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an adoration of all things rad

Mar 19th, 2013 @ 8:56 pm

The Iraq War: 10 Years Later

Invading and occupying Iraq was a non sequitur in the “global war on terror.” There was no pressing military or foreign policy goal involved. The move on Iraq was a political response to the failure to capture Osama bin Laden. When you can’t lash out at an actual problem, why not take a swing at a country—especially one ruled by an absolutely unredeemable figure such as Saddam Hussein—that you’ve already effectively contained?

That’s why the Bush administration sold the war not simply as a necessary step in stemming the supposedly existential threat of radical Islam but as an affordable exercise in nation- and region-building. Remember when Bush adviser Larry Lindsey got canned for suggesting that the war might be as much as $200 billion?We’re now looking at a $6 trillion price tag, a total that pales in comparison to the human toll, which is somewhere north of 176,000 people. It’s worth constantly recounting the cost and stupidity of the Iraq war because we’ve already started to forget it.

Indeed, we started to forget just how ill conceived and poorly executed the whole thing was even before we kinda sorta left Iraq. 

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Oct 8th, 2012 @ 9:27 am

Reddit's plan to drop an open internet 'geek bomb' on lawmakers

In one of the first stops on the Internet 2012 bus tour, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian spontaneously offered an idea to the public of Boulder, Colorado: “what if we chose a day to geek bomb DC, a national geek summit?” The idea is to gather folks from the right constituencies — specifically the startup community — to talk to their representatives in Washington. And while Ohanian insists the idea was improvised on the spot, the idea isn’t new: “lobby days” are a classic tactic for many organizations that work to influence the government. It’s also a sign, however tentative, that Reddit’s foray into politics is now serious business.

Whether Reddit and its allies can harness that energy over the long-term, and how, is still a mystery, but Ohanian plans to attack the issue as an outsider. “I love the meritocracy of the internet, where the best idea can win,” he says. “When you go to DC you realize that’s not the case.”

*Fantastic idea.

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Aug 10th, 2012 @ 1:47 am

Reblogged from (╯ಥ_ಥ)╯ ლ(ಠ益ಠლ).

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Apr 17th, 2012 @ 4:49 pm

6 political things we all can agree on? Maybe… Probably not…

Here are some things I think we can all agree to be angry about:

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe we can’t even agree on this. But it seems pretty simple to me.

If we want the system to work better we need to be active and pay more attention to it. The media will follow. They sell us what we want. If we want government transparency and corporate accountability, they will give us more of that. The more open something is, the more it is forced to operate effectively. 

The apathetic attitude of our family and friends is our responsibility to change.

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Mar 1st, 2012 @ 12:24 pm

Want an Open Internet? There's a Blueprint for That

*This is a step in the right direction. Transparency in policy-making is always a good idea.

Yesterday Jihii wrote about an effort originating in the Reddit community to crowdsource a privacy bill to protect people’s online rights.

Perhaps, then, a trend, because yesterday also saw the launch The Internet Blueprint, an effort by Public Knowledge, a Washington DC-based digital advocacy group, that crowdsources technology bills that members of Congress can then pick up and run with.

The idea is certainly interesting. What we saw recently in the fights over SOPA and PIPA — and see generally over everything else — is reactive protests against proposed laws drafted with little public input and often by the lobbyists whose groups will most benefit from them.

The Internet Blueprint attempts to turn this process on its head by proactively promoting Internet-related laws that are written in public, by the public (and with Public Knowledge lawyers massaging them into proper DC legalese). Visitors to the site can vote up and comment on particular bills, vote on ideas they think should become proposed bills, and contact their representatives to get behind completed bills.

Via Public Knowledge:

While it can be reasonably easy to get people to agree on broad principles, conflict can often come when it is time to focus on details. That is especially true when it comes to legislative language – a single word (or even a single comma) can change the impact of a bill. That is why The Internet Blueprint goes beyond broad concepts and proposes concrete legislative language. The bills on The Internet Blueprint could be introduced and passed as-is.

The Internet Blueprint is a place for everyone – individuals, organizations, and companies – to come together and make it clear what is important to them. When you visit the site, the first thing you will see is a list of complete bills. Along with the text there is a headline, a short explanation, and a more detailed explanation of both the problem and our solution.

Public Knowledge has seeded the site with a few completed bills that focus on copyright policy and openness in international intellectual property negotiations. You can view them here.

via futurejournalismproject

Reblogged from The FJP.

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Dec 24th, 2011 @ 1:00 pm

thepoliticalnotebook:

Tens of thousands of Russians are currently protesting in Moscow… rallying against election fraud and the 12-year rule of Vladimir Putin. You’re probably wondering about what Putin is wearing on his head in that protest sign… That’s a condom. Aside from the fact it’s simply ridiculously funny (quick, somebody start a Tumblr of pictures of hated world leaders with condoms on their heads), it’s in reference to a comment he himself made a few weeks ago about the white ribbons worn by the protesters:

To be honest, when I saw on the TV screens what some people had attached to themselves, it’s not very polite, I thought it was an anti-AIDS campaign; I thought that they had stuck condoms on themselves.

