Up came so many sites about “Scrubbing the Internet,” I felt as if I had been held captive in a dark room this whole time, solitary confinement, no visitors allowed, no information to be shared. I felt stupid and naïve like I did a couple of years ago when someone asked me in an email if they could “friend” me on Facebook and I had no idea what they were talking about! I quickly learned. And now I have learned what “scrubbing” means. So depress me more, while I do the same to you!

“Scrubbing” the internet occurs in a number of ways. It can be revisionist history, revisionist reality, disinformation, mutated perceptions, and outright lies. I may be biased, but it seems like it is mainly a malicious hobby of the right wing and their new breed of young, tech-savvy, tea baggers. But for all I know, the left does the same. I would like to believe they don’t. I would like to believe that the left is more moral and ethical. But I can’t prove it. All I can prove is that “scrubbing” exists. This means that for all those times someone has told you “you can’t trust mainstream news,” they can now add, “you can’t trust the alternative news, either.” Whoopee! Doesn’t that make you feel just so very warm and fuzzy all over?

This topic could be a textbook and not an article, so I will just give you my personal experience with “scrubbing,” and some possible ways to detect it and the available resources I have found to be the most useful.

My experience: I googled, “internet scrubbing.” Too many results appeared! I found it a bit scary to see so many websites and links to blogs that spoke about this phenomenon of which I knew so little. Or at least whose extent I didn’t appreciate. I chose one near the top of the list that said, “Internet Scrubbing,” an obvious choice, don’t you agree?

You know how when you start to explore one site, you might end up at another, ten degrees removed from the first because you happened to click on a hotlink on the site which led you to another site which had a hotlink you clicked on that swooped you over to yet another website? Well, I think you get the picture. Anyway, I found myself on this website called Citizen WElls News. At first glance it seemed “fair and balanced” because of the many “topics” in the header.

I scrolled down a few inches and read the author’s rant on how Wikipedia changed information he had posted there and HE was accusing Wikipedia of “Scrubbing the Internet.” The following is from Citizen WElls News:

We have the second instance of internet scrubbing reported on this blog in the past several
weeks. Today, one of the great commenters (sic) on this blog, GBAmerica brought this to our
attention:

“They scrubbed Wiki! Our founding father John Bingham from the state of Ohio defined

Natural Born Citizen! To hold highest office you must be a natural born citizen which means
to be born on US soil and BOTH PARENTS to be BORN on US soil with no Foreign or
Domestic Soverigty (sic) from any of them! It doesn’t matter where he is born his father was
NOT BORN HERE!!! John Bingham put that there to protect WE THE PEOPLE!!! Look it
up at the library!”

Needless to say I was horrified and appalled! I was horrified because when I clicked on the “About” tab, this is what I found:

“I have been meaning to do this for some time. I hate injustice. I despise inaccurate or biased
news. I don’t like it when innocent people are wronged or taken advantage of. You get the
picture, when it affects me the stakes go up. I don’t know where this is headed. I do have lot’s
of ideas. Maybe a combination of crusader and accurate news reporter. Sounds good to me.”

This, dear friends, from a man who has the gall to post an outright lie about the requirements for Presidency of the United States, and the swinging low bowling balls to tell us he is a good guy who believes in truth and justice! The greatest horror: That he probably does believe he is on the side of truth and justice! We all know how authoritative John Bingham was, whoever the hell he is!

By the way, just to make sure the allegations quoted from his hero had no substance, I went to a number of U.S. Constitution sites, friends sitting at my side, and together we corroborated that NOWHERE in the Constitution does it require that the parents of a President be native born Americans.

At one of these U.S. Constitution sites I found a short essay about the Constitution published in a sidebar to the document itself. The author had quoted something by the CAGW, which was also a hotlink… whisking me away to Citizens Against Government Waste, “America’s #1 Watchdog!”

These are the fine people who paid for that obnoxious ad called the “Chinese Professor” in which a sleazy looking professor gesturing with his cigarette holder boasts to his hundreds of commie looking uniformed Chinese college students, that because of America’s (read that “democrat’s”) taxing and spending policies, the Americans now work for the Chinese. He chuckles, the students join in, fade to black. You can watch the ad on their site, www.cagw.com. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

I had to learn more about them so I clicked on “About Us.” According to their mission statement,

“The CAGW is a private, non-partisan, non-profit organization representing more than one million members and supporters nationwide. CAGW’s mission is to eliminate waste, mismanagement, and inefficiency in the federal government.”

