GioBlog

Good news: No climate change treaty this year

I'm in Geneva this week for a meeting of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), so this week I'm kinda in an IP frame of mind.

Today's good news is that no binding treaty is going to come out of next month's Copenhagen conference on climate change.

It's good news for any number of reasons one of which is that the global IP skeptic community will not be able to use climate issues to undermine international patent rights on "green" technologies, at least not now, and at least not through this mechanism.

The global IP skeptic movement uses any available issue to rail against patents and to demand that patents be weakened or even done away with in order to facilitate the transfer of technology from rich countries to poor countries (failing of course to recognize that patents are the best means of knowledge and technology transfer ever conceived). They've been quick to jump on the climate bandwagon in order to chip away at patent rights in what is sure to be one of the biggest areas of future innovation, green tech.

You don't need to be terrified of climate change to understand the importance of green technologies. Any new technological means of diversifying our energy portfolio, and of reducing dependency on fossil fuels, can only be a good thing. Why would we not want to take advantage of the sun, the wind, gravity, tides and other natural and inexhaustible sources in order to generate power?

You don't need a climate crisis (real, exaggerated or imagined) in order to see the value of green technologies.

Especially in the United States, an urgent priority should be reducing our dependency on Middle Eastern sources for oil. It's generally believed that the more economically interdependent nations are, the more they are likely to operate in ways that are mutually beneficial. This was the argument for opening up trade with China and doing away with the annual debate over Most Favored Nation status for China, you may recall.

But this has NOT been the result of U.S. dependence on the Middle East. American dollars paid to Saudis and other Middle Eastern nations for oil has gone directly to the radicalization of the Islamic world against the West and against the United States and its interests.

It is clearly in the best interests of the United States for us to develop such green technologies as will reduce such counterproductive subsidies, as well as power future technological innovation. At some point we run into a wall where cheaper, more abundant sources of power will be necessary to fuel our path to a "Star Trek" type of future.

We'll never get this kind of innovation without patents. The patent form of property rights gives innovators some marginal security that, if they develop a useful technology, they will be able to exploit it, trade it, license it, sell it, or otherwise leverage their work. A patent by no means guarantees profits, as any inventor or innovator can attest. But patents at least make it possible.

It's also important to remember that the alternative to patents is not the free gift of knowledge and innovation to all takers. No, the alternative to patents is trade secrets, where knowledge is kept in a locked company vault rather than published in detail on the Internet, such as patent knowledge is today.

Patents are an ingenious combination of knowledge disclosure and property rights. Both the inventor and the larger community benefit from patents.

That's why patent rights have fueled such tremendous technological innovation, and why it's critical that strong patent rights not be traded away out of some misguided sense of charity to the developing nations of the world.

Would the Obama administration have figuratively bowed to the developing nations of the world and traded away strong patent rights for international acclaim and adoration? I don't know, and it isn't worth the risk.

So, today, Americans should celebrate the failure of international negotiators to cobble together an agreement which beyond doubt would have posed new and additional risk to economic growth, both at home and abroad.

[I should also point out that the biggest factor behind the slowdown in climate talks is the failure of the U.S. to pass cap-and-trade legislation. So one of the domino effects of activism against the U.S. cap-and-trade legislation is no Copenhagen treaty. A beneficial domino effect, I might add.]

More confident than ever that I’ll live to see man-made global warming abandoned

I've previously said that one of my hopes in life is to live long enough to see the religion of man-made global warming discredited and abandoned.

With every day that passes I'm increasingly confident that I'll succeed in this hope.

Comes today an article in the WSJ by the wonderful Kim Strassel about how, all over the world, countries are realizing that the theory of man-made global warming is basically bunk.

Among the many reasons President Barack Obama and the Democratic majority are so intent on quickly jamming a cap-and-trade system through Congress is because the global warming tide is again shifting. It turns out Al Gore and the United Nations (with an assist from the media), did a little too vociferous a job smearing anyone who disagreed with them as "deniers." The backlash has brought the scientific debate roaring back to life in Australia, Europe, Japan and even, if less reported, the U.S.

