This is a powerful video, "Bombs" that MTV banned.

I blogged about it here.  The Wall Street Journal, one of four major newspapers, is about to get swallowed up by Hollywood, and little things like a free, real, not digital press, will soon be quaint 19-20th Century memories.  But at least we all have our social networks.

I'm definitely not going on Twitter, Facebook's it for me. 

This is cross-listed @ my Blue Mandy Blog.

A new center - es possible, te piensas?

Please, Blue Mandy's become quite a cynic, and a day after Internet Radio Silence day, it's grounded in the all-too-true, set-top cop chains becoming more and more invisible and stronger than ever.

But two recent articles, Ron Brownstein's <em>LAX</em> "Opportunity knocks for Democrats - At the state and national levels, the party has a rare chance to work with GOP executives on healthcare and immigration reform" (link) and Fareed Zakaria's <em>Newsweek's </em>"Beyond Bush - What the world needs is an open, confident America" (link) offer a more optimistic spin.

At both the national and California state levels, we're seeing blowback against the  extremism and idiocy that our dear Dubya represents.  Zakaria illuminates the dynamic: <blockquote>More troubling than any of Bush's rhetoric is that of the Republicans who wish to succeed him. 'They hate you!' says Rudy Giuliani in his new role as fearmonger in chief, relentlessly reminding audiences of all the nasty people out there. 'They don't want you to be in this college!' he recently warned an audience at Oglethorpe University in Atlanta. 'Or you, or you, or you," he said, reportedly jabbing his finger at students. In the first Republican debate he warned, 'We are facing an enemy that is planning all over this world, and it turns out planning inside our country, to come here and kill us.' On the campaign trail, Giuliani plays a man exasperated by the inability of Americans to see the danger staring them in the face. 'This is reality, ma'am,' he told a startled woman at Oglethorpe. 'You've got to clear your head.'</blockquote> Fear, uncertainty and labels power propaganda efforts.  Our country has been inundated by codes and media messages propagating fear and anxiety.  The nadir occurred in the '04 elections when folks voted in a President they knew was lying.  Now, we're entering surreal new stages.  Brownstein expands:<blockquote>A TABLOID without a spread on Paris Hilton. A snowball in July. A humble Yankees fan.

Pick your metaphor. None would be as rare as the opportunity now presenting itself to the Democratic majorities in Congress and the California Legislature.

In each case, a Republican executive has signaled his eagerness to sign into law a long-standing progressive goal: President Bush on legalization for illegal immigrants, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on universal healthcare. That convergence represents a unique but fragile asset in today's polarized political culture. Both sides may regret it for years if they fumble these opportunities.

Failure might be most inexcusable in California. With both the state Senate and Assembly approving plans to significantly expand coverage, and Schwarzenegger committed to covering all of the uninsured, California could soon finalize the most comprehensive state-level plan yet to guarantee healthcare for all residents.</blockquote>  Brownstein acknowledges that the possibility of compromise and a new center arising is hard to predict.  Given how polarized the electorate, it's safe to say the foundation is extraordinarily delicate.

Anyone want to bet on compromises in both Congress and the state?  Yo pienso que no....or following Ozomatli, Can we or "Can't [we] Stop now"?

Or, put another way, Blue Mandy was fortunate to hear Andy Stern at Annenberg in the Spring.  Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union, states in the <em>Times</em>, [Success in California] "would be the most significant thing to jolt the healthcare system [toward national reform]....If we have a California failure, it just adds to the weight of this being an issue no one can solve."

Brownstein closes, <blockquote>Stern could match his words with deeds if he steers the union's powerful California affiliate toward accepting a deal that couples a higher fee on employers than Schwarzenegger proposed with a requirement that at least middle-income individuals buy insurance. Liberals may resist that price, but if they consider it difficult to impose an employer mandate now, they should imagine trying it without a Republican governor running interference.</blockquote>  Que tu piensas?

<strong>POSTSCRIPT</strong>:  Round 1 was won by the Blue Mandy, Randy cynics.  There went the immigration reform bill, adios amigo!

A friend recently sent me this link, "Who reads blogs, apparently, no one," (link).  The mainstream media is always an easy target (I'm prone as much as anyone here, esp. when writing after mid-night).  However, the most exciting change is happening as the mainstream media innovates and attempts new things.  At the same time, if we're looking at what holds back the blogasphere, we need more subtle, sophisticated analysis that examines a full range of societal issues.

