Tomdispatch, a project of The Nation Institute, is blocked by the State Department.

[madfloridian]

From Mother Jones:

TomDispatch Blocked by State Department!

By Tom Engelhardt

I have a friend who sends a note every year in December, pleading with me to pen one upbeat, hopeful piece before the next year rolls around. Mind you, I consider myself an upbeat guy in a downbeat world and, for me, when it comes to pure upbeatness, you couldn't have beaten this week if you tried. This was when my Oscar came in—or the equivalent on the political Internet anyway. On December 7th, the State Department announced its brave decision to host UNESCO's World Press Freedom Day in 2011. ("We are concerned about the determination of some governments to censor and silence individuals, and to restrict the free flow of information…") Less than two weeks later, I learned that if you try to go to TomDispatch.com from a State Department computer, you can't get there. The following message appears instead:

"Access Denied for Security Risk (policy_wikileaks)

"Your requested URL has been blocked to prevent classified information from being downloaded to OpenNet."

OpenNet is what the State Department calls its unclassified Web system. Maybe it should now consider changing that name as it prepares for World Press Freedom Day. (Small tip to State Department officials: remember that TomDispatch is just as good a read at home as at work!)

More on the topic from Tomdispatch in a Tomgram:

Tomgram..Rebecca Solnit, A Shadow Government of Kindness

I’m sure this is all part of the Obama administration’s fabulous sunshine policy, that “new standard of openness” the president embraced on his first day in the Oval Office. It’s certainly part of the U.S. government’s ridiculous attempt to bar its officials, contractors, and anyone else it can reach from the once-secret State Department documents that WikiLeaks is slowly releasing and that everyone else on Earth has access to.

As for me in this holiday season, I couldn’t be happier. Among those sites banned by the State Department, I’m sure in good company and, of course, you’re not likely to be banned if no one’s reading you in the first place. And here’s the holiday miracle: somehow TomDispatch made it onto The List without revealing a single secret document or even hosting one at the site, evidently on the basis of having commented in passing on the WikiLeaks affair.

In case you are wondering what Tomdispatch does to get it banned, you just need to look at some of the recent Tomgrams. A bit of sarcasm there.

From the right panel of Tomdispatch:

Tomgram: Rebecca Solnit, A Shadow Government of Kindness
Posted at 9:25PM on December 21, 2010.

Tomgram: Max Blumenthal, The Great Fear
Posted at 6:30PM on December 19, 2010.

Tomgram: Bill McKibben, Why Obama and Cancún Miss the Point
Posted at 9:42AM on December 16, 2010.

Tomgram: Stephan Salisbury, Politics in the Terrordome, 2011
Posted at 3:00PM on December 14, 2010.

Tomgram: Lewis Lapham, Sweet Celebrity
Posted at 4:43PM on December 12, 2010.

Tomgram: Fatima Bhutto, The War Against Pakistan
Posted at 9:49AM on December 09, 2010.

Tomgram: Engelhardt, Epitaph from the Imperial Graveyard
Posted at 10:21AM on December 07, 2010.

[Fumesucker]

1. In other news the chocolate ration has been increased from fifteen grams to ten grams..

Recced..

[madfloridian]

4. Heh heh

Had to read that a couple of times. :)

[truedelphi]

2. Yet the six wars that our nation is currently fighting all have to do with

"Bringing liberty to the soil of Nation ____*(You fill in the blank.)

Or so we are told.

[madfloridian]

3. A sample of a Tomdispatch article about the wars...About monster embassies.

http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/11/stimulus-package-kabul?page=2

"The Stimulus Package in Kabul

I was delusional—I thought one monster “embassy” was the end of it."

"I was amazed. But (and here we come to the failure of my own imagination) I never doubted that BDY's bizarre imperial "mother ship" being prepared for landing in Baghdad was the singular spawn of the Bush administration. I saw it as essentially a vanity production sired by a particular set of fantasies about imposing a Pax Americana abroad and a Pax Republicana at home. It never crossed my mind that there would be two such "embassies."

So, on this, call me delusional. By May 2009, with Barack Obama in the White House, I knew as much. That was when two McClatchy reporters broke a story about a similar project for a new "embassy" in Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, at the projected cost of $736 million (with a couple of hundred million more slated for upgrades of diplomatic facilities in Afghanistan).

Simulating Ghosts

Now, with the news in from Kabul, we know that there are going to be three mother ships. All gigantic beyond belief. All (after the usual cost overruns) undoubtedly in the three-quarters of a billion dollar range, or beyond. All meant not to house modest numbers of diplomats acting as the face of the United States in a foreign land, but thousands of diplomats, spies, civilian personnel, military officials, agents, and operatives hunkering down long-term for war and skullduggery.

.."Connect two points and you have a straight line. Connect three points and you have a pattern—in this case, simple and striking. The visionaries and fundamentalists of the Bush years may be gone and visionless managers of the tattered American imperium are now directing the show. Nonetheless, they and the US military in the region remain remarkably devoted to the control of the Greater Middle East. Even without a vision, there is still the war momentum and the money to support it."

[Jakes Progress]

5. Please sir, may I have another.

People aren't blind to this. They are just closing their eyes. As in, please let me fool myself for one more day. Don't make me know what I know. La, la, la, la. I can't heeeaaarrr meeeee!