Author's posts
Jan 13 2009
Live streaming NOW: “Shaping the Obama Administration’s Counterterrorism Policy”
Quick heads up: Bruce Schneier is part of a 4 person panel speaking RIGHT NOW – 9am EST – at the second day of this two-day conference at the CATO Institute in DC.
Dec 19 2008
New School University students in NYC have occupied bldg, demanding resignations and policy changes
(NB: Sent out via CodePink listserv)
Action is going on NOW, if you are local PLEASE GET OUT IN THE STREETS!
They need local NYC based support, if someone wants to cut and paste this to the Orange Beelzebub or any other forum by all means do so.
From: m burgess
Date: Thu, Dec 18, 2008 at 4:09 PM
Subject: activists needed: 65 fifth ave (between 13 & 14th)Last night, the NSU students took over the cafeteria in the building at 65 5th avenue (between 13 and 14). This morning, the administration prevented anyone from entering the building. Things got ugly when the police arrived with NSU Present Kerrey. (Only one student was arrested.) The cops have come and gone and come back again. After closing off the building, the admin finally let people withh ids back in. CLearly, they’re stumped about what to do. Civil Rights people, lawyers, press are here. The international action center is here. The students need more numbers to protest in front of the building. They’re calling for anti-war groups for support. The faculty (senate, all divisions and union of part-time faculty) overwhelmingly support No Confidence in Kerrey or Vice Pres J. Murtha, and the students are speaking to this and to larger issues, namely Kerrey’s support of the war, socially irresponsible investments and requesting removal of L-3 Communications chair from the NSU executive board. Please spread the word. The students are doing a nice job. They plan to stay until conditions are met. They could reallly use some support out front this afternoon, and into the night!
New School Building Occupied
To members of Campus Antiwar Network
Ian Chinich
Today at 12:54amI am currently sitting inside a barricaded room with a large number of students at the New School. The students have occupied the building and are refusing to leave until their demands are met. They want the resignation of the director of L-3 Communications from their board of governors in addition to stopping tuition increases, and divulging investment information.
We need support. We need food… we need media support… we need help spreading the word… we need you to occupy your schools and your work places… A number of students from other schools in the area have come to help us hold this space.
So far the police have not forced their way in….. security has padlocked the fire escape to prevent more of us from getting in…a security guard attempted to enter over our barricades in the front to listen in but he was surrounded…… we are holding our ground and we are holding out…. we shall see what happens in the morning…Come to 14th street and 5th ave….. NOW!!!!…
NY Times coverage here.
Some videos:
Dec 14 2008
Yet more “Pet Goat” theatrical pseudo-drama
So, tell me… you’re standing at a podium and someone throws something at you.
You’re not supposed to know this is coming and you aren’t supposed to have any idea of what it is.
Yet, here’s a picture of you one second after the first object is thrown at your head.
So what’s so funny? Is there some little joke about all this that the rest of us aren’t quite in on, Mr. “Pet Goat”?
And by the way, if the objective was to drive this article off the front page of the NY Times… it didn’t quite work.
For those who haven’t learned to recognize this situation as the Rovian propagandist tactic it is, I refer you to my previous diary on the subject here, another here, and another here.
Thanks for the FP, EKH.
Dec 11 2008
Charges dropped against the Hempstead 15!
This morning all charges were dropped against the Hempstead 15, members of Iraq Veterans Against The War and their supporters who were accused of disorderly conduct for an act of civil disobedience they engaged in on October 15th during the last Presidential debates at Hofstra University in NY.
Nick Morgan (center) was trampled by a mounted policeman’s horse, and there will be a lawsuit. The vets are very grateful for everyone’s support.
I am guessing there will be a more formal announcement made in the future, but for now those of you who really deserve it can contemplate the thousand words embodied in these happy smiling faces, and know that by REALLY being there to support these troops you helped get some justice done today.
Thank you.
Dec 07 2008
Celebrate the new Madison Avenue pseudo-holiday: VALKYRIE FRIDAY!
