gilchristwhitedale - Tumblr blog

[gilchristwhitedale]

I recently read Kagan's (presumably classic given how I found it) Power and Weakness essay. It isn't obvious to me that he is wrong: could you explain?

Kagan operates on a classic realist vision: power is a zero sum game; weakness on the part of A equals opportunity for power and exploitation on the part of B. This is, at it happens, by no means necessarily true — it can be, but power is not a zero sum game.

Additionally, Kagan is particularly insensitive to the notion of costs other than national power. That is, the only losses that matter to him are those in national strength and opportunity; his current fixation on the necessity of American empire proves this. He makes reference to prior empires as clearly “good things” — a point of view that Gandhi, say, would have challenged rather vociferously. His broad vision is deeply unhistorical and thus is fantasy, not reality.

Finally, at least for now, I would point to both his insistent advocacy for the Iraq War and his current insistence on the need for an American imperial umbrella for “peace.” We did not bring democracy and freedom to Iraq: we brought Iranian dominance. We did not bring democracy and freedom to Afghanistan (and never could have as anyone who took ten minutes to actually study the “country’s” history understood). America’s “peace” is a pretty violent one outside the United States. It takes a remarkable kind of blindness to continue to make the same argument over and over again despite all the empirical evidence to the contrary — a blindness Kagan clearly has.

[gilchristwhitedale]

"The threat from far-right, armed, ideological nutcases is far greater than any from Muslim extremists." I tweeted this earlier, and thought I would explain more fully exactly why I said it.

First of all, I was referring only to domestic threats, within the USA. And yes, there are Muslim (and...

[gilchristwhitedale]

You know, when I think about who I really want to have a gun, it’s really, really, really drunk people. Why? Because drunk people make great life decisions. Particularly angry drunk people. They’re always really fun. Like this guy who screamed at me recently because my pupils weren’t dilated when I was politely talking to him, which he interpreted as my not being attracted to him (which I wasn’t), and then subsequently followed me around the bar, slurringly interrogating me about what I thought was wrong with him and why I’m such a horrible shallow bitch. That guy. If he had a gun, that would have been awesome.

Clearly, the state of North Carolina agrees with me, because they’ve just decided that it is now legal to carry guns in bars in their state. And playgrounds! You know, because sometimes a “time out” is not effective enough. Sometimes, you have to wave your glock around just to show those four-year olds who’s boss. Not to mention the fact that it’s probably like a thousand times easier to haul one of them off in your big ol’ molester van, as a gun is surely more convincing than the traditional offer of candy.

[gilchristwhitedale]

What If You're Right About Snowden?

What if all the hysterical jingos were correct and Edward Snowden was an unstable, deceitful, America-hating traitor? Would that make the repercussions of what he did worse? No. What's done is done. But it might mean the spying program is an even bigger danger to people than they might realize. Why? 

Firstly, if Snowden actually was a traitor, would it change the fact that a program, which is, on it's face, by any interpretation of the Constitution, a violation of the "probable cause" and "warrant" specifying who, what, and where requirements of the 4th Amendment, exists? No. Not in the slightest. 

Secondly, would it change the fact that the government cannot legislate the Constitution away with Orwellian-titled PATRIOT acts? No. 

Then whether or not Snowden is a patriot or a traitor in one's mind, there is much being left out of the conversation about the spying program (besides the program itself in most media). All other NSA whistle blowers have repeatedly stated that these programs are NOT limited to metadata (not that metadata is legal). In fact, the government's collection of information is far larger than we are being led to believe, essentially including EVERYTHING it can get its hands on. Your emails/letters are being read. Your phone calls are being listened to. 

Now given the attitudes of the heads of these extra-Constitutional agencies (NSA, FBI, CIA, etc.), you'd think the collective public would be worried out of its mind. These men are trapped in a bygone era and consider everyone a threat (mostly to their own authority). Consider the illogical, vitriolic, Constitutionally-warped rant from Michael Hayden, ex-CIA chief, lackey, Neocon. This is who Americans trust with their information?

Snowden 

Once again, if we presume Snowden to be an emotionally unstable man with deranged impetus to damage the United States, where does that leave us? It leaves us with a lot of potentially unstable young and old people (a la Hayden, Clapper, etc) with their hands on the greatest blackmail trove in the history of the world. They even told us they tapped the President's phone. J. Edgar Hoover would have wet dreams about this. But why should you care? You can trust the government, right?......You couldn't trust Edward Snowden, or more accurately, the government couldn't (it appears we the people assuredly can). But why should you care? You have nothing to hide. Right?

