I admire the country’s willingness to memorialize its atrocious past and to make sites like Dachau accessible to tourists, especially when compared with Austria’s unwillingness to do the same. But I’m not sure I’ll ever warm up to the idea of concentration camp gift shops, particularly those that sell Woody Allen biographies. (The last time I visited Yad Vashem, the Israeli Holocaust memorial, the gift shop was selling key chains, so this isn’t just about Germany.) In the absence of dispositive answers but knowing a bit about how modern-day German culture objectifies Jews in odd and somewhat disconcerting ways, my best guess is that these biographies are meant to suggest to visitors, especially German ones, that Jews are, in fact, really quite excellent — for one thing, they’re funny! — and therefore the Nazis were idiots for trying to annihilate them.
Federal Communications Commission chair Tom Wheeler announced yesterday that the commission would propose a new regulatory framework to preserve the open Internet after a January court ruling invalidated its net neutrality rules. Fran Berkman outlines Wheeler’s ideas:
Aside for the non-discrimination rules, Wheeler said he will also push for a couple of other new rules to buttress net neutrality. One is a transparency rule that would compel companies to disclose, in detail, how their networks operate. This would ensure that ISPs aren’t violating these standards. The other is a rule to reestablish the Open Internet Order’s “no-blocking goal.” This means ISPs can’t simply block whatever websites they want, for instance, those run by competing companies. The no-blocking goal, which the D.C. appeals court also ruled against, protects any and all websites that operate within the law.
Suderman reminds readers that the FCC’s authority is pretty broad:
Even though the most [recent court] ruling struck down the FCC’s specific net neutrality requirements, it also gave the agency a lot more power over the Internet, saying that under Section 706 of the Telecommunications Act, the agency does have the power to promote and regulate broadband competition and deployment. We’ll have to wait and see how the agency ends up using its new powers, but they are potentially far-reaching. In a dissenting opinion, Judge Laurence Silberman wrote that the majority ruling “grant[s] the FCC virtually unlimited power to regulate the Internet” by giving it the authority to put in place “any regulation that, in the FCC’s judgment might arguably make the Internet ‘better.’”
As it considers rewriting the net neutrality rules to more explicitly rely on Section 706, the FCC will simultaneously keep open the possibility of “reclassifying” broadband providers. Such a step would allow the FCC to regulate ISPs just like it does phone companies, and policy watchers say reclassification would grant the FCC unambiguous authority to regulate broadband providers with a blanket ban on traffic discrimination. Keeping reclassification on the table effectively gives the FCC a nuclear option to use as a deterrent against companies that want to prioritize Internet traffic.
Benen notes that the change is not so much in the content of the rules but rather the source of the FCC’s authority to enforce them:
How will this be any different from the FCC’s neutrality policy, 1.0? For the most part, it’s not different at all. The FCC appears to have come to the conclusion that the federal appeals court struck down the previous rules because the agency didn’t have the proper legal authority to regulate the major telecoms. So in the new policy, as the New York Times reported, the FCC “will cite another section of the law for its authority.”
Peter Weber warns Republicans that they’re not making any friends by standing against net neutrality:
Their main complaint is that this is government interference in the free market. And in a narrow sense it is, as is all government regulation. But when the government steps in to make sure that private companies can’t bilk consumers by exploiting their dominant slice of a market or through legalese, that tends to be pretty popular. Is anyone really upset that George W. Bush’s FCC mandated that cellphone customers can bring their phone numbers with them when they switch carriers?
More Dish on the net neutrality ruling here and here.
The coverage on Venezuela is making it seem as if only anti-government protesters are out on the street. This is not the case. The Maduro government, like Chavez’s before it, for its many faults, does have popular support, as the video [seen above] shows. Likewise, the governments of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay represent the regional perspective when they released this joint statement: “firm commitment to the full observance of democratic institutions and, in this context, [they] reject the criminal actions of violent groups that want to spread intolerance and hatred in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela as a political tool.”
Mark Weisbrot of the Guardian adds: “We may recall that when much larger demonstrations rocked Brazil last year, there were no statements from Mercosur or neighboring governments. That’s not because they didn’t love President Dilma Rousseff; it’s because these demonstrations did not seek to topple Brazil’s democratically-elected government.” To get a sense of how warped the Venezuelan opposition is becoming, consider that like their Tea Party cousins in the United States, the Venzuelan opposition has engaged in birtherism against the dark-skinned president Maduro.
Not every ski-mask wearing protester that throws a molotov at police is a hero. Considering that supporters of the government are being attacked by the same people who tried to launch a coup in 2002, we should view their media campaign with some skepticism.
Update from a reader:
I have to respond to your most reader about what’s going on in Venezuela. It is true, the protestors in Venezuela are unique in that they are trying to topple the government. But an important part of context that Weisbrot and the other reader miss is that Venezuela is a democracy in little more than name. There were presidential elections in April, and they were very close and very controversial with the Maduro – acting as president at the time despite clear constitutional instructions to the contrary – spending hours on air through mandatory broadcasts called cadenas while his challenger could spend no more than three minutes per channel per day advertizing.
Moreover, the government has systematically sought to close down every avenue of media opposition, closing radio stations and television stations and replacing them with state-run media in a bid to create what they call “media hegemony.” Similarly, the government is denying newspapers access to dollars so they can’t import paper, leaving many with literally just days worth of paper left.
