Clark Warns UK and US About Return To The Law Of The Jungle

Not the good general, but the esteemed Prime Minister of New Zealand, Helen Clark. Yes!

In an interview in the British newspaper the Guardian, Helen Clark is reported to have warned that the United States and its allies had created a dangerous precedent by going to war without a UN resolution.

"This is a century which is going to see China emerge as the largest economy, and usually with economic power comes military clout," she said. In the world we are constructing, we want to know (that the system) will work whoever is the biggest and the most powerful."

A juicy read.

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Update: Also see this about the controversy surrounding Prime Minister Clark asserting that the war in Iraq never would have happened if Al Gore was president.

The Prime Minister has apologised to Washington for any offence caused. But she has not retracted her comments, and this has led to demands in Parliament by Act leader Richard Prebble, New Zealand First's Winston Peters and the National Party's Bill English that she make a second apology, admitting she was wrong in suggesting Mr Gore opposed the war.

She was not wrong at all. She was absolutely correct, and they are the ones who are wrong. Mr Gore has made crystal clear his strong opposition to the war and the rationale behind it. In fact, the recorded positions of Mr Gore and Helen Clark are virtually identical.

Mr Prebble told a political studies conference at Auckland University on April 13: "Al Gore is actually a hawk on Iraq and, as our internet search shows, he has made no statement criticising George Bush."

Act should get someone to tell it how to use internet search engines. If you use the leading search engine, Google, and enter the words "Gore Iraq", hundreds of responses come up relating to a speech in which Mr Gore scathingly attacked the Bush war policy.

Anyone got the goods on this? Did Big Al ever support this war?

A Heartless Hit And Run

How quickly we forget. Was it only a couple of weeks ago that our newspapers were dominated by stories from the Iraqi war zone, our TV news bulletins full of graphic pictures of the war, and our domestic political agenda marginalised by our leaders' grave pronouncements on the progress of the invasion and their shifting justifications for it?

In the beginning, it was exclusively about disarming Saddam Hussein and ridding Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction. By the end, it was all about the overthrow of Saddam and the implementation of "regime change".

Now what? You plough through the paper, almost to the end of the news section, before you find any reference to the postwar situation in Iraq. "People are sick of hearing about Iraq" is the standard explanation for its relegation to a minor spot among all other world news items - and no doubt they are sick of it. "Anyway, the war's over" is the other explanation, and that's true, too.

Isn't that the truth? Humanitarian action just doesn't sell. Hopefully it doesn't sell out.

The Real State Of The Union

Americans have traditionally been vain about their pragmatism. Let the French have their philosophes, the British and the Germans their aristocrats who stand on ceremony. Ours would be the culture of the doer, the tinkerer, the keen observer who noticed what actually worked. In ideal form the American leader would be a Benjamin Franklin, with lofty interests but an unshakably realistic bent. Better, he would be a Lincoln: a true visionary who also recognized that the drunken General Grant was the best man for the job.

Lincoln, too, issued State of the Union messages, at a time when the existence of the union itself was in question. His second, in 1862, is the most memorable. "The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present," he said. "As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew." We offer these essays in that spirit.

I highly recommend this joint report by the Atlantic Monthly and New America Foundation.

The State of Society

The percentage of Americans who are happy with the direction in which the country is heading has returned to pre-September 11 levels. A few days before the terrorist attack on America, 43 percent Americans were satisfied with the way things were going in the United States. After the attack, the percentage of Americans who were satisfied with the way things were going in the country rose steadily from 61 percent a few days after the attack, to 67 percent a month after the attack, and to its high of 70 percent in December 2001. But the percentage of satisfied Americans has declined sharply through 2002. Most recently, only 46 percent of Americans expressed satisfaction with the way things are going in the United States, while more - 51 percent - were dissatisfied.

A communitarian take on America from Amitai Etzioni and Deirdre Mead. Also, if you haven't heard about it yet, Amitai has a new blog here.

