No Libyans allowed at ANSWER Libya Forum

Former congresswomen and Green Party presidential candidate has just returned from a fact finding mission to Libya. While there she talked [YouTube 03:31] with a Qaddafi supporter in the hospital after being injured by US/NATO bombing. He said "People in Germany have Hitler. People in Italy have Mussolini. It does not matter if they are good or not; they have [a] hero. Why [not] let us have [a] hero? We like him [Qaddafi]." McKinney responded "yeah, right."

The ANSWER Coalition sponsored nationwide speaking tour of Cynthia McKinney: Eyewitness Libya started in Los Angeles on Saturday, 18 June 2011. This was at the Immanuel Presbyterian Church on Wilshire where many progressive events take place. Almost two hundred people showed up. Among them was a group of about two dozen Libyans and Libyan-Americans, some of which clearly associated themselves with the Free Libya movement, the tricolor flag of the Libyan opposition was much in evidence not only as flags but as hats, scarfs and jackets. All these Libyans were clearly anti-Qaddafi.

While the Libyans said they had liked Cynthia McKinney in the past, especially her work in support of Gaza, they were here to set her straight about Qaddafi and Libya. I had seen some of these Libyan activists before, at the first LA rallies in support the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt. This was before ANSWER took up those struggles.

I didn't see any pro-Qaddafi Libyans that evening, either outside or inside the church. No Libyans were on the program and the green flag of Qaddafi's Libya was nowhere to be seen. If there were any pro-Qaddafi Libyans in attendance, they never revealed themselves. As far as I could make out, all of the pro-Qaddafi people in attendance, including Cynthia McKinney, were non-Libyans and all the Libyans who showed up were anti-Qaddafi.

So ANSWER showed them how we do public forums in the land of the free and the home of the brave. They excluded the Libyans from the Libya Forum! Not only did ANSWER tell them that they would not be allowed to pay their $10 and attend the event, a line of ANSWER people formed a human wall to divide the sidewalk between and us and them. When I exclaimed "They're keeping the Libyans out of the Libya Forum." one of the ANSWER people forming the wall told me "We're not keeping them out because they are Libyan. We're keeping them out because they support the intervention." This left me contemplating which was the worst reason for keeping people out? Keeping them out because of their nationality or keeping them out because of views contrary to those of the forum organizers? Of course, opposing NATO's intervention is a very easy and moral position to take for those that have lost no family to Qaddafi and didn't stand to lose any no matter how many Graf missiles and cluster munitions he was given free reign to use on cities under siege like Benghazi and Misrata. They have nothing to lose by keeping their hands cleanly in their pockets and taking the moral high ground.

Inside the forum a number of other people spoke before Cynthia McKinney. All, including her, lauded "brother Qaddafi." They liked to focus on the Pan-African and anti-imperialist reputation he cultivated in the 1980's and before. None talked about the changes since 2004. Nobody mentioned the military-to-military relations he was cultivating with the Bush Pentagon, his use of the "Prince of Darkness" Richard Perle as a consultant, his ties to Goldman-Sacks, etc. Even Fidel Castro recognized this new Qaddafi, noting before the NATO intervention ["NATO's Inevitable War" on-line at CubaDebate, March 4]:

"it is an undeniable fact that the relations between the US and its NATO allies with Libya in the recent years were excellent," adding that Libya "opened up strategic sectors as the production and distribution of oil to foreign investment" and that "many state-owned companies were privatized. The IMF played its role in implementing these policies." ... "Aznar was full of praise for Qaddafi, and he was followed by Blair, Berlusconi, Sarkozy, Zapatero, and even my friend the King of Spain; they all queued up under the mocking smile of the Libyan leader. They were pleased... I simply ask why they now want to invade Libya and send Qaddafi to the International Criminal Court at The Hague?"

The reason, Mr. Castro, is that they realize, even if you don't, that the Libyan people have finally lost all fear of Qaddafi. He cannot survive, he will he done as soon as his money runs out. His dictatorship is done and NATO has in the last hour thrown him under the bus to help their play for a future role in Libya.

Cynthia McKinney and ANSWER say nothing of this, just as they say nothing of the more than seven thousand Libyans that the opposition says that Qaddafi has killed. Later in San Francisco, McKinney puts the total number killed at "four thousand and some dead".. "but of course the bulk of that would have to come from the NATO bombing because they're using bunker buster bombs." [YouTube 07:15] For his part, Qaddafi claims that about eight hundred civilians have been killed by NATO bombs but there are many reasons for questioning even that number.

For example there was that embarrassing incident a couple of weeks ago when Libya officials took foreign reporters to a hospital to view a baby girl they said was injured in a NATO air strike. The whole fraud unraveled after a hospital workers passed a reporter a note saying the girl had been injured in an automobile accident. Latter some of the reporters spotted the "concerned uncle" at another Qaddafi dog and pony show and he was forced to admit that he worked for the Libyan government. The "Kuwait baby incubator" fraud comes to mind only this time NATO is the victim, not the perpetrator.

Fidel Castro may support Qaddafi but he knows that the uprising in Libya is part of the Arab Spring and flows from the real concerns of the people, saying "Without any doubt, the faces of the young people who were protesting in Benghazi, men, and women wearing the veil or without the veil, were expressing genuine indignation."

After decades of living under brutal dictators and being exploited by their imperialist masters, the people rose up, first in North Africa and then in the broader Middle-East. Peaceful protests against Qaddafi were already developing in Libya in the middle of January as Ben Ali was being thrown out of power in neighboring Tunisia. They were spurred on my the ouster of Mubarak in their eastern neighbor, Egypt, less than a month latter.