Scenario

John and Chuck are interested in the same woman. More specifically, John is dating her and Chuck watches her from afar with unrequited love and dreams of a future without John. Chuck, a computer whiz, also happens to work for a clandestine organization with access to, pretty much, any information he wants; what isn't there he can get. There's so much information to cull through, his superiors can't keep track of it all.

Long story short...John is soon hauled away by the cops and locked up on some charge or another leaving Chuck to delve into this woman's personal life without her knowledge and without being distracted by thoughts of John. 

Immediately, the above scenario will be criticized for being hyperbolic. But stop and think again. If it's true that Snowden imagines himself a dystopian hero, a man acting out childish fantasies, then this scenario, or a billion variations ranging in degree, is not only possible, but likely. It's the old cliche, "It's not a matter of if but when."

Imagine waking one morning to find your computer screen flashing a message about your being banned by your local ISP from the web for exchanging computer viruses (in actuality, and unbeknownst to you, it's because you were talking about a subject deemed "dissident").   

Or find yourself under scrutiny by local law enforcement because you talked to a specific guy on the bus..a guy you've never seen before and said two words to. You get to work only to find you've been let go (for reasons they don't have to disclose as all states are now Right to Work because all politicians who opposed it mysteriously dropped out of their races for personal reasons).  

Not only is this possible, it's probable that it's already happening.   

This is enough of a reason for the average person to be paranoid about the government doing exactly what it is forbidden to do, search and seize things without oversight. The other old adage, "Power corrupts" is just as relevant. This is too much power. Snowden's actions let us in on the secret that the little fish are just as dangerous as the big fish which also means the seemingly most insignificant citizen is as likely a target at any given time as the judge on a critical case of national import.

Hence, Edward Snowden, regardless of his motivations, showed us, one, that there is a spying program that is as vast as anything Hollywood has shown us and, two, that if he can walk off with e-reams of information, so can anyone else...or, minimally, they have access enough to abuse the crap out of it. They sit one keystroke away from extreme power over others. How many of even your friends and family would you trust with that? 

#AreYouAwakeYet

[gilchristwhitedale]

#SCOTUS and the #VRA : Five Nasty Little Men Conspire To Violate Their Oath

So the "con"servative SCOTUS "justices" once again played politics in violation of their oath to uphold the Constitution. How is that? Didn't they make a legitimate argument about states being treated equally?

No. 

What You Need To Know

The "justices" struck down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act 1965 that required certain states, mostly Deep South states, to be subject to federal oversight because of continued free election interference which deprived minorities (specifically African-Americans) of equal rights. The justices argued that it was unfair and un-Constitutional to discriminate against these discriminators, because, apparently, these states don't engage in this behavior any longer. 

Firstly, #WTF?!! These states don't engage in attempted discriminatory actions aimed at disenfranchising minorities? Hmm. I guess they're right. As far as we know, no one's engaged in it since...oh...last November.

Secondly, what the "justices" failed to mention was that Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act provides for excluding any jurisdiction that can demonstrate free elections from federal oversight. It also provides the power to include any jurisdictions not named in the act that can be demonstrated to be engaging in disenfranchisement.

What does this mean? Two things. 1) It means the states still subject to federal oversight have failed to provide free, nondiscriminatory elections FOR 48 YEARS!!!! In other words, they aren't being unfairly targeted as the justices assert, because they could have demonstrated clean elections and been excluded. 2) It, unfortunately, means the VRA has not been enforced in the last 13 years. If it had been, more states would now be under federal oversight after continuous #GOP election shenanigans all across the country since FL 2000.

Rationale

So why would the "con"servatives on SCOTUS decide to put the ball in Congress's court where, it is presumed, Congress would expand federal oversight (redundantly) to all states charged with election crimes? The answer must be 2014. 

The #GOP is critical in ICU. It does not appear, at the moment, it will survive 2014 and, even if it ekes by, cannot survive for long after that just by sheer demographics. The current Congress is incapable of passing anything. A modification to the VRA is not only unlikely, but, thanks to the presence of the #TeaBagger obstructionists in the House, next to impossible. This paves the way for the #GOP to bring back Jim Crow, not just in the South, but anywhere and everywhere it can get away with it. If it does it effectively, it has the potential to assure itself the presidency in 2016 by using ill-gotten Congressional power after the next election which will be, for all intensive purposes, RIGGED. (It is speculation, but duly warranted, that the #GOP knew the outcome of this case before it was announced to the public and has already set up numerous mechanism of disenfranchisement, as can be seen in TX with Perry's immediate declaration to enforce rigged ID laws.)

So, by Occam's Razor, we have a situation where five, slimy, little men on the Supreme Court of the United States, once again, have violated their oath to uphold the Constitution for political/corporate reasons, something in which they are never supposed to engage, and have framed it, badly, as a States' Rights issue.