Have You Visited The Radical Middle?

Radical Middle, edited by Mark Satin, is an old fashioned hard copy newsletter that covers policy issues, conferences, and books in the fields of politics, government, law, business, and foreign affairs.

Our focus is on holistic, sustainable proposals that transcend politics-as-usual AND bitter alienation; our goal is an economically, culturally, racially, and politically integrated world.

Most excellent. Especially this piece culling together over 30 writers trying to define the radical middle. They've even got our lapdog Tony Blair in there.

Open Government Key To Public Trust

Lack of open government records and meetings has led to a lack of public trust in American government at all levels, a national freedom-of-information activist said Friday.

"A generation ago, 75 percent still trusted government. Now, just 20 percent do," Virginia Coalition for Open Government director Frosty Landon told members of South Dakotans for Open Government. "When just 50 percent of the people vote and when 75 to 80 percent distrust their government, we all need to worry."

I'm worried. However we do it, we need to strengthen the legal power of the freedom of information. In a real sense. Complaining about it doesn't help. Doing something about it will.

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Frosty Landon, quoted above, is a member of National Freedom of Information Coalition. Check 'em out.

More Opinion On The McCain-Feingold Ruling

From the Center For Responsive Politics.

Larry Noble, executive director and general counsel of the Center for Responsive Politics, issued the following statement in reaction to today's federal court decision on the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law. Noble served for 13 years as general counsel of the Federal Election Commission.

“Today's court decision amounts to a split decision that gives supporters and opponents of this law something to cheer -- and complain -- about. Regardless, the decision will become a footnote in history once the Supreme Court rules on the law.

“Although today's decision strikes down the broad ban on the national party committees raising and spending soft money, it upholds the prohibition on the national party committees using soft money for ads that support or oppose a federal candidate. This prohibits the national parties from using unlimited contributions to pay for so-called 'issue' ads, which they have become increasingly reliant on. State and local parties also will be prohibited from using soft money in ads that mention a federal candidate. The court also upheld the prohibition on federal officeholders and candidates raising soft money.

“The court struck down the prohibition on interest groups using soft money to pay for 'issue' ads that mention a candidate in the weeks immediately prior to an election. But it upheld a backup provision in the law that bans interest groups from using soft money for ads run -- at any time -- that support or oppose a federal candidate.

About the same as Common Cause's below. There's more if you follow the link. The bottom line is this is going to the Supremes, and they've supported reform, and overturned lower courts, in both 2000 and 2001. So it will be interesting to see what happens. I'm betting that they uphold the McCain-Feingold bill in total.

Common Cause Celebrates Today's Decision On Campaign Finance Reform

Well, shame on me for not checking around before I posted the last item on the court's action today. Common Cause actually is trumpeting the decision, and believes the portion struck down to be an insignifigant action because of their confidence that the Supreme Court will not do the same. This is truly an interpretation I did not expect, and I'm following and analyzing it closely. More later.

The federal district court today upheld some key provisions of the McCain-Feingold law, including the ban on national and state parties using soft money to run ads about federal candidates. The court also upheld provisions of the law that restrict the use of corporate and labor funding for sham issue ads about federal candidates.

“We are pleased that the court recognized the importance – and the constitutionality – of some key provisions of the campaign finance law,” said Chellie Pingree, president of Common Cause, which spearheaded efforts to pass the law. “The provisions upheld by the lower court are central to ending the corrupt soft money system.”

To the extent that the court struck down other portions of the ban on soft money, Common Cause considers today’s ruling to be disappointing, but ultimately unimportant.

“At the end of the day, it’s the Supreme Court that will decide the constitutionality of the soft money ban and other parts of the new reform law,” Pingree said.

Based on previous Supreme Court decisions and the record developed in this case, Common Cause is confident that the new law will be upheld as constitutional when the Supreme Court considers it.