The causes for the uprising in Libya have been essentially the same as they have been throughout the whole region, beginning with rising food prices and growing unemployment and ending with fearless rejection of long established dictators. The people rising up in Libya have been largely working class, as they have been in Egypt and Tunisia. But there have been differences. In Tunisia and Egypt, the people were able to throw out dictators that had ruled for 20 or 30 years quickly and with relatively little bloodshed because the army refused to open fire on peaceful protesters. In Libya they did not refuse such orders. Eventually the protesters took up arms and started fighting back. The uprising became a civil war.

But that's not how ANSWER sees things. Since they missed the non-violent phase of the Libyan opposition, to them it never existed. They see the rebels as the same as contras. They are all paid agents of NATO, tools of imperialism, etc. They weren't paying attention until the UN and NATO got involved. They didn't express any public support for the uprising in Tunisia until after Ben Ali had been ousted. They didn't support the uprising in Egypt until 29 January. Compare that to the hacker group Anonymous, which started OpTunisia on 2 January and OpEgypt on 23 January. When it comes to Yemen and Bahrain, ANSWER has spoken out in support of the uprisings and against the repressive, US backed regimes. But when it comes to Libya and Syria, with their "anti-imperialist" dictators Qaddafi and Assad, it's a different story.

In those countries they don't support the Arab uprisings. In fact, they don't even recognize those struggles as part of the Arab uprising. Because those leaders have a reputation for opposing NATO, they support the government violence and act like the people have no right to rebel. Whatever NATO is for, they are against. Whatever NATO is against, they are for. That is the western centric way they view the world. In this perverse way, they tail after their own bourgeoisie. They don't support the people's revolutionary struggles in a steadfast way.

The Party for Socialism and Liberation [PSL] which leads ANSWER, made this point crystal clear in a recent proclamation:

Western powers bring death and destruction, nothing else. This must be a starting point for activists located in the United States and Europe when it comes to the Libyan revolt.

Ultimately the problem PSL will have with their starting point is that they can't lead by taking a reaction as their starting point.

An alternate starting point might be "steadfast support for the people's revolutionary movements irregardless of stand taken or pretended by the US." That is a starting point that doesn't have to wait for and react to what the Western powers do. That is a starting point that demands our attention and support as soon as a people act to liberation themselves. That is also a starting point that requires that we have an organic connection to those movements. It is a starting point that demands that we take the focus off of ourselves and what our government is doing about it.

Another Libyan, commenting on a similar Cynthia McKinney video presentation noted this "all about us" attitude that runs through much of the ANSWER type opposition to the war in Libya. I think he put it well:

These questions don't occur to McKinney as she goes on to state that the United States is "a poor trumpet" for democracy because of its own legacy of oppression, from "genocide of indigenous Americans to enslavement of stolen Africans to disfranchisement of women..." This, ironically, is just a perverse form of patriotism. For McKinney, the whole question is about America [my bold]—certainly not about the Libyans, who deserve democracy entirely apart from the United States' moral credibility to advocate for such. This is a cynical and dishonest distraction of the lowest order.

And that, finally, is why the Libyans had been excluded from the Libyan forum. It really wasn't about them.

Whereas Castro sees an attempt to subvert a revolution, "Imperialism and NATO – seriously concerned by the revolutionary wave unleashed in the Arab world, where a large part of the oil is generated that sustains the consumer economy of the developed and rich countries – could not help but take advantage of the internal conflict arising in Libya so that they could promote military intervention."; they see the Libyan uprising as CIA/NATO intrigue from top to bottom. Perhaps it is this simplistic view that leads them to abusing Libyans who attempt to attend their Libya forums.

After Cynthia McKinney spoke she showed a film they had made in Libya. The core of it was one bloody scene after another showing what NATO ordinance had done to Libya soldiers; missing were the women and children that should have been very prominent if indeed 800 civilians have been killed in the bombing. The Qaddafi government clearly was providing the visuals for this film and dead children would have been high on the list if they had any at that time.

In the Q&A that followed, it became clear that at least one Libyan had gotten in and he was against Qaddafi. He was booed.

Cynthia McKinney has been a little vague about who paid for this trip. She said that when she was in Tripoli earlier she decided that she wanted to return with others on a truth telling mission. She was able to borrow the $25,000 cost from an unnamed friend, who "I have to pay back." Hence the collection at the door and the latter passing of the plate. While it is pretty clear that this friend with 25 grand to spare is also a Qaddafi supporter, since we don't know who he is, we can't know what political and economic ties he may have to Qaddafi. This raises a lot of questions about the whole trip and tour. In any case, it's too bad they didn't let the Libyans in. She could have been a couple hundred dollars closer to her goal.

San Francisco was Tuesday. San Francisco was different.

ANSWER didn't keep Libyan's out of the Cynthia McKinney Libya Forum in San Francisco on Tuesday 21 June but they had other ways of letting them know they weren't welcome. An ANSWER Coalition supporter told the Libyans to "go back home." [YouTube] When a Libya women became offended and said that she takes it very personally because most of these Libyans are exiles, she has family in Libya, she has an uncle in his prison and Qaddafi has killed three of her cousins, she is told my one person that if she takes it personally she should take it outside and my another to "grow up."

They also tried very hard to avoid calling on the Libyans in the Q&A. When they failed, it led to some interesting exchanges. When a Libyan man ask Cynthia McKinney why she made no mention of the over seven thousand Libyans killed by Qaddafi in suppressing the uprising, she responded that "it is the right of the Libyan people, in my opinion, to solve their problems among themselves without NATO bombs and missiles." [YouTube] That got a big round of applause from the ANSWER supporters.

