Freedom of the Press

Chinese government style:

Editor’s note: Google announced this week that it would move its Chinese search engine to Hong Kong and stop censoring search results to suit China’s leaders. In China, the government has sought to control how Chinese media portray Google’s decision. Below we reprint the government’s instructions to domestic news Web sites. The instructions were obtained and translated by China Digital Times, a bilingual aggregator of news and analysis run by the Berkeley China Internet Project.

All chief editors and managers:

Google has officially announced its withdrawal from the China market. This is a high-impact incident. It has triggered netizens’ discussions which are not limited to a commercial level. Therefore please pay strict attention to the following content requirements during this period:

A. News section:

1. Only use Central Government main media (website) content; do not use content from other sources.

2. Reposting must not change title.

3. News recommendations should refer to Central government main media websites.

4. Do not produce relevant topic pages; do not set discussion sessions; do not conduct related investigative reporting.

5. Online programs with experts and scholars on this matter must apply for permission ahead of time. This type of self-initiated program production is strictly forbidden.

6. Carefully manage the commentary posts under news items.

B. Forums, blogs and other interactive media sections:

1. It is not permitted to hold discussions or investigations on the Google topic.

2. Interactive sections do not recommend this topic, do not place this topic and related comments at the top.

3. All websites please clean up text, images and sound and videos which attack the Party, State, government agencies, Internet policies with the excuse of this event.

4. All websites please clean up text, images and sound and videos which support Google, dedicate flowers to Google, ask Google to stay, cheer for Google and others have a different tune from government policy.

5. On topics related to Google, carefully manage the information in exchanges, comments and other interactive sessions.

6. Chief managers in different regions please assign specific manpower to monitor Google-related information; if there is information about mass incidents, please report it in a timely manner.

We ask the Monitoring and Control Group to immediately follow up monitoring and control actions along the above directions; once any problems are discovered, please communicate with respected sessions in a timely manner.

Addition[al] guidelines:

— Do not participate in and report Google’s information/press releases.

— Do not report about Google exerting pressure on our country via people or events.

— Related reports need to put [our story/perspective/information] in the center, do not provide materials for Google to attack relevant policies of our country.

— Use talking points about Google withdrawing from China published by relevant departments.

[Emphasis added]

At the end of the day, it is clear that Google was not able to change China. For four years, instead, China changed Google. Now that Google has partly left China, the Chinese government will continue to behave as they always have. The press is not free. Speech is not free. These are important things to keep in mind whenever discussing how the US or other Western governments and businesses should relate to the Chinese government.

Finally, Google.cn Is Shut Down

This should have been done four years ago, but it’s still great to see Google finally get to the right place and shut down Google.cn. The search engine was built to spec for the Chinese government, enabling their to be both censorship of search results and rigged returns for results that favored the Chinese government party line.

So earlier today we stopped censoring our search services—Google Search, Google News, and Google Images—on Google.cn. Users visiting Google.cn are now being redirected to Google.com.hk, where we are offering uncensored search in simplified Chinese, specifically designed for users in mainland China and delivered via our servers in Hong Kong. Users in Hong Kong will continue to receive their existing uncensored, traditional Chinese service, also from Google.com.hk. Due to the increased load on our Hong Kong servers and the complicated nature of these changes, users may see some slowdown in service or find some products temporarily inaccessible as we switch everything over.

Figuring out how to make good on our promise to stop censoring search on Google.cn has been hard. We want as many people in the world as possible to have access to our services, including users in mainland China, yet the Chinese government has been crystal clear throughout our discussions that self-censorship is a non-negotiable legal requirement.

The Modern Republican Party

Former Bush speechwriter David Frum:

No illusions please: This bill will not be repealed. Even if Republicans scored a 1994 style landslide in November, how many votes could we muster to re-open the “doughnut hole” and charge seniors more for prescription drugs? How many votes to re-allow insurers to rescind policies when they discover a pre-existing condition? How many votes to banish 25 year olds from their parents’ insurance coverage? And even if the votes were there – would President Obama sign such a repeal?

