Super Tuesday MLK redux

Consider this my official disenrollment from "the chorus of cynics."

I want to be inspired. Strike all my defense of Hillary as the better politician. Just because the system exists, doesn't mean I have to support the person who plays it best.

Fuck the system.

Yes we can.

oh hell, while i'm at it

Drew, you silly man. And while I'm not going to turn up my nose at my share of the "economic stimulus package" I am firm in my belief that anyone who thinks an extra couple hundo is going to solve what's wrong with our economy is incredibly foolish.

Less tanks, more educated people with access. Silly ideas, what with the feeling that people have the right to education and health care just on the merits of being people. And that these commodities for everyone would benefit the entire country. How do you propose we pay for all the this? Simple. I find it difficult to stomach that we live in a world where Pepsi, Anheiser Busch, etc. can pay $2.7 mill for a SuperBowl ad but people can't afford prescription medication, or where kids drop out at 15 to work a minimum wage job.

Not to mention that the government shelled out for an anti-drug add this year — just a thought, but maybe they should have been putting that money to better, more concrete use?

Fighting wars on abstract nouns is the American curse. There's something to be said there about semantics and modernity, but I fail to articulate.

one for the kids

Whilst frantically searching for Schoolhouse Rock videos on YouTube last night, the roommate and I came across this. Whoever had the time and energy to make a liberal, political Schoolhouse Rock video is my hero.

print the news and raise hell

Today, http://www.journalism.org/ , released this study about coverage of the war in Iraq. The survey was conducted by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, and the results are bizarre and extremely troublesome to an idealistic journalist still in college.

To note:

Even the basics of getting the story are remarkably difficult. Outside of the heavily-fortified Green Zone, most U.S. journalists must rely on local staff to do the necessary face-to-face reporting. Yet nearly nine out of ten journalists say their local staff cannot carry any equipment—not even a notebook—that might identify them as working for the western media for fear of being killed. Some local staffers do not even tell their own families.

If American journalists are not doing the reporting, but relying on a third party to bring them information, how can media audiences in the United States think they are getting anything close to what is actually going on in Iraq?

Nine out of ten of the journalists surveyed said that at least half of Baghdad is too dangerous to visit. Too dangerous to visit! The news I read every day about this war-- where does it come from? Iraqi journalists undercover for the Western media? The truth about what is going on in that country is not being reported, long story short, and it's more than just adverse conditions. The embedding program sucks, and the fact that Western journalists can't go anywhere without body armor, guards and armored trucks should say more about the validity of this war than their reporting could.

Above all, the journalists—most of them veteran war correspondents—describe conditions in Iraq as the most perilous they have ever encountered, and this above everything else is influencing the reporting. A majority of journalists surveyed (57%) report that at least one of their Iraqi staff had been killed or kidnapped in the last year alone—and many more are continually threatened. “Seven staffers killed since 2003, including three last July,” one bureau chief wrote with chilling brevity. “At least three have been kidnapped. All were freed.”

Eight out of ten journalists felt that conditions for storytelling in Iraq have gotten worse, not better, much like the situation in the country.

And yet, we go on, placating ourselves with platitudes.

Whatever the problems, a magazine reporter offered, “The press….have carried out the classic journalistic mission of bearing witness.”

Lady (this sounds like a female sentence, so whatever), you are nuts. We are not here to bear witness. We are here to print the news and raise hell. Ask tough questions, tell tough stories and inform the public.

Which media outlet has run a story about the dangers faced by its reporters, the terribly unstable and unsafe conditions, even in Baghdad? What media outlets have called for our withdrawal from this insanity? Who is pushing the politicians to be accountable for civilian deaths and government secrecy?

Tell the story of how bad it is there. Let us know it's getting worse, not better. You are there. We are not. Be a journalist, not an objective, impassive channel for facts.

Facts are not news, and accuracy doesn't necessarily equate truth. These are the realities of journalism in the 21st century, and if somebody doesn't get up and realize that our passion is our greatest tool and our greatest weapon, we're all going to be replaced by robots who can make phone calls.

"I'll ask my question, thank you very much"

Hokay, so, there's this.

This morning, all CNN played was the portion of this clip where the UF student was being tazed. After watching the full thing, this guy wasn't doing anything wrong. Not. a. single. thing. The UP police attempted to arrest this man, for speaking. For speech that was inflammatory, for speech that was controversial, but not for anything that isn't covered under that little thing we like to call the First Amendment. He wasn't inciting riot, or panic, not was he speaking in a manner than could be considered "fighting words." Was anyone in that audience getting up to riot, or fight? He was taken off the mike because the university police, trumped up, as they always are, with a sense of their own power, felt he was behaving in a manner that was inappropriate.
Then, as he was being taken out and arrested (love to see what those charges are going to be. Resisting arrest? The question is what was he being arrested for in the first place? Also, I'm pretty sure I didn't catch any Miranda rights on that video.) and was subdued by at least three, and what appeared to be more like five police officers, he was tazed, for trying to stand up. I'm going to say that again. For trying to stand up, and be arrested, like a dignified and decent human being. As he pled, and begged these men not to taze him, they did it anyway. And did anyone catch the hapless look of bemusement on big whitey's face before he realized he was on camera and told the camera operator to get back? (it's at about 3:17, for those of you playing along at home)
Which leaves me wondering-what in the hell has it come to when freedom of speech is so restricted, even on college campuses, the traditional home base of radical thought? Lest you think I have no respect for law enforcement, I absolutely do. What I don't have respect for is 1) unwarranted and baseless arrests 2) the fact that campus police feel that college students are less than animals and should be treated as such. I've seen it with my own eyes. The teargassing of hundreds of students, guilty of nothing more than being on the streets en masse. The nightsticking of those who've fallen from the gas. Cops, amped up on adrenaline and testosterone, firing tear gas wantonly into groups of less than ten people.
Why, on large college campuses, do college students suddenly lose their rights when they don't toe the line exactly? Last time I checked, we are the reason you have a job, and the reason the university exists. That's not to say that we are above the law, but we should be allowed basic constitutional freedoms, such as speech and assembly.
The fascist-izing of America is disgusting. And I'm as guilty as anyone of sitting by and letting it happen. If college students were serious about regaining their place as the innovators and conscience of this country, we would all protest this audacious abuse of power. We would stand up and say "We hate this war, we hate this president, and we hate the way you rich, old white fucks are running this country."

You know. Kind of the way this kid tried to.

(P.S. I love, love, love how John Kerry droned on through the poor soul getting tazered. Nice compassion, asshole.)