As was pointed out in

She may not realized it but this stance she is taking with regards to Libya also justifies Israel's vicious suppression of Gaza, which she has so courageously opposed; because a necessary corollary to the thesis that the world has no right to interfere with what a state does within it's own borders is that the world has no right to tell a state what those borders are. Qaddafi understands the Gaza connection, that is why he uses the example of Israeli to justify his own actions, telling France24 "even the Israelis in Gaza, when they moved into the Gaza Strip, they moved in with tanks to fight such extremists. It's the same thing here!" He was referring to Operation Cast Lead, which Israel launched against the Gaza Strip two days after Christmas, 2008, killing at least 1,400 Palestinians. See Gaddafi: Crackdown modeled after Israel. Weeks before NATO started bombing, Qaddafi was carrying out a Israeli styled crackdown on the Libyan people and this is what Cynthia McKinney is demanding not be interfered with.

In response to another Libyan who managed to ask a question, Akbar Muhammad from the Nation of Islam said "The way I'm going to answer my Libyan brothers [is] there's a way to go about it. You could have called for a referendum. Look at when those African leaders came to Benghazi, the people in Benghazi ran them out, these African heads of state. Now if you really wanted to do it, you could tell America, if you want their help, say "What we want is a vote"... "Could you come in, instead of bombing, supervise a referendum, so that the Libya people could say if they want Mummar Qaddafi or some other Westminster democratic process." That got a laugh.

Of course he is in the United States, not Benghazi. He can talk about the Afro-American struggles and then tell the Libyans "your situation is not unique." He can arrogantly forget that a few days before NATO started enforcing the no-fly zone, Qaddafi told Benghazi "We will show no mercy..."

Remember the circumstance under which Muhammad is suggesting they should have called for a referendum. Qaddafi's forces had just flatten the small town to the west of Benghazi, killing hundreds with aircraft, tanks and artillery. "The town of Ajdabiyah has been cleansed of mercenaries and terrorists linked to the al Qaeda organization," Libyan state TV bragged. Now Qaddafi was promising to "go house to house" and "kill the rats", meaning Libyans, in this city of almost a million. This was on the eve of the UN vote on resolution 1973. Libyan League for Human Rights chief Soliman Bouchuiguir, said that if Qaddafi was allowed to attack Benghazi there would be "a real bloodbath, a massacre like we saw in Rwanda." That is why the Arab League voted for intervention. That is why the first NATO air strikes were around Benghazi. Whatever their motivation, the NATO actions almost certainly did stop a bloodbath in Benghazi. This is an inconvenient truth for Qaddafi supporters.

But when you're not in a difficult situation it can be very easy to be judgmental.

I will tell you frankly that I don't like the police. I know that they have gotten away with murder too many times. I have seen them lie, torture and act like thugs. On a personal level, police have threatened to murder me and I have done time in jail because police lied on me. Still, if I happened to be threatened by gangsters or if my child is kidnapped, I will call the police.

And I don't think Ho Chi Minh was an imperialist tool because he allowed US OSS doctors to treat him or because he accepted US military help in his struggle against the Japanese.

However, I think it was absolutely shameful the way Stalin sent Molotov scurrying off to Washington to beg the United States to step up it's war against Hitler in 1942. Imagine that! A union of socialist republics demanding the US imperialists help them in their war with German imperialists by intervening militarily in a European affair. Didn't they know the US reputation for wantonly killing civilians, from the Indian wars or the Philippines for example? Shouldn't they have been able to anticipate the hell on Earth the US and British imperialists would create for the civilians of Dresden and some one thousand other German town and cities they incinerated in the final months of the war?

Of course, that was after the Hitler-Stalin pack broke down and Hitler invaded the USSR, before that [Daily Worker, 1940] it was "the Anglo-French Imperialist war machine."


UPDATE: How do Libyans in Tripoli feel about the NATO bombing of their city?

This video from LibyaResistance may give us a clue. The description reads:

In Tripoli, as Nato undertakes its most intense bombing of the campaign, locals come out to show their appreciation by cheering and whistling. Rooftops are full of people watching in appreciation. Later security roamed the streets shooting in the air to silence and intimidate… They should know by now.. Tripoli can never be silence

A comment reads:

@KernelThread We don't need to rebuild gaddafi's compound. In fact we need help to tear it down. His compound takes up tens of square kilometres and houses his own palaces and security. The OVERWHELMING consensus in tripoli is that we want it to be turned into a green park for EVERYONE to enjoy. So we will be tearing down the buildings anyway. The? rest of civilian Tripoli is untouched by NATO. Compare it to gaddafis indiscriminate bombing of misrata - now THAT we need to rebuild!

Here are the links to my articles at WL Central:
2011-06-22 No Libyans allowed at ANSWER Libya Forum
2011-04-13 Doha summit supports Libyan rebels
Current Events in Libya
2011-03-11 Who's running Egypt?
Libyans are spilling their blood for us all!
2011-02-24 Arming Gaddfi
2011-02-14 Senior Egyptian army officers ordered massacre
2011-02-13 Tales of Tyrants: Ben Ali, Mubarak & Suleiman
2011-02-12 Algeria Protesters Defy Ban, Demand Change
The Mubarak Screw Up & the Suleiman Danger
2011-02-10 Mubarak is Defiant
2011-02-10 Mubarak Expected to Step Down!
2011-02-09 The Google Search for Wael Ghonim
2011-02-08 The New Egyptian Normal: Thousands Demonstrate in Cairo, Alexandria
2011-02-06 Tunisia's Revolution Continues
2011-02-04 Tunisian Anonymous activists take on Egyptian cause
2011-02-04 Protesters roar back with "Day of Departure" for Mubarak
2011-02-03 Algerians plan Feb 12 protest against 19- year-long state of emergency
2011-02-01 Jordan's King Sacks Government as Protests Grow
2011-02-01 Tunisian Islamic Leader Returns as EU Freezes Ousted President's Assets
2011-02-01 Army Vows Not to Shoot as Protesters make Million Man Marches in Cairo, Alexandria Today [UPDATE: 2]
2011-01-30 Million Egyptian Protest Planned as Resistance Continues
2011-01-29 No Internet? No Problem! Anonymous Faxes Egypt
2011-01-28 In Jordan Thousands Demand New Government
2011-01-28 Mubarak Refuses to Step Down!
2011-01-28 Egypt is on Fire!
2011-01-27 Libya is in Revolt as Gaddafi Worries
2011-01-27 Algerians Plan Big Protest Rally for February 9th
2011-01-27 Tunisia Protests Continues as a Warrant is Issued for Ben Ali
2011-01-27 Tens of Thousands Rally in Yemen, Demand Change
2011-01-27 Mubarak Blinks as Egyptian Protests Continue for 3rd Day