In April, the Polish Academy of Sciences published a document challenging man-made global warming. In the Czech Republic, where President Vaclav Klaus remains a leading skeptic, today only 11% of the population believes humans play a role. In France, President Nicolas Sarkozy wants to tap Claude Allegre to lead the country's new ministry of industry and innovation. Twenty years ago Mr. Allegre was among the first to trill about man-made global warming, but the geochemist has since recanted. New Zealand last year elected a new government, which immediately suspended the country's weeks-old cap-and-trade program.

The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the U.N. -- 13 times the number who authored the U.N.'s 2007 climate summary for policymakers. Joanne Simpson, the world's first woman to receive a Ph.D. in meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement last year that she was finally free to speak "frankly" of her nonbelief. Dr. Kiminori Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical chemist who contributed to a U.N. climate report, dubs man-made warming "the worst scientific scandal in history." Norway's Ivar Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for physics, decries it as the "new religion." A group of 54 noted physicists, led by Princeton's Will Happer, is demanding the American Physical Society revise its position that the science is settled. (Both Nature and Science magazines have refused to run the physicists' open letter.)

There ARE very good reasons for us to be looking for green, alternative and renewable energy sources, but they're ECONOMIC and NATIONAL SECURITY reasons. Man-made global warming is bunk, and it will be realized to be bunk shortly, when we realize we're entering the next little Ice Age.

Which unlucky Obama contributor gets to be ambassador to Venezuela?

I guess I can see the virtue of restoring the US ambassador to Venezuela. I'm just wondering which of Obama's low-dollar bundlers is going to get the job. Poor sap. He was hoping for Monaco or Andorra . . .

The logical result of media whoredom

Dana Milbank's nose is out of joint over the way the Obama administration stagecrafted his press conference yesterday.

The use of planted questioners is a no-no at presidential news conferences, because it sends a message to the world -- Iran included -- that the American press isn't as free as advertised. But yesterday wasn't so much a news conference as it was a taping of a new daytime drama, "The Obama Show." Missed yesterday's show? Don't worry: On Wednesday, ABC News will be broadcasting "Good Morning America" from the South Lawn (guest stars: the president and first lady), "World News Tonight" from the Blue Room, and a prime-time feature with Obama from the East Room.

But what Milbank needs to understand is that this is what happens when the media whores itself out to the Obama administration. They view you as exactly what you've made yourself into: tools.

Buffett got the change he wanted

All I can say to Warren Buffett is that you got the administration you campaigned for, contributed to, and gave cover to in the press. So their policies are on your hands.

In a live interview on CNBC today, Warren Buffett said there has been little progress over the past few months in the "economic war" being fought by the country.  "We haven't got the economy moving yet."

. . .

Buffett repeated his criticism of "cap and trade" as a method to control pollution, saying it would be a huge, regressive tax.

Another MSM Double-Standard

Can I just ask what the outcry from the MainStream Media would have been if the Bush administration had coordinated and planted a question with a conservative blogger at the outset of a Presidential press conference?

What the Mavericks should do from here

I'm a fan of the hometown sports teams, so I'm a fan of the Dallas Cowboys, the Mavericks, and the Stars (I'm only mildly interested in the Rangers, our baseball franchise). So I don't live and die with the Mavs, but I root for them and I'm disappointed at watching the same scenario play out for each of the past several basketball seasons.

The Mavs have a phenomenal player, Dirk Nowitzki, who is an incredibly consistent producer of points and rebounds, and who can occasionally put the team on his back. But Dirk isn't enough.

Surrounding Dirk is a collection of parts that have never really recovered from blowing the NBA finals in 2006, and then losing in the 1st round in 2007 due to over-inadequate coaching.

Since then, we've watch the same nucleus fail again in 2008's first round defeat by New Orleans, and this week's loss to the Denver Nuggets.

It's time for changes. The Mavericks have the makings of a strong  bench, but need to find an athletic center and a 2 guard. I have not been in favor of "blowing it up" until now. This team in its present configuration has had plenty of chances, and it's time to tear it down. Here's how it starts for me.

