Censuring Project Censorship

Every year the Reader Weekly publishes excerpts from Project Censored, “The News That Didn't Make The News”, and every year I gnash my teeth over at least half the items.  I’ve already read about them someplace else.  If they were censored, how did they get published so that I already knew about them?  If they were censored stories, how did the authors of these items get all their information?  And if they were censored, how did they get public coverage through Project Censored?  Wouldn’t the “censors” have closed Project Censored’ offices?

This year I’ll try a bit harder to find out where all of these items did make the news.

Widespread GMO Contamination: Did Monsanto Plant GMOs Before USDA Approval?

I am not surprised.  Monsanto has had widespread objection to its products and practices for years.

I searched for “monsanto gmo contamination 2000”.  A History Commons article gives citations from the Washington Post and others from 1999 and from the New York Times from 2000

Pennsylvania Law Gags Doctors to Protect Big Oil’s “Proprietary Secrets”

The Philadelphia Inquirer apparently didn’t know that this story was censored.  In December and January it ran stories on this law in its Philly.com site. The law is being contested in state courts.  That law is even being opposed by local Republican politicians; one even thought all the state Republicans should be turned out of office in the next election.

The Power of Peaceful Revolution in Iceland

I knew that years ago Icelanders turned out the government that let banks run rampant.  The new government did not bail the banks out.  They let the banks take their own losses rather than  “socialize” the losses as so many other countries did.

Food Riots: The New Normal?

I expected that this could happen given global warming and government corruption impoverishing many countries.  But there could also be a bright side.  Education, cell phones, and local electricity are giving many people the power to better their own lives.  And not all live in areas overrun by militant, religious extremists.

Journalism Under Attack Around the Globe

What’s new?  There have been many reports about attacks on journalists.  Reporters without Borders have been working for years to end violence against reporters.  One of the latest was a German photographer shot point blank in Afghanistan.  And an Italian reporter was killed in Ukraine.

The US Has Left Iraq with an Epidemic of Cancers and Birth Defects

This is not surprising considering the amount of toxic junk left by the military.  I’ve seen many stories about the depleted uranium shells left behind and its dangers.

Trans-Pacific Partnership Threatens a Regime of Corporate Global Governance

This title is ambiguous.  Does TPP threaten an existing “regime of corporate global governance”?  Or does it threaten to bring about a “regime of corporate global governance”?

I’ve seen the latter complaint before, many times.  There are many opposed to TPP who have been vociferous in their condemnation of it.  I’ve read many stories about the requested “fast track” authority and the secrecy about what is in the agreement.  Those voting for TPP ought to consider what happened with the PATRIOT Act.  Most did not read it.  I know of one case in which a Senator read the act and refused to vote for it.

What we probably can know for sure is that the “greatest deliberative body in the world” probably won’t deliberate much.

A Fifth of Americans Go Hungry

This headline is a sweeping generalization of the real problem described afterward.  Going hungry once a year is not the same as always being hungry.  Going hungry through no fault of one’s own is bad enough, but generalizations weaken the case for helping those who do.

Another side is that many unwittingly go hungry even though they have plenty of food.  The “American diet” is filled with food that only increases hunger, food brought to you through the “hard work” and “generosity” of big-ag.

Bank Interests Inflate Global Prices by 35 to 40 Percent

There is a simple explanation; it is called compounding.   Most everything we consume or use is produced by a pyramid of suppliers, each paying interest on its loans and expecting profit. 

Mary sells a widget to John.  John uses Mary’s widget to make a thingamajig.  John sells his thingamajig to Carl.  Carl uses John’s thingamajig to make a whatchamacallit. Carl sells his whatchamacallit to Karen.  Karen uses Carl’s whatchamacallit to make “The Latest Great Thing”.

Assuming the value added at each stage was twenty percent and each paid five percent interest on his or her costs, the accumulated interest is 15.5 percent.  The longer the chain of suppliers, the greater the compounding of interest.  And we aren’t including the interest each of these producers is paying for a house, a car, and a credit card.  And all that interest is not going just to banksters.  Many a pension is paid for by interest.  Many colleges, foundations, and charities depend on the interest and dividends paid on invested donations.