Here is a recap of my other DKos diaries on the Internet, North Africa and Anonymous:
Are they throwing babies out of incubators yet?
Continuing Discussion with a Gaddafi Supporter
Boston Globe oped supports Gaddafi with fraudulent journalism
Current Events in Libya
Who's running Egypt?
Amonpour Plays Softball with Gaddafi
Californians Support North African Revolts
Google Supports Revolts | Anonymous does too!
Secret U.S. Intelligence Source on Middle East Revealed!
Arming Gaddfi
are being executed in Egypt now?
Algeria's 19 year long State of Emergency to end soon, President says
Senior Egyptian Army Officers Ordered Massacre!
Tales of Tyrants: Ben Ali, Mubarak & Suleiman
UPDATE: Egypt's Mubarak Has Resigned! - The Mubarak Screw Up & the Suleiman Danger
BREAKING: Mubarak is Defiant
The Google Search for Wael Ghonim
Tunisia's Revolution Continues
Google Goes Rebel, Supports Egyptian Protest
Tunisian Anonymous activists take on Egyptian cause
Protesters roar back with Day of Departure for Mubarak
Act Now to Stop Mubarak's Thugs From Killing More! w Petition
Act Now to Stop Mubarak's Thugs From Killing More!
They Should Have Helped That Street Vendor
Million Egyptian Protest Planned as Resistance Continues
Huffington Post Disses the Jasmine Revolution Redux
No Internet? No Problem! Anonymous Faxes Egypt
Egypt is on Fire!
North African Revolution Continues
Egypt Protests Continue, Tunisia Wants Ben Ali Back
BREAKING: Protesters Plan Massive "Day of Wrath" in Egypt Today
Tunisians Thank Anonymous as North Africa Explodes
Huffington Post Disses the Jasmine Revolution
Tunisia: A Single Tweet Can Start A Prairie Fire!
Anonymous plans Op Swift Assist in Tunisia
Arrested Pirate Party Member Becomes Tunisian Minister
Is Libya Next? Anonymous Debates New Operation
Tunis: This Photo was Taken 66 Minutes Ago
The WikiLeaks Revolution: Anonymous Strikes Tunisia
EMERGENCY: DKos Must Act Now to Protect Tunisian Bloggers!

Democracy Now: What Amy didn't say on Friday

On Friday's Democracy Now, Amy Goodman spent a long segment with Eli Pariser of MoveOn.org talking about threats to the Internet. The timing was particularly appropriate because an extremely serious threat to our Internet freedoms made important advances last week and an alarm needs to be sounded. Unfortunately that's not what Amy talked about. Instead of enlightenment, Amy and Eli offered diversion and confusion. I was very disappointed.

Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee passed the Protect IP Act. This legislation, if it becomes law, will make the Internet in the US like the Internet in China; both will be filtered by their governments. Like the Internet Blacklist bill [COICA] that they couldn't get passed last year, this new bill authorizes the Attorney General to create a list of websites that are to be blocked. COICA would have made legal the Federal government practice of seizing domain names without a notice or a hearing. This is a power that the AG started exercising on his own authority last year, after they failed to get their eggs hatched in the Senate. But as I pointed out last December, they have figured out that seizing domain names is pretty impotent if the search engines continue to do their job of indexing the web for us as they find it. So now they have come out with an "improved version" that forces even more draconian controls on the Internet.

Governments all over the world are much more concerned with controlling the Internet after seeing the role it played in the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt. So this Internet Blacklist bill Version 2.0 [Protect IP Act] now also makes it illegal for any web services, including search engines, to refer to the banned websites or their content. In China, the government was forcing Google to filter out certain search results for say "Tiananmen Square", that's why they left China. I don't know who in the Chinese government determines what search engines are allowed to find on the Internet but if this act becomes law, it will be the Justice Department in the US.

This bill was voted out of committee about three weeks after it was introduced. It has been on a very fast track and as such has gone unnoticed by a lot of people, for example Amy has never mentioned it, not on Friday nor on any earlier show. But it hasn't gone unnoticed by Google because it's their business to know what's happening with regards to the Internet. This dairy has already reported on how Google's CEO Eric Schmidt likened Protect IP to the censorship they ultimately refused in China and he said that if it was passed into law, Google would still oppose it. He told The Guardian at a London conference on 19 May 2011:

"If there is a law that requires DNSs to do X and it's passed by both houses of Congress and signed by the President of the United States and we disagree with it then we would still fight it."

This is the bill that was passed by the Judiciary Committee on Thursday. Other government threats to the free Internet have also emerged in recent weeks. They include Obama's new "Cybersecurity Initiative" announced on 15 May and government proposals at last week's eG8 conference. At that conference, French President Nicolas Sarkozy told the Internet organizations "You can't be exempt from minimum rules" [which help] "your companies to contribute fairly to national ecosystems." The headline The Telegraph ran about that conference was "Google's Eric Schmidt clashes with Nicolas Sarkozy at eG8."

A major fight between freedom of speech and government censorship on the Internet is brewing and Google is at the center of it, but none of this was spoken of on Democracy Now on Friday. That surprised me because the topic was "The Filter Bubble: What the Internet is Hiding from You." Instead of informing her viewers and listeners about the real and present danger that these government moves pose to our Internet freedoms, Amy and her guest choose to misrepresent certain Internet realities so that they could engage in a bit of fear mongering and misdirection.