Dirk Nowitzki stays. He's the heart and soul of the franchise, and he should spend the rest of his career here. There's no reason with a free-spending owner like Mark Cuban that a championship team shouldn't be able to be built around Dirk. I'm opposed to some blockbuster trade that sends Dirk anywhere. If Dirk finds himself in his last year or two of his career without a championship, I'd support trading him to a contender just to give him the chance he deserves. But it's too soon for that.

Erick Dampier has to go. Somewhere. Another team, home, the end of the bench, somewhere. He's virtually worthless. Dampier was brought to Dallas when the franchise thought that the only thing standing between them and a championship was a big body to put on Shaq just to slow Shaq down a bit, either just with his bulk, or by delivering six "Hack-a-Shaq" fouls for Don Nelson. Those days are gone. Dampier can't handle the ball at all. You can't even hand him the ball under the basket without him flubbing it. The Mavericks know they desperately need their big man to get involved in the offense, which is why almost every game starts with the Mavs purposefully getting the ball to Damp on the first possession. And that's generally the last time they do it successfully for the rest of the game. Dampier doesn't even clog up the lane, which you know if you've watched teams effortlessly drive the lane against Dallas for the last several years. It's like there's no one there. The Mavs have to have an athletic big man who can be trusted to receive a pass occasionally. I don't know why Damp can't do it, but he can't. Every season it seems Damp has one great offensive game, and ownership seems tantalized to think it can get that kind of production out of Damp more often than once a game. But they never do, and they never will. He should never start another game for the Mavs.

Jason Kidd has to go. Everybody likes him, and he's a Hall-of-Famer, but in the payoffs this year he was found wanting. It was Berea who played an effective point guard against the Spurs, not Kidd. And against Denver, Kidd was a slow turnover machine. Known as a great passer, Kidd seemed to have lost the ability to pass at all against Denver. Berea, who is "too small," nevertheless was far more effective in getting the ball to open players around the basket. Kidd seemed only available to work the ball to players posted up within 6 feet of him, or to hand the ball to Jason Terry. Love Kidd, but let him go.

Josh Howard has to go. Howard is the classic underachiever--he has great talent but just doesn't have the brain or the character. Howard is that very strong, quick, athletic player that the Mavs (and everyone else) craves, but Howard just won't play the role. He wants to be Jason Terry, firing up jump shots. On those occasions when he drives the lane, he blows past his defender with ease, but he'll only do it once or twice a game. Howard has the potential to be a great player, but it's too late. He would have shown the character to do so by now if he had it in him. Howard won't put forth the effort to be a substantial rebounder or to consistently drive the lane, he can't keep his cool when frustrated, and he's an off-season disaster waiting to happen. "You can't control what the ball do," and you can't control what Josh Howard do, either. Get rid of him.

Brandon Bass must be kept at all costs, and he'll get plenty of offers in the off-season. Bass is exactly what this team needs. No one on the Mavericks works as hard as Bass, and that includes Dirk. Bass provides strength, toughness, agility, and a willingness to go to the basket for both shots and rebounds. Whether Bass has starting potential or should become the 6th man is debatable, but you reconstruct this team with Bass as a key piece of the puzzle.

I keep Ryan Hollins and try to turn him into my starting center. He's a seven-footer, and he has a natural ability to block shots. Problem is, that's all he does right now. But Hollins is an energy guy--he's the Mavericks' version of Denver's Birdman, and for life of my I don't know why Carlisle didn't use Hollins exactly like the Nuggets use the Birdman. Get in there, play some aggressive defense and block some shots for a while. I think not playing Hollins was one of Carlisle's major coaching mistakes this season, and especially in the playoffs. Make Hollins' development the major coaching project of the off-season.

J.J. Berea you keep, of course. He's more than serviceable as a backup point guard, and I wouldn't rule out trying him as a starter provided you address the other weaknesses in your starting five. Berea showed ability superior to Kidd's in getting the ball quickly to players like Bass on the pick-and-roll. With a strong other 4 starters, I have no problem with Berea as the starting point guard.

