mark today, wednesda, october 3, 2007 as the day that the repressive police state has begun to show

[flordehinojos]

its hand in earnest in these here united states.

1) medea benjamin and former army colonel (ann wright?) refused entry into canda due to FBI files given to Canadian authorities.

2) Bishop Desmond Tutu barred from speaking at Minnesotta University.

3) video of chris matthews on the john stewart daily show shut down by viacom.

Next ????

[WatchWhatISay]

1. what's 3?

[flordehinojos]

3. thank you, i had to go back to post it ... it is viacom's shut down of the YOUTUBE video of the

tweety's appeareance on the john stewart show last night.

[lonestarnot]

24. They shut it down? Someone start another utube now!

[liberal N proud]

2. 3 was just copyright protection

[flordehinojos]

5. whose copyright protection? are all videos posted on youtube shut down by viacom or anyone else for

copyright protection? why that video and not others?

[parasim]

9. Viacom is actively purging YouTube of all of their material

Do you mean to say that other Viacom copyrighted material is still available on YouTube? I was surprised to see it there in the first place after all the Viacom brouhaha from a few months ago. (when they sterted cracking down on their shows being shown on the site.)

[flordehinojos]

12. as you see, i don't keep up with viacom and their doings...

but i do keep up with tweety and his propagandistic views ... and since john stewart really stopped him dead on his tracks last night, the news that the video had been pulled made the connection for me with a repressive police state "no one shall speak evil against the state or any of the state's representatives, megaphones, or mouthpieces."

[parasim]

18. I do understand where you're coming from...

It bugs me that the Viacom people are being such dicks about their stuff, but it's happening more and more as they try to figure out how to make money off of the internet. I mean, if they can keep people from watching their shows on a site like YouTube, where they receive no ad revenue and get them to go to their own site where they can, well, they're going to try to do it. However, they are not repressing the interview, they're just trying (and succeeding) to make more money off of it.

For the record, I thought Jon Stewart's interview with Matthews last night was brilliant. and I hope a lot of people see it. and I was totally pissed that they took it off YouTube, but my disdain for that pales in comparison to my disgust of Desmond Tutu being banned from speaking at a college.

[flordehinojos]

19. thanks for helping me understand about viacom.

[lonestarnot]

26. Oh it was viacom property.

Viacom owns Comedy Central? I don't know the TV workings except 6 owners? Can't even remember their names now.

[annabanana]

4. astounding. . Tutu? Banned in Minnesota?

http://www.alternet.org/audits/64314/

Rumors have been circulating for some time that Archbishop Desmond Tutu was banned by the University of St Thomas in Minnesota because of statements he made that some consider anti-Semitic. Now it's official: winning the Nobel Peace Prize doesn't protect you from charges of anti-Semitism if you criticize Israeli human rights practices. Neither, apparently, does being one of the most compelling voices for social justice in the world today, or even getting an honorary degree from and giving the commencement address at Brandeis.

Minneapolis/St.Paul's City Pages just reported that members of the St Thomas Justice and Peace Studies program were thrilled when Bishop Tutu agreed to speak at the University" but administrators did a scientific survey of the Jews of Minneapolis, which included querying exactly one spokesperson for Minnesota's Jewish Community Relations Council and several rabbis who taught in a University program" and concluded that Tutu is bad for the Jews and should therefore be barred from campus.


… in a move that still has faculty members shaking their heads in disbelief, St. Thomas administrators--concerned that Tutu's appearance might offend local Jews--told organizers that a visit from the archbishop was out of the question.

"We had heard some things he said that some people judged to be anti-Semitic and against Israeli policy," says Doug Hennes, St. Thomas's vice president for university and government relations. "We're not saying he's anti-Semitic. But he's compared the state of Israel to Hitler and our feeling was that making moral equivalencies like that are hurtful to some members of the Jewish community."