Finally, it is true that the government still garners significant support, but those marches are less indicative than their numbers would indicate. It is well-known that public employees are often bussed to marches and required to attend in order to keep their jobs. That doesn’t mean that many who attended aren’t dyed-in-the-wool chavistas but it is indicative that 1) the government is less able to mobilize supporters than it would like people to believe and 2) that supporting the government is a requisite for working in the government in a country where the private sector is being systematically dismembered.
The opposition has spent the last five years trying to build a coalition that could challenge Chávez and now Maduro working within the increasingly undemocratic, centralized and corrupt system and were systematically prevented from doing so, even when they won local elections. That some are trying to paint them as the undemocratic ones in this fight is disingenuous as best and complicit at worst.
Another:
I find it very amusing that a joint statement from Mercosur was used by Mark Weisbrot as evidence that Venezuela’s neighbors reject the opposition’s protest against the Maduro regime. As you may know, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay were the original members of Mercosur, which was supposed to be a trade-free zone. As a free-trade bloc, Mercosur is an utter disaster; for example, Argentina not only charges tariffs to imports from Brazil, they levy taxes on their own exports to keep food prices down in the midst of horrible inflation. So rather than a free trade area, Mercosur has become a soapbox for the left-leaning leaders of South America.
Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil wanted to add Venezuela to the group, but faced opposition from Paraguay’s legislature, which would block their addition. In June 2012, Paraguay’s then-President Fernando Lugo was removed from office in a very rapid – but entirely Constitutional – impeachment process. Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay wasted no time in claiming that Lugo’s removal from office undermined democracy and just as quickly suspended Paraguay from the group, thus paving the way for Venezuela’s inclusion in Mercosur within a month of Paraguay’s suspension. In fact, Venezuela currently holds the presidency of the bloc. To think we should listen to Mercosur, with their record, as an upholder of democratic values in this case, especially considering the ample evidence of vote-rigging for both Chávez and Maduro, is nothing short of laughable.
There’s a live-stream here. Dan notes that, following the expansive wording of the bill, “it could soon be legal for Satanists to discriminate against Christians in Arizona.” Now Maine is following suit. Their live-stream is here.
According to a 2013 paper by the University of Arizona’s Jessamyn Schaller, quoted by Bloomberg, a one percentage point increase in the unemployment rate correlates with a 1.7 percent fall in the divorce rate. Another study, by researchers at the Universities of Maryland and North Carolina, suggests that recessions are especially likely to stop women without a college education from ending their marriages, potentially because they’d have the most trouble landing work or finding money for a lawyer.
So the recent uptick in unhappy endings is, perversely, good news for the rest of us.
Amran Mahamood, who has made a living for 15 years by circumcising young girls, looks into a piece of a mirror in Hargeysa, Somalia. The centuries old tradition of female circumcision, also known as female genital mutilation (FGM), is on the decline in northern Somalia, though it continues to have some of the highest rates of women who have undergone the practice in the world. By Nichole Sobecki/AFP/Getty Images.
“The pastoral practice of the Church must begin from the premise that cohabitation and civil marriage outside the church have become the norm. In developing a pastoral orientation, it is perhaps important to recall that the only time in the gospels that Jesus clearly encounters someone in a situation of cohabitation outside of marriage (the Samaritan woman at the well) he does not focus on it. Instead, he respectfully deals with the woman and turns her into a missionary,” – part of the response of Japan’s Catholics to Pope Francis’ questionnaire on family life.
According to the Japanese bishops, Humanae Vitae, the encyclical barring artificial contraception, is barely known among Japanese Catholics, let alone followed.
Michael Moynihan thinks the arrest of Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez exposes the country’s government as a faux democracy:
If you doubted that Maduro was presiding over a rotting Potemkin democracy—kangaroo courts packed with loyalists, a neutered media, violent street gangs beholden to the government—witness his Mussolini-on-the-piazza performance yesterday, when he announced Lopez’s arrest in front of a crowd of regime loyalists. Maduro told the assembled that President of the National Assembly (and the one of the country’s most powerful and recognizable chavistas) Diosdado Cabello had personally driven Lopez to jail, in a bizarre, professional wrestling-type victory lap for the regime: “At this moment, Diosdado Cabello is driving his car and taking Leopoldo López to a jail outside Caracas,” Maduro announced, assuring his supporters of “the surrender of the political chief of the Venezuelan fascist right wing, already in the hands of justice.”
The Daily Beast translated the speech Lopez gave just before being arrested. It begins:
Today, I show my face before an unjust justice system, before a corrupt judiciary and before a justice system that does not pass judgments in accordance with the constitution and the laws.
But today, I also offer you, Venezuelans, our deepest commitment that, if my imprisonment helps awaken our people, if it is good enough to finally make Venezuela wake up so that the majority of those of us who want change are able to effect that change peacefully and democratically, then this infamous imprisonment that Nicolás Maduro wants, so openly and so cowardly, then for me it will have been worth it. This is the biggest example of how there is no separation of powers in Venezuela. How many times did Maduro say he wanted me in jail? How many times did he say he was giving instructions for our arrests? What is a president doing giving instructions to a district attorney, or to a court? Those actions are the best examples of how there is no justice in Venezuela.
Uri Friedman translates the tweet above from Lopez, which was written on the day he was arrested:
I’m disconnecting. Thank you Venezuela. The change is in each one of us. We will not give up. I will not do it!
The Dish 