technology

A nation built with African slaves inaugurates an African-American President.

A nation driven by culture wars born out of the Vietnam era moves into hope for more pragmatic, if still partisan, politics.

A nation fallen into the darkness of torture, of "collateral damage" of hundreds of thousands of lives, of ends justifying any means returns to an age of striving for the highest of American ideals.

A nation seduced by the fantasies popularized by Ronald Reagan, that markets are God, that government is evil, that global warming is a myth, that liberalism is out to destroy America, a nation almost paralyzed with the shock of the revealed lie of those fantasies -- a long nightmare, really -- returns to a reality-based vision of the world.

A nation coming off of one of the more ugly racist federal elections puts a black man into office.

Barack Obama is a pragmatic progressive whose intellect brings us hope that his leadership can guide the cumbersome bureaucracy and conflicting interests and influences into actions that make sense, based on reason.

It was truly audacious two years ago to believe this could happen. It took a lot of hope and the hard work of millions, and the faith of many more. But here it has happened.

Barack Obama is about to become President.

How unlikely.

How amazing.

The world is astonished. Today America returns to the light.

In a classic case of missing the point to strike a righteous pose, this:

Twice in two days now, I’ve come across news articles using the term “Big Brother” to refer to private sector information practices that affect privacy. Big Brother is not an appropriate shorthand here. In his book 1984, George Orwell gave the name “Big Brother” to the oppressive government that observed and controlled the lives of the book’s protagonists. The unique oppressive powers of this governmental entity were a central motif of the book.

Jim Harper, of the Technology Liberation Front, a pseudo-libertarian tech blog opposing Net Neutrality, points out that George Orwell's dystopic 1984 was about Communism, and therefore using the Big Brother phrase in the context of corporate invasions of privacy is inappropriate, thus rendering specious, apparently, such perspectives.

This misses the point, though, doesn't it? After all, what was the primary difference between the totalitarian control of Communism in the Soviet Union and the totalitarian control of Fascism in Nazi Germany? In the latter, corporations collaborated and cooperated with the government in exercising power over the people.

Perhaps it might be safe to assume that Mr. Harper would not appreciate life under Fascism, either, where claiming it was "Big Brother" would be technically incorrect, but pretty much describe otherwise the same result for the citizens.

The important distinction, I submit, is not between Communism and Fascism, but between authoritarian and totalitarian trends and values vs. privacy and choice and liberty and even the pursuit of happiness by the people.

Ironic how people proclaiming "liberation" keep excusing and rationalizing and apologizing for anti-competitive, government-protected corporate power.

Next we're going to hear how wonderful it would be to have government-financed but purely non-government corporate mercenary forces like Blackwater ruling the streets of America. After all, it wouldn't be "Big Brother," would it?

Republican candidates don't get the internet at all, it seems:

Conservative bloggers associated with the “Save the Debate” petition seem to be unconvinced that Republican candidates have really grasped the significance of the YouTube debate. George Ajjan, writing in New Jersey’s Herald News, takes Republicans to task for their failure to understand basic aspects of the political internet:

The comments of those skeptical about the YouTube debates sadly exemplify many of the traditional and stereotypical shortcomings of Republicans. The GOP has got to shatter the image of country-club elitism that plagues the party. Giuliani’s campaign prioritizing fundraising over a one-day commitment to appear before millions of viewers and answer tough questions directly from the electorate is deplorable and plays right into that regrettable typecast….

As far as YouTube itself goes, the issue is not that national Republicans don’t want to use new technologies. Both Giuliani and Romney have invested heavily in their online efforts and have specifically touted their embrace of YouTube as a campaigning medium. But their behavior seems to indicate the belief that the internet is a switch they can turn on and off, depending upon whether they’re in the mood to communicate. But the internet is always “on,” although it’s not always “on your terms.”

Until our party truly grasps that, we will continue to alienate voters and activists, especially young people for whom the internet is not “new,” but an integral part of their political upbringing.

The Republicans don’t have a technology problem, per se. They have an arrogance problem, and it’s spilling over into their online outreach efforts. Coming at a time when polls show young voters abandoning the GOP en masse, this bodes ill for the elephants.

The Right Field.

This is more than just arrogance, though. The internet is a medium that lends itself to free speech, egalitarian values (at least as far as right to ones own opinion goes), empowering the people.

