 3:00 PM

Atlanta, GA - Former Georgia Congressman Bob Barr today blasted school officials in Cobb County, Georgia, a northwest suburb of Atlanta, for seeking to bring felony charges against a 12th grade student, Wilford Ray Chandler, Jr., for simply having a small Swiss Army knife in his car in a school parking lot at Wheeler High School.

"The student posed no threat to anyone, and he was not using the knife in any threatening manner," Barr noted, "in fact, he was not using the knife at all - it was simply in his car." "Trying to ruin a student's career before it even begins, by treating such an innocuous activity as having a Swiss Army pocketknife in a car, is nothing short of an unthinking, stupid, and vindictive exercise of government power," Barr, a former federal prosecutor, said.

Barr said he hoped the county's prosecutors, including District Attorney Pat Head and Solicitor Barry Morgan, would quickly drop any charges against the student, and thereby "exercise the common sense and understanding that county school officials and police apparently lack, as evidenced by the unyielding and ridiculous 'zero tolerance' program and the unreasonable application of the policy to a student with no criminal record or intent and who exhibited nothing that could be remotely viewed by reasonable people as criminal behavior."

For further information please visit http://www.bobbarr.org or contact Derek Barr at 770-836-1776.

Barr, a former Member of Congress (1995-2003), also served previously as a US Attorney and with the Central Intelligence Agency. He is a lawyer and currently works with national organizations on issues related to privacy and national security.

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Given the choice, "Mr. Freeedommmm" Ted Nugent would pick Hillary

What an obnoxious neocon tool. Watch this clip of Ted Nugent begging Obama, Hillary and Feinstein to suck on his assault rifle, then belching a most perverted "freedom" yell to publicly declare his fascist intoxication.

I guarantee you, when it comes down to a contest between Hillary Clinton and Ron Paul in November 2008, this bozo will follow every other neocon into Hillary's pro-war globalist camp with glee. Not a single molecule in this man's body has the faintest notion of the concept of freedom.

The best way to shrivel this guy's engorged bravado is for Hillary to march right up to him and say, "Here I am. Do it, big boy."

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