Insidious capitalism

Anyone who has read any portion of this blog knows I advocate strongly for information transparency. Net neutrality is essential to information transparency. Lee Fang has an article up at The Intercept about how telecoms have 'invested' (capitalist speak) in civil rights groups to persuade them to lobby against their larger interests against net neutrality.

This is another example of the power of the elite to push the economic narrative to their advantage (and profit). It is also more evidence of the importance of information. The power of the elite is derived directly and indirectly from the information they control. To free ourselves of their influence, we must have free access to all this information. Without net neutrality, telecoms control much of our information infrastructure.

Transparency over banning

My comment at a Truthout.org article: Gene Drives: A Scientific Case for a Complete and Perpetual Ban which proposes banning gene drives 'techniques to promote the inheritance of specific alleles':

Broadly speaking, the scale, scope and range of human economically driven activity has extended beyond the containment of normal (non-human) geophysical, geochemical or biological systems. The only hope for containment is other human activity. When most of the human decision making (various forms of consumption) is directed by profit making business interests, controlling information is key. Consumers are told consumption will make them happy and the planet is good and dandy (more profits for business!). If consumers actually understood the unknowns and risks of their consumption (less profit for business), we would all be living in a far different world.

When the disposition of privately owned information is enforced by the power of the state, it's not difficult to control its dissemination. When all information is publicly owned, it becomes very difficult to apply it in secret.

Update: same post

Someone commented: I still haven't read any evidence of actual harm. Only potential, theoretical harm. Did I miss something?

I responded:

The impact of an asteroid caused the extinction of dinosaurs. The outcome of such an event could not be tested prior to it happening. It was possible that the asteroid would break up into chunks and disintegrate into smaller less destructive meteors but as it happens, that natural experiment resulted in the mass extinction of the majority of the plant and animal species on earth. Climate change is an anthropogenic global scale experiment with a potential outcome on a similar scale for humans and the environment. The risk of gene drive technology is unknown and may fall into a similar scale. In theory, a large asteroid impact (or climate change or gene drive or any novel chemical(s)) could do minimal damage, in fact, it has the potential to do immense damage.

If you chose to expose yourself to the risk, please contain its effect to yourself and do not place anyone else at risk.

Repeat

Sorry for the repost. This is a record of another Truthout comment. They seem to be censoring me...

Truthout may be censoring my comments. I wrote this in response to another post but much of it is relevant here - terms have been adjusted to reflect this. It has been on 'pending' status for close to three business hours at this point... 

The media is not fully at fault here. Nor, for that matter, is fault at the foot of the First Amendment. The problem is the concentration of power. Concentration of economic power => concentration of political power => continuous feedback to increase power concentration (greater media consolidation) => fewer media voices/viewpoints. This is the step wise consequence of the elite doing everything they can to increase their power. In 'open' economies and countries, the elite are the capitalists (in modern parlance, corporatists); in China, the elite are generally members of the Central Committee; in Russia, Putin confers 'elite' status. 

The solutions offered by progressives, return to greater media regulation, primarily through government programs/policy, are short term fixes. They want to shift power to a (slightly) different set of elites while keeping structures of power (government & corporations) intact. This sets up a situation where the 'losing' elites will use the system to regain their lost advantages. That's the entire story of the Republican effort to reverse the New Deal. 

The real solution is to fully disseminate power to every citizen and individual. And the key to that is to maximize transparency so information is freely available. The elites have power because they control information. If their hold on information is taken away, neither they nor anyone else will be able to concentrate power in the future. From a media perspective, this translates to: all means of disseminating information should be essentially free. 