#OustSCOTUS 

[gilchristwhitedale]

CLICK HEADER BOX OUTSIDE OF ROLL-OVER SHADOW...WON'T LET ME TURN IT OFF.

When a National Security Agency contractor revealed top-secret details this month on the government's collection of Americans' phone and Internet records, one select group of intelligence veterans breathed a

Don't want to believe Snowden? How about these guys then? 

[gilchristwhitedale]

Why has such a massive police-state apparatus and universal spying become so central to the ruling regime? Why has the entire executive, legislative and judicial leadership come out in public for such a blatant repudiation of all constitutional guarantees? Why do elected leaders defend universal political espionage against the citizenry? What kind of politics requires a police state? What kind of long-term, large scale domestic and foreign policies are illegal and unconstitutional as to require the building of a vast network of domestic spies and a hundred billion dollar corporate-state techno-espionage infrastructure in a time of budget ‘austerity’ with the slashing of social programs?

The second set of questions arises from the use of the espionage data. So far most critics have questioned the existence of massive state espionage but have avoided the vital issue of what measures are taken by the spymasters once they target individuals, groups, movements? The essential question is: What reprisals and sanctions follow from the ‘information’ that is collected, classified and made operational by these massive domestic spy networks? Now that the ‘secret’ of all-encompassing, state political spying has entered public discussion, the next step should be to reveal the secret operations that follow against those targeted by the spymasters as a ‘risk to national security’. - See more at: http://dissidentvoice.org/2013/06/the-deeper-meaning-of-mass-spying-in-america/#sthash.9aa182V5.dpuf

[gilchristwhitedale]

PRISM Is No Big Deal, Don't Be Hysterical #WakeUp

Yes, a governmental organization that is forbidden from doing the exact sort of spying with which it's being charged is no big deal. Don't worry. Go back to sleep. Everything is...ffffiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnneee.

Hang on. You honestly can't see the emergence of a #PoliceState occurring here? You're kidding, right? Let's look at a bunch of the "little" things that have come into being since Reagan came into office. 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

~ Drug testing at schools as general policy/Piss tests first, now hair.

~ School uniforms at public schools as general policy.

~ Random locker searches at schools as general policy.

~ Strip searches of students by school officials.

~ A returned insistence on corporal punishment.

~ Possible jail time and/or fines for parents whose kids miss too many days of school.

~ Private "alternative" schools mandated by states or counties for behavior problems and run, essentially, as prisons.

~ ISS - In-School Suspension: Essentially forcing students to be on campus for state monies while providing no education. 

~ "Zero Tolerance" policies in schools; calling the cops on 5 year olds. 

~ "Three Strikes and You're Out" laws equating to lack of jury trial.

~ Capped damage awards in court equating to a lack of jury trial.

~ Private prison industry explosion.  

~ "Minor-in-Possession" tickets for minors NEAR other minors in possession but not in possession themselves. 

~ City ordinances allowing cops to enter private houses w/o a warrant based solely on estimated number of people inside at the time.

~ SCOTUS ruling random police "checkpoints" with unwarranted searches are Constitutional.

~ SCOTUS ruling cops can take your DNA w/o a conviction.

~ Warrantless wiretapping. 

~ Adoption of the "Miami Model" by various city police forces (essentially attacking/framing peaceful protesters and arresting many BEFORE event occurs - presumption of guilt).

~ Mass beatings, pepper sprayings, and multi-taserings being practiced by police forces. 

~ Shootings of New Orleans residents w/o cause by police during Katrina aftermath.

~ Systematic election fraud. 

~ Forced vaginal probes.

~ States passing volumes of legislation infringing upon doctor-patient privilege. 

~ USA PATRIOT ACT

~ Attempted passage of USA PATRIOT ACT II allowing for immediate stripping of a citizen's citizenship. 

~ Extradition treaties signed with most countries. No where to run. 

~ Creation of Global Trade Tribunals which can ignore Constitutional law under treaty power, thereby, bypassing the people and US law. 

              ~NAFTA

              ~AFTA

              ~CAFTA

              ~TPP (Transpacific Partnership) on its way. 

~ U.S. hiring private security forces (mercenaries). Blackwater/Xe/Academi

~ Misuse of the National Guard overseas.

~ Assassinations of American citizens overseas w/o even a semblance of a trial. 

~ Legislation proposed to put women in jail for miscarriages.

~ People arrested/investigated for child pornography for posting non-suggestive, family photos of shirtless kids on a social site (usually Facebook where people generally know everyone on their list).

~ Total Information Awareness act (spying on Americans), caught and Congressionally ordered to end under DARPA, reactivated under ARDA.

