Assassinating US President Barack Obama for refusing to wage war on Iran is an opinion Andrew Adler wishes he never published. But that’s exactly what the owner of the Atlanta Jewish Times did on January 13 and now he’s facing vocal opposition and a Secret Service investigation.

”Give the go-ahead for US-based Mossad agents to take out a president deemed unfriendly to Israel in order for the current vice-president to take his place and forcefully dictate that the United States’ policy includes its helping the Jewish state obliterate its enemies,” Adler wrote in a piece called ”What would you do?” Adler issued an apology, saying, ”I very much regret it. I wish I hadn’t made reference to it at all.”

However, the Secret Service is not taking the threat so lightly, CNN reported. ”We are aware of it,” Secret Service spokesman George Ogilvie told the news channel. ”We are taking the appropriate investigative steps.”

While the weekly Atlanta Jewish Times has a modest circulation, Gawker.com found the op-ed piece and brought it into the spotlight. Adler offered three options for dealing with an American president unwilling to defend Israel fighting a hypothetical war: First, strike Hezbollah and Hamas. Second, attack Iran’s nuclear facilities. Third, ”order a hit” against the president.’

Read More: Sydney Morning Herald

Thanks to Anticapitalist.Tumblr.com.

A 2009 study found that people tend to interpret ambiguous political satire according to their own views and self-image. This has enormous implications for satirical programs mocking democratic behavior, produced by media conglomerates that support Internet censorship. (The following is an essay that I was not able to place with a magazine, but still wanted to share with the world. Feel free to re-post on your blog or website, in accordance with the Creative Commons license. Just give me credit and link back here.)

“The revolutionaries of any decade will become the reactionaries of the next decade, if they do not change their nervous system, because the world around them is changing. He or she who stands still in a moving, racing, accelerating age, moves backwards relatively speaking.” – Robert Anton Wilson, Prometheus Rising (1)

On Thursday, December 1, 2011, Stephen Colbert addressed the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), a bill currently under consideration in U.S. Congress, on his late-night political satire program The Colbert Report (pronounced “Cole-bare Ree-pore”). Fight for the Future, a group coordinating the push against SOPA and Protect-IP (a similar bill being considered; the “IP” stands for “intellectual property”), says that such a bill would allow the government to shut down websites for any copyright infringement, while making it a felony to stream copyrighted content without permission. (2) According to PCWorld, the government could also restrict access to foreign sites with the help of Internet service providers (ISPs), or block advertising and payment services from working with the sites. (3) The result, as anyone with a cursory understanding of the issue can predict, would be a drastic reduction our free speech rights and possible damage to the DNS system upon which the Internet depends.

Some critics of the proposed bills regard this Colbert episode as important national coverage. After all, if SOPA passes, it would possibly be the worst change at the federal level – by which I mean, bringing the worst consequences for our democracy, our culture, and our individual lives – since the 2010 Supreme Court decision to allow unlimited corporate and union spending in political campaigns under the guise of “free speech.” (4) What those critics do not realize is that a large portion of Colbert’s audience probably missed the point about the proposed intellectual property bills.

A 2009 study from Ohio State University evaluated the way that political beliefs affect a viewer’s perception of both humor and the host’s intentions in The Colbert Report. The peer-reviewed journal article by LaMarre, et al, called “The Irony of Satire: Political Ideology and the Motivation to See What You Want to See in The Colbert Report,” says that “conservatives were more likely to report that Colbert only pretends to be joking and genuinely meant what he said while liberals were more likely to report that Colbert used satire and was not serious when offering political statements.” (5) However, according to the authors, self-identified “conservatives” and “liberals” (measured on a seven-point range) both found Colbert equally funny.

This would come as a devastating surprise to many of Colbert’s viewers. Since his show’s launch in late 2005, when he split from his role in The Daily Show (which itself is known as a “fake news program,” hosted by comedian Jon Stewart), Colbert has built a devoted audience by supposedly pretending to be a “right-wing” or “conservative” news pundit. Such viewers see The Colbert Report as a satire program, and therefore a contribution to “progressive,” “liberal,” or “left-wing” political movements. That’s because satire involves “wit, irony, or sarcasm used to expose and discredit vice or folly” (6) – so a satire program about a “conservative” news pundit would inherently be produced with the intention of denouncing “conservative” views, not promoting them.

Satire has long been viewed as an important part of free expression in all societies that aspire or claim to be democratic. It’s a sneaky way of pointing out the absurdities and hypocrisies in any culture that thinks of itself as more advanced or accomplished than it really is. As the study authors point out, “governments and institutions have banned political satire on the grounds that it challenges and pushes the status quo.” (7) Of course, this isn’t just a matter of bipartisan (or bipolar) politics. Another historical purpose of satire has been to fight the consolidation and abuse of power. Thus, we live in a very strange time, when some of the most powerful media conglomerates in the world produce some of the most-watched satirical content.

In present-day America, one can easily find satire created in the highest echelons of the entertainment industry. In addition to The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, Comedy Central also produces the long-running animated show South Park, created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone in 1997. And midway through the last decade, the network had a huge hit with Chappelle’s Show, starring comedian Dave Chappelle. Furthermore, feature films have offered a consistent supply of sharp satire, often gaining international distribution due to the style’s popularity. Recent examples include 2004’s Team America: World Police (created by the same duo responsible for South Park), and the major film spin-offs of Sacha Baron Cohen’s Da Ali G Show, 2006’s Borat and 2009’s Brüno (both directed by Larry Charles).

What sets The Colbert Report apart from some other satire is Stephen Colbert’s “deadpan” delivery, which the study authors distinguish from Jon Stewart’s presentation style on The Daily Show. A previous study found that Stewart “interjects commentary during segments, moves in and out of character, and even laughs at himself. …Stewart aids viewer interpretation by offering himself as an unambiguous source and providing external cues. In contrast…Colbert’s deadpan satire and commitment to character do not provide viewers with the external cues or source recognition that Stewart offers.” (8) This problem stems from the fact that satire is essentially a form of irony, a type of humor in which someone does not always say what one actually means.

Because deadpan satire has such ambiguous intentions and is usually presented as entertainment, it allows viewers to interpret the content based on their own political views – what the study authors call “biased information processing.” “Thus, with biased processing individuals actually see and hear different information depending on whether that information will help or hinder their personal goals and needs. Stated differently, biased processing goes beyond perceptions of whether the entertainment was realistic, or whether the media treated one side more fairly than the other…to an underlying cognitive process in which the information is interpreted, encoded, stored, and retrieved in a manner that most benefits that individual.” (9) (In my Reality Sandwich essay “Doublethink and the Mental Construction of Reality,” an excerpt from my upcoming debut book, I explore self-deception in quite a similar way.)