The Mavs understand that, at this point in his career, Jason Terry's best role is coming off the bench. It was a mistake starting him in game 5, especially since almost no effort was made to get him the ball in the entire first half. If you're going to start Terry, why didn't you plan to use him on offense? You sure didn't put him in to play defense!  If I can solve my two big problems in my starting rotation and keep Jason Terry, I keep him, but I don't hesitate to trade Terry or otherwise part with him if it solves bigger problems.

Antoine Wright should never have been a starter on this team. It's not his fault, but he was called upon to fill a vacuum in the starting five that is just too much for him. There's no reason to keep him if he has any value otherwise.

The rest I have no opinion on except Gerald Green, who I think has potential. Yes, when he gets in the game he immediately jacks up shots, but that's probably because of WHEN he gets in the game, which is usually garbage time of one sort or another. Green is fast, athletic, has a high vertical jump, and strikes me as having the potential to be a starter at the 2 guard.

My Tea Party speech

A few people have asked for the text of the speech that I gave last night at the Denton, Texas Tea Party tax protest. So here it is.

Thank you, and thanks to all of those who have been involved in putting this great event together.

You know, this is the real thing. There are all sorts of demonstrations and actions that are artificially created echo chambers, and people paid to show up and carry signs, but this is the real thing. I’ll bet none of you are being paid to be here tonight.

My name is Tom Giovanetti, and I’m the President of the Institute for Policy Innovation, a free-market think tank in Lewisville.

Don’t you suppose there are a bunch of people at tea parties tonight who voted for change, but didn’t know they were voting for tripling the national debt! It felt all enlightened and holistic to vote for the young progressive guy who was so well spoken, instead of voting for the old guy. But did they know they were voting for “change their grandchildren will still be paying for?”

Did they know that when they voted against George Bush’s third term they’d end up with George McGovern’s first term. Did they know after they voted for change they’d end up with nothing but change left in their pockets?

(There’s a bumper sticker business in there somewhere)

Don’t you suppose the Founders have been rolling over in their graves over what’s been happening in this country for the past 9 months or so, and I don’t mean just since January 20th. But I suspect if the Founders could see what is going on this evening around the country, it would cheer them a little.

The Founders had an ornery streak. They would have made good Texans. They believed that a little rebellion every now and again was necessary to preserve freedom and restrain tyranny. Because freedom was their primary aim. And they knew the biggest threat to freedom was from government.

The Founders understood that government was necessary, but that it was a necessary evil. They knew that government was necessary to restrain evil, but they also understood that government itself had to be restrained.

Take 45 minutes sometime and read the Constitution. The Constitution is almost nothing other than a limit on government power. It says very little about things like national defense, or health care, but it goes on and on about what government cannot do. It’s a very negative document.

That’s why the Constitution mandates a divided, federalist system of government. The Founders divided up government into as many parts as possible because they didn’t trust government. Then they took all the little parts and spread them out on the ground and jumped up and down on them until they pulverized the pieces as small as possible. They didn’t trust government. And we shouldn’t, either.

A guy back in 1651 wrote a book about government called “Leviathan,” named after the sea monster. Leviathan a good image of government--greedy, growing, insatiable for control and digging its tentacles into every possible nook and cranny of the country.

When you read the Constitution, you can almost picture in your mind the Leviathan of big government getting shackled. The monster lurches to its left and the Constitution slaps a shackle on it. It lunges to the right and the Constitution shackles another tentacle.

Over and over again, our Constitution says to government “this you may do, but no more.”

Remember, for government, it’s all about control. You do know that the government is making it difficult for the banks and insurance companies to pay back the bailout money? The government doesn’t care about money, because the government cares about control. They like telling companies how much they can pay, and who gets hired, and what kinds of products companies should make, and how they should be investing their money. It’s all about control.

