Category: Political

I’m glad that the NYT is covering the trend toward the use of open source software in politics.
Unfortunately, the article embraces the “spin” of the content industry, repeating the canard that advocates of open source and the cultural commons are anti-intellectual property.
“Many of them propose rewriting intellectual property laws worldwide to limit their scope and duration.”
The fact is, the content industries have presided over unprecedented expansion of intellectual property control. Activists are trying to roll back the power grab to a reasonable balance between ownership and the exchange of ideas that enables cultural growth and technical innovation.
Also, the article focuses on the collective and “free as in beer” side of open source. They describe open source technology for politics as a cash-free, collective technofarm. This misses the economic structure of open source deployment.
Some of the development for Dean and other grassroots activism has been volunteer work — this is opening brand new channels for grass roots organizing, using volunteer labor and open source tools.
Meanwhile, the development for mainstream campaigns is done by paid consultants using open source and proprietary tools. Campaigns continue to pay money for development, support, and service accountability.
By using open source software, and contributing changes to the community, they save money on software license fees. Software license fees are typically only 25% to 30% of the total price of software deployment.
I’m glad they’re covering the story, but this article misses the point.

from the Washington Post

According to the Washington Post, Iraq’s incoming government is opposing “a U.S. demand that thousands of foreign contractors here be granted immunity from Iraqi law, in the same way as U.S. military forces are now immune”.
Meanwhile, the the Pentagon has awarded a $293-million contract to create the world’s largest private army, to a mercenary firm with a reputation for smuggling.
John Robb, who’s been doing an amazing job covering networked guerrilla war, cites CorpWatch on the the contract awarded to Aegis a company headed by Lieutenant Colonel Tim Spicer, a former officer with the SAS (NOTE: this is disputed), an elite regiment of British commandos, who has been investigated for illegally smuggling arms and planning military offensives to support mining, oil, and gas operations around the world. On May 25, the Army Transportation command awarded Spicer’s company, Aegis Defense Services, the contract to coordinate all the security for Iraqi reconstruction projects.
Also via John Robb, the New York Times has a scathing analysis of Aegis and US mercenary policy by Peter Singer, author of “Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry.”
The claim that the US invaded Iraq to bring democracy and rule of law does not sound very credible.

Her career is surely over already, good for her for speaking out.
Karpinski told the BBC that military intelligence came to Abu Graib, took over interrogation, and told soldiers to treat prisoners ‘like dogs,” using methods from Guantanamo. Then she is blamed for the torture that occured on her watch.
The Washington Post has documents showing that General Sanchez, the senior military officer in Iraq, authorized high-pressure interrogation techniques borrowed from Guantanamo.
Looks like there might be enough free press and brave public servants to get the US out of the Gulag business.
Stalin and Saddam Hussein could get away with decades of criminality because they could have disloyal officers and informants shot. Our whistleblowers can show more loyalty to US principles than to their bosses and live.

According to this story in Reuters and other news media, the president is not bound by US and international laws banning torture.
Is Bush a King, and therefore above the law? What form of government do we have these days?

A handy 1-10 scale measuring the level of diplomacy in a statement or exchange.
-1 – rude, hostile
0 – emotionally honest
1 – blunt
2-3 – frank and direct
4-6 – normal politeness
7-8 – diplomatic flattery. marketing-speak.
10 – obfuscated so as to prevent understanding. consultants and lawyers.
12 – deliberately communicates different things to different listeners

Political-good: working co-operatively among people with differing interests to discover and achieve common goals. Having the ability to empathize with people of varying perspectives, and communicate common objectives in the listener’s language. Acting on principle, and approaching one’s ideals through pragmatic tactics and achievable steps.
Political-bad: striving to achieve personal ambition and factional gain by fostering divisions. The ability to look good to ones superiors at the expense of good results. Loyalty measured by fine-grained calculation of personal/factional benefit. Willing to sell out any principle in the interest of popularity.

from the link pile… the feds subpoena student war protester records, and issue a gag order preventing the school from talking about it. What country do we live in?

A federal judge has ordered Drake University to turn over all records for students who attended a November 15th forum for anti-war activists. Representatives of the Lawyer’s Guild, the organization that sponsored the forum, and the American Civil Liberties Union said they had not heard of such a subpoena being served on any U.S. university in decades; the activists targeted with subpoenas say that investigators are trying to link them to a librarian at a peace rally who was charged with resisting arrest. A source says the judge has issued a gag order forbidding the school from discussing the subpoenas.

Salon via

The President of the United States is running for re-election on an anti-civil rights platform. Think about it.

David Weinberger said something great about the allegation that online political conversations create an “echo chamber.”
Some of the time you want to talk to people who are different and learn from them. Some of the time you want to find supporters, energize supporters, and acheive a goal. You don’t have to do both things at the same time.
When you’re learning and coalition-building, it’s good talk to everyone, find and create common ground. When you’re trying to achieve the goal, you find allies, co-ordinate with them, cheer with them.