The results of the 2009 study suggest that ambiguous satire might actually reinforce someone’s preexisting political views, because the satire’s meaning can be evaluated so subjectively. In short, the satirist appears to be on the same side as the viewer, whichever side that is. Because of this either/or conundrum, the net effect is political polarization of the audience, which has been known since the late 1970s “to have negative consequences for our democracy,” according to LaMarre, et al. (10) But even in the 1930s, Alfred Korzybski warned (with his system of general semantics) that our either/or thought patterns disconnect us from the empirical universe and produce “un-sanity” in the world.

Knowing all this, it’s frightening to think that Colbert is more the rule of satire than the exception. What I mean is that few satirists or satirical programs break character or provide other interpretive hints the way Stewart does on The Daily Show. LaMarre, et al, cite another study from 1974 that performed a similar assessment of the television sitcom All in the Family, a show that featured a bigoted, under-educated patriarch named Archie Bunker. “It is noteworthy that the producer of All in the Family, Norman Lear, regarded the show as an effective weapon against bigotry and racism. Lear reasoned that audiences would see that Archie Bunker had convoluted logic and his counterpart, liberal son-in-law Mike, was the one who made sense. Instead, the show may have been perceived by audiences as condoning and even encouraging prejudice.” (11) Clearly the American public did not renounce Bunker, since, according to Wikipedia, TV Guide singled him out as “the greatest television character of all time.” (12)

As a child of the 1980s, I had no personal exposure to All in the Family – but based on this description (and some quick catch-up on YouTube), Bunker sounds like a template for the character Eric Cartman of the program South Park. Cartman, as the other child characters unanimously refer to him, consistently harps about “gays,” “tree-hugging hippies,” “minorities,” and other groups and cultural categories commonly considered “liberal” or “left-wing” (as Cartman might say, part of the “liberal establishment”). Similarly, he refers to his friend Kyle as a “stupid Jew,” denigrates his friend Kenny for being “poor,” and calls everyone around him “fags” and “homos.” Since South Park debuted in the fall of 1997, when I was 14 years old and just starting high school, I assumed that Cartman was a parody of close-minded people – which I would now describe as homophobes, xenophobes, “reactionaries,” “fascists,” and “arch-capitalists.” Now I’m not so sure.

The timeliest example of Cartman’s antics came in the season 15 episode entitled “1%,” which first aired on November 2, 2011. In the show, Cartman’s obesity brings down the whole school’s average fitness, resulting in a rigorous work-out program for all students – despite the fact that Cartman is the only one with a weight problem. (13) It starts as a subtle parody of the “99 percent” meme, which holds that the “one percent” of people in possession of society’s wealth – and, therefore, society’s power – has been solely responsible for the current economic recession, widespread environmental crisis, and gradual decreases in civil liberties, among other troubles. The episode’s premise, while harmless enough, soon leads to Cartman claiming that he’s being wrongfully persecuted because, as he says, “people voted for Obama, so now that everything sucks they have to blame me!” He calls the other students “the 99 percent” who are “occupying the cafeteria” (a reference to the international Occupy Movement), and argues that they “think it’s wrong to be pissed off at a black president, so you’re all just pissed off at me!” Cartman later seeks refuge with Token Black, the only African American kid on the show, because, in Cartman’s words, “in this day and age, black people are just impervious to being fucked with,” and “are somehow incapable of doing anything wrong.” Meanwhile the “99 percent” is portrayed as a psychopathic mob bent on vengeance.

In a 2006 interview with Reason Magazine, South Park creators Stone and Parker confirmed that they “hate” both “conservatives” and “liberals” (they first made a similar statement in 2001, implying that they have less hate for “conservatives” [14]), and agreed that the term “libertarian” fits their worldview. (15) In explanation, Stone said he doesn’t want anyone to “control my life” or “tell me what I should do.” And according to Parker, South Park “is saying that there is a middle ground, that most of us actually live in this middle ground, and that all you extremists are the ones who have the microphones because you’re the most interesting to listen to, but actually this group isn’t evil, that group isn’t evil, and there’s something to be worked out here.” In other words, Stone and Parker seem to believe solidly in the current dominant system of bipartisan politics. And they both certainly consider South Park an important contender in the ongoing fight for free speech, in light of the controversies caused when poking fun at sensitive groups, religious or otherwise.

Apparently neither Stone nor Parker have considered the potential negative repercussions of the kind of speech they use in South Park, wrongfully assuming that their work could, at worst, offend people. Cartman does seem to be a mostly satirical character – but it’s not uncommon for deadpan satire to mirror actual “conservative” pundits and politicians. For instance, plenty of real-life, self-identifying “right-wingers” would agree with Cartman’s (horribly ill-informed) claim that Obama could have, in his short time as President, significantly reduced the quality of life in the U.S. LaMarre, et al, note in their 2009 study that, while interviewing CNN’s Anderson Cooper on October 28, 2007, Stephen Colbert attacked global warming in similar terms used by “reactionary” radio host Rush Limbaugh. And the Colbert Report clip used in the study features Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! supporting her 2006 book Static: Government Liars, Media Cheerleaders, and the People Who Fight Back. In the short interview, Goodman discredits the effectiveness of embedding journalists with marines during foreign combat, particularly during the War in Iraq. The researchers discovered that, after watching the clip, “individual attitudes regarding embedded journalists were fully mediated by perceptions of Colbert’s opinion regarding embedded journalists.” (16) In other words, viewers were measurably influenced by what they perceived to be the views of the authority figure.

Dave Chappelle stands as a lone example of a satirist intuiting the broader effects that his brazen comedy could have on our culture. After two incredibly successful seasons of Chappelle’s Show in 2003 and 2004, Chappelle rejected his $50 million deal with Comedy Central and – just before the launch of season three in mid-2005 – disappeared to South Africa. TIME Magazine interviewed him to find out why he fled, and to clarify rumors that he had a drug problem or had suffered a mental breakdown (both rumors were false). “The crux of his crisis seems to boil down to his almost obsessive need to ‘check my intentions.’ He uses the phrase a few times during the interview and explains that it means really making sure that he’s doing what he’s doing for the right reasons.” (17) Then, in a 2006 interview with Anderson Cooper, Chappelle elaborated by revealing that he had reacted to someone on set while filming season three of his show. When performing a skit in blackface make-up, Chappelle cringed at the way a Caucasian person near him was laughing. “The way he laughed, it made me feel like this guy’s laughing for the wrong reasons. […] It stirred something up in me emotionally that I was like, I don’t want to subject anyone else to.” (18) The incident gave Chappelle the feeling that at least some of his satirical methods were, in his words, “socially irresponsible.”

Of course, Chappelle’s Show season one had already broken the all-time record of DVD sales for a TV show, beating out The Simpsons season one by moving over 2 million units before the end of 2004. (19) Many considered Chappelle’s Show to be an important soapbox for discussing difficult cross-cultural issues in a humorous way, especially when the show took on racism, homophobia, and other forms of bigotry and inequality. Chappelle started off the program’s first season with a sketch about a blind “white supremacist” who doesn’t know he’s actually “black,” and that daring take on our culture’s sensitive topics set the tone for the whole series.

