Left In Lowell

{Cross posted on BMG and Dailykos (please recommend on each site if you can). This is by far the most important story in America this week.}

Buried deep, deep under the seriously unvetted veep choice of John McCain, under Gustav, and under the formless, content-free speechmaking at the Republican convention, is the real scary story of the week - the scene outside of the RNC convention in St. Paul.

By all accounts, fascism is here, and it is us. The scenes just from that one Greenwald post alone should cause you great worry for our democracy. (more…)

Information is a precious and precarious commodity these days. Many “trusted” companies you do business with are selling their data on you to other companies. Junk mail and spam attack you at all angles, scams abound, and the universe is getting smaller and smaller.

Conservatives and liberals alike ought to be very, very frightened of our Big Brother culture. Because Big Brother is doing it…again:

Siobhan Gorman of The Wall Street Journal reports this morning that the National Security Agency has assembled what some intelligence officials admit is a driftnet for domestic and foreign communications.

Here’s the way the whole thing works, according to Gorman: into the NSA’s massive database goes data collected by the Justice Department, Department of Homeland Security, and the Department of Treasury. This information includes data about email (recipient and sender address, subject, time sent), internet searches (sites visited and searches conducted), phone calls (incoming and outgoing numbers, length of call, location), financial information (wire transfers, credit-card use, information about bank accounts), and information from the DHS about airline passengers.
[…]
Gorman describes the NSA’s effort (elements of which have been reported before) as basically a resurrection of the Pentagon’s Total Information Awareness program, which of course was de-funded by Congress once the details became public.

OK, so the NSA figured out that naming a program Total Information Awareness sounded really Orwellian. So they changed the name and kept doing it - even after Congress said “No!”. Can someone tell me just where the due process is? Hello? Do we even have a Bill of Rights anymore?

And how important do you think it is to keep telecom immunity out of the FISA bill now?

What, you don’t trust these guys with your open and fair internet? From Free Press:

Comcast Blocks Public Debate at FCC Hearing
WASHINGTON — Comcast has admitted hiring people to fill up the limited number of seats at yesterday’s Federal Communications Commission hearing at Harvard. More than 100 people were turned away when the event reached capacity. The public hearing was part of the federal agency’s ongoing investigation into allegations that the cable giant is blocking consumers’ access to legal Web traffic.

Timothy Karr, campaign director of SavetheInternet.com, issued the following statement:

“First, Comcast was caught blocking the Internet. Now it has been caught blocking the public from the debate. The only people cheering Comcast are those paid to do so. Clearly, Comcast will resort to just about any underhanded tactic to stack the decks in its favor. And yet Comcast still expects us to trust them with the future of the Internet?”

Read Portfolio’s story.

Read the SavetheInternet.com blog.

On today’s WBUR news, I heard a snippet of important reporting from yesterday’s Cambridge FCC public hearing on net neutrality. It sounds like the Chair, who is a Republican Bush appointee, is quoted as being against allowing the ISPs (internet providers) to pick and choose what traffic they can stifle. That’s good news for the future of free and fair use of the internet. You can listen or read the transcript of the report.

The Federal Communications Commission may have fired the first shot in what some are calling a fight over the future of the internet. Following a hearing in Cambridge yesterday, the head of the FCC said he’s ready to punish internet providers who purposefully slow down the transfer of massive files such as videos. WBUR’s Business and Technology Reporter Curt Nickisch has more.

[snip]

NICKISCH: After the hearing, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said he’s prepared to stop Internet providers from hobbling traffic. That’s a key statement from a Republican who generally favors the market sorting things out on its own. Martin and the rest of the panel may get some help from Massachusetts Congressman Edward Markey. He introduced a bill last week that would give the FCC more authority on the issue.

In rulings over the decades, the Supreme Court has made it clear that money equals speech. This is a conservative “market” viewpoint, largely, carried out in conservative pro-market courts. However, in yet another stunning display of IOKIYAR (It’s OK If You Are Republican), money should only equal speech if Republicans like the message.

David Shuster, subbing in for Tucker (why do people keep giving him shows? His ratings always suck) on MSNBC, hits guest Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) with the fact that Rush Limbaugh and one of his callers has used the term “Senator Betray-us” in reference to Sen. Chuck Hagel, and asks her if that was wrong too. Blackburn’s answer? “But Rush Limbaugh did not go in and buy an ad and place it with the New York Times…”

So, if you’re keeping score…buying speech is OK. Buying speech while liberal…not OK. Got it?

Dick Howe’s already got a write up on the Kevin Thompson (Constitutional Party candidate for MA-05) video from the Folk Festival about his curtailed free speech rights, which you can find here.

First, I just have to say that I despise the Constitution Party. The day they win a seat in Congress will be a sad day for America. While they claim to be for liberty and the Constitution, they want to tell women what to do with their bodies, proclaim the US a Christian nation, and of course gays have no rights according to them.