We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat.

Enter newly hatched CNN contributor, Erick “Son of Erick” Erickson:

The Republican leadership remains accommodationist and fearful of being labeled the ‘party of no.’
…
Let me be blunt: any Republican who says we will repeal and replace will themselves be replaced. We want repeal period.

This is not to say we will not offer up our own ideas, of which there are many. This is to say that right now there is no consensus on what to replace this monstrosity with, so instead of nuancing just promise to repeal it. We don’t need cute and clever politicians right now, we need a commitment to repeal Obamacare.

It looks like Erickson and his piece of the Republican Party want to double-down on the radicalism. Good luck with that!

If I had to guess, though, Frum is going to continue to be marginalized by increasingly establishment voices like Erickson. I don’t think the GOP will be able to tear themselves away from the Party of No and in fact will only increase their blind oppositionism to any and all things proposed by President Obama and the Democratic Party.

What Progressives Won

This post by Chris Bowers is really worth a read, especially as the wheels of “Rahm was right to shit on progressives” get going in the Beltway. The main point by Bowers:

It is factually untrue that progressives won no concessions in this bill. People are free to debate over whether the concessions are enough either to support the bill or to demonstrate increased influence, but it is simply untrue that they won nothing in return for their support.

Not Done Yet

I find it really hard to believe that the final chapters have been written on the Lehman Brothers collapse, especially with regard to holding their executives and Board accountable for the firm’s actions in the lead-up. But it’s looking increasingly like the New York Fed and the SEC played a serious role in allowing Lehman to essentially lie to the public and their shareholders about their balance sheet and the quality of their holdings.

As I write this, the Federal Court of Appeals has ruled the Fed must disclose documents that show which specific firms would have collapsed without the bailout of Lehman.

Put these things together and it’s clear there is much more to learn about how the financial collapse of 2008 happened, what the SEC and Fed knew, when they knew it, and how they may have facilitated broad efforts by Lehman to mislead the public about what was really going on with their books.

At some point, I’m just left thinking, “Who from the SEC and the Fed needs to face federal charges for fraud or negligence?”

The Cost of Inaction

This is an absolutely brilliant and powerful animated video from OFA.  It’s great stuff. Top notch. Wish we had it 9 or 12 months ago.

What makes it effective is that it is a top-level message about the need for reform, without addressing any specifics. No mention of the public option. No mention of individual mandates. No mention of either the Stupak or Nelson anti-choice language. Not shocking, but I certainly wonder what an OFA video that tried to explain more of the how and less of the why would look like.

Reid’s Inside Game?

Carl Hulse and Adam Nagourney, in a piece on the legislative procedural mastery of Mitch McConnell:

Even Mr. McConnell’s fellow Republicans say somewhat admiringly that he can be a secretive and coldly calculating tactician with an eye for political openings, someone more consumed by political strategy than ideology or philosophy.

He is in many ways the mirror image of his Democratic counterpart, Mr. Reid. Both are experts at the inside game who struggle with the burden of trying to control a political caucus at a time when legislative leaders no longer have the brute power they once had and senators are hailed for acting like mavericks.

I really don’t get where the perception that Harry Reid is a master of Senate strategy comes from. I can’t think of a single issue over Reid’s tenure leading the Democratic Senate caucus where his tactical choices made me think he has any mastery of procedure that allows him to affect positive outcomes. Sure, he’s been pretty good at preventing liberal members from getting things done, but at all times it’s been while simultaneously stating that he can’t do what he personally wants to do. Usually mastery of process is demonstrated by making sure that what you want to have happen happens. So either Reid is a liar or he’s someone who doesn’t actually have mastery of “the inside game” unto what is needed for success. Or both.

I’m just really frustrated by being forced to read hagiographic assessments of someone who has shepherded one of the most disappointing and unsuccessful legislative sessions in Senate history as an expert of any sort. Experts get things done. Experts succeed. Clearly Mitch McConnell has mastered both Senate procedure and maintaining caucus discipline. In so doing, he has slowed the Democratic agenda to an historic degree, and positioned his party well to make gains in the 2010 midterms. I don’t see any great journalistic value in the Times singing McConnell’s praises on the verge of passing an albeit watered down health care bill, either, but there’s absolutely no need to elevate Reid to even McConnell’s level in the process.