But even by season two, Chappelle was expressing concerns about the fall-out from his satirical comedy. In episode two of that season, he announced to the crowd, “Last season we started the series off with this sketch about a black white supremacist. Very controversial. Yes, very—it sparked this whole controversy about the appropriateness of the ‘n-word,’ the dreaded ‘n-word.’ And, you know—and then when I would travel, people would come up to me, like—white people would come up to me, like, [in a Southern voice] ‘Man, that sketch you did about them niggers, that was hila—’ [Chappelle recoils] ‘Take it easy! I was joking around!’ I started to realize that these sketches, in the wrong hands, are dangerous.” (20) He followed up in episode three: “…remember, whenever we do these racial commentaries, it’s always about the subtleties. We’re all part of the same human family. Our differences are just cultural.” (21) This was a rare case of a satirist providing interpretive clues for the audience, as LaMarre, et al, pointed out about Jon Stewart (a long-time friend of Chappelle’s).

That brings us back to Stephen Colbert’s coverage of SOPA on 12/1/2011, which seems much more ambiguous having learned about the LaMarre study. Colbert begins by quoting from news stories on the subject. With a straight face and an authoritative tone, he says, “The FBI reports that U.S. businesses lose [$200 to $250 billion] to counterfeiting on an annual basis.” (22) After a pause, he continues in a lighter tone: “And that is a shocking number, especially when you consider that the FBI admits it has no record of source data or methodology for generating the estimate, and that it cannot be corroborated.” This second line is what makes it satire, because it points to the “folly” of the proposed legislation. In other words, neither the copyright holders nor the government have a sure way to demonstrate that U.S. businesses are actually losing that amount of money due to copyright infringement (including “counterfeiting”). But because of Colbert’s “deadpan” style and advanced vocabulary, it’s not difficult to imagine that self-identifying “conservatives” simply didn’t notice, comprehend, or remember that sentence. That’s the basis of “biased information processing,” after all. LaMarre, et al, also say that understanding deadpan satire requires a high level of cognitive functioning, which is less prevalent during the passive consumption of entertainment. (23)

Colbert proceeds with some jokes about peer-to-peer file sharing that would likely be funny to both “liberals” and “conservatives” – only to finish on a note that sounds unambiguously “conservative.” He says, “Sadly piracy is just one of those crimes that everyone commits, like jaywalking or setting your ex-girlfriend’s couch on fire. But thankfully – thankfully Congress is finally taking action with the Stop Online Piracy Act. The bill, which is supported by all the big media companies, grants rights-holders the unfettered power to effectively kill websites.” Next comes another joke. Colbert says, “At last, we will bring swift and sure justice to hardened criminals on YouTube,” and then the viewer sees a home video clip of three girls dancing to a pop song. This last part may have been intended to criticize the aspect of SOPA that would make it a felony to “perform” copyrighted songs on the web without permission (normally it would be protected as a “fair use”). But with our newfound ability to transcend the satirical perspective, we can deduce that many viewers left under the impression that such social media activity actually is morally reprehensible – especially since Colbert ends by saying that such “offenders” would go to jail!

In another segment from the same episode, Colbert interviews two guests – one who approves of SOPA, and one who opposes it. (24) Colbert gives the “liberal” a harder time, but generally both sides get to state their viewpoint in a calm, civil manner. However, once the program is over, Colbert has still labeled critics of SOPA – regardless of whether they actually participate in copyright infringement – as thieves, criminals, pirates, etc. The underlying implication is that they are anti-American, anti-social, ungrateful of the consumer/capitalist economic system backed by the U.S. armed forces, a heretic, a lunatic, etc. And thanks to the LaMarre study, we have scientific evidence that self-identifying “conservatives” and people who don’t understand satire probably felt convinced by Colbert that SOPA and/or Protect-IP should pass! (For more on why copyright law is already broken, please see my RS essay “CC-BY: A Step into the Belated Future”)

But we’ve passed over an essential point. Colbert says that SOPA “is supported by all the big media companies.” He doesn’t say which companies, but Viacom – the owner of Comedy Central and, therefore, The Colbert Report – is one of them; so are the other major media conglomerates included in what’s called the “Big Six.” Ordered from least to most profitable, they are CBS Corporation ($13 billion profit in 2009), Viacom ($13.6 billion), Time Warner ($25.8 billion), News Corporation ($30.4 billion), The Walt Disney Company ($36.1 billion), and General Electric ($157 billion). (25) All six (along with 353 other companies and trade groups) signed a September 22 letter to U.S. Congress calling for “rogue sites legislation” – basically what Protect-IP or SOPA would be (NBCUniversal is on the list as a subsidiary of General Electric). (26) That means that The Colbert Report, The Daily Show, South Park, Chappelle’s Show (via syndication, rentals, and DVD sales), etc., are indirectly supporting potential bills like SOPA and Protect-IP. A program like The Daily Show is less to blame because it’s less ambiguous and less open to “biased information processing.” But it’s still part of Viacom, and Viacom supports this legislation that would make so much of the social media activity that has enriched our culture in unprecedented ways so much more illegal.

Notably, Stone and Parker of South Park actually approve of people downloading their content without paying. In the Reason Magazine interview, Matt Stone responded to a question about intellectual property by saying, “We’re always in favor of people downloading. Always.” (27) And Parker said, “We worked really hard making the show, and the reason you do it is because you want people to see it.” In line with those statements, people can stream full episodes of South Park for free on the website South Park Studios (though the site is still associated with Viacom). But unfortunately, the duo doesn’t have much to offer our troubled democratic process. When we synthesize these different elements, we find that Stone and Parker have – ironically, through the effect of their content – become the very extremists that they warn against! “It’s really what Team America is as well: taking an extremist on this side and an extremist on that side,” said Parker. “Michael Moore being an extremist is just as bad, you know, as Donald Rumsfeld. It’s like they’re the same person. It takes a fourth-grade kid to go, ‘You both remind me of each other.’”

The problem there is that only a fourth-grade kid would think Moore and Rumsfeld are equivalent, either as ideological individuals or as representations of different political parties. (If Stone and Parker ever made that argument about politicians or news pundits, or wrote it into their show, they might have a legitimate point.) In short, Stone and Parker seem anchored in the very mentality that they are often assumed to be lampooning – personified by Eric Cartman, and even sometimes Stan and Kyle (the more “rational” or “moderate” ones). Stone and Parker also appear to be projecting themselves into other authority figures in the show, like the news reporters in the “1%” episode who mock the “occupation” of a restaurant that might be causing people to becoming obese (remember, it’s a parody). I would argue that the Occupy Movement is a legitimate international outcry for full-functioning democracy, to provide basic life necessities and civil liberties for all human beings on Earth – but all the creators can South Park can do is point and giggle.