Please don’t fall for the idea that our problems are so big that only government spending can solve them. The other day, someone gave me this Talking Ronald Reagan as a gift, and it couldn’t have come at a better time. I just love pushing the button on the back and listening to Reagan’s voice, even though it isn’t exactly in digital surround sound.

To the youngsters in the crowd I say, please don’t get annoyed at us older folks talking about Ronald Reagan like he was some kind of saint. Because politically speaking, he was like some kind of saint.

In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan drove the big government liberal Keynesians into hiding under rocks, and they stayed there for almost 30 years. For 30 years a politician has not been able to win an election as a liberal. But now they are poking their heads out from under the rocks, blinking their eyes at the sunshine and thinking it’s safe now to come out of hiding. They think the election welcomed big spending liberalism back into the sunshine. Well, I think they’ve misread the election.

Things were worse than this when Ronald Reagan took office.

When Ronald Reagan took office inflation and unemployment were in the double-digits, and mortgage rates were 13.5%. The economy was in the ditch, and we were viewed very negatively internationally. We were humiliated with hostages in Iran, and historians were writing books about America’s decline.

It was in his first inaugural speech that he made the famous line “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem.”

But there’s another bit from Reagan’s first inaugural speech that is perhaps even more appropriate for us at this time. Reagan said “We are a nation that has a government—not the other way around. Our Government has no power except that granted it by the people. It is time to check and reverse the growth of government which shows signs of having grown beyond the consent of the governed.”

Reagan said “It is my intention to curb the size and influence of the Federal establishment and to demand recognition of the distinction between the powers granted to the Federal Government and those reserved to the States or to the people. All of us need to be reminded that the Federal Government did not create the States; the States created the Federal Government.”

It’s really important to understand what Reagan said “we are a nation that has a government, not the other way around.” All of this debate about whether or not people should want the President or the current Congress to succeed or fail need to remember that the government isn’t the country. What’s good for the government isn’t necessarily good for the country. It may very well be necessary for a particular Congress or a particular President to fail in order for the country to succeed.

Now, some people might say “you know, you’re really overdoing it with all this talk about losing our freedom. We’re all still free and you’re just inciting people.”

But are we still free? And are we heading in a direction of more freedom, or less freedom?

When you add up all the taxes we pay to government, when you add up federal income taxes, payroll taxes, state income taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, and even local income taxes in some places like New York City, when for some people those taxes add up to more than half of a person’s income, it’s fair to ask whether we’re still free, or whether we’re just sharecroppers working on the government’s farm.

And how about our children and grandchildren? Will they be free, when the current Congress will triple the national debt over the next ten years to $17.3 trillion dollars? Or will they just be a revenue source to feed the federal government?

Remember the Matrix movie? You don’t want to be just a power source serving the Matrix, and you don’t want to be just a revenue source serving Leviathan, either. But that’s where you’re heading.

The Obama budget deficit will total an astounding 13.1 percent of GDP. Now, just for comparison sake, under George Bush, the federal deficit for 2008 was 3.2 percent of GDP. The deficit for fiscal year 2007, in the last budget adopted when Congress was controlled by Republican majorities, was 1.2 percent of GDP.

So tonight you look around and you feel good because you say “You know, I’m not alone. There are a whole lot of people who share my frustration.” But that’s not enough. You can’t just go home and be done. You have to stay involved. You can’t stop now.

Because THEY’RE not going to stop. THEY’RE just getting started. They’re coming after your health care, and they won’t be content until they control the health care industry.

Now, you may not be thrilled about your health insurance company. But just wait until you’re been in national health care for a couple of years. Just wait until they ration care like every other national health care system does.

Just wait until you find out you’re going blind, and they tell you that you can’t have the miracle drug that prevents blindness until after you’ve already lost one eye. Because the drug is expensive and, besides, you only really need one eye. That’s a true story—it happened in England. They denied a guy who was going blind the drug that would stop his blindness, and they told him they couldn’t approve the drug for him until he was down to his last eye.

And they’re going to make the price of everything much more expensive with their cap and trade system, which is a solution for a problem that probably doesn’t exist. Every single thing that uses energy will become much more expensive under cap and trade, and that’s the express purpose of the plan—to make you buy less so you’ll consume less energy.