History is on our side. In both of the last two times the Supreme Court ruled on campaign finance issues, it reversed lower court decisions that, like today’s case, threw out reform laws.

This interpretation of today's decision seems to be well based. The Supreme Court's record is clear in the past two cases, and overturned lower court decisions. It will be interesting to explore how reluctantly they have done so the past few times, and how that may be a factor in today's seemingly more partisan and political environment.

Campaign Finance Reform Shot Down

A three-judge panel in Washington struck down major provisions of the new campaign finance law this afternoon in a much-awaited ruling, setting the stage for a final showdown at the U.S. Supreme Court later this year that will determine the shape, style and bank accounts of the nation's major political campaigns.

Nearly five months after the McCain-Feingold law was argued before the panel, most of the soft money prohibitions were declared to be unconstitutional by a 2-1 majority, possibly clearing the way for major political parties to begin raising the large, unregulated sums of money from corporations, trade unions and wealthy individuals that critics said had plagued major election campaigns during the past two decades.

This isn't over yet, but it doesn't look good. It's time to get active on this. Study the arguments, and figure out how to take the most united stand. Personally, I believe we need to sponsor a second Bill of Rights, for the 21st century, that involves a constellation of the freedom of information, to ensure transparency and accountability; the role and ownership of media and corporations in America, and necessary and just conditions of their charter; campaign finance reform, to clean up the rest and constructed to be constitutionally sound; and electoral reform, including lifetime registration, same-day registration, instant runoff voting or some better alternative, and a national election holiday. I'll be posting more on this as time goes on, and I get in more depth and detail below (near the bottom of this post).

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Update: One read of the two arguments below would be to ask 1) what constitutional implications are there for the seemingly common-sense proposals in Clean Money, Clean Elections; and 2) what common-sense outcomes would we expect to see if we followed the strict constitutional arguments of unrestricted political speech and spending? In some ways, we get an interesting opposition of means and ends, each appropriating different means by different justifications to achieve seemingly similar ends (though these postulated ends are not so well proven to ensure they would actually turn out that way).

Dash For Cash - The Argument For Public Financing

The Democratic convention won't be held for more than a year, but the party's nominee for the 2004 presidential race is being selected right now, in a handful of living rooms and salons in Georgetown, the Upper East Side of Manhattan and Hollywood. That's where the "wealth primary" — the quadrennial dance between fund-raisers and fat cats — is taking place, a competition that determines who will be anointed the party's front-runner and what issues will make it onto the table.

The public may be unaware of the process, but campaigns take the wealth primary very seriously. And they should. In every presidential race since 1984, the candidate who had raised the most money by the end of the year prior to the election — before a single primary vote had been cast — went on to win his party's nomination.

This fact is pretty damning. And that doesn't make it look for progressive issues such as electoral reform, campaign finance reform, and sunshine laws to be included on the platform. Unless these fat cats sign on to it. And, in the case of campaign finance, this may be not be a likely occurrence.

This is no way to select the next leader of a democracy. The only way to get rid of the wealth primary is a voluntary system of full public financing in both the primary and general elections for qualified candidates who demonstrate a broad base of support among average voters. The existing, outmoded funding system now used must be replaced. Lawmakers would do well to take a page from the success of "Clean Money, Clean Elections" systems in Arizona and Maine, where more than half the candidates for state office — including the current governor of Arizona — participated in a public funding option that freed them from any postelection obligations to major donors and the special interests they represent.

Under the Clean Money, Clean Elections approach, candidates who agree to abide by strict spending limits and to raise no private money can qualify for a grant of public funds for their campaigns. That funding level is based on what it cost to run a competitive race for that level of office in previous cycles. However, if participating candidates are opposed by big-spending, privately financed opponents, or targeted by independent expenditures, they can receive additional public matching funds — up to a limit — to help keep them on an equal plane. First, they have to raise a large number of very small qualifying contributions from voters in their district.

What's most fascinating to me is how this approach would be implemented at the presidential level.

