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I really ought to do a "Fact Of The Day" type of thing. Here is a classic 9/11 fact. And it is just that. It's a fact, a lesser-known nugget of information that has been largely ignored by the mainstream media. I offer no conspiracy theory, no explanation to go along side it, just the cold, hard truth.

The Director of the Pakistani Intelligence Agency (the ISI), Lt. Gen. Mahmood Ahmed wired $100,000 to the September 11th chief hijacker Mohamed Atta prior to the attacks. This directly implicates the Pakistani Intelligence community in the operation. What is of great interest is the fact the Lt. Gen. Mahmood Ahmed visited Washington for a whole bunch of scheduled meetings the week of the attacks. On the morning of September 11th he was in a breakfast meeting with the chairmen of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, Senator Bob Graham (D) and Representative Porter Goss (R) (Goss is a 10-year veteran of the CIA’s clandestine operations wing).

CotL #3 is next Wednesday, January 4th over at Science and Politics. As usual, early submissions are slow and the holiday weekends are further complicating things. Deadline for the web's only liberal blog carnival is January 3rd at 5PM so be sure to get your best liberal blogging in on time. Submitting to CotL is easy. Just use our handy web form or e-mail cotl DASH submissions AT carnivaloftheliberals DOT com. The first two editions of the Carnival of the Liberals were a huge success, so let's keep it going and show the entire blogosphere that liberals and progressives do it better.

From the Southern Poverty Law Center, "Terror From the Right (Almost 60 terrorist plots uncovered in the U.S.):

...In the ten years since the april 19, 1995, bombing in Oklahoma City, in fact, the radical right has produced some 60 terrorist plots. These have included plans to bomb or burn government buildings, banks, refineries, utilities, clinics, synagogues, mosques, memorials and bridges; to assassinate police officers, judges, politicians, civil rights figures and others; to rob banks, armored cars, and other criminals; and to amass illegal machine guns, missiles, explosives, and biological and chemical weapons...

And it includes a list of all the plot summaries...

Almost three decades ago, the International War Crimes Tribunal, created by British analytic philosopher Bertrand Russell and presided over by the French existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre convened to investigate the charges that the US was engaged in war crimes - genocidal in nature - against the people of Vietnam. The judgment was, suffice it to say, scathing even if primarily symbolic. Aside from a few individuals at the bottom of the food chain who did eventually end up facing legal charges for their role in massacres, the leaders responsible for the carnage went along their merry way. Nearly three decades hence, it is clear that the more things change, the more they stay the same. As in Vietnam, a few grunts here and there have been prosecuted for some of the atrocities occurring in Abu Ghraib while those who formulated the policies have thus far gone on to maintain or enhance their own fortunes. And once again we have a new tribunal, addressing the sorry state of affairs in Iraq: the World Tribunal on Iraq.

The use of testimonials is probably one the most overt and therefore one of the easiest propaganda tools to identify. The use of a testimonial is a way a propagandist builds credibility for his message. A testimonial tries to attach the emotional component of a trusted life figure to build creditability and acceptance for the non-logical, non-intuitive messages of propaganda. Trusted life figures are religious leaders, entertainment celebrities, sports stars and high profile social or political leaders. A trusted life figure has a high degree of emotionally based credibility that adds a powerful component to the propagandist's message. The GOP and current administration's propaganda machine use testimonials on both the national and local level with calculated precision. They are particularly effective in their use of fundamentalist religious leaders in combination with single-issue, fear orientated propaganda messages. The use of testimonials was instrumental in the vast mobilization of the Christian Right in the last election. Many a devout Christian was told by their pastors or their church elders that a vote for the Democrats was a vote for gay marriage or abortion. The Karl Rove propaganda machine had to only produce the tailored messages of deception, which were then repeated hundreds of times in churches across American.

