Anonymous and Pirate Bay team up to help Iranian protests

Anonymous and Pirate Bay are helping protesters in Iran get around firewalls and other information-blocking activities by the government. The portal website is Anonymous Iran. They're going to need all the help they can get; Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said to sit down and accept the fake election results and shut up, or we'll crush you like the "Zionist" filth you are.

Lots and lots and lots more at Sullivan's website.

the rift, it is not healed

Stonewall Democrats cut off support for the Biden/DNC event, over both the recent policy decisions of the Obama administration and being shut out of various support channels - they're expected to raise money for the DNC but get no support? Not so much. Other important donors are dropping out as well.

Andrew Sullivan calls this a good start, but not enough:

We need actions to highlight the administration's betrayals, postponements and boilerplate. We need to start confronting the president at his events. We need civil disobedience. We need to tell him we do not want another fricking speech where he tells us he is a fierce advocate for our rights, when that is quite plainly at this point not true. We will not tolerate another Clinton. No invites to these people for dinners or fundraisers. No cheering him at events while he does nothing to follow up on his explicit promises. ...

We need to swamp Pelosi with phone-calls. We need to target Reid for his inaction. We have to pressure Barney Frank and Tammy Baldwin not to excuse the disdain that the Obama administration is showing toward gay equality, and their cynical use of our votes, money and passion to enforce real and potent discrimination against us and our families. And we have to refuse to attend White House signing ceremonies like yesterday's farce. Really: until they are serious, we should not be coopted and placated with pathetic sops. ...

Fight back. Act Up.

In general, you can summarise this as "enough of this crap." Also, here's a letter from a heterosexual couple to the Obama administration on this topic.

It looks like cutting off the money gets some results, though - they sure as hell don't care about us, but they sure do care about some cold, hard cash. With donors dropping off left and right, suddenly there's a big Justice Department outreach set up to GBLT groups, which is a huge change given their absolute refusal to do so before now.

Meanwhile, in Wisconsin, a group of fundamentalists is trying to get books about GBLT youth not just banned, but burned. Specifically. Please, continue. Book burnings have never been so popular!

I don't really know what's going on yet

Soul Food Books is an eastside bookstore and coffee shop with a heavy neopagan and alternative spirituality atmosphere - in short, it's not really the kind of place you expect to see in Redmond. On top of that, they're also a really good venue for a few bands I like quite a bit, and for that matter, me - currently as someone honing her skills at their open mics, and there's been a little discussion about me possibly playing there in a solo show in the future.

So I'm more than a little alarmed to hear that they're having a benefit auction and concert(s) as part of an all-day event Saturday that will kickoff for a campaign to "keep the doors of SoulFood open." I'm not at all sure what the deal is, really; their page is not at all clear. But regardless, I guess times have been harder on them than I realised.

I really like Soul Food Books as a venue, and I'm rather fond of Cliff, and for that matter, I'd like to play a show there sometime. But for that to happen, it actually has to be there. So if you're in the area tomorrow, maybe go check it out, and if you already know the place and like it, maybe that DONATE button is a good idea.

And if you know more about what's going on than I do, hit reply, because all I know is what's suddenly up on their website. Anybody know?

yet more about press and publishing

I'm busy getting ready to go up to Vancouver, but I really, really, really wanted to point at this quote, posted by Glenn Greenwald this morning:

"I think there are a lot of critics who think that . . . . if we did not stand up [in the run-up to the war] and say 'this is bogus, and you're a liar, and why are you doing this,' that we didn't do our job. I respectfully disagree. It's not our role" -- NBC News' David Gregory, thereafter promoted to host Meet the Press.

This is the MSM showing that it not only does but does proudly exactly what Mr. Colbert described so famously at the White House Press Corps dinner a few years ago: the government (or other power figure) dictates, the press transcribes it, and publishes it. Questioning, calling out obvious lies and errors of fact - "It's not our role."

And that's pervasive. C.f. Mark Helprin's new book, Digital Barbarism, inspired by this desperately stupid column he wrote a couple of years ago on copyright, and the public reaction to it. Lawrence Lessig reviews the book here, and asks:

this book is riddled with the most basic errors of fact. It would be an embarrassment were it an essay by a first year law student, let alone a major work by (at least what was thought to be) one of America's greatest novelists. So what exactly does a publisher do anymore? Are there no editors? Is there no one with the power to say to a raving author, "Mr. Helprin, sir, what you've said is actually just not correct."

No, Mr. Lessig, there aren't. That's "not [their] role." Particularly not where the political press is concerned.

Oh, and what inspired Mr. Greenwald's post was the abrupt firing of the only Washington Post columnist (and blogger) known for actually questioning administration statements when they differed from reality, and calling Mr. Bush's torture techniques "torture." Apparently, that was "too leftist." Back to Greenwald:

To be a real establishment journalist (objective), you're not allowed to say when one side is lying -- even when they are. All you're allowed to do is repeat what both sides say and leave it at that (Colbert: "The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put 'em through a spell check and go home"). Froomkin -- unlike David Gregory -- believes that reporters should actually point out when the Government is lying. That's what he did. That's why, to The Post, he wasn't a real reporter but, rather, an "ideologue." That's the sickness of American journalism in a nutshell.

More on this here and here, at Sullivan, and here, at firedoglake.

And people wonder why these organisations are dying. According again to Sullivan, this morning's Washington Post had no stories on Iran - not even in International. None. What the fuck, guys? What the fuck?