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qqueenofhades · 1 year

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I've been hearing some deeply worrying things about 4 surveillance/censorship bills: https:// www.badinternetbills .com/

From what I've been able to gather online, these bills (the Kids Online Safety Act, EARN IT Act, STOP CSAM Act and RESTRICT Act) all proclaims to be about protecting children online, but the evidence I've seen from various articles highlights that they all share the same serious flaws of being too overly broad and vague, with various stipulations and elements that would actually not only fail to protect children, but also outright lead to incredibly invasive censorship.

There's even been an explicit admission from far right wing groups like the Heritage Foundation and the Family Research Council that they actively plan to use the first bill (and likely the others) to silence LGBT media online.

They outright stated as such here:

https:// www.heritage.org /gender/commentary/how-big-tech-turns-kids-trans

https:// twitter.com /ButNotTheCity/status/1661560827164471296

The first two are supported by a religious fundamentalist group who used to go by Morality in Media.

And the first three bills have massive bipartisan support, with EARN IT and STOP CSAM already on the calendar to be heard in the Senate, and significant celebrity support for the first bill.

IIRC, SESTA/FOSTA also had similar results akin to KOSA, and that turned out to be a disaster.

...I can't help but be extremely worried, because any reaction to these bills has been lukewarm and lacking, with barely any significant pushback.

Basically yeah, this is what I mean when I say that regulating social media is currently almost impossible in a useful and productive way. Both left and right will talk about "protecting children online," which in my opinion is a bullshit metric anyway because it's a) so wildly unspecific and b) usually means OH NO A CHILD MIGHT SEE TITTIES moral panic, rather than actually addressing the violent extremist/far right/Nazi/other types of terrorist content that is far more of a threat. The right wing wants to use it to demonize LGBTQ content, because that's their goal with literally everything right now. The left is caught between a rock and a hard place where they want to regulate and/or punish Big Tech for all that casual democracy-destroying-for-profit that they've been doing, but haven't figured out how to apply that effectively, get it passed, or otherwise achieve the desired results. So they end up signing onto these vague "Protect The Children" acts which are extremely vulnerable to being manipulated by bad actors (and are often deliberately designed by said bad actors in the first place) to look like they're addressing the problem. Which they're not. They're not getting at the tech oligarchs who actually control these platforms, they're not putting in meaningful safeguards, they're just thinking that requiring individuals to submit age verification for porn sites or whatever is somehow going to fix this. Which. It will not.

The good news here is that every few years there's a lot of alarm about some bill that's going to Break The Internet As We Know It, and while we obviously need to pay attention to those and keep abreast of what's going on, that has not actually happened yet and even fucking nightmare-city SCOTUS recently declined to dismantle or otherwise significantly overhaul Section 230, which would have opened the door to all kinds of micromanaging/policing/bad-faith lawsuits from people who scream about "Free Speech!!!" and then want to destroy it for everyone who is not them. So yes, obviously, continue to exercise your rights, contact your representatives, make sure people know what is at stake etc -- but there are good people working on this, such as the Wikipedia foundation and others, who have been battling literal DECADES of attacks on the open web and have been in this fight for the long haul. They'll be in it for this one too, so if you're exceptionally worried, I would advise you to look into foundations/organizations working on this. They have a whole lot of structure and experience, I'm sure they would welcome volunteers, and you can join the effort that's already underway, rather than trying to reinvent the wheel and build an opposition movement from scratch. So yeah.

#anonymous #ask #politics for ts

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blitzkriege37 · 14 days

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What factions do you headcanon exist post-Tragedy? There's the Future Foundation, Towa City, and the various Despairs, but I don't see anything else about how societies exists in the DanganRonpa-verse, especially with their whole fascination on the semi-supernatural Talent that sorta caused the Tragedy in the first place.

I don’t have exact factions (Mainly because I was a child in 2012, the year THH takes place), but I do have general ideas of what might some factions look like, and what generally said cliques that rose from the collapse would act towards junko. Also headcanons for how some areas might collapse and redevelop.

1.Islamists would be very present in the Middle East. That era was around the peak of ISIS, and I think the tragedy increasing radicalization would only make that worse. Speaking of religious radicalization….