Richest Global 1 Percent Hide Trillions in Tax Havens

Many have complained about this.  It seems I see at least one story a week about tax havens.

Bradley Manning and the Failure of Corporate Media

We don’t know the rationale of rejection by the Washington Post, the New York Times, and Politico.  These are only three of dozens of corporate media.  This is a sweeping generalization too much like too many other sweeping generalizations of all X do Y.  The Huffington Post did report in 2013 that Manning did reveal he tried to reach these media organizations, but he received no answers.  The real question is did those at the lower echelons who received his messages have any reason to believe his credibility.

Think about it!  How often has your contact with any large corporation gone past the first person you reached?

As far as “corporate media” shunning the story, I can easily find many articles at the time of his trial.  I do know that I got tired of reading about it.

Manning’s sexual orientation was new to me after his trial.

Gogebic Taconite President Bill Williams Faces Environmental Charges in Spain

Wisconsin Public Radio has been publishing stories about the Spanish pollution charges against Bill Williams.  I don’t know how often they have to cover it to have more than “little coverage”.  The Wisconsin Citizens Media Cooperative has published several stories.  Maybe about 4,000 followers means little coverage, but how many more read these stories without becoming followers?  Other publications reporting these charges include The Daily Press of Ashland, WDIO, Sawyer County Record of Hayward, and Business North (KUWS story),

Police Brutality and Disregard for People’s Rights

These stories are always coming up.  Sadly, these abuses have been going on for a long time.  Joseph Wambaugh, a police officer who became a novelist in the 1970’s, wrote about some of these abuses in his stories.

Protests Everywhere and No One Cares

Who the hell are the Smiley Cyprus and Dustin Peeper mentioned in this section?  I certainly don’t care to read much about their escapades.

I read about the Venezuela protests in the News Tribune or Star Tribune.

Could the Rome protests be about a story in La Repubblica?  La Repubblica reported that the head of the Ukraine Communist Party was accused of being a sniper, beaten, and forced to kiss a cross.  This story appeared in contropiano.org, an online Communist journal.  Contropiano’s story was published March 1, 2014, but La Repubblica ran a correction on February 22 that the party official was not a sniper!

My conclusion

My “censorship” is your “lack of interest” and vice versa.  We would have to spend all day and all night reading all the stories that may have some interest to us.  But we can never keep up with all that others may consider important.

Almost every day I read the Duluth News Tribune, the Star Tribune, and the New York Times.  Do I read everything published in them?  Come on, I would like to do a lot of other things besides read news on a screen, especially news about the doings of Cypress and Beeper.

People are highly selective in what they read.  Some read only the sports; some, the headlines, some, the entertainment, and on and on.  Because you and I take note of economic treaties doesn’t mean everybody else does.

I know this very well! I’ve been beating the drum that Adam Smith has been misinterpreted.  Other than the copy that was in the Reader (“The Invisible Adam Smith”), I doubt if one hundred people have read that article in my blog.  Has my view been censored?  No, it has only been overwhelmed by millions of articles that are more interesting to tens of millions of readers.

Mel is a gullible skeptic.  Sometimes he swallows somebody's line; sometimes he tries to figure out what is really going on.

Published in Reader Weekly, 2014-06-05, http://duluthreader.com/articles/2014/06/05/3495_censuring_project_censored

Congressism

We have racism, sexism, and anti-semitism.  Now we have Congressism.  Congressism is a dislike of Congress out of all proportion to reality.  Commentators claim Congress is broken.  Polls indicate that people are very dissatisfied with Congress but that they are satisfied with their own Representatives and Senators.

Wait a minute!  Congress is broken but people like their own Representatives and Senators.  But Congress is made up of other people’s Representatives and Senators.  And those other people are satisfied with their members of Congress.  If all these Congress members are doing such a good job according to the people who supposedly elected them, how can Congress be broken?

“The Tea Party wins if we start hating our government. The solution is to find ways to be informed and engaged in our democratic process all the time, not just when there is a presidential election.” - Annabel Park, a Coffee Party founder (see www.coffeepartyusa.org)

“Well, Doctor, what have we got – a Republic or a Monarchy?”  Doctor Ben Franklin replied, “A Republic, if you can keep it.”

