Current Events of the TechnoPolitical World 1994 to Present.
American Politics today. With a special focus on The Impact of Digital Technology on Politics, Civil Liberties , Elections, Lobbying, and Life. ( and some other stuff too.) {MY COMMENTARIES ARE THE WORDS IN THE BLUE FONT.}
With the November 2008 election of President Barak Obama,
the world of TechnoPolitics has entered a new era.
The Obama election campaign team completely mastered the use of the Internet & Digital Communications in the 2008 primary & general elections , and Team Obama has forever changed how the sport of electoral politics is played. And also how the technological tools & grassroots of politics are used in issue lobbying.
has been well documented by the mass media for the past three years.
When I started this academic project of the study of the "Internet & Politics" back in 1999, the topic was very niche. I really had to dig for research information.( And I have preserved much of the obscure early-Political -Internet-history here on this blog site.)
Today in 2009 , some TechnoPolitical message spills in to my email's inbox hourly; even from President Obama himself, as well as other Democrats , many Republicans and from everyone else on down, whom I
Development Consultant. Thoroughly audited and critically examined all organizational Development, Media, Publicity and Outreach programs. Adapted and implemented restructuring of procedures. Provided relevant re-training to all executive and program staff.
1999: Daughters of JacobGeriatricCenter, Bronx, NY
AssistantChaplain. Conducted assessments ofresidents in accordance with State and industry standards.
1995-1998: Rabbinical College of America,Morristown, New Jersey.http://www.rca.edu/
‘Special Assistantfor Student Affairs’ to Presidentof the College. StudentAdministrator ofFederal Work Study Program. New Student Orientation.
1995: The Brotherhood Synagogue, GramercyPark South, New York, NY.
Staff Archivist for Rabbi Emeritus and Founder , Rabbi Irving J. Block. Organized and classified all career records. Facilitated research for published memoirs: “A Rabbi and His Dream” (KTAV1999).http://www.brotherhoodsynagogue.org
1992-1995: New York Public Interest Research Group(NYPIRG) / Straphangers Campaign, New York, NY.
Development and Outreach Organizer. NYPIRG Telephone Outreach Project: Ongoing training and orientation all new and novice staff for the mobilizing of NYPIRG’s 70,000 members to participate in various legislative initiatives and/or funding them. Also involved as needed in other NYPIRG campaigns: Voter Registration, Childhood Lead Poisoning, Recycle First.May 1992- June 1993: NYPIRG Fuel Buyers Group: Liaison between members and fuel companies providing Group discount. Securing renewals &. new members www.nypirg.org
Development and Outreach Director for DownstateNY. Implemented major expansion of EPL membership base in key legislative districts of New York City, Long Island and WestchesterCounty. General supervision, hiring, and training of all downstate staff.http://www.eany.org/
1986-1991: GREENPEACE U.S.A,New York, NY,
1990-91: Administrative Director and Media Liaison for NYC Metro Area.Site Supervisor and Police & Media Liaison for all Greenpeace demonstrations staged by NYC office. Oversight of Development Programs for NYC Metro Area. General supervision of 40 member fundraising staff. Liaison to various police and town officials and othergroups regarding outreach schedule. Hiring & training of all staff.1986-90: Field Manager for outreach & fundraising crewsand NYC MetroMedia Liaison. www.greenpeace.org
1983-1986:New York Public Interest Research Group(NYPIRG) / Straphangers Campaign, New York, NY.
1985-1986: Front Desk & Continuity. Membership & Circulation Director for NYPIRG’s news bi-monthly. Office Manager for 17-office statewide outreach program. 1983-85: Canvasser in outreach/fundraising program. www.nypirg.org
Community Organizing Experience:
1990-1995: George Washington Tenants Association,23 Lexington Avenue, Gramercy Park, New York.
Founding Member and Communications Chair. Tenant action was catalyst of a landmark New York State Court of Appeals ruling that placed New York City real estate brokerage firm advertisements under the domain of the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs.Organized successful rent action of 200 plus tenants.
