Several months ago, I blogged a GooTube Tuesday entry about Iranian executions by hanging. Specifically, I wanted to draw your attention to Nazanin Fatehi, who unlike the other teenager I featured that day, had some hope of being spared the hangman's noose for her alleged crimes. She had been granted a chance to appeal her death sentence in January.
The Iranian courts recently have had that trial and young Nazanin Fatehi was spared the death sentence. However, under the Iranian interpretation of Sharia law, she must pay approximately $40,000 US in diehl, or blood money, for the death of her would-be rapist in order to be released from prison to rejoin her family. You can go to the HelpNazanin website to read updates, and donate toward her legal fund, if you can.
At the time that I blogged about Nazanin in October, I wasn't aware of the mini-documentary that had been filmed, "The Tale of Two Nazanins." This 30-minute film hosted by Bodog.tv documents the intense struggle of international organizations, like Amnesty International -- and others, like Nazanin Afshim-Jam, the Canadian beauty queen and activist -- all trying to help this condemned child.
Having just watched "The Tale of Two Nazanins" for the first time, and with the knowledge that everyone's efforts may have assisted in convincing the Iranian officials to spare this teenage girl's life this past week, I couldn't stop tears welling up in my eyes. I'm not ashamed to admit it.
Martin Luther King was an American hero. He was a Nobel Peace Prize winner. His devotion to non-violent change and true reconciliation inspired the likes of Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela of South Africa, and they changed that country long after MLK's death at the hands of an assassin. In this country, his sincere devotion to peace and social change still resonates with sincere people working for the betterment of the minority, the poor, and the voiceless.
I spent today trying to learn more about this courageous man, understand his message in the context of times in which he lived and draw parallels to the times in which we all live today.
Many people will casually categorize Martin Luther King as a freedom fighter and civil rights icon for the minority population of black people in the United States, but whose importance was temporal. I think his message of equality has a timeless quality.
And being a white guy from Detroit, myself, I understand that some people label themselves as black, some label themselves as African-American, and still the national organization in front of social issues for almost 100 years is still called the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Some Hip-hop and Rap artists still use the word Niggah, and I don't think that's helpful for anyone.
However, no matter how you define yourself, it's important not to allow the society to define you. Call yourself whatever you want to call yourself. When angry young black men screamed at me and called me Cracker, when I was just trying to commute to work and make a living, I had to shake off those incidences. That is just an obvious symptom of self-segregated neighbors.
Self-segregated neighbors are all over the United States, but they are in the news most often now in the city of Baghdad. Sunni and Shia.
Martin Luther King gave an amazing speech almost 40 years ago concerning Viet Nam. While his words are certainly historic, listening to his voice halts one in their thoughts. The sincerity, passion, and comprehension of that conflict brings a parallel to our time concerning the current war for the soldiers fighting it, the largely ignorant arm-chair generals conducting it, and the propagandized public who support it.
Shown above is a cool short video that quickly explains the importance of the "net neutrality" issue from the net activists at savetheinternet. Share the video with your friends and raise awareness. It was really only by a stroke of luck that the largest merger in U.S. telecommunications industry history, between AT&T and BellSouth, included a two year promise to maintain net neutrality on their digital backbones. Over the next few months, the new Congress will likely take up this vital issue of free speech and availability of maintaining the internet as a digital democracy. These legislators need to know that you care about this. If they don't hear your voice, they're only going to hear from corporate lobbyists.
The issue of "net neutrality" is really only the symptom of allowing already huge multi-billion dollar companies to gobble each other up in mergers and consolidation. At some point, raw capitalism and corporate greed runs afoul of cherished public concepts, like protecting consumers from corporate monopolies. In certain industries, like communications and digital media, monopolistic control becomes a greater threat to an open society.
This weekend in Memphis, Tennessee, a conference is being held by activists in the growing media reform movement. Corporate mergers in the media sectors for print, radio, and broadcast and cable television have had the expected results -- more profit at the expense of free expression. Even worse, in the area of news media, the effect is the dumbing down of the American public. You can check out freepress.net for specific examples of how news rooms are being gutted, investigative journalism is being replaced by government press releases, and the image of America being broadcast around the world is not that of a country made up of diverse people with diverse views, but instead the world views America through the warped lenses of FOX or CNN.
Freepress.net is streaming some of the conference live on their web site. This morning, I took the time to watch the very informative and inspiring speech by Bill Moyers that he delivered at the start of the conference. It was archived last night in two parts on YouTube, each about 30 minutes long. (Part 1) (Part 2)
Bill Moyers is in a particularly good place in his life to offer an historical perspective about the media industry. He is old enough to give personal testimony about the corporatization of radio, TV, and print media. As he looks out into our future of the expanding digital media era, that's where all these competing interests of the public, government, and corporations converge and collide.
If you're not inclined to be politically active, think about it this way -- do you want to live in a world where your own voice is muted, your access to information is denied, and thus your ability to make a decision is warped? One need only look at the closed societies around the world (China) to see how well that plan works out for individual liberty.
Another digital media milestone occurred recently. The Electronic Frontier Foundation celebrated its 16th birthday. Laughing Squid has some candid photos of the birthday party. Apparently, my own cyber civil rights hero, John Perry Barlow, was spotted in the crowd.
