By now you have probably heard that President Obama gave "a good speech" yesterday.
A speech that Dredd Blog will call a "say it forward" speech, which will be explained below.
It was a speech like more and more presidents are doing, since government is a political realm, guided by the machinations of big money, big oil, big media, and big military.
In particular, the President's speech was purposefully tailored after a speech President Teddy Roosevelt gave at the same location about a century ago.
The speech that Roosevelt gave took place during a time of robber barons and banksters, a time when there was no middle class, a time when a plutocracy running a plutonomy threatened to set in and become the norm for American society.
One could wonder, then, if the unspoken message that President Obama was sending was "As a Nation We Have Gone Back To The Future", back a century, back to our nation's dark ages, yes, back to the time of Theodore Roosevelt?
One could also wonder "so now we must 'lean forward' to get back to where we once belonged?"
The novel and later movie "Pay It Forward" was about doing good deeds as a form of investment in the future:
Trevor does a favor for three people, asking each of them to 'pay the favor forward' by doing favors for three other people, and so on, along a branching tree of good deeds.
(Pay It Forward). What is the difference, if there is a difference, between the notion of "pay it forward" and "say it forward", yes, what is the difference between now and then?
Noam Chomsky offers a clue when he says that our government, some few years after Teddy Roosevelt left the White House, became the purveyor of propaganda as a means of controlling the populace:
... this developed in ... the US — roughly around time of WWI, when it was recognized that enough freedom had been won that people could no longer be controlled by force. So modes of deception and manipulation had to be developed in order to keep them under control.
Whether this is because the promises either can't be kept, or in some cases are intended not to be kept, is irrelevant.
The coin of the election realm, the coin of election promises, is as worthless as money at 100% inflation (there is lots of it but it doesn't buy much).
The American people in general do not believe politicians because of the reality of history, the reality that campaign promises are not kept.
The plunder barons, the banksters, and the warmongers, through their bought and paid for politicians, have destroyed the integrity of public discourse in America.
Therefore, to get back to the time of Teddy Roosevelt, we would have to break the bullshit barrier, yes, we would have to leave Pentagonia, the Capitol of Bullshitistan, and travel to a place and time where honesty is paramount.
In the previous post in this series we focused on the issue of worldwide drought.
The state and federal governments in the United States seem to be morphing into a stupor of thinking, or a lack of thinking.
These stupefied elected officials suppose that reports of environmental pollution, which is causing the mass extinction of species, climate change, and serious danger to civilization itself, is a political issue.
Not only that, a large group of House members in the GOP even think that global warming is a laughing matter, because they have been told as much by a for-profit "think tank" (see video).
That think tank also said the same thing about cigarette smoking as a cause of lung cancer, and convinced the courts and government of that lie for years, even as thousands died in reliance on their lies.
The criminal minded think tank is being paid by big oil to say that global warming is a big hoax which scientists the world over is playing on the seven billion people of the world.
Meanwhile, back in reality, in this post we focus on green house gas emissions once again:
Last year, emissions from burning fossil fuels rose by 5.9%, bringing the total rise since 1990, the baseline year for calculating emissions under the Kyoto protocol, to 49%, an average rate of increase of about 3.1% a year ... The study, published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature Climate Change, found that global carbon emissions were likely to carry on increasing at a rate of about 3% per year. It was accompanied by another study offering new proof that climate change is linked to human activities, in burning fossil fuel ... These two new results offer a stark message. Human carbon emissions are certainly disturbing the climate system upon which we depend, and in spite of the economic slowdown, and despite all the efforts by governments, businesses and people to reduce them, our emissions are reaching new highs. The climatic consequences, already emerging, will grow over time, and are irreversible.
The power to grow, the power to replicate, was an element involved with how Neo was able to convince the Sentient Machines of the danger of Agent Smith.
The Sentient Machines of The Matrix are a vision which some scientists today see as the future for the wealthy 1%, but not for the 99%.
