Well, probably not. At least not until Bush is out of office by democratic means. In any case, I refuse to let the mainstream press or the Democratic leadership say what we can and cannot do. They have a pretty bad track record on standing up when it counts Cough-Iraq-Cough!.
I just want to remind everyone that this is about specific results committed by specific people, who need to be specifically held accountable. It’s not about ideology. It’s not about your fuckin’ team. It’s not even about some lofty notions about how it might effect the election. It’s not even about whether you follow politics or not. If you think this administration should at least face the music and dance, it’s your right to demand it so that Congress can hire a dj. Everyone keeps thinking that war crimes will come about after he’s out of office. That sounds embarrassing to me, like asking the rest of the world to take out our laundry.
Most important of all, it just needs to get done.
It’s about a bunch of guys who are either:
a.) Grossly Incompetent
b.) Massively unlucky
c.) Willful, priggish bosses who only hired guys who kissed their ass and honestly don’t have a clue how badly they have fucked things up.
It’s up to us to show them. That’s the game, guys. Holding our leaders accountable. It’s all we’ve got. They’re not gonna do it. Nevermind all the patriotic platitudes. You don’t need flag pin or a Harvard education to know that our constitution was all about saying “no more kings”–not in this country. HIGH CRIMES AND MISDEMEANORS is a legal term that ONLY exists for leaders, because it involves crimes so massive that they are impossible to codify, we can only catalog them.
At least gimme a HEARING! He can have a fair trial, unlike the prisoners of Guantannamo Bay and other black sites. Unlike George W. Bush with his secret military tribunals, I believe that if the whole bloody mess were laid out before the world in the open, that the evidence against him will be more than enough to convict him and his enablers even on a jury of his nearest and dearest peers. So we can finally all have one collective gasp! and step away from the abyss.
That’s impeachment, and it its necessary.
Last night Dennis Kucinich introduced 35 articles of impeachment.
Please use this link to find your congressional representative’s phone number and call to urge him/her to support this. I did it just now, it literally took less than one minute. All I did was say “I’m a voter in [rep name]’s district, and I very much want him/her to support Kucinich’s impeachment motion.”, then gave my address and hung up. Let me also just add that it felt AWESOME.
Congress WILL NOT MOVE ON THIS unless we demand it. They’re too stupid to realize that a full and open airing of this administrations’ crimes is what this country needs to move forward with our eyes open about the damage that has been done to our national character. Not to mention that these two assholes have a collective approval rating about as high as a hot turd on the sidewalk.
It really boils down to this for me, if lying about a blowjob warrants impeachment, how on EARTH doesn’t lying us into an unnecessary war demand the same treatment?
For those who may think this is an exercise in futility, you should know that Congress lives by the ratio of 1:13000, which means that for every 1 person who contacts them about an issue, they figure there are 12,999 more who care just as much but for whatever reason haven’t bothered to make the call. As we all know politicians are pretty spineless, the only problem is that right now we’re not the ones with our foots on their collective throat. Time to change that.
Just look at the full list of charges, jawdropping:
#1: Creating a secret propaganda campaign to manufacture a false case for war against Iraq
#2 Falsely, Systematically, and with Criminal Intent Conflating the Attacks of September 11, 2001, With Misrepresentation of Iraq as a Security Threat as Part of Fraudulent Justification for a War of Aggression
#3 Misleading the American People and Members of Congress to Believe Iraq Possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction, to Manufacture a False Case for War
#4 Misleading the American People and Members of Congress to Believe Iraq Posed an Imminent Threat to the United States
#5 Illegally Misspending Funds to Secretly Begin a War of Aggression
#6 Invading Iraq in Violation of the Requirements of HJRes114
#7: Invading Iraq without a declaration of war.
#8: Invading Iraq in violation of the U.N. charter and international law.
#9: Failing to provide troops with body armor and vehicle armor.
#10: Falsifying accounts of US troops deaths and injuries for political purposes
#11: Establishment of permanent military bases in Iraq
#12: Initiating a war against Iraq for control of that nation’s natural resources.
#13: Secret task force for directing national energy policy
#14: Misprision of a felony, misuse and exposure of classified information and cover up (Plame outing)
#15: Providing immunity from prosecution for criminal conduct for contractors in Iraq
#16: Reckless misspending and wasted US tax dollar with Iraq contractors
#17: Illegal detention – detaining indefinitely, and without charge, American citizens and foreign captives (suspension of habeus)
#18: Torture – secretly authorizing and encouraging use of torture, as matter of official policy
#19 Rendition
#20 Imprisoning Children Bush is guilty of impeachable offence arcticle 20, imprisoning children. Has personal and acting through agents has held at least 2,500 children in violation of Geneva convention and the rights of children in armed conflict signed by the US in 2002.