Well, that sounds reasonable. But can I be sure they are truly non-partisan? I clicked on “Staff.” I did not recognize any of the names except for a nod to Ronald Reagan. I started googling the name of each Director on the Board. “Damn,” I said to myself. “Is this what I am going to have to do to make sure I’m not being misled, duped… scrubbed!

Not surprisingly, every Director on the CAGW Board is a Republican, and some are former staff members of Republican administrations. How can the website, therefore, claim to be non-partisan? Yet those who visit this site and read its biased views and skewed statistics might very well believe everything they post, every view they present. This is especially true if the visitor knows nothing about thinking critically. They will get… scrubbed!

Conservative groups set up websites with very progressive sounding names, and I assume the opposite may be true of some progressive groups, though I have found no examples of any. I tell you quite honestly, but without a smidgen of evidence, that I believe progressives are far less inclined to resort to scrubbing than conservatives. Progressives seem more likely to sleuth out scrubbing wherever it may exist. However, if any of you find examples of scrubbing from the left, please let me know.

The purposeful misnaming of a website is just another example of internet scrubbing. Though the site claims to be objective, fact-based, and non-partisan, it is probably a ruse to lure the unsuspecting visitor into their lair. The websites which have nothing to hide, like Worldwide Hippies, make no bones about which side of the fence they are on. They announce it loudly and proudly. Mother Jones and The Progressive are other examples.

Other forms of “scrubbing” include tactics similar to those used by corporations to control the content and delivery of mainstream media. Corporate money does more than you realize in controlling search engines. Corporate money pays for freelance writers, many of whom seem to have no compunction in writing things they themselves do not believe. And let’s just admit it. Young Republicans have mastered the art of finding the perfect keywords to bring you to their site and then seduce you. But you needn’t be defenseless.

How do we learn to recognize “scrubbing?” The best answer I can come up with is Critical Thinking. The subject in itself is worthy of a doctorate’s degree, so far be it from me to start instructing you on its complexities. Ironically, the complexities are best and most easily learned at a young age, especially through art and music, programs which sadly are the first to be cut when funds are low. Are we afraid to encourage critical thinking in our classrooms? Whatever might it lead to?

Maybe if I give you just a few general rules, you will be motivated to learn more about the subject. I think most of you reading this article already think critically, but it always helps to watch for verbal pitfalls and be reminded of traps. If you are a parent, it will also help you teach your children how to think more critically. Here are just some hurdles you might encounter when arguing an issue with someone of an opposing view. These basic obstacles to rational dialogue are from Brian Yoder’s, The Fallacy Zoo:

Fallacies of Distraction

False Dilemma: two choices are given when in fact there are three or more options.

From Ignorance: because something is not known to be true, it is assumed to be false.

Slippery Slope: a series of increasingly unacceptable consequences is drawn.

Complex Question: two unrelated points are conjoined as a single proposition.

The Fallacies of Distraction are but one category of fallacies. And within each category, there are more variations. But the examples are clear and easily understood. The payoff is that when you recognize and remove a hurdle, you have won the argument. Winning isn’t everything, but now and then it sure feels nice, especially when your opponent is an asshole. See, that was the fallacy of “attacking the person!” Pay attention, get smart. Be ever vigilant. Even of me!

The downside is that now when I go to Wikipedia for information, I find myself clicking on every numbered citation, finding out who posted it, googling their name to find out what trickery they might be up to, and… well, my god, no wonder I don’t have time to write a second novel!

In 1605, Francis Bacon said,“For myself, I found that I was fitted for nothing so well as for the study of Truth; as having a mind nimble and versatile enough to catch the resemblances of things … and at the same time steady enough to fix and distinguish their subtler differences; as being gifted by nature with desire to seek, patience to doubt, fondness to meditate, slowness to assert, readiness to consider, carefulness to dispose and set in order; and as being a man that neither affects what is new nor admires what is old, and that hates every kind of imposture.”

Or to put it in other words, “The art of being right!”