~ Blatant Bush era admission of a secret, unelected "shadow government." 

~ Red light cameras (Statistically proven to increase the # of accidents) administered by private corporations. (24 hour surveillance)

~ Drones being used by private and public organizations within U.S.

~ Corporations/business moving to have control over employees' lives when not at work. Movement in corporations favor.

~ FOX News

~ Voter ID laws (Arguably a poll tax.)

~ More movement for a national ID

~ In most states it's now a misdemeanor not to have a photo ID if over a certain age. (Don't worry. Bar codes will take care of it.)

~ Facial recognition software and government network of publicly and privately owned cameras. (24 hour surveillance) 

~Remote-activated GPS trackers in all cell phones. 

~ RFID microchips. They aren't electronic. In your credit cards. Reported by NSA source in blowers at airport security checks. They're so small they don't wash out. Readers can be put anywhere. (James Bond? Nope.)

~ Corporations (Wal-Mart) "asking" managers to have RFID chips implanted in their wrists. 

~ Built-in webcams that can be remotely-activated. 

~ Social Security numbers posted online by the government. (SS cards used to say, "Not to be used as identification.")

~ PRISM (administered by NSA which is forbidden to operate domestically)

_________________________________________________________

This isn't even a start to a complete list of the totalitarian laws that are being passed in this country daily and the mindset shift of the American public that says it's all okay. Most of these, if mentioned to an average person from the early 80s, would have been perceived as egregious or invented. This small list of things off the top of my head is enough to demonstrate the totalitarian drift we are experiencing. 

Today, we are told about a large-scale spying program, aka EXACTLY what the Founders attempted to insulate us from, and a large portion of the population makes excuses for it. People were told that the state in 1984 was BAD right? Or do they need rats gnawing off their faces before it sinks in.

These infringements are not partisan. They are being enacted by both parties (yes, more so by the Right Wing which is why it's called the Right Wing). President Obama is just as guilty of it as any other president since Reagan (and, no, that doesn't make it okay. Pull your nose out of his ass already). Does he feel he has no choice? Maybe. But he's the president, not a child. Just think. He supports #TPP. The Transpacific Partnership makes NAFTA and CAFTA look benign.

This is a trend towards fascistic totalitarianism, yes, Big Brother, and those who are blindly supporting it because of political affiliation or ego today will be turning you in to whatever authority exists tomorrow. 

[gilchristwhitedale]

Anarchism "assumes that the burden of proof for anyone in a position of power and authority lies on them," explains Chomsky.

Noam Chomsky: The Kind of Anarchism I Believe in, and What's Wrong with Libertarians

Anarchism "assumes that the burden of proof for anyone in a position of power and authority lies on them," explains Chomsky.

May 28, 2013  |  

        The following is the adapted text of an interview that first appeared in Modern Success magazine.

So many things have been written about, and discussed by, Professor Chomsky, it was a challenge to think of anything new to ask him:  like the grandparent you can’t think of what to get for Christmas because they already have everything.

So I chose to be a bit selfish and ask him what I’ve always wanted to ask him.  As an out-spoken, actual, live-and-breathing anarchist, I wanted to know how he could align himself with such a controversial and marginal position.

Michael S. Wilson: You are, among many other things, a self-described anarchist — an anarcho-syndicalist, specifically.  Most people think of anarchists as disenfranchised punks throwing rocks at store windows, or masked men tossing ball-shaped bombs at fat industrialists.  Is this an accurate view?  What is anarchy to you?