PoliticalandCampaignExperience:
1992: Democratic National Convention (DNC), New York City. DNC Press Office Staffmember.
1989:Ruth Messinger for Manhattan Borough President. Various campaign activities.
1988: Senator Paul Simon (Dem.-Ill.) for President, New York, NY. Staff member & Office Manager.
1986: Mark Green for United States Senate.Staff member. Front Desk and Continuity.
Well at the time , I was not impressed . And now we have , once "Democratic" Sen. Joseph Lieberman,
as now INDEPENDENT Sen. Joseph Lieberman.
With just a one vote Majority in the senate the Democrats will have to quake every time Lieberman speaks his mind. Lieberman is now more powerful then ever, thanks to the Internet !?!?
If Internet "activist" are going to proclaim victories, they are also going to have to accept the lessons of this big defeat.
The lesson is , while the Internet is a great "tool" for political organizing, it is still only one "tool" among many, and alone it cannot win for you.
Source code to Diebold Election Systems voting machines has been leaked once again. Last week, former Maryland state legislator Cheryl C. Kagan was anonymously given disks containing source code to Diebold's BallotStation and Global Election Management System (GEMS) tabulation software used in the 2004 elections.
Kagan, a well-known critic of electronic voting, is Executive Director of the Carl M. Freeman Foundation, a philanthropic organization based in Olney, Maryland.
The disks were created and distributed by two federal voting machine testing labs run by Ciber and Wyle Laboratories. They had been testing systems on behalf of the state of Maryland, Diebold said in a statement.
This is not the first time that Diebold source code has been leaked. In early 2003, Diebold critic Bev Harris uncovered similar source code while conducting research using Google's search engine.
At the time , I still had a primitive cellphone , one that only made phonecalls.
Now I got a free upgrade to a new phone ,, and my cell service provider in T-Mobile,, has a great deal for $5.99 a month you can surf the net using a WAP Browser.
Well,,, Yahoo! Wins,, so far. Gmail just refuses to remember me , and I ain't going to enter my username and password everytime I want to go to gmail. Plus yesterday , I figured I would give a shot a composing a Gmail on the phone -- never really a fun thing with any email -- and old Gmail re-asked for my user name and password INSTEAD of sending my email !! All an all,, with Google mobile so far , on my phone at least , Gmail is USELESS.
Yahoo! on the other hand , always remembers me. Also the format is streamed and simple. Function over form.. no colors , just text .
And what is really cool , THERE ARE NO Advertisements-- yet-- at Yahoo. They seem more to just be aiming at customer service and retention.
'Cause now after switching my main Email to Gmail , the wireless world has brough back to my Yahoo! Email account. Big victory here for Yahoo!, as far as this internet user.
While typing an Email on a phone is a bit of a chore , it does work in a pinch, for a brief note. But the real joy is getting to the email inbox at Yahoo! , in am easy & wireless/mobile way , to see if it worth running to to my desktop at home or elsewhere.
Now I just POP all my email accounts --- including Gmail -- over to Yahoo! Email, so I can track my emails quick and easy using my WAP Browser at Yahoo!. SO for now at least for now Yahoo is winning the first round of the Wireless War.
Gmail meanwhile tries to recreate their standard internet webpages in WAP format , and is is a bad mix, again at least on my Nokia free standard cellset from t-mobile.
~~` Lieberman would have lost w/o the internet ,, just like when Lieberman defeated Lowell Wicker to first enter the Senate in 1988 .
Please do not confuse the medium for the message. Unpopular incumbents loose primaries , because they lost the support of the core that first elected them. The internet reflected public sentiment that was already there, the internet did not create it. Plus Lamont had big $$$ , that helps more !!
