With this post comes my official entrance into cookoo-ville. (I say that half seriously.) Last night, a friend of mine recommended I watch Zeitgeist: The Movie. I knew about the general concept of Zeitgeist, but had no idea what the film would be like. The entire movie is online, so you can stream it directly from the site.

If you suspend reality and disbelief, the contents are shocking. The best part is, this movie was made earlier this year and it shines juxtaposed with our current financial crises. It’s worth taking a look, even if you don’t buy all of the theories proposed, if only for the compelling explanation of Christianity as a scion of paganism.

This week was National Low Income and Homeless Voter Registration week, an effort to register as many homeless and low income citizens as possible before the October 4th registration deadline. As part of this project, United Way of King County organized a coalition of volunteers to go to locations in Seattle offering assistance to the homeless to help them register.

The first hour of the day we learned about the registration process and how to deal with issues such as lack of a permanent address and felony convictions. Before today, I didn’t know that every city in the US has a generic post office address, known as general delivery, to which mail can be sent and held on to for a short period of time. While not explicitly for homeless people, it allows them to receive mail without having a permanent residence.

I also learned quite a bit about the impact of a felony conviction (in Washington, at least) on voting rights; most notably, a convicted felon can vote if they have paid off their “legal financial obligations” and proceed through a legal process to restore those rights. The ACLU has a site all about this, or what they call felon enfranchisement. At least one ex-felon I talked to was surprised to learn that the right to vote wasn’t out of reach once convicted.

What struck me most about the ex-felons was just how forthright they were about their crimes. One guy, when asked if he was registered to vote, replied: “I can’t; I’m a former felon and hang out with a pretty tough crowd. I’ve killed two people.” It was a unique experience to say the least. But, once I got over the initial shock of being within arm’s reach of a murderer, I really started to think about how personal (versus generic to humanity) some of these crimes were and just how big of a public threat they are after the harsh experience of prison; and, similarly, how the onerous post-prison conditions undermine rehabilitative efforts and lead to repeat offenses. For instance, incredibly high interest rates are applied to debt they incur as part of the criminal proceedings. How can a former felon recover when heavy financial burdens–exacerbated by the inability to find a quality job due to their conviction–are levied immediately after their release?

I was also surprised by how politically informed some of the homeless and low income people were. If these people, relegated to the destitute fringes of society, know more about civics and public discourse than many other freer citizens, what does that say about this country and our values? And what does it say about our efforts to deny them their right to vote? Maybe it’s the perspective gained from being subjected to the horrifying aspects of our legal system that made these people so keen on paying attention to government. It fits with the typical human condition: people are lackadaisical about matters that don’t affect them. Only when the issues have an impact on their lives do they begin to care.

All-in-all, today was pretty cool. I learned about registration, met other engaged volunteers, had the chance to speak with interesting people, and helped register 6 new voters. It may not seem like a lot, but imagine the impact of groups like ours engaging in similar efforts all across the country.

The Wall Street bailout brouhaha has clogged the pages of newspapers and news sites for the last week. Treasury Secretary Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke–backed by the Bush Administration–have tried their hardest to hastily push a fix through legislation. The full text of the draft proposal can be found here.

Nested within this at first seemingly innocuous proposal lies a little gem that uncovers exactly why Paulson & Co. have been holding the brink-of-catastrophe gun to congress’s head, hoping for a hasty approval. Section 8 reads in its entirety:

Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

Or, to put it simply, Paulson can do whatever he wants with our $700 billion without telling anyone. Paulson’s feeble attempt at explaining the lack of oversight details in the memo were nothing more than a visceral reaction to being caught in an attempt to go elbow-deep in this country’s fiscal cookie jar.

I thought it would be presumptuous for us in that outline to come up with an oversight mechanism. That’s the role of congress. That’s something we’re going to work on together. So if any of you felt that I didn’t believe that we needed oversight, I believe we need oversight. We need oversight. We need protection. We need transparency.

He must believe the American people are a dumb bunch. Section 8 of his proposal didn’t delegate the authority to establish an oversight plan to congress, it strictly forbade any oversight at all! This wasn’t a mistake; he’s not an idiot. You don’t become the CEO of Goldman Sachs and the United States Treasury Secretary by lacking intelligence.

He is a liar. And once again, in a time of national crisis, the trust that Americans unscrupulously place in our leaders is being exploited.

Update 2:08pm: Perhaps it’s my legislative naivete, but after reading the entire proposal, I find the vague language striking. For instance, Section 12 Clause (1) leaves the door wide-open for the bailout of any member of the financial industry affected by the mortgage crisis. And Section 6 qualifies the spending limit for this bailout to the point where many interpretations are possible, implying $7 billion may not be the cap (a point bolstered by the fact that the requested increase to our current national debt limit in Section 10 is about $700 billion more than the amount requested for the bailout).

Most alarming of all, the bill seems set up to allow unfettered authority on the part of the Treasury Secretary; not only to apply the rules laid out but to interpret and expand them. I recognize that some of these clauses are necessarily vague because the specifics regarding what is necessary to fix the situation are unknown. However, this is an extraordinary amount of power to invest in a single person especially considering that the unilateralism of financial industry bosses played a big part in why we’re in this situation to begin with.

