A Rising Generation of Fascists?

I am 22 -- and already I find myself shaking my head at them’ young whipper-snappers. A recent survey of 100,000 high school students found the following attitudes; I do not hesitate in calling these numbers evidence of fascist thinking in the Pokemon generation:

  • Thirty-six percent say that everything you and I read in a newspaper should get clearance from a government censor.
  • Only a slim majority – fifty-one percent – think that newspapers should be able to publish freely.

I’m sick to my stomach. How could this have happened? What are we going to do about it? Fuck keeping sex, violence, and bad language off of the television; this generation doesn't even understand the value of the freedom that has been handed down to them from generations of wars, social stuggles, and sacrafice. I'm afraid to say it, but we've created a monster, with this generation.

Hannah Arendt on Beauty

"By its very nature the beautiful is isolated from everything else. From beauty no road leads to reality." - Hannah Arendt

Plucking Their Strings

The left end of the blogosphere was mostly quiet tonight. And why shouldn’t it have been? As Mark Twain once observed, “It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.” And lately, I must say our messages have been foolishly self-centered, at best.

Let’s be honest. Our “progressive” movement has had an insignificant impact on public affairs at best. Our causes: human rights, social justice, equality, and peace are only talked about, never actually made into solid policy. And should this be a shock? After all, what is a "progressive"? I'd imagine the dozens of answers to that question would be as diverse as the multitude of factions that call themselves "progressive." In fact, I'd say that Progressivism is not a movement at all. Rather, it is a plurality of narrow interests and radical politics that needed a word to replace "liberal". And as Adele Stevenson once remarked, "a liberal is one who had both feet firmly planted in the air."

The various sects of Progressivism -- which include “the deaniacs”, the Kucinichers , the elderly “new deal liberals”, the Socialists, environmentalists, pacifists and anarchists – have historically kept their goals self-centered, static, and uncompromising. This is a shame; if these sects could cooperate and support each other, they might be able to revolutionize our government. However, these sects won’t have that. Our bickerings usually come down to something like, “my issue first -- we need to save the seals, than we can concentrate on racial equality". As a result of this selfishness, our goal --- the movement – is forever exiled to highbrow books, “alternative” publications, and the local coffee shop debating societies. Meanwhile, the conservatives, as always, continue to find total unity around the pursuit of dollars. See the difference? Ask yourself, how powerful of a motivation is greed? Now ask yourself, “will reframing our message be enough to fight the interests that own our government”? I hope you see where I’m going with this.

I'm now among "the press"

So I just got my press 'credentials' to cover SXSW conference here in Austin, March 11-15, 2005. Now, I don't want any of you speakers to think that I'm going to go easy on you. Since I'm part of the press, I'll be looking for answers, and some of ya'll have a lot of explaning to do. What about the Kittens, I ask? And especially you, Zuckerman... Comparing David Weinberger to Lenny Bruce... We all know -- damn well -- that uncovering the truth behind that scandal will be the number one priority of every journalist at that conference. Like every other journalist, I'll be saying "wonkette, smonkette..." So in conclusion, as a journalist, I will settle for no less than the funk, the whole funk, and nothing but the funk.

Micro-Satire

I know I'm officially a dork when I find this satire about Harvard's Confrence on Blogging Journalism & Credibility hilarious.It was horrible, I laughed outloud at several points... Oh Jesus, this is the end of my sex life....

787 is Pretty

Boeing Blogs

Randy Baseler, the vice president of marketing for Boeing aircraft has started a "journal, or blog, or whatever you want to call it". Hmmmmm, me thinks the page would be a lot more interesting if it allowed comments. Other than that though, looky here, I have become a pawn in Boeings marketing plan!

Apologies, and an explanation

I've been neglecting my blogging duties, the reason being that I'm in the process of figuring out how I'm going to avoid becoming part of the taco bell team. More later.

Where I've been

Sorry I haven't been updating my blog this weekend. I've been busy redesigning Blogger Corps, and Center for Online Investigative Research.

WHY U.S. MEDIA DISMISSED THE LANCET STUDY OF 100,000 IRAQI CIVILIAN DEAD

By Doug Ireland

The Chronicle of Higher Education today has a top-drawer article about the researchers from Johns Hopkins and Columbia Universities who published the study in the British medical journal The Lancet suggesting there were 100,000 Iraqi civilian dead from the war and the occupation. Lila Guterman, the article's author, notes that, "On the eve of a contentious presidential election -- fought in part over U.S. policy on Iraq -- many American newspapers and television news programs ignored the study or buried reports about it far from the top headlines."

The Chronicle article recounts in detail the methdology used for the study's 8000 interviews, in which 30 homes in each of 33 neighborhoods all over Iraq were visited. And other statisticins confirm the validity of the Lancet study's methdology: "Scientists say the size of the survey was adequate for extrapolation to the entire country. 'That's a classical sample size,' says Michael J. Toole, head of the Center for International Health at the Burnet Institute, an Australian research organization. Researchers typically conduct surveys in 30 neighborhoods, so the Iraq study's total of 33 strengthens its conclusions. 'I just don't see any evidence of significant exaggeration,' he says.

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