Religion forms the book-ends for today's Daily Pulse, starting with the conservative fantasy that we are a nation "of the Christians, for the Christians, and by the Christians" that makes me wonder if our grandchildren will even recognize this country. At the other end, a discussion from Al Jazeera about movements in Islam and our failure to understand them.
Also today, the Google story is getting real traction, and Clinton health care makes a come back.
I'm still looking for a few new front-page writers- go to the bottom for details.
And with no more ado, The Daily Pulse.
Tyler Morning Telegraph
Start your morning screaming. I'm sorry, but this kind of stuff makes me almost completely insane. The roundabout and tortured logic used to conclude that our government "By the People" comes, not from individuals, but from one sect's version of "God," is so intentionally and profoundly ignorant that I genuinely worry whether my children's children will ever see my America. This editorial, and the column it quotes by a California lawmaker, actually concludes that our rights have nothing to do with individuals, but come only from "God." In other words, without "God," we have no right to defend ourselves, to speak freely, even to live. And if that is the conclusion the nation reaches, what does that say for the rights of people who failed to be born into the right club?
MUCH AT STAKE REMOVING GOD FROM OUR CUSTOMS
Most Americans have at least heard about the movement to eliminate references to God from the Pledge of Allegiance, the nation's currency, public ceremonies and even from national customs.
While a majority likely have felt some concern about the issue, there is a widespread lack of real understanding of just what is involved in this controversy, and what is at stake for our country and its people. ...
There is a lot at stake in the Pledge of Allegiance debates, McClintock explains in the article. A great principle is at the heart of the movement, he noted, and "It has very little to do with atheism. It has a great deal to do with authoritarianism." ...
These are rights that exist as a condition of human life itself, McClintock stressed. "If an individual were alone in the world, the rights he would have are those rights the Founders traced to 'the laws of nature and of nature's God.' In other words, "That among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.' The right to the fruit of our own labor, the right to express our own sentiments, the right to defend ourselves, the right to live our lives according to our own best lights - in a word, freedom."
To secure these rights in a world where others seek to violate them, a government is formed servient to these God-given rights, he observed. Put another way, "a government under God." In the American view, he added, "the only legitimate exercise of force by one individual over another, or by a government over its people, is in the defense of these natural rights."
This concept is the foundation of American liberty, McClintock declared. ...
"The case now before the Supreme Court over the Pledge of Allegiance must not be devalued as a mere defense of harmless deistic references and quaint old customs," he warned. "The principle at stake is central to the very foundation of the American nation and at the very survival of its freedoms."
These are thoughtful comments that might give some citizens a better grasp of what really is at stake in the battle to preserve important national customs.
Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
I think many people are looking back at Clinton health care rather wistfully. And if you think the whole health care debate is interesting now, just wait until the Medicare D recipients, especially those switched from Medicaid, get a taste of that doughnut.
Sen. Hillary Clinton should lead the fight for health care repair
It's certainly good that Sen. Hillary Clinton again is raising the banner of health care reform, which is the issue that brought her national attention as a policy thinker during her husband's first presidential term. ...
Clinton, who's running for a second term and is considered an early front-runner for the Democratic nomination for president in 2008, came to Rochester this week to meet with local business leaders about the troubling realities of American health care. Those include skyrocketing insurance premiums, the growing ranks of the uninsured and underinsured, the profiteering of drug companies and the fiscal stumbling of public programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. ...
The senator could earn anew her stripes as a health care reformer if she pushed Congress to do more to help small business afford health insurance, if she led the charge against drug companies and their exploitation of the American market to pay for their global forays. ...
Clinton has not ignored health care. She's been a leader in trying to bring information technology to the provider network. She's pushed for tax credits and cost-saving treatment standards.
But this issue needs a reformer's clarion call. Clinton should seize the moment.
Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
How is it that a newspaper, the earliest and greatest recipient of a constitutional right to not be censored, simply doesn't get it? Why must Howard Stern be censored on satellite radio. Is there some cabal I didn't hear about forcing the parents of young children to buy the service and play it on the way to preschool?