2. The American right-wing “tea party” faction, would be a heavy presence in the former United States. Their cliques would vary from corporatism to outright religious theocracies. Heck, junko’s influence could’ve fanned their flames into facism, being the way the union collapsed in this timeline, akin to the US today.

3. The absolute monarchies collapse. All of them are prevalent on a central figure, ones that I have no doubt Junko would get their entire lines killed to force conflict. This would be a definite way to get an opening through infighting in Saudi Arabia and the gulf states. This also applies to NK and similar regimes.

4.Africa’s borders would be nearly completely redrawn. With the primary motivation for the borders being nobody wanting to move colonial borders, the collapse of Europe would make these borders obsolete. Whatever ethnic tension came up would fracture the post colonial states not only de jure, but de facto.

5.Any multiethnic states are almost completely rended apart. Whether it be one breakaway, or outright collapse, nations like Indonesia, Malaysia, and India would face ethnic violence.

6.Everyone gets a trade shock. The entire model of globalism in the 2010’s would be the equivalent of MAD, one junko would exploit. States like the oil states and Singapore would be hit the hardest, while states with notable sanctions (Iran,Cuba) would ironically be spared from this, although their governments would go through some things.

7.The states aligned with despair have levels in how bad they are. You have cliques who allied with despair out of convenience, and you have 77-B controlled states like Novoselic. Their brutality would vary between, although still be bad, considering the worldwide warlord era. When junko died, many of the less extreme cliques would either have their leaders commit suicide, turned to her side fully, and have less extreme people take over, or outright purge their despairite influence best they could. These states would be accepted back into the world community, to the FF chagrin.

8.There would be a notable split after everything settled somewhat. The FF would face heavy opposition from a myriad of groups, the most notable most likely being of some leftist variety, considering the oligarchic and unequal ideas of innate talent. I could see the FF contesting the very archipelago of Japan with the Japanese Communist Party. Even after post-DR3, where Makoto would definitely want to reconcile with the left, they wouldn’t be very trusting of the FF’s intentions.

9. A ton of city states. Whether they split off from a greater entity, or were forcefully ejected like Singapore, I’d expect for a lot of nations to fracture down to the city at some places.

10.And as my last one, it’s more about how the tragedy (or collapse, as it would probably be known) would be viewed. I’d say the Arab spring would be inherently tied to it, due to similar ways of organizing and wanting to overthrow established regimes. Heck, I could see more reactionary people arguing that the collapse did not begin with the tragedy, but the popular overthrow of the government of Tunisia.

Again, these are just my thoughts on the whole thing, so it’s really up to you.

#ask post #Danganronpa #danganronpa headcanons #FIRST ANON ASK LFG!!!!!

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ravenkings · 9 months

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The meddling of oligarchs and other monied interests in the fate of nations is not new. During the First World War, J. P. Morgan lent vast sums to the Allied powers; afterward, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., poured money into the fledgling League of Nations. The investor George Soros’s Open Society Foundations underwrote civil-society reform in post-Soviet Europe, and the casino mogul Sheldon Adelson funded right-wing media in Israel, as part of his support of Benjamin Netanyahu. But [Elon] Musk’s influence is more brazen and expansive. There is little precedent for a civilian’s becoming the arbiter of a war between nations in such a granular way, or for the degree of dependency that the U.S. now has on Musk in a variety of fields, from the future of energy and transportation to the exploration of space. SpaceX is currently the sole means by which NASA transports crew from U.S. soil into space, a situation that will persist for at least another year. The government’s plan to move the auto industry toward electric cars requires increasing access to charging stations along America’s highways. But this rests on the actions of another Musk enterprise, Tesla. The automaker has seeded so much of the country with its proprietary charging stations that the Biden Administration relaxed an early push for a universal charging standard disliked by Musk. His stations are eligible for billions of dollars in subsidies, so long as Tesla makes them compatible with the other charging standard. In the past twenty years, against a backdrop of crumbling infrastructure and declining trust in institutions, Musk has sought out business opportunities in crucial areas where, after decades of privatization, the state has receded. [...] In a podcast interview last year, Musk was asked whether he has more influence than the American government. He replied immediately, “In some ways.” Reid Hoffman told me that Musk’s attitude is “like Louis XIV: ‘L’état, c’est moi.’