#21 Misleading Congress about threats from Iran
#22. HAS ESTABLISHED A BODY OF SECRET LAWS THROUGH THE OFFICE OF LEGAL COUNSEL. THE YOO MEMORANDUM WAS DECLASSIFIED YEARS AFTER IT SERVED AS LAW UNDER THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH.
#23 Violated Posse Comitatus Act ESTABLISHED PROGRAMS FOR THE USE OF THE MILITARY IN LAW ENFORCEMENT. MUST BE AUTHORIZED BY THE CONSTITUTION OF THE CONGRESS SO THAT THE MILTARY CANNOT BECOME A NATIONAL POLICE FORCE.
#24 Spying on citizens violating 4th Amendment
#25 Directing telecoms to collect databases on US citizens.
#26 Announcing intent to violate laws w/signing statements, and then violating those laws.
#27 Failing to comply with congressional subpoenas, and instructing others to do so.
#28 tampering with free and fair election. Corruption with the administration of justice, False allegations of voter fraud in selected districts, immediately preceding elections. Undermining process.
#29: Conspiracy to violate voting rights act of 1965, Ohio Sec of State 2004-06
#30: Misleading congress and american people in an attemtp to destroy medicare.
#31 Katrina and the failures of gross negligence of the administration.
#32: Misleading congress and the American people. Systematically undermining global climate change. Article 2, Section 3: Personally and through subordinates including the VP, for not protecting property of people vis a vis global climate change thru deception. Failure to ratify Kyoto. Editing reports – 294 edits by a lobbyist to add data which called into question the facts by muddying them. Or diminishing scientific findings.
#33: Repeatedly ignored and failed to respond to high level intelligence warnings of planned terrorist attacks in U.S. prior to 9/11.
Clark warned the president in daily briefings of the threat. Clark was unable to conviene a cabinet level position. Tenet met with the president 40 times to warn of threat. Still no meetings of top officials.
#34: Obstruction into the investigation of 9/11
#35: endangering the health of 9/11 first responders
Filed under: Citizen Journalism, Politics | Tags: Civil Rights, Freedom of Speech, HR 1955, S. 1959
A brief explanation of HR 1995: Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007. This bill has passed the House and is currently being debated in the Senate.
Part One:
Part Two:
Now someone explain to me how, given the vagueness of the language and the fact that I, being someone who is vehemently opposed to it and will speak out against its passage loudly and often, will not be the target of this bill should it become law. Call your senators now and urge them to oppose this bill’s counterpart in the Senate: S. 1959.
And for those of you who can’t explain this, please take note if I should take a prolonged leave of absence from this blog.
Filed under: Action Items, Net Neutrality, Politics | Tags: Comcast, Common Carrier, Media Ownership, Net Neutrality, Time Warner Cable
Here’s an excellent mini-documentary explaining the importance of preserving network neutrality, and how we must break the cycle of media-ownership that has continually prohibited ordinary people from having a voice. It happened with print, it happened with radio, it happened with television, and if we don’t start making some fucking noise NOW, it will happen to the Internet. It will be a slow, invisible process, and once our power to speak out is diminished, it will be much more difficult to get it back. It’s time to stop being a passive, reactive citizenry and start being proactive about our rights and freedoms.
Please take 5 minutes to call or fax your representative in Congress and urge them to support The Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2008 (HR 5353). Your voice really will make a difference. Learn more here
Filed under: Action Items, Net Neutrality, Politics | Tags: Common Carrier, Net Neutrality, Save The Internet, Sprint, Time Warner Cable, Verizon
Just yesterday I posted a a story about Time Warner rolling out ‘metered’ internet usage. Today we see that the coordinated attack on Net Neutrality is underway. Via Wired:
Comcast will begin testing what the cable concern has described as a “protocol agnostic” approach to managing bandwidth traffic during high-peak periods, Comcast said Tuesday.
Selected customers in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, and Warrenton, Virginia, are expected to receive e-mails on Wednesday highlighting the program. The 30-day tests are expected to begin Thursday.