If we don’t trust Congress, which is supposed to be most representative of the three branches of our government, are we giving up on keeping our republic?

So, let us not give up on our government.  Let us count the ways we can improve it.

First, of course, is to show up at every election and vote.  This is especially true if you live in a “gerrymandered” district.  You could contribute to an upset or you could reduce the margin of victory.

Also, don’t make any assumptions based on polls.  Vote whether the candidate you support is ahead or behind the polls.  The polls sample far fewer people than actually vote.  Remember also that polls can be very, very wrong.  In 1998, the polls predicted Skip Humphrey, Norm Coleman, and Jesse Ventura for governor in that order.  The results were Ventura, Coleman, and Humphrey.  As far as big money in politics, Ventura spent about one-tenth as much money per vote as either of his opponents.

Second, write about government.  Write letters to the editor.  Write to your representatives.  Write to the mayor, governor, or president.  You don’t need an essay.  You can simply state your support or opposition for some action.  Personally, I prefer writing directly to signing petitions.  One hundred persons writing about an issue probably has more influence than one thousand people signing a petition.

Unless you have some compelling information for or against an issue, a short letter is best.  Consider that the more people a politician represents, the greater the volume of mail and the less the chance that the politician will even see your letter.  But his or her staff will probably be counting them by subject and position.

One of the reasons Congress is “broken” is that few, if any, members read every word of the bills they vote on.  They depend on staff advice and often just follow their party.  I read that somebody challenged Congress to read the Patriot Act before voting on it.  Supposedly only one Congressman took up the challenge and voted against it.  I find it a bit hard to believe because supposedly complete copies were not available to Congress until twelve hours before the vote!  What’s this about the U.S. Senate being the greatest deliberative body in the world?  And people who are making the most noise about limited government now voted for the Patriot Act then.

Maybe we should follow Grover Norquist’s example and get Congress to sign a “Read the Bill Pledge”.  Maybe Warren Buffet or George Soros could fund this effort.

If all of these ideas seem to be getting nowhere, then maybe a few brave souls would start a new third party.  Say a few Republicans who don’t like the theft of the Party of Lincoln by the Tea Party and Southern Conservatives and a few Democrats who don’t care to jump whole-heartedly into every cause that some in the party expect everybody to support unconditionally.  Also, members of either party who feel that large corporations have too much influence on a “government of the people, by the people, for the people”.

The name I thought of was “Pragmatic Populists”.  That is, the government should work for the people as a whole with consideration that there will be conflicts of interests.

As usual, when I think I have a new and unique idea, somebody has already thought of it.  One source I found is an analysis of Justice John Paul Stevens’ decisions with regard to the First Amendment.  Gregory P. Magarian considers the balance that Justice Stevens sought in “The Pragmatic Populism of Justice Stevens’ Free Speech Jurisprudence”.  The abstract is at http://law.bepress.com/villanovalwps/art57/ and you can get the full text by clicking the “Download” button to the right of the title.

I don’t know if I’ll ever finish all forty-some pages of legal reasoning, but Magarian writes that Justice Stevens thought that the purpose of the First Amendment was to ensure that all could participate in political discourse, regardless of their background, status, or wealth.  Justice Stevens was writing opinions in support of this view, opposing his colleagues who interpreted the First Amendment as protecting political speech from government interference.  In other words, he didn’t think the First Amendment protected those who had the most bucks from buying the biggest microphones thereby overwhelming any speech of those who disagreed with them.

And the great irony is that John Paul Stevens is a Republican appointed by a Richard Nixon, a Republican.  The next irony is that Stevens seems to be holding the ideal of protecting individual against state power and the other conservatives seem to be favoring state or corporate power.

You can find an interesting biography of him in “TheDissenter, Justice John Paul Stevens, Majority of One”, Jeffrey Rosen, New York Times, 2007-09-23.

"Congressism" was also published in the Reader Weekly, 2013-10-23 and can be found at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2013/10/24/2305_party_of_one-2

Maybe I'm preaching to the choir

The following was published in the October 10 edition of the Reader Weekly of Duluth.  It is also available at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2013/10/10/2216_party_of_one.