Under a presidential Clean Money, Clean Elections system, candidates would qualify not by collecting a certain amount of money, but rather by collecting a qualifying — and quite large — number of contributions. The amount given could be as little as, say, $5, replacing an emphasis on the amount collected with an emphasis on numbers of people participating. Once candidates qualified, then, as with the current system, they could keep getting additional public funds up to the primary spending limit as long as they kept competing in primaries and got at least 10% of the vote.

In other words, instead of the wealth primary and the bundling of $2,000 checks, candidates would be required to show broad and deep support from individual citizens — not wealthy special interests. Such a system would reduce the time candidates spend on fund-raising so they could focus on voters and issues. It would create equal opportunity among candidates able to collect large checks from wealthy donors and those candidates with large numbers of supporters of only average means, or less. And it would encourage more citizens to get involved in the democratic process of electing the president, reducing the obscene dependence of future presidents on a tiny core of the wealthiest Americans.

It's time to take the "for sale" sign off the White House.

Indeed.

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Or is it just the opposite? Be sure to read next post, which argues from a constitutional basis for allowing no restrictions on political communications and media.

Liberty For Citizens, Or Only For Politicians?

To hear John McCain tell it, campaign finance reform is necessary to save democracy from the weaknesses of the 1st Amendment. The Founders would have disagreed.

In Federalist Paper No. 10, James Madison spoke about the problem of political factions, or what we today call "special interests." During the founding of our Republic, many were concerned that the tyranny of the majority faction would trample the rights of all others. Madison wrote that factions are natural and have always existed. What did Madison believe was the solution to these factions? Was it regulation?

Madison wrote, "Liberty is to faction what air is to fire." He didn't want to regulate, he wanted a vigorous debate of ideas.

Who wouldn't. This is indeed our goal with campaign finance legislation, to ensure the free debate and passionate exchange of ideas. Only now the argument is curiously turned around. And sound or not, these arguments are valid.

John McCain, appearing on "This Week" with Sam & Cokie, said, "The Supreme Court has said, 'Money isn't speech -- speech is speech.'" And on another Sunday morning talking-head show he paraphrased Justice John Paul Stevens, saying, "Money isn't speech -- it's property."

The problem with those quotes is simple: McCain is wrong. In the landmark campaign finance case, Buckley v. Valeo, the Court acknowledged that it's necessary for money to be spent if speech is to be heard. Printing flyers, running ads, hiring consultants, and taking trips are all ways by which a candidate or concerned citizen attempts to make his message heard. All these things cost money. The Court understood that dollar limits gave the government the ability to ration and control the political speech that supposedly is protected by the First Amendment.

Reluctantly, the Justices allowed Congress to impose hard money limits on the amount of dollars raised, in order to guard against the appearance of impropriety with elected officials. And with even greater reluctance, they broke from all previous precedent and permitted government-compelled disclosure, because they saw no other way to enforce the limits.

But John McCain has demonstrated that he is his own parody. On his Straight Talk Express website, McCain urged supporters to sign a petition for campaign finance reform. From there he wrote, "Along with your petition, I hope you will send a contribution of $75, $50, $25, or whatever you can afford at this time. Your contribution will send a clear message that we have the strength and resources to get our reform agenda passed."

Charles Lewis, executive director of the Center for Public Integrity said, "It looks peculiar for a senator to be raising money so he can reform. The problem for McCain is that it costs money to get your message out."

Ouch. That was a tough blow. Certainly not a death strike to the movement for the Clean Money, Clean Elections approach above, but a rhetorical punch in the face nonetheless. Here's some more from a synopsis of a lawsuit before the Supreme Court.

The media can influence politics in ways that political causes cannot. We'll argue that political causes have the same First Amendment right to an unrestricted freedom of the press that the institutional media does. The purpose of this lawsuit is to restore the freedom of the press for individuals -- especially political causes.

