Group items tagged

Liberal democracy ,and even republican self-governance, have always depended on beliefs and civic virtues which the liberal state itself is constitutionally unable to nourish or enforce -- and which big-corporate employment and consumer marketing, quite as much big-government social engineering, does a lot to undermine.

Entire Issue. Article titles: UN & Civil Society; Civil Society & Media Freedom; Religion in it's Place; Women, Civil Society, & NGOs in Post-Soviet Azerbaijan; Lazarus Rising: Civil Society & Sierra Leone's Rise from the Grave; Framing Democracy: Civil Society & Civic Movements in Eastern Europe; American Creed: Philanthropy & Rise of Civil Society (1700-1865), etc.

The Obama administration will largely preserve Bush-era procedures allowing the government to search (and copy) -- without suspicion of wrongdoing -- the contents of a traveler's laptop computer, cellphone or other electronic device, although officials said new policies would expand oversight of such inspections.\n\nThe policy, disclosed Thursday in a pair of Department of Homeland Security directives, describes more fully than did the Bush administration the procedures by which travelers' laptops, iPods, cameras and other digital devices can be searched and seized when they cross a U.S. border. And it sets time limits for completing searches.\n\nBut representatives of civil liberties and travelers groups say they see little substantive difference between the Bush-era policy, which prompted controversy, and this one.\n\n"It's a disappointing ratification of the suspicionless search policy put in place by the Bush administration," said Catherine Crump, staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union. "It provides a lot of procedural safeguards, but it doesn't deal with the fundamental problem, which is that under the policy, government officials are free to search people's laptops and cellphones for any reason whatsoever."

Senator Leahy, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said, "Last year, I opposed legislation that stripped Americans of their right to seek accountability for the Bush administration's decision to illegally wiretap American citizens without a warrant. Today, I am pleased to join Senator Dodd to introduce the Retroactive Immunity Repeal Act. We can strengthen national security while protecting Americans' privacy and civil liberties. Restoring Americans' access to the courts is the first step toward bringing some measure of accountability for the Bush-Cheney administration's decision to conduct warrantless surveillance in violation of our laws."

Dave Weigel, now of The Washington Post, becomes the latest to observe the core similarity between the Obama and Bush/Cheney approaches to civil liberties, Terrorism and national security.

Immigration, Civil Liberties and the Drug War

"Why is our economic system consigning billions of people to degrading poverty, destroying Earth's ecosystem, and tearing up the social fabric of civilized community? "

civilrighthealthcare1.mp3 (audio/mpeg Object)

civilrighthealthcare2.mp3 (audio/mpeg Object)

Films are national / international. Film topics include: 9/11 investigative efforts, Iraq and Afghanistan wars, peak oil and oil wars, corporatism, financial industry fraud, civil rights violations, Bush-Obama torture and detention policies, animal protection, Assassination Documentaries Financial Reform Documentaries Election Fraud Documentaries Environmental Documentaries Female Focused Documentaries George Bush Documentaries Globalization Documentaries Health Documentaries Human Rights Documentaries Media Documentaries Politician Documentaries Religious Documentaries Slavery Documentaries Societal Documentaries War Documentaries

Isn't it fiinally time to enact a "basic income guarantee"? The lack of individual and family income security in the midst of a highly-developed economy is a travesty under any circumstances. But the contradiction of "poverty in the midst of plenty" that has plagued the world since the start of the Industrial Revolution is becoming much more grave in the U.S. and abroad. The problem, of course, is one of distribution of earnings, and excess production capacity relative to available income... Winston Churchill gave eloquent testimony to this conundrum of the modern age when delivering the Romanes Lecture at Oxford University on June 19, 1930. This was a few months after the crash of the U.S. stock market marked the start of the Great Depression. Churchill said: "Who would have thought that it would be easier to produce by toil and skill all the most necessary or desirable commodities than it is to find consumers for them? Who would have thought that cheap and abundant supplies of all the basic commodities would find the science and civilization of the world unable to utilize them? Have all our triumphs of research and organization bequeathed us only a new punishment: the Curse of Plenty? Are we really to believe that no better adjustment can be made between supply and demand? Yet the fact remains that every attempt has failed. Many various attempts have been made, from the extremes of Communism in Russia to the extremes of Capitalism in the United States. They include every form of fiscal policy and currency policy. But all have failed, and we have advanced little further in this quest than in barbaric times. Surely it is this mysterious crack and fissure at the basis of all our arrangements and apparatus upon which the keenest minds throughout the world should be concentrated.

"The business of America is big business with a strategic long-term plan for co-opting world governments, waging permanent wars for profit, dominating everywhere militarily, ending social safety net protections, crushing civil liberties and freedom, tolerating no concern for human rights, controlling global markets and resources, turning workers everywhere into serfs, and extracting, unimpeded, as much public wealth as possible."

Lies and deceit cause the death of democratic politics, critical thought and civic agency. Contempt for 'truth' is evident in the wild West of FOX News. It's evident in Bush's 'Clear Skies Initiative,' enabling greater industrial air pollution. Language is neutered. Meanings are indeterminate. As Orwell said, "war is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength."

individualcollective.mp3 (audio/mpeg Object)