Abc 7 News

There are plenty of instances of misleading and otherwise bad stats being used by anti-piracy groups, like the recent BSA numbers from Canada that were basically made up. Now, a group from the UK is saying that piracy costs that country's economy tens of billions of pounds. It makes the same mistake as plenty of other studies before it: counting every instance of piracy, or perhaps even just the availability of copyrighted material on file-sharing networks, as a lost sale. It's fallacious to assume that every single person that downloads a piece of content, or simply has access to it for free, would pay for it if the free version wasn't available. Furthermore, any study like this that says an entire economy is being harmed by X amount of money because of piracy is pretty much bogus. This money that's supposedly being lost because of piracy isn't being lost by the economy, as undoubtedly it's being spent elsewhere. It's not being flushed down the toilet or turned into ether, it's just not ending up in content companies' bank accounts.

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

by Jesse Taylor

But, pro-lifers, there may be something wrong with your movement when you have to send out press releases making clear that you don’t actually condone cold-blooded murder.

As Ezra and Ann Friedman point out, it is part and parcel of the activist anti-choice movement to proactively interfere with and intimidate people who are in the process of providing or seeking a medical procedure which is protected by law. 

The question I’ve heard over and over again is whether or not the pro-life movement bears responsibility for the murder of George Tiller.  It does.  There is no other “mainstream” political movement in this country which keeps as a part of its bag of tricks the intent to frighten those in the midst of a legally protected activity.

Pro-gun control liberals don’t show up at gun shows and hector attendees.  (And if your response is, “Damn right they don’t, because they’d get shot,” you’re proving my point.) Fundamentalists don’t have to worry about fleets of bike-riding hippies showing up at the entrance to their church every Sunday, telling them that their God is false.  Religious “family planning” clinics don’t live in constant fear of a Molotov cocktail flying through their plate glass window, don’t have to train their employees on how to handle bomb threats, don’t need to worry about their clients’ safety on the way from their car to the front door.  But if you provide abortion services - even if you’re not actually providing an abortion to the person coming in the door, even though it has been repeatedly declared legal - you live in fear. 

This culture of fear was borne and is bred by the way the pro-life movement conducts itself.  They certainly have every right to protest - and I mean that, and I truly believe that.  But freedom of speech and freedom of assembly does not create freedom from responsibility for your conduct.  A movement whose primary focus is intimidation through immediate and overwhelming physical proximity, coupled with hugely dishonest and inflammatory rhetoric cannot escape responsibility when it is embraced by an actor or actors who take that rhetoric to a logical, if extreme, end.  By declaring that “abortion is murder” and premising a movement on preventing that “murder” in increasingly radical and ostentatious ways (while oftentimes failing to propose or advocate for the more logical and responsible methods of preventing the alleged “murders"), the pro-life movement has built up over decades an angry base stewing in its own feelings of oppression and righteousness.  It’s the perfect environment to breed radicalism and violence.

This also puts into context the recent uproar over Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination.  She has made a mission of bringing to light racial injustice, particularly as it relates to Hispanics.  Her efforts are not designed to hold down white people, or designed to invalidate their experiences, but instead to bring to light the full range of experiences available in America.  She is not a radical, she is not a racist, yet the same movement that is rushing out to make clear that they don’t want people to murder just because it might seem like they want people to murder is trying to tar her some sort of Latina conquistador, rampaging through our suburbs in order to take away our Constitutional right to white dudes in power.  This same sort of decontextualized radical rhetoric is being used over and over again to stir up hatred and resentment so that Tony Blankley and Rush Limbaugh and Grover Norquist and the rest of their ilk can make millions off of this razor’s edge.  People must be angry - angry enough to act, but not angry enough to lash out; hopeful for a “better” future, but unwilling to accept anything but the total domination of their enemies as a victory. 

Lacking that, you’ll be able to make a pretty penny off of teaching every abortion provider in this country how to set up their speed dial for the bomb squad.  Never let it be said that terrorism doesn’t stimulate the economy.

WASHINGTON -- They might have the WH and Congress, but progressives - gathered this week for a four-day conference billed as "America's Future Now!" - aren't universally pleased with the Obama administration.

As a coalition of liberal groups announced their union today behind an unprecedented $82M grassroots and advertising campaign to push for health care reform, some consternation remains in the Democratic base about if Pres. Obama is pursuing a sweeping enough package. Others expressed dismay with his decision to increase troop levels in Afghanistan.

During the question and answer portion of a panel about "The progressive movement in the Age of Obama," held at the Omni Shoreham and featuring Organizing for America director Mitch Stewart and Change to Win chair Anna Burger, among others, Burger was interrupted by a female audience member who barked from the darkened ballroom: "Why not single-payer?"

"It would be great to have single-payer, but I don't think that's going to happen this year," she said, adding that whatever plan is ultimately adopted, Democrats seem to be moving toward a public option plan that allows people to opt out of the system, will make a difference in people's lives.

A few minutes later, Deepak Bhargava, with the Center for Community Change, interjected, "I think many of us think the single payer system would be the best system," he said, drawing enthusiastic applause from many activists in the room.