We'll demonstrate that the First Amendment of the United States Constitution protects the right of citizens to communicate through "the press", which means print, radio, television, and now the Internet.

Keep in mind that there are no legal prohibitions or restrictions on the political speech of "the press". The media can make any political statement they want in any manner they choose about any party or candidate, and can publicize or not publicize, attack or not attack, any political cause, without limitation.

This is an even more dazzling "turning around" of common sense. And it makes sense. Especially with the growth of Big Media, and its poor performance in supporting dissenting opinions in favor of a more mainstream corporate vanillaism, this point raises a cogent warning. No campaign finance reform should be passed in a vacuum. Accompanying safeguards on media diversity of ownership should be riding shotgun. We may be looking at a new Bill of Rights people. For the 21st century. One that includes the freedom of information, to ensure transparency and accountability; the role and ownership of media and corporations in America, and necessary and just conditions of their charter; campaign finance reform, to clean up the rest and constructed to be constitutionally sound; and electoral reform, including lifetime registration, same-day registration, instant runoff voting or some better alternative, and a national election holiday.

My purpose in posting these two countering arguments is to call attention to them, so that vigorous review of the various opinions may be carried out. I will be analyzing these arguments, and the decision by the federal panel today striking down portions of the McCain-sponsored campaign finance legislation, and will be posting that in the next several days, or week at the longest. I pretend to be no expert, I will be analyzing the arguments as a capable and educated free thinker, and ultimately through the lens of the platform I mentioned above, which, to put it simply, is maximum support of freedom, self-government, responsive democracy, transparency, accountability, and integrity.

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Keep in mind that with these arguments, it begs the question of how we determine what "the press" is. Is there a charter for the press, certain rules and guidelines they must follow, rules and procedures? Like a corporate charter? If so, then anyone claiming this freedom of the press should have to abide by them, whether these are individuals or political "factions". If there is not such a charter, then perhaps there should be, and we should debate what its terms should be. This isn't much different than the current debate over corporate purpose legislation, and what should properly be the terms of a corporate charter. In the best interest of society. I profess to be ignorant of the rules behind "the press", and will seek out this information and post anew as time permits. Or please comment or link to your own post or that of a treatment of the subject. This would be greatly appreciated. We should not leave it to the so-called experts, or technocrats, as free thinkers we need to mobilize for true democracy.

Sharp Rise In Press Attacks In Afghanistan - Not Limited To The War In Iraq

Attacks and threats against Afghan journalists have increased sharply in recent weeks, Human Rights Watch said today, on the eve of World Press Freedom Day, which is May 3. Afghan security personnel have created a pervasive climate of fear in which journalists are afraid to openly publish articles that criticize leaders.

"Press freedom in Afghanistan is under assault," said John Sifton, a researcher in the Asia Division of Human Rights Watch. "Army, police and intelligence forces are delivering death threats and arresting Afghan journalists, effectively silencing them."

Many of the threats and arrests have occurred after journalists have criticized certain cabinet members in the Afghan government, including Defense Minister Mohammad Qasim Fahim and Minister of Education Younis Qanooni; and leading political figures in Kabul such as the former president of Afghanistan, Burhanuddin Rabbani, and Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, a powerful former mujahidin leader.

Very disturbing story, and worth your review. If this is the model of democracy we plan to forge in the War on Terror, we need to be more explicit about it so everyone understands the costs. Again, we need to know the progression here. Are these supposed to be intermediary states of democracy for security purposes, in the transition, or is this considered a more permanent effect. Strategically. It has to be determined, and answered, because the freedom of speech and the press is not optional for a free democracy.

Will Weblogs Ruin Google's Search Engine?

Last April, Stanford University student Adam Mathes played a joke on his friend Andy Pressman. Mathes' goal: Make Pressman's Web site the No. 1 Google search result for "talentless hack." The method: Encourage as many people with Web sites as possible to link to Pressman's site using those words. (Like this: Andy "talentless hack" Pressman.) The prank worked. A year later, Pressman's Web site is still Google's No.1 search result for the phrase. Mathes even invented a name for his joke: "Google Bombing."

