The other day I wrote about a friend who was raped by an organized crime figure and prevented from seeking justice, for fear of retaliation. With regard to the case, there are also serious questions about whether the criminal justice system turned a blind eye to this rapist, due to corruption within the DA's office. But what about when protection of powerful entities -- such as Corporations -- from legal action for crimes such a rape -- is the overt agenda of our elected officials? This is from Change Congress.

You may have heard about Jamie Leigh Jones -- an American woman who was gang raped by her co-workers while working for a defense contractor in Iraq.

A beloved friend of mine was brutally raped several years ago by an organized crime figure in her city. A serial predator, he used his business front, a restaurant, to lure young women with prospects of working there. Eventually he would get them alone, then viciously assault them, and rape them, like he did to my friend. What's more, in addition to the horrific crime itself, he went even further in committing the foulest gestures of misogyny. But it didn't stop there -- afterwards he would slander his victims as prostitutes to his staff -- to cover his tracks. Still, the most terrifying part is -- he knew he could get away with it.

From SOAR (Speaking Out About Rape):

On April 24, 2010, thousands of people will take a Two-Mile High Stand Against Sexual Assault®. At dozens of skydive facilities across the country, men and women of all ages will take to the sky and jump. Most for the first time ever. And it's all part of Operation Freefall®, the boldest, highest-altitude, and most daring event organized to put an end to sexual assault.

Operation Freefall started in 2001 when, on the anniversary of her rape, Speaking Out About Rape, Inc.® (SOAR®) founder, Kellie Greene, made her first skydive. When Kellie did this, she took a day of personal tragedy and turned it into a day of triumph. She reclaimed the day that had been taken from her and turned a dreaded annual memorial into a keenly anticipated celebration.

Prof. Thomas Doherty from Brandeis University writes:

I'm gonna need a hacksaw and a waterproof bag,"
says Jack Bauer. No wonder: He has just concluded an interrogation by
shooting the suspect dead, and he needs the man's severed head to help
infiltrate a terrorist cell. The vignette -- from Season 2 of "24," Fox's

This should be at the top of the list. Get this Orwellian nightmare out of our lives ASAP!! From the Electronic Frontier Foundation: 

The federal government is trying to force states to turn your drivers license into a national ID. Unless you tell your state legislator to push back, the Real ID Act will create grave dangers to privacy and impose massive financial burdens without improving national security in the least.

Signed into law in May 2005 without meaningful debate, the Real ID Act states that drivers licenses will only be accepted for "federal purposes"—like accessing planes, trains, national parks, and court houses—if they conform to certain uniform standards. The law also requires a vast national database linking all of the ID records together.

This is one of my favorite items about the entertainment industry working with the government. This was posted by The Memory Hole a few years ago regarding "email messages exchanged between a public affairs officer at the actual NCIS and a writer-producer of the show 'NCIS' [which was a spin-off from 'Jag']."

This entry is part of my "Videodroming Project," which you can read about here. Basically, it is to record my impressions of entertainment media that I watch...with a view especially towards semiotics -- or how entertainment programming and commercials draw on the social and political issues of the day.To follow up on my earlier entry about "Life on Mars" – here are my impressions of the ad spots that played during that hour (ABC, last Wed., 2/18/09, 10 PM). To start off with…there were ads for prescription drugs. One was a drug for treating Fibromyalgia. Right off the bat, the woman who was the main character of the ad said, "My Fibromyalgia pain is real." This seems to be the motto for this condition (or at least for the promotion of the drug treating it). I saw a truck some weeks ago that was painted with this tagline, advertising a website for clinical trials.

This entry is part of my "Videodroming Project," which you can read about here. Basically, it is to record my impressions of entertainment media that I watch...with a view especially to semiotics -- or how entertainment programming and commercials draw on the social and political issues of the day. So Wednesday night I flipped on "Life on Mars," not knowing anything about it. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it had a first-rate supporting cast: Michael Imperioli (of "The Sopranos"), Gretchen Mol and the one-and-only Harvey Keitel. Basically, it is about a man who is from the present day, but has been magically transported back to 1973, where he works as a detective in an NYC precinct under Keitel, with Imperioli and Mol as his cops-in-arms.

This entry is part of my "Videodroming Project," which you can read about here. Basically, it is to record my impressions of entertainment media that I watch...with a view especially to semiotics -- or how entertainment programming and commercials draw on the social and political issues of the day. Last Wednesday I watched CSI:NY. First off, let me say that this is a very well-made show. I liked the overall style, which used quick cuts and speeded-up zooming effects -- which mirrored the high-tech computer processes the investigators use to catch criminals. The filmmaking style heightens the sense that this is a fast-paced world where time is of the essence in solving crimes.

I posted this originally on a discussion board, where the topic
asked if the two parties are really just the same. It's another one
that is raw, but to the point. I do believe.

On the one hand, Democratic and Republican Politicians are both
Corporate Whores. On the other hand...what kind of whore do you want?
(Nearly all) Democratic Politicians will basically take it from (most)
anyone who will pay enough and push them around. On the other hand
(nearly all) Repubs are the S/M Dominatrix's that will get inside your
mind and control you even when they are not around.

I originally posted this at another venue when the topic of "Merry
Christmas vs. "Happy Holidays" came up. A little raw, but effective, I
think...

That whole 'War on Christmas' thing is really obnoxious and totally
fueled by rightwing mindfuKKKing pus-pockets like Bill ('get a load of
my falafel...er...loofah baby!') Oh Really? to work as a media
distraction and to amplify or outright create divisiveness. Hell, he and his cohorts have made it a flipping holiday tradition!!

For years I studied the structure of the Republican Right and how a ring of think tanks, media outlets and pressure groups was created for what the Republicans called a "war on ideas." And this network of organizations has been used over the past four decades to attack the Democrats and Liberalism in general. But it also has been used to flak Republican politicians as well when they "wandered off the reservation."

I have long thought that there needs to be a serious, in-depth analysis conducted of the entertainment media, since it's powerful effect on the general public seems to often be overlooked with all the attention spent on deconstructing the news. That isn't to say that sites like FAIR, Media Matters and The Daily Howler don't play an absolutely vital role in keeping a daily watch on the various tactics of spin & outright propaganda that permeate the news. Indeed, this is where most of the focus should be, since the news media is taken as an authoritative source for informing the public on especially the political reality in which we live.

If you haven't already, you can see the teaser trailer for the Stone biopic, "W," coming this fall.

There is also a wiki about it here, with a link at the bottom to the IMDB entry. I sure hope it covers the rise of the Bush Dynasty itself to some extent, including some of their more interesting dealings, going back to Prescott. I was disappointed that the film Stone produced for cable, "The Day Reagan Was Shot," neglected to the mention the strange Bush-Hinckley connection reported by the mainstream press at the time.

This has long been a topic of interest for me -- how prison labor is farmed out to corporations. I have been especially intrigued in how the War on Drugs fits into all this. Basically, the Powers-that-Be work both sides of the WOD -- the supply side (for example Contra-Cocaine) as well as working the anti-drug side -- not just law enforcement, but also in profiting off of prison labor, especially for-profit prisons, such as those run under Bush crony George Wackenhut. Caroline Winter writes for Mother Jones,

Tens of thousands of US inmates are paid from pennies to minimum wage—minus fines and victim compensation—for everything from grunt work to firefighting to specialized labor. Here's a sampling of what they make, and for whom.