If Anne Frank Had Twitter

Having posted about Anne Frank last week, I found this reader comment at "Twitter 1, Censors 0: Why It's Still Working" sparks some intriguing thoughts:

Wow! Imagine if they'd had twitter at Tienemen square, or in Nazi Germany. Anne Frank could have been read in real time! What a tremendous gift to the people of the world that there is a way to immediately expose the oppressive tactics of their governments! So much for silencing the masses!

Also, I found this cool image of Iran's blogosphere at "How Iran's Internet Works":



Interactive version can be found at the Harvard website.

While there, I poked around and read a little bit on one of the "secularist" women's blogs; and lo and behold, here is a reader comment opposing her questioning of authority - and it sounds so familiar:

Human rights are not recognized by Islam, period. Religious rights are the only rights women or men are entitled to.
Islam requires total submission to One God, including our sense of what is right and wrong to what God declared right and wrong. If you are not willing to accept that then you are not a muslim. It is not gauranteed that you will understand the wisdom behind each and every command and decree of God and this is the test for us in this life according to Islamic doctrines and true devotees. ergo, your letter in that context is irrelevant and meaningless...

The writer is a Muslim, but danged if he wouldn't fit right in here in the Bible Belt; that's the old "the-Bible-said-it-and-I-believe-it" mentality to a tee. Ain't that right, fellas?

Fundamentalism is the same all around the world, I guess: a wonderful tool to control other people with. It's not about God, it's all about power.

P.S. - if you Twitter, set your location and time zone to Iran to help confuse the fascist regime and protect the demonstrators. The head religious honcho in Iran, the Supreme Leader (what a title . . . I'm not making this up) is about to make a major address to the crowds, so probably more interesting developments are about to happen there.

In Today's News

- From HuffPo via Americablog, a way to help shield the Iranian protesters from attack by the fascist regime, for you Twitter people out there:

Help cover the bloggers: change your twitter settings so that your location is TEHRAN and your time zone is GMT +3.30. Security forces are hunting for bloggers using location and timezone searches. If we all become ‘Iranians’ it becomes much harder to find them.

- A couple more high-profile gays have dropped out of attending the DNC fundraiser.

- Author Mitchell Gold still plans to attend but will hand out copies of his book Crisis: 40 Stories Revealing The Personal, Social, And Religious Pain And Trauma Of Growing Up Gay In America as an insider protest to attendees.

- Pam Spaulding on the three out gay Congresspeople who have had NOTHING to say for five days now on the Administration's backstabbing betrayal of the community:

If you feel so inclined, please politely contact our out LGBT representatives on the Hill to ask them why they still plan to hold the event in the wake of lack of leadership re: DADT repeal and the horrible DOMA brief and 2) do they see anything problematic about financially supporting a party that runs for cover when our issues come up on the Hill.

Rep. Barney Frank:
2252 Rayburn Building
Washington, DC 20515
tel: (202) 225-5931
fax: (202) 225-0182

Rep. Tammy Baldwin
2446 Rayburn Building
Washington DC 20515
(202) 225-6942 Fax
(202) 225-2906
Email Form

Rep. Jared Polis
Washington, DC Office
501 Cannon HOB
Washington, DC 20515
p. 202.225.2161
f. 202.226.7840

- The Wall Street Journal published an article, "Gay Group Slams Policies of President" today. Okay, so it only made page 6 of the print edition; still, it's recognition by the MSM (gee, we are so grateful for tiny scraps of recognition, aren't we?) In it, reporter Laura Meckler says:

A Justice Department spokeswoman said in a statement that the department was following routine in the filing, and wasn't making a policy statement. "As it generally does with existing statutes, the Justice Department is defending the law on the books in court," said Tracy Schmaler. "Until Congress passes legislation repealing the law, the administration will continue to defend the statute when it is challenged in the justice system."

In a statement, White House spokesman Shin Inouye said it has already begun working to help gay and lesbian Americans achieve equal rights. "The president remains strongly committed to signing a legislative repeal of DOMA into law," he said.

Now read the last three sentences again, boys and girls, and then look at the message between the lines: the Prez is not about to lead the charge on repealing DOMA. He's not going to lift a finger until and unless Congress passes a repeal of it; in which case he will gladly sign it. But otherwise, he's not going there. Period.

The Revolution Will Be Twittered

I'm just a singer of simple songs
I'm not a real political man
I watch CNN but I'm not sure I can tell you
The difference in Iraq and Iran

--Alan Jackson, "Where Where You (When the World Stopped Turning)

Although you truckbuddies know that the Administration's huge, hurtful betray of trust has absorbed my attention the last few days, that doesn't mean I haven't kept an eye on the earthshaking events in Iran, and I hope you have too. Sure seems like CHANGE is about to happen in a big way over there.

When it comes to foreign affairs, I wouldn't say I'm quite as naive as Alan Jackson claims to be in his song; but on the whole, things on the other side of the globe don't interest me nearly as much as things here at home because I do realize I don't know enough about overseas matters to speak confidently about them; and in any case, I feel nothing I say or do can make much of a difference over there.

But Andrew Sullivan has been blogging practically nonstop for the last 3 days about it, as have other sites; and it seems this is Twitter's shining moment. The fascist pigs of the Ahmadinejad regime - he's the guy who came to New York and said in a speech "There are no gays in Iran" - after stealing an election in broad daylight, and sending the religious police out to bludgeon or shoot down demonstrators - including women and children - have tried to shut down internet sites and foreign TV and news services in the country, but demonstraters have organized and gotten words and pictures out to the world via Twitter, YouTube, and other social networking tools. Very cool.

And this might spell a revolution in the way we get our news; because that CNN news Alan sang about is woefully, miserably behind the curve on this. I don't have satellite or cable, but I pulled up the CNN news website last night, and watched a few of their little videos on the situation in Iran - and golly gee, it gave the impression that Oh well, there was some election and a few students got out in the street and yelled about it, big deal.

Something's very fishy about CNN - which twenty years ago was the place to go for world news - remember Tianmen Square, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the first Gulf War? But I noticed last summer when they were reporting on the Democratic convention, as soon as a major speaker got done, instead of doing a little summary and commentary as most networks would, they immediately switched to some Republican machete-mouth, cutting down everything that was just said. I thought then something was very wrong at CNN - now I'm sure of it. Which means, fellas, you can't just sit back in your La-Z-Boy anymore and flip on CNN and think you are getting all the news, or getting it right. That's sad - and scary.

And think about the MSM coverage of gay issues too, in this regard.

A reader of Sullivan's has this to say, which is a wake-up call for all of us:

Reading your blog over the past 30 something hours makes me realize why the MSM is really finished. I mean, this point has finally hit home.You are blogging real time events, with descriptions, evaluation, analysis, and eye witness accounts. You are gathering information from a myriad of sources and putting it out there for a cohesive message. CNN, NY Times, et al are merely running an article about "thousands" of protesters. Its a canned message from just a few stale sources.The revolution is definitely on in Iran. And its on in American journalism too.

Andrew says: "And I'm doing it on the end of a pier in Cape Cod surrounded by two beagles and a water-pistol (to control Dusty's howling)."

I recommend you go stay up to date with Andrew's coverage, which is not as light-hearted as all that. It's democracy versus fascism, and it's not pretty, guys.