On other blogs where I’ve posted this story there’s been some resistance to the idea that metered usage and bandwidth caps directly relate to the issue of network neutrality. My point in sounding the alarm about these policies is that until we have solid regulations protecting net neutrality in place, we should view any attempts to cap or meter usage as the trojan horse that will be the ’slow lane’, which goes right to the heart of net neutrality. Once these caps and limits are endured by the public long enough, without NN regulation, the broadband providers will be free to allow content providers of their choosing to bypass these caps and meters. It’s really not that hard to see the logical conclusion of these telcos actions, absent any legal obligation to remain common carriers.
It simply CANNOT be a coincidence that two of the major telcos are rolling out drastic changes to how we access the internet in the same week. This may not be the knockout blow to net neutrality, but it is certainly the opening bell of what will be a bloody fight. More from the Comcast article:
“Unless you are an extremely heavy user of internet resources (which is not likely) you will not notice any change to your internet experience during this test,” Mitch Bowling, general manager of Comcast online services says in the e-mail. “At the busiest times of the day on our network (which could occur at any time), those very few disproportionately heavy users, who are doing things like conducting numerous or continuous large file transfers, may experience slightly longer response times for some online activities, until the period of network congestion ends.”
The move is designed to set aside complaints that the Philadelphia-based company has been throttling BitTorrent data and other peer-to-peer traffic to manage congestion. Comcast’s practices have been the subject of hearings before the Federal Communications Commission, which is set to announce new rules concerning the concept of net neutrality.
Are you excited by the potential of all the means of independent distribution available to the entertainment community these days? From YouTube to Funny or Die, those who can bring the funny and have the technical skills are no longer obligated to dedicate their lives towards landing that lucrative Hollywood gig in order for the world to appreciate their comic genius.
If you think that the growing potential to bypass the traditional, establishment media distribution channels is a good thing, then you’d better start giving a shit about Net Neutrality because it’s officially under attack as of this week.
Before I get into the specifics of what’s happened this week, let me give a quick primer on Net Neutrality and common carriers for those of you who may be unfamiliar with these concepts. At the most fundamental level, it means that I have a right to have my web content distributed equally with all the other big players out there. With the appropriate regulations in place to protect net neutrality, bandwidth providers such as Time Warner, Verizon and Sprint will not be able to take any action that gives preferential treatment to content providers.
So as I said, as of this week, I believe we’re witnessed the beginning of the end of network neutrality (via the AP):
On Thursday, new Time Warner Cable Internet subscribers in Beaumont, Texas, will have monthly allowances for the amount of data they upload and download. Those who go over will be charged $1 per gigabyte, a Time Warner Cable executive told the Associated Press.
Metered billing is an attempt to deal fairly with Internet usage, which is very uneven among Time Warner Cable’s subscribers, said Kevin Leddy, Time Warner Cable’s executive vice president of advanced technology.
Just 5 percent of the company’s subscribers take up half of the capacity on local cable lines, Leddy said. Other cable Internet service providers report a similar distribution.
“We think it’s the fairest way to finance the needed investment in the infrastructure,” Leddy said.
Metered usage is common overseas, and other U.S. cable providers are looking at ways to rein in heavy users. Most have download caps, but some keep the caps secret so as not to alarm the majority of users, who come nowhere close to the limits. Time Warner Cable appears to be the first major ISP to charge for going over the limit: Other companies warn, then suspend, those who go over.
The caps they are proposing will be tiered at monthly limits of 5GB and 15GB, which may sound like a lot, but when you consider the explosive growth of video streaming, which is nowhere near its peak, this is a ridiculously small amount of bandwidth. Now a lot of people actually think it’s reasonable for ISPs to start charging subscribers more due to this increased strain on the network. As far as this strain goes, I call bullshit. These networks have MAJOR plans in the works to rollout HD streaming content and other VOD services. Do you really think they’re going to limit you from purchasing these services by their arbitrary bandwidth caps?
That’s where net neutrality comes in. Once they’ve rolled out ‘metered’ usage and everyone starts having to keep a constant close watch on their usage, we’re going to start see ‘preferred partners’ hook up with the major bandwidth providers whose content will get to bypass the meters. We as consumers will have absolutely no say in which sites are now off the meter and which ones will stay on, but I can guarantee you that none of them will be the little guys, the independent producers, people I hope like you and me.
I think anyone who’s been paying attention to the current landscape of entertainment and news media would agree that it has been nothing short of a sea change in the power of our media oligopolies. Every major distribution-based media industry is in decline, as people-powered and decentralized distribution means have soared. The point is the media monarchy is scared shitless and it should be, because as long as the Internet remains the true meritocracy that it has been, then they will eventually lose.
