apple juice

good point from Dave Winer – Relying on Facebook, Google and Twitter – it’s like vegans who wear leather.

another take from the atlantic. 5 Reasons Why ‘Occupy Wall Street’ Won’t Work

I’m not sure you can say it won’t work when you don’t really know what their goals are yet. (I guess that is his first point, but still). I’m interested to see how this develops. There is a group in Minneapolis, appropriately named OccupyMN, ready to hunker down October 7th.

I have to say that I’m a bit disturbed about the recent news about Anwar al-Awlaki being killed in Yemen by our super secret special forces. Certainly bothers me that a U.S. citizen was essentially executed without due process of the law. Actually, executions bother me in general, I don’t really much care who the person is.

But I suppose there is some point at which you implicitly give up your rights as a U.S. citizen, perhaps organizing terrorist operations against the U.S. counts as one of those points.

I also find it interesting that this is one of those situations in the bizarro-world of american politics where briefly and in an insane manner, the left and right sides of the political spectrum turn themselves inside out and get all wound up. Peace-loving democrats cheering on the President for acting decisively? War-mongering Republicans suddenly concerned about flexing our military to take out potential threats? Isn’t this what happened when Clinton sent a few cruise missiles into Yemen during the “wag the dog” incident? Who was he targeting again? Oh yeah, Osama Bin Laden.

Anyway, here’s another perspective from a progressive who is supporting this action. Mostly I agree with these guys, but not so sure on this one….

Telling You What I Think: “

I won’t mention the show. Because these things are often cancelled at the last moment. But I’m going to go on TV this afternoon to debate the targeted killing of Anwar al-Awlaki. And I’m on the ‘for’ position. (These things always get radically simplified. But when asked, do I think it was illegal? No. I don’t.) I suspect this will cause a great deal of consternation for some readers of the site. So I thought I’d explain my thinking in advance.

Just to have the key facts on the table, as most of you know, Anwar al-Awlaki, unlike virtually all the other members of al Qaeda targeted by the US, was an American citizen. He was born in New Mexico of Yemeni parents, returned to Yemen when he was seven and then returned to the United States for college. More recently he returned to Yemen and became involved with the al Qaeda affiliate al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

So how is it exactly that a US President can order the extra-judicial killing of an American citizen? I agree. It’s a troubling thought. But I would approach it differently. Is it really possible that a US citizen can be operating abroad as a key leader of an international terrorist group, organizing and inspiring terrorist attacks within the US, and the US has no recourse other than to secure an arrest warrant and arrest him somewhere in the wilds of Yemen? That strikes me as preposterous.

The key in my mind is that al-Awlaki is or was essentially waging war against the United States from abroad.

Now, there’s a great deal we don’t know and probably won’t know. And that leaves open a great opportunity for abuse. There is for instance some controversy over whether al-Awlaki was simply inspiring terrorist attacks or whether he was operationally involved in them. I don’t think a US president should ever be allowed to do this within the United States or anywhere else where arrest is a credible option. I also think that in the case of targeting a US citizen, the President of the United States should need to personally authorize the decision. Someone has to take responsibility and be accountable.

The idea that his US citizenship mandates that he be handled through the US criminal justice system in every case, even the most extreme ones such as this, simply doesn’t make sense to me. So I just can’t credit that argument that targeting him is ‘illegal’.

Just to emphasize the point again, this is a case where there’s a ton we don’t know. So I’m answering the question based on my understanding of what happened. Liable to abuse? Sure. Illegal. I can’t see the argument, either legally or logically.

(Via Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall.)

“Questions to consider:

Number 1: Do the America People deserve know the truth regarding the ongoing wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen?

Number 2: Could a larger question be how can an army private access so much secret information?

Number 3: Why is the hostility mostly directed at Assange, the publisher, and not at our governments failure to protect classified information?

Number 4: Are we getting our moneys worth of the 80 Billion dollars per year spent on intelligence gathering?

Number 5: Which has resulted in the greatest number of deaths: lying us into war or Wikileaks revelations or the release of the Pentagon Papers?

