June 2009 archive

Burning the Midnight Oil for a Brawny Recovery

On Agent Orange, bonddad writes:

Among the most important of the rules Rosie laid down, in my opinion, is #12: Get the US consumer right and everything else will take care of itself.  The reason is fairly simple:  The U.S. consumer has the biggest balance sheet on the planet.  The U.S. consumer represents 70 percent of our GDP and about 18 percent of global GDP.

This is, however, following the entrenched habits of thought that got us into this mess in the first place. My reply, below the fold.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31…

Logging off – must keep phone line open – will update asap #Iranelection

From Persian Kiwi Twitter

Iran Reports 7 Deaths in Mass Protest Against Vote Result



By NAZILA FATHI and MICHAEL SLACKMAN

Published: June 16, 2009



TEHRAN – Less than 24 hours after the largest demonstrations here since the 1979 revolution, Iranian state radio reported Tuesday that seven people were killed in clashes overnight, ramping up tensions after days of unprecedented protests which have forced a formal review of Friday’s disputed election.

As dawn broke over this tense and divided nation, anticipation grew over what would come next, whether calls for a nationwide general strike and more protests would play out across the country, or if emotions would begin to cool. But, in defiance of the protests, which have undermined his legitimacy around the world, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad flew to a regional summit in Russia.

The millions who can’t go home

Refugees and internally displaced people are desperately vulnerable and must be a priority. Remember them on 20 June



António Guterres

guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 16 June 2009 08.30 BST

There are at least 42 million victims of conflict and persecution worldwide living as refugees or uprooted within their own countries, many of them for years on end.

Among them are nearly six million refugees who have been in exile, mostly in camps, for five years or longer in what humanitarians call “protracted refugee situations”. But these interminable situations do not include the millions more uprooted people who are displaced within their own countries and who far outnumber the world’s refugees. Many of them have also been unable to return home, sometimes for decades.

Although international law distinguishes between refugees and the internally displaced, such distinctions are absurd to those who have been forced from their homes and who have lost everything. Uprooted people are equally deserving of help whether they have crossed an international border or not. That is why the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, is working with other UN agencies to provide the internally displaced with the help they need, just as we do for refugees. But we have a long way to go.

USA

Calif. Aid Request Spurned By U.S.

Officials Push State To Repair Budget

By David Cho, Brady Dennis and Karl Vick

Washington Post Staff Writers

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

The Obama administration has turned back pleas for emergency aid from one of the biggest remaining threats to the economy — the state of California.

Top state officials have gone hat in hand to the administration, armed with dire warnings of a fast-approaching “fiscal meltdown” caused by a budget shortfall. Concern has grown inside the White House in recent weeks as California’s fiscal condition has worsened, leading to high-level administration meetings. But federal officials are worried that a bailout of California would set off a cascade of demands from other states.

With an economy larger than Canada’s or Brazil’s, the state is too big to fail, California officials urge.

It will be twittered and blogged.

(I am leaving reporting on Iran’s Revolution itself for worthier minds, and less busy minds, but wanted to briefly address this one angle. I woke myself at 5am to do so.)

Iran has grabbed control of radio and TV communication, predictably, as would our own nation should we ever try to regain control of our own Corporatocracy.

The frightening thing is, this is a template, if you will, of how a Nation must be ready to technologically block information. Every despot and intelligence agency in the World is taking notes and making plans, including our own Internet Czar.

Sure they can shut down phone service, but how to block all the satellite uplinks that drive the internet and cell phones? The images and reports go viral instantaneously across the globe; especially with a young and savvy population. Standing in a crowd, it is easy to get off a one line twitter, so that all concerned can follow the tag and have warning. or hear of new protest plans. Texting will only go to your circle, so the hashmark tag allows anyone who uses it to connect with all Iranians of a like mine.

People don’t talk about it in terms of “the hive mind” for nothing.

I’ve been riveted all day to the news coming via Twitter about Iran.

I seem to recall an election in the US in which there was a similar dispute about who had won.  I don’t recall millions going into the streets.  I don’t recall the “defeated” candidate calling on people to bring on non-violent, silent protests and mass gatherings.  I wish that had happened in the US. But, sadly, it didn’t.  And look what the next 8 years brought.  The Iranian people unlike the US seem to understand the significance and the consequences of a stolen election.  And they appear to want to do something about it.

So it appears that Iran has at this moment a time of both intense risk and enormous opportunity.

As I type this, hundreds of thousands of people are in the streets across Iran because they know that their election was stolen, that their votes were not counted, that the election was a sham, that their democracy has failed them.  They are angry, and they want a restoration of their democracy.  And they are going to demand a fair election and a fair counting of the votes.

How do we in the US support the Iranian People’s Protests?

I turn to you for the answers, for the tactics, for the approach.  The Iranian People’s Protests deserve our support.  Let’s put our heads together.

Here are two small examples of what we’re looking for. Twitter users are being urged to change their location to Tehran and their time zone to GMT +3 to give protection, however slight, to those in Iran who are reporting the news who are being followed by the authorities.  A second example:  Twitter was scheduled for maintenance this evening.  That would have shut off the Iranian news tweets.  Twitter re-scheduled its maintenance.

And now I ask again: what can we do to help?

Update: 6/16/09, 8:40 ET: Green icons for twitter are a click away.