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"Internet, activists help topple prominent US Democrat" By Patricia Wilson WASHINGTON, Aug 9 (Reuters) - "Fueled by opposition to the Iraq war and anger at U.S. President George W. Bush, liberal grass-roots and Internet activists on Wednesday claimed their most significant political victory -- the defeat of Democratic Sen. Joseph Lieberman. The three-term senator from Connecticut was repudiated on Tuesday by voters from his own party who chose Ned Lamont -- a relative unknown with a fierce anti-war message -- to represent Democrats in the November election.
"The winner is people-powered politics," declared the Daily Kos Web site, a sentiment that echoed throughout the liberal blogosphere. Lamont, a millionaire businessman who has never held state or federal office, had almost zero name recognition and very little political experience when he entered the race."
"The Supreme Court on Tuesday made it harder for government employees to file lawsuits claiming they were retaliated against for going public with allegations of official misconduct.
By a 5-4 vote, justices said the nation's 20 million public employees do not have carte blanche free speech rights to disclose government's inner-workings. New Justice Samuel Alito cast the tie-breaking vote"
~~ Seems reasonable to me , as Libby is the source ,, so there no "source" for the reporter to protect in this case. A fine line ,as the reporter has rights too.
But in this case I do not see the reporter 's note protected.
Anyone-- even Libby --must be given wide latitude in obtaining ANY information that could prove they are innocent.~~` TP =========================== =================
"Judge says Time magazine reporters must turn over some documents to former White House aide"
WASHINGTON, May. 27, 2006 By TONI LOCY Associated Press Writer"
"U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton limited the scope of subpoenas that Libby's lawyers had aimed at Time, NBC News and The New York Times for e-mails, notes, drafts of articles and other information.
But in a 40-page ruling, Walton rejected the news organizations' argument that they have a broad right to refuse to provide such information in criminal cases."
"Rep. Murtha Says Fallout From Killing of Iraqi Civilians Will Turn Out Worse Than Prison Scandal
By DOUGLASS K. DANIEL
WASHINGTON May 28, 2006 (AP)
"This image taken from a videotape made by a Haditha, Iraq journalism student and obtained by Time Magazine via the Hammurabi Human Rights Group, shows a scene in what appears to be a morgue following an alleged fatal raid by United States forces which took place on Saturday, Nov. 19, 2005, in Haditha, Iraq.
"The U.S. military is bracing for a major scandal over the alleged killing of Iraqi civilians in Haditha - charges so serious that they could threaten President Bush's effort to rally support for an increasingly unpopular war. "
"WASHINGTON, May 25 (Reuters) - The U.S. House Judiciary Committee on Thursday approved legislation aimed at preventing high-speed Internet network providers from discriminating against unaffiliated services, content and applications."
~~ This makes me happy.!! ~~ TP ---------------------------------------------
"Apple Loses Bid to Unmask Bloggers' Sources" by Ryan Singel and Kevin Poulsen Friday, 26 May 2006
"A California appeals court has smacked down Apple's legal assault on bloggers and their sources, finding that the company's efforts to subpoena e-mail received by the publishers of Apple Insider and PowerPage.org runs contrary to federal law, California's reporter's shield law, and the state Constitution.
The Sixth District Court of Appeals on Friday roundly rejected (.pdf) Apple's argument that the bloggers weren't acting as journalists when they posted internal document about future Apple products.'We decline the implicit invitation to embroil ourselves in questions of what constitutes 'legitimate journalis(m).' The shield law is intended to protect the gathering and dissemination of news, and that is what petitioners did here,' the court wrote.
'Beyond casting aspersions on the legitimacy of petitioners’ enterprise, Apple offers no cogent reason to conclude that they fall outside the shield law’s protection".
Highlights of actions taken Monday by the Supreme Court. The justices:
_Ruled unanimously that police do not need a warrant to go into a home to break up a bloody fight, in a case involving a 'melee' that Brigham City, Utah, police officers saw through a window.