Noam Chomsky: Well, anarchism is, in my view, basically a kind of tendency in human thought which shows up in different forms in different circumstances, and has some leading characteristics.  Primarily it is a tendency that is suspicious and skeptical of domination, authority, and hierarchy.  It seeks structures of hierarchy and domination in human life over the whole range, extending from, say, patriarchal families to, say, imperial systems, and it asks whether those systems are justified.  It assumes that the burden of proof for anyone in a position of power and authority lies on them.  Their authority is not self-justifying.  They have to give a reason for it, a justification.  And if they can’t justify that authority and power and control, which is the usual case, then the authority ought to be dismantled and replaced by something more free and just.  And, as I understand it, anarchy is just that tendency.  It takes different forms at different times. Anarcho-syndicalism is a particular variety of anarchism which was concerned primarily, though not solely, but primarily with control over work, over the work place, over production.  It took for granted that working people ought to control their own work, its conditions, [that] they ought to control the enterprises in which they work, along with communities, so they should be associated with one another in free associations, and … democracy of that kind should be the foundational elements of a more general free society.  And then, you know, ideas are worked out about how exactly that should manifest itself, but I think that is the core of anarcho-syndicalist thinking.  I mean it’s not at all the general image that you described — people running around the streets, you know, breaking store windows — but [anarcho-syndicalism] is a conception of a very organized society, but organized from below by direct participation at every level, with as little control and domination as is feasible, maybe none.  Wilson: With the apparent ongoing demise of the capitalist state, many people are looking at other ways to be successful, to run their lives, and I’m wondering what you would say anarchy and syndicalism have to offer, things that others ideas — say, for example, state-run socialism — have failed to offer?  Why should we choose anarchy, as opposed to, say, libertarianism?  Chomsky: Well what’s called libertarian in the United States, which is a special U. S. phenomenon, it doesn’t really exist anywhere else — a little bit in England — permits a very high level of authority and domination but in the hands of private power:  so private power should be unleashed to do whatever it likes.  The assumption is that by some kind of magic, concentrated private power will lead to a more free and just society.  Actually that has been believed in the past.  Adam Smith for example, one of his main arguments for markets was the claim that under conditions of perfect liberty, markets would lead to perfect equality.  Well, we don’t have to talk about that!  That kind of —  Wilson:  It seems to be a continuing contention today … Chomsky: Yes, and so well that kind of libertarianism, in my view, in the current world, is just a call for some of the worst kinds of tyranny, namely unaccountable private tyranny.  Anarchism is quite different from that.  It calls for an elimination to tyranny, all kinds of tyranny.  Including the kind of tyranny that’s internal to private power concentrations.  So why should we prefer it?  Well I think because freedom is better than subordination.  It’s better to be free than to be a slave.  Its’ better to be able to make your own decisions than to have someone else make decisions and force you to observe them.  I mean, I don’t think you really need an argument for that.  It seems like … transparent. The thing you need an argument for, and should give an argument for, is, How can we best proceed in that direction?  And there are lots of ways within the current society.  One way, incidentally,  is through use of the state, to the extent that it is democratically controlled.  I mean in the long run, anarchists would like to see the state eliminated.  But it exists, alongside of private power, and the state is, at least to a certain extent, under public influence and control — could be much more so.  And it provides devices to constrain the much more dangerous forces of private power.  Rules for safety and health in the workplace for example.  Or insuring  that people have decent health care, let’s say.  Many other things like that.  They’re not going to come about through private power.  Quite the contrary.  But they can come about through the use of the state system under limited democratic control … to carry forward reformist measures.  I think those are fine things to do. they should be looking forward to something much more, much beyond, — namely actual, much larger-scale democratization.  And that’s possible to not only think about, but to work on.  So one of the leading anarchist thinkers, Bakunin in the 19th cent, pointed out that it’s quite possible to build the institutions of a future society within the present one.  And he was thinking about far more autocratic societies than ours.  And that’s being done.  So for example, worker- and community- controlled enterprises are germs of a future society within the present one.  And those not only can be developed, but are being developed.  There’s some important work on this by Gar Alperovitz who’s involved in the enterprise systems around the Cleveland area which are worker and community controlled.  There’s a lot of theoretical discussion of how it might work out, from various sources.  Some of the most worked out ideas are in what’s called the “parecon” — participatory economics — literature and discussions.  And there are others.  These are at the planning and thinking level.  And at the practical implementation level, there are steps that can be taken, while also pressing to overcome the worst … the major harms … caused by … concentration of private power through the use of state system, as long as the current system exists.  So there’s no shortage of means to pursue. As for state socialism, depends what one means by the term.  If it’s tyranny of the Bolshevik variety (and its descendants), we need not tarry on it.  If it’s a more expanded social democratic state, then the comments above apply.  If something else, then what?  Will it place decision-making in the hands of working people and communities, or in hands of some authority?  If the latter, then — once again — freedom is better than subjugation, and the latter carries a very heavy burden of justification.  Wilson::  Many people know you because of your and Edward Herman’s development of the Propaganda Model.  Could you briefly describe that model and why it might be important to [college] students? Chomsky: Well first look back a bit — a little historical framework — back in the late 19th-, early 20th century, a good deal of freedom had been won in some societies.  At the peak of this were in fact the United States and Britain.  By no means free societies, but by comparative standards quite advanced in this respect.  In fact so advanced, that power systems — state and private — began to recognize that things were getting to a point where they can’t control the population by force as easily as before, so they are going to have to turn to other means of control.  And the other means of control are control of beliefs and attitudes.  And out of that grew the public relations industry, which in those days described itself honestly as an industry of propaganda. The guru of the PR industry, Edward Bernays — incidentally, not a reactionary, but a Wilson-Roosevelt-Kennedy liberal — the maiden handbook of the PR industry which he wrote back in the 1920s was calledPropaganda.  And in it he described, correctly, the goal of the industry.  He said our goal is to insure that the “intelligent minority” — and of course anyone who writes about these things is part of that intelligent minority by definition, by stipulation, so we, the intelligent minority, are the only people capable of running things, and there’s that great population out there, the “unwashed masses,” who, if they’re left alone will just get into trouble:  so we have to, as he put it, “engineer their consent,” figure out ways to insure they consent to our rule and domination.  And that’s the goal of the PR industry.  And it works in many ways.  It’s primary commitment is commercial advertising.  In fact, Bernays made his name right at that time — late 20s — by running an advertising campaign to convince women to smoke cigarettes:  women weren’t smoking cigarettes, this big group of people who the tobacco industry isn’t able to kill, so we’ve got to do something about that.  