This is just a quick note that Comments From Left Field recently added a new resource for all bloggers and news junkies alike, The Politcal News Wire. At present the newswire polls the following news sources every five minutes:

ABC News: Politics
AlterNet
BBC News Americas
CNN.com Inside Politics
DemocracyNOW
From The Wilderness
In These Times
Information Clearing House
International Herald Tribune
Media Matters
MSNBC
New York Times
PittsburghLIVE Editorial
ProgressiveTrail.org
The Nation
The New Standard
Washington Post
Washington Times Insider (since FauxNEWS is not represented...)
Yahoo!

I would like to make The Political News Wire the best resource possible but that will require your help. If there is a news source you would like to see represented please send the following information to goose3five(at)gmail(dot)com or leave a message in the comments of this post:

Name of the News Source
URL
RSS feed

Thank you.

-Goose

Sorry folks, the image that defined our times was fake. Though, I suppose it's poetic that such an image would turn out to be a sham. As Phunqe pointed out, the guy on the left is Sweden's prime minister and the man on the right is Romano Prodi, the former president of the european union; had I known that, I would have of course not believed the photo was real. I suppose, deep down, we all knew it was too good to be true, but believing it was too much fun. Props to the discussion at JWZ for clearing this up.

To understand the true nature of fascism, one must understand who the fascist is. Perhaps the best illustration of fascist thinking comes from the very founder of the term. Though, be warned, mussolini's doctrine of fascism is a piece of trash that was designed to turn its readers into slaves. It is advised that you read it thoughtfully and with caution.

By Benito Mussolini

Like all sound political conceptions, Fascism is action and it is thought; action in which doctrine is immanent, and doctrine arising from a given system of historical forces in which it is inserted, and working on them from within. It has therefore a form correlated to contingencies of time and space; but it has also an ideal content which makes it an expression of truth in the higher region of the history of thought . There is no way of exercising a spiritual influence in the world as a human will dominating the will of others, unless one has a conception both of the transient and the specific reality on which that action is to be exercised, and of the permanent and universal reality in which the transient dwells and has its being. To know men one must know man; and to know man one must be acquainted with reality and its laws. There can be no conception of the State which is not fundamentally a conception of life: philosophy or intuition, system of ideas evolving within the framework of logic or concentrated in a vision or a faith, but always, at least potentially, an organic conception of the world.

I want to share my Political Compass so that there is no confusion about where I stand (I am not easily classified as generally liberal or conservative) and to encourage others to take the test at politicalcompass.org so that they may learn more about politics and themselves -- that is if they answer all of the test questions honestly.

Defining our political leanings along a single, one-dimensional left-to-right line is ineffective because of the widely diverse social and economic interests and needs that determine our individual political positions. Political Compass has added a second line to the equation to cover the social dimension of politics, while the traditional right-left line concerns economics. The second dimension provides a more accurate definition of political positions because it takes into account the various economic and social issues which determine not only whenther we are economically liberal or conservative, but also whether we are socially authoritarian or libertarian.

I can't believe I've missed this book for this long. Its edited by Mitch Ratcliffe and Jon Lebkowsky

EXTREME DEMOCRACY

• What is Extreme Democracy?
• Preface
• Foreword
• 1. Emergent Democracy
• 2. The Second Superpower
• 3. Power Laws, Weblogs, and Inequality
• 4. Deep Confidence in the People
• 5.Building on Experience
• 6. Two ways to emerge, and how to tell the difference between them.
• 7. From the Screen to the Streets
• 8. The dead hand of modern democracy: Lessons for emergent post-modern democrats
• Chapter 9. It's the Conversations, stupid! The Link between Social Interaction and Political Choice
• Chapter 10. Social Network Dynamics and Participatory Politics
• Chapter 11. eVoting
• Chapter 12. Democracy for the rest of us: The minimal compact and open-source government
• Chapter 13. Making Room for the Third World in the Second Superpower
• Chapter 14. Campaign Tools
• Chapter 15. Exiting Deanspace
• Chapter 16. 6.4 Billion Points of Light

This Friday, I'm flying to Washington D.C. for the Progressive Democrats of America Summit. Late Afternoon on Friday, I'll actually be giving a talk at the summit about how progressives can get their message out online. If any of ya'll are going to be in Washington DC 21st-25th, contact me, and perhaps we'll be able to meet up at some point.