It’s telling that one of their favorite targets, Mr. Michael Moore, is actively involved with the Occupy Movement around the country. Whatever your opinion of his films, Moore is working to produce the most constructive possible outcome from what started as a totally spontaneous civic uproar. The “1%” South Park episode depicts protestors as clueless sheep. On the contrary, the majority of Occupy demonstrators have, all along, had an intimate knowledge of their primary purpose: to petition the U.S. government for grievances over the private acquisition of gargantuan sums of public money during and after the Crash of 2008, and to bring to justice those responsible.

On November 22, Moore published an article under the title “Where Does Occupy Wall Street Go From Here?” that contains a clear and concise mission statement for the movement, and states “10 Things We Want.” One applies very specifically to our discussion: “Require corporations with more than 10,000 employees to restructure their board of directors so that 50% of its members are elected by the company’s workers. We can never have a real democracy as long as most people have no say in what happens at the place they spend most of their time: their job.” (28) As you might have guessed, every single one of the “Big Six” media conglomerates employs more than 10,000 people. (29) They range from Viacom with 10,900 employees, to General Electric with 287,000 employees (as of 2010 or 2011, in the different cases). If, for instance, Viacom’s employees elected half of its board of directors, programs that in effect encourage bigotry and harm our democratic process due to ambiguous political satire might not stay on the air very long.

I should emphasize that this is not a moral or ethical condemnation of South Park, but a socio-political and existential one. I don’t think their kind of speech should be outlawed, but we may have reached a point when such divisive media should be socially rejected. There’s even a valid argument that Viacom is unfairly influencing the American political process with ambiguous satire (though for now it’s legally protected, thanks to the 2010 Supreme Court decision) – an argument that wouldn’t exist if mere individuals distributed such content.

I’d like to close with a few other suggestions:

– Avoid using irony, sarcasm, or deadpan satire – or provide clarification (interpretive clues) after you do. The point is to say what you mean as often as possible. That means working to make your communication as clear as possible and to avoid miscommunications. After all, “free speech” only matters if we’re using it in a way that improves our democracy and the quality of all life. (Side note: seek out ways to pay creative workers directly if you support their methods, without going through “middle men” like the companies, as law professor and activist Lawrence Lessig has recommended.)

– Refuse to self-identify with political terms. The dominant bipartisan system has failed us and must be dismantled. Calling yourself a “liberal” or “conservative” allows others to define you based on their idea of what those terms mean. Try to look at every situation as unique and deserving of its own independent decision-making process. This would be in line with Korzybski’s general semantics.

– Occupy the media conglomerates! People are already protesting in plenty of ways besides just congregating in front of financial institutions. Let these media companies know that they are driving us to political extremes and harming our democratic process. Also let them know that you will not be consuming (i.e., watching or buying) their products if they continue to support legislation such as SOPA or Protect-IP, since those would make felons out of millions of otherwise innocent people. Tell them that we’re ready to grow up!

- Visit AmericanCensorship.org and follow instructions on how to fight bills like SOPA and Protect-IP!

The Reason Magazine interviewers mention that Barbra Streisand criticized South Park in its very first season, “not for showing her as a [Godzilla-like] monster but for promoting cynicism among children.” I was one of those cynical kids raised by ironists and political satirists. I’m trying to break out of this programmed mentality that says we cannot change the world or make it a better place to live. Each one of us has a responsibility to use our expressive abilities in ways will create a healthier democracy and a happier world.

Actually, the late comedian Bill Hicks embodied this transition from ambiguous political satire and cynicism to a clear statement on the reality of conscious human evolution. He would often start off very ambiguous, combining all shades of sarcasm, irony, and political satire when discussing the polarizing subjects that have dominated political discourse over the last three decades (Hicks died in 1994). But by the end of every performance, Hicks made his true philosophy unmistakably clear (and it was surprisingly similar, in my opinion, to Moore’s proposal for the Occupy Movement). That is, Hicks ensured that his overall expression was unambiguous. He said what he meant!

For the present era, at least, we might want to consider doing the same.

# # #

Nick Meador made the image at SP-Studio (used with permission) and customized it with text.

NOTES:

1. Wilson, Robert Anton. Prometheus Rising. p. 214.

2. American Censorship Day. Accessed on 12/4/2011. http://americancensorship.org/

3. Gross, Grant. “The US Stop Online Privacy Act: A Primer.” PCWorld Business Center. 11/16/2011. Accessed on 12/4/2011. http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/244011/the_us_stop_online_piracy_act_a_primer.html

4. Tedford, Deborah. “Supreme Court Rips Up Campaign Finance Laws.” NPR. 1/21/2010. Accessed on 12/8/2011. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122805666

5. LaMarre, Heather L., Kristen D. Landreville, and Michael A. Beam. “The Irony of Satire: Political Ideology and the Motivation to See What You Want to See in The Colbert Report.” International Journal of Press/Politics. Vol 14. No 2. April 2009. pp. 212-231. Accessed on 11/28/2011. http://www.democracynow.org/resources/63/263/The_Irony_of_Satire.pdf

6. “Satire.” Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Accessed on 12/3/2011. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/satire

7. LaMarre, et al. Ibid. p. 228.

8. LaMarre, et al. Ibid. p. 216.

9. LaMarre, et al. Ibid. p. 215.

10. LaMarre, et al. Ibid. pp. 225-227. Italics are mine.

11. LaMarre, et al. Ibid. p. 228.

12. “Archie Bunker.” Wikipedia. Accessed on 12/5/2011. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archie_Bunker

13. “South Park: 1%” South Park Studios. Written and directed by Trey Parker. 11/2/2011. Accessed on 12/5/2011. http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s15e12-one-percent. Also, see Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1%25_%28South_Park%29

14. “South Park Republican.” Wikipedia. Accessed on 11/28/2011. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Park_Republican

15. Gillespie, Nick, and Jesse Walker. “South Park Libertarians.” Reason Magazine. December 2006. Accessed on 11/28/2011. http://reason.com/archives/2006/12/05/south-park-libertarians

16. LaMarre, et al. Ibid. pp. 225-226.

17. Farley, Christopher John. “On The Beach With Dave Chappelle.” TIME Magazine. 5/15/2005. Accessed on 1/22/2011. http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1061415,00.html

18. “Dave Chappelle on 360 Tonight.” Inside Cable News. 7/7/2006. Accessed on 1/22/2011. http://insidecable.blogsome.com/2006/07/07/dave-chappelle-on-360-tonight

19. Lambert, David. “Chappelle’s Show - S1 DVD Passes The Simpsons As #1 All-Time TV-DVD; Celebrates by Announcing Season 2!” TVShowsOnDVD.com. 10/19/2004. Accessed on 12/6/2011. http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Chappelles/2338

20. Chappelle, Dave. “Episode 14. 2-2.” Chappelle’s Show. Comedy Central. 1/28/2004. Italics reflect his verbal emphasis.

