The Article: Surveillance State Democracy by Glenn Greenwald in Salon.
The Text: CNET‘s excellent technology reporter, Declan McCullagh, reports on ongoing efforts by the Obama administration to force the Internet industry to provide the U.S. Government with “backdoor” access to all forms of Internet communication:
The FBI is asking Internet companies not to oppose a controversial proposal that would require firms, including Microsoft, Facebook, Yahoo, and Google, to build in backdoors for government surveillance. . . . That included a scheduled trip this month to the West Coast — which was subsequently postponed — to meet with Internet companies’ CEOs and top lawyers. . . .
The FBI general counsel’s office has drafted a proposed law that the bureau claims is the best solution: requiring that social-networking Web sites and providers of VoIP, instant messaging, and Web e-mail alter their code to ensure their products are wiretap-friendly.
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Both lead to the same miserable end.
The Article: Hunter S. Thompson’s ‘The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved’ by Michael MacCambridge on Grantland.
The Text: The telephone rang at Warren Hinckle’s San Francisco home at about 3:30 in the morning on Wednesday, April 29, 1970. When Hinckle picked up the receiver, he heard the unmistakable voice of Hunter S. Thompson, calling from Aspen, proclaiming, “Goddammit, Scanlan’s has to cover the Derby. It’s important.”
The pitch, even at the late hour and the late date (barely 72 hours before the race itself), was fairly irresistible.1 Send Thompson, still finding his distinctive voice in countercultural journalism, to his hometown of Louisville to cover the drunken, debauched scene at Churchill Downs for Scanlan’s, the anti-establishment (some would say subversive) monthly magazine for which Hinckle was co-editor.
Hinckle agreed on the spot, booked Thompson a ticket, wired him expense money, and then set about finding an artist to provide illustrations for the story. Originally, he had hoped to send a photographer to shoot the event, but after haggling with Thompson, he instead hired the English illustrator Ralph Steadman.
It would prove to be a memorable, historic weekend. And it began, as so many of Thompson’s adventures would, with drinks at a bar.
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Well, with the way Romney’s been polling it seems we’re leaning in that direction.
The Article: The Visionary by Ben Birnbaum in The New Republic.
The Text: If you were to pinpoint one moment when it looked as if things just might work out for Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian prime minister, it would probably be February 2, 2010. That day, Fayyad addressed the annual Herzliya Conference, a sort of Israeli version of Davos featuring high-powered policymakers and intellectuals. It is not a typical speaking venue for Palestinians; yet Fayyad was warmly received. He sat in the front row next to Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who—just before Fayyad ascended the stage—whispered into his ear and grasped his hand in what appeared to be a show of genuine affection. When Fayyad reached the blue and white podium, he garnered an enthusiastic round of applause from the hundreds in attendance.
Standing five feet five in a charcoal suit with glasses, frog-like features, and thinning salt-and-pepper hair, Fayyad didn’t appear all that charismatic—and he didn’t sound charismatic, either. He spoke in jargon-laced English with a deep nasal monotone. But what he had to say was dramatic—even revolutionary.
Six months earlier, with decades of negotiations and armed conflict having failed to produce Palestinian independence, Fayyad had proclaimed a bold new strategy: Instead of waiting for Israel to grant them a state, the Palestinians would build it themselves—brick by brick, institution by institution. Fayyad’s “state-building program,” as it was known, had earned praise from the likes of Israeli President Shimon Peres (who called him the “Palestinian Ben Gurion”) and The New York Times’ Tom Friedman (who coined the term “Fayyadism” to describe “the simple but all-too-rare notion that an Arab leader’s legitimacy should be based not on slogans or rejectionism or personality cults or security services, but on delivering transparent, accountable administration and services”). Even some right-wing Israeli politicians had spoken favorably of Fayyad, especially when comparing him with Yasir Arafat or Hamas.
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The Article: Obama Backs Gay Marriage by Jennifer Epstein in Politico.
The Text: President Barack Obama said Wednesday that he now supports gay marriage, saying “I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married.”
“I’ve stood on the side of broader equality for the LGBT community. I hesitated on gay marriage in part because I thought civil unions would be sufficient,” Obama said in a White House interview with ABC News’s Robin Roberts. “I was sensitive to the fact that for a lot of people, the word ‘marriage’ evokes very powerful traditions, religious beliefs.”
But, the president said, years of discussion had resulted in an “evolution” to the point that many supporters had hoped for — full backing of gay marriage.
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As the class of 2012 prepares to graduate in rather uncertain economic times, this quote couldn’t be any more appropriate.
The Article: ALEC: The Most Important Election Issue You Don’t Know About by Savannah Cox on The Speckled Axe.
The Text: The 2012 election season has already brought with it familiar cries of so-called class warfare, quadrennial culture wars, and most recently, several pieces of controversial legislation that many have dubbed key components of the “war on women.” But as Americans and mainstream media spear each other with the same old political barbs, a far more sinister—yet perfectly legal—series of political maneuvering is taking place in boardrooms throughout the country. If successful, the subsequent victims won’t be just women, a particular class or minority but rather democracy itself. But the absolute worst part? In a year supposedly rife with democracy in action, hardly anyone is talking about it.
The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC): Not Your Average Baldwin
While the 2010 Citizens United v. FEC Supreme Court decision gave a pulse and personhood to monolithic corporations throughout the United States, the corporate Frankenstein has been in the making for decades; it is only now that the monster is nearing completion and ready for unleashing against an otherwise distracted and disengaged populace. Funded almost entirely by billion dollar corporations since 1973, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) fuses together the worst of corporate and legislative corruption into one seamless copy and paste model policy package.
Their goal is simple yet sweeping: reduce the size of government to that of a shrunken pea, get rid of regulations that impede upon what should be unrestricted growth of multinational corporations and by effect shift political power from the American people to the pinstriped pockets of the world’s most affluent denizens. It should come as no surprise that its members, alumni, and award recipients are all familiar faces within the American conservative canon: current Speaker of the House John Boehner served as one of ALEC’s earliest alumni, along with influential men like Senate Majority Leader Eric Cantor, Donald Rumsfeld, Charles and David Koch, and Milton Friedman among a whole slew of others.
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