And the Bush administration's war on freedom of the press continues. Rather than having the spying itself investigated, they're investigating the leak. Very nice.

The US justice department has opened an inquiry into how information about President George Bush's secret spying programme was leaked, officials say.

The investigation is expected to focus on how the New York Times newspaper obtained the information.

Earlier this month, the paper reported that the National Security Agency had been conducting surveillance in the US without warrants.

Mr Bush later admitted he authorised the programme after the 9/11 attacks.

Quote of the day 24 December 2005:

The tragedy of modern man is not that he knows less and less about the meaning of his own life, but that it bothers him less and less.

- Vaclav Havel

Quote of the day 22 December 2005:

Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.

- Oscar Wilde

So now, not only has George Bush admitted to spying on Americans without a warrant, but Cheney is arguing for more powers for the president:

Cheney said the Watergate scandal and the Vietnam War wrongly eroded the executive power of the White House, something he and U.S. President George W. Bush have remedied during their war on terror.The U.S. vice-president spoke on a day when some moderate Republicans joined Democratic calls for a congressional inquiry into whether Bush broke the law by authorizing wiretaps without court permission.

At least two Democrats suggested Bush could be impeached for his alleged crimes and the White House scrambled late in the day to try to counter the perception that Bush had deliberately misled the nation when he spoke about wiretaps in April 2004.

I mean, it's good to see that in response to this at least some people aren't afraid to talk openly about impeachment when the president, I dunno, breaks the law. Even some Republicans are questioning the legality of this. But, alas, it is talk which shall not lead to action for, as the Attorney General of the United States Alberto Gonzales points out, the president apparently has "inherent authority under the Constitution, as commander in chief, to engage in this kind of activity." Yes, that's right. It's not actually written in the Consitution, but we know it's there.

And by the way, why is Bush's approval rating going up at the same time he has admitted to spying on the American people? Hilarious. Wait, no - that's not the word I want. How about frightening?

"....well understand this about fascism, when it arrives it never shows up in the discarded costume of some other country, and when fascism comes here, its not going to be wearing a toothbrush mustache with a luger in his belt and go goose-stepping around the mall, because that’s Germany. And its precisely characteristic of fascism, that it seems absolutely, totally expressive of the homeland, it seems completely familiar, it’s when 150% America puts a flag on it’s lapel and a cross around it’s neck and a real folksy way a talkin’, but just because it’s red, white and blue, doesn’t mean it’s American.”

- Mark Crispin Miller

A couple of things caught by Tom Tomorrow that will dampen your spirit and either increase or reinforce your sense of pessimism:

Audience member: We’ve got to give the President the flexibility to protect me. I use my cell phone all the time and I don’t have any problem with the folks listening to the conversations I have because they’re appropriate conversations.

And the audience bursts into applause.

If our democracy survives the next three years in any recognizable form, it will be in spite of morons like that.

http://thismodernworld.com/2568

And:

Conservatives should fall down on their knees every morning and thank their white patriarchal Christian god for the existence of the New York Times. The paper that helped sell the Iraq war via Judy Miller’s sterling reportage may also be the paper that helped ensure the re-election of George W. Bush — by sitting on the fact that he was busy committing impeachable offenses until a year after the election.

The New York Times first debated publishing a story about secret eavesdropping on Americans as early as last fall, before the 2004 presidential election.

But the newspaper held the story for more than a year and only revealed the secret wiretaps last Friday, when it became apparent a book by one of its reporters was about to break the news, according to journalists familiar with the paper’s internal discussions.

And then there’s this:

Dec. 19, 2005 - Finally we have a Washington scandal that goes beyond sex, corruption and political intrigue to big issues like security versus liberty and the reasonable bounds of presidential power. President Bush came out swinging on Snoopgate—he made it seem as if those who didn’t agree with him wanted to leave us vulnerable to Al Qaeda—but it will not work. We’re seeing clearly now that Bush thought 9/11 gave him license to act like a dictator, or in his own mind, no doubt, like Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War.

No wonder Bush was so desperate that The New York Times not publish its story on the National Security Agency eavesdropping on American citizens without a warrant, in what lawyers outside the administration say is a clear violation of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. I learned this week that on December 6, Bush summoned Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger and executive editor Bill Keller to the Oval Office in a futile attempt to talk them out of running the story. The Times will not comment on the meeting, but one can only imagine the president’s desperation.

