Free Burma

Harry Reid and ilk have NO shame

Democrat Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada has been caught red handed spinning Rush Limbaugh's comments about "phony soldiers" into something it isn't. If one takes the time to actually read what Rush said...and most won't, but if one does it is obvious that Rush is talking about Jessie Macbeth. Macbeth was also caught lying about his service record and exploits in Iraq. Jessie never went to Iraq and is now facing charges for his lies. The left seized on Jessie's anti-war statements that accused troops of murder and mayhem. Jessie was in every sense a "phony soldier".

It is crazy to attack Limbaugh who has donated large sums of money and promoted the troop's causes that included a trip to Afghanistan, which is more than most of us have ever done. Rush is pro-military, pro-troops and gives to troop causes. To be guilty of what Reid is accusing him of is not just out of character but also plainly false.

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_100107/content/01125112.guest.html

Free Burma

New Media Puts Spotlight on Burma

That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation.

-Thomas Jefferson, 1813

Even back in 1813 Thomas Jefferson understood the power of the exchange of information. He understood that no one owns information. Oh, many try to, but time usually tells the tale. He also recognized that by trading information we grow exponentially. We are “expansible over all space” and that by sharing we are “incapable of confinement”. Such is the case in Burma (Myanmar). The military government of that country or Junta have just tried to quell peaceful unrest in their country by physical violence and by turning off the internet to it citizens. For over a week bloggers (new media) acting as citizen journalists made sure that reports and photos flowed to the old legacy media. Now that information has been squelched to almost nothing. Still, reports of death and harassment are leaking out.

This leak by the new media in Burma constitutes what is known as Public Diplomacy. Public Diplomacy is the public conversation between two or more nation’s non-governmental interested parties, which has some measurable effect on a government(s) policy. In this case the effect was more attention paid to Burma. A specific example would be President Bush enacting tougher sanctions on the Junta and calling for action at the UN last week. As well, the military government’s crack down on the flow of information via the internet would qualify because it is a reaction to citizen journalists communicating with other non-governmental entities all over the world.

Beyond the exchange of information being Public Diplomacy it is also what is called Soft Power. According to the father of Soft Power Joseph Nye Jr. Soft Power is “the ability to get what you want by attracting and persuading others to adopt your goals…” by attraction rather than coercion. These Burmese blogs do not threaten us or hold us hostage in order to get their message across rather they tell a compelling story that stands on its own merit.

We are not to a point where New Media can drive a story on its own and ensure action. Rather, it still requires the old media to take the baton from the New and then pass it own to our traditional hard powers like the US and China. In any event the role of the New Media in this conflict is unmistakable.

If you want to participate in this public diplomacy and increase the soft power of the Burmese citizens I suggest you log-on and connect with these people via their blogs. You can find a dearth of information on the Burmese blogosphere at globalvoicesonline.com or more specifically:

http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/-/world/east-asia/

Why Letting the Iranian President Speak at Columbia University Was Wrong

A very good friend of mine, who is probably the smartest person I know, thinks that letting Ahmadinejad the President of Iran speak this past week at Columbia University was an exercise in free speech. Sadly it was not. It was merely a platform for a blithering idiot’s ruminations. Lee Bollinger the president of the university did, however, do the world a “solid” and put Mahmood in his place -calling him to his face a “petty dictator”. Well, now that I think about it, Lee only said he “Exhibit[ed] signs” of a “petty dictator”. So the president of Columbia didn’t have the huevos to actually call him a dictator. Nice. But I digress.

My good friend a graduate of Barnard College (a part of Columbia University) insists that this forum we provided for Ahmadinejad and the students of Columbia was an exercise in freedom. Free speech and all that. She insists that there is a right to be heard. This is why she is wrong:

1. First and for most there is NO RIGHT to be heard. There is a right to speak freely. But nowhere in the Constitution does it guarantee the right to make others listen or as an extension provide a forum so others can be heard. Over and over on the day of the “forum” I heard countless pseudo-intellectuals call for the “right to be heard”. Sorry. But our laws do not compel others to listen. It only compels them to let you speak if you so chose.

2. Apparently, according to my friend the genius (she also has a Masters degree in International Relations and is attending NYU law school), the constitution sometimes refers to citizens and sometimes to “people” and when it refers to “people” it could mean every person in the world. So, in that light, we try to behave towards others as we behave towards ourselves and extend our constitutional protections as a standard of treatment to the rest of the world. (Gitmo excluded!) So the United States should protect Almondjoy – I mean Ahmadinejad’s right to speak. And…we do. There is a fantastic place where many people from all over the world can hear Mahmood ruminate. It is called the United Nations. Where we are a member and will fight with blood and treasure to protect Mahmood’s, Hugo Chavez’s and any other low-life’s right to speak and waste valuable time that could be spent rooting out corruption at the UN.