Satellite radio may end up setting decency limits after all
When shock jock Howard Stern fled to satellite radio, he promised his listeners a show without limits. No more pesky federal decency standards, no more temporary suspensions, no more FCC fines. ...
It would be naïve to expect Sirius to truly rein in Stern's dirty jokes and degrading stunts. Unfortunately, such antics are expected to bring in hundreds of millions of dollars. After Stern was signed to the satellite station, the number of Sirius subscribers jumped from 600,000 to 3.3 million and Sirius stock about doubled. ...
Freedom of speech and expression come with a responsibility that more companies and entertainers ought to respect.
Poughkeepsie Journal
The Google story is starting to get some legs. I said the other day that most people cared little about international calls, but would start to get worried if the government peeked into their search for "young girl hairless oral."
Google is right to protect data
Google has rightfully denied an over-arching request by the government to reveal the actions by people using its search engine. The courts will have the final say in this case, but the company was correct to challenge the subpoena, which sought 1 million random Web addresses and records of all Google searches for any one-week period. ...
Unfortunately, Yahoo, America Online and Microsoft have already turned over their files to the government. The original government request for two months' worth of search results had been whittled to one week, but it is still an overly broad review of a company's proprietary information. ...
The government is using the Patriot Act as the basis for its action. The act, passed following the 2001 terrorist attacks, was crafted to enhance national security. It allows the government to obtain information on activities of people who aren't suspects in any criminal activity and bans companies from revealing that information was turned over to the government.
But the issue of distributing pornography on the Internet is not of national security. Using the Patriot Act to build its claim for a case that has already been rejected by the Supreme Court is an overarching interpretation of the law.
Google's challenge is one of the first big cases to address how much information the government can obtain. It should stir a healthy, needed debate about the role of government's observation of private activity.
The Monitor
There were two different editorials in two different papers to day about Google. There were a couple yesterday, too. People are starting to notice at the very worst time for Bush, who is on yet another bambooblepaloza tour to try to convince the nation that he was annointed emperor for our own safety.
Revving the Engines
The Internet search-engine company Google was correct to resist a Department of Justice subpoena requesting a broad range of material from its databases, specifically 1 million random Web addresses and the records of all Google searches during a one-week period. The Justice Department originally asked for all of Google's Web addresses and a month's worth of searches, then backed off when informed that could be billions of entries. This still looks like a fishing-expedition request that would not give the government what it thought it wanted.
Too bad Yahoo, MSN and AOL, which reportedly received similar requests, did not resist as well. ...
Google was right to resist.
The Monitor
I am just disgusted by everything about campaign financing. The argument that money equals speech should resonate about as strongly as dark equals light, or pigs equal chickens. If our nation is premised upon an idea that we have just as many rights as we can buy, we might as well rename it the United States of Bill Gates (it does rhyme) and call it a day.
High court getting its chance to strike down `campaign reform'
When the founding fathers created the First Amendment, their main concern was political speech. They wanted a nation in which a people were free to engage in a free-wheeling debate about politics and politicians.
The amendment was clear-cut: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." ...
The U.S. Supreme Court heard a legal challenge this week to the notorious McCain-Feingold campaign reforms, named after U.S. Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Russ Feingold, D-Wis. Passed in 2002, the law is best known for its restrictions on "soft money" -- independent donations that go to political advocacy groups that are not tied to a candidate's campaign organization. ...
Let's hope the Supreme Court, which has upheld the constitutionality of McCain-Feingold, comes to understand the grave threat to free speech that this law has created.
Al Jazeera
The whole good v. evil black and white argument of our present administration demonstrates small-mindedness to the point of foolishness. Unfortunately, our compliant and incompetent media has simply surrendered its obligation to educate, choosing instead to anesthetize with idiocy. We have to look outside our borders to get any kind of discussion about what is really going on in the "Muslim World," or even to understand that there is no more a "Muslim World" than there is a "Christian World," or a "Red Head World."