Before Google, search engines ranked Web pages primarily by examining the content of each page, with decidedly mixed results. Google improved upon this system by taking into account the links that connect the billions of pages on the World Wide Web. If lots of Web sites link to Slate, for example, Google takes that as a vote of confidence in Slate, and moves Slate higher when it sorts a search for the word "slate." (Click here for Google's explanation of how its search technology works.)

Mathes discovered that the words that site owners use to link to a page affect Google's rankings, too. Pressman's site didn't contain the words "talentless hack," but because so many sites linked to his site using those words, Google figured he must be one. In Google's judgment, a Web page "must be what other people say it is," Mathes wrote. "In a bizarre surreal bow to the power of perception on the web, what you say about a page becomes just as important as the actual content of the page."

And because Google's search technology relies so heavily on links, Weblogs (those constantly updated personal Web sites like Kausfiles.com, AndrewSullivan.com, and InstaPundit.com) can have a tremendous impact on Google's search results. Google searches favor Weblogs because they're sites that contain freshly updated content with lots of links. Conceivably, Weblogs could unleash powerful Google Bombs and threaten the legendary accuracy of the world's favorite search engine.

I'm looking around to see if there's a follow up to this. I know Google doesn't seem to mind, because they're getting billions of searches from blogs, and they've bought up BlogSpot.

War A Boon For New Sites, Blogs

USC's Online Journalism Review finds so many views, and so hard to connect sometimes with all of the traffic. It's slowed down as the war has wound down, but this article still seems fresh.

Web Gives A Voice To Iranian Women

Interesting article from the BBC back from 2002 on Iranian women discovering blogs and using them to exercise speech otherwise unavailable to them. Highly recommended.

Beyond Mainstream - ABC News Reports On Blogs

The people taking advantage of Internet resources appear primarily to be scholars, activists and information junkies. "I'm not sure the average person watching The Bachelorette and not caring about the news is going to be saying, 'Let me check out the blogs,'" said Sree Sreenivasan, a Columbia University professor of online journalism.

Nonetheless, the GulfWire e-mail newsletter, which features articles and commentary from U.S. and foreign media, has seen greater interest from "average folks" since the Sept. 11 attacks, said editor-in-chief Patrick Ryan.

There had been similar use of the Internet for information during recent U.S. military campaigns, with sites like WorldNetDaily getting regular firsthand accounts as bombs dropped on Serbian homes in 1999.

This is actually an article from March, but I still found it interesting, and with all of the information that gets reported daily, easily missed by a lot of bloggers.

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Update: Also see this for the Top 10 Underground Bloggers according to Right Wing News. No matter where you fit on the spectrum, knowing and understanding how others think and model the world is essential in truly understanding your own.

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Update: CNN gets in on the blogging going mainstream tip.

Pot Outranks Corn As A Cash Crop

Now this is surprising. In a Guardian article, a study is being reported that has found that "marijuana, pornography and illegal labour have created a hidden market in the United States which now accounts for as much as 10% of the American economy."

Although the official American economy has been suffering a downturn, the shadow economy is enjoying unprecedented levels of success, much in the way that the prohibition period fuelled the illegal markets in the 30s. Schlosser found that three specific industries accounted for a major portion of this boom.

Sounds like maybe we should start taxing that marijuana trade, think of the dollars our politicans could spend if it was legal! And let's face it, why is everyone so hung up about marijuana in the first place? We've much bigger problems and challenges to face to be worrying ourselves about someone wanting to get high after work.

Schlosser writes: "Although popular stereotypes depict marijuana growers as ageing hippies in northern California or Hawaii, the majority of the marijuana now cultivated domestically is being grown in the nation's mid-section - a swath running from the Appalachians west to the Great Plains. Throughout this Marijuana Belt drug fortunes are being made by farmers who often seem to have stepped from a page of the old Saturday Evening Post."