Amy's co-host, Juan Gonzalez began the segment:

When you follow your friends on Facebook or run a search on Google, what information comes up, and what gets left out? That’s the subject of a new book by Eli Pariser called The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You. According to Pariser, the internet is increasingly becoming an echo chamber in which websites tailor information according to the preferences they detect in each viewer.

Amy continues:

The top 50 websites collect an average of 64 bits of personal information each time we visit and then custom-designs their sites to conform to our perceived preferences. While these websites profit from tailoring their advertisements to specific visitors, users pay a big price for living in an information bubble outside of their control.

Actually virtually all websites, not just the top 50, collect more that 64 bits of "personal information" when you visit them. I will explain to you why this is ordinary and necessary and really no big deal. And far from being outside of your control, I will show you how you can block this gathering of personal information absolutely but I will also tell you why you probably won't want to. Amy could have done a great service if she had used her show to tell you this, or point you to links on how to block access to your personal information rather than telling people this information gathering is "outside of their control" but this segment was all about misdirection, making mountains out of mole hills and creating a climate of fear, not teaching knowledge and spreading solutions.

Eli Pariser is the leader of MoveOn.org. Last summer they organized the "Google Don't Be Evil" campaign. Today he was on Democracy Now to talk about his new book. After introductions, he describes what he sees as the problem:

That’s right. I was surprised. I didn’t know that that was, you know, how it was working, until I stumbled across a little blog post on Google’s blog that said "personalized search for everyone." And as it turns out, for the last several years, there is no standard Google. There’s no sort of "this is the link that is the best link." It’s the best link for you. And the definition of what the best link for you is, is the thing that you’re the most likely to click. So, it’s not necessarily what you need to know; it’s what you want to know, what you’re most likely to click.

He is wrong. There is still a "standard Google." That's the Google you will get if they know nothing about you because they don't know who you are. There are easy ways to be anonymous on the web but Eli doesn't mention them. He is into fear mongering and solutions take away your fears.

Personally, I like the fact that Google searches keep getting better at finding "what you want to know" and not their idea or somebody else's idea of "what you need to know." But in case you are worried about this sort of thing please allow me to digress and take away your fears now by explaining a little about the technology and how you can avoid the use of personal information to tailor your web experience.

When you visit most modern websites, they will write a little data file to your hard drive that they can retrieve on subsequent visits. This is a well known Internet practice and there is nothing sinister about it. These little data files are known as "cookies." These cookies can store any information that the website has about you. Most typically cookies will store or point to any preferences you set for that website and other information such as login name and last page visited but it can be anything the website knows about you including information you have entered into forms on that website. Size limitations aside, the cookie will store whatever information the web server, say Google, has access to and tells it to store. Just about everything a website knows about you before you have positively identified yourself by logging-in is information it is stored via a cookie on your hard drive.

Nobody on Democracy Now mentions cookies, but this is how it works. Perhaps neither Democracy Now nor MoveOn.org understand these things. In that case they should consult an expert before they start talking about things they don't understand. No login and no cookie and you are pretty much anonymous to Google or any other website.

And the good news is that you can control cookies through your Internet browser, typically you can delete all or selected cookies and you can block cookies from all or selected websites. Like many things, exactly how you do this varies from browser to browser and is different in Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari. Here's a link with some specific instructions.

So if you are concerned that Google is shaping search results just for you, as Amy and Eli are, there's no reason to fret about it. Just become empowered and learn how to turn off that behavior in your setup. However, once you have banned cookies from your system you may find that there are a great many advantages to using them and having the website that you are communicating with know who it is communicating with but the choice will be yours. Democracy Now could have performed a great service by pointing to this easy solution to the Internet threat that most concerned them this week but they didn't.

Apart from cookies, there is another, even more basic way websites collect your "personal information." They read your ENVIRONMENTAL VARIABLES. ENVIRONMENTAL VARIABLES are standard pieces of info that your computer makes public in order to facilitate communication. For example REMOTE_ADDR is a variable that contains your Internet address and HTTP_USER_AGENT tells everyone what type of browser you are using and often by deduction, what type of computer you are using. Eli and Amy warn about this too, although again, they never refer to the proper terminology. Eli tells Amy:

Well, it’s really striking. I mean, even if you’re not—if you’re logged in to Google, then Google obviously has access to all of your email, all of your documents that you’ve uploaded, a lot of information. But even if you’re logged out, an engineer told me that there are 57 signals that Google tracks—"signals" is sort of their word for variables that they look at—everything from your computer’s IP address—that’s basically its address on the Internet—what kind of laptop you’re using or computer you’re using, what kind of software you’re using, even things like the font size or how long you’re hovering over a particular link. And they use that to develop a profile of you, a sense of what kind of person is this. And then they use that to tailor the information that they show you.

And this is happening in a whole bunch of places, you know, not just sort of the main Google search, but also on Google News.

And I would add that this happens not only with Google News but with absolutely every website on the planet. Internet Explorer responds differently from Firefox, Macs are different from PCs, Android different from iPhone. If you don't want your screens to dissolve into madness, you had better be willing to let the website know what kind of system it is talking to. If you know what you are doing you can delete HTTP_USER_AGENT from you computer but the results won't be pretty.

Likewise, a website, even one as smart as Google, has to know what font size you are using before they can know how many characters to send you on a single line. And if they don't have your Internet address, well, they won't even know were to send them. They measure how long you hover over a link so they can pop up an information window if you linger, or maybe they just take you to the link after so many seconds. That can be a very helpful behavior for those operating with certain handicaps. So I say to Eli, get a grip, take your meds! All communications requires that you surrender a little "personal information." If you want someone to call you on the phone, you will have to give them your phone number. If you want them to mail you something, they will want an address.