Mitch Ratcliffe has assembled a brief 'legal' guide on media law and blogging. As Mitch points out, "There is much bloggers can learn from journalists, who have learned how to cause the most trouble possible without landing in jail over the course of centuries."

Images are the property of Digital Globe. View Updated QuickBird Images of Tsunami Sites

Cross posted at Nick Lewis's Weblog.

Cyberjournalist has drafted a code of ethics for bloggers. And I applaud them for doing so. Take a quick read over it, and tell them what you think:

Cyber Journalist's Blogger's Code of Ethics:

Be Honest and Fair. Bloggers should be honest and fair in gathering, reporting and interpreting information. Bloggers should:

• Never plagiarize.
• Identify and link to sources whenever feasible. The public is entitled to as much information as possible on sources' reliability.
• Make certain that Weblog entries, quotations, headlines, photos and all other content do not misrepresent. They should not oversimplify or highlight incidents out of context.
• Never distort the content of photos without disclosing what has been changed. Image enhancement is only acceptable for for technical clarity. Label montages and photo illustrations.
• Never publish information they know is inaccurate -- and if publishing questionable information, make it clear it's in doubt.
• Distinguish between advocacy, commentary and factual information. Even advocacy writing and commentary should not misrepresent fact or context.
• Distinguish factual information and commentary from advertising and shun hybrids that blur the lines between the two.

Minimize Harm. Ethical bloggers treat sources and subjects as human beings deserving of respect. Bloggers should:

Students for an Orwellian Society presents the following patriotic announcement:

As to be expected, SOS has been quite successful. Since the events of 11 September, we have been able to convince a number of figures in national and local politics to help forward our aims. How could they do otherwise?

Our successes can be shown to fit into the three major ideals of Ingsoc as expressed by Orwell:

War Is Peace

• Oceania (commonly called the US and Britain) is at war with Afghanistan Iraq. Oceania has always been at war with Afghanistan Iraq.
• Eurasia (commonly called Russia, Pakistan, etc.) is allied with Oceania in war against Afghanistan. Eurasia has always been allied with Oceania.
• US Congressman Charlie Rangel has been arguing for a return of military conscription (“The Draft”) as—so he tells the public— a way of reducing war.
• It's not easy to capture someone killed the year before—until you harness the power of Ingsoc. When you've got Ingsoc on your side, though, it's so easy that the US did it again.
• Three cheers for Homeland Security drone patrols!
• In order to fight terrorism, we must cause it, says Donald Rumsfeld.
• It's okay that there were no “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq; that's not why we went to war. It's equally okay that there are so many of them in Oceania.
• The Nobel prize committee has been considering nominating George Bush and Tony Blair for their prestigious Peace prize.
• Just like in 1984's Room 101, the Miniluv operations in Guantánamo Bay were authorized to “exploit[] a prisoner's phobias, sometimes using muzzled dogs in interrogations.” Doubleplusgood!
• According to the Bush administration, the Duelfer report which conclusively showed that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq actually justifies the war in Iraq.
• “I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we're really talking about peace.” — George W. Bush, 43rd President of the United States
• “Protecting [an] Islamic cultural center” involves fighting a war inside it, as the New York Times on the Web shows.