Peace! Here are links to some websites I found very useful:

http://www.goodart.org/fallazoo.htm

http://www.xenu.net/archive/baloney_detection.html

http://library.humboldt.edu/~ccm/crithink.html

http://austhink.com/critical/
http://www.library.ucla.edu/libraries/college/11605_12008.cfm
http://www.downes.ca/post/4

To contact Phil or find out more: check out his website and blog For a copy of HUNGA DUNGA
Phil Polizatto – Worldwide Hippies Bureau Chief – West Coast USA, is a graduate of The School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University. He was a feature writer for the overseas division of UPI, a copywriter for CBS, and an award-winning corporate film producer. Mr. Polizatto is a published poet and a regular contributor to Worldwide Hippies as well as a variety of other arts and literary journals. Hunga Dunga is his first published novel. He resides in the Pacific Northwest.

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In a story that is suspiciously floating just below the general U.S. media radar, former President George W. Bush and his puppet-master/VP Dick Cheney were unanimously convicted of war crimes by a five panel tribunal in Malaysia on Friday. Neither were in attendance and only a few left-leaning publications have commented upon the hearings.

How is it possible that the unanimous conviction of a former U.S. President as a war criminal does not immediately register as the most important news of the day? Today’s endorsement of Romney by the newly minted war criminal is getting far more traction in the news. (Though, as Politicker notes, the Romney camp has yet to comment on the news.)

To some, the conviction is a long overdue statement on the civil rights abuses that took place during the Bush administration in locations across the globe, including Iraq and Guantanamo Bay. Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and legal advisors Alberto Gonzalez, David Addington, William Haynes, Jay Bybee and John Yoo were also declared guilty of crafting the so-called “torture memo” that justified the willful torture of detainees in defiance of the Geneva Convention. Read more…

Suddenly I understood something I never had. Suppression. I’ll not defend these things, mind
you, I am simply saying I understood them. I understood why men suppress women, why
women suppress women and even why we suppress ourselves. Vaginas are scary! I own one
so I have known this for a long time, although, I have had time to become comfortable enough
with mine.

Let’s fast forward in this from discussing my daughter to discussing a full grown woman with a
fully grown vagina because I can see that I have nearly lost some of you here. This is not easy
reading, I know, but it simply must be said. Many of the women reading this and some of the
men understand where I am coming from.

I don’t mean to lessen the power of what you have in your pants, guys. You got some pretty
powerful stuff too. Ours is just more, well, mysterious.

When it comes attached to a woman you want it. You don’t understand why, but you know it is
something strong. For many men this is mistaken for the vagina having control over you. These
men are the control freaks who can simply not deal with anything having control over them.
They simply must control the one thing left in the world that they can not master, your vagina.
Try not to be offended as these men usually come attached to sloped foreheads and can hardly
be blamed for their sheer stupidity. You wouldn’t punish a monkey for flinging poo would you?

Now when this object comes attached to a young girl they run screaming from it. They pretend,
men and women, that it never exists because it is far too uncomfortable to think of. I understand
this too. No one wants to deal with nature. So it seems we do the only thing that fits the situation
and teach young women in schools not to think about their vaginas and certainly NOT to give
them away at random. We teach them to wait until marriage. To suppress their natural urges.
This makes sense doesn’t it? To hide from what frightens us. It’s not like we evolved from this
long ago in the land of women’s right fights. I will digress here.
Women are not immune to this way of thinking. We hardly know ourselves anymore let alone
our bodies. There are so many theories of why women hold each other back and hold ourselves
down that I could not even begin to scratch the surface.

The point is this: You can not hate what you don’t understand.

Women, stop allowing scared men tell you what to do with your bodies.Your body is yours by
right of birth. Do with it what you will.

Men, you are smarter than this. You have evolved from a knuckle dragging specie to become
the intelligent creatures you are today. Stop letting your sloped headed brethren drag our
vaginas into the political ring. Explain to them that the tides may eventually change. You may
need to explain no further than this, surely they will understand.

To you men that respect all of these things, thank you.

Ars Moriendi is an activist and free spirit. She is a survivor of life in the corporate world as well as a fierce advocate for women’s rights and the LGBT community. She has written for various online journals and was most recently published in Hip Poetry 2012. Her crowning achievements have always been raising two free spirited, hippie children.

