Here’s how to strike back against Internet censorship and why

It's time to step up and voice your concerns because we now have a bit of momentum. Here's how to strike back against Internet censorship. Here is why you should consider taking at least a few minutes to get involved. I've blackened the DI banner today as a symbol of my concern regarding efforts to pass SOPA (pending in the House) and the Protect IP Act (pending in the Senate). Free Press has offered a page indicating the senators who are pro, con and on the fence. If you plug in your zip code, you will be presented with phone numbers for your senators and it LITERALLY takes only a minute to voice your concern to the staffer of your senator. I called my two senators in two minutes. Please join me in voicing your concern to your elected officials. You will be doing your part to use logic, fairness and reason to oppose $90 million in campaign contributions. Reason sometimes work, as demonstrated by today's reversal of course by Senator Marco Rubio of Florida.

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Cause of the economic collapse: Bank fraud versus bank incompetence?

In this 2009 interview with Bill Moyers, William Black, a former bank examiner and now a professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, discusses the cause of economic collapse. Some have suggested that the banks were merely incompetent. Black argues that many players in the financial industry purposely engaged in a Ponzi scheme that was so big as to make Bernie Madoff look like a "piker." He argues that the banks and the loan raters purposely refused to engage in responsible lending practices. Government officials (under the Clinton administration) destroyed Glass-Steagall. Congress intentionally circumvented the warnings of regulator Brooksely Born in deciding the make CDS derivatives legal. Congress refused to fund adequate staff staffing of law enforcement so as to prosecute ongoing bank fraud beginning in 2001. Under this set of doomed-to-fail policies, a single financial enterprise, IndyMac made more bad loans than were made during the entire Savings and Loan Crisis. The game now is to maintain a coverup--Black points fingers at Timothy Geithner and others.

Bill Moyers Journal: William K. Black from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.

Bill Moyers conducted this interview on his PBS show. He is now active as a journalist at his own website.

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What the candidates aren’t discussing

In the video you'll find at this link, Dylan Ratigan, author of a new book called Greedy Bastards, laments that with very few exceptions, the candidates are not discussing the fact that current American banking, trade and tax policy all prevent investments into this country into education and infrastructure. No matter what issue is important to you, the system is set up to prevent you for participating in U.S. policy unless you are pouring large amounts of money into the system to feed the dependency of politicians. According to Ratigan, we should consider that money as preventing good things from happening at a time when we are desperate for good things to happen. In this same article, Ratigan spells out the specific effects of big money awash in American politics: 1) The Candidate With More Money Wins. 2) Congress's Main Job Is to Raise Money, Not Govern 3) 48 Percent Say Most Members of Congress Are Corrupt 4) Voters Think That Cash is King 5) No Trust in Elected Officials 6) Outsider Movements Are Quickly Coopted 7) Faith in All Institutions Collapsing 8 ) People don't like horse race coverage. Meanwhile, distrust in media reaches all-time high. (Coincidence?) 9) Cash Determines Voting 10) The Middle Class Is Collapsing

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