Almost every time Bob Boone sees me, he asks me to write again for the Reader.  When I saw him last week he twisted my arm so hard that I yelled “Uncle!”  Unfortunately, my arm is so sore that I’ll have to do a lot of cutting and pasting from my notes and blog postings.  I must admit I gave in partly because so many people ask if I’m still writing for the Reader but few visit my blog (it has more Russian reverse-spammers than American readers).

By the time this is published will the government be open again?  Regardless, consider what the uproar would be if the Democrats in the Senate would not approve a spending bill unless certain provisions were removed from the PATRIOT Act.

Many are promoting Hilary Clinton for President in 2016.  My own view is that we have had enough of Presidential dynasties.  If you think a woman should be President, consider Kathleen Sebelius and Elizabeth Warren.  Sebelius has governed and with some bi-partisan success.  Warren really is good at exposing contradictions in the positions of the powers that be.

Once again it is that tiresome time of year in the Northland.  Off in the distance, bang!  Too close for comfort, bang!  Bird season has started and then next month is deer season with a few other hunting seasons thrown in.

Last time I checked, landowners in Minnesota are supposed to post their property with "No Trespassing" signs every 300-500 feet.  In other words, hunters are free to trespass on private land that is not posted.

Even if posted, some hunters ignore the signs or even evidence that they were shooting into private property.  One fall a bird hunter shot down our driveway with our red pickup plainly visible.  My wife happened to be nearby and yelled at him.  He grabbed his bird, ran to his truck, and drove off as quickly as he could.

What if my wife had a gun in her hand?  If Minnesota had a "Stand Your Ground" law, would she be in the right to shoot the trespassing hunter?

Last season some bird hunters shot into our land where there was no brush under the power line.  There were "No Trespassing" signs within 300 feet of where they shot.  What if I had been walking on a trail that paralleled the road and had a gun with me.  Would I have been "standing my ground" to shoot back?  They were also shooting within 200 feet of an occupied dwelling on the other side of the road.

Given that a GPS unit costs less than most rifles and that St. Louis County, Minnesota, publishes plat maps, available free online, listing all the properties and owners, should landowners even be required to post their property?
Responsible hunters know where they hunt and respect property rights.  They would be safe.  But the few irresponsible hunters give the impression that all hunters do not respect property rights.  These irresponsible hunters should be very glad that Minnesota doesn't have a "Stand Your Ground" law.
How often have we heard the following before:

"Notwithstanding the NRA’s win in Colorado in knocking off two gun control Democratic State Senators for supporting more stringent ‘gun control’, if Liberals vote they will win. In fact if one analyzes the Colorado race, Liberals were disinterested and stayed home, something that must be worked on going forward. Voters must learn that it is their civic duty to vote every time. Political engagement must be a requirement for effective citizenship."
 - Egberto Willies, "America Is A Liberal Nation.  A Liberal Wins On a Liberal Message."

Maybe I’m preaching to the choir.  Reader Weekly readers always vote, don’t they?  Remember city council and school board elections are on November 5th as well as a school levy.

Ah, a school levy!  How often have you heard people complain about taxes for schools because they don’t have any kids in school?  Conversely, how many younger people complain about paying into Social Security and it goes almost directly into the pockets of seniors?

Well, we have many cross-generational transfers and we always will.  Who paid for seniors’ schooling?  People long dead.  Who paid the Social Security for those long dead?  The seniors now collecting Social Security.  Who paid for the highways and public buildings?  People long dead.  Who is paying for new roads and public buildings?  People who will use them only a few years of the lifetime of those roads and public buildings.

Schools, roads, and public buildings are considered public goods.  That is, things that benefit all people regardless of their ability to pay.  Would you have been able to go to school if your parents were poor?  Would you want to pay a toll for every section of road you drove on?  We all get to use these public goods independent of how much we paid for them.  It is these public goods that help make a civil society.  Those countries that let the rich pay few or no taxes and make the poor pay lots of taxes are not pleasant places to live.

What if Senate demands compromise on PATRIOT Act?

What if the U.S. Senate demands that the House of Representatives compromises on the spending bill by removing certain aspects of the PATRIOT Act?

If you have nothing to hide, why worry?

