As a long time employee at a very large software company, this news gave me more than pause. PEOPLE MUST know about the dangerous territory into which Obama will lead this nation. I can't imagine what I'd do if my company started working for the government. But it could happen, especially if the economy tanks to such an extent that only a deal with the devil will ensure survival AND especially since Obama plans to increasingly involve areas of the private sector in government, for government.
So the main - but largely ignored - news is that Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt, has announced that he is endorsing Obama for president.
Schmidt will appear Tuesday with Obama in the tightly contested state of Florida to talk about the economy. Although Schmidt announced his backing of Obama in Monday's Wall Street Journal, he has been advising the campaign on technology and clean-energy issues for most of the summer.
For years, Schmidt was a major Democratic fundraiser and high-profile supporter of Democratic candidates, notably 2000 presidential candidate Al Gore, who now serves as a senior adviser to Google.
But Schmidt has kept a low partisan profile during the 2008 campaign, offering up Mountain View's Google headquarters to all the presidential candidates for both parties during the primaries. Earlier in the year, he made supportive comments for energy independence plans proposed by both Obama and Hillary Clinton. Schmidt also showed up at the Democratic National Convention in Denver, where he spoke to a group of bloggers whose convention-reporting headquarters were partly paid for by Google.
As Google grows, so does its interest in government. The Justice Department has yet to issue a ruling on Google's proposed ad-sharing deal with Yahoo, which some legislators believe would give Google too much control over online advertising rates. The company also has lobbied on issues such as net neutrality; it opposes allowing telecommunications companies to set different rates for slower or faster levels of Internet service.
A statement from Google said the company "of course remains neutral" in the presidential race. As for Schmidt, the statement continues, "he believes that it is time for a change in America. In addition, his personal views on technology and energy are similar to Senator Obama's."
MercuryNews.com
Obama Campaign's Weapon of Mass Destruction: The Internet
This news is way more ominous than the Colin Powell endorsement because technology is the medium for political propaganda, and it will be even more so in the future. The Obama campaign has been in their proverbial cave in Boston creating grand computing central, their secret weapon of mass destruction par excellence:
Volunteers who interact with the Obama campaign through a Web browser may never know it, but the system that drives their efforts is the product of an intense development and integration project that was far from complete as the 2008 campaign began. The heart of this network is housed in a Boston-area data center, where scores of workstations run voter-file databases and related software. The facility has multiple connections to Internet backbones to ensure maximum uptime.
The voter files come from state Democratic parties and the Democratic National Committee, which have been amassing them for years. Previous campaigns were hampered by a lack of easy access to these files, and as recently as the 2006 elections, vital information was still stored in numerous independent, siloed databases. "For this cycle, the DNC was focused on integration and efficiencies," says Jim St. George, a principal at Voter Activation Network, or VAN, the company that handled the back-end integration job.
The VAN system has been in the making for seven years; it runs on commercially-available database software and is descended from a project begun in 2001 for Iowa Senator Tom Harkin, who was headed into a reelection campaign. One of VAN's big jobs was engineering the databases so that campaigns can slice and dice the lists with great efficiency. "It sounds easy, like something you could do with Microsoft Access," St. George says. "But if you have 12 million names and you want to find 30,000 women in a particular age group who voted in two particular elections but not a third one, it's going to take a long time.
...Part of the power of MyBarackObama.com is that it capitalizes on the path-breaking success of popular social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace. While Krohn says the RNC has enjoyed success in using these established sites to activate motivated volunteers, MyBO does things they cannot. "Facebook was the gateway," Trippi says. Adds Franklin-Hodge, "Facebook is great for broadcasting yourself to friends, but it's not very action oriented. There are few features at MyBO for broadcasting yourself in the abstract--instead it's geared to getting people to take action." In essence, MyBO redirects the energy of social networkers to specific, campaign-oriented tasks, such as canvassing neighborhoods. Ruffini agrees that the system has "morphed into a very useful tool." A killer application, he says, is the group-building feature, which allows people to create connections to potential voters in their area, rather than just talking about their personal views of the campaign as they might on Facebook. - Ed Cone, KnowItAll
Also check out my article, Twitter Election.