Obama Threatens Intelligence Oversight Veto

Another day, another way in which the Obama administration is pulling from the Bush administration playbook word for word when it comes to oversight of intelligence and restoring the rule of law in the United States. Oh and the veto is also being threatened because the legislation in question would fund a renewed investigation of the anthrax attacks perpetrated following 9/11, which the FBI recently declared to be neatly solved. The administration doesn’t want to “undermine public confidence” in an FBI probe of the attacks “and unfairly cast doubt on its conclusions.”

I remember when transparency and oversight we promises made by Barack Obama, the candidate. Now they’re punchlines.

Obama & The Judiciary

James Oliphant of the LA Times has a disturbing piece highlighting the slow pace the Obama administration has gone about filling vacancies in the federal judiciary. Republican obstructionism has further slowed the pace of administration nominees reaching the bench. Combined, President Obama has had only minimal impact on the shape of the federal bench and time is running out for that to change, as midterm elections look only likely to decrease the President’s ability to put liberal judges on the courts.

The judiciary is an area where we absolutely needed our 44th President to make a huge stride forward. The Bush administration had tremendous success adding young, ultra-conservative jurists to the federal bench. Only strong efforts by this administration to appoint young, liberal judges can counteract Bush’s move to change the makeup of the federal courts, which according to the LA Times is now made of 60% Republican appointments (seven of the nine the Supreme Court  justices are Republican appointees). A failure for the Obama administration to aggressively try to balance out the makeup of the judiciary will have impact on what America looks like over the next thirty to forty years.

We need President Obama to dramatically move the ball down the field. The lack of progress is truly disheartening, as this is an area where I’d assumed a constitutional law professor would easily see the importance of aggressive action. Instead we see the same lack of willingness to fight – to spend political capital – on ensuring his picks are confirmed as we see elsewhere on labor reform, the rule of law, and key pieces of health care reform.

Yudrug’s New Generation

Today is the fifty-first anniversary of the March 10th, 1959 uprising by Tibetans in Lhasa against China’s military occupation that allowed the Dalai Lama to escape capture and flee into exile. It’s appropriate, then, to share this post from High Peaks, Pure Earth, one of the best English language blogs covering what is happening inside Tibet via the Tibetan blogosphere. High Peaks, Pure Earth has a post up on the Tibetan hip-hop group Yudrug. The go by the English name Green Dragon, too, but Yudrug really means a type of horse popular in the part of Tibet where they are from. High Peaks, Pure Earth write:

The group however do appear to be very professional, as can be seen in their meticulously edited video and good sound quality. In the past, they have given due credit to the song composers, even crediting well-known Nepal based exile Tibetan singer Tsering Gyurmey for a cover of his song “Dream” that they recorded.

This bold new style of musical expression heard in “New Generation” has been quite controversial in Tibetan cyberspace with Tibetan bloggers praising Yudrug for their outspoken lyrics but some also criticising Yudrug for adopting a style that is seen as “too western”. Whatever your musical taste may be, the song is undeniably powerful and energetic with a rousing chorus:

The new generation has a resource called youth
The new generation has a pride called confidence
The new generation has an appearance called playfulness
The new generation has a temptation called freedom

I first watched the video for this song a few weeks ago with some Tibetan friends in New York. While it was incredible both from its level of polish, it was also remarkable to hear parts of it translated. It was defiant and proud and unapologetically Tibetan. Now, I see the full lyrics translated. They close with these lines:

Our story has not ended here
It’s just the beginning
We never fall asleep but are awake forever

Get used to dreaming
Get used to unlawful damage and uprisings
Get used to this way of living
Get used to moving forward

It is impossible to not see this short song, this music video as a tremendous body blow to the hopes of the Chinese government that the Tibetan desire for freedom may one day die with His Holiness the Dalai Lama.