Supporters of the NSA wire-tapping and of the PATRIOT Act assert that if we have nothing to hide, why should we be concerned.  Consider that an administration may construe any criticism of itself to be criminal and covered by the PATRIOT Act.  Don't laugh, but there have been people who have privately called their leaders jerks and put in prison for it.  Don't laugh, Joseph McCarthy hounded people for their political beliefs.  Don't laugh, Richard Nixon had his enemies list of people who were critical of his policies.  Don't laugh, George W. Bush said, "You are either with us or against us."

But how many of these same people don't apply the same reasoning to corporate labels.  If a corporation has nothing to hide in its products, then why is it concerned about laws concerning labeling?  If GMO foods are good for you, then what do corporations have to hide in having laws past to prohibit labeling foods as GMO?

If various political front organizations of any stripe have nothing to hide, why do they need 501(c) status?  Could it be that the law requires candidates to give the names of their donors but a 501(c) organization doesn't have to?  If you live in California and want to contribute to a candidate in Wisconsin, why do want to hide that you are an out-of-state donor?

Consistency has never been a hall-mark of those with uncompromising political mind-sets.

The Read the Bill Caucus

I've long been pondering what a viable new political party would be based on and what it would be called.  Considering all the current comments about the NSA telephone surveillance and the Patriot Act, I have considered a new solution to the rigid stances.

I forget the details, but someone challenged Congress to read the entire Patriot Act.  Only one Representative did and he voted against it.  Many Democrats in the House opposed it and only Russ Feingold opposed it in the Senate.  Many did complain that they weren't given enough time to read it, and some complained there weren't even enough copies available.

Given this "knee-jerk" voting on so many issues, rather than look around for a third party to replace one of the two current major parties, maybe we just need a new caucus open to all: The Read the Bill Caucus.

To join The Read the Bill Caucus, a Senator or a Representative need only promise to read a bill before voting for it.  If a caucus member has not read a bill and understood it, then the member will vote against the bill or abstain from voting on the bill.

The beauty of this idea is that a member of Congress doesn't have to change his or her ideology.  Members only have to understand what they are voting for instead of just following a party line or caving in to mass hysteria.

Quote of the Day: "Everyone knows"

"If you hear that 'everyone' supports a policy, whether it’s a war of choice or fiscal austerity, you should ask whether 'everyone' has been defined to exclude anyone expressing a different opinion."

- Paul Krugman, "Marches of folly", New York Times, 2013-03-17

A couple of reads for the Independence Day (Fourth of July)

OK, I know it's a bit late in the day to recommend some reading for the Fourth of July, but any day is really a good day to pass these along.

"Bill of Wrongs: The Executive Branch's Assault on America's Fundamental Rights", Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose, 2007

This is mostly about cases that have been brought to court against the Federal or other governments and generally prevailed in one way or another.  These are all from the George W. Bush Presidency's "War on Terrorism".

The other is "Whose Freedom? The Battle over America's Most Important Idea" by George Lakoff.  I haven't started it yet, but all the hype about our "freedoms" has often struck me as insincere.  There are the definite illegal intrusions by government into the private lives of individuals.  The "freedom" meant in too much of the hype is the freedom for corporations to do what they damn well please without regard to the effects on people.  I shall see over the next week or so.

Patriot Act - have you read it?

Did those who voted for it read it?  You can find the original, H.R. 3162, at http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-107hr3162enr/pdf/BILLS-107hr3162enr.pdf.  It has 131 pages and 57,796 words.  At 800 wpm that would take 72 minutes to read.  More likely it would be at 300 wpm or 192 minutes.

I scanned 26 pages of the PDF file in about 30 minutes and gave up.  It's very hard to understand because much of it is "strike" and "insert" directions for existing law.  One would have to have be constantly referring to those laws to make sense of it.  I imagine it would take several days to read it and understand it fully.

Somebody challenged the members of the Senate to read it, and only one Senator took up the challenge.  He voted no, a real patriot.  Sen. Barack Obama voted yes.

"[The electors] will not be liable to be deceived by those brilliant appearances of genius and patriotism, which, like transient meteors, sometimes mislead as well as dazzle."

Federalist No. 64, "The Powers of the Senate", John Jay,New York Packet, 1788-03-07

Maybe we need a Constitutional amendment that no bill can be longer than the original Constitution (4601 words).  Given all the misinterpretations of the Constitution, that still might be too long.