_Rejected an appeal from Tennessee death row inmate Abu-Ali Abdur'Rahman, who wanted the court to declare that the drug protocol used in most executions amounts to cruel punishment.
_Refused to hear an appeal in the case of a mentally ill man, Andrew Goldstein, whose conviction was overturned in the death of a woman pushed into the path of a subway train in New York.
_Said they would not consider the case of convicted murderer James Hamm, who graduated from law school and is being thwarted in his efforts to become a practicing attorney in Arizona. _Delayed a decision on whether to take up a fight over reporters' confidential sources, apparently because a former government scientist's lawsuit that prompted journalist subpoenas may be settled.
_Declined for the second time to get involved in a child custody fight between a San Diego woman and and her former [female] partner."
"Diebold Election Systems plans to make changes to its electronic voting machines, following the disclosure of a number of serious security flaws in the systems. {The} Company says it will make changes to the electronic voting machines before the November 7 2006 general election." "After the November 2000 presidential election exposed flaws in traditional paper ballots, many U.S. states have rushed to adopt electronic voting systems. But computer experts have pointed out numerous security flaws in these machines, and some consumer groups have called for them to be dropped altogether." ======================
All politics is local. Face to face human interaction will always be the core of of political activity. Which is why close elections are won and lost by field organization, and always will be.
How well can you get out the vote on election day is what the game is all about. Seniors , low-income folks, and many on the religious-right, do not use the internet as much as other voters-- yet . These voting groups can only be reached by old -fashioned local field work. Knocking on doors, holding rallies , and working the bus & subway stops. ~~~ TP ===================================
Article: News - Candidates for governor reach out by Web, iPod: By SORAYA SARHADDI NELSON The Orange County Register www.ocregister.com "Welcome to California's 2006 gubernatorial race, where winning traditional grass-roots support is more about bandwidth than shoe leather. Campaigns are following the example of Howard Dean, a littleknown former Vermont governor who used a network of Internet-connected supporters to leap onto the national stage in the 2004 presidential race".
"California's gubernatorial candidates hope the same Web-based techniques will make their campaigns more accessible and supporters feel vested. With new campaign contribution limits and skyrocketing costs of TV advertising hampering campaigns, the Internet has become a vital tool to boost contenders' visibility, especially among the grass roots, experts say."
~~ But can the Democrats capitalize on the Republican discord ? The Dems still have no unified voice, and to me, come acrross as timid and pandering.
I would prefer to see them offering the leadership and inovation that marked the Clinton years.
Unless the Democratic leadership can excite their base, Dem voters ---and religious -right voters too, as we see here--- might just sit out the this year's mid-term elections for Congress & etc. Which more than likely would help the incumbents, thus keeping the GOP in charge of congress. ~ ~~ `technopolitical ======================
5/15/06 :Conservative Christians Criticize Republicans - New York Times: "There is a growing feeling among conservatives that the only way to cure the problem is for Republicans to lose the Congressional elections this fall," said Richard Viguerie, a conservative direct-mail pioneer. I can't tell you how much anger there is at the Republican leadership,' Mr. Viguerie said. 'I have never seen anything like it.'"
~~`This blog , before i moved to Blogger here , got "spammed" last year. Some web camera dealers copied my whole blog into their spam-virus-adware-filled website to lure folks to their pages through web search results.. I have found this has stoped since i moved to Blogger. ~~~ TP ======================
~~The web wars are not over yet. I do not think Google will last as #1 in search for more than a decade.
And it still might be a new guy yet unseen. [ Though personally I find YAHOO! to be a better overall search engine currently.]
Mircosoft / MSN.com , Yahoo.com , Excite.com , Ask.com, Myway.com & etc , are most certainly here to stay, but they do not seemed poised to dethrone Google in adv. sales $$.
Somewhere there is some geek or geek team aiming to dethrone Google, just as Google dethroned Yahoo.
Also Gmail is the cat's meow of email now, being by far he best once you get used to it ~~` TP .