And he very successfully ran campaigns that induced women to smoke cigarettes:  that would be, in modern terms, the cool thing to do, you know, that’s the way you get to be a modern, liberated woman.  It was very successful — Wilson:  Is there a correlation between that campaign and what’s happening with the big oil industry right now and climate change? Chomsky: These are just a few examples.  These are the origins of what became a huge industry of controlling attitudes and opinions.  Now the oil industry today, and in fact the business world generally, are engaged in comparable campaigns to try to undermine efforts to deal with a problem that’s even greater than the mass murder that was caused by the tobacco industry; and it was mass murder.  We are facing a threat, a serious threat, of catastrophic climate change.  And it’s no joke.  And [the oil industry is] trying to impede measures to deal with it for their own short-term profit interests.  And that includes not only the petroleum industry, but the American Chamber of Commerce — the leading business lobby — and others, who’ve stated quite openly that they’re conducting … they don’t call it propaganda … but what would amount to propaganda campaigns to convince people that there’s no real danger and we shouldn’t really do much about it, and that we should concentrate on really important things like the deficit and economic growth — what they call ‘growth’ — and not worry about the fact that the human species is marching over a cliff which could be something like [human] species destruction; or at least the destruction of the possibility of a decent life for huge numbers of people.  And there are many other correlations. In fact quite generally, commercial advertising is fundamentally an effort to undermine markets.  We should recognize that.  If you’ve taken an economics course, you know that markets are supposed to be based on informed consumers making rational choices.  You take a look at the first ad you see on television and ask yourself … is that it’s purpose?  No it’s not.  It’s to create uninformed consumers making irrational choices.  And these same institutions run political campaigns.  It’s pretty much the same:  you have to undermine democracy by trying to get uninformed people to make irrational choices.  And so this is only one aspect of the PR industry.  What Herman and I were discussing was another aspect of the whole propaganda system that developed roughly at that period, and that’s “manufacture of consent,” as it was called, [consent] to the decisions of our political leaders, or the leaders of the private economy, to try to insure that people have the right beliefs and don’t try to comprehend the way decisions are being made that may not only harm them, but harm many others.  That’s propaganda in the normal sense.  And so we were talking about mass media, and the intellectual community of the world in general, which is to a large extent dedicated to this.  Not that people see themselves as propagandists, but … that they are themselves deeply indoctrinated into the principles of the system, which prevent them from perceiving many things that are really right on the surface, [things] that would be subversive to power if understood.  We give plenty of examples there and there’s plenty more you can mention up to the present moment, crucial ones in fact.  That’s a large part of a general system of indoctrination and control that runs parallel to controlling attitudes and … consumeristic commitments, and other devices to control people. You mentioned students before.  Well one of the main problems for students today — a huge problem — is sky-rocketing tuitions.  Why do we have tuitions that are completely out-of-line with other countries, even with our own history?  In the 1950s the United States was a much poorer country than it is today, and yet higher education was … pretty much free, or low fees or no fees for huge numbers of people.  There hasn’t been an economic change that’s made it necessary, now, to have very high tuitions, far more than when we were a poor country.  And to drive the point home even more clearly, if we look just across the borders, Mexico is a poor country yet has a good educational system with free tuition.  There was an effort by the Mexican state to raise tuition, maybe some 15 years ago or so, and there was a national student strike which had a lot of popular support, and the government backed down.  Now that’s just happened recently in Quebec, on our other border.  Go across the ocean:  Germany is a rich country.  Free tuition.  Finland has the highest-ranked education system in the world.  Free … virtually free.  So I don’t think you can give an argument that there are economic necessities behind the incredibly high increase in tuition.  I think these are social and economic decisions made by the people who set policy.  And [these hikes] are part of, in my view, part of a backlash that developed in the 1970s against the liberatory tendencies of the 1960s.  Students became much freer, more open, they were pressing for opposition to the war, for civil rights, women’s rights … and the country just got too free. In fact, liberal intellectuals condemned this, called it a “crisis of democracy:”  we’ve got to have more moderation of democracy.   They called, literally, for more commitment to indoctrination of the young, their phrase … we have to make sure that the institutions responsible for the indoctrination of the young do their work, so we don’t have all this freedom and independence.  And many developments took place after that.  I don’t think we have enough direct documentation to prove causal relations, but you can see what happened.  One of the things that happened was controlling students — in fact, controlling students for the rest of their lives, by simply trapping them in debt.  That’s a very effective technique of control and indoctrination.  And I suspect — I can’t prove — but I suspect that that’s a large part of the reason behind [high tuitions].  Many other parallel things happened.  The whole economy changed in significant ways to concentrate power, to undermine workers’ rights and freedom.  In fact the economist who chaired the Federal Reserve around the Clinton years, Alan Greenspan — St. Alan as he was called then, the great genius of the economics profession who was running the economy, highly honored — he testified proudly before congress that the basis for the great economy that he was running was what he called “growing worker insecurity.”  If workers are more insecure, they won’t do things, like asking for better wages and better benefits.  And that’s healthy for the economy from a certain point of view, a point of view that says workers ought to be oppressed and controlled, and that wealth ought to be concentrated in a very few pockets.  So yeah, that’s a healthy economy, and we need growing worker insecurity, and we need growing student insecurity, for similar reasons.  I think all of these things line up together as part of a general reaction — a bipartisan reaction, incidentally — against liberatory tendencies which manifested themselves in the 60s and have continued since.  Wilson:  [Finally, ]I’m wondering if you could [end with some advice for today's college students]. Chomsky: There are plenty of problems in the world today, and students face a number of them, including the ones I mentioned — the joblessness, insecurity and so on.  Yet on the other hand, there has been progress.  In a lot of respects things are a lot more free and advanced than they were … not many years ago.  So many things that were really matters of struggle, in fact even some barely even mentionable, say, in the 1960s, are now … partially resolved.  Things like women’s rights.  Gay rights.  Opposition to aggression.  Concern for the environment — which is nowhere near where it ought to be, but far beyond the 1960s.  These victories for freedom didn’t come from gifts from above.  They came from people struggling under conditions that are harsher than they are now.   There is state repression now.  But it doesn’t begin to compare with, say, Cointelpro in the 1960s.  People that don’t know about that ought to read and think to find out.  And that leaves lots of opportunities.  Students, you know, are relatively privileged as compared with the rest of the population.  They are also in a period of their lives where they are relatively free.  Well that provides for all sorts of opportunities.  In the past, such opportunities have been taken by students who have often been in the forefront of progressive change, and they have many more opportunities now.  It’s never going to be easy.  There’s going to be repression.  There’s going to be backlash.  But that’s the way society moves forward.