21. Chappelle, Dave. “Episode 15. 2-3.” Chappelle’s Show. Comedy Central. 2/4/2004. Italics reflect his verbal emphasis.

22. “Stop Online Piracy Act.” The Colbert Report. Comedy Central. 12/1/2011. Accessed on 12/6/2011. http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/403465/december-01-2011/stop-online-piracy-act

23. LaMarre, et al. Ibid. p. 217.

24. “Stop Online Piracy Act – Danny Goldberg & Jonathan Zittrain.” The Colbert Report. Comedy Central. 12/1/2011. Accessed on 12/6/2011. Italics reflect his verbal emphasis. http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/403466/december-01-2011/stop-online-piracy-act—danny-goldberg—jonathan-zittrain

25. “Media cross-ownership in the United States.” Wikipedia. Accessed on 12/6/2011. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_cross-ownership_in_the_United_States

26. “U.S. Chamber Joins Broadening Coalition in Support for Rogue Sites Legislation.” Global Intellectual Property Center. 9/22/2011. Accessed on 12/7/2011. http://theglobalipcenter.com/pressreleases/us-chamber-joins-broadening-coalition-support-rogue-sites-legislation. See the actual letter here: http://www.theglobalipcenter.com/sites/default/files/pressreleases/letter-359.pdf

27. Gillespie and Walker. Ibid.

28. Moore, Michael. “Where Does Occupy Wall Street Go From Here?” 11/22/2011. Accessed on 12/6/2011. http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mike-friends-blog/where-does-occupy-wall-street-go-here

29. Wikipedia. Accessed on 12/6/2011. Follow the links to the “Big Six” companies on this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_cross-ownership_in_the_United_States

The U.S. Congress is considering America’s first system for censoring the Internet. Despite public outcry, the Internet Censorship bill could pass at any time. If it does, the Internet and free speech will never be the same, here’s why:

The proliferation of drones throughout the military — and into civilian law enforcement — can make it feel like we’re living in an airborne panopticon. But flying robots are agnostic about who they train their gaze upon, and can spy on cops as easily as they can spy on civilians.

In the video above, protesters in Warsaw got a drone’s eye view of a phalanx of police in riot gear during a heated Saturday demonstration. The drone — spotted by Wired editor-in-chief and drone-builder Chris Anderson — was a tiny Polish RoboKopter equipped with a videocamera.

Read more here.

Keane was a good sport about fake Amazon reviews that gushed about supposedly hidden literary themes in collections of his newspaper comic strips, and he once even drew his own characters into a “guest appearance” in a Zippy the Pinhead strip. But in 1999, Keane’s syndicate threatened legal action against the “Dysfunctional Family Circus” site, which had been re-captioning Keane’s cartoons for over four years.

Heading off a “free speech” showdown, Keane resolved the situation with a friendly phone call to the webmaster, who ultimately decided to voluntarily remove the images just because “He’s actually a nice guy.”

Martin Luther King Jr. would have agreed with Tony exposing US history leading to 9/11.

As Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., in his world shaking sermon, “Beyond Vietnam — a Time to Break Silence”, recounted to us the history of the lies, from 1945 onward, used to trick Americans into supporting the Vietnam war, today he would be exposing the lies that have concealed secret arrangements for CIA covert crimes against humanity in the Middle East, Africa and elsewhere in the world since 1953 — arrangements that always originate within a dominant financial element that rules our society through ownership and manipulation of 98% of all electronic and print media sources of information.

The a few days later, on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher speaking of Tony Bennett ‘getting into trouble’, guest Michael Moore approved, “I think it’s a brave thing to say. If you have a pit bull in your neighbor’s back yard, and you go over there and keep kicking that pit bull, and then the pit bull bites you, you don’t say, Hey, I don’t know why that pit bull bit me!’ It’s ’cause you’ve been kicking the dog!”

Another guest on the program, Former Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA), protested that though “under the First Amendment everyone has a right to say whatever they want to say, some, who are not in politics, maybe are a little more careless with some of the language, but let’s understand this, when it comes to 9/11 and the Holocaust, a lot of people take it very seriously”

Us very old folks who remember the Holocaust pre-history of nearly every major corporation and most wealthy families of America, with earliest Hitler backer Henry Ford, Rockefeller and Dupont leading the rest, heavily investing in a prostate Germany of low wages, making fortunes building the Nazi armed forces to number one in the world in full knowledge of Hitler’s intentions for Jews and plans to invade the Soviet Union.

While our parents barely survived for lack of investment in the U.S., America’s elite in collaboration with German industrial families, laid the groundwork for World War Two and the Holocaust that otherwise would never had been possible.

The Holocaust, like 9/11 has been sold as brought about by one bad man who made himself powerful without American help. Americans, even survivors of death camps, were strangely quiet when Joe Kennedy, once fired by FDR for pro-Nazi statements, was buying his sons’ presidential credentials and while disgraced Prescott Bush, who had his accounts frozen for trading with the Nazi enemy, was as a U.S. senator launching his three sons as presidential timber.

Folks, it has taken a beloved 85-year-old jazz singer to scratch the surface of the psyop control of most American minds exercised by investor-owned-and-managed media since World War One.

Our Tony Bennett made this writer feel good about being his fellow American musician. Yours truly didn’t feel this way performing in the Mostly Mozart Festival on stage at Lincoln Center every evening (morning in Vietnam), for knowing that at the same time our planes were bombing and killing Vietnamese rice farmers by the thousands. Our boys, back then, were putting  the equivalent of a 9/11 on Vietnam every month.

Tony later apologized for upsetting listeners, but didn’t retract his words, because he is an honest caring person and perhaps therefore such an extraordinary musician. Other things he said to Howard Stern were, “War is the lowest form of human behavior. Weapons should be banished from the planet and those that make weapons should be arrested. Life is a gift, to be enjoyed.”

Let us tell that to our great speculating financiers needing as King said “wars to maintain unjust overseas predatory investments.” There is now an International Campaign for Awareness of King’s Condemnation of U.S. Wars and the “unjust overseas predatory investments they are meant to maintain.”

Article first published by OpEdNews, 9/25/11.

About the Author: Jay Janson, 80, is an archival research peoples historian activist, musician and writer, who has lived and worked on all the continents and whose articles on media have been published in China, Italy, England, India and the US, and now resides in New York City. Howard Zinn lent his name to various projects of his. GlobalResearch, InformationClearingHouse, CounterCurrents, DissidentVoice, OpEdNews, HistoryNewsNetwork, are among those who have published his articles.

The Prophet by Emil Nolde (1912)

Greggory Moore writes in the Long Beach Post:

Police Chief Jim McDonnell has confirmed that detaining photographers for taking pictures “with no apparent esthetic value” is within Long Beach Police Department policy.

McDonnell spoke for a follow-up story on a June 30 incident in which Sander Roscoe Wolff, a Long Beach resident and regular contributor to Long Beach Post, was detained by Officer Asif Kahn for taking pictures of a North Long Beach refinery.

“If an officer sees someone taking pictures of something like a refinery,” says McDonnell, “it is incumbent upon the officer to make contact with the individual.” McDonnell went on to say that whether said contact becomes detainment depends on the circumstances the officer encounters.

