I’m outraged by St. Paul law enforcement’s overly aggressive and violent tactics to stifle independent journalism.
Yesterday, police in St. Paul arrested several journalists, including Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman and an AP photographer as they were covering protests of the Republican National Convention. Get involved in this campaign by demanding that press intimidation cease immediately, and that all charges be dropped.
Take action at: https://secure.freepress.net/site/Advocacy?id=281
So says Andrew Young former Mayor of New York and former ambassador to the UN. In an live tv interview young stated “Bill is every bit as black as Barack. He’s probably gone with more black women than Barack,” he immediately added, “I’m clowning.” This sentence has set off a firestorm of media coverage, myself included. But does it really mean anything? This really does sound more like humor than a derogatory remark. Yes I understand that some woman will feel that Mr. Young’s statement objectives woman and that it defines ones race by the number of woman of that race you have “gone” with. But I do not think this is the case. I think what Mr. Young was simply stating is that Bill Clinton has the experience to understand what the Black community wants from its leaders. To say its anything more than that leads me to believe that someone is pushing an agenda and using Mr. Young’s clumsy attempt at humor to do it.
Well I’m a little late in writing about this, but Al Gore has won the Nobel Peace Prize jointly with the UN International Panel on Climate Change. And I think this is a wonderful, Al Gore has done a tremendous amount to raise awareness about Global warming. Now don’t get me wrong I wrote a whole post about how we are too focused on global warming itself and how reducing our waste and CO2 outputs and other nonsense is a waste of time and money. While I do agree that we are a increasing the rate at which our planet is warming, I think our current focus on how to fix the problem is all wrong. What we need to do is change our technology, you will not get everyone on their plane to change their life style, but if you can change the technology that runs that life style you will be on a much better road to improving our enviroment.
So anyway back to Al, If there is one one man who has done a lot for this country I think it is Al Gore, he seems to be a true visionary in many fields ands seems to truly care about the future of mankind and our planet. Believe it or not while Al Gore did not personally invent the Internet (A claim he never made), he did push for, fight for the funding for the DARPA project that eventually became the internet, he also pushed for many government acts that brought the Internet to its current form.
My Congratulations to you Mr. Gore, you deserve it. I just wish more of us were like you.
I’ve been meaning to type this up for awhile, it originally stemmed from an commment I made on another blog so I figured I would blog it and expand on my views so here it goes:
There is a time and a place for everything, do I think excessive force was used on Andrew Meyer, yes I do. Do I think he acted in a manor deserving of some force yes I do. When you go to an event like that, there are rules, just like there are in everyday life, you bend or break those rules and you have consequences. I’m not saying you shouldn’t break or bend rules when you deem its necessary to get your point across. What I am saying is you have consequences and you have to accept them, good or bad.
Andrew Meyer got his consequences and now the police have to accept there consequences, and if you think there are none for them, your wrong. But I think we will see more of this type of pushing of the limits as more and more people wake up to teh reality that the latest American regime has put us in. Its not one of protector and liberator. We are now being oppressed ourselves, we are being spyied on by our own government, illegally, and we do nothing. And when someone finally stands up and says hey! Thats illegal! What does our government do, it changes the laws to make it legal? how does this make sense?
If Americans do not do like Andrew Meyer and stand up for what they believe, how will we change? We are all afraid of consequences, and if you do stand up like Mr. Meyer you will most certainly have consequencs. but when you get older don’t you want to be able to say, I stood up…I did something when I saw injustice.
Saw this on CNN today, “Taser this: Fuck Bush.” This was written by an 20 year old student editor of the Colorado State University’s newspaper. It really amazes me that this is an issue worth national news attention and worth a student losing a job over. I mean seriously? First amendment people, editorial equals opinion, and last time I checked the patriot act doesn’t limit us from telling our opinion (Disclaimer: As long as that opinion does not threaten, interject harm or contain outright slander.) about someone.
This student felt the need to share his opinion of the American president, sentiments shared by a good many people. Does this mean he should get off scot-free for using offensive language in a newspaper? I think that depends on the newspaper ethical rules. I think the kid got what he deserved and I’m sure he will put more thought into his next editorial.
I have no problem admitting I am a Democrat, not out of loyalty to a particular political party or any overt interest in politics, I vote Democrat mainly because their views more closely match my own rather than the Republicans.
There is only one republican I would consider voting for and that is Ron Paul. Ron aligns closely with traditional American values, small government, reigned in by the Constitution of the United States. And he votes that way, he is not one of todays modern politician who talks the talk but rarely walks the walk. Ron votes his stance, he believes the constitution is not a hinderer to legislate around. He is also in favor of talking first, not blustering and threatening.
America has lost much of its shine in world opinion, is this a big factor to me, no, not really…but it used to be a source of pride, and with our latest America Regime, we destroyed our reputation on the hope that MAYBE they, the regime, could maybe keep us safe. How are we supposed to keep our country safe when we can’t even talk to our enemies, this makes no sense to me. We are trying to keep ourself safe from Iran and the possible radical fundementalist it harbors, yet we won’t even talk to them at a decent diplomatic level? in my eyes all that can do is increase the tension, the mistrust and the likelyhood we will send more of our American youth to die in a war that could be adverted by talking.
Anyway, back to the subject, if by some miracle Ron makes the Republican ticket, The Democrats will be hard pressed to get me to vote for someone else, the Democrats would have to do a better job than they are now to keep me out of Ron’s camp come presidential elections.