Can you imagine a government that PURPOSELY raises prices on Americans? The cap and trade system will raise taxes across the entire economy by $645 billion!

So what is happening tonight all around the country needs to continue. You can’t stop here, because THEY’RE not stopping. But what can you do?

Get to know your elected Representative and Senators. Write them letters, send them faxes, and call their offices. It really does matter. And you should not only rail at them when you don’t like what they’re doing, but you should praise them when they do the right thing.

Now, in Denton County, we’re blessed by the fact that most if not all of us have elected representatives and Senators who are fiscally conservative. And that’s a good thing, but when you’re frustrated about what’s going on in the country, you feel kinda powerless because you’ve already elected someone you’re generally pleased with. So what more can you do?

Well, you can adopt a candidate. Find a challenger somewhere else in the country who’s running against one of the bad guys, and support that candidate. Send them some money every once in a while, and maybe even go work for a week in their district during the campaign. Pick out a conservative challenger in some nice place like Hawaii or Lake Tahoe and go do some campaign work for them and work on your tan at the same time.

You can also support organizations that work on these kinds of issues all the time, but that’s as much of a sale pitch as I’m going to do tonight.

I’ll leave you with this: More important than whether you are a Republican, a Democrat, a Libertarian, or whatever, is the question of whether we still believe in limited, restrained government, or whether we should essentially scrap the Constitution and support unlimited government power to do pretty much whatever it wants. In other words, do we want to become France, or do we want to remain America?

It’s time to say once again to our government, “this you may do, but no more.”

Thank you.

Posted by Tom Giovanetti at 06:03:06 PM | Add/View Comments (0) | Permanent Link: My Tea Party speech
Location: Dallas, Texas USA

Ultimately, Government Is Always About Control

I fundamentally believe that, ultimately, government is always about control. Yes, there's plenty of rhetoric about helping people, doing good, creating jobs, protecting people from bad stuff, etc., but ultimately the result of almost everything government does is control.

Accordingly, about a month ago it occurred to me that the feds were going to quickly come to enjoy all the control they had gained over banks and financial institutions as a result of the bailouts, the TARP money, etc., and that they weren't going to want to give it up. It occurred to me that they were going to make it as difficult as possible for financial institutions to pay back the money, because they want to maintain control. They like being able to fire CEOs, replace boards, set salaries and compensation policies, etc.  I'm sure they've already got plans about dictating lending practices to an even greater degree than they already do through existing legislation. And so it occurred to me that we were going to start hearing stories about banks having a hard time getting government to take the money back.

I should have blogged something about it at the time, just to show you all how smart and prescient I am, but it's too late now, because it's already happening.

In an op/ed in Saturday's Wall Street Journal, Stuart Varney relates how banks that are ready, now, to pay the money back with interest are being refused that possibility by the feds. Read the whole article, but here's the key section:

I must be naive. I really thought the administration would welcome the return of bank bailout money.

. . .

Here's a true story first reported by my Fox News colleague Andrew Napolitano (with the names and some details obscured to prevent retaliation). Under the Bush team a prominent and profitable bank, under threat of a damaging public audit, was forced to accept less than $1 billion of TARP money. The government insisted on buying a new class of preferred stock which gave it a tiny, minority position. The money flowed to the bank. Arguably, back then, the Bush administration was acting for purely economic reasons. It wanted to recapitalize the banks to halt a financial panic.

Fast forward to today, and that same bank is begging to give the money back. The chairman offers to write a check, now, with interest. He's been sitting on the cash for months and has felt the dead hand of government threatening to run his business and dictate pay scales. He sees the writing on the wall and he wants out. But the Obama team says no, since unlike the smaller banks that gave their TARP money back, this bank is far more prominent. The bank has also been threatened with "adverse" consequences if its chairman persists. That's politics talking, not economics.

This is no shock at all to me, of course, given my (and the Founder's) assumptions about government.

