121Contact

May 27 2012 Dept. of Homeland Security Forced to Release List of Keywords Used to Monitor Social Networking Sites

Forbes reports: Dept. of Homeland Security Forced to Release List of Keywords Used to Monitor Social Networking Sites

And 121Contact comments: Make no mistake, the DHSS word list is an attack on our domestic security. Whether or not it is a practice drill, this exercise by law enforcement is a toxic  intrusion and a threat to our security. This Homeland Security response marks an epidemic of paranoia that pervades the DHS, FEMA, USCG, CBP, USSS, NOC, ICE, CIA, DEA, SBI, FBI, ATF, CIS, FAMS, TSA, FAA, and the UN.

Are we to be taken hostage  by this breach of our constitution? We think the police would be focused on organized crime, gangs, looting, shootings, riots, and national security, not on the recovery  of certain words and phrases. We cannot recall an outbreak, or plague, of government intrusion in the name of emergency response that equals this plume of infection of our ‘free’ space.  

What’s next in this assassination of freedom? Is the agent/air marshall sitting next to me reporting me for saying, “This word screening makes for an explosive political standoff.”?

[The full list is on the Forbes site.]

May 1 2012 Karzia/Obama: A Harmony of Erosion of Civil Liberties

The Afghan Peace Volunteers remind us that “Today, Afghanistan and the U.S. initialed and locked the text of the strategic partnership agreement,” said Karzai’s spokesman, Aimal Faizi. “This means the text is closed…”

The Obama administration's continued assault on civil liberties gained a new partner as Karzai agreed to keep the U.S./Afghanistan agreement a secret from the public. How many troops will remain? For how long? Will U.S. assassinations/drone strikes in Afghanistan continue? By whose orders? What will the level of military aid be?

The Public: That's the Afghan citizen whose life is directly affected by this agreement. They have a right to know. You Think!?

The Public: That's you, boss. You who are supposed to be intelligently informed so that you may better govern yourselves. Democracy gives you the vote, but with less and less knowledge of what your elected representatives do (enact, attack, choose to assassinate, support, agree to) your vote becomes more meaningless. (with your power to vote). You have a right to know. You Think!?

"A popular Government without popular information or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power knowledge gives." - James Madison, 1822  OMG, he could actually see into the future...

We brought Democracy to Afghanistan, but we stifle one of the most important powers of the people: the right to know. We are beginning to live the farce and generate the tragedy that Madison envisioned.

For those too lazy to click the links: The Afghan Peace Volunteers are a grassroots group of ordinary Afghans seeking a life of non-violence, the unity of all people, equality, and self-reliance. ‘I wish to live without wars.’ An Afghan boy Abdulai, 15 year old student and farmer... [Read more of this review]

 

 

April 1 2012 Getting Rachel Maddow's "Drift", The Constitution, and you.

Rachel Maddow's "Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power"  is a sometimes humorous look (she can't help it) at:

1-the depressing distance the American Government has put between itself (especially the Executive) and the Constitution,

2-the depressing extent to which the Military operates beyond the knowledge and control of the legislature (let's hear it for the Contractors, public and private), and

3-the depressing state of our Nuclear Arsenal and its attendant, uselessly rising, costs.

One of the first things many Iraqi refugees we met in New York said, with uniform incredulity, was "There's no war here." This book goes a long way to explaining why.

It is the unmooring of the American people from the realities of our foreign policy actions that is most worrisome to me.

Did you know that in the last 2 years there were 182 U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan? [New America Foundation] Some 1,280 people died in these dronings. Most of America knows nothing about this.

U.S. Special Operations Command spokesman Colonel Tim Nye the number of nations in which U.S. Special Forces will be operating in 2012 "will likely reach 120." [Nick Turse, Salon] This includes operations in which there are only Contractors with no legal accountability.

Unfortunately, Maddow's proscription for change fails to move me to more optimism. Her ideas are fine. "Let's do away with the secret military" is a good thought, but how? How can this trend of out-of-popular-control be reversed?

It will take a transformation of the American psyche. More facts will help. Exposing the truth of the extralegal, extraconstiturional, beyond oversight mechanisms [like Maddow's "Drift"] will help, but the change must be deeper than statistics. Our failure to act to oppose and change these systems is not just a deficit of information. It is a moral failure. I must admit that the solution eludes me.