A large group of advocates and a coalition of 12 groups including AARP North Carolina and the North Carolina Housing Coalition have vowed to fight the potential law change.

The push for early cost recovery (sometimes called advanced cost recovery or construction work in progress, CWIP) for construction of nuclear reactors is driven by the same basic truth which has always prevented free markets from being proponents of new nuclear reactors. They are totally uneconomic.

The financial scheme of adjusting rates according to construction work in progress allows utilities to charge ratepayers today for financing costs (plus profit), while critics say the practice shifts risks to building a plant onto consumers before it starts generating power and even if the project gets canceled.

“You shift all construction risks to the consumer,” Mark Cooper, a Vermont Law School economist, was quoted as saying in the Charlotte Observer. “Making an interest-free loan to a utility is not what most people would want to do with their money.”

Cooper argues that the practice called simplified cost recovery encourages utilities to invest in the most expensive power plants and erases incentives to cut costs. A recent survey of 500 likely N.C. voters by Raleigh’s Public Policy Polling that found broad opposition to rate increases to build nuclear reactors.

Read more…

Morgan Stanley CEO grilled by Occupy Wall Street
By Brett Philbin
–Morgan Stanley annual meeting interrupted by Occupy Wall Street members
–”I don’t think J.P. Morgan has anything to do with” how much Morgan Stanley might be downgraded, Gorman says
–Shareholders approve say-on-pay vote and amendment to equity incentive plan
PURCHASE, N.Y. -(MarketWatch)- Members of the Occupy Wall Street movement descended upon Morgan Stanley’s MS -1.12% annual meeting Tuesday, pressing Chairman and Executive James Gorman with a slew of questions about Wall Street lobbying, job creation and compensation.
At one point in the meeting, OWS members shouted a series of allegations at the stage, interrupting Martin Cohen, the firm’s corporate secretary, as he read results of stockholder votes on company proposals.
Gorman faced more than a dozen questions from OWS members and only a few from supportive shareholders. The meeting lasted more than an hour, longer than usual. About 60 shareholders attended; around half were Occupy Wall Street representatives. More…

Police arrest 9 “Occupy the Farm” protesters at Berkeley
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Three weeks after anti-poverty activists took over 2 acres of land belonging to the University of California at Berkeley and planted a vegetable garden for the needy, police in riot gear on Monday raided the site and arrested nine people.
UC Berkeley officials said the garden would be left intact and would be tended to by university staff.
A group calling itself Occupy the Farm, an offshoot of the anti-Wall Street activists who launched last fall’s Occupy Wall Street movement protesting corporate greed and bank bailouts, started the unauthorized garden on April 22.
Campus police said 25 to 100 people had maintained a round-the-clock presence at the site since then, until police moved in on Monday and ordered them to leave.
Two of the activists were arrested for trespassing and seven others for unlawful assembly, said campus police Lieutenant Eric Tejada, but there was no violence or injuries.
More…

Russian court orders removal of Putin protest camp from park
Moscow police told to immediately break up Occupy-styled demonstration against Vladamir Putin’s return to presidency
A Russian court has ordered police to break up an Occupy-style encampment in a Moscow park where people are protesting against Vladimir Putin’s return to the presidency.
The court ruling on Tuesday was the authorities’ latest move against Russia’s protest movement, a week after police detained hundreds of people at a rally that turned violent.
The court order, in response to complaints by residents near the protest site at Chistye Prudy park, obliged police to “take measures to stop the mass event and the violations of civil order”, a court spokeswoman said. She said the order would be carried out immediately. More…