Can anyone deny that this medium has proved absolutely vital to the health and vitality of our democracy considering the historic candidacy and campaign of Barack Obama? I could understand these upcharges if these companies were drastically improving service or improving our telecommunications infrastructure, but that does not appear to be the case. Not to mention the fact that they have been making money off of the use of what I consider to be the commons (considering the fact that cable does run under and over public property) and most U.S. residents do NOT have a choice when it comes to broadband. Some may be able to choose between two of the telecom giants, but there don’t seem to be ANY middle or small market ISPs anymore. Not like when I first jumped online in 1996. Just look at the mobile market, there are competitors sure, but they all seem to offer the exact same rate packages. Much like other oligopolized (new word!) industries such as mobile, oil, and pharmaceuticals, there is a revolting amount of collusion to keep prices high so that everybody wins–except the consumers.
Here’s the good news, the end game is still a few years off and we can preempt the telecoms efforts to stifle the true creative, independent spirit of the Internet by contacting our representatives in Congress and demanding that they enact legislation to prevent any violation of ‘network neutrality’ through the conferring of any ‘preferred content provider’ status–EVER. This means that if the telecoms want to roll-out metered usage, they can, but they will not be able to use this as a means of bludgeoning out the competition by allowing a select few to bypass the meter.
Please call or fax your representative in Congress today and ask them to support The Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2008 (HR 5353). I recently learned that when you contact your representative, they tend to go by a ratio of 1:13000. That is they assume that if you care enough to contact them about something that there are 12,999 other voters who care just as much but for whatever reason have not taken the time to make their opinion known. If I’ve inspired you to act, you should also know that the best and most effective means of influencing congress is to fax them. Phone calls don’t leave a paper trail, and letters don’t really get read so much since that anthrax bullshit a few years back. Just take the time to write out why you believe that the Internet should not be fucked with and demand that laws be passed to ensure that our broadband providers remain ‘common carriers’, in much the same way as the post office.
For more information on this topic, visit Save The Internet. And if you are a user of Current.com, please vote up my article.
UPDATE
My concern for this issue is another reason I couldn’t be more delighted that Barack Obama has won the Democratic nomination–he’s a BIG supporter of net neutrality. From an interview with Michael Arrington over at TechCrunch:
I will take a backseat to no one in my commitment to network neutrality. The Internet is the most open network in history. We have to keep it that way. I will prevent network providers from discriminating in ways that limit the freedom of expression on the Internet. Because most Americans only have a choice of only one or two broadband carriers, carriers are tempted to impose a toll charge on content and services, discriminating against websites that are unwilling to pay for equal treatment. This could create a two-tier Internet in which websites with the best relationships with network providers can get the fastest access to consumers, while all competing websites remain in a slower lane. Such a result would threaten innovation, the open tradition and architecture of the Internet, and competition among content and backbone providers. It would also threaten the equality of speech through which the Internet has begun to transform American political and cultural discourse. Accordingly, network providers should not be allowed to charge fees to privilege the content or applications of some web sites and Internet applications over others. This principle will ensure that the new competitors, especially small or non-profit speakers, have the same opportunity as incumbents to innovate on the Internet and to reach large audiences. I will protect the Internet’s traditional openness to innovation and creativity and ensure that it remains a platform for free speech and innovation that will benefit consumers and our democracy.
Filed under: Action Items, Politics | Tags: Common Carrier, Network Neutrality, Save The Internet
NEW YORK (AP) — You’re used to paying extra if you use up your cell phone minutes, but will you be willing to pay extra if your home computer goes over its Internet allowance?
Time Warner Cable Inc. customers — and, later, others — may have to, if the company’s test of metered Internet access is successful.
On Thursday, new Time Warner Cable Internet subscribers in Beaumont, Texas, will have monthly allowances for the amount of data they upload and download. Those who go over will be charged $1 per gigabyte, a Time Warner Cable executive told the Associated Press.
Metered billing is an attempt to deal fairly with Internet usage, which is very uneven among Time Warner Cable’s subscribers, said Kevin Leddy, Time Warner Cable’s executive vice president of advanced technology.
Just 5 percent of the company’s subscribers take up half of the capacity on local cable lines, Leddy said. Other cable Internet service providers report a similar distribution.
“We think it’s the fairest way to finance the needed investment in the infrastructure,” Leddy said.