The internet might have made sense in the old Republican party of Barry Goldwater, but it is really nothing but a threat to (or at best only a tool to be exploited by) modern day neo-Republicans who have ditched libertarian values in favor of big government as big brother.

In other words, it is not modern Republican arrogance that puts them at odds with the internet, but rather modern Republican culture that is diametrically opposed to a medium that gives us peasants a way of talking back at them ... and talking amongst ourselves.

Can the neo-Republicans and their vision of authoritarian government keeping the people in line succeed in the internet age? I doubt it. The party is already fraying and showing serious signs of breaking. They are going to have to reinvent themselves or destroy the internet to preserve their privilege.

Apparently Representative Tom Lantos supports the nuclear cooperation deal President Bush signed into law on the 18th, but stated that Bush can't just cut out the parts of the bill he doesn't like.

In a public ceremony on December 18th, President Bush signed the "Henry Hyde United States-India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act," permitting the US to export fuel to India's civilian nuclear energy program and broadly cooperate with the South Asian country in the nuclear sphere. Based on a variety of concerns that the deal would help India's nuclear weapons program or result in transfer of technology to states like Iran, Congress attached a wide range of conditions to the bill, requiring the president to certify that India was not taking actions that negatively affected US foreign policy goals.

But hours after the public ceremony, the White House issued a "presidential signing statement" which undercut nine substantive sections of the legislation, calling them advisory.

Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA), the Democrat who will take over as chairman of the House International Relations Committee next month, has told RAW STORY that the president's claim in the signing statement that the bill's provisions are advisory has no standing. "It's very clear what the legislation requires," Lantos said, "and the president may not like it, but it's there."

This could be a blow to the King George ethos prevalent in the White House these days.

Devoted wingnuts will almost certainly attack Lantos and other Democrats for this, but one can safely assume they wouldn't want a Democratic President dodging items of passed laws he or she doesn't like, either. In the end, it's probably better to have presidents obey and enforce the law rather than flaunt it for their own convenience.

I can hear the right-wing murmurs of "of course not!" After all, men have rights!

That's what the European Court for Human Rights ruled, too:

Natallie Evans, 35, from Wiltshire, made an emotional plea to her former fiancé to change his mind and let her use the embryos, which cannot be implanted without his consent [under British law].

Ms Evans was receiving fertility treatment in October 2001 when doctors discovered pre-cancerous cells on her ovaries. She immediately underwent a course of IVF, which produced six embryos fertilised by the sperm of her fiancé, Howard Johnston, before having her ovaries removed to head off the disease.

The next year, however, the couple split and Mr Johnston wrote to the fertility clinic asking it to destroy the stored embryos.

Natalie Bennett, whose post on this is where I saw this story, ponders:

Two judges dissented from the ruling, which makes an appeal to the absolute final court, the Grand Chamber, where it would be heard by 17 judges.

It is what you call a really tough one. A man surely has a right not to have children without consent, so I guess in the end while I have to feel for Evans, he should not be forced into parenthood.

And the suggestion of a "right to parenthood" suggested by the dissenting judge worries me. If there were such a thing, just how far would a society have to go to make it happen?

Well, in the United States, not very far ... when it comes to women. For the right-wing fad here in the United States is to force women who've become pregnant by any means to become parents (or at least give their lives in the endeavor).

Note that in either case there is a fertilized egg -- an embryo in the British case -- so it's not simply a matter of choice before the fact. We're talking about choice after the fertilization. The only difference is that Howard Johnston would not even have to provide of his body to make the baby happen, while women in South Dakota and many other states -- and the whole country, if the forced pregnancy advocates have their druthers -- would have to give of their blood, their energy, their time, their health, their ability to work, their employability, perhaps their lives to fulfill the forced parenthood mandated by the State.

Interesting that, for men, just the possibility of their genes -- which are considered their property -- living beyond their control is enough to preclude any State requirement that the men be forced into that situation, while with women, the genetic property view does not apply, and what's more, the fact that perpetuating the 9-month life-creation process must take place within their own bodies also is not enough to preclude forced pregnancy.

Two different continents. Two different sets of laws. Two different genders. Two different outcomes.

So to sum up:

1. Men have rights not to be forced into parenthood.
2. Women have no such right.

Any questions?