–Ronan Farrow, "Elon Musk's Shadow Rule," The New Yorker, August 21, 2023

#ronan farrow #elon musk #article #quote

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glimpseofadaydream · 4 months

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youtube

Sooooo, I mentioned that I was watching politicians' new years speeches recently and one woman, who caught my eye a bit is the spokeswoman of the right-wing party AfD (Alice Weidel). AfD is always a bit on the brink of being unconstitutional - or at least under closer observation of our internal intelligence agencies. Pretty much like most european right-wing parties. Anyways. Why did she catch my eye?

Well, I watched the video muted, so I didn't pay much attention to the content but here are some details:

- a thoroughly done make-up but smudgy patches around the nose and lip. The make-up looks like it is inspired by german army make-up (foundation, powder, mascara) but she also wears eyeliner and some chapstick/lipstick.

- she has an absolutely insane blink rate and number of eye flutters for someone who tries to be taken seriously. A higher blink rate + eye flutters usually indicate stress, so either she's not comfortable with speaking on camera or the content that she is trying to sell stresses her out.

- Alice Weidel is part of a conservative right-wing party and commonly tries to win followers and voters by focusing on themes like nationalism or traditionalism. Hence, she often tries to portray a conservative, sophisticated woman, often mimicking an old-money-aesthetic. Her common accessories are a pearl necklace and a pocket square. Yet, it doesn't go together. She wears pearl necklaces with button-shirts and pocket squares. Common among old money folks is: pearl necklaces go with dresses or collarless shirts (usually in combination with matching pearl earrings).

Pocket squares are usually worn with suits, often with a matching tie. The upper button has to be closed, leaving the button open is considered casual wear. It is uncommon with a pocket square or even a pearl necklace.

Additionally, upperclass associates and old money folks (as well as oligarch-women) usually wear nail polish. Mostly in light colours like beige or rosé. A clear top coat is considered unsuitable, Alice Weidel's hands look like her nails aren't polished at all.

In fact, her hands look more like a working-class woman's hands.

Last but not least: her hair. It cannot be seen in the video but I looked up her hairdo in other videos. Even though her hair is fixed with hairspray to give it a bit of stability, her hairdo is relatively unsophisticated.

She might have her hair fixed in the front, yet in the back she wears a rather sloppy bun, which is very uncommon among upperclass- or blueblood-folks.

Generally, I had the impression, that A. Weidel tries to give an impression of a sophisticated upperclass woman, who stays true to her roots, yet she doesn't seem to know the rules of said people. It might be sloppyness, yet looking at the effort she tried to put into her make-up and clothes (as well as the neatly put up Christmas decoration) I would suggest it is plain manipulation.

With that being said - have a nice weekend everyone!

#Youtube

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antoine-roquentin · 4 years

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Since World War II, every two-term Republican president has been more right wing than the one before. Dwight Eisenhower was first. Then Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump. In between these five Republican presidents, there were four sets of Democratic administrations: Kennedy/Johnson, Carter, Clinton, and Obama.

Each of these Democratic administrations made key concessions to the right, and these concessions produced resentment and frustration. Kennedy/Johnson went to war in Vietnam to prove that they were just as tough and anti-communist as the Republicans. Carter appointed Paul Volcker Chairman of the Federal Reserve, and began pursuing a ruthless anti-inflation policy that drove up unemployment and laid the foundation for the neoliberal era. Clinton sliced the federal budget and attacked the welfare system. Obama signed the Budget Control Act of 2011, starving the recovery of necessary stimulus and allowing extraordinarily unequal growth.

Carter, Clinton, and Obama all oversaw increases in inequality. The top 1%’s share of income increased under all three:

Democrats promise to help us and then let the oligarchs get their way. The frustrated American has nowhere to turn but the Republican Party, and Republicans attract them by becoming steadily more nationalist and more committed to liquidating the establishment and its institutions. Ordinary rank and file Republicans hate government because they think it’s too corrupt to do any good for them. Every chance the Democrats get to prove them wrong, they fail. Worse, they reinforce the view.

When Americans vote for Republicans, they’re often voting against the consequences of the right wing policies of Democrats. Think about it:

Nixon won in part because Americans didn’t trust the Democrats to end Vietnam, a war the Democrats started because they were afraid of looking soft on communism. Of course, Nixon then escalated the Vietnam War.