[gilchristwhitedale]

I'm confused. I thought people on the "Left" were smarter than this. How many times can someone draw a false equivalency without realizing it?

How hard it is to figure out that:

1) Not everyone who calls him/herself by a certain label exemplifies that label. The RW calls itself "patriotic." So what? It isn't by any rationale, contextualized definition of the term. Many people may call themselves "liberal" who are just as reactionary as anyone on the Right, which, by definition, makes them reactionaries, not liberals. Yes, The Progressive, a person who is pro-drone strikes cannot rationally call him or herself a "liberal" on that issue. The article also seems to completely ignore  the distinction between "liberals" and "Democrats." Not all liberals are Democrats and not all (or most) Democrats are liberals. It also seems to presume that Bill Maher fans are: 1) all liberals, and 2) all agree with whatever he says.  

2) Not every individual can be neatly categorized on every issue. Yes. Bill Maher has a problem with Muslims. Bill Maher does overgeneralize on that issue and can be criticized for his views on that issue in numerous ways. However, to generalize that criticism into an ad hominem attack on "liberals" (the "Evangelical Left") is not only intellectually dishonest but seems to be an act guilty of the charge being leveled; a strain of the "libertarian" trend to pretend to be aloof and objective in order to develop a straw man argument and/or false equivalency. Context matters and the article indiscriminately changes contexts.  

3) Obama is not and never was a liberal. The Progressive is now propagating an insidious distortion of reality. What today would be called "liberal" (PBO, most MSNBC programming, Elizabeth Warren, etc.) would have been called "centrist" (or even center-right) yesterday. The Right Wing and its media flunkies have, once again, managed to define the frame, in this case where the "center" lies. Today anything even resembling a moderate, common-sense approach is deemed "liberal." While I imagine most liberals would agree with the characterization of liberal ideas as commonsensical ideas, the ideas being posited, as stated in the article, are decidedly devoid of any leftist idealism. Even Elizabeth Warren, who may be a far left liberal isn't pushing anything "liberal," but rationale, moderate, and centrist (even conservative by the true meaning of the word). It merely sounds extremist because Washington is dominated by Right Wing memes. When the Progressive classifies all Obama supporters as the "Left," it stretches credulity. It's like calling Alan Grayson a fascist.     