Keller and Sulzberger had a meeting with Bush in the Oval Office — and the Times did not bother to mention the fact.

http://thismodernworld.com/2569

Quote of the day 20 December 2005:

Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas.

- Joseph Stalin

George W. Bush, on the need to remove Saddam Hussein from power:

"You find these secret, you know, prisons, where people have been tortured; you know, that's unacceptable." (Found here.)

When the United States was accused of doing the same, instead of denying it, Condoleezza Rice issued a veiled threat to reveal which governments were cooperating with them:

“Some governments choose to cooperate with the United States in intelligence, law enforcement, or military matters. That cooperation is a two-way street.” (Found here.)

So, if I understand the situation correctly, the Bush administration's problem with Saddam's secret prisons isn't that they existed, but that they weren't outsourced?

George Bush, in his latest effort to justify his war in Iraq, quoted Charles Dickens, who wrote his Christmas Carol during the, uh, Civil War apparently:

'And we remember the words of the Christmas carol, written during the Civil War: “God is not dead, nor (does) He sleep; the Wrong shall fail, the Right prevail, with peace on Earth, good-will to men.”'

Sure, he can use any words he wants to inspire his flock, but I'm not sure I understand the Civil War connection. I mean, disregarding for a moment the fact that Dickens was British, A Christmas Carol was published in 1843 - the American Civil War came a bit later. And besides, if Bush was looking for a relevant Dickens quote, he could have at least chosen one about Americans. Like this one:

"I do not know the American gentleman, God forgive me for putting two such words together."

Yeah - Dickens visted America once. He didn't like it. He didn't think much of the American press, either:

"...while the newspaper press of America is in, or near, its present abject state, high moral improvement in that country is hopeless."

Geez. I'm glad those days are behind us.

Quote of the day 18 December 2005:

"I don't want to sound callous. I mean, even if I have nothing to offer, that doesn't matter, because that still doesn't mean that what anybody else has to offer therefore has to be true."

- Richard Dawkins

Oh yeah - I guess I should explain the title. The fejeton (usually spelled feuilleton, like in French) is difficult to define – it basically consists of a short essay on a serious topic which is written in a sarcastic and humorous tone. It's kind of a genre somewhere between journalism and literature. The fejeton became popular in Central Europe in the early 20^th century, and is still practiced in the Czech Republic and Germany today. In the mainstream Czech press well-known Czech writers (primarily fiction writers) publish regular essays on issues of various social or political importance, and they're usually enjoyable reads. I like the language they use as well as the references to literature or philosophy and interesting mixture of genres that adds a unique perspective to a discussion. Many older fejetons are now available in collections of the authors’ works. If you're interested, some good collections of fejetons that are available in English are A Cup of Coffee with my Interrogator by Ludvík Vaculík and Toward the Radical Center by Karel Čapek.

Anyway, I was kind of trying to imitate the tone of the fejeton on this blog, so that's how I chose the title - it's hard to write regular polished essays, so that's why I'm sticking with "tone" rather than "style."

You know, it's not really anything new that the American government spies on its people, but what's disturbing about it is that they're so open about it now, as if to say that they have so little respect for the American people now that they don't even bother to hide their methods anymore. Before, it was hidden, and a lot of people didn't know or realize or understand how these things happen. Well, now, it's out in the open and the people accept this as a necessary evil. It's amazing what governments can get away with in the name of national security, and it's unfortunate how much people will trust their government and give up rights because they're told it's for their own good.

As Milan Kundera put it: A man who loses his privacy loses everything. And a man who gives it up of his own free will is a monster.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4534488.stm

Oh, but it's just terrorists they're spying on, so why should the rest of us worry? Well, apparently it's not just terrorists who are a threat to national security. And national security is at best a bullshit excuse for spying on citizens. It's not just post-9/11 phenomenon because it's been going on for a long time, and it can't be dismissed by saying, "Oh, but they did that a long time ago. The government doesn't do that sort of thing anymore." Because it's obviously still going on. So it's not the policies that change - just the excuses.