A Quick Look at Google Censorship
Obama has a particular interest in using the internet to his advantage and Google has no problem, judging from its behavior in China, to be an instrument of a government:
[In China]The internet itself is also tightly controlled. Access to many foreign websites (such as Wikipedia) is restricted, and Google's Chinese site filters its results to exclude politically sensitive material. New rules governing online video came into force this week. Electronic retailing is in its infancy, thanks to an unwieldy government-controlled payment system, so most shopping is still done in person. The Economist
If you look up Google Censorship in Wikipedia, you will have sourced examples of the kind of company Google is. Google takes it upon itself to censor what it considers to be hate speech; it products maps of U.S. military bases;it bans advertisements of politicians it doesn't like. Most importantly, Google's shareholders VOTED DOWN an anti-censorship policy in 2007.
In early 2006 Google removed several news sites from its news search engine because complaints were received about various articles that were critical of Islam.[13][14] These included the The New Media Journal, which contained phrasing such as in the "World of Islam ... it is common for the men to have multiple wives, and harvest many children with each of his wives to train for martyrdom." Other sites removed included MichNews and The Jawa Report.
These sites remain accessible from Google's main search page as normal, but are no longer included in Google News. Google responded by stating that "We do not allow articles and sources expressly promoting hate speech viewpoints in Google News, although referencing hate speech for commentary and analysis is acceptable".
YouTube, a video sharing website and subsidiary of Google, has a Terms of Service that prohibits the posting of videos which violate copyrights or depict pornography, illegal acts, gratuitous violence, or hate speech.[15] User-posted videos that violate such terms may be removed and replaced with a message stating "This video has been removed due to terms of use violation" without actually stating which terms of use were violated.
YouTube blocked the account of Wael Abbas, an activist who posted videos of police brutality, voting irregularities and anti-government demonstrations.[16] His account was subsequently restored.
YouTube also removed a video produced by the American Life League which is critical of Planned Parenthood. It has since been restored. [17]
YouTube has been criticized for censoring Alisa Apps music videos, whilst allowing Rambo clips to be shown where decapitations and other gore scenes are visible throughout.[18]
On February 22, 2008, Pakistan Telecommunications attempted to block regional access to YouTube following a government order. The attempt subsequently caused a worldwide YouTube blackout that took 2 hours to correct. Four days later, Pakistan Telecom lifted the ban after YouTube removed religiously controversial comments made by a Dutch government official[19] concerning Islam.[20]
In March 2007, allegedly lower resolution satellite imagery on Google Maps showing post-Hurricane Katrina damage in the U.S. state of Louisiana was replaced with higher resolution images from before the storm.[21] Google's official blog of April revealed that the imagery was still available in KML format on Google Earth or Google Maps, at least until January 2008 when it was last cached, as opposed to the animation.[22][23][24] In March 2008, Google removed maps of military bases per the Pentagon's request. [25]
In October 2007, Google banned advertisements from Maine U.S. Senator Susan Collins' reelection campaign, citing its trademark policy. The ads contained the words "Help Susan Collins stand up to the MoveOn.org money machine." At the time, Google permitted the use of company names like Exxon and Wal-Mart in other non-sanctioned advertising, and an ad running at the time of the article read "Keep Blackwater in Iraq?"[28]
In April 2008, Google refused to run ads for a UK Christian group opposed to abortion, explaining that "At this time, Google policy does not permit the advertisement of websites that contain 'abortion and religion-related content.'" Google policy does not prohibit advertisements for abortion clinics or pro-choice sites.[29]
For more technical info on Google censorship, you can try here.
Chief Technology Officer: Wha?