McDonnell says that while there is no police training specific to determining whether a photographer’s subject has “apparent esthetic value,” officers make such judgments “based on their overall training and experience” and will generally approach photographers not engaging in “regular tourist behavior.”

This policy apparently falls under the rubric of compiling Suspicious Activity Reports (SAR) as outlined in the Los Angeles Police Department’s Special Order No. 11, a March 2008 statement of the LAPD’s “policy …  to make every effort to accurately and appropriately gather, record and analyze information, of a criminal or non-criminal nature, that could indicate activity or intentions related to either foreign or domestic terrorism.”

Among the non-criminal behaviors “which shall be reported on a SAR” are the usage of binoculars and cameras (presumably when observing a building, although this is not specified), asking about an establishment’s hours of operation, taking pictures or video footage “with no apparent esthetic value,” and taking notes.

Also listed as behaviors to be documented are “Attempts to acquire illegal or illicit biological agent (anthrax, ricin, Eboli, smallpox, etc.),” “In possession, or utilizes, explosives (for illegal purposes),” and “Acquires or attempts to acquire uniforms without a legitimate cause (service personnel, government uniforms, etc.).” Special Order No. 11 does not distinguish between how these behaviors should be handled and how (e.g.) photography should be handled.

Read more here.

Four years ago Sarah Phillips moved into her Sutton Lakes home and said she has never had a problem, until now. “We’ve had it out about a month. We haven’t had any complaints from the neighbors…, said Phillips.

Phillips has posted a Jesus sign in her yard and there was no reaction from anyone until she received a letter from the Sutton Lakes Homeowners Association telling her having it in her yard is a violation of the covenant. “It is basically telling us to remove the sign, under the bylaws,” she said. Phillips said she did sign the Covenant, Conditions and Restrictions, or CCR, but never agreed to allow the free exercise of her religion to be prohibited.

More on First Coast News

Walter E. Bagdasarian.

Stephen C. Webster writes in the Raw Story:

A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that calling for someone to kill the President of the United States cannot be classified as a threat because standing law does not prohibit “predictions or exhortations” to violence.

In a 2-1 decision, judges on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that California resident Walter E. Bagdasarian was engaging in free speech when he wrote that Obama “will have a 50 cal in the head soon,” then called on someone to “shoot the nig.”

Bagdasarian published his comments on a Yahoo finance website in the weeks leading up to the 2008 presidential election. He was arrested weeks later, after one of the other commenters reported a potential threat to the Secret Service. During a search of his residence, authorities discovered that he did indeed possess a .50 caliber rifle.

“These statements are particularly repugnant because they directly encourage violence,” the judges wrote. “We nevertheless hold that neither of them constitutes an offense within the meaning of the threat statute under which Bagdasarian was convicted.”

For more information, see original article.

Hand drawing of Bloom by Joyce

June 16th is the annual celebration of Leopold Bloom’s doomed wanderings through Dublin in 1904, as chronicled in James Joyce’s classic novel “Ulysses”.  And in the 21st century, reality finally catches up with and overtakes fiction.

In 1921 a U.S. court banned Ulysses on the grounds that some of its graphic depictions of nudity and sexuality constituted pornography under the Postal Code. And while that decision was reversed in 1933 by a judge who could only have failed today’s more rigorous selection processes for illiteracy and cretinism, the private sector came to the rescue of public morals when Apple banned an online illustrated version from its iStore last year.

However, that victory had an even shorter half-life. A couple months later, presumably realizing that it would lose it’s investment completely if it maintained the ban, and that nobody would likely access anything remotely smacking of literary merit anyway, Apple decided to give it a go after all.

Still, Ulysses can still claim numerous triumphs. We were reminded recently that the real-life tribulations of one Henry Kahn, great-grandfather of actress Dervla Kirwan, may have inspired the nightmare courtroom episode in the book. Kahn was forbidden by the notorious Sir Frederick Falkiner from testifying on his own behalf due to Kahn’s blatent, obstinate and willful Judaism.

While the “Double Castration” sentence handed down in the clearly Ulysses-inspired digression within Hunter S. Thompson’s “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” stands as a worthy literary heir (IMHO), the book’s actual legacy in the field of (juris)prudence is even greater.  Aside the from the miscarriage of justice in the conduct of the Bradley Manning affair, Wisconsin’s miraculously “re-elected” supreme court justice David Prosser handed down an opinion on the controversial collective bargaining bill which, according to 50% of his colleagues, was riddled with error and faulty analysis.

And so it goes. The more things change, they more they stay the same.  Although a court in 1921 may have affected offense by the onanistic happenings in Chapter 13 of Ulysses, “Nausicca”, in fact, courts invented public masturbation.

Another outrage against Onan from the Dystopia Diaries

ALAMOGORDO, NM— A New Mexico man’s decision to lash out with a billboard ad saying his ex-girlfriend had an abortion against his wishes has touched off a legal debate over free speech and privacy rights.

The sign on Alamogordo’s main thoroughfare shows 35-year-old Greg Fultz holding the outline of an infant. The text reads, “This Would Have Been A Picture Of My 2-Month Old Baby If The Mother Had Decided To Not KILL Our Child!”

Fultz’s ex-girlfriend has taken him to court for harassment and violation of privacy. A domestic court official has recommended the billboard be removed.

But Fultz’s attorney argues the order violates his client’s free speech rights.

“As distasteful and offensive as the sign may be to some, for over 200 years in this country the First Amendment protects distasteful and offensive speech,” Todd Holmes said.

The woman’s friends say she had a miscarriage, not an abortion, according to a report in the Albuquerque Journal.

For more information, see original article.

Australians may have a love of plain speaking but new laws are set to curtail some of their more colourful language with police issuing on-the-spot fines for obnoxious swearing.

The country’s second most populous state Victoria is due to approve new legislation this week under which police will be able to slap fines of up to Aus$240 (US$257) on people using offensive words or phrases.

Victorian Attorney-General Robert Clark said the penalties, similar to those issued for speeding or parking illegally, would free up police time.

“This will give the police the tools they need to be able to act against this sort of obnoxious behaviour on the spot, rather than having to drag offenders off to court and take up time and money in proceedings,” he said.

But even the state’s top lawyer admitted to swearing sometimes. “Occasionally I mutter things under my breath as probably everybody does,” he told ABC radio.

[Continues at The Sydney Morning Herald]

The dancers were protesting an appeals court ruling handed down last week that the national monuments are places for reflection and contemplation — and that dancing distracted from such an experience.

In 2008, Mary Brooke Oberwetter and a group of friends went to the Jefferson to commemorate the president’s 265th birthday by dancing silently, while listening to music on headphones. Park Police ordered the revelers to disperse and arrested them when they did not.

Oberwetter sued on free speech grounds, but the appeals court ruled last week that her conduct was indeed prohibited “because it stands out as a type of performance, creating its own center of attention and distracting from the atmosphere of solemn commemoration” that Park Service regulations are designed to preserve.