Warning to readers: Truthout may be censoring the content of allowed comments. In the more than 1 hour since writing this post, another comment has been written, approved and posted. This brings to question the 'journalistic' integrity of this institution. Bear in mind some issue I brought up elsewhere:
My comment at a piece Lewis Wallace wrote called 'Objectivity is dead, and I’m okay with it':
In no particular order:
1. Textbooks are carefully vetted for their content. In recent years, there have been any number of partisan battles to rewrite a historical bent but these seldom occur in backrooms. This means what schoolchildren learn has undergone some degree of scrutiny. The information available to adults by way of media does not undergo an equivalent degree of scrutiny for accuracy; in fact, it is legal for media to outright lie. This placed the burden of critical evaluation on consumers who more often than not, do not have the wherewithal to carry out that responsibility. ‘You decide’ is by definition, not journalism. I am not knowledgeable of most topics, I need knowledgeable journalists to accurately *and* pointedly highlight lies, mis-directions and distortions.
2. Today’s news in tomorrow’s historical record. Consider how little we know about the past (very little is known about lives of slaves, women and poor) because only white male voices were recorded, often silenced by deliberately and maliciously enforced illiteracy. There’s is no excuse or justification for that in this day and age of near universal literacy and vast mechanisms of information dissemination.
3. Some examples of false binaries that the media promulgates by never deviating beyond their boundaries: (a.) Political ideology is not fully covered by the Democratic Party’s definition of ‘liberal’ and the Republican Party’s definition of ‘conservative’. Alternate models of organizing health insurance (user pays vs single payer) or childcare (private vs. state subsidized) or criminal justice (reform/punitive) for example. (b.) Social gender is not biologically defined by sex; neither is biological sex always clear cut. All issues related to sexual identity and sexuality. (c.) Socialism is always public and capitalism is always private. Private insurance providers run by socialist principles; publicly owned utilities operate much like capitalist corporations.
4. What it means to be ‘objective’ or ‘neutrality’, journalistically speaking? (a.) to not insert any voice outside of the news item — journalism by stenography or “ ‘you decide’ journalism”; (b.) insert ‘opposite’ voice of news item — journalism as sports commentary; (c.) insert corrections of specifically mentioned lies; (d.) insert relevant factual context — for example, “…the millions of dollars mentioned by the Senator lost to fraud accounts for less than 1% of the overall program.”; (e) insert long term context — future cost/savings; past injustices.
Your essay was couched primarily in terms of journalistic integrity; it’s critical to also include the responsibility journalism has to public and social integrity.

China is not responsible for U.S. decline

It seems that Truthout.org maybe censoring their comments section. This is a comment I am attempting to post here. We will see if it passes muster.

China is not to blame for the declining working class. Nor, for that matter, is capitalism at fault. The problem is the concentration of power. Concentration of economic power => concentration of political power => continuous feedback to increase power concentration => greater feeding on labor of workers => increasing the numbers of workers to feed the power hungry => globalization. The shift of manufacturing jobs overseas is the step wise consequence of the elite doing everything they can to increase their power. In capitalistic economies, the elite are the capitalists (in modern parlance, corporatists); in China, the elite are generally members of the Central Committee; in Russia, Putin confers 'elite' status. 

The solutions offered by progressives, more equitable wealth redistribution, primarily through government programs/policy, are short term fixes. They want to shift power to a (slightly) different set of elites while keeping structures of power (government & corporations) intact. This sets up a situation where the 'losing' elites will use the system to regain their lost advantages. That's the entire story of the republican effort to reverse the New Deal.  

The real solution is to fully disseminate power to every citizen and individual. And the key to that is to maximize transparency so information is freely available. The elites have power because they control information. If their hold on information is taken away, neither they nor anyone else will be able to concentrate power in the future.

Note: Truthout does seem to be censoring content/concepts and not  language/tone. It has been more than 1 hour and my comment has yet to be posted. Within that time, another comment has been written and posted. This is a sign of highly questionable journalistic integrity. The comment above is not rude nor combative in tone; it challenges the status quo and that is scary.

Note: It's been over 21 hours and at this point, this is censorship. Few readers will read articles days after posting, much less follow comments.

Note: After three days, Truthout posted my comment. They responded to my email query and said the delay had to do with a a updated word filter that picked up 'feedback' as possible expletive. I rarely use expletives. The English language is rich enough that there are plenty of ways to express expletive worthy emotions.

