This short film by Duncan Elms explores the danger of an Internet that can be shut down quite easily by governments that want to suppress free expression or crack down on popular movements toward freedom. The recent experience of Egyptians trying to stage a revolution and spread information about it amongst themselves and to the world should be very informative. The Mubarak government was able to turn off Internet access throughout the nation. Even in the U.S., President Obama has sought the power to switch off the Internet if he declares an emergency. That effort has since been watered down, but it is clear that the U.S. government does in fact seek a method for shutting down the Internet. The continued treatment of China, a nation that monitors every single word typed into a web site, as even remotely civilized is an embarrassment to the entire world. Those people won’t even allow a person to think freely, much less post freely on the web. There must be a way to maintain worldwide access to the Internet that is beyond the control of any national government, including the United States government.
Category Archives: Freedom of Expression
Facebook Appears to Delete Photos and Pages Related to Gay Men Kissing
If this photo upsets you or offends you, then kiss my ass. Facebook appears to have deleted a page set up to organize a protest over two gay men who were thrown out of a British pub for kissing at their table. (Update: It turns out that the protest organizer made the page private. But it still looks as though Facebook removed some other posts and pics related to this issue.) Over the course of my life I have observed many men and women kissing in restaurants, bars, taxis, airplanes, streets, theaters, Ferris wheels, boats, beaches and on television. It’s a simple act of affection that is practiced by all cultures worldwide.
If a man and a woman feel something for one another, they kiss. If two men feel something for one another, they kiss. If two women feel something for one another, they kiss.
Facebook doesn’t seem to see it that way. They appear to consider it offensive. Objectionable. Perverse.
This is what’s wrong behind the scenes with corporate control of major communications tools. You get some unevolved, intellectually limited, vapid, sexually repressed jackasses running the show and suddenly no one is really allowed to communicate freely anymore. This is a sure indicator that we need to move off of services like Facebook and into fully open-source social networking tools.
Mark Zuckerberg may be one of these mental midgets (Don’t be fooled by the movie. It doesn’t take much to code Facebook really. It’s just MySpace with a white background.) with problems in the sexual arena. Those dull watery eyes might be a dead giveaway. At any rate, he presides over a company that is apparently banning photos of men kissing while fully clothed.
Candlelight Stories supports the rights of all gay, lesbian, transgender and bisexual persons. Those rights include the right to kiss and the right to marry and the right to carry on in any way they see fit.
It does not escape me that some of Candlelight’s slower readers will find this post surprising and perhaps offensive. To those readers I say, get the hell out of here, take your kids with you and don’t let the door hit your expanding ass on the way out. I don’t publish for you. Never have. Never will. I consider you monkey people. Unattractive, limp, unschooled, unappealing and quite frankly disgusting. If you were to read another word of my writing, I think I would vomit.
For those others of you who understand that we all have the same right to kiss, go onto Facebook and share this photo.
TED Film From Arrested Chinese Artist
This is a film presented at the TED conference from the famous Chinese artist who was recently kidnapped by Chinese authorities. He has completely vanished along with thousands of other artists, journalists, writers, intellectuals and human rights workers who have been taken in the past several months. This artist speaks very simply and clearly about the situation in his country where his government watches him all day long and sees nothing wrong with bulldozing his studio to the ground because he expresses some criticism of what he sees around him.
What I do not respect about this video is the simpering nitwit from TED who introduces the film by stating that the TED conference takes no position on China. He then goes on to bend over for China and mentions how many people have been lifted from poverty in China. How far up China’s ass can this guy fit his head, I wonder? How can any organization not take a position on China? I’m sure if Hitler were around today and rambling across the land on an extermination campaign, this bunch from TED would take no position on that.
Look at this little notice on TED’s YouTube page where the film is hosted:
TED is a non-partisan, nonpolitical organization and we understand the Chinese authorities concern at anything which might provoke social unrest. But for anyone who believes in the power of ideas, of human imagination, it is heartbreaking to see one of the world’s great artists shackled in this way. We will be tracking developments carefully. Here is the film.
TED ‘understands the Chinese authorities concern at anything which might provoke social unrest!’
Oh my god! Yes indeed. They understand this concern of a totalitarian murdering government that is more than happy to make people vanish into prison because they want to complain about being beaten by a policeman.
Hey TED, here I come with my ticket! Gosh, I wouldn’t want you to be concerned that I might boo one of your presentations. Wouldn’t want that, would we?
Lifting people out of poverty in China is not what we need to be doing. We need to be shutting these people out entirely. We need companies that do not fill their computers with Chinese parts. We need toys that do not come painted with Chinese lead poison. We need to treat this totalitarian country the way it deserves to be treated. A rich China doing business with every company on the planet is not going to advance freedom for anyone. China needs to be pushed into abject and brutal poverty. Only then will the conditions exist for a revolution.
I opened up my Dell computer the other day to blow some dust out. The first things I saw were multiple ‘Made in China’ stickers on various components. Screw Dell. Screw every Western company that buys a single circuit board from China. Screw China.
A.45 at 50th – A Film About Actor James Cromwell and the Black Panthers in 1968
MATURE CONTENT AND LANGUAGE:
I got a nice surprise submission to my Vimeo Candlelight Stories Short Film group this week. It’s a fascinating documentary about one famous actor’s experiences during the turmoil of the civil rights movement in the 1960s.
John Cromwell, the son of actor James Cromwell, directed this short film with Joshua Bell. It’s about his father’s experience with members of the Black Panther Party civil rights organization in 1968. It’s a fascinating short documentary look at someone who finds himself in an unfamiliar world just trying to lend a decent helping hand. James Cromwell has been involved with the defense of the Black Panthers and other human rights causes for decades. I like the film’s professional quality and easy capturing of the sixties look. It presents its important and dramatic subject matter with a good dose of rather charming humor.
Here’s an article and interview with the director and his father.
London Police Lose Free Speech Encounter
The Love Police in the U.K. went to the Tower of London with their cameras and a megaphone to utilize their right to free speech. The guards at the Tower objected and called the London police. What you see in the video is the leader of the Love Police group speaking very intelligently and effectively to the lead police inspector about what the law actually says and what his rights are under that law. He successfully argues for his right to refuse to identify himself or to be searched under the Anti-Terrorism Law in the United Kingdom. What is so interesting about this video is the clear and overwhelming evidence that the police in London do not at all understand the laws they are enforcing or even which laws they are enforcing. They have clearly met more than their match in this instance and are in fact at serious risk of getting their department into liability troubles. The same problems with police are encountered here in the United States. There is the same lack of education and training in police ranks and the same willingness to try to remove basic rights from citizens.