As one commenter on my current.com story wrote:
This is in no way analogous to cell phone minutes. You’re not inhibiting small businesses or minute heavy companies when charging for minutes on a cellphone, but when you penalize bandwidth, you limit what is possible online and create a tiered system that goes against the egalitarian nature of the Intern
I could understand these upcharges if these companies were drastically improving service or improving our telecommunications infrastructure, but that does not appear to be the case. Not to mention the fact that they have been making money off of the use of what I consider to be the commons (considering the fact that cable does run under and over public property) and most U.S. residents do NOT have a choice when it comes to broadband. Some may be able to choose between two of the telecom giants, but there don’t seem to be ANY middle or small market ISPs anymore. Not like when I first jumped online in 1996. Just look at the mobile market, there are competitors sure, but they all seem to offer the exact same rate packages. Much like other oligopolized (new word!) industries such as mobile, oil, and pharmaceuticals, there is a revolting amount of collusion to keep prices high so that everybody wins–except the consumers.
Can anyone deny that this medium has proved absolutely vital to the health and vitality of our democracy considering the historic candidacy and campaign of Barack Obama? If this sort of metering is allowed to be implemented across the board (as I’m certain it will), it is democracy that will suffer through the diminished usage of sites such as Youtube, Current, and other essential people-powered media. 15gigs ain’t shit when you’re as active a participant in this movement as I tend to be. I also would not be surprised to see the telecoms start to allow users to view select ‘partner’ sites that will be exempt from this metering. It is this stage that will be the undoing of all our hard work to bypass and eradicate the traditional establishment media stranglehold on our socio-political discourse.
If you’d like to learn more about how to stop this trend from continuing, please visit http://www.savetheinternet.com, and if you are a current.com user, please vote up my article.
And to anyone out there who thinks that contacting their reps doesn’t mean shit, I recently learned that when you contact your representative, they tend to go by a ratio of 1:13000. That is they assume that if you care enough to contact them about something that there are 12,999 other voters who care just as much but for whatever reason have not taken the time to make their opinion known.
Filed under: Journal, Media Criticism, Politics | Tags: Activism, Civic Engagement, Debate, Democracy, Grassroots Actions
[This message is dedicated to my new myspace friend Becky from my high school, with whom I'd rarely ever spoken to until commenting on a bulletin she recently posted. In the last month we've been writing each other a lot about what's going on in the world, and her support of my writing is a big reason I'm now posting regularly to my blog. Thanks Dumpy!]
Becky wrote me a letter today expressing her appreciation and admiration for my writing, which was a first for me. As you can tell by my archives, I’ve only been doing this steadily for about one month, so I was quite taken aback. It was only recently I realized that I’ve very much been in the closet about my concerns for the health of this country. Oh sure, if you hang out with me long enough at a bar I’ll start spouting off about this issue or that, or every 6 months I’ve timidly fired off a somewhat passionate email to family and friends. But indignant speeches a dark bar and late night rants are a far cry from rallying cries for action in the sober light of day. Now as I said, part of the impetus for writing more in depth and personally about my views was her encouragement, but in recent days I’ve realized that it truly arises out of fear of allowing this country to slip out of our grasp.
Now if I’ve never I talked politics with you personally before, it’s important that you understand that I am not talking about partisanship, but merely our obligation as a free citizenry to hold our leaders accountable. It does not matter if a D or an R follows their name, the whole point of the Bill of Rights and our system of checks and balances was to ensure that power was dispersed. The United States was formed in order to throw off the bonds of a tyrannical and repressive system which allowed no means of criticizing its leaders. It was not formed to spread that democracy elsewhere, it was not formed to promote the will of God, it was merely a system by which ordinary people could decide if their leader was doing a good job or a bad job. The end is the means, and it in no way can come at the end of a spear.
So. That’s a shitload of lofty rhretoric, but it came out of me fairly effortlessly so I will let it stand. The reason that I can express myself so easily right now is because when Becky wrote me today to say how “lucky” I was that I could write the way I do, I was immediately compelled to call her and tell her that I’m not lucky, just scared out of my mind at what this country has become. Actually, what really scares me is that no one in the establishment media seems to be having a serious discussion about it. We have an executive branch that has made broad attempts to politicize the Justice Department, legalized torture, disabled Habeus Corpus, misled us into a war that has cost over 4,000 American lives not to mention untold Iraqis (estimates range from 100,000 to over 1 million, but our government can’t be bothered to count those brown fuckers), and the current cost is at $524,943,204,345 (at the moment of this posting, to find out what it is by the time you read this, click here), and oh by the way did you know that Bush can declare martial law at any time under the Defense Authorization of 2007?