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Google Watch : Microsoft, Yahoo Take A Swipe At Google: "'It is pretty clear Google is whining and complaining about something it does itself with Firefox,' he wrote on his blog. 'Remember, Google hired the founders and leaders of Firefox and pays money to Mozilla. So Google heavily influences what happens in both browsers.'"
~~~ Bravo !! I hope the higher courts see this the same way. ~~~ TP -----------------------------------
Judge: Not unreasonable for city workers to surf Web -- Newsday.com: " In his decision, Spooner wrote: 'It should be observed that the Internet has become the modern equivalent of a telephone or a daily newspaper, providing a combination of communication and information that most employees use as frequently in their personal lives as for their work. He added: "For this reason, city agencies permit workers to use a telephone for personal calls, so long as this does not interfere with their overall work performance.'"
~~` I posted alot earlier about the big Telcoms who are pushing to destroy InternetNetwork neutrality . The battle is growing hottter. Much hotter Net neutrality is at the core of what the internet is. Freedom to visit any website , anywhere. { Unless you live in China. } The greedy TelComs must be stopped. ~~~ TP -------------------------------------------
A Republican-controlled House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on Wednesday defeated a proposal that would have levied extensive regulations on broadband providers and forcibly prevented them from offering higher-speed video services to partners or affiliates.
By an 8-to-23 margin, the committee members rejected a Democratic-backed 'Net neutrality' amendment to a current piece of telecommunications legislation. The amendment had attracted support from companies including Amazon.com, eBay, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, and their chief executives wrote a last-minute letter to the committee on Wednesday saying such a change to the legislation was 'critical.'"
~~ Yes the Internet is becoming part of the political campaign arsenals. But has the internet produced better candidates or any major shifts in power ?
It is still the democrats and republicans. The medium may be new but the players are the same. Not only the mega- political players, but the mega- media players too are the same . In the end the Internet has re-enforced the status quo. See here for more .
Yes Blogs have some impact, but it is still the mega-media that makes "what is news" , so there too , the Internet has done little to tilt the power center.
The hope of the Digital Age was that people would produce a better, a fairer and more representative government through cyber involvment.
Well the Internet is only really 10 years old, so maybe there is still hope.
"The percentage of Americans who went online for election news jumped from 13 percent in the 2002 election cycle to 29 percent in 2004, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center after the last presidential election. A Pew survey released earlier this month found that 50 million Americans go to the Internet for news every day, up from 27 million people in March 2002, a reflection of the fact that the Internet is now available to 70 percent of Americans.
This means, aides said, rethinking every assumption about running a campaign: how to reach different segments of voters, how to get voters to the polls, how to raise money, and the best way to have a candidate interact with the public. In 2004, John Edwards, a former Democratic senator from North Carolina and his party's vice presidential candidate, spent much of his time talking to voters in living rooms in New Hampshire and Iowa; now he is putting aside hours every week to videotape responses to videotaped questions, the entire exchange posted on his blog.
'The effect of the Internet on politics will be every bit as transformational as television was,' said Ken Mehlman, the Republican national chairman. 'If you want to get your message out, the old way of paying someone to" {end quote]
* Political WORK History *
* 1983-1986: New York Public Interest Research Group / Straphangers Campaign, New York, NY.
* 1986-1991: Greenpeace U.S.A, New York, NY,
* 1991-1992: Environmental Planning Lobby, Albany & Westbury, NY.
* 1992-1995: New York Public Interest Research Group / Straphangers Campaign, New York, NY.
* 2000: Nachas Healthnet Incorporated. Brooklyn, NY 11219.
* 2006 - 2008: Washington Heights-Inwood Coalition.
/*/*/
Education:
1998-2003: Yeshiva University, New York, NY. Political Science Major. Writing Arts Minor. B.A., January 2003.
* 1995-1998: Rabbinical College of America, Morristown, New Jersey. Judaic Studies B.A., August 1998.