I hope I have gotten across to you just how ordinary and essential these variables are and just how ridiculous these complaints against them are.They are part of the Internet Protocol, they are as old as the web, all websites and browsers without exception use them and it is disingenuous to imply that especially Google reads your computer's Internet address or what size font you are using. They all do, even democracynow.org.

This is what I call fear mongering. This is what I call making a mountain out of a mole hill. Google has my IP address, oh my! Meanwhile the government is fixing to tell Google it can no longer find thepiratesbay.org when you search for it. On that subject Amy and Eli are silent.

Juan Gonzalez asks a good question:

And what are the options, the opt-out options, if there are any, for those who use, whether it’s Google or Yahoo! or Facebook? Their ability to control and keep their personal information?

Eli doesn't have a really good answer:

Well, you know, there aren’'t perfect opt-out options, because even if you take a new laptop out of the box, already it says something about you, that you bought a Mac and not a PC. I mean, it’s very hard to get entirely out of this. There’s no way to turn it off entirely at Google. But certainly, you can open a private browsing window. That helps.

Here he could have mentioned proxy servers but he didn't. Proxy servers empower you because they give you a way to be completely anonymous to Google or any other website. An anonymous proxy server acts as an intermediary between you and the website you are ultimately talking to, so for example, you talk to Google through a proxy; Google sends the results to the proxy and the proxy send the results to you. In that case Google doesn't even know your IP address or anything about you.

Proxy servers have played a big role in providing access and insuring the anonymity of Internet activists involved in the ongoing uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East. In fact Google has been one of the players hosting proxy servers for these activists. These activists found themselves involved in a life or death struggle to hide their Internet identities from governments not large Internet companies. Since Democracy Now choose to raise concerns about Google and other websites collecting your personal information; they really should have told you where to find proxy servers and how to use them. They should have empowered you rather than imply there was really nothing you could do. Here's a link that will help you stay anonymous on the web.

Now that I have explained to you how you can protect your privacy on-line, let's get back to the thrust of the Democracy Now segment because if the truth is to be told, Google's use of our IP addresses and font sizes really didn't go to the core of their concerns. They are most concerned that Google isn't giving you the search results they think you should have.

ELI PARISER: Yeah. You know, if you look at how they talked about the original Google algorithm, they actually talked about it in these explicitly democratic terms, that the web was kind of voting—each page was voting on each other page in how credible it was. And this is really a departure from that. This is moving more toward, you know, something where each person can get very different results based on what they click on. [my note: that is not true but the message being promoted here is that Google is turning bad.]

And when I did this recently with Egypt—I had two friends google "Egypt"—one person gets search results that are full of information about the protests there, about what’s going on politically; the other person, literally nothing about the protests, only sort of travel to see the Pyramids websites.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, wait, explain that again. I mean, that is astounding. So you go in. The uprising is happening in Egypt.

ELI PARISER: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: In fact, today there’s a mass protest in Tahrir Square. They’re protesting the military council and other issues. So, if I look, and someone who likes to travel look, they may not even see a reference to the uprising?

ELI PARISER: That’s right. I mean, there was nothing in the top 10 links. And, you know, actually, the way that people use Google, most people use just those top three links. So, if Google isn’'t showing you sort of the information that you need to know pretty quickly, you can really miss it.

Of course if you only give Google that one word clue as to what you are looking for, it will be pretty much of a crap shoot what you get back. Ask Google to run a search on the word "Egypt" and it will bring back over 400 million results. If you just search on the one word you really aren't being helpful. It's almost like you are asking Google to read your mind. Still it will try it's damnedest to discern just what about Egypt you are interested in and put those in the first few pages of results. If it has access to your past search requests or other information, it will use them in trying to determine what you want to know about Egypt.

I would suggest that if Eli wants to have more control over what search results Google gives him them he needs to give it more information not less. Try Googling on "Egypt travel" or "Egypt uprising" and he will get more explicit results. I guarantee it. He should tell the search engine what he is looking for rather than asking it to pick the top ten of 400 million for him.

Clearly, Amy thinks that the uprisings in Egypt should be in the top ten of any search on the word Egypt no matter what they are really looking for. That's because the uprisings in Egypt are now all the rage at Democracy Now. It doesn't matter that Google was showing references to the uprisings in Egypt for weeks before it found any on the Democracy Now website. Now that Amy has become aware of how important it is, she seems to think that Google has a moral responsibility to make sure everybody knows.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, what about the responses of those who run these search engines, that they’re merely responding to the interests and needs of the people who use the system?

ELI PARISER: Well, you know, I think—they say, "We’re just giving people what we want." And I say, "Well, what do you mean by 'what we want'?" Because I think, actually, all of us want a lot of different things. And there’s a short-term sort of compulsive self that clicks on the celebrity gossip and the more trivial articles, and there’s a longer-term self that wants to be informed about the world and be a good citizen. And those things are in contention all the time. You know, we have those two forces inside us. And the best media helps us sort of—helps the long-term self get an edge a little bit. It gives us some sort of information vegetables and some information dessert, and you get a balanced information diet. This is like you’re just surrounded by empty calories, by information junk food.

So the gist of their complaint is that these "search engines" just give people what they want whereas Eli and Amy want them to take on some parental responsibilities, to force us to eat our "information vegetables" as it were, look out for our "longer-term self" and help us "be a good citizen."

So what do they propose as the solution to all these nasty fears they have raised with us? Of the problem, Eli says,

It’s a natural by product of consolidating so much of what we do online in a few big companies that really don’t have a whole lot of accountability, you know, that aren’t being pushed very hard by governments to do this right or do it responsibly.

So maybe we should be giving the government more authority to control just what search results Google and the other search engines give us? Say, doesn't the Protect IP bill just pasted by the Judiciary Committee yesterday do something like that? Oh that, we're not talking about that, not on Democracy Now!