Reagan won in part because Americans believed that Carter’s economic policies–the right-wing policies of Paul Volcker’s Federal Reserve–hadn’t made them better off than they were four years ago. Of course, Reagan then escalated Volcker’s war on inflation.

Bush won in part because he promised to return the surplus Clinton had accumulated through miserly right-wing budgeting to the American people via tax cuts. Bush then gave that money to rich people and spent trillions on insane vanity wars.

Trump won in part because he promised that the people who were left out of Obama’s recovery–the “forgotten people”–would be his priority. Of course, he has continued to give piles of money to rich people and to prioritise inflating the stock market over ensuring ordinary Americans can pay their bills.

It wasn’t always like this. Franklin Roosevelt forced the Republican Party to adapt to him. Before Roosevelt, the Republicans were the party of Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover. They had little regard for the government’s ability to step in and protect its citizens’ fundamental economic rights. But after Roosevelt, the Republicans became the party of Eisenhower. They became a party that was comfortable building interstate highways with public money and wouldn’t dare raise a hand to Social Security.

McCarthyism broke the domination of Roosevelt’s New Deal coalition, and with it, the ability of the Democratic Party to set the agenda. From that point forward, the Democrats have adjusted to the Republican Party, and in the process they have normalized its excesses and encouraged it to go further. Nixon was comfortable secretly bombing Cambodia because Kennedy and Johnson lied about their wars. Reagan was comfortable driving unemployment through the roof in the early 80s because Carter had already begun the experiment. Bush was comfortable cutting taxes for the rich because Clinton had given him the surplus he could use to fund it. Trump has been able to prioritise the stock market portfolios of the rich because under Obama a skewed recovery had become our new normal.

Joe Biden loves to tell us that “nothing will fundamentally change”. If nothing changes, another Democrat will normalise what Trump has done and frustrate the American people into voting for someone even more right-wing.

Look at what’s happened with Bush. He’s more popular than ever before. In the 00s, we recognised that Bush was nuts. Bush believed the God wanted him to bring peace to the Middle East by spreading democracy by the sword. That’s crazy! He killed hundreds of thousands of people and accomplished absolutely nothing.

But Barack Obama destroyed Libya in 2011. The civil war in that country continues to this day. And many of the people who recognised that Bush was nuts made excuses for that, and they made excuses for Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State who urged him to do it. They acted like it was no big deal. And now people don’t think Bush’s wars were a big deal, either. They miss him. When Obama was first elected, the American people knew Bush was a terrible president. In January of 2009, Bush had a net favorability rating of negative 19. In the summer of 2016, it was plus 9. A year after that, it was plus 22.

The experience of the Obama administration made the American people decide that George W. Bush was okay. Worse, it made Trump possible. Some Americans moved from Obama to Trump, looking once more for hope and change. Many others stopped voting, because Obama broke their confidence in our political system’s ability to help them. They believed in Obama, and Obama let the rich get richer and let the forgotten stay forgotten.

The Democrats are a big part of how we got to where we are. And if we think that the Republicans are authoritarian nationalists, it is the Democrats who have encouraged them to become that way. The ordinary American cannot look to the Democrats to resist the ravenous elite. They look to the nationalist firebrands of the right because there is nothing else on the menu. The Democratic Party is the party of the Ivy League technocrats who scorn them and tell them to “learn to code”.

Joe Biden solidifies all of this all over again. He is the embodiment of keeping things exactly the way they’ve always been. The American people have been bludgeoned for forty years by oligarchs. They can’t take it anymore. They’ll vote for anyone who promises to make it stop. If the Democrats won’t stop it, they’ll vote for someone who will. The next Republican will be worse than Trump, and Joe Biden will make it happen if given the chance.

Donald Trump Doesn’t Pose an Existential Threat to Democracy

The Democrats say we have to stop Trump because Trump is an authoritarian who poses an existential threat to democracy. But for Trump to be a dictator, he would have to stage sham elections or ignore the results of elections that are free and fair. Trump hasn’t tried to hold a sham election–he’s tried to delay one that’s free and fair, because he knows that if he loses he won’t be able to ignore the result. He hasn’t even managed to secure his delay, much less anything more than that.

Authoritarians use crises to seize power. In Hungary, Viktor Orbán used coronavirus to consolidate power around himself. But Trump responded to coronavirus by running away from decision-making responsibility. Instead, he kicked decisions to governors and mayors. Coronavirus gave Trump an opportunity to centralise power around himself, but he chose to decentralise power instead. He likes the trappings of power, but is afraid of the real deal.