Forget Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Valkyrie Friday (well, this year it’s Friday) is the day after Christmas! The shopping mall battlefields are strewn with the dead and wounded misfit toys that didn’t make the cut while the wild-eyed mobs ran through the aisles like the bulls at Pamplona. Fly, fly, my sisters and brothers, and rescue the heroic offerings presented to you by a desperate consumer kingdom as is your sacred duty!
While those who have fulfilled their glassy-eyed Christian obligation to obtain material goods by a certain morning rest at home, replete with sated consumerism and shaking the blood of WalMart employees from their shoes (PAAAA-RAIZZZE JEEZUS!), those of us who have resisted the multi-limnal marketing bombardment of the previous weeks for whatever reason now have our chance.
Everything is half price! Some stuff is less than half price! This is all the STUFFFFFFF!!!!! that didn’t move, and now it can be YOURS!!!!! Can I get a “HOI KRIEGER!” everybody! Heed the wise post-9/11 words of Der FucktardFuhrer and GO SHOPPING!
Dec 02 2008
Schneier on the media information clampdown around Mumbai
This fear is exactly backwards. During a terrorist attack — during any crisis situation, actually — the one thing people can do is exchange information. It helps people, calms people, and actually reduces the thing the terrorists are trying to achieve: terror. Yes, there are specific movie-plot scenarios where certain public pronouncements might help the terrorists, but those are rare. I would much rather err on the side of more information, more openness, and more communication.
I was going to post a reply to his previous blog on the subject that said the same thing, but then – especially having realized that he wasn’t buying the Associated Press bullshit erm, disinformation piece which claimed there were “only 10 terrorists” either – I realized that 1) I was preaching to the choir and 2) he’d probably find a way to say the exact same thing I wanted to, and say it better. He did.
My 20 year career in IT has revolved around the use of technology to ensure that people can communicate, especially in a time of crisis. I’ve lived through two such crises in which there was a major disruption of communications: the Flugtag/Ramstein Air Show disaster of 1988, and the attacks on the WTC. I’ve provided mission critical IT support during the first Gulf War. What I’ve learned from these experiences is that it’s far better to have a well-informed citizenry who are on your side, untrained civilians though they might be, than to worry about giving away information to a small number of enemies. Our government is supposed to be of the people, by the people, for the people. In such a crisis I, for one, would never hesitate to give any civilian – perhaps a fellow citizen soldier – the best possible fighting chance, even if their only desire was to get away unharmed.
So yes, as clinical as I might sound, there actually is a shred or two of compassion in there. Indeed, I find the willingness of the media to outright lie to the folks who need them the most to be one of the foulest manifestations of the lack of compassion displayed by the mindless and yes, heartless servants of the military/industrial complex.
Schneier seldom, if ever, disappoints. I really hope the coming administration will take his advice seriously.
Fifty days until sanity…
Nov 28 2008
The American citizen: programmed to hell and gone
WAKE THE FUCK UP!
Nov 27 2008
Nassau D.A. Kathleen Rice to dismiss charges against the Hempstead 15
Thanks are due to Docudharma for putting the Hempstead 15 action alert up on their front page, but that alert will now need to be modified slightly. 🙂
It is with joy that I pass on the following announcement from Matthis Chiroux:
Nov 22 2008
They’re STILL reading “The Pet Goat” to you – DON’T FALL FOR IT!
By now most people have seen the video where Bush is shunned at the G20 summit. The first time I saw it, I caught what apparently most other people didn’t. This incident was deliberately staged.
Bush did not even try to shake anyone’s hand. There was no incidence of rebuff. He was ignoring them as much as they were ignoring him.
It worked, at first. The progressive community reacted viscerally, with glee and schadenfreude at Bush’s apparently “new” role at the summit as “The Pet Goat”. What people don’t seem to quite get is that Bush has BEEN the pet goat ever since he sat down to read it to a classroom full of children on September 11th.
What you should be asking yourself instead is how many of those people were still willing to shake Bush’s hand after he invaded Iraq? In fact, how many of them are fully complicit either by assistance or inaction in the war crimes of the Bush administration?
The answer is ALL OF THEM. This incident was designed to attach all of the world’s rage and frustration directly to Bush, “The Pet Goat”. So when Bush goes away, so does all the reason for the frustration and rage, right? WRONG.