The second picture gives you a little bit of a sense of exactly how big a crowd is rallying in Moscow, chanting “Russia without Putin!” and “New elections!” 

Photo 1: Tatyna Makeyeva/Reuters. Photo 2: Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP

Read the stories at MSNBC and the Guardian.

Reblogged from The Political Notebook.

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Dec 18th, 2011 @ 11:02 am

*Almost 4,500 US soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqis have died since the war began in 2003. The occupation has cost the U.S. government at least $1 trillion. And let’s not forget that we leave behind the largest U.S. Embassy in the world with over 16,000 State Department workers and security contractors.  End Of An Era of the Day: Early this morning, the last US troop crossed the Iraqi border into Kuwait, closing the door behind him. Literally: “The gate to #iraq is closed,” tweeted NBC News’ Richard Engel. “Soldier just told me, ‘that’s it, the war is over.’” Approximately 100 MRAP armored vehicles with some 500 American soldiers on board made up the very last column to leave the country. The trek from their base to the border lasted five hours. “I just can’t wait to call my wife and kids and let them know I am safe,” said Sgt. First Class Rodolfo Ruiz when the company was in sight of the border. “Hey guys, you made it,” he later announced to his soldiers, with Iraq, and the war, to their backs.  Below: A U.S. Air Force MQ-1 Predator drone watches overhead as the last troops leave Iraq.  [msnbc / wired / photo: getty via nyt.] via thedailywhat

*Almost 4,500 US soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqis have died since the war began in 2003. The occupation has cost the U.S. government at least $1 trillion. And let’s not forget that we leave behind the largest U.S. Embassy in the world with over 16,000 State Department workers and security contractors. 

End Of An Era of the Day: Early this morning, the last US troop crossed the Iraqi border into Kuwait, closing the door behind him.

Literally: “The gate to #iraq is closed,” tweeted NBC News’ Richard Engel. “Soldier just told me, ‘that’s it, the war is over.’”

Approximately 100 MRAP armored vehicles with some 500 American soldiers on board made up the very last column to leave the country. The trek from their base to the border lasted five hours.

“I just can’t wait to call my wife and kids and let them know I am safe,” said Sgt. First Class Rodolfo Ruiz when the company was in sight of the border. “Hey guys, you made it,” he later announced to his soldiers, with Iraq, and the war, to their backs. 

Below: A U.S. Air Force MQ-1 Predator drone watches overhead as the last troops leave Iraq. 

[msnbc / wired / photo: getty via nyt.]

via thedailywhat

Reblogged from The Daily What.

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Dec 2nd, 2011 @ 2:48 pm

“The government decides to try to increase the middle class by subsidizing things that middle class people have: If middle-class people go to college and own homes, then surely if more people go to college and own homes, we’ll have more middle-class people. But homeownership and college aren’t causes of middle-class status, they’re markers for possessing the kinds of traits — self-discipline, the ability to defer gratification, etc. — that let you enter, and stay, in the middle class. Subsidizing the markers doesn’t produce the traits; if anything, it undermines them.”

Glenn Reynolds (via bunkercomplex)

Reblogged from Bunker Complex.

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Dec 1st, 2011 @ 5:13 pm

A Revelation; The Fed Grants $7.77 Trillion in Secret Bank Loans – The Fed Works for Banks, Not The Rest of America

Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), a longtime advocate for reform of the Federal Reserve, is sharply criticizing the Federal Reserve today after Bloomberg news reported that the Federal Reserve secretly committed nearly $8 trillion in support to American and international financial institutions during the 2008 bailout. Kucinich recorded a video for his website before going to the floor of the House of Representatives to call upon Congress to reclaim its Constitution primacy over monetary policy.

Kucinich also called threats by ratings agency to downgrade U.S. debt a threat to our national sovereignty.

See Kucinich on the floor of the U.S. House HERE.

See Kucinich’s web address HERE.

“The Federal Reserve extended extraordinary support to financial institutions that crashed the economy with reckless speculation, and on that support many of the firms made billions in profit and paid obscene bonuses. The Fed asked for nothing from these firms in return and that is because the Federal Reserve works first and foremost for the welfare of private financial institutions, not the American economy.

“The message that emerges from these revelations for Americans who have lost their jobs, lost their homes, or watched their retirement nest eggs disappear is that we have unlimited resources available for the banks, but nothing for the American people,” Kucinich stated.

The Bloomberg report is the result of a court-ordered release of over 29,000 pages of Federal Reserve documents and records of more than 21,000 transactions. Through direct lending, loan guarantees and enhanced lending limits, the Federal Reserve supported national and international financial firms with as much as $7.77 trillion as of March 2009. The $7.77 trillion provided dwarfs the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) cap mandated by Congress.  

Congressman Kucinich introduced legislation that would impose transparency on the Federal Reserve. The National Emergency Employment Defense (NEED) Act, HR 2990, would incorporate the Federal Reserve within the United States Treasury. The bill would establish fiscal integrity, reassert Congressional sovereignty and allow the federal government to correct crippling national deficiencies in infrastructure repairs and education nationwide by spending money into circulation without increasing the national debt or causing inflation. 

Learn more about the NEED Act here.

Reblogged from words of love and despair.

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