Yeah, martial law fun conspiracy theory shit, right? This was an actual amendment to the Insurrection Act which gives the power of the president to federalize all troops. Here’s a fun key change in what can trigger this authority. Originally, the president could only enact martial law under these conditions:
insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy
natural disaster, epidemic, or other serious public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident, or other condition[emphasis mine. Yeah, that's not vague at all]
…but don’t worry, because this can only happen if:
domestic violence has occurred to such an extent that the constituted authorities of the State or possession are incapable of maintaining public order.
[Hmmm, so like if all of the National Guard was stuck in Iraq this could happen, but then who would actually deal with this crisis? If only we had a privatized army run by a hardcore partisan Republican that was accountable to no one... Oh yeah, Blackwater! Whew!]
And here’s the key passage for me:
opposes or obstructs the execution of the laws of the United States or impedes the course of justice under those laws.
Now as I’ve tried to explain, the whole problem here is that ALL KINDS OF TERRIBLE SHIT IS LEGAL! So am I technically an insurrectionist if I believe in organizing people to take action en masse to repeal the Military Commissions Act, or the PATRIOT ACT? After all those are laws. What if a natural disaster or epidemic breaks out, Bush declares Martial Law “to restore order”, only just like Iraq it turns out him and his crew are fucktards and no order gets restored, when do we get to say ENOUGH? I don’t know about you, but this fact alone will prevent me from getting a good night’s sleep until they are completely out of power.
So at this point I hope you are pissed off in some way. If you disagree with my interpretation of where we are at as a country, please tell me your reasons. If you’re pissed because you haven’t read this in the papers or in the media, you should be. My main impetus for writing this is because we have relegated the discussion of what is important in our lives to a professional class: the punditocracy and the career politicians. The only thing that fixes this is for all of us to start talking about it with each other. Given everything that you know about what this administration has done to subvert the rule of law and the sovereignty of the people, do you really expect them to give up their battle without a fight? I don’t, and I won’t breath a sigh of relief until they are out of office or held accountable, but I personally don’t understand how the two can be mutually exclusive.
Now, as you can tell by the title I’m a fan of democracy, and that’s what will save us in the end. We just have to remember that democracy is not voting once every couple years, it’s talking to each other about these issues, now more than ever. So here’s my suggestions for some critical, yet simple actions that we all can take to reinvigorate and strengthen our democracy:
- Fax your congressman and Senator often. Don’t call since there’s no paper trail and I dunno about you but I get nervous talking politics to total strangers. Letters get screened and usually unopened since the anthrax bullshit. I don’t care what the issue is, just fax them. Congress lives by the ratio of 1:13000, which means that for every 1 person who contacts them about an issue, they figure there are 12,999 more who care just as much but for various reasons can’t send the fax themselves. As we all know politicians are pretty spineless, the only problem is that right now we’re not the ones with our foots on their collective throat, the defense contractors are. Time to change that. If you’re really excited by this action item but don’t have a fax, try this out all you need to do is upload a PDF.
- Pimp the shit out of current.com to everyone you know, and encourage participation. Not a lot of people are aware that right now a cable news outlet exists which is devoid of mindless punditry and allows the community to vote and post stories. Since I’ve started using the site, I’ve had many of the stories and comments I’ve posted gain extremely favorable responses, and my very first video comment was picked for airing. This is people-powered media, and we need everyone to help ensure it’s viability. Even as an avid news reader, I’m amazed at the stories I’ve been exposed to since becoming active in the community that I hadn’t typically come across so easily. Plus everyone’s super nice, I’ve had more private correspondences with total strangers who appreciated my thoughts in 2 months on that site than in the 6 years I’ve been participating at dailykos.com
- Start blogging. Even if you’re just posting links and brief descriptions, it still gets it out there in the ether. The more links that point to an important article or posting the better. The unbiased popularity of the Internet may well be the only thing that saves us.
- On a similar note, If there’s one non-partisan and essential topic that I’d say you’re obligated to learn about and spread the word on, it’s the importance of network neutrality. http://www.savetheinternet.com Read up on that.
- Learn HTML. That’s just good advice. If the economy ever turns to complete shit, HTML will be the new factory job.
Yes, it’s 3 hours long.
No, that’s not long enough.
If there were only one essential video on this site, this is it. Please find the time.
The Corporation.