 

March 29 2012 You can easily help prevent destruction in Iraq and Turkey

We've done a lot to destroy much of Iraq. YOU CAN HELP PREVENT FURTHER DESTRUCTION OF THE SOUTHERN MARSHES. A proposed dam on the Tigris River in Mesopotamia will have a devastating effect on parts of Turkey and Iraq. Particularly, the unique antique town Hasankeyf, with a past of at least 10,000 year of continuous settlement, in the mainly Kurdish populated Southeast of Turkey and  Marshlands in South of Iraq, the largest wetlands of the Middle East cultivated by Millions of “Marsh Arabs“, are threatened by the Ilisu Dam. It is one of the most controversial dams in the world.
[IRAQ CIVIL SOCIETY]  HAS THE FULL STORY.

Sign the petition at: UNESCO

The marshes, ordered destroyed by Sadaam, [in an attempt to drive out Shi'a opposition groups in southern Iraq] were a  part of a traditional culture that depended upon them for their livelihood. Rich in fish and fowl, they were referred to as the original Garden of Eden.

For some time, there have been efforts to develop plans to restore the Mesopotamian marshes and return the Ma'dan people to their ancestral homes. There are now two major projects to restore the Marshes. The first to start working was AMAR (Assisting Marsh Arabs and Refugees), which is helping the Ma'dan people to survive in the refugee camps in Iran, and has also done a considerable amount of research on the ecology and hydrology of the Marshes from the scientific literature. The second project, Eden Again, is a more recently initiated program sponsored by the Iraq Foundation and the U.S. Department of State to develop a viable plan to restore the Marshes. The Eden Again Project, led by project directors Dr. Azzam and Dr. Suzanne Alwash, and project manager Michelle Stevens, is developing a hydrological model to determine how much water will be needed to restore the marshlands, how to reintroduce the ecologically important springtime flood pulse, and how best to wash out accumulated salts and pollutants. Project members are also examining remote sensing data from satellite photos to define habitat types within the marshlands, and are compiling a list of focal plant and animal species that can serve as biological indicators of successful habitat restoration. Eden Again is also working with representatives of the Ma'dan people to find out what they need in order for them to eventually return to their homes in the Marshes. According to Dr. Stevens, the two projects, AMAR and Eden Again, have been working together to come up with a comprehensive plan to restore the Marshes. Whereas AMAR tends to emphasize human needs more strongly, Eden Again is more focused on restoring the environment of the Marshes. There is, however, considerable overlap between the efforts of the two projects, which gives both the potential to devise a truly comprehensive program to restore the Mesopotamian marshlands to their former splendor. [Iowa State University] http://www.public.iastate.edu/~mariposa/marshes.htm

March 26 2012 ...governmental infrastructure complicit in the growth of anti-muslim sentiment...?

Is the U.S. governmental infrastructure complicit in the growth of anti-muslim sentiment?  

An internal FBI investigation into its counter terrorism training has purged hundreds of bureau documents of instructional material about Muslims, some of which characterized them as prone to violence or terrorism. [wired.com] This spread of bias at the top of law enforcement cannot help but trickle down in the worst way.

New York City's Mayor ( M. Bloomberg)and its Police Commissioner (R.  Kelly) both defend the patently illegal spying on Mosques, Muslim Community and College groups, and individual Muslims in all walks of life without any other reason save that they are Muslim. [Huffington Post] This effectively plans the seeds of bias in the general population.

The difference in the speed of attention paid by federal law enforcement to the cases of Shaima Alawadi and Trayvon Martin emphasizes alack of concern about anti-Muslim violence. The former murder remains a local issue, while the latter has attracted Federal attention. Shaima's murder, as a hate crime requires, by the  1994 Federal law#103-322A, the same level of attention from the Feds.

The 50% increase in anti-Muslim hate crimes in 2011 alone [The Atlantic] would seem to indicate that the Feds, and New York City's self-appointed illegal spies, should focus a bit more on American terrorists who target Muslims.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

March 3 2012 Shaima Alawadi is not Trayvon Martin.

Shaima Alawadi is not Trayvon Martin, and the responses to their murders are not the same. Who is demonstrating against the terrorism that killed Shaima? Where are the Muslims and their supporters? Why aren't they in the streets insisting that the government pay more attention to anti-Muslim terrorism?

Is it too early to expect U.S. Muslims to follow the proscription to "promote good; forbid evil"? Promoting good is not passive. It calls for one to enter the public sphere and take part in the fight for justice for all. The price of silence is extraordinarily high.

Our government is spending inordinate amounts of money spying on Muslims because they are Muslims. How about a more focus on the terrorists who are actually killing Muslims?

