Social Media and Western Governments Hypocracy

Remember when we bashed Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the rest of “those” nations for going after the social media and restricting its access?

Remember when Hillary Clinton plead with Twitter to postpone their scheduled maintenance  service for a few more days so the Iranians demonstrators  can keep up the pressure against the government?

Well, this is from yesterday’s NYT :

In Britain, a Meeting on Limiting Social Media:

The government’s home minister, Theresa May, according to one account of the meeting, said that the aim was not to “discuss restricting Internet services,” but to instead “crack down on the networks being used for criminal behavior.” A spokeswoman for Ms. May said the government “would not be seeking any additional powers.”

Yeah..yeah… I believe you!

Meanwhile… back  home:

“…The [corporation] Bay Area Rapid Transit’s  decided to temporarily turn off cell phone reception in four San Francisco stations, which was in anticipation of another protest, which was in turn a response to a recent police shooting in a San Francisco BART station….”

Replace Britain in the headlines with Iran, and Bay Area Rapid Transit with Ahmadi Najad and you’d have a level 6 condemnation hurricane from all over the civilised, freedom promoting Western governments AND its subservient media.

It is barbarism and tyranny only when “they” do it. It is defending law and order, of course, when “we” do it!

Orwell matters now more than ever.

ekwaysan

The “Guardian Council” of America’s eclections

Not everyone in Iran can run for president. The Guardian Council, an unelected body,  reserves the right to reject the candidacy of any one.

Fortunately, in America we don’t have such a body. Anyone can run for office.  We let people decide whom they want to be their president.

Or do we, now?

Ron Paul, a candidate with truly different (and relevant ) views is challenging the establishment orthodoxy of his own party.

Poll after poll show that his views on wars, imperialism, war on drug, surveillance state, and national security state are espoused by a truly significant portion (if not the majority) of the American public. 

He finished in a virtual tie with Bachman (less that one percentage point behind) in the straw poll in Iowa. He has raised more money than any other GOP candidate behind Romney.

But you wouldn’t know it looking at the headlines. He just mysteriously disappeared .  As far as the media is concerned!, he might as well have been raptured. It is like his name is Ron Houdini Paul! 

There is a “Guardian Council”  in the states just like there is one in Iran.

It is  called the council of the powerful factions and special interests.  It is the big players: the corporations, the media moguls, and the 400 billionaires. 

Only it is done smarter here. It is not as blatant and unsophisticated as the one in the ayatollah’s fiefdom. It is even far more pernicious. It is a feel good drug that gives us the illusion that we have the power to right the wrong and change the system.

But in truth, no views , however popular, that would challenge the status quo powers  and their self-interest are allowed.

Have you even heard of Gary Johnson? Exactly.

Long live  our all-encompassing, truly representative and participatory democracy!

ekwaysan

Where no one has drilled before

I knew I was reading the news on my must-read list of blogs. So why did I have the eerie feeling that I was reading an act out of    Eugene Ionesco’s theatre of the absurd?

First this from Reuter:

“A U.N. report has criticized Shell and the Nigerian government for contributing to 50 years of pollution in a region of the Niger Delta which it says needs the world’s largest ever oil clean-up, costing an initial $1 billion and taking up to 30 years.”

And then this report from the L. A Times 

“Shell Exploration was conditionally cleared Thursday to proceed with the most ambitious oil and gas drilling program ever attempted in the U.S. Arctic...”

 Anyone still likes to play connect the dots? 

ekwaysan

Obama’s scary vow

Looking  at a headline from The WP today, I am truly shuddering.

“Obama vowed to keep working for a “balanced approach” to deficit reduction.”

Ha ha ha, this would have been hilarious if it weren’t so serious. If he  keeps working as hard as he has been, by the end of his term, we’re all going to be in bankruptcy courts. 

What  transpired out of his hard work so far: 

A tax cuts for the billionaires

proposed cuts to social security

Proposed cuts in  medicare and Medicaid benefits

Cuts in education

Expansion of two major wars and starting a third (with at least two more to come in Yemen and Somalia) paid for by borrowed money that is exploding the deficit he’s supposedly trying to balance.

His balanced budget deal was indeed paid for by the very people who were crushed by the economic meltdown caused by the very people whom he is really fighting for: The rich and the powerful.

And let’s not forget unemployment rate that is over 9% , and when you take into consideration the part-timers it is closer to 20%.

This is a guy who repeatedly declared in his “Hope” campaign: 

“We are going to roll back the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.”
Oooopsyyyy!

Words are so cheap to this guy. Or as the French chansonnier Pierre Bachelet would have it

” Les mots pour [lui] sont sans valeur“.

ekwaysan