Let's hope Ashcroft catches a downwind of this and starts to chill out.

Emotional Selection In Memes - The Case Of Urban Legends

Every now and again, I'll post an article related to my interest in selective perception, attitude change, and cognitive dissonance. It sounds technical, but it really isn't. As time goes on, I'll elaborate on these models of the mind, and try to relate them to everyday occurrences. Especially involving political attitude change and reinforcement. This one is an interesting one, and I'll post my analysis of it a little later on, or perhaps in a brand new post about urban political legends.

This article explores how much memes like urban legends succeed on the basis of informational selection (i.e., truth or a moral lesson) and emotional selection (i.e., the ability to evoke emotions like anger, fear, or disgust). The article focuses on disgust because its elicitors have been precisely described.

In Study 1, with controls for informational factors like truth, people were more willing to pass along stories that elicited stronger disgust.

Study 2 randomly sampled legends and created versions that varied in disgust; people preferred to pass along versions that produced the highest level of disgust.

Study 3 coded legends for specific story motifs that produce disgust (e.g., ingestion of a contaminated substance) and found that legends that contained more disgust motifs were distributed more widely on urban legend Web sites. The conclusion discusses implications of emotional selection for the social marketplace of ideas.

This emphasis on disgust, and emotion winning out over reason, is very interesting, and the scenarios and research credible. Even more compelling, the authors of the study extend their ideas to the social realm and see a method to the madness of fear-mongering.

In legal and public policy circles, researchers have expressed repeated concerns that the media may skew public policy by provoking irrational fears. By provoking such fears, the media may cause society to skew public policy toward trivial but emotional "problems" and away from legitimate problems that are less emotional ( Bailis & MacCoun, 1996 ; Edelman, Abraham, & Erlanger, 1992 ; Glassner, 1999 ; Marsh, 1991 ). Although the media may deserve all the criticism it gets, irrational fears often propagate in the form of informal contemporary legends that use as experts only the ubiquitous "friend of a friend." Until we understand more about emotional selection, we are unlikely to understand the social implications of a marketplace of ideas that competes not only over truth but also over emotion.

There are ramnifications on political discourse and campaigning as well. Will virtual urban legends be spread throughout the people by their participation in political blogs? By overreliance on emotion and skewed stories and facts? Or will the availability of instant research and fact checking powered by Google be able to counter this? I'm not sure. I know the emotions are already running high on political blogs, and on many sites, and in many comments threads, the mob rules and independent, thoughtful opinions, and especially dissent to the consensus view, are not welcome, or are misconstrued to be the work of "trolls" from the "other side" (i.e. the enemy, other party).

LA Times - Tell The Truth On Weapons

"We were not lying," one administration official told ABC News on Friday. "But it was just a matter of emphasis." No, it wasn't. Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction is central to the legitimacy of the war.

If it turns out that the administration did mislead the world, the only way to mitigate long-term damage to U.S. credibility is to come clean. Fast.

It seems the mainstream media is rejoining the vertebrate world.

Woman Of Dreams

If you haven't been introduced, or even if you have, please go visit Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel laureate and leader of the non-violent human rights and democracy movement in Burma. This woman is incredible. A strong and compassionate human being. Though her party won a landslide victory in democratic elections in 1990, they have never been allowed to rule by the military there.

...in response to increasing international pressure, the regime agreed to hold elections, thinking it had such an iron-fisted grip over the nation that they would win. They were wrong. The National League for Democracy, led by Aung San Suu Kyi (who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991), won fully 82 percent of the legislative seats.

As mentioned above, however, these elections have never been recognized. Aung San Suu Kyi remains under house arrest. National League for Democracy members have been terrorized, killed, forced to resign and to flee their homeland.

Now she is no longer under house arrest, but to be so on and off for over a decade is absurd. Can you imagine being on house arrest for years because you won an election? This, the rightful leader of the (by landslide) victorious party of democratic elections! How does the military get away with this?