It happens to the best of us; I myself have survived one or two and I know others who have experienced just as many. There is no mistaking the event or its profound impact. It’s a mind and often life-altering experience that I’m thankful rarely occurs. But when it does, it demands one’s attention and singular focus. And when it leaves, one is never quite the same.

The United States and the American people are experiencing an identity crisis right now. The closeness of such a heated and important political race demonstrates just how torn we are. If my personal struggle during this election indicates at all that of the greater population, what we have before us is indeed a defining choice. The People are sick of a polarized country; sick of being placed in red and blue boxes; and sick of the need to divide our beliefs along party lines when many of us have a leg on each side.

I find the two-party system–or, more accurately, its current manifestation–inadequate for a 21st century America. Why can’t I believe in economic conservativeness and social progression at the same time and be represented in national government? To be fair, the Democratic candidate for President shares these beliefs, though the Republicans will do anything to convince the voters otherwise–read Senator Obama’s economic plan and tell me he doesn’t want our country’s mind broadened and its purse strings drawn tighter. But I digress and at the same time fan the flame…

This election should be about not what divides us, but the inspiration and determination of the American people as a whole; about perseverance and the American will; and, more importantly, about reclaiming our American identity. Perhaps it’s blind optimism that compels me to believe that we can and will do better–especially considering our recent elective choices that seem to betray that confidence–but I believe it nonetheless.

This is America! We fought a revolution and won, defying all odds and forcing back the most powerful empire in the world. We instituted a government unfathomed at the time, endowing us, the People, with the power to choose our fate. We need to stand up and compromise with each other. We need to meet at the table, discuss our differences, and bend to shake in the middle. Empires rise and fall; and, though we find ourselves in troubled times, believing we are a nation beyond the tendrils of history will bring about our biggest downfall yet.

America is synonymous with progression. Indeed, our inception was based on altering the status quo to guarantee more personal liberty, a better life, and more opportunities for happiness than ever before. Our foundation is progress and our choices to promote it have been heralded and emulated by countries around the world. We cannot inspire via stagnation; we must continue to progress and break down provincial barriers and live up to the promise of our founding.

The world wishes, nay lusts after, our success; do we, the People, want it too?

Huffington Post author Sam Stein penned an article today titled “Palin Makes Her First Gaffe“, calling out the GOP Vice Presidential pick for falsely stating that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are US tax payer burdens (prior to the government takeover on 9/9/08). After watching the video, there’s no question that she inappropriately classified the mortgage giants as government subsidized.

The article soon found itself on Digg, a social news site where the site’s users democratically choose the main content. Each article is “dugg” up or down based on a vote-per-article available to each person. In the fashion of democracy, the community members also have a common-man’s veto, used to mark an article as inaccurate. Once a certain number of people mark the article as such, the declaration of inaccuracy is displayed prominently whenever the article is viewed (see the image below).

This veto serves to alert users to potentially false information and carries a heavy statement with it: “The population of this community has deemed this content incorrect; do not read it.” Thus, any marked link appears fallacious and is in turn skipped by a majority of the users. This tool’s biggest issue is the ease of exploitation by a mob and this story is about that.

Briefly, this touches on an issue I’ve run into many times when researching political topics: What information is valid? Publication houses still act as sentinels for published, hard-copy materials. But, in an increasingly digitized world, where everyone has the capability to disseminate information, these watchmen are not present.

In Naomi Campell’s book The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot, she mentions disinformation and refers specifically to Joseph Goebbels, German minister of propaganda during World War II, and his effective use of thought manipulation. Over time–or perhaps because of Goebbel’s malicious use of it–propaganda came to carry a negative meaning.

With respect to Digg, in this politically charged time, the denotation of an article as inaccurate has become synonymous with an attempt at smearing–or propagandizing–the opposing person’s candidate. While marking inaccurate has worked sufficiently in the past, this article, and three others like it, have been marked inappropriately so. This presents a problem for interpretation in the future.

Humans rely on formal institutions to provide trustworthy information; we built our lives around it. We started by learning math, science, and reading based on curricula sanctioned by our schools and governments. Imagine if that information turned out to be wrong. It’s analogous to being in space with nothing around: you’d know neither up from down nor left from right. Your ability to discern direction would disappear.
And true information is the way forward; facts are what we stand on as we reach for the next level of understanding.

In modern politics, it has become trendy to paint things in shades of gray, disallowing any perception of truth; and it’s worrisome. How do we expect our society to understand such complex things the economy, health care, and foreign relations when we question such solid facts? Palin was videotaped in this instance, the damning words and images made available for replay; yet somehow this article was deemed inaccurate. This is how it begins, the slow blurring of true and false. Will they next have us doubting the science of tapes and cameras and our technology’s ability to accurately portray history?

If this seems alarming that’s because it is. Good information is absolutely critical to good decision making. Our minds are being polluted and we’re being duped in the most insulting and damaging way. I’m coming to find that truth usually sides with virtue and honor, which clarifies what’s true quite a bit.