[IP] Re: AOL/Microsoft-Hotmail Preventing Delivery of Truthout

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Tom Fairlie" <tfairlie@frontiernet.net>
Date: September 18, 2007 2:02:37 AM EDT
To: <dave@farber.net>
Cc: <vxm@miglia.com>, <brett@lariat.net>, <imhopper@gmail.com>,  
<jmelloy@msn.com>, "Suresh Ramasubramanian" <suresh@hserus.net>,  
<adam@io.com>, <rob@iGive.com>, <dpreed@reed.com>
Subject: Re: [IP] Re:    AOL/Microsoft-Hotmail Preventing Delivery of  
Truthout

How can I resist? I cannot:

    "The truth has a liberal bias."

I don't know who said that originally, but it partially sums up
the situation in America and sheds light on a tragic meme that
has been polluting our country for more than 20 years.

I freely admit that liberals (the good old fashioned kind from
New England that preferred unrestrained big business and no
taxes) became the scourge of conservatives and libertarians
when they suddenly went socialist (FDR-LBJ), but those days
are as dead as the Kennedy brothers (no disrespect meant,
bluntness was the intended effect).

Now, since 1968, the right-wing rules (or didn't you notice?).
Carter and Clinton liberals? Hah! The former started ramping
up defense spending, deregulated the airline industry, began
funding militant Islamists, and launched modern monetarism
with Paul Volcker. The latter deregulated the telecom industry,
silenced gays in the military, and signed DOMA. How liberal
can that be? (modern socialist definition of course)

The truth is (depending upon your education and honesty) that
"liberal" behavior--free, educated, compassionate attitudes--are
contrary to the globalist agenda (the same agenda as the former
New England liberals, are you following? :-), so the globalists
(aka greedy individuals with the power to actually make greed a
bad thing) have spent vast resources demonizing them over the
past 25 years.

Their first attempt was to spread the "liberal media" label to
encircle the few remaining outlets that tried to provide balanced
coverage or (shudder) investigative reporting. As we can see,
this was an effective strategy that effectively neutered any "real"
left-wing discourse and moved the 50-yard line solidly to the right.

The next agenda item was to attack college campuses, the last
bastion of the educated, hippie, left. This plan is still being carried
out and many campuses and professors have had to formalize
shifts to the right in order to avoid funding problems, accusations
in the media, etc.

So what's left, given that our children's textbooks are already
completely whitewashed? Not much really, except engaging our
fellow citizens in educated discourse whenever possible. I highly
suggest that everyone get over left/right stereotypes as quickly as
possible because the political spectrum is not a straight line, it's a
circle, where the far left and far right actually meet at the bottom.
Haven't you ever noticed that every "deeper" movement (9/11 Truth,
JFK assassination, New World Order, etc.) has just as many lefties
as righties?

This is because those who tire of either the blandness or the hypocrisy
of the middle go their own ways and eventually began to agree on the
common ground that we all share (freedom, liberty, justice, fear of  
'1984').
My personal take is that you don't have to go that far to see that  
common
ground and focus on it.

Ignore the straight line and start seeing with better eyes. Left is  
not a
state of mind and neither is right. I have as much in common with NRA
zealots as I do vegans--in other words, we need the freedom to do what
we want as long as we don't hurt anyone (or the environment).

I constantly attack Republicans and right-wingers because that's
where the power base is now and where it has been for most of my
adult life. I'm not a lefty, a Democrat, or a liberal. I'm an American
and I like my freedoms, especially the one where I can speak my mind.

Anytime a website or a book or a magazine or a television show is
censored, our brains out to go into overdrive to determine what's going
on and make sure that we're always getting what was originally intended.
By the same token, we should never accept what *is* shown at face
value because powerful, monied interests are investing a lot of money
to make sure you see what they want you to see. It's a tightrope to be
sure, but once you step back and see the circus in front of you it's  
easy
to spot the lions and the clowns.

If truthout is being censored, we ought to take notice and do something
about it. Not because it's a lefty hangout but because it's a website
that freely shares information and it's potentially being blocked. If  
the
Power Line blog was affected in the same way, I'd be just as outraged,
even if I think that website is about as worthless as... (sorry, no need
for an insulting simile right now).

Tom Fairlie

----- Original Message -----
From: "David Farber" <dave@farber.net>
To: <ip@v2.listbox.com>
Sent: Monday, September 17, 2007 2:05 PM
Subject: [IP] Re: AOL/Microsoft-Hotmail Preventing Delivery of Truthout




Begin forwarded message:

From: "Victor Marks" <vxm@miglia.com>
Date: September 17, 2007 2:47:04 PM EDT
To: dave@farber.net
Cc: ip@v2.listbox.com
Subject: Re: [IP] Re: AOL/Microsoft-Hotmail Preventing Delivery of
Truthout

For IP if so desired.

> At 07:05 PM 9/16/2007, Joe Melloy wrote:
>
> > Truthout is a biased ultra-liberal website that does not deserve to
> > be a participant in the IP community.

Agree with the former, disagree with the latter.

Truthout is a biased ultra-liberal website. I doubt they would
disagree with that, except when they wish to position themselves as
appealing to a majority (but then, they feel that the majority should
be as ultra-liberal as they. Such is the nature of political action
groups.)

"does not deserve to be a participant in the IP community" ?

Deserve? I thought Dave decided who deserved and did not deserve to be
a part of his community. It's not a free speech issue, Dave gets to
pick and choose. Not me, not Malloy, or any one else. If Malloy wants
to pick, let him start his own list.

Shoot, Dave decides not only who is in or out of the community, he
also decides who participates by selecting the email he forwards. I
don't have a problem with this, it's Dave's list. He suppresses and
discriminates against speech everytime that he chooses to not publish
an email he receives for the list. There is nothing wrong with this.

As for Truthout, it's entirely possible that they are not filtering
their lists well, or that they are, and that people that once opted in
or otherwise were added to their list have now decided to report the
email as spam.

I've seen people who have become convinced that because unsubscribe
links don't work on real spam that they also do not work on otherwise
legitimate email lists. These people have no problem reporting
something they don't want as spam, whether or not it originated as
solicited.

I don't pretend to know if that is what happened here, but I imagine
that it's not unlikely.

Regards,
Victor Marks


-------------------------------------------


-------------------------------------------