ABC News Exclusive: Zimmerman Medical Report Shows Broken Nose, Lacerations After Trayvon Martin ShootingA medical report compiled by the family physician of accused Trayvon Martin murderer George Zimmerman and obtained exclusively by ABC News found that Zimmerman was diagnosed with a “closed fracture” of his nose, a pair of black eyes, two lacerations to the back of his head and a minor back injury the day after he fatally shot Martin during an alleged altercation.
Zimmerman faces a second degree murder charge for the Feb. 26 shooting that left the unarmed 17-year-old high school junior dead. Zimmerman has claimed self defense in what he described as a life and death struggle that Martin initiated by accosting him, punching him in the face, then repeatedly bashing his head into the pavement.
Also today, a trove of documents are being examined by lawyers for both the defense and prosecution as part of discovery in Zimmerman’s trial — including 67 CDs worth of documents, video of Martin on the night of the shooting, his autopsy report and videos of Zimmerman’s questioning by police.
Zimmerman’s three-page medical report is included in those documents that the defense could use as evidence.
The morning after the shooting, on Feb. 27, Zimmerman sought treatment at the offices of a general physician at a family practice near Sanford, Fla. The doctor notes Zimmerman sought an appointment to get legal clearance to return to work.
The record shows that Zimmerman also suffered bruising in the upper lip and cheek and lower back pain. The two lacerations on the back of his head, one of them nearly an inch long, the other about a quarter-inch long, were first revealed in photos obtained exclusively by ABC News last month. More…

Concerned about a euro exit, Greeks pull funds from banks
ATHENS (Reuters) – Greece’s president spoke of “fear that could develop into panic” at the country’s banks in the weeks before fresh elections that could precipitate Athens exit from the euro zone.
Greeks are withdrawing euros afraid of the prospect of rapid devaluation if the country leaves the single currency, minutes of President Karolos Papoulias’s meetings with political leaders showed. Greece’s warring parties have refused to form a viable coalition, triggering new elections that could strengthen the hand of opponents of Greece’s EU bailout.
Central bank head George Provopoulos said savers withdrew at least 700 million euros ($894 million) on Monday, the president told party chiefs. “Mr Provopoulos told me there was no panic, but there was great fear that could develop into a panic,” the minutes quoted the president as saying.
“Withdrawals and outflows by 4:00 pm when I called him exceeded 600 million euros and reached 700 million euros,” he said. “He expects total outflows of about 800 million euros, including conversions in German Bunds and other such things.” More…

By NANCY L. COHEN 

It was a telling exchange. Ever since Obama opened up a double-digit lead with women voters during the recent controversies over birth control, Republicans from Romney on down have worked hard to steer the conversation away from divisive social issues that make them look like religious nuts and back to more swing voter-friendly territory. “It’s still about the economy, and we’re not stupid,” Romney proclaimed after all but wrapping up the GOP nomination late last month.

The conservative push to change the subject has basically succeeded, albeit with an assist from lousy job numbers. This is dangerous. Even if “the GOP war on women” – the metaphorical talking point – is dead, as at least one pundit has suggested, the GOP war on women – the real and continuing Republican drive to set back women’s rights and opportunities – remains very much alive.

And make no mistake: A Romney presidency will only escalate the assault. Let’s take a look at exactly how, starting with the issue he says will attract women voters to the Republican ticket.

The Economy

American women earn on average 23 percent less than men – which adds up to an average loss of $383,000 in income over a working lifetime. Romney’s campaign couldn’t say recently whether their man would have signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act making it easier for women to file pay discrimination lawsuits (a law made necessary, by the way, because the conservative Roberts Supreme Court had eviscerated equal pay protection for women in its 2007 Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co ruling). All Romney himself could muster, eventually, was a grudging commitment to not repeal it. Democrats are pushing the Paycheck Fairness Act, which directly addresses the male-female pay disparity by putting teeth into the half-century old Equal Pay Act. Republicans oppose it and even deny the facts about wage inequality. Romney remains mum about his position on the bill.

It’s a safe bet that Romney won’t buck his party or its corporate sponsors for the sake of working women. He’ll undoubtedly say we should trust the “job creators” to fix whatever’s wrong. Read more…

By 

Insofar as means of production and distribution largely define societies, one of two means of organizing society will follow the shortfall in resources and viable labor: socialism or fascism. This conclusion follows from the apparent failure to meet the problem with more sharing and efficiency, both of which enjoy little status in a culture that endorses “making it big” in the money games.

I use the terms, socialism and fascism, in the broadest sense, as the poles between which social ideologies fall. Those ideologies have been mortal enemies for over 100 years, which explains the hostility now evident in American politics. While both sides claim freedom and equality as their goal, that deception only conceals the consequences of the on-the-ground policies being advanced by warring ideologies.