Trump talks a big game about cutting trade links with countries all over the world. But his trade wars usually bring us back where we started, with trade deals that are almost indistinguishable from those that came before. His new version of NAFTA is virtually identical to the old version of NAFTA. He has tried to push jobs and investment out of China, but they’ve been sliding down the coast to Vietnam instead of returning to America. His bark is worse than his bite.

Ultimately, an authoritarian needs the backing of the military. The military has to allow the authoritarian to hold sham elections, or to ignore the results of elections that are free and fair. But America’s leading generals largely despise the president. Our intelligence services loathe him. The military remains committed to the constitution and will arrest Trump if he loses and attempts to carry on. Trump knows this, and that’s why he suggested delaying the election–he knows he could lose, and he knows that if he loses he won’t be able to keep going.

Trump has treated protesters terribly–but he’s not the first American president to do so. The Hoover administration used tanks to bulldoze the bonus army’s camp in 1932, killing two demonstrators and injuring dozens. It was a brutal and shameful act, but it wasn’t the end of American democracy:

The Democrats said Bush had an “imperial presidency“. Then Barack Obama tried to outflank congress with a series of outrageous, unconstitutional executive orders, and many of the same people cheered him on. Now when Donald Trump throws out piles of orders that are probably unconstitutional, the Democrats try to get us outraged again. But the American people are used to the president trying to get away with things. Barack Obama made it cool.

Many of Obama’s unconstitutional orders were struck down by the courts. The Democrats tell us we should be worried that Trump is packing the courts full of stooges who will approve of everything he does. But judges aren’t very predictable. Neil Gorsuch has already voted against the president’s wishes on transgender employees. John Roberts increasingly votes against the president’s wishes to protect the court’s legitimacy. Many of the court’s liberals have historically been appointed by Republicans. Earl Warren was appointed by Eisenhower. John Paul Stevens was appointed by Gerald Ford. David Souter was appointed by George H.W. Bush.

Even if Trump really does pack the court, many on the left have called for packing the judiciary or reforming its structure. In the past, they’ve suggested doing this simply because they don’t agree with the politics of the current judges–not because they believe the judges to be authoritarian. If it’s really the case that Trump manages to load the judiciary up with raving authoritarian nationalists, the judicial reforms already under consideration by the left could be used to undo the damage.

The real concern is not a president who is allied with judges–it’s an authoritarian ruler who is allied with the military. Donald Trump alienated all the leading figures in our armed forces by ignoring their advice, leaking classified information to the press, and blatantly disparaging both them and the intelligence they gathered. Because of this, they will never support any authoritarian bid emanating from him.

We need to articulate a compelling left-wing alternative to the politics of the past 40 years. When Republicans are in office, we flip out over every little thing they do. We oppose it all. People who reject the status quo come to the left and look to the left for a new way forward. But when Democrats are in office, there is no meaningful left-wing opposition. Intellectuals point out the failings of Democratic presidents, but they are derided as bad sports. People who reject the status quo are pushed toward the Republican Party, and pushed into authoritarian nationalism.

A Biden Administration Will Create a Whole New Generation of Bad Democrats

The left hopes that replacing Trump with Biden will buy the left time. But Biden will pack his administration full of a whole new generation of vulgar careerists. It will be these people–not the left–who inherit the Democratic Party when he leaves. They will have the institutional knowledge and connections and access to money that are needed for success in American politics. They will continue servicing the oligarchs. And the Republican Party will respond by growing ever more bellicose, ever more grandiose, ever more willing to tear the whole thing down. Biden will accelerate the rise of new nationalist figures who might be able to do all the things Trump can’t even dream of doing.

We can’t have that, and for that reason I can’t support Biden, even as a matter of strategy. To give the left more time, we need to give the left something to oppose. We can oppose the Trump administration in its second term. But if it’s Biden, we’ll be stuck defending him as he slugs the ordinary American in the face. The American people won’t forget the black eye we’ve given them, and they’ll vote for the leaders who will be the death of us.

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96thdayofrage · 3 years

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Sunday Funny Pages

Have you heard 'Sunday Funny Pages' by Going Rogue With Caitlin Johnstone on SoundCloud? https://soundcloud.com/going_rogue/sunday-funny-pages

BREAKING: Sources report violent right-wing extremists have seized the US Capitol, established a globe-spanning empire, and murdered millions of people.