An Obama government, in addition to being a national bank, healthcare insurer, educator and mortgage lender, will also, in accordance with Obama's position that government is the source of American innovation, take on the duties of technology as well:
Obama released a nine-page statement outlining his plan to improve technology (if elected). His first order of business would be to appoint a Chief Technology Officer, a new government official who makes sure Obama's ideas are put into action.
The CTO would have a much different agenda than the head of technology under the current administration, the "cyber-security czar". While that post is concerned with preventing cyber attacks, the CTO would concentrate on critical issues facing the technology world as well as maintain an open line of communication between the government and the American citizens by using—what else?—the internet. - Gizmodo
Obama claims that the CTO and the technological army he will lead will allow for an "Open Government". I say it will allow for the appearance of Open Government:
Technology-enabled citizen participation . . . can help connect government to its citizens and engage citizens in a democracy. Barack Obama will use the most current technological tools available to make government less beholden to special interest groups and lobbyists and promote citizen participation in government decision-making. Obama will integrate citizens into the actual business of government by:
—Establishing pilot programs to open up government decision-making and involve the public in the work of agencies, not simply by soliciting opinions, but by tapping into the vast and distributed expertise of the American citizenry to help government make more informed decisions. [Everyone will work for or with the government]
—Lifting the veil from secret deals in Washington with a web site, a search engine, and other web tools that enable citizens easily to track online federal grants, contracts, earmarks, and lobbyist contacts with government officials. [Using Google search and censorship techniques or to berate those who appose the Obama viewpoint]
—Giving the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House website for five days before signing any non-emergency legislation.[what they won't know won't hurt them] - Tech Crunch
Okay. Now GOOGLE "Astroturfing" and "David Axelrod". First result? Wikipedia:
Astroturfing in American English is a neologism for formal public relations campaigns in politics and advertising which seek to create the impression of being spontaneous "grassroots" behavior, hence the reference to the artificial grass, AstroTurf.
The goal of such a campaign is to disguise the efforts of a political or commercial entity as an independent public reaction to some political entity—a politician, political group, product, service or event. Astroturfers attempt to orchestrate the actions of apparently diverse and geographically distributed individuals, by both overt ("outreach", "awareness", etc.) and covert (disinformation) means. Astroturfing may be undertaken by an individual pushing a personal agenda or highly organized professional groups with financial backing from large corporations, non-profits, or activist organizations. Very often the efforts are conducted by political consultants who also specialize in opposition research.
This is the method to Obama/Axelrod madness. He will continue to employ it during his presidency, making censorship appear to be public choice. Those silenced will just not show up because of the "will of the people", that age old excuse for every totalitarian state. Oh wow. Lets look at what Mussolini says himself about the Will of the People as the essence of the State in his The Doctrine of Fascism:
In the Fascist conception of history, man is man only by virtue of the spiritual process to which he contributes as a member of the family, the social group, the nation, and in function of history to which all nations bring their contribution. Hence the great value of tradition in records, in language, in customs, in the rules of social life (8). Outside history man is a nonentity...Anti-individualistic, the Fascist conception of life stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only in so far as his interests coincide with those of the State, which stands for the conscience and the universal, will of man as a historic entity (11).It is opposed to classical liberalism which arose as a reaction to absolutism and exhausted its historical function when the State became the expression of the conscience and will of the people. Liberalism denied the State in the name of the individual; Fascism reasserts - Mussolini, The Doctrine of Fascism,
America, as Glenn Beck says every day, WAKE UP! If you look at Obama's website, you will see that Obama is not kidding about an "army of teachers" that he himself will create.
"“Let us be the generation that reshapes our economy to compete in the digital age. Let's set high standards for our schools and give them the resources they need to succeed. Let's recruit a new army of teachers, and give them better pay and more support in exchange for more accountability. Let's make college more affordable, and let's invest in scientific research, and let's lay down broadband lines through the heart of inner cities and rural towns all across America.” Obama Himself
Sounds great? Sure. But always translate "Yes, we can!" to "Yes, the State can!" and ask yourself if this is what you REALLY want for America?