 

March 25 2012 Dick Cheney's Heart

Dear Doctor,

I hereby give legal consent for the recovery of my organs, tissues and eyes for the purposes of transplantation at the time of my death except for the following:

• The appropriately named Dick Cheney,
• Donald Bombsfeld,
• ...

March 3 2012 Do you support Civilian Trials for terrorists? Open your eyes.

For those of you who so passionately support civilian trials of suspected terrorists I suggest two things:  1) a visit to FreeTarek.com, and 2) take a long hard look at our post-9/11 Justice system. You might try a visit to the Center for Consitutional Rights.

Bragging about the conviction rate of terrorists in civilian courts ignores the abolition of defendants' rights in this War on Terror that justifies so much, accomplishes so little, and alienates so many. It also has a high likelihood of putting innocent people in jail, or perhaps worse, in the endless limbo of indefinite detention.

We headed out to see Karen Malpede's Another Life at the Irondale Center last night. It'll be there until 3/24 and it's worth seeing; for the inspired writing, passionate performances, and sadly accurate skewering of America's pathetic, violent, and irrational response to 9/11.

Since October, 2009 Tarek Mehanna has been held in pre-trial 23-hour solitary confinement because he is a suspected terrorist.

Tarek's web site presents his case  quite clearly. His brother spoke after the play last night and we found him credible. Of course we haven't attended the trial, haven't read all the relevant documents, etc., and don't know if he is really guilty or not. But it is not hard to believe that he was set up, knocked down like a bowling pin, and stuck away for what could be the rest of his life. All this on what appears to be flimsy evidence at best, and possible a fabrication.

The sad state of the U. S. Constitution today:

• extraordinary rendition to make sure that torture is not done on American soil,
• the right of the President, without judicial oversight, to declare a person a valid target for assassination,
• the FBI's right to declare someone a terrorism suspect, and thereby negate his/her constitutional rights,
• the Government's, Federal and Local (e.g. New York City's Police Department) illegal surveillance and wiretapping,
• the classification of many First Amendment activities as “material support” to groups the U.S. has labeled as terrorist organizations.

Yes, the list is longer, and yes it is frightening. A whisper of fear rises at the thought of dark consequences for even mentioning his name.

Military trials for terrorists may be an abomination, but civilian trials aren't necessarily better if the interpretation of our Constitution is so distorted as to make the rights of defendants disappear.

March 4 2012 New York Times quote on Falling Man poster

Hoorah for Rita Lasar's NYTimes words about the Mad Men's Falling Man poster, “I am so worn out by you guys coming to us in order to create a kerfuffle where none exists,” wrote Rita Lasar, whose brother was Abraham J. Zelmanowitz [killed on 9/11]. “You may think you are being sensitive to our feelings, but in reality you are just using us so you can write a story that refers only to your own feelings.”

The media these days seems focused only on the sensational. When they can't find it they try to drum it up themselves. It reminds me of when a Mosque was proposed in the Ground Zero neighborhood. I got an email from the New York Post. It said that if I was opposed to the mosque, as a family member who lost Mitch Wallace on 9/11, they would be intersted in my comment.

Now they are poking around for anti-advert comments. For what? To stir up a bit of dust...to blind us to the real issues that face us.

Where are the stories about the people who toil in non-violent ways to move this world to more peaceful tomorrows...like Fatma Benli. Have you heard of her? Why not?

 

Feb 28 2012 Mad Men: The Falling Man and 9/11

So this reporter asks me, under the guise of "I do not want to start a controversy where none exists," how I, one who lost someone on 9/11,  feel about the poster.

The first time I saw one of these posters it made me sick to my stomach..a little.

There was a day, that day, a crisp morning, when I stood beneath the towers taking photos on 9/11. I stopped when I realized I had just captured the image of a woman in a white dress, twisting down, down...I own that image in a way I detest. This was all before we knew that my nephew, Supreme Court Officer Mitch Wallace, was at the site; moments before the South Tower collapsed upon him and so many others.

I also, less frequently now, get nauseous when a low flying jet passes overhead. Living under a Brooklyn flyway lets me deal with this quite often.

If an advertising campaign (which I am now, I guess, a part of) evokes images of a horrid day, then so be it. I cannot stop the jets from flying low. I cannot stop images that remind me of 9/11 from being created.

I refuse to spend my entire existance looking through the lens of 9/11. There is more to me than grief and anger. I can only do my little bit to make for more peaceful tomorrows.