In short, I would agree that those who defend things like Obama's civil liberties record are hypocritical if they call themselves liberals. But I would argue they are not liberals, at least on that issue. They are the center, which today is probably more accurately defined as the center-right or, as the Right and apparently The Progressive would disingenuously call it, the "Loony Left."

[gilchristwhitedale]

Workers in the service industry have taken action against their large employers, conducting walk out strikes in six cities, the latest on Tuesday in Washington, DC. Fast food workers are now also speaking out about the abuses they say they have experienced on the job. A new Tumblr that started on May 14 called “fast [...]

This type of corporate abuse is rampant in the US. Moreover, corporatists/fascists on Capitol Hill and all over want to make it worse. When corporatists read Dickens they think, "What a good idea."  So how do we change it? 

The strikes engaged in by Walmart and fast food workers is a start, but it will hardly make a dent in the minds of the pro-business ingrates who occupy Congress (and the White House). Their mantra has always been, "Anything for a buck." We NEED the public to get informed and STOP patronizing these places and, most importantly, TELL these places they're being passed over because of the treatment of their employees. 

People need to understand that the average US "entrepreneur" thinks of the Robber Barons as role models, not the greedy, resource-monopolizing thugs they were (and are). If they could achieve it, minimum wage in this country would not exist. They argue "the market" will set a fair wage. Really? Three cents an hour, maybe? When large sectors of the population have no way to bargain and large sectors of industry (such as fast food) are essentially colluding in their workplace practices, there MUST be regulation.  

These "business people" look to Beijing and Bangladesh and don't shake their heads at the workplace atrocities, environmental destruction, etc. They see it as the logical way to maximize profits and lobby HARD to change the US into those places.

Boycott. Pressure. Campaign. 

[gilchristwhitedale]

Jan Brewer, liberal hero? The Republican Governor of Arizona—traditionally no friend to the left—has pledged to veto every bill that lands on her desk until her fellow Republicans agree to implement the Medicaid expansion in Obamacare. Yesterday, she made good on the threat, vetoing five bills in quick succession and repeating demands that Republicans in the state house approve the expansion.  A local wing of the GOP is putting enormous pressure on Republican state legislators to oppose the expansion, which would provide coverage to an estimated 50,000 low-income Arizonans. (Photo credit: AP)  source

[gilchristwhitedale]

I originally posted the following exposé in February, 2011 a few months before Occupy Wall Street was officially launched. Since then, Robert Greenwald has released "Koch Brothers Exposed" ...

[gilchristwhitedale]

Republican Party of Virginia Treasurer Bob FitzSimmonds, a former aide to and “very close friend” of gubernatorial nominee Ken Cuccinelli II (R), told Virginia blogger Ben Tribbett that he is “not a big fan of contraception, frankly.” FitzSimmonds — who was Cuccinelli’s legislative director during his time in the Virginia Senate, as well as a [...]

I'm sure this creep also thinks that he has a right to force his incredibly stupid/ignorant views on everyone else and believes everyone else is forcing their views on him. Yes, Bob, I'm absolutely sure someone made you swallow a handful of morning after pills today. 

Mr. Fitzsimmonds is indicative of the mental disorder concerning property that affects all #GOP and many other Americans. He sees EVERYTHING as belonging to him. Notice his Twitter page and the stress of the word "my." He even thinks he owns the deity he follows. His real issue is that he doesn't want HIS daughter (or HIS imagined daughter) to do anything without HIS consent; don't think or act for herself. This is what causes atrophy of the decision-making portion of the frontal lobe with which so many RWers are afflicted. 

The worst part of this is (as usual with GOPers) he has a little (more than likely emotionally stunted) wifey enabling his ignorance and giving him children. This is exactly the type of person who not only SHOULD have used contraception, but used it EVERY time! 

Stupid, stupid, arrogant man.

Oh and by the way. Where did Bob get his facts on Sex-ed? He made them up, substituting opinion for fact, the old GOP trademark.  

[gilchristwhitedale]

#PoliceState Tim DeChristopher tells why he spent nearly two years in prison in the name of environmental justice, and Gretchen Morgenson discusses how banks are still too big to fail and too big to trust.

[gilchristwhitedale]

This isn't about protecting children; the same groups that don't support choice also don't support programs for the poor, which many children of rape are.

[gilchristwhitedale]

via Juan Cole