[madrchsod]

13. did you post this in any forum?

i can not believe this..well i can but i cannot believe anyone would cave in like they did...for gods sake it`s desmond tutu....

[flordehinojos]

14. i believe it is posted here

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=124x186522

[Karenina]

40. In the DUNGEON????

:wow: :hide: :wow:

[Tesha]

42. Well where else on this "democratic" website are you allowed to talk about it? (NT)

[parasim]

6. Well, I'm not so sure about number 3...

Viacom has been pulling their shows from YouTube for awhile now. The interview with Matthews is available on the The Daily Show's website.

Not that I agree with Viacom, but it has more to do with a repressive corporate state than a police state with that one...

on eidt: but the first two are very, very disconcerting, indeed.

[flordehinojos]

8. but, aren't a repressive corporate state and a repressive police state somehow

part of the same fascist equation?

[parasim]

11. Well, yeah, I suppose...

but copyright protection doesn't equate to Tutu being shunned by an American college, or people being barred from leaving the country, I don't think.

[dysfunctional press]

23. "repressive corporate state"???

it's called copyright protection, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with it.

[cali]

7. Yawn.

It's a shame that Tutu won't be allowed to speak. I hope it's reversed, but it has zilch to do with a police state.

Viacom's decision to pull the video of Chris Matthew's is also not evidence of anything to do with a police state.

Benjamin and Wright being turned back at the border is certainly upsetting, but again not indicative of a police state.

What is it with the hyperbole?

[flordehinojos]

10. no hyperbole and no yawn. you may not be concerned about it. i am.

this is not the united states that i know. it does resemble more the state of a dictatorship (and since i came here originally from a repressive country, i can tell you this is how they begin). and how does that saying go? you know, first they came for ... (ending with the phrase: then they came for me and there was no one to speak for me). go ahead yawn. i hope you are right and i am wrong.

[Starbucks Anarchist]

15. Viacom always has their clips removed from YouTube.

It's not a big conspiracy. It's copyright protection, and many other media conglomerates do the same thing given the rise of YouTube and unauthorized free clips on the internet.

[flordehinojos]

20. alright, my mistake with #3. thanks for helping me understand.

[Greyhound]

36. Not really your mistake, it is indicative of the hard reich turn this nation took about 10 - 12

years ago.

This "copyright protection" scam grew out of the RIAA lawsuit that put Napster out of business (technically they still exist but are a property of BMG and only the name remains). The scenario began back in the late 60s or early 70s when the cassette tape recorder became ubiquitous. The recording industry sued the manufacturers of the recorders, claiming that people recording the music they bought was an infringement of their copyright.

The court struck it down for two reasons, one the companies could not be held liable for what their customers did with the equipment they bought, and two the companies fail to show any damages since the customers had, in most cases, already purchased the music so the labels had in fact been paid. No damages, no claim.

Fast forward to the early 80s and the advent of the video recorder. Pretty much the same companies that had bought up or merged with the record labels, try the same lawsuit again. Again, the courts stuck it down, people have a right to record what they bought.

It wasn't until after Raygun, Raygun, Bush, Clinton, that the same corporations were able to find a friendly court to rule in their favor on the same case.

So no, you weren't wrong at all. It is another symptom of the people's acceptance of fascist (corporate governance) principles.

[flordehinojos]

38. thanks greyhound 1966

your post makes me connect with how understanding the historical facts of anything is so important to arriving at a clearer grasp of whatever it is we are trying to grasp ... i recently read Webster G. Tarpley's Bush, The Unauthorized Biography and so much of knowing the history of Prescott Bush and George Herbert Walker, allows for a clearer view and grasp of the irrefutable fact that George Herbert Walker Bush sought, and George W. Bush currently seeks with greater success at it than his father to turn these United States into the fascist police state that we are, more than fast becoming, already living in, albeit, still in the baby stages of it.