UPDATE 31-01-11: While this bill has been voted out of committee as I said in the beginning, the good news is that Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) has blocked the legislation for now. IT MUST BE DEFEATED! Opposition to the bill is growing rapidly. Yahoo, the Computer and Communications Industry Association, Consumer Electronics Association, and Net Coalition have joined Google in publicly opposing the Protect IP Act. The main group that seems to be organizing against it now is Demand Progress. Please visit their site, add your name to the petition, check for updates and other ways to contribute to it's defeat.

e- G8 plans gov't takeover of Internet

This is just a quick diary to point out to Kossacks, in case nobody else does here, that a very important Internet governance conference is taking place in Paris on May 24-25, 2011 in connection with the G8 summit.

This high level summit is being attended by various government representatives as well as Internet heavyweights like Google's Eric Schmidt, Amazon's Jeff Bezos and Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales. In the open day keynote French President Nicolas Sarkozy made clear the intent of the assembled governments to bring the Internet under government control. Sarkozy told the assembled Internet reps:

"You can't be exempt from minimum rules, which shouldn't damp your development though," he said. "Do not forget that it is in the commitment of your companies to contribute fairly to national ecosystems that the sincerity of your promise will be assessed."

I add the bold because that I believe that highlights the main sticking point, the thing that goes to the heart of the matter and it has to do with how governments view the Internet.

From the beginning the Internet knew no national boundaries. To be sure there were very strong language, technical and cultural biases but no tariffs or special borders. And while it still helps to be English speaking and Western educated much has been done to mitigate those requirements.

Now governments want to control the Internet, especially now that the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt show how valuable a free Internet can be in overthrowing a government and how hard it is, as matters now stand, for the various governments to lock down their people's Internet access. Governments of all stripes dislike being over thrown.

So these moves are entirely predictable and I ask the reader to view policy statements at this e-G8 conference in the same light that I discussed the renewed offensive initiated against the free Internet by the US govt last week.

Just be aware that they are moving rather quickly now to lock down the Internet so we better hurry up and use this tool to organize our opposition while we still have it to use.

According to CNET, Google cautioned against a lot of new government regulations:

"You want to tread lightly on regulation in brand new industries," Schmidt said. "There is a tendency incumbents will block new things, [but] the Internet is a remarkably resilient and creative place. Clearly you need some level of regulation for the evil stuff, but I would be careful."

Although Google often takes the anti-regulatory stance so common in industry, it did advocate Net neutrality--the idea that some regulation was appropriate to ensure the big incumbent players on the Internet can't give their own traffic priority access on the network. Google backed off its stance with a compromise proposal that argued wireless data providers, struggling with heavily overburdened networks, should be able to decide on their own which data gets priority.

The Internet belongs to neither companies nor countries. I think Googler Vic Gundotra got it right and the Google I/O conference earlier this month when he said:

"It's a platform that's owned by none of us, so it's the only platform that truly belongs to all of us."

We must make sure that does not change.

Friday 13th Unlucky for Homeless in Venice

A few days ago the Spirit of Venice sent out this:

VENICE CA --As if by some act of cruel fate, on Friday, May 13, 2011, at 3:00 am in the morning - under cover of darkness - LAPD officers rousted homeless people sleeping at Venice beach.

As if that wasn't enough, LAPD officers, accompanied by City of Los Angeles sanitation trucks proceeded to STEAL their possessions, throwing them into the waiting truck for disposal at an undeclared location, with no possibility of retrieval.

One disabled paraplegic artist of color was ordered to get up and leave the area. As he struggled to climb into his wheelchair, his lifeless legs dragging on the ground, the LAPD officer told him that if he didn't move faster he would confiscate all his possessions. The artist continued to struggle but was unable to comply with the officer's demands quickly enough. He watched in despair as the officer STOLE his bag of painting materials (his very livelihood) and threw them into the waiting sanitation truck.

I have, in an earlier diary, documented how the LAPD, at the directions of L.A. Councilman Bill Rosendahl, has been seizing the vehicles of people found living in them and forcing many to sleep on the sidewalk. Now the police are rousing the the homeless and tossing what's left of their meager Earthly possessions, including prescription medication and perhaps a clean change of clothes, into the trash.

If this is the way the government treats those being ground under by our increasingly polarized capitalism economy now, I fear what solutions they will seek in the future.

Writing about the "austerity measures" taken in the wake of the Great Depression, R. Palme Dutt, made a very ominous prediction in 1933 as to where things were going. He wrote:

Today they are burning wheat and grain, the means of human life. Tomorrow they will burn living human beings.
Fascism and Social Revolution, 1934

Today they are callously taking away the very means of survival from the homeless. I just hope our government doesn't keep marching down that road because I think we all know where it leads. It leads to state sponsored mass murder. We've been through that movie before.

And all we good Germans have to do is let it happen. Just look the other way and fail to speak up while our government takes measures that are just a little bit more draconian everyday against a section of the population that is so unlucky as to have the failure. of the economic system blamed on them.

So please don't be silent and please sign this petition whether you live in Venice or not.

LAPD ACCOMPANIED BY CITY DUMP TRUCKS, IN RAIDS, SEIZE VENICE HOMELESS' POSSESSIONS

IF NOT NOW? -- WHEN? >>>>> IF NOT US? -- WHO?

SIGN THIS PETITION TO STOP THESE CRUEL RAIDS NOW!

PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY - THANKS!

Coming Soon: Obama versus Google

In case you haven't noticed, the Internet battle of the century has been shaping up this week. This will be, I believe - in this time and these concrete conditions, one of the most critical battles for the future of humanity and this planet in this century. That is because it concerns the future of the Internet and whether it will remain free and open. After Tunisia and Egypt I no longer have to harp on the power of the Internet as it is presently governed in making social revolution. After the uprisings in North Africa all are aware of that power.


