My friend Jon Garfunkel is doing some research on milblogs. Naively thinking that milblogs were about the authentic voice of soldiers, I thought it would be edifying to check a few out. To my horror and outrage (or was it “shock and awe” – President Bush’s favorite weapon against the citizens of his own country…?), the first thing I found was that milblogs were being brought under the arm of the vast U.S. military PR campaign. Taking a page out of the Wal-Mart book, U.S. Central Command has been cultivating bloggers as part of a viral marketing strategy to drive traffic to CENTCOM’s own web site. It’s certainly a lot easier to push a message if all the buzzy-bees come to you! And if that doesn’t work, the military has a project to create the illusion of American support to fall back on.
Recently the U.S. has been facing significant challenges to one of the fundamental principles of our Constitution, the separation of church and state. As pundits and litigators rattle swords over beachhead issues like prayer in schools and Intelligent Design, it’s edifying to consider the logical outcome of theocracy. Afghanistan has provided a timely demonstration in the form of a Christian convert that faced the death penalty for apostasy from Islam. While the Afghan court system cheated the question by tossing the case on a technicality, Muslim religious leaders prayed for the death penalty and threatened to whip up the anger of the people to tear the man who dared to turn away from their god “to pieces”.
Because Afghanistan is a theocracy, their government may not be able to adhere to their agreement to abide by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They can’t let all converts off on a technicality. Perhaps they will try a variation of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell – though Afghan policymakers should take a hard look at how well that’s working for the U.S. armed forces first. Or should the U.S. offer amnesty for all?.
Given the collapse of the Human Rights Commission and the failure of the U.S. to incorporate Universal Declaration into its domestic legal system (not to mention our willingness to resort to torture), there may be no genuine defenders of freedom of conscience left. It may be only a matter of years before we see people on trial for their religion in the U.S., complete with lynchings, witch burnings, and crucifixions. It’s time to call on the U.S. government to restore the principle of separation of church and state in our own country, and lead by example in order to promote the wisdom of freedom of conscience throughout the world.
A few days ago I touched on how the press was exploiting parental anxieties by only presenting the case against the videogame Bully. Yesterday I read another article portraying a mom’s plea against cyberbullying. I’ve also seen a lot of articles lately where HR gurus warn that people are being denied jobs because of Google, bolstered by the frenetic scare-mongering over privacy.
I want to stop bullying as much as anyone, and I’ve also had my experiences with cyberbullying, but it seems to me that corporate and government interests are now manipulating the issue of bullying to shut down or censor the Internet. Politicians and PR departments know that nothing creates an emotional climate for “safety” measures like the image of abused children or grieving parents.
What gives me the chills here is that the Internet is also one of the last frontiers of free speech and public participation. An environment of free speech may include bullies, but it also gives people a platform to speak out against bullies. In the offline world bullies often enjoy enormous control, and victims are easily silenced. On the Internet, the victim can speak out from behind the shield of screenname: this enables the victim to find other people that share his or her experience and may even sow the seeds of public protest, or even a social movement.
If the government establishes control of the Internet in the name of “public safety”, it will be the weakest and most vulnerable members of society who will be stopped from speaking. The powerful will continue to injure and abuse with the same impunity they enjoy in the real world social structure. When protest is contained in free speech zones, there’s no point in bothering to protest. The action is ineffective and the threat fails to inhibit. Power with no effective challenge is totalitarian power.
I’m starting to suspect that there is a lot of behind-the-scenes maneuvering to stage a governement coup against Internet. It will probably work: our country has a sad history of giving away freedoms in the name of security. When it finally happens though, I think the true victims of bullying will be the first to see the mistake.
The most tragic symbol of America’s failure to expand human rights in Afghanistan was the parade of women who set themselves on fire as a last ditch way to communicate their despair. The news cycle for the burning of women seems to have ended, and the horror conveniently forgotten by fickle Americans. Today Kevin Sites managed to recapture a hefty chunk of attention with the story of an abused child bride. When I checked the story over 11,500 people had recommended it, and almost 7000 had commented. Thanks to the gift of news coverage, one abused child will receive an abundance of help, and perhaps a few others will benefit from some spillover generosity. It’s heartening to see there are some abuses that can still get past the American “that’s your problem, don’t drag me into it” mentality.
The only thing that bothers me is that the thing that’s clearly moving Americans to action is the picture of Gulsoma’s scars. Does that mean a person has to have extreme scarring to prove their status as a victim of abuse? Just as Gulsoma’s tormentors deliberately avoided her face, the truly clever abuser will avoid physical scars all together, and instead seek to inflict maximum social or psychological violence. Injuries that can never be proven are perhaps the most damaging of all.
