Bush picks and chooses US commission members

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...053595,00.html

The Inter-American Telecommunication Commission meets three times a year in various cities across the Americas to discuss such dry but important issues as telecommunications standards and spectrum regulations. But for this week's meeting in Guatemala City, politics has barged onto the agenda. At least four of the two dozen or so U.S. delegates selected for the meeting, sources tell TIME, have been bumped by the White House because they supported John Kerry's 2004 campaign. The State Department has traditionally put together a list of industry representatives for these meetings, and anyone in the U.S. telecom industry who had the requisite expertise and wanted to go was generally given a slot, say past participants. Only after the start of Bush's second term did a political litmus test emerge, industry sources say.

The White House admits as much: "We wanted people who would represent the Administration positively, and--call us nutty--it seemed like those who wanted to kick this Administration out of town last November would have some difficulty doing that," says White House spokesman Trent Duffy. Those barred from the trip include employees of Qualcomm and Nokia, two of the largest telecom firms operating in the U.S., as well as Ibiquity, a digital-radio-technology company in Columbia, Md. One nixed participant, who has been to many of these telecom meetings and who wants to remain anonymous, gave just $250 to the Democratic Party. Says Nokia vice president Bill Plummer: "We do not view sending experts to international meetings on telecom issues to be a partisan matter. We would welcome clarification from the White House."



From the May. 02, 2005 issue of TIME magazine


- Frind

I'm looking for radical talk about something that begins with an "F"....

=P I'll bite!

Wikipedia defines fascism as "exalts nation and sometimes race above the individual, uses violence and modern techniques of propaganda and censorship to forcibly suppress political opposition, engages in severe economic and social regimentation, engages in corporatism, implements totalitarianism"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism

So far, over the last so many decades (no, this didn't start out with Bush), I noticed that the country:

1. is using "patriotism" and buzzwords such as "anti-terrorism" in order to pass restrictive laws (such as the PATRIOT Act)
2. uses propaganda in order to get the people to comply to such legislation
3. favors corporations over its citizens (look at the DMCA, the copyright extension acts, our patent laws, etc.)
4. implements a light form of totalitarianism (in various forms ranging from anti-"violent" video game, anti-gay marriage and anti-abortion laws passed in some locales to the PATRIOT Act.

- Frind

There you go.