When government becomes accustomed to control, its appetite only grows larger. Just today there is a story in the Wall Street Journal about the IRS warning nonprofit organizations about their compensation packages. Why non-profits? Because, since their funds are tax-deductible, they're" kinda, quasi-government supported institutions," goes the logic. It's not a big leap, in the logic of government, that if it can control organizations that receive direct government money, it can also control organizations that receive a "subsidy" in the form of tax exemption.

Now, I don't believe for a minute that the absence of taxation is the same as government subsidy. Such logic would indicate that any non-taxed activity is actually government subsidized. In other words, every possible economic activity is part of the tax base, and if it's not taxed, that means the government is subsidizing it. Nonsense.

We're seeing a case study in why socialism doesn't work, or in why socialism results in much less economic efficiency. What government funds, government controls, and government will direct the things it controls toward political ends, rather than toward economic ends.

Change our grandkids will be paying for

Just wondering if this is what Obama voters were voting for?

Admission that net neutrality is about gaining political advantage for the Left

In a blog post today on the Huffington Post, we have an admission today that net neutrality and limits on media ownership are really about the political Left trying to lock in a political advantage.

I would think articles like this would be very damaging to those who are trying to argue for net netrality for reasons related to "the nature of networks" or "the nature of the Internet." No, it turns out this is really what it's about.

I'll be surprised if this blog entry isn't pulled down, so I'm going to quote it in its entirety. I'll try to highlight the really juicy parts for you.

Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Ari Fleischer and other right-wing mouthpieces are trying to frame future debates while they reinvent the George W. Bush years. Their eerie falsehoods, half-truths, revisions, and lies are given added weight because they sit atop a bed of chatter and static, often called the "echo chamber," of Fox News and right-wing talk radio. Everything that comes out of Cheney's mouth (or Rove's or Fleischer's) is carefully calculated and designed to cast doubt about the current president while whitewashing the disasters of the previous one. Their dire warnings about how President Barack Obama is not "keeping us safe" from terrorists, and their repeated claim that Bush "kept us safe," starkly reveal their propaganda goals. Cheney's take on 9-11, Hurricane Katrina, and the budget deficits of the Bush years should send shivers up any rational observer's spine.

In 2004, Cheney said the same thing about John Kerry: a vote for Kerry meant a vote for a heightened chance of terrorist attack and more dead Americans. Disgusting. It is even more sickening since Cheney is the one with the blood of 4,500 Americans and 200,000 Iraqi civilians on his hands. He's in no position to lecture us on how to prevent American deaths. Yet there is CNN's John King or NBC's David Gregory or ABC's George Stephanopoulos sitting across a table nodding and giving these monsters a platform to shamelessly propagandize the American people.

Cheney, Rove, and Fleischer (the same people who lied us into going to war in Iraq) appear on our television screens with two principal aims: 1). To lay down a base of rhetorical fire, through repetition, that might frame the larger political debate as the Obama Administration moves forward and unexpected events challenge the Democratic leadership; and 2). To re-write the legacy of the George W. Bush years.

Back in the 1980s, the Republican Party had the upper hand with the first computerized donor lists, "soft money" (a Reagan campaign creation), and "direct mail" operations (where Karl Rove got his start), while the left and the progressives were still relying largely on 19th century techniques such as distributing leaflets and organizing demonstrations. During the Clinton years it looked like the GOP might control the Internet when the Drudge Report dominated the 24-hour news cycle and right-wing websites had astounding "synergies" with talk radio, cable news, and whatever party line the Newt Gingrich Congress was pushing. One of the greatest achievements of Barack Obama's presidential campaign was its domination of Internet communications, which fused Netroots connectivity with Grassroots political organizing. The Huffington Post and other progressive news and information sites, along with MoveOn.org and other Internet organizing networks, played a key role in this dramatic shift in communications technology away from the Right and toward progressive social change.

We need to lock in this advantage.

Here comes the juicy part.