It is against that backdrop that the Obama administration renewed it's two pronged assault on the free Internet this week. This time the measures they are seeking to implement are even more draconian that those that were thwarted in the fall.

On Monday 16/5/11, with a host of White House dignitaries present, including his Sec State & AG, the Obama Administration unveiled its "Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative." Without going into details, let me just say that they've now added some new 'features' to the plan they unveiled and I critiqued last year [Spirit of Venice sent out this:

VENICE CA --As if by some act of cruel fate, on Friday, May 13, 2011, at 3:00 am in the morning - under cover of darkness - LAPD officers rousted homeless people sleeping at Venice beach.

As if that wasn't enough, LAPD officers, accompanied by City of Los Angeles sanitation trucks proceeded to STEAL their possessions, throwing them into the waiting truck for disposal at an undeclared location, with no possibility of retrieval.

One disabled paraplegic artist of color was ordered to get up and leave the area. As he struggled to climb into his wheelchair, his lifeless legs dragging on the ground, the LAPD officer told him that if he didn't move faster he would confiscate all his possessions. The artist continued to struggle but was unable to comply with the officer's demands quickly enough. He watched in despair as the officer STOLE his bag of painting materials (his very livelihood) and threw them into the waiting sanitation truck.

I have, in an earlier diary, documented how the LAPD, at the directions of L.A. Councilman Bill Rosendahl, has been seizing the vehicles of people found living in them and forcing many to sleep on the sidewalk. Now the police are rousing the the homeless and tossing what's left of their meager Earthly possessions, including prescription medication and perhaps a clean change of clothes, into the trash.

If this is the way the government treats those being ground under by our increasingly polarized capitalism economy now, I fear what solutions they will seek in the future.

Writing about the "austerity measures" taken in the wake of the Great Depression, R. Palme Dutt, made a very ominous prediction in 1933 as to where things were going. He wrote:

Today they are burning wheat and grain, the means of human life. Tomorrow they will burn living human beings.
Fascism and Social Revolution, 1934

Today they are callously taking away the very means of survival from the homeless. I just hope our government doesn't keep marching down that road because I think we all know where it leads. It leads to state sponsored mass murder. We've been through that movie before.

And all we good Germans have to do is let it happen. Just look the other way and fail to speak up while our government takes measures that are just a little bit more draconian everyday against a section of the population that is so unlucky as to have the failure. of the economic system blamed on them.

So please don't be silent and please sign this petition whether you live in Venice or not.

LAPD ACCOMPANIED BY CITY DUMP TRUCKS, IN RAIDS, SEIZE VENICE HOMELESS' POSSESSIONS

IF NOT NOW? -- WHEN? >>>>> IF NOT US? -- WHO?

SIGN THIS PETITION TO STOP THESE CRUEL RAIDS NOW!

PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY - THANKS!

It is against that backdrop that the Obama administration renewed it's two pronged assault on the free Internet this week. This time the measures they are seeking to implement are even more draconian that those that were thwarted in the fall.

On Monday 16/5/11, with a host of White House dignitaries present, including his Sec State & AG, the Obama Administration unveiled its "Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative." Without going into details, let me just say that they've now added some new 'features' to the plan they unveiled and I critiqued last year [Obama's Internet Coup d'état].

Also this week the Internet Blacklist bill that ran out of time in the last congress [The Internet Takeover: Why Google is Next, this new bill will force search engines to alter results to the government's liking! Writing about the Justice department's seizure of domain names then I said:

all of the Federal government's violation of international trust and our rights with its draconian seizure of domains and attacks on domains will come to naught if Google continues to do what it has always done, deliver us search results as it finds them, without fear or favor.

I don't for a moment consider the other major search engines. Microsoft, AOL and Yahoo all bent over for the Chinese government without even being kissed first, I don't think the Obama Administration will have any trouble out of them. Google on the other hand, just might pose somewhat of a problem. They are coming from a different place. They have their roots in the Free Software Movement and they have opposed this sort of thing before with China and the Bush Administration. And most importantly, of all the forces that may oppose the Obama Internet takeover, Google has the money and the technical clout to make it a real ball game.

Well, yesterday Google threw down the gauntlet to the Federal government. Google CEO Eric Schmidt, speaking at a hacker conference in the UK likened the website blocking to China's restrictive Internet regime. He said that the search giant will fight against such attempts in the UK's Digital Economy Act and the US' Protect IP Act to restrict access to sites such as the Pirate Bay.

And he went even further, saying

"If there is a law that requires DNSs to do X and it's passed by both houses of Congress and signed by the President of the United States and we disagree with it then we would still fight it," he told The Guardian at a London conference on Wednesday.

IMHO Google has already shown it's true colors by fine tuning it's Arabic translation facilities as the region was heating up, by strongly backing the Google exec. Wael Ghonim, who played a leading role in the Egyptian uprising, and by setting up the "Speak-to-Tweet" lines and supporting proxy servers [for circumventing Internet censorship] first in Egypt and then in Libya. [Google Goes Rebel, Supports Egyptian Protest]

Now Google is getting a lot of flack for Schmidt's statement. "Google seems to think it’s above America’s laws" was the comment from MPAA chief lobbyist, Michael O'Leary.

So this week, the stage has been set for a struggle of absolutely historic proportions, although I'm not sure many outside of the tech world have noticed.

Anyway I bring it up because it not just Google's fight. Hell, Larry & Sergey can bend over for Obama and still keep their billions, but if we lose the right to a free and open Internet, it might set back the struggle for human liberation by a hundred years. Your ass is in this too!

I wish that I was in a position to pitch-in on this struggle as I did with the one in the fall or the North African uprisings that followed. Unfortunately I am now starting to run out of money [again] so if I still want to be able to support the homeless without joining them, I am forced to turn my attention to more commercial pursuits at this time.

That brings me to he real point of this dairy, which is to encourage you to download by PDF sales flier here.