Number 6: If Assange can be convicted of a crime for publishing information that he did not steal, what does this say about the future of the first amendment and the independence of the internet?

Number 7: Could it be that the real reason for the near universal attacks on Wikileaks is more about secretly maintaining a seriously flawed foreign policy of empire than it is about national security?

Number 8: Is there not a huge difference between releasing secret information to help the enemy in a time of declared war, which is treason, and the releasing of information to expose our government lies that promote secret wars, death and corruption?

Number 9: Was it not once considered patriotic to stand up to our government when it is wrong?

Thomas Jefferson had it right when he advised ‘Let the eyes of vigilance never be closed.’ I yield back the balance of my time.”

(Via Huffington Post - Ron Paul Defends WikiLeaks On House Floor (VIDEO)🙂

Props to Bernie Sanders.

If you don’t want to watch the entire 9 hours (and I don’t either) I think the first 12 minutes are worthwhile:

He states towards the end of this segment that the estate tax only applies to the richest .3% of Americans. I did not know that.

Here’s a bit more about the speech at the New York Times. Sanders Rails Against Tax Bill

The crux of the WikiLeaks debate – Glenn Greenwald – Salon.com

“but this segment, in my view, really highlights the core disputes — and many of the misconceptions and falsehoods — at the heart of this controversy, one that I think will be seen as easily one of the most important political developments of the last several years”

Take a look at this one…

I’ve been following the wikileaks story pretty closely, but I’m less interested in what they’re releasing and more interested in what wikileaks means for the future of free speech here and elsewhere.

I don’t think it is an understatement to say that wikileaks will shake the American foundation of “free speech” and “freedom of the press”.

When you have potential a presidential candidate, Mike Huckabee, saying that Assange should be tried for treason and executed, you know we’ve got a problem. (Can’t be tried for treason, not an American citizen. But I guess you can’t give Huckabee too much credit for being an idiot, since a recent poll suggests 51% of Americans (and Glenn Beck) want leakers tried for treason, but I digress)

How many of those tea partiers are standing up for Assange? Not many.

You can’t have it both ways. You can’t fight corruption by fighting to hide corruption. You can’t fight government intrusion by not allowing the light to shine on government oversteps.

You can’t be for the free markets if you aren’t for free information.

And I guess I now agree with Ron Paul on something…

Ron Paul stands up for Julian Assange – Andy Barr – POLITICO.com

“‘In a free society we’re supposed to know the truth,’ Paul said. ‘In a society where truth becomes treason, then we’re in big trouble. And now, people who are revealing the truth are getting into trouble for it.’”

-Ron Paul

The tech community, which should be for open and free access to information, has failed us, says Dave Winer.

Scripting News: A perfect Wikileaks storm for Berkman:

“We now understand that we can’t look to the tech industry or even the Library of Congress. The tech industry more or less failed the neutrality test, and the LOC has failed the unwritten code of librarians everywhere.”

-Dave Winer

And if you want to hear from the man himself, Julian Assange, I suggest the following interview. It is pretty comprehensive.

An Interview with Julian Assange – Forbes.com

In a rare, two-hour interview conducted in London on November 11, Assange said that he’s still sitting on a trove of secret documents, about half of which relate to the private sector. And WikiLeaks’ next target will be a major American bank. “It will give a true and representative insight into how banks behave at the executive level in a way that will stimulate investigations and reforms, I presume,” he said, adding: “For this, there’s only one similar example. It’s like the Enron emails.”

also, on being a “computer hacker”

“There’s a deliberate attempt to redefine what we’re doing not as publishing, which is protected in many countries, or the journalist activities, which is protected in other ways, as something which doesn’t have a protection, like computer hacking, and to therefore split us off from the rest of the press and from these legal protections. It’s done quite deliberately by some of our opponents. It’s also done because of fear, from publishers likeThe New York Times that they’ll be regulated and investigated if they include our activities in publishing and journalism.”

-Julian Assange