Author: stevekuusisto

From MoveOn.org:

As soon as this week, Congress will start debating whether to give the government the power to turn off parts of the Internet. If that sounds like a terrible recipe for abuse of power, that's because it is.

If enacted, a new law would make it so a simple allegation of copyright infringement—with no review process—could lead to the shutdown of sites from YouTube to Wikipedia to MoveOn.org.¹ Any website, foreign or U.S.-based, could be wiped out on suspicion and made unavailable to everyone in the world.

For example, if you (or Justin Bieber) wanted to post a video to YouTube of yourself singing a Beatles song, a record company could force the Department of Justice to shut down YouTube. Really.²

But as you may have guessed, Congress didn't come up with this tragically terrible idea on their own. Lobbyists representing Comcast, Pfizer, record and movie companies, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce³ have been pushing Democrats and Republicans to pass bills to allow this new kind of Internet censorship. And they're close to getting their way.

But a small number of Democrats are standing strong and saying "No" to these powerful special interest groups. They need our help.

Senator Ron Wyden from Oregon is one of our champions. He has promised to start a historic filibuster of the Internet Censorship Act where he'll read the names of every person that signs a petition against Internet censorship.⁴ It's the perfect opportunity for 5 million Internet-connected progressives to visibly add their voice to a Senate debate. The more of us that sign, the stronger this effort to block this terrible law will be.

Click here to add your name and say NO to Internet Censorship.

We know that the Internet's openness, freedom, and lack of censorship are what make it a bastion of infinite possibility, continued innovation, and job creation. Innovative companies like Google, Facebook, Twitter, Mozilla, and Yahoo have spoken out against this law, saying: 

We should not jeopardize a foundational structure that has worked for content owners and Internet companies alike and provides certainty to innovators with new ideas for how people create, find, discuss, and share information lawfully online.⁵

Internet venture capitalists say that the legislation is "ripe for abuse,"⁶ and leading law professors reject it because it will "allow the government to block Internet access to websites."⁷

We condemn censorship overseas when it happens in China or Iran. But today, we need to stand up for freedom of speech on the Internet here at home.

Click here to add your name and say NO to Internet Censorship.

Thanks for all you do.

–Daniel, Garlin, Elena, Stefanie, and the rest of the team

Sources:

1. "House Version of Rogue Websites Bill Adds DMCA Bypass, Penalties for DNS Workarounds," Public Knowledge, October 26, 2011 
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=268060&id=33343-19465149-ViQGpgx&t=5

2. "Why Is Justin Bieber So Hackin Mad?" SaveTheInternet.com, November 2, 2011 
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=268061&id=33343-19465149-ViQGpgx&t=6

3. "Five things to know about SOPA," The Washington Post, November 16, 2011 
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=268062&id=33343-19465149-ViQGpgx&t=7

4. "Wyden to read petition names during copyright filibuster," The Hill, November 21, 2011 
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=268065&id=33343-19465149-ViQGpgx&t=8

5. "SOPA opposition from tech heavyweights Google, Facebook," CBS News, November 17, 2011 
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=268063&id=33343-19465149-ViQGpgx&t=9

6. "The PROTECT IP Act Will Slow Startup Innovation," Union Square Ventures, June 23, 2011 
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=268064&id=33343-19465149-ViQGpgx&t=10

7. "Law Professors' Letter on SOPA," Electronic Frontier Foundation, November 15, 2011 
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=268067&id=33343-19465149-ViQGpgx&t=11

"President Theodore Roosevelt said, "No country can be strong whose people are poor and sick.""

See "Don't Repeal America's Health Care LIfeline"  by LZ Granderson.

I want to quote three terrific paragraphs from a 2009 article on national politics and disability in The New Atlantis by Ari Ne’eman:

“The disability-rights movement and modern liberalism define equality of opportunity similarly: that a person have an equal chance to access the full scope of what society has to offer, regardless of his starting position in life or particular characteristics. (This is distinct from equality of outcome, which would mandate that every person have equal success in acquiring what life has to offer.) Insurance mandates preventing discrimination on the basis of specific disability categories are a good example of equality of opportunity. Others include the non-discrimination provisions and “reasonable accommodation” component of the ADA, which requires employers to take non-burdensome measures, such as installing ramps, to permit the employment of qualified workers with disabilities. Similarly, the “least restrictive environment” provision of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which mandates the inclusion of students with disabilities in school wherever possible, is another example of where liberals and the disability-rights movement are on the same page. In terms of policy initiatives involving funding and regulation, the left has been a good friend to disability-rights advocates.

But despite these areas of cooperation, disability rights is not a central concern of the liberal movement; disability is simply not important enough to rank alongside sex, race, class, and the other categories championed by the left. “Diversity initiatives” usually mention disability in passing, if at all. The protestors at “social justice” marches and rallies typically do not show up when grassroots disability-rights groups work to fight against discrimination in housing or in favor of legislation.”

What’s more, there is a great gulf separating modern liberalism and the disability-rights movement on euthanasia, assisted suicide, selective abortion, and other issues connected to bioethics and the new eugenics. Disability-rights advocates feel betrayed by the efforts of the ACLU to support such cases as Elizabeth Bouvia’s, a 1983 lawsuit brought by a twenty-six-year-old woman with cerebral palsy who wanted a hospital to cooperate in her starvation. A similar feeling existed among many disability-rights advocates during the Terri Schiavo case, particularly when cost was raised as an argument against maintaining the feeding tube that continued her life. When talking about the equality of other minority communities, when had cost ever been a primary concern for the liberal movement? When looking at the growing “progressive” support for assisted suicide, many proponents of disability rights see a liberal movement that, while willing to support funding and regulatory initiatives aimed at inclusion, still envisions a world where people with disabilities do not exist.”