Socialism looks at the proper relationship between individuals and between individuals and government as a cooperative effort to provide for all. Individual responsibility includes the general welfare. The means of supporting safety nets requires a sustainable economy and broad public support. The question of who pays for what takes a leading role in politics. Fascism leans more to “winner take all.” The corollary is that losers deserve no support, regardless of their circumstances.

Fascism looks at the proper relationship between individuals and between individuals and government as a Darwinian struggle for supremacy, usually for money, first between individuals and then between tribes. Since even fascists cannot make it alone, belonging to the most powerful tribe provides the magnet for politics. Insofar as virtual wealth (money) has gained control of real wealth (resources), the money tribe enjoys an increasingly powerful magnet. Membership is highly coveted and very expensive.

Conditions for the rise of fascism in America have never been better. The ground was laid by decades of multimillion dollar programs, facilitated by technology, to suppress empathy and intellectual honesty.

Fascism cannot develop when people regard each other as equals, when people feel the pain of others, and when people help rather than take advantage of others’ misfortunes. Well-financed think tanks, talk radio, and managed news reporting blames the victims and never discusses collective solutions. Even without the animus of those who believe that God despises those without money, digital production and distribution isolate people from the kind of contacts that develop empathy. Shared experience of the workplace revolves around computer programs. If you do not understand those algorithms, you are just not keeping up. Instead of sharing the effect of poor weather on crops, we share a war of all against all for money. If you cannot play that game, you are negligent. The kind of youth protests that made civil rights happen in the sixties have succumbed to self-interest and internet gossip. Facebook does not generate change. Read more…

Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights Magdalena Sepúlveda. UN Photo/M. Garten

Worldwidehippies,UN - A group of United Nations independent experts today called on the European Union (EU) to take the lead in promoting the adoption of a global financial transaction tax that would offset the costs of the current economic crisis and protect basic human rights.

News Tracker: past stories on this issue

Global jobs crisis expected to continue for some time, warns UN report

****

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Paradise Lost
Thirty-eight years ago, when I was 20 and traveling in Central America recovering from a broken heart, I met a middle-age American couple who invited me to come along with them to Guatemala on an orchid hunt. For the next several weeks we drove and hiked through the highlands in search of rare plants. There was a war going on, in which our country’s involvement remained questionable, and no doubt this had something to do with the fact that on three separate occasions over the course of those days our tires were slashed. One could have thought this might interfere with my affection for the place. It did not.
We ended up at Lake Atitlán. This was rainy season, and the unpaved streets of Panajachel had turned to mud. The town was filled with more hippies than orchid searchers — young people on the run from the draft or the constraints of first-world life, or just in search of cheap and easily accessible pot. Still, looking out over the 50-square-mile expanse of blue, with those three volcanoes rising up around its edges — this was the deepest lake in Central America, they said — I was overcome not simply by the staggering beauty of the place but more so by the recognition that here was a spot on earth that seemed untouched by so much of the crowded, noisy, fast and increasingly contaminated world I inhabited north of the border. “El ombligo del mundo,” they called the lake: the bellybutton of the world.
What brought me back in the fall of 2001 was the departure, from home, of my third and youngest child. I was living in California at the time, my marriage long finished. My daughter had been studying Spanish in Guatemala. I had flown there to meet her just weeks after the towers fell. More…

How to Be Poor
Claude S. Fischer – You’re working a casual job, maybe in construction or at the gas station, paid a bit over the minimum wage with no benefits—one of those jobs that comes and goes. A buddy wakes you up with a desperate call: he needs a ride right now; you’re the only one; at least your car runs. He lent you $200 last Christmas when you were scuffling; he’s one of the old school crowd who party together and look out for each other. If you say yes, you will probably be late to work and might get fired. On the other hand, the boss is probably going to lay you off when things slow down in another month or two. What do you do?

The culture of poverty debate is back! Only this time, the colored folks get a pass.
This time it’s about “white trash”—a racial slur, Wikipedia tells us, which
“emphasizes . . . moral failings.” Charles Murray, of The Bell Curve fame, stirred up the argument anew when he dropped his latest look-how-outrageously-frank-I-can-be book, Coming Apart, into the media hot tub. This time around, however, we understand much better why, when, and how culture affects poverty. More…