Like most humans, I think visually. Then, I translate those globs of visual information into words that I can try to speak aloud, or even more arduously write in a blog entry. The image above is my understanding of the situation in Iraq in simple visual terms.
The media reaction
Oftentimes, the news media and consequently, the people, have a kitchen table debate about specific details without remembering the context in which that debate is really formed. The media details seem to focus on "how many troops" and the partisan political fight over the details of Bush's much-anticipated "New Way Forward" speech.
Since Noam Cholmsky has clearly taught us about the media food chain, I will only examine the Associated Press and Reuters news wire services which create the first voices in the echo chamber -- reprinted in hundreds of newspapers across the country -- which every-town Americans actually read.
"Democrats, who came to power in midterm elections two months ago in large part because of growing public opposition to the war, must walk a fine line between criticizing Bush's plans and appearing to be obstructionists or undermining the military.
And they presently rule Congress with insufficient numbers to block Bush's plan.
For Bush, the decision to send more troops to Iraq — rather than begin a withdrawal of combat forces as recommended last month by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group — is a huge gamble."
"President George W. Bush told skeptical Americans on Wednesday he was dispatching about 21,500 extra U.S. troops to Iraq, and in a rare admission, said he made a mistake by not deploying more forces sooner.
"The situation in Iraq is unacceptable to the American people, and it is unacceptable to me," Bush said in a televised White House address. "Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me."
The same way forward
President Bush's speech can be found on the White House website. You can watch the video and read the transcript. With some welcomed minor changes, as detailed and perhaps confusing as Bush's plan might be, it simply repackages the 2005 National Strategy for Victory in Iraq. I created the visual image of that plan above. You can also download the PDF file.
It's not nakedly a bad plan. It has validity. The problem is the Bush/Cheney implementation of that plan from day one. Iraq suffers from the incompetence of the Bush administration in the form of the Katrina syndrome, in my opinion. Driving that incompetence are the ideological neocons, like VP Cheney, who "won't talk to evil" when it comes to Iran or Syria.
A well-crafted speech
Bush mentioned Iran about a half-dozen times in his "new way forward" speech about Iraq. This clearly defines the Cheney neocon cabal in the administration as adding Iran to the list of "our enemies" -- joining al-Qaeda, the Bathists dead-ender insurgents, the Sadrists, etc.
Clearly, Cheney travelling to Saudi Arabia in November solidified the security alliance with the Sunni Arab states who also have regional concerns about Iran. Ideologically, Saudi Wahabbi Sunni Muslims think of Shia in Iran and Iraq as heretics.
Whoever wrote Bush's speech last night was very good. No swaggering. No cowboy ultimatums. It was delivered from the venue of the White House library. Bush was toned down to a thoughtful, contrite, and pragmatic leader -- despite simply repackaging the same plan.
There was no mention of the clash of civilizations, or crusader talk of the past. However, despite no "God Bless America" at the end, one still has to note the continued use of the phrase "calling of our time" and the capitalization of the term "Author of Liberty" in the conclusion of Bush's speech.
Bush's speech would be better labelled as "We messed up and we're trying to fix it," rather than a "New Way Forward," but I certainly also hope for the best in Iraq.
My good friend came over last night and told me about his weekend visiting with relatives in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He and his wife met up with visiting relatives there because two of their kids were competing in a regional cheerleading competition. They won first place!
Fort Lauderdale is an especially beautiful Atlantic Ocean beach town in Florida. It holds gigabytes of special memories for me personally, many times, over many years.
My formative experience with FTL happened when I was only 19. I met up with my high school sweetheart in FTL for a week's leave between my Army basic training and my Advanced Individual Training (AIT), perfectly timed with her high school Spring Break (she is a year younger than me). I actually had a washboard and ripped stomach back then. Heh. After being away from each other because of Army Boot Camp for two months, we barely left the motel room very much.
Some years later, my Imajica BBS bud, Dryv Error, and I headed down there and partied for a week one year during a Christmas holiday break. Besides imparting the importance of the Detroit Red Wings to the hotel bartender constantly, I have one specific memory of that trip. On Christmas Day, I filled out post cards to my friends in the snowy North while soaking up some sun on the beach and listening to a Reggae band play their versions of Christmas carol music.
That last time I was in FTL was when a business I worked with gave me a free 3-day Bahamas Cruise on the Carnival Cruise Ship line. Because of some delay between departures between Airlines and Cruise Ship, we had a dead 12 hours. My business partner Joel and I rented a Jeep and scoped out the bikinis on the beach in Fort Lauderdale that day. I thought Joel's head might explode from all the tan lines he ogled that day. If Joel were to have an appropriate Native American name for himself that day, it would have been Snapping Neck or Bulging Eyes. It's not his fault -- there is endless eye candy on the beach. Yummy!
The reason I thought of these FTL memories came from seeing the beach in the town of Ras Kamboni, in Somalia. From this view, it looks like a great place with the wondrous Indian Ocean's waves lapping at its shores.
Instead, the news sources say that U.S. Forces have been attacking Al-Qaeda Islamists here, with the permission of the recognized Somali government. If you zoom in on the image above, via Wikimapia, this is an area with many people. I can only hope that the innocent civilians found a way to avoid the battle here over the last few days.
MSNBC has a good start to this beach town story with background links. I'm not going to bother spelling out the chess game in Somalia, but it might deserve your attention.