I'm interning at KCET and the LA Times, both places with great people embracing change and trying to transform institutional cultures.  While Bakersfield is amazing in its social networking, let's not give the blogasphere more credit than it's due.  Let's also remember how hard it is to really institute change.

Then let's recognize that the fissures and failures in American society run deep.  Let's look back at the so called "creation" of the "Internet Superhighway."  Let's examine Al Gore the symbol, not the "producer" of Inconvenient Truth, but the Al Gore who as VP coined the "Information Superhighway" and who, in concert with Bruce Lehman, then Assistance Secretary of Commerce, pushed through the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (at the behest of the RIAA/MPAA lobbies), the single worst law to hit the blogasphere ever.  So thanks Al. 

What's interesting is just this year, Lehman came out and said the DMCA doesn't work (link - he also said how Hollywood is a cold place that doesn't keeping saying thank u.  Duh, Bruce.  I could have told you that as a recovering indie producer).  The DMCA gives corporate "copyright" holders a bullying, chilling power tool to shut down Napsters, sue Googles and force ISPs to "take down" any material that might break their copyright. 

The DMCA in its material abuse of power, promoted by the Clinton/Gore administration at the behest of primarily the corporate entertainment lobbies, needs massive revision to reflect our dynamic digital age.  In its abuse of power, in the failure of the public to participate in its creation, it stifles our media system and itself needs to be taken down and revised.  That's why I'm active in USC Free Culture.

What's particularly interesting is that the American economy suffered due to this misconceived economic, trade, commerce policy.  That is, Clinton Gore administration counted on American Intellectual Property being protected via the DMCA while opening up our industrial base to "free trade" a la NAFTA etc.  The ensuing decade provides a clear rejection of such one-sided trade policies as the Walmarts and cost-cutting post-industrial market imperatives have driven thousands of job production to foreign countries, devastating the American poor, working and middle class who struggle to adopt to this new knowledge economy.

On the USC Free Culture blog, I wrote, "Over the last decade with the rise of the Internet, the struggle to promote freedom and human rights has entered a new stage. Access to knowledge and broadband connectivity provide us with unimaginable gateways to cultural riches. At the same time, as [my professor, Manuel] Castells writes in his most recent paper, 'Communication, Power and Counter-power in the Network Society' (link), there is a 'direct link between politics, media politics, the politics of scandal, and the crisis of political legitimacy in a global perspective.'

In a sober warning given basic human nature so evident in Iraq and Murdoch’s role in promoting the invasion of that country, Castells closes, 'Thus, as in previous historical periods, the emerging public space, rooted in communication, is not pre-determined in its form by any kind of historical fate or technological necessity. It will be the result of the new stage of the oldest struggle in humankind: the struggle to free our minds.' A new spirit of humility and commitment is needed, one that seems very far away (link)."

Castells point is that a new potential flowering of the "creative commons" linked to the blogasphere is possible, but before we points fingers at the press, let's remember that there all all sorts of powers working to undermine the flourishing of such a new space.   Thus, let's have a little humility and first examine how much real sacrifice we, as individuals, in the real world, not the blogasphere, will undergo to promote change.  Let's work with institutions, both from the inside and out, that are opening up, encourage them, not bash them.

Most importantly, let's recognize that a new center is needed in our country, one that honors civil debate, respects authority and traditions (those silly blue-state things) while relishing the differences that make up this crazy fabric.

Things are heating up world-wide; the only questions is will we go down in flames, will the American decline continue in its embrace of the frivolous, consumerist junk/unrestrained corporate global commerce or will we put limits on corporations, learn to channel the heat, our passions into real substance in the real, yet digitally synergized, world?

I went a talk at the Downtown LA library last night for a talk, "Can the LA Times Be Saved" (link - http://www.laist.com/2007/0... It was very depressing.  "The discussion was moderated by Kit Rachlis, editor of Los Angeles Magazine. Panelists were Times Editor Jim O’Shea, Managing Editor Leo Wolinsky, General Manager Dave Murphy and Executive Editor of LATimes.com Meredith Artley."  The LAIst link has a good review.

I was disappointed that there was no talk about the importance of a free press in little things like democracy.  It's an official part of the record that Rupert Murdoch has admitted that FOX '04 election coverage was slanted and they didn't, like the rest of the media, do enough to counter Dubya-Rove's spin.

Oh well, the failure of our press post-9/11 is profound.  The four panelists were only asked at the very end about the deaths in Iraq, which were surely be the most deadly for American troops this summer.

Instead, there was much focus on meeting "consumer needs" and facing 'change."  Would things be different if more children, from all economic classes, were serving, esp. more children of our corporate leaders?