WASHINGTON - A year ago, at a Quaker Meeting House in Lake Worth, Fla., a small group of activists met to plan a protest of military recruiting at local high schools. What they didn’t know was that their meeting had come to the attention of the U.S. military.

A secret 400-page Defense Department document obtained by NBC News lists the Lake Worth meeting as a “threat” and one of more than 1,500 “suspicious incidents” across the country over a recent 10-month period.

“This peaceful, educationally oriented group being a threat is incredible,” says Evy Grachow, a member of the Florida group called The Truth Project.

“This is incredible,” adds group member Rich Hersh. “It’s an example of paranoia by our government,” he says. “We’re not doing anything illegal.”

The Defense Department document is the first inside look at how the U.S. military has stepped up intelligence collection inside this country since 9/11, which now includes the monitoring of peaceful anti-war and counter-military recruitment groups.

----------------------------------------------

The military’s penchant for collecting domestic intelligence is disturbing — but familiar — to Christopher Pyle, a former Army intelligence officer.

“Some people never learn,” he says. During the Vietnam War, Pyle blew the whistle on the Defense Department for monitoring and infiltrating anti-war and civil rights protests when he published an article in the Washington Monthly in January 1970.

The public was outraged and a lengthy congressional investigation followed that revealed that the military had conducted investigations on at least 100,000 American citizens. Pyle got more than 100 military agents to testify that they had been ordered to spy on U.S. citizens — many of them anti-war protestors and civil rights advocates. In the wake of the investigations, Pyle helped Congress write a law placing new limits on military spying inside the U.S.

But Pyle, now a professor at Mt. Holyoke College in Massachusetts, says some of the information in the database suggests the military may be dangerously close to repeating its past mistakes.

“The documents tell me that military intelligence is back conducting investigations and maintaining records on civilian political activity. The military made promises that it would not do this again,” he says.

Quote of the day 16 December 2005:

Reality is only a Rorschach ink-blot, you know.

- Alan Watts

What does fejeton mean? Eh, it's too late to get into it. I got other shit to do.

Quote of the day 14 December 2005:

The world is like a ride at an amusement park. It goes up and down and round and round. It has thrills and chills and it's very brightly coloured and it's very loud and it's fun, for a while. Some people have been on the ride for a long time, and they begin to question: Is this real, or is this just a ride? And other people have remembered, and they come back to us, they say, "Hey – don't worry, don't be afraid, ever, because, this is just a ride ..." And we ... kill those people.

- Bill Hicks

FIS 1210

OK, so I'm creating this blog for a class, but that doesn't mean it can't have real substance and humour and be relevant, does it? Probably not. Anyway, so what's it all about? Well, it's basically my outlet for periodic rants (and the occasional insightful commentary) on the state of the world as I see it, in particular on the way it's presented to us by the countless (er, uh, seven) voices of the mass media. In doing so I hope to also bring attention to the lesser-heard voices of the indy media world whose reporting has so much more integrity and depth than what we're fed by the people who sell you your news like just another product.

But really, what is the product? Is it really the news? Are we consumers of information? Do these companies make their money from the 50 cents we give them for a newspaper? And what about network tv? Isn't it free? Well, all of those commercials you see when you watch the latest episode of Prison Break or whatever other crap Fox or NBC or whoever are paid for by advertisers (and I don't just mean the commericals they show during breaks).

And if the advertisers are paying them, then that must mean that the advertisers are paying for some sort of product. And what could that product be but the viewers, listeners and readers? What this means is that people are no longer people, not even consumers - no, we're the product being bought and sold. Our value has been reduced to what we're willing to spend, and so the mainstream media's focus is on those with more money to spend. (For more on this, see CNBC, CNNMoney, or the link to Business on cbcnews.com, foxnews.com, or msnbc.com) (For proof of their anti-capitalist, leftwing bias, take a look at CNNLabour, NBCEnvironment and ABCEquality.)

OK, so I made those last ones up.

Anyway, to sum up, I know that the idea of audience as a product to be captured and then sold to the highest bidder is nothing original or profound - but it's still worth repeating and discussing, which is the point of this blog. And while doing so I'm going to be talking about, commenting on, referring to, praising and insulting anything I feel like.