Freedom Is Slavery

• The Anti-Terrorism Act ensures US citizens' freedom by ensuring the FBI's ability to examine their activities.
• Security cameras have been placed around the Columbia campus and around the island of Manhattan.
• If you are buying postage, do not ask for stamps without flags on them. Such would clearly be a sign of lack-of-patriotism, and we at SOS are glad to see that the Post Office is cracking down on it.
• We encourage all true citizens of this country to join Operation TIPS, which, we promise, will help further an Orwellian society in ways that we at SOS cannot even begin to fathom.
• There's really nothing we can say about DARPA's Total Information Awareness project except to thank them for all their hard work.
• While Victory Gin is not (as far as we know) yet available, the sale of freedom fries is an important first step; freedom fries and freedom toast are also now available in Congress. Also, check out Victory Beer, and W Ketchup
• The truly Orwellian and praiseworthy Transportation Safety Administration gets our thanks for spotting anti-Americanism in passengers' baggage.
• Flying while wearing certain buttons may not be permitted. It is, apparently, okay to wear a button saying, “Hooray for Tony Blair,” though.
• Similarly, carrying a note stating that you do not have a bomb in your bag is equivalent to saying that you do have a bomb.
• When flying, you may use the toilet. However, if it is occupied, do not wait in line for it to become free. Only a terrorist would do that.
• We've been notified that Apple Computer company, which once made public anti-Orwellianism pronouncements, is now coming around to our side. (Note: Link contains a quicktime movie.)
• The Junior Anti-Sex League is

From Chapter 2 of Dan Gillmor's We, the Media.

Many to many, few to few. The blog is the medium of both, and all. Weblogs and their ecosystem are expanding into the space between email and the Web, and could well be a missing link in the communications chain. To date, they’re the closest we’ve come to realizing the original, read/write promise of the Web. They were the first tool that made it easy—or at least easier—to publish on the Web.

So what is a weblog, anyway? Generally speaking, it’s an online journal comprised of links and postings in reverse chronological order, meaning the most recent posting appears at the top of the page. As Meg Hourihan, cofounder of Pyra Labs, the blogging software company acquired by Google in February 2003, has noted, weblogs are “post-centric”—the posting is the key unit—rather than “page-centric,” as with more traditional web sites. Weblogs typically link to other web sites and blog postings, and many allow readers to comment on the original post, thereby allowing audience discussions.

Blogs run the gamut of topics and styles. One blog may be a running commentary on current events in a specific arena. Another may be a series of personal musings, or political reporting and commentary, such as Joshua Micah Marshall’s TalkingPointsMemo.com. A blog may be pointers to other people’s work or products, such as Gizmodo, a site devoted to the latest and greatest gadgets, or a constantly updated “what’s new” by a domain expert, such as Glenn Fleishman’s excellent Wi-Fi Networking News and commentary page.

While some blogging software permits readers to post their own comments, this feature has to be turned on by the blogger, and a significant number of prominent bloggers have not enabled the comment feature. At the other extreme, the Slashdot weblog, featuring news about technology and tech policy, is essentially written by its audience. What the best individual blogs tend to have in common is voice—they are clearly written by human beings with genuine human passion.

Just in case you missed it, The Village Voice featured a Sutton Impact comic strip that pretty much, uhm, sums it up for many of us.

As I read this document, I couldn't help but reflect on the fact that we live in times of such universal deceit, that a this Journalist's code of Ethics can read like a call to revolution. I posted it as a reference, and for discussion. As Bloggers, can you find any ethical guidelines which you'd rather not be constricited by? Or to put it another way, if you were ever asked to follow these guidelines, would you see the value of them?

***

Preamble

Members of the Society of Professional Journalists believe that public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy. The duty of the journalist is to further those ends by seeking truth and providing a fair and comprehensive account of events and issues. Conscientious journalists from all media and specialties strive to serve the public with thoroughness and honesty. Professional integrity is the cornerstone of a journalist's credibility. Members of the Society share a dedication to ethical behavior and adopt this code to declare the Society's principles and standards of practice.

What follows is a passage from Ronald Fraser's excellent oral history of the Spanish Civil War, Blood of Spain: The Experience of Civil War 1936-1939, published in 1979 and released in paperback by Penguin Books. The account of the bombing of Guernica, which became a symbol of fascist terror, appears on pages 398-401:

“Amatxu, the church bells are ringing,” Ignacia OZAMIZ’s three-year-old son kept saying as, from the early morning, the bells tolled out warnings of enemy planes in the vicinity. The front was barely 20 km to the east at Marquina as the crow flies. Four months pregnant, she had put her child – the youngest of four – to bed after lunch when her husband, a local blacksmith, sent her a message to go down to the shelter. People had seen a big plane – the abuelo – over the mountains.