In the latter episodes of The Matrix, Neo was able to convince the sentient machines that there was an unbridled growth taking place within their own artificial intelligence, with entities associated with them, yes, with their own artificial intelligence software that gave them the power of cognition.
What the sentient machines then did was to realize, after interfacing and communicating with Neo, that some sort of toxins had infiltrated their vast cognitive, software system.
Neo convinced the sentient machines of a dangerous instability to them, so they joined him in an effort to end the unbridled, toxin-generated growth taking place in the Agent Smith portion of their artificial intelligence realm.
They stopped the ongoing war to begin peaceful interaction with humans after realizing Neo was correct and did not want to destroy them, rather Neo wanted to normalize them.
There is a similar danger to the 1% today.
Listen when people talk about economy today, and you will in generally hear the words "grow" and "growth" used as the "be all" power word.
To heal all economic woe, the economy must "grow", so we must see "growth", yes, "we must grow the economy" is the common mantra.
What is often forgotten is that economists indicate that vast growth had been taking place just before the recent recession, but bubble growth was a characteristic of what led up to what continues to be the current economic disaster.
Thus, not just any type of growth is valid to any system, because after all, the foundational essence of the disease we call cancer is unbridled, unprincipled growth for growth's sake.
So, to improve upon past coverage, today we focus on the citizen journalist exclusively, because the issue is important in the Occupy Movement context, and because citizen journalists are ultimately involved in the "free press" in America today.
Let's begin by noting that Dredd Blog does NOT include the corporate for-profit media of any sort, including the main stream media, in the term "free press", because they have let down the American people (see PBS - Citizen Journalist).
You might want to view the jaw-dropping video at the bottom of this post before proceeding, but just in case you don't, I will summarize by saying it is a news story from a main stream source quoting from a citizen journalist.
The citizen journalist is facing 75 years in prison for video-taping police performing public duties.
When the main stream media goes to the court house to inquire further, they are intimidated by officials there who warn them not to show what they have captured on video.
The lawyer for that main stream media news organization told them to obey the officials.
Thus, the main stream media cower while the citizen journalist stands up for his your rights, even facing what would be life in prison at his age ("give me liberty or give me death" comes to mind).
It might be excusable that the British are suffering confusion on that issue, as noted in a Guardian Article concerning the photographing of police.
That should not be the case for Americans, but alas, our nation has drifted away from our founding principles such much so that today America has morphed into a strange nation that suffers amnesia.
The question of the citizen journalist's right to take pictures of police performing their duties in public should be a no-brainer to Americans who have exposed themselves to Civics 101, specifically the First Amendment.
First, notice that "free press" citizen journalists are not required to be licensed by the state, nor can general constraint be imposed:
The press in its connotation comprehends every sort of publication which affords a vehicle of information and opinion ... We think that the ordinance is invalid on its face. Whatever the motive which induced its adoption, its character is such that it strikes at the very foundation of the freedom of the press by subjecting it to license and censorship.
(Lovell v City of Griffin GA, U.S. Supreme Ct., 1938). Not only that, "free press" citizen journalism includes all legal means for gathering that news data, and any police or other official who improperly hampers that collection of data is personally liable to the citizen journalist for damages:
Simon Glik was arrested for using his cell phone's digital video camera to film several police officers arresting a young man on the Boston Common. The charges against Glik, which included violation of Massachusetts's wiretap statute and two other state-law offenses, were subsequently judged baseless and were dismissed. Glik then brought this suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, claiming that his arrest for filming the officers constituted a violation of his rights under the First and Fourth Amendments ... The First Amendment issue here is, as the parties frame it, fairly narrow: is there a constitutionally protected right to videotape police carrying out their duties in public? Basic First Amendment principles, along with case law from this and other circuits, answer that question unambiguously in the affirmative.
...
It is firmly established that the First Amendment's aegis extends further than the text's proscription on laws "abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press," and encompasses a range of conduct related to the gathering and dissemination of information.As the Supreme Court has observed, "the First Amendment goes beyond protection of the press and the self-expression of individuals to prohibit government from limiting the stock of information from which members of the public may draw." ("It is ... well established that the Constitution protects the right to receive information and ideas.").