Talking to the enemy
In his book Politics of God, Jim Wallis who is an American wise clergyman, suggested that "the best answer to bad religion is better religion, not secularism". ...
For him, the "bad religion" of the American extremist right cannot be fought successfully by the liberalist or secularist ideologies, but can be fought and defeated by a more humane interpretation of the Biblical text and the Christian tradition. ..
The American strategists are still enslaved by an archaic attitude perceives all the Islamic movements whether as an eternal enemy that must be fought and destroyed, or a marginal phenomenon that can be ignored and left to the "moderate" governments to silence by oppressive means.
Both propositions are deadly wrong: the Islamic movements, in their mainstream reformist doctrine, are not an eternal enemy of America, and they are deeply rooted in their societies. ...
Alas, none of the serious American think-tanks that have influence on the policymaking process of this country realised the obvious: that today's Islamic revivalism is very diverse and very dynamic; and that a fair and impartial view would certainly lead the American political elite to accept the Islamic movements as a potential partner and friend, instead of the hallucination suggested by the "eternal enemy" paradigm. ...
It would be better for America and the Western world in general to help Muslims overcome this painful metamorphosis, and to minimise their intervention in this transitional process
Al-Qaida is the most obvious example of such movements. Although this trend is highly publicised in the American media, it is statistically a very marginal element within the religious revival and activism spreading across the Islamic world today.
In their quest for effective means to confront al-Qaida and its apocalyptic theology, American strategists and policymakers are trying vainly to create a new Islam in their own image. ...
I always feel something essential is missing in their studies: none of these studies is accepting the Islamic movements as a legitimate actor and potential partner in the future of their own Muslim societies ...
In brief, America and the Islamic movements have no viable option but dialogue and coexistence. To achieve this noble goal, I would like to suggest the following guidelines:
The American policy makers need to commit themselves to a more honest effort to understand the Islamic movements.
The traditional Western characterisation of political Islam, as a result of economic desperation or cultural anger, is a misleading interpretation that prevented the American policymakers from deeply grasping this complex and authentic phenomenon.
Americans need to come to terms that a democracy inspired by Islam will not necessarily be pro-American, or pro-Western. ...
The key to a better future and better relation is for America to discontinue baking dictators in their oppression of the Islamic reformist movements, since these movements are the expression of Muslim societies' aspiration for freedom and justice.
A wiser America should have learned from its experience in Iran: if you plant a Shah, you harvest Khomeini. The Shah option is no longer acceptable by the people of the Islamic world, and the Khomeini option is not acceptable to Americans.
The Islamic reformist movements provide a third way that is neither Shah nor Khomeini.
I'm ramping The Daily Pulse back up, and viewership has increased significantly. It took 4 months to get the first 3000, and about two weeks for the next thousand. If you're interested in being a front-page contributor, let me know. Ideally, we're looking for the following, all to be surveys of different editorial sites like the above:
* Letters to the Editor. I've been doing it once a week, but think a daily column gives the best picture of all what people outside the beltway or the political junkie blogs are thinking. Daily is ideal
* Foreign editorials. The best would be to have several different people, each posting once a week. I'd love to have a European Pulse, an Asian Pulse, a Middle Eastern, etc. Now, I try to include one foreign per main entry, but think the blog would be more valuable with a wider voice.
* Alternative editorials. I include GLBT, African American, Jewish, etc., newspapers in my database, from which randomly select editorial pages. But they are such a minority, they rarely pop up. If somebody dedicated themselves to an alternative column, that would be incredibly cool. It could also be broken up- weekly or semi-weekly GLBT, ditto African American, etc.
* Local columnists. Local columnists tend to have their fingers on the pulse of their communities, even better sometimes than the editorials. The editor gets to write whatever s/he wants. Columns sell, and they don't sell if they're too far from the community. Daily is best, but a couple of times per week would be cool.
* Other content, esp. local radio and television.
*Whatever else might fit in the format.