Saturday’s protest was staged during the day, on Memorial Day weekend, in order to draw maximum attention:

More on Huffington Post

Comedian Stephen Fry has said he is “prepared to go to prison” over the “Twitter joke” trial.

Fry was at a benefit gig for a man who is appealing against his conviction for sending a menacing communication. Paul Chambers had tweeted: “Crap! Robin Hood Airport is closed. You’ve got a week… otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!”

Fry argued that Chambers’ tweet was an example of Britain’s tradition of self-deprecating humour and banter.

Chambers’ case has become a cause celebre on Twitter, with hundreds of people reposting his original comments in protest at the conviction.

“This [verdict] must not be allowed to stand in law,” Fry said, adding that he would continue to repeat Chambers’ message and face prison “if that’s what it takes”.

Read More: BBC News

A military court in Egypt has sentenced an internet activist to three years in jail for criticising the armed forces. Maikel Nabil was arrested last month for blogs that criticised the army’s role during anti-government protests.

The 26-year-old is thought to be the first blogger jailed in Egypt since the ousting of President Hosni Mubarak.

Activists said the trial set a dangerous precedent at a time when Egypt was trying to move away from the alleged abuses of the Mubarak era. Lawyers representing Maikel Nabil have criticised the conduct of the military court.

“We are in a state of shock because [on Sunday] they told us the decision would be on Tuesday, so the family and lawyer left. Afterwards the court announced its decision,” said Gamal Eid, a lawyer who heads the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information.

Mr Eid said the trial was unfair because the court did not even consider the content of Mr Nabil’s blog posts.

For more information, see original article.

Supreme Court Justice Alito is the lone dissenter in the 8-to-1 ruling on free-speech principles, saying the conduct of the Westboro Baptist Church ’caused petitioner great injury.’

In an important reaffirmation of free speech principles, the US Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that noxious, highly offensive protests conducted outside solemn military funerals are protected by the First Amendment when the protests take place in public and address matters of public concern.

The high court ruled 8 to 1 that members of the Topeka, Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church are entitled to stage their controversial antigay protests even when they cause substantial injury to family members and others attending the funeral of a loved one.

“Speech is powerful. It can stir people to action, move them to tears of both joy and sorrow, and – as it did here – inflict great pain,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion. “On the facts before us, we cannot react to that pain by punishing the speaker,” he said.

Read More in the Christian Science Monitor

Before I attempt to fill these pages with my disgust, which the odd reader who knows me will surely expect, I am obliged to address a preliminary concern, which that same odd reader may safely ignore. Some time has passed since I last raised my voice to the multitude, and whereas literary taste does not seem to have advanced much in the interim, and I assume is still arrayed so as to engage only the weak-minded and dull, I find that I am no longer able to discern with any accuracy where the bounds of simple human decency lie. This would bother me even less than does the taste issue were it not for the fact that ground gained or lost in the theater of decency tends now and then to affect the law, and it has long been a personal goal of mine to avoid capture and imprisonment.

I am therefore led to wonder what the common citizen is allowed to “say” anymore, in print or otherwise, and still feel reasonably sure that some indignant team of G-men, or else a pair of gung-ho local screws, will not drag him away to a detention center, there to act out, with the detainee as a prop, that familiar scene in which one hero cop or another is patriotically unable to resist certain outbursts against the detainee and what were once imagined to be the detainee’s constitutional rights. Because I am loath to violate whatever fresh new mores the people have agreed upon, or have been told they agree upon, and because I do not care to have my ass kicked repeatedly in a holding cell while I beg to see a lawyer, I almost hesitate to ask the following question. I will ask it, though, out of what used to be called simple human decency:

Am I allowed to write that I would like to hunt down George W. Bush, the president of the United States, and kill him with my bare hands?

Let me be clear that I have no wish to perform such a deed in fact, nor do I want anyone else to destroy bodily what is, at least in the technical sense, a fellow human being. (Let me be equally clear that the above qualification, although true, is intended primarily as a legal ploy and should in no way be attributed to my claimed pacifism, which today’s prosecutor might find a way to use against me. I would also like excused from the proceedings my personal feelings for George W. Bush, embarrassment and rage, as they could probably be turned to my disadvantage as well.) In truth, I bring neither a message nor a promise of violence. I seek only to gauge what level of discourse is still acceptable in this country by asking, in the hope that I might someday participate in that discourse, whether I am free to posit that it would probably be great fun, and a boon to all mankind, if I were to slaughter the president of the United States with my bare hands.

Almost au courant, isn’t it?  It gets better (or should I say worse?).  Read the rest here before making comparisons to Olbermann, Beck, Limbaugh, or anyone else.

Jared Lee Loughner, charged with Saturday’s shootings, has invoked his right to silence, leaving us ignorant of his motives. Sources disagree on his politics — an acquaintance calls him an “extreme” liberal; a government memo links him to a “racial-realist” journal (one that denies any ties to him). His online writings point to an unhinged mind. But though much remains unclear, people are withdrawing some of their first theories, which rashly labeled the shootings a Tea Party / Republican plot.

Replacing those accusations is a broader look at how the shooter may have responded to intense political rhetoric. Critics again blame the right-wing, mainly Sarah Palin, whose PAC last year produced an image with crosshairs on congressional seats such as Giffords’. It was only a slight escalation from the usual manner of treating politics as war (Targeted districts, swiftboating, battleground states, political campaigns). But it was an escalation, and people called Palin out on it. Giffords herself spoke against it, stating her fears of a possible response.

Some critics now ask Palin to apologize for the graphic , which her site has now removed. The petition reads: “Violent threats have consequences.” Fine. We must all consider our words’ consequences. And reducing vitriol would improve politics.

But other people want to go further. Thousands across the web now call for victims’ families to sue Sarah Palin, or for us to charge her criminally for inciting violence. Some, without a trace of irony, post these suggestions to ACLU message boards. Pennsylvania’s Rep. Bob Brady has proposed a bill banning imagery that uses gun-sights or cross-hairs. Like those from elsewhere on the political spectrum, these critics, after a tragedy, are forgetting Americans’ rights under the law. The First Amendment allows figurative calls to arms — and much, much more.

In this particular case, nothing proves that the image influenced the shooter. And if it did influence him, Palin need not have foreseen that it would have. The image was a political rallying cry to fellow party members. We might avoid similar calls from now on, but we don’t criminalize all that may motivate deranged assassins. If we did, we would have to ban Catcher in the Rye and permanently incapacitate Jodie Foster.

Even if the image’s designers could have foreseen its consequences, they did not intend them, which should remove criminal liability. Yet even if they did intend them — and this is what people so easily forget — the law would still protect that speech. Sarah Palin could have, for the sake of argument, declared: “Citizens! You should shoot all the Democrats in Congress.” The law would have protected her.

We punish dangerous speech only when it incites imminent lawless action. So if you were present on Saturday in Tuscon and urged the shooter to act, you would have broken the law. If you instructed him beforehand to act on that day and in that place, you would have broken the law. But advocating lawbreaking in general, despite the consequences that may follow, merely expresses an opinion. The Constitution protects that, even if the opinion is objectionable or dangerous.