An important corollary to this interest in protecting the stock of public information is that "[t]here is an undoubted right to gather news 'from any source by means within the law.'" ... The filming of government officials engaged in their duties in a public place, including police officers performing their responsibilities, fits comfortably within these principles. Gathering information about government officials in a form that can readily be disseminated to others serves a cardinal First Amendment interest in protecting and promoting "the free discussion of governmental affairs." ... Moreover, as the Court has noted, "[f]reedom of expression has particular significance with respect to government because '[i]t is here that the state has a special incentive to repress opposition and often wields a more effective power of suppression.'" ... (quoting Thomas Emerson, Toward a General Theory of the First Amendment 9 (1966)). This is particularly true of law enforcement officials, who are granted substantial discretion that may be misused to deprive individuals of their liberties.
(Glik v. Cunniffe, U.S. Court of Appeals, First Circuit, 2011, PDF). The court was quite clear that police officers who wrongfully interfere with citizen journalists, and cities, counties, and states who allow them to do so, can be liable for very large sums of money damages, injunctions, and the like.
So you in the free press, including bloggers, all citizens filming the police in Occupy Movement locations around the USA, as well those like Dredd Blog who perform a public service for the people, let's keep the First Amendment alive.
The next post in this series is here.
In further preparation for the military junta state, to Big Brother it is a felony to be a citizen journalist, to videotape Big Brother's minions abusing peaceful citizens who are only exercising their constitutional rights.
Right wing Republican warmongers and clueless Democrats put the language in the bill, saying that is what the law already is anyway.
So I wonder if the ACLU will file a lawsuit to have it held unconstitutional because it violates the 4th Amendment:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons ... against unreasonable ... seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the ... persons ... to be seized."
"No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury ... nor be deprived of ... liberty ... without due process of law ..."
"In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury ... and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense."
(Constitution, 6th Amendment); and the 8th Amendment:
"... nor [shall] cruel and unusual punishments [be] inflicted."
(Constitution, 8th Amendment). Furthermore, the Supreme Court has not taken the position the Senators wrongly said they had taken:
At this difficult time in our Nation’s history, we are called upon to consider the legality of the Government’s detention of a United States citizen on United States soil as an “enemy combatant” and to address the process that is constitutionally owed to one who seeks to challenge his classification as such. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held that petitioner’s detention was legally authorized and that he was entitled to no further opportunity to challenge his enemy-combatant label. We now vacate and remand. We hold that although Congress authorized the detention of combatants in the narrow circumstances alleged here, due process demands that a citizen held in the United States as an enemy combatant be given a meaningful opportunity to contest the factual basis for that detention before a neutral decisionmaker.
Whatever happened to the "strict constructionists" that the neoCon fascists in the Senate always talked about, and what happened to the "democratic" Senators who were shamefully undemocratic by voting for fascism?
These lyrics are the song in the two videos below:
Oh, a storm is threat'ning
My very life today
If I don't get some shelter
Oh yeah, I'm gonna fade away
War, children, it's just a shot away
It's just a shot away
War, children, it's just a shot away
It's just a shot away
Ooh, see the fire is sweepin'
Our very street today
Burns like a red coal carpet
Mad bull lost its way
War, children, it's just a shot away
It's just a shot away
War, children, it's just a shot away
It's just a shot away
Rape, murder!
It's just a shot away
It's just a shot away
Rape, murder!
It's just a shot away
It's just a shot away
Rape, murder!
It's just a shot away
It's just a shot away
The floods is threat'ning
My very life today
Gimme, gimme shelter
Or I'm gonna fade away
War, children, it's just a shot away
It's just a shot away
It's just a shot away
It's just a shot away
It's just a shot away
I tell you love, sister, it's just a kiss away
It's just a kiss away
It's just a kiss away
It's just a kiss away
It's just a kiss away
Kiss away, kiss away
By now you have probably heard that President Obama gave "a good speech" yesterday.