A chunk of the Obama Administration's stimulus money is aimed at laying down Internet connections in areas that are underserved. This expansion and upgrading of the nation's Internet cable system should make it possible for millions of people to by-pass the filter of giant media corporations and access alternative information that undermines the Cheney-Rove-Fleischer revisionist narrative of the George W. Bush legacy. We have a very rare opportunity right now to lock in a progressive advantage in Internet communications, information sharing, and Netroots mobilizing.

With Democratic majorities in Congress and a liberal Democratic administration we can blunt the political influence of media conglomerates and the Right. That is why the Republicans and their corporate media sponsors want to destroy Net Neutrality. They know from their experience with talk radio and the creation of Fox News that corporate absorption of the Internet and ending net neutrality would be a propaganda coup.

The Obama Administration's Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and a revivified Anti-Trust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice could pursue all sorts of reforms that would open up the nation's political discourse. A few minor changes in the rules and regulations governing the public airwaves and corporate media consolidation could transform the political economy of the media sector. Such reforms would make it more difficult for networks to shove people like Cheney, Rove, and Fleischer down our throats because enhanced competition would mean that rivals might be broadcasting more attractive fare. Breaking up Rupert Murdoch's empire (starting with revoking the waiver that allows him to own the New York Post), and busting up Clear Channel's monopoly of radio would be a good place to start. Congress, working with the Obama Administration, could then revisit the odious Telecommunications Act of 1996 and remove or rework its worst provisions. Look at what the media monopolies did during the Bush years. The Bush Administration never could have lied us into going to war in Iraq if it were not for the duplicity of the corporate media.

Without some fundamental changes to our media environment the Cheneys and Roves and Fleischers (or their trained cadres) will be back in power. These calculating neo-cons want to claw their way back into power because they believe they're entitled to hold power. Forever. I thought I had seen the last of unelected hacks like Richard Perle and Elliot Abrams after their disgraceful exits from the Reagan Administration but they came roaring back as soon as W. was in power. They don't need any new ideas because the "ideas" they promulgate serve power. We need as many non-elite, outside the Beltway voices as possible. We don't need to hear more aristocratic propaganda about the benefits of unfettered capitalism; we don't need to hear more authoritarian scare tactics that justify torture, false imprisonment, and war; we don't need to hear more Kulturkampf designed to divide working people through exploiting wedge issues and to control women's bodies and lay claim to the flag, the military, mom and apple pie. It's time to take steps to open up our media system.

More moral confusion on the copyleft

Interesting article in the Wall Street Journal today about the latest dispute within the CopyLeft community on fair use.

It's not big surprise that the CopyLefties would be arguing that it's perfectly fine for an artist to find a licensed photo on the Internet and use it without paying or even acknowledging the owner of the photo. That's pretty much standard for the CopyLeft. They feel free to take what they want, because, you see, that's really what creativity is. Creativity isn't the hours of work and the years of experience that go into creating the original creative work. Creativity is taking someone's creation and splashing a little yellow paint on it. THAT's creativity. You call it a mash-up, and you're on the cutting edge of creativity, and you are so much more creative than the person who did the original work that they aren't even worth mentioning, unless they have agreed to abandon all their rights and use the borrower's licensing system, Creative Commons.

Okay, I admit that turned into a little rant. Sorry.

Anyway, this time some artist took a photo of Obama from the Internet, disregarded the photographer and owner of the photo, and Andy Warhol-ized it.

It became an iconic image of the Obama campaign. And since I guarantee you that 99% of the CopyLeft were rabid Obama supporters, they all thought this was just great.

But this time it isn't the rights of some corporation that are being trampled on, but rather the rights of a photographer. The artist has made a bundle on the alterations he made to the original photo, but instead of sharing even a fraction of the profits with the guy who made it possible, or even acknowledging him, the artist is suing the photographer with the help of Larry Lessig.

I have argued before about the moral confusion of the IP thieves, who have gone so overboard with their opposition to IP that they actually condone counterfeiting of pharmaceuticals, and in this case condone trampling all over the work and the rights of the photographer who captured the image of Obama that was altered by the artist.

It is nothing short of moral confusion for the CopyLeft to justify defrauding the photographer of his work and then suing him.