3. Another argument is that Mahmood’s appearance would lift the level of debate at Columbia. Well, that is Columbia’s problem if debate is at such a poor level. I personally don’t need the appearance of a terrorist backing, homosexual murdering, woman stoning, genocide threatening “petty dictator” to lift my level of debate. What we do need to lift that level is something other than ultra-liberal education that gives too much credence to relativist and deconstructionist theories and not enough to the benefits of values and principles and what adherence to values and principles can bring about when it is married to a healthy, but limited, dose of relativism and deconstruction. If you don’t know what I mean by “relativist and deconstructionist” principles think of both as the science of NEVER deciding whether to fish-or-cut-bait or poop-or-get-off-the-pot! Mahmood doesn’t raise the level of debate. He lowers it to some ambiguous denominator that does not accomplish a damn thing. (Pardon my Farsi.) Listening to him go on and on about how Iran loves freedom and how Iran loves women made me sick.

4. Finally, there is no value in anything Ahmadinejad has to say because he has proven himself either stupid or “provocative” as Lee Bollinger pointed out. Anyone who denies the existence of the Holocaust is not worthy of academic challenge. Perhaps laboratory study -but I am quite sure that this forum was not billed as a chance to see a monkey in a cage, rather it was billed as an academic exercise that gave Ahmadinejad some sense of equality or peer-status to the rest of Columbia University. There was no “exchange” at Columbia University. Nothing was gleaned from Mahmood that couldn’t have been gleaned otherwise and Mahmood I promise you took nothing away except more contempt for the United States.

So sorry to Columbia University, you are not only wrong but you have actually worked to lessen the thing you have tried to protect (free speech) by letting a propagandist and by all accounts a terrorist have a venue to try to equivocate his countries deeds and rhetoric via obfuscation and pseudo-logic.

Having said all of this and having counseled with my before mentioned dear and wise friend one extraordinary thing did happen because of this incident. My friend, a liberal, gave “props” to our President for his magnanimous view of the Ahmadinejad/Columbia University situation. She also directed me to the US Supreme Court decision of the Texas v. Johnson flag-burning case in which Justice Louis Brandeis was quoted in a 1927 opinion:

"To courageous, self-reliant men, with confidence in the power of free and fearless reasoning applied through the processes of popular government, no danger flowing from speech can be deemed clear and present, unless the incidence of the evil apprehended is so imminent that it may befall before there is opportunity for full discussion. If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence."

So here it is today that I expose the evil and invite each of you to do the same. Let your voices drown out the voice of Mahmood Ahmadinejad and all those like him.

“Democrats Step Up Criticizm of Iraq Findings”

This is a headline from the New York Times dateline September 9^th. This is very interesting considering there has been no official reporting of said findings to “Criticize”. General David H. Petraeus has not given his report yet. Sure, his open letter to the troops gives us a preview but that is not the report. That is certainly not the OFFICIAL report.

Normally I look for reasons to attack the Dems. I freely admit it. But this is one of those times I will point to both parties. The pro-war right did almost the exact same thing when the Iraq Study Group report was to come out. These attempts to sway opinion before the facts are clear are a patent example of partisan politics. The kind that puts the party first and the “people’s business” second. It should not be tolerated on either side of the aisle.

I do have to point out Sen. Harry Reid. His insistence on calling it the Bush Report rather than the Patraeus report is beyond the pale. This is attacking not just Bush (which we expect) but also General Patraeus. This is calling Patraeus a dishonored liar, incapable of an honest assessment of Iraq. Reid has placed himself and to a large extent the Democrat party in the position of losing if the US wins. If Iraq is successful the liberals have egg all over their faces. Reid now has to answer for statements that declare the Iraq war lost. His answer? “Patraeus is an untrustworthy liar.” Not to mention Ambassador Crocker who will also participate in the report.

Thus far Petraeus has given us no reason to think that he is anything but a capable military leader and an honest broker. He seems to be a call-it-as-he-sees-it kind of guy. Why then would Reid feel the need to preempt the Patraeus report? How does that raise the level of debate? How did Republicans attacking James Baker raise the level of debate on the Iraq Study Group Report? We can do better than the “Harry Reids” of the world. We can do better than this kind of political posturing to rescue errant proclamations of failure in Iraq.

Ding dong the witch is dead....

I finally finished my dissertation. (you can read it below) I am very happy with it though it was shorter than the allotted word count.

I am hoping that the fact that there is no academic information on my topic will help with the lack of words. It is hard to find consensus when you are writing about something for the first time. No one has ever put together the links between blogs-public diplomacy- soft power- and democracy. Let's hope my readers understand what I am trying to say!

WOO HOO. My course work for my Masters degree is out of my hands!