But then he pivoted. "It is a step on the path," he said.

A step isn't enough for everyone. After eight years of assailing Pres. Bush's leadership, progressives are regrouping in an effort to leverage their newfound fortune - a WH in Dem hands and a Senate just one-vote shy of a filibuster-proof majority. They even had to change the past name of the annual confab from "Take Back America."

Some today sounded a broad caution that progressives shouldn't quiet their call for change just because Obama is at the helm or Congress is dominated by members of the president's party.

The best gift the left can give Obama, said MoveOn.org's Ilyse Hogue, is a "vibrant, vocal progressive movement."

While Roger Hickey of Campaign for America's future suggested that an "inside and outside strategy" modeled on the civil rights era efforts of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Pres. Johnson in the 60s, will help the Democrats shepherd their policy plans through Congress, Hogue suggested the entire movement shouldn't fall in line behind consensus proposals if they don't go far enough or Democrats just because they're Democrats. She named Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA), in particular, as one whose stance on the Employee Free Choice Act remains in question.

"With all respect to Roger, I think our job is not to be inside or outside," she said. "It's to take the doors off the hinges and smash the walls down."

Progressives have reason so far to be pleased with Obama. From his public support for "card check," as EFCA is called, to his signature of a new equal pay law, he is making good on several campaign promises. But health care - and the shape of the plan he ultimately endorses - could create a fault line in the movement of people who worked so intensely to elect a one-term junior senator from IL.

Much of the focus of this week's conference seems to be creating unanimity behind shared goals - even if not all can be achieved. A video of Obama addressing the group in '06 and '07 was played for the crowd.

"It's going to be because of you that we take our country back," he said, at a past conference. The clip was set to upbeat music.

And several participants mentioned Obama's background as a community organizer. The message to attendees, of course, was that he knows what you do, he's done it himself, and he knows how critical it is to getting approval for his agenda.

But during that same question and answer session, a male audience member yelled, "Afghanistan!" apropos of nothing being discussed.

So for some on the left, the president isn't fulfilling all of his campaign promises and is starting to disappoint. Others suggest any divide is overstated. Hogue, for one, said that the media loves to fan the flames of "hot Dem on Dem action," as she called it.

"The famous firing squad in a circle, I don't think we're anywhere near that," said Helen Brunner, a DC resident attending the conference.

Change to Win's Burger put it differently. "Are there days when I wake up and think, could he have done more or could he be further out there? Absolutely." She said there will be more days like that, but noted still that Obama is a "transformational" president.

"We have to make him successful," she said. "We have to make him the best that he can be."

As for that massive push for health care reform, the groups supporting the effort include Health Care for America Now, the AFL-CIO and Change To Win, the Children's Defense Fund, MoveOn.org, Americans United for Change, Rock the Vote, National Women's Law Center, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and Democracy for America. The money will be used for grassroots organizing (troops are already on the ground in 46 states) and a sizeable advertising campaign.

During a lunchtime press conference, Howard Dean, recent past chair of the DNC and a doctor, said that it's more important to have a public plan than a bipartisan plan. "Bipartisan," he said, "is not an end in and of itself."

He said that Republicans haven't helped Obama with the stimulus package nor do they seem poised to offer an assist with approving his nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the nation's highest court.

"If they're in there to shill for the insurance companies, I think we should do it with 51 votes," Dean said, suggesting that it be accomplished via budget reconciliation.

Dean added: "The American people voted for real change. They knew exactly what he was proposing when he was on the campaign trail."

(JENNIFER SKALKA)

People are cutting back on lots of spending these days, but one area that was supposedly relatively safe was in-home entertainment expenditures. Things like cable and satellite TV and Netflix were thought to even thrive during economic downturns as people looked to limit going out, choosing instead to stay in and be entertained. While that seems to be working out for Netflix, cable companies are starting to feel the pinch as people drop their subscriptions and get their TV fix online. While it's a relatively small number of people that are making the move, it's the sort of thing that cable companies have been concerned about for a while. The WSJ story talks about some moves by the likes of Comcast and Time Warner to grab more online viewers, but if the cable companies continue to try and treat their online efforts in the same way as their traditional offerings, it's hard to see much success. It doesn't seem like a coincidence that this is happening as cable companies are looking to introduce caps on their broadband services. They say it's because some consumers are creating too much traffic, in part because of their online video viewing, and it's straining their networks. But perhaps it's just a way to try and capture lost TV revenue from cord-cutters? Of course, trying to get users who are going broadband-only for their TV to take on metered broadband seems like a good way to drive them to competitors with uncapped plans.

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

A presidential proclamation marking Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Month.

Available in full after the jump.

The Dish was all over yesterday's big story - the assassination of George Tiller by a crazed Christianist. We traced O'Reilly's troubling rhetoric here, here, and here, and readers checked my reaction here. We chronicled the disturbing role of Operation Rescue here, here, and here, and commentary from the far right here, here, here.  A noteworthy voice on the far-right was Robert P. George, who struck the perfect chord. We also aired personal accounts of abortion here and here.

A traumatic Sunday, to say the least. For the right approach to religion, listen to Bob Wright.