[cali]

16. Except for the case of Wright and Benjamin

your examples have nothing to do with the authority of the state. And I do want to make a point about access to Canada: i live 20 miles from the border and know several people who cannot cross because of misdemeanor convicttions. It's been that way for years.

As for this not being the country you knew, our history of such things as camps for Japanese Americans, belie that pleasant belief that things were so much better in the good old days.

I'm not unconcerned about creeping fascism and increasing powers of the arms of the state, but I'm funny about actually wanting examples of it to be accurate.

[flordehinojos]

21. and because they have spoken up against the iraq occupation and the bush government,

and because our police state, which no longer allows for freedom of speech, has arrested benjamin (and whether or not they have arrested wright for the same reason, i can't say) and because the police has charged them with misdemeanor offenses for SPEAKING UP AGAINST BUSH and his tyranny at home and his tyranny in Iraq, and because the police/FBI have deemed it necessary to make criminals out of them for exercising their right to freedom of speech, they are barred from entering Canada and you do not think that is repressive? I'd say that arresting them for speaking up against bush and his invasion and occupation of iraq and for exercising their right to freedom of speech is an example of the increasing power of the arms of this evergrowing repressive state. Yes, and I do understand your funniness about needing accuracy. After all, it was lies and inaccuracy that got us into iraq and might be getting us into iran.

[cali]

22. I'd say that although we need to

fight against encroaching authoritarianism we don't live in a police state. And I'm unaware that either Wright or Benjamin have been arrested for speech.

Look, there are things I am genuinely concerned about- Warrentless wiretapping for one, and cases like the Justice Department's railroading of Alabama's former guv. I'm not happy about what happened to Benjamin and Wright at the border, but it's not an example of the police state.

[flordehinojos]

27. in my mind it is ... perhaps because i came here some 40+ years ago having lived through two

repressive police states in the same country... but be that as it may, thank you for seeing the authoritarianism which is encroaching upon this country...and for the samples that you cite as being of concern to you.

[Zywiec]

30. What country did you come from where you saw it begin like this? n/t

[flordehinojos]

31. Cuba ... where Fulgencio Batista y Záldivar began arresting, silencing,and killing those who opposed

his coup in 1953 against Carlos Prío Socarras; and then again in 1959 with Fidel Castro against those who opposed him and his revolution ... i had friends who lost their lives first in opposition to Batista, and other friends who also lost their lives later on, in opposition to castro.

[seemslikeadream]

17. Cops of the world

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5saSZIpY0Kg

[EFerrari]

25. We have to go into Adelita mode, now.

K&R

[lonestarnot]

28. What is Adelita mode?

[EFerrari]

33. How good is your Spanish?

The women who decided to hike up their skirts and fight in the Mexican Revolution were known collectively as "Adelitas". They were not "camp followers". They were fighters, doing whatever needed to be done.

[lonestarnot]

34. Woot Adelitas!

[EFerrari]

35. You betcha!

[flordehinojos]

37. Yes, Adelitas ! Que vivan las Adelitas. Those who were then and those who are now !

Code Pink, Medea Benjamin, Colonel Wright (Cindy Sheehan) and so many others are our current Adelitas !

[flordehinojos]

29. Adelita mode?

sfexpat, me pierdo/i get lost. please explain.

[EFerrari]

32. Adelitas were the woman who fought in the Mexican Revolution.

:)

[Perry Logan]

39. It pales in comparison with herding Japanese Americans into camps.

Or suspending habeus corpus, as Lincoln did.

[gollygee]

41. About that habeas corpus thing

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15220450/

[Tesha]

43. I'm having a hard time getting excited about #1.

Yes, I read the threads, but the Canadians are pretty
serious about banning anyone from entry who has any
sort of criminal conviction; dope and DUI-convictees
are routinely turned away at the border.

The only thing I've ever seen to get excited about
was that they waved their rules to admit Bush; I
would have thought it a wonderful thing if they
had applied their rules to him and denied him entry.

Tesha