The "political spectrum" is so one-dimensional

I wish people would get out of the habit of talking about the "political spectrum" as is one's beliefs could be positioned on a single line.  That is an unjustified limitation of the complexity of human beings.

The political spectrum is defined as being either to the left or to the right.  These in themselves are rather meaningless terms.  Those on the right are not approaching fascism and those on the left are not approaching communism.  Both of these bankrupt systems were only interested in state power.

Take the case of Rep. Anthony Wiener, a Democrat.  His Twitter foibles are an aberration not shared by other Democrats.  Neither are the foibles of Sen. Ensign shared by other Republicans.  Maybe we need a couple of political dimensions for arrogance and for sexual dalliance.

How about a dimension for ignorance vs. diligence?  Rep. Michele Bachman complains about being forced not to use incandescent lamps.  The bill has no such prohibition; it specifies the energy needed for so many lumens.  She never read the bill; I did.  Senators were challenged to read the entire original PATRIOT act.  Only one did and he voted against it.

How about a dimension for certitude and doubt?  We have too many all along the political spectrum who have too much of the first and not enough of the second.

Finally, how about a dimension for being right and for being wrong?  We have people all along the political spectrum who are often more right than wrong as well as those who are often more wrong than right.

Freedom, democracy, security, and confusion

Most of us have seen the battle among those who think the internet should be one free playground, those who see it as a source of income, and those who see it as a tool to track criminals and terrorists. Many of us are just plain confused by what is really going on.

This little bit started with my intent to buy a couple of Swedish CDs as gifts. I have bought CDs from MegaStore.se before and tried to login to my account. I was told my username or password were wrong. I double checked my cheat sheet of passwords. I carefully watched my fingers. Still wrong. After several attempts I asked for my username and password to be sent to me.

Within minutes I received an email giving exactly what I had been typing. I tried again. Wrong. I cut and paste from the email. Wrong. I gave up and sent email (or is it emejl in Swedish) asking for help. Since it was after hours, I wouldn't get a reply until late Sunday, early morning in Sweden.

Meanwhile, I looked at all the help files and other interesting detours on the site. One was megablogg.se. It had a few interesting thoughts, but one that struck me was "2009 - året då internet dog?" or "2009 - the year when the internet died?"

It had a link to an article in Aftonbladet "138 - Mitt desperata fem-i-tre ragg, Lisa Magnusson om EU:s telekompakt och framtidens internet"

I'm already in linguistic trouble, I never heard of "fem-i-tre ragg". I looked it up yesterday, but didn't make much sense of it. Anyhow, 138 refers to a proposed European Union law about the internet, and Lisa Magnusson sees it as affecting the future's internet.

My rough translation gathers that she complains about the internet not being as free as it once was (that is, no cost access) and the internet being too regulated. I never knew the internet was free unless you were getting somebody else to pay for it, like at a university. Regulated? Yes and no. But hang on.

She writes that her MSN account was suspended because she used the words "Hitler" and "pedophile" in a chat room.

Now I'm getting in over my head in Swedish and look for some similar stuff in English. Even in English, it is very confusing. Yes, there are police and security authorities who want all data traffic to be retained for at least 30 days. But it is very hard to understand how much is actually being put into law or has even been put into law.

Even if it will not be put into law, think about how the more complicated laws become, the less the average person, or even legislature can understand the full implications of these laws. Just think about the original PATRIOT Act and how few legislators even read it.

And this is how freedom will be lost to security. When we become so afraid of something that we want the authorities to do anything to protect us, some authorities will do anything, even if it really winds up making us less secure.

Your very own stimulus package

Promise to give as many people as you can one dollar for every member of Congress who read the entire 1500-plus pages of the stimulus bill. In turn they have to pay you one dollar for every member of congress who did not read the entire stimulus bill. You should come out well ahead.

Far-fetched? Recall that someone challenged members of Congress to read the entire original Patriot Act. Only one member took up the challenge, read the entire bill, and voted no.

Maybe we need a Constitutional amendment that Congress shall pass no bill that is longer than the original Constitution. Maybe Congress will pass fewer bills and many more that will actually work as intended.