Update: As it turns out, Truthout.org has not changed its comment policy. They had a filter in place that disliked the word 'feedback' because it starts with 'f' and ends with 'ck'. My comment was posted days after it was submitted.

What is Journalism?

My comment at a piece Lewis Wallace wrote called Objectivity is dead, and I’m okay with it:

In no particular order: 

    1.    Textbooks are carefully vetted for their content. In recent years, there have been any number of partisan battles to rewrite a historical bent but these seldom occur in backrooms. This means what schoolchildren learn has undergone some degree of scrutiny. The information available to adults by way of media does not undergo an equivalent degree of scrutiny for accuracy; in fact, it is legal for media to outright lie. This placed the burden of critical evaluation on consumers who more often than not, do not have the wherewithal to carry out that responsibility. ‘You decide’ is by definition, not journalism. I am not knowledgeable of most topics, I need knowledgeable journalists to accurately *and* pointedly highlight lies, mis-directions and distortions. 

    2.    Today’s news in tomorrow’s historical record. Consider how little we know about the past (very little is known about lives of slaves, women and poor) because only white male voices were recorded, often silenced by deliberately and maliciously enforced illiteracy. There’s is no excuse or justification for that in this day and age of near universal literacy and vast mechanisms of information dissemination. 

    3.    Some examples of false binaries that the media promulgates by never deviating beyond their boundaries: (a.) Political ideology is not fully covered by the Democratic Party’s definition of ‘liberal’ and the Republican Party’s definition of ‘conservative’. Alternate models of organizing health insurance (user pays vs single payer) or childcare (private vs. state subsidized) or criminal justice (reform/punitive) for example. (b.) Social gender is not biologically defined by sex; neither is biological sex always clear cut. All issues related to sexual identity and sexuality. (c.) Socialism is always public and capitalism is always private. Private insurance providers run by socialist principles; publicly owned utilities operate much like capitalist corporations. 

    4.     What it means to be ‘objective’ or ‘neutrality’, journalistically speaking? (a.) to not insert any voice outside of the news item — journalism by stenography or “ ‘you decide’ journalism”; (b.) insert ‘opposite’ voice of news item — journalism as sports commentary; (c.) insert corrections of specifically mentioned lies; (d.) insert relevant factual context — for example, “…the millions of dollars mentioned by the Senator lost to fraud accounts for less than 1% of the overall program.”; (e) insert long term context — future cost/savings; past injustices. 

Your essay was couched primarily in terms of journalistic integrity; it’s critical to also include the responsibility journalism has to public and social integrity.

He was fired for posting his piece. I hope things work out well for him. We need journalists of his caliber.

Not only right wing media

Comment posted at Crooks&Liars:

Stoking fear and resentment is the major source of division in the U.S. body politic. Racism, immigrant bashing, religiosity, bigotry, homophobia/transphobia, feminism/abortion/reproductive issues etc. can be seen as propaganda. They are social definitions that divide people into 'in' and 'out' groups. When you are distracted fighting your 'out' group, you don't notice when the government changes/enacts/enforces dry policy that takes from you and gives to the rich. Right wing media excels at marketing fear but the rest of the media supports divisive culture/political distinctions with its constant emphasis on conflict.

When to 'extremely vett'

Over 1200 people in the U.S. died by gun violence in 2016. Compared that to the number killed by regugees, zero.  [There may not be statistics on how many of the gun deaths are due to immigrants. At the behest of the gun lobby, the government bans funding research on gun violence.]

My critical thinking would suggest the people who most need to be vetted are gun buyers and not refugees.


Addendum - I forgot to mention the individual in greatest need of extreme vetting... I comment I left at Crooks&Liars:

Seconded! [respnse to 'I demand extreme vetting of Trump's cabinet picks!']  And I call for extreme vetting of POTUS DJT. From his health to tax records to business dealings and anything which may become a conflict of interest. If refugees fleeing with little other than what they carry are subject to extreme vetting, surely it is only just to demand the same of the 'Executive Order' signer-in-chief.