...how can a regime so clearly opposed by the majority of the people remain in power? The answer is simple: corporate support. The military in Burma is extremely well-armed and well-financed, in large part due to the continued investment in Burma of a handful of corporations. The democracy movement in Burma has repeatedly called on corporations to withdraw from the country until democracy is achieved. Aung San Suu Kyi has emphasized, "Until we have a system that guarantees rules of law and basic democratic institutions, no amount of aid or investment will benefit our people."

Responding to this call from the democracy movement, and building on lessons from the international movement to help end apartheid in South Africa, the international Free Burma movement has focused grassroots campaigns on pressuring corporations to respect the will of the democratic leadership of Burma and withdraw from the country. The results have been impressive.

Many companies indeed bailed out in the early 1990's, heeding the call of conscience or threat of boycott, including Levi Strauss, who claim...

"It is not possible to do business in (Burma) without directly supporting the military government and its pervasive violations of human rights."

You can bet your bottom dollar that didn't stop Halliburton though. Nope, they kept right on dealing with these fascists. Now, keep in mind the definition of fascism. Burma is it.

The Bush administration might be unsympathetic to a more robust policy towards Burma. Burma has always been a lefty cause; GOP lawmakers, sympathetic to the oil lobby, fought a losing battle against the Clinton administration's policy of imposing sanctions. Meanwhile, Vice President Cheney, himself an opponent of economic sanctions, probably isn't hot to draw attention to Burma. Halliburton, the petroleum and energy services company Cheney once ran, made extensive joint venture investments in Burma during the 1990s. According to court documents, the Burmese military used forced labor on a pipeline project in which Halliburton was involved.

And, even worse, these guys have been talking about starting up a nuclear reactor. Can you believe that? Unelected, fascist leaders are eager to go nuclear, with a reputation for concealing WMD.

Most frightening, Burma's ruling generals have decided to build a nuclear reactor. What for? "Medical purposes," says Burma's foreign minister, yet the country doesn't have the technology to make radioactive isotopes used in medicine. It does, however, have a shady history regarding weapons of mass destruction. In the mid-1990s, the respected arms control group International Peace Research Institute, as well as American intelligence, accused Burma of possessing a chemical-weapons program. Burma's neighbors---and the U.S.---certainly can't be reassured by the fact that two Pakistani nuclear scientists whom the CIA reportedly wanted to question about potential ties to Al Qaeda were sent to Burma shortly after Sept. 11 on an unknown research project, and allegedly haven't returned.

So, why, in the wake of Sept. 11, has the Bush administration been largely silent about Burma, even as it beats the drums for regime change elsewhere? One reason is energy. Burma is awash in natural gas reserves, and foreign oil companies, which have extensive investments in the country, are not eager to see the status quo disrupted. Also, intelligence reports have yet to show that the nuclear facility will be used to make fissile material. In any event, Burma lacks the missile capability that could theoretically allow it to deliver weapons of mass destruction. In short, Burma is a threat to our allies in the region, but not to us. In this way, Burma illustrates the weakest link in the emerging Bush doctrine. We demand that our allies support our actions against terrorists and regimes that threaten U.S. security. But if our allies need help countering threats that only endanger their security, we turn a blind eye.

So I guess actual repressive fascist governments seeking nuclear capabilities shouldn't be part of the Axis of Evil, by logic that they are not a direct threat to us, only to our allies, and not about oil, or natural gas, or energy. Neither was Iraq about oil either. And I'm sure it would have nothing to do with Cheney's energy task force notes, but since he's hiding them who knows?

Transparency and accountability. Repeat after me. Transparency and accountability. We should be helping everyday heroes of freedom like Aung San Suu Kyi, rather than supporting their enemies who terrorize them and deny them their rightful democracy. Only then will we stand with integrity as the true friend and champion of democracy and the American Dream.