However, there are two points being made by Thompson with this video - one which deserves debate, and the other which is plainly a simple matter of fairness.

The first is the very concept of these so-called “free speech zones” in the public square. Peace groups and other organizations across this nation have encountered this bizarre concept over the years. If land is owned in public trust (such as the JFK Plaza), can’t it be said to always be a free speech zone? Since others have argued pretty passionately that the Constitution prohibits sign ordinances (that may or may not be in place in Lowell) against political signs on private property, what about public use of public land? So, that’s a debate to have (and I’m not sure what the answer is, though I disagree with Dick - I doubt the Folk Fest people really considered all the constitutional ramifications of having such a policy, they are just following the policy everyone else employs, rightly or wrongly.)

The second issue, and the real problem, is who followed the rules and who didn’t. That is an issue of basic fairness, and I do know the answer to this one.

The Eldridge campaign came out for the Festival on Saturday and I joined them. They were told by Festival people, no signs, no handouts. You can come, and you can talk to people, but nothing else, says they. Apparently, other campaigns were being told different things about “Free Speech Zones,” but more on that later. For now, suffice it to say I met Jamie and his entourage from the time they parked their cars, to the time they left in their cars, and Jamie and his people followed the rules they were told to. No signs, no handouts. We wore teeshirts with Jamie for Congress on them, and we wandered around talking to people.

This, despite the fact we too witnessed the Ogonowski crew with multiple signs, right near the “entrance” to the Folk Fest, where people stream in from the parking garage and much of the food is located. I had also seen them on Friday night as well. It steamed me at the time, because of what I knew the Festival people had told Jamie’s campaign. Did Ogonowski’s people even bother to find out the rules? Or were they just ignoring them? Either way, they should have been stopped.

I also have heard other candidates passed out handouts (frisbees?). Perhaps they were in one of the famous “Free Speech Zones” that we were not told about. (Trust me, Jamie’s people really would have loved to have the chance to pass out information.) Regardless, the information, and the enforcement, of the rules for candidates was inconsistent. The blame falls squarely on the shoulders of Festival organizers and the Lowell National Park employees, much as I love those guys. Never mind the fact that it’s questionable to stop someone from campaigning in the public square, especially if they are gathering official state of Massachusetts petition signatures (either for ballot initiative or candidacy status). I seem to remember people doing it last year for the Green party for Grace Ross, by the way, which I gladly signed.

The comments I made in previous post regarding political signs are not an attempt by me or anyone else to suppress political speech, on the contrary. This is the only purpose of this blog; to give everyone an opportunity to express their views, anonymously at that.

However, my City is turning into a flea market because certain candidates for the Lowell City Council and their “enthusiastic supporters” do not care about the visual noise level they have created.

I am in full support with CC Rodney Elliott’s timely motion, made two weeks ago during the bi-weekly (summer schedule) Lowell City Council: “Have the City Manager develop regulations on political signs and forward it to the Zoning Sub-Committee (CCs Kevin Broderick, Chair and Jim Millinazo, and Elliott members) for their review and discussion”; then public hearings and eventual vote at a full City Council meeting.

CC Elliott made sure to emphasize that his intent was not to suppress free speech but rather to put into place a set of rules and regulations that all campaigns understand and can follow. Right now it is the wild, wild west. In a previous post, Commentator EaboClipper linked to a first amendment web site regarding yard signs. I liked the following paragraph because it addresses the problem that Lowell is currently facing: (more…)

Apparently there was a to-do among MA liberal blogs over the weekend while I was taking a break from all things computer, regarding the death of the anti-gay amendment at the ConCon, and the fact that gaveling the ConCon to recess (until the day before the current session of the legislature ends) also ended the chances of the health care amendment among a few others, because they were scheduled numerically for after the anti-gay amendment.

The tail ends of the fracas can still be seen at BMG and elsewhere. I haven’t even bothered reading most of it, frankly.

Now, it’s not to say this is a silly discussion. There’s a lot at stake for both progressive groups (those trying to protect the civil rights of gays, and those trying to make it a civil right to have health care). But there was some ire on both sides, and though these internet tussles hardly ever evolve into full-fledge movement-splitters, sometimes I wish I could knock my progressive brothers and sisters (gently) upside the head.

The fact remains, the ballot-initiative-loophole for amending the state constitution via this much lower standard is deeply, deeply flawed. It’s too easy to find 50 out of 200 legislatures to be for or against something. Maybe this wasn’t an issue previously, but now, we’re starting to see a plethora of groups take advantage of it. On the one hand, an amendment I really like, to make health care a right for all citizens of the Commonwealth. On the other, an amendment so hateful and discriminatory I’m ashamed to see it get even the 50 votes it needs to move on to the second ConCon.

