Six years ago today...

... the Chimperer had just been elected to his second term of office, after John Kerry ran the worst Presidential campaign since Michael Dukakis. And I started up this blog with a bang, writing a well-footnoted post about a journalist destroyed by the CIA in 1996 for exposing government wrong-doing.

And today, six years later, here I am again, writing about a publisher -- Julian Assange of Wikileaks -- that once again made the mistake of telling the truth, and once again the government is trying to destroy him -- this time with rape charges that don't hold water -- and once again pointing out that we have free speech only when we speak in government-approved ways here in America. I can write this blog because my speech is approved speech -- it is speech that allows me to vent, but which does not allow me to change anything about how America is run or inconvenience those in power in any way. Julian Assagne's crime is that of inconveniencing those in power by showing the world diplomatic cables proving that they are moral-less, venal, and vicious.

Of course, there is one big difference between 1996 and 2010: the Internet has grown up. Today when newspapers of record attempt to destroy someone, the cyber-libertarian left, cool geek toys/geek culture bloggers, and people like Michael Moore can react in real-time rather than having to wait weeks or months for conventional publication. If this was still 1996, Assange would have been deported to Sweden by now, then would have been deported on an unmarked aircraft to a black prison run by the CIA somewhere in Eastern Europe, and that would be the end of it all. Instead, he's out on bail, and stands a good chance of at worst serving a few weeks in jail if he does end up deported to Sweden, rather than disappeared, because there's too many people watching.

Will that be enough? We'll see. I'll just point out that the oligarchy has a pretty good record when it comes to destroying journalists that they don't want publishing the truth. And lest you say "Watergate!" and "Pentagon papers!", those were factions within the oligarchy, i.e., a significant percentage of the oligarchy wanted those published. But Assange's reveal of the sheer droll venality of our ruling class is something that none of them want published -- thus why they're trying their best to play whack-a-mole with Wikileaks (which, BTW, is back up at its original wikileaks.org site after Michael Moore paid for new DNS hosting, though it immediately redirects to a Russian Wikileaks mirror at the moment).

And as it was six years ago, so it is today. The only thing to remember about history is that it repeats itself... but only as long as we let it. I just find it... interesting... that I posted about a journalist driven to suicide six years ago, and now the U.S. is trying to do the exact same thing to another journalist. Freedom! U S A! U S A! Fuck yeah!

-- Badtux the Free Speech Penguin

Pete Seeger: 90 years old

Pete Seeger will be 90 years old tomorrow. It seems like he has been around forever? Well, that's because he has been around forever. A man who was singing a song for freedom before most of us on this blog were even born is still singing.

Happy birthday, Pete. And if the banjo playing is shot and the voice barely is there, well, you have an excuse. All those who do not take up the guitar or banjo and sing a song of freedom... they have no excuse at all.

-- Badtux the Music Penguin

I am living in a Constitution-free zone

According to official U.S. government policy, I may be stopped and searched for no reason at all simply because, well, I live within 100 miles of the U.S. border. Gotta make sure I'm not smuggling herring through the Port of Oakland, I suppose, even though I've never even visited the Port of Oakland...

-- Badtux the "Freedom is so yesterday" Penguin

Are John McCain and Sarah Palin inciting a riot?

The answer, of course, is no. The case law here is Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969), which concerned a KKK leader inciting hatred against blacks and those who would give equal rights to blacks. The so-called Brandenburg test would require that McCain or Palin urge that their audience perform a specific and imminent illegal action. Thus far they have stayed well away from urging their audiences to perform a specific and imminent illegal action (or any illegal act at all), and thus while their conduct in inciting hatred is reprehensible, as with the KKK leader above, their conduct is not illegal.

Brandenburg v. Ohio is what allowed McCain buddy G. Gordon Liddy to discuss the best way of killing BATF agents on his radio show (he suggests a head shot in order to bypass the body armor), allows Ann Coulter to discuss exterminating liberals except for a few to be kept in zoos, and other such reprehensible speech. But it also protects those who talk about demonstrating against the government or taking political action against the government too. I.e. you and me. So I guess this is one of those things we have to live with and can expect to be self-correcting over time. As, apparently, it already is -- the rowdy nature of the Palin/McCain speeches has become a national disgrace to the point where John McCain is getting alarmed and trying to put a stop to the worst of it, getting booed in the process. I guess his polling has told him that running a scorched earth Two Minute Hate at every campaign rally is scaring away voters he wants. Or maybe he simply dredged up what little honor he has left after what has been, this past month and a half, an unhonorable campaign, and has decided that if he is going to lose he might as well lose with more grace than a squalling toddler throwing a temper tantrum in the middle of a grocery store. We shall see...

-- Badtux the Free Speech Penguin