Ne’eman’s assessment of the general “place” of disability advocates remains as true today as it was just after the 2008 election–save for one principle difference: people with disabilities are joining the Occupy movement. In essence, the public spaces inhabited by OWS (which are generally accessible) and the populist message of the 99 per centers has created a logical point of penetration for people with disabilities. All of which leads me to this–that OWS is the first inclusive progressive action we’ve seen in these United States for quite some time. By inclusive I mean that it’s not a single issue movement which is generally the primary characteristic of American liberalism, and the principle reason that PWDs are so often left out of liberal rhetoric.   

We are honored that Crooks and Liars has linked to POTB. C & L is one of the best progressive blogs going and we, who are addicted to our own version of Rich Little doing Nixon love the cartoon Tricky Dick at the top of their site. Please visit them often! 

Cold rowanberries, a few reindeer nosing the late autumn weeds.
Didn't we say something about harmonics? That was yesterday,
Before we arrived in the northernmost reaches of Lapland.
We were singing a song on the train as daylight disappeared.
Look: an old man is beating on the hood of his snow mobile with a wrench.
I cannot lip read but I think the man is saying he's hundreds of years old
& the stupid machine is only twenty & there's no bus for 80 kilometers.
My friend and I have read many books
but not enough to successfully complete this life.

Not long ago I was a senior professor at one of the premier graduate programs in literary writing in the U.S..  I genuinely liked my work with students and colleagues in Iowa City, where, on any given night, one can hear poetry, fiction, and literary nonfiction being read by superb writers. I imagined without undue exertion that I would spend the remainder of my career at the University of Iowa. I certainly had no idea that Syracuse University would become my new professional home. 

In August I was appointed director of SU’s “Renée Crown University Honors Program” and additionally, was offered a distinguished “university professorship”. While these two things are rewarding–or, more precisely, hold the promise of reward–they are not the reasons I chose to come to Syracuse. That decision was based entirely on the institutional vision that SU calls “scholarship in action”–a matter that is more like scholarship “squared” since it calls upon this university to (re)vision many long held and  collective assuptions about higher education. One of those assumptions is that a university education unfolds according to the static demands of research and so whether a student’s field of study is Physics or Anthropology, the only experience she or he will have beyond the ivory tower will be mediated by the history of received scholarship. This means that the local community and the circumstances of its citizens are only admissable as a subject of research if they prove or disprove a theoretical position. Forget the idea that the locals might have ideas of their own or that they might be co-presenters in a grant. Scholarship in action calls for a bold reimagining of the tenet that ideas precede people.  

This leads to challenging a second long held assumption about higher ed–that it possesses utility only by means of meritocracy. Let’s be clear: every student wants an “A” and every university wants to employ the best faculty–those who once upon a time got the most “A’s”. We all know that those who work the hardest gain the laurels at colleges and universities and this is an unassailable truism. As the director of SU’s honors program I wouldn’t have it any other way. Or would I? Can I imagine an alternatives to measuring academic success? How do the old time faculty actually measure “peer to peer mentoring” among today’s students? What is the changing nature of team work? Traditional higher ed rarely has cogent answers for these questions but the time to find those answers is now. 

In his famous book Pedagogy of the Oppressed Paulo Freire wrote: “Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world.” 

Traditional higher ed likes participation but in very narrow terms. Syracuse is changing that and I came to the snowiest city in America because of it. 

SK

“Doctors had told the woman that one of her babies had a congenital heart defect that would require numerous operations, if he survived.”

** Wrong twin aborted in Australia **
An investigation is under way at an Australian hospital after staff treating a woman carrying twin boys accidentally terminated the wrong foetus.
< http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-15870161 >

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Sent from my iPhone

United Arab Emirates security court jails blogger

A United Arab Emirates court on Sunday sentenced a blogger and four other democracy activists to prison terms after finding them guilty of charges including insulting the Gulf state’s leaders.The State Security Court handed the blogger, Ahmed Mansoor, a three-year prison sentence and the four others each received two years. They have no recourse to appeal.The court also ordered the shutting down of the Hiwar (Dialogue) internet forum used by the activists.Mansoor had been arrested in April along with Nasser bin Gaith, who lectures at the Abu Dhabi branch of the Sorbonne University, and activists Fahid Salim Dalk, Hassan Ali Khamis and Ahmed Abdul Khaleq.They were accused of using the internet to insult leaders of the United Arab Emirates, calling for a boycott of September’s Federal National Council elections and for anti-government demonstrations.Their trial had been criticised as “grossly unfair” by a coalition of seven rights watchdogs including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch earlier this month.In a joint statement, the rights groups had called for “all five to be released immediately and unconditionally.”But the Federal Supreme Court, acting in its role as the special security court, pressed ahead announcing its verdict.The five defendants had refused to show up in court, saying in a message delivered by a police officer that the court “did not enable them to defend themselves.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/unitedarabemirates/8918868/United-Arab-Emirates-security-court-jails-blogger.html

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Glasnost, then and now:

A Memoir of Glasnost – 
"At the height of glasnost in 1988-89, the writer Ales Adamovich remarked, "Today, it's more interesting to read than to live." Anyone who lived during those years of glasnost as a writer, a journalist, an editor, an intellectual, a political person, understood what he meant."

http://www.thenation.com/blog/164583/memoir-glasnost

Shared from NationNow, an iPhone app.

Sent from my iPhone