The state constitution, though a lesser document than our US Constitution, should not be a meaningless piece of paper. Much as I would love to see a health care clause in it, I don’t think this loophole is the way to do it. Usually, what winds up happening in civil rights cases is that the Supreme Court is morally and socially ahead of the public and the legislature, as it was when it ruled that under our state constitution, gays have a legal right to marry (any rights not explicitly denied and all that). Sometimes, a right, however it was proposed, is so important that it becomes enshrined in the Constitution via a complicated and difficult process. That process is what gives that document its meaning, keeps it from changing back and forth on a single issue from generation to generation, and how rights therein stay rights for - presumably - all time. Or at least a meaningful amount of time.

I don’t think the issue here is progressive vs. progressive on various amendments. I think the real problem here is the way they both got into Constitutional Convention in the first place. Sure, keep the citizen petition part of the process; allow citizens to bring up amendments to the ConCon for two subsequent years for a vote. But for the Commonwealth’s sake, make that amendment thereafter go through the same process to become part of our constitution as with any other way of introducing it. As such, I am fine with the both of these amendments themselves being killed by a procedural hiccup.

Now, if someone would just propose an amendment to fix the loophole, please.

[Update: Matt Stoller is reporting that we’ve won the vote in the committee. Meehan voted yes, Delahunt voted present, and was listed previously as leaning no. That probably means that phone calls from his constituants at least made him take pause.]

Meehan is on the committee reviewing the Sensenbrenner-Conyers Net Neutrality bill (HR 5417). It is going to be attacked with amendments, and they are being urged by certain groups to vote against it. The bill as-is is being supported by people like Matt Stoller, who keep tabs closely on this sort of legeslation. We need this passed without amendments.

Meehan and Delahunt are on the committee. So give them a call if you are in their district and demand that they vote for this bill as-is with no amendments. Meehan’s DC staffer said she thought he was still “considering” the bill. Now is your chance to make a difference.

William Delahunt (D-Mass. 10th)
Phone: (202) 225-3111
Fax: (202) 225-5658
William.Delahunt@mail.house.gov

Marty Meehan (D-Mass. 5th)
Phone: (202) 225-3411
Fax: (202) 226-0771
martin.meehan@mail.house.gov

This is the last time I will dignify WCAP attacks with a response, so listen carefully.

I know this blog, and myself and my fellow writers, are probably being scapegoated for the pro-Cox types who believe we had a hand in getting him fired. I’m flattered that people think I have that much influence, really I am, but come on, a girl with a blog website had nothing to do with the guy getting canned. Cox did that all by his lonesome self by pissing off one too many city councilors and not doing his job appropriately. The fact that those supporters who had the most to lose came out with a $3,000+ campaign-style crusade and showed their true colors to the city and it backfired is also none of my doing. The only thing I did was make sure it happened in the open, and even then, did anyone seriously think this wasn’t going to come out anyway?

But it appears this little “uninfluential” blog no one pays attention to has gotten under somebody’s skin. This radio crusade to marginalize us only makes us stronger, gives us credibility as members of this debate. It’s nice to have air time, I guess you could say. If we were truly inconsequential, we would be ignored.

Now, as to accusations of my being so far out of the mainstream as to evoke comparisons to the KKK’s David Duke, NAMBLA, or whatever other inane rhetoric comes out these desperate people, all I can say is…read the polls. Like the one that says that 62% of America wants government-run universal health care. Or the one that says that only 33% of Americans approve of Bush. Or maybe the one that was done in 2001, when 61% of Americans said we should join the Kyoto Protocol. On Social Security. Iraq. Government transparency. I could keep going, but you get the point.

Seems like I’m pretty much in the mainstream. I can’t think of one position I take that isn’t in line with liberal or Democratic ideals, not to mention the mainstream of the country, that silent majority who is learning not to be silent anymore. It’s people like me that you are afraid of - the overwhelming masses, given a voice - one blog, one writer or commentator or editorialist at a time. You are afraid to be irrelevant and in the minority, because you know you already are. You don’t want to lose your influence and power to truly democratic processes; the bane of sweetheart deals and elbow-rubbing with the elite. It’s only human to grasp on to your power (political, monetary, or both) and attack those to wish to spread it around to the governed. I understand you. I understand you, even as I continue to fight, along with so many, many others, to hold each and every one of you accountable.

If you are trying to stress me out by dragging my name through the mud, I honestly could care less what you say. You only make yourselves look extreme, not me. I am the soccer mom, the blue collar worker, the highly religious, the atheist. I am the city employee and the private entrepreneur. I am the artist and the engineer and that guy flipping your burger. I am the mainstream.

I don’t think it would be overdramatic to say: hear me roar.