This standard exists, in part, because of the ACLU. In 1964, Klan leader Clarence Bradenburg called for “re-vengeance” against blacks and Jews at a televised rally. This invitation for violence earned him a fine and a sentence of up to ten years. But the ACLU defended Brandenburg all the way to the Supreme Court, which then revised the legal standard for criminal speech.

Bradenburg v Ohio legalized racist speech and other violent calls to action. It also allowed legitimate political advocacy that had for the previous 50 years been illegal. According to the First Amendment, you may advocate anything, even positions the majority abhors, and argue for it however you want — so long as you don’t infringe on someone else’s rights. Others’ interpretation of your message does not undermine your right to express it. Not do the criminal actions others may later take.

People must choose their words carefully. But encourage self-restraint — don’t ask the government for censorship.

“I would urge those who turn up for protests to think about the impact this could have on their future careers.”

Over the past month, British students have repeatedly taken to the streets in large and raucous marches to protest huge increases in higher education tuition. In response, the government may now outlaw student demonstrations. Clearly, the message is that young people are not supposed to be civically engaged, the Telegraph reports:

Police may ban anti-Government marches through central London to prevent further disorder and strain on officer numbers.

The Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson, said that outlawing the demonstrations was an option for the authorities but conceded it could anger protesters further.

He admitted he was “very worried” about the effect on law and order in town centers and suburbs caused by large numbers of officers being sent to the center of the capital.

Despite widespread criticism over the policing of the protests, and warnings that the Met’s tactics risk leading to the death of an innocent bystander, Sir Paul said he was proud of the professionalism of the 3,000 officers on duty last week.

It emerged that 182 people, most aged between 17 and 25, have been arrested in four demonstrations against state spending cuts and the planned rise in university tuition fees over the past month, with many of them described as ordinary students who did not set out to take part in riots and had not been in trouble before.

Speaking at New Scotland Yard, he said there was a “stark contrast” between the violent scenes in Westminster and homes with crying parents and shocked young people when police arrived.

He added: “I would urge those who turn up for protests to think about the impact this could have on their future careers.”

Asked at the press conference if the Met would consider banning future marches, Sir Paul replied: “That’s one of the options we have got. Banning is a very difficult step to take, these are very balanced judgments.

Together with word this week that the Federal Communications Commission will be voting on net neutrality rules comes news that the United Nations is mulling new efforts that could shape Internet regulation.

“At a meeting in New York on Wednesday, representatives from Brazil called for an international body made up of Government representatives that would attempt to create global standards for policing the internet – specifically in reaction to challenges such as WikiLeaks,” wrote IT News.

The UN has announced that a “Working Group on Internet Governance,” made up solely of member states (governments), will consider changes to the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), a “forum for multi-stakeholder dialogue on public policy related to Internet governance issues, such as the Internet’s sustainability, robustness, security, stability and development.”

The government-only makeup of the working group has attracted criticism from groups including Google, the International Chamber of Commerce, and The Internet Society.

“Father of the Internet” Vint Cerf, now Google’s Chief Internet Evangelist, denounced the UN’s working group in a blog post titled “Governments Shouldn’t Have a Monopoly on Internet Governance.”

“Today, I have signed that petition on Google’s behalf because we don’t believe governments should be allowed to grant themselves a monopoly on Internet governance. The current bottoms-up, open approach works–protecting users from vested interests and enabling rapid innovation. Let’s fight to keep it that way,” Cerf wrote.

There were those at the UN who also expressed doubts that this was the best approach to taking on improvements to Internet governance.

With the clock ticking toward the end of this year’s Congress, the Senate on Saturday passed a new law which will enable community groups, churches and schools across the country to establish new non-commercial, low-power FM radio stations in their cities and towns.

The Local Community Radio Act, which will allow the FCC to issue possibly thousands of new noncommercial LPFM radio licenses, earned broad, bipartisan support after some ten years of organizing by grassroots media democracy advocates from coast to coast. Backers of the bill included a stupefying range of civil rights groups, religious organizations, musicians, unions and garage-bound radio dreamers around the country.

The FCC initially created the Low power FM service radio in 2002, as a way to counter the dramatic consolidation of radio ownership which followed the 1996 Telecommunications Act, and the resulting drop in diverse programming and local voices. However, pressure from commercial broadcasters quickly led Congress to impose substantial barriers to LPFM, so that only a relatively small number of stations were able to launch, and mostly in rural areas.

The new law removes most of those barriers, creating the opportunity for many more stations to occupy unused space on the FM dial. LPFM stations are noncommercial, must be operated by a local nonprofit, religious organization or public institution, and are limited to 100 watts.

The new law is a landmark achievement for public interest media advocates who have been working on this bill for years. Galvanized by the trailblazing work of the Prometheus Radio Project and the Media Access Project, a host of other groups deserve credit for helping wage the struggle for LPFM: the Future of Music Coalition, Media Alliance, Reclaim the Media, the Chicago Independent Radio Project, Free Press, United Church of Christ Office of Communication, Inc, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Media and Democracy Coalition, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the National Hispanic Media Coalition, the Benton Foundation and many others.

Read More at Reclaim The Media

If you thought intrusive body scans and airport pat downs were just a fluke in the War on Terror bureaucracy, fear not: The Department of Homeland Security has plenty of other programs that will make your skin crawl.

For instance, Big Brother is reading your tweets and Facebook status updates, searching for dangerous words and phrases such as militia, Iraq, and, ironically, body scanner.

The program is called the “Social Media Monitoring and Situational Awareness Initiative,” and yes, it’s as strange as it sounds. The goal is appropriately vague, “to provide situational awareness and establish a common operating picture for the federal government.” Hmmm.

Scroll to page 17 of this recent Homeland Security report and you’ll find an extremely lengthy list of the terms — posted on Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, and other social media sites — that will grab the attention of government search engines. They include:

Deaths Body Scanner • Hostage • Gangs • Incident • Police • Cloud •

Leak • Pork • Flu • Subway • Smart • Delays

According to the nonprofit Center for Investigative Reporting, the feds analyze the search results “before determining what tips should be distributed to other government agencies and even private companies authorized to receive such information.”

Read More in the Broward-Palm Beach New Times

There’s still a few quotes from his site on other blogs, including an e-mail he published from another disgruntled the Apple Store employee. (”I have never felt so undervalued as an employee or so constantly undermined by useless management…”) But in today’s announcement, he admitted that “it was never really meant to be read by the whole world… it was a place for fed up employees to read the sufferings of another fed up employee, and laugh about all the little things that begin to tick you off whilst working at Apple.”

It’s not clear whether Apple pressured him over the site, but today’s announcement makes clear that he no longer works at the Apple Store. “I actually left Apple a short while ago, a brave decision from a full time position as I had no work in the pipeline, but when it comes to your sanity, somethings just have to be done.”