Think tank name translation guide:

Foreign = War

Policy = Crimes

Democracy = Neoliberalism

Strategic = Murderous

International/Global = Imperialist

Relations = Domination

American = Oligarchic

Research = Indoctrination

Institution/Institute/Council/Center/Foundation/House = Propaganda Firm

Me, an idiot: It's disturbing how government-tied Silicon Valley oligarchs exert so much control over people's access to free speech.

You, a genius: It's not a free speech issue because you can still take your opinions down to Ye Olde Printing Presse and distribute them manually on horseback.

We haven't talked enough about how the US military not only lied for twenty years about their stated goals in Afghanistan nearly being accomplished, but it turns out they were also lying about doing anything during that time that could possibly have led to their stated goals being accomplished.

Seeing the "Afghan government" just melting under the Taliban after the US pretended to spend twenty years building it up is like paying someone billions of dollars to build a palace and then after twenty years checking it out and realizing the whole thing is a stage play set made of cardboard.

A military which can afford to spend trillions on a twenty-year war which accomplished literally nothing besides making horrible people wealthy is a military that needs its budget slashed to ribbons.

When your elected officials never ask "How do we solve this problem?" but rather "How do we solve this problem without upsetting rich people or warmongers?", most of the problems will necessarily remain unsolved. This is of course entirely by design, because the circumstances which created the problems were set up by and for the rich people and warmongers.

Anyone who accuses you of working for a foreign government when you criticize US imperialism is accidentally admitting that they cannot imagine any possible scenario under which someone might criticize the worst impulses of the most powerful people on earth without being paid to. They're giving you a very embarrassing insight into the way they think and live. They're telling you that they are unprincipled hacks who never question authority and only speak from within the framework of blind sycophantic loyalty.

It was a major propaganda victory for imperial narrative managers to convince people that being skeptical of any claim about a foreign government made by the US — no matter how flimsy the evidence — is the same as Holocaust denial.

The poor have all the responsibility and none of the wealth or power, and for the rich it's the exact opposite: all of the power and wealth but none of the responsibility. Nobody ever tells them "See all that plastic in the ocean? That's your fault. Fix it." They burn the world for fun and profit and face no consequences. They're a bunch of spoiled little boys with flamethrowers.

If it had just been "Let's end racism" instead of "Let's end racism by supporting horrible corporate warmongers" there'd be a lot less racism today.

Any time I talk about racial justice I get people calling it "identity politics" when it's really not; becoming conscious of racial injustices in our society isn't about promoting any political party or politician, it's about becoming conscious. But people assume that because it's been so exploited for so long.

If people weren't so acutely aware of the disgusting ways in which race and racism have been leveraged to promote the political agendas of absolutely horrible people and parties, that aversion to seeing this stuff would not be there. It doesn't take a genius to recognize phoniness, opportunism and cynicism when you see it; most people can smell it a mile away. This causes a rejection of the examination of the problem of racism which would not be there otherwise.

The fact that racism has been exploited in a way that prevents it from being healed is itself a metastasis of that same racism.

Stomp out the authentic revolutionary impulse and you're left with inauthentic revolutionary impulse. You don't kill people's impulse to rise up and push for change, you just get them doing it in weird, ridiculous, ineffective ways. Hence the pseudo left and "populist" right.

Most of the bizarre things about western politics in general and US politics in particular ultimately boil down to this. "Okay we need to overthrow the elites and change things... let's elect that rich casino guy for president." All the IDpol and shitlib stuff, same thing.

If the door to real leftward movement hadn't been bolted shut, you wouldn't see one side trying to change things by freaking out about immigrants and trans people and the other side trying to change things by punching them in black bloc without either threatening real power. What you'd see is change.

This situation of course suits those in power just fine. They're happy to have the right advancing their interests and the left shrieking impotently at anything that moves for all eternity. That's why they spent generations deliberately turning that into the existing reality.

#SoundCloud

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republicansaredomesticterrorists · 8 months

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The “enormously powerful Atlas Network, a global network of more than 500 member think tanks advocating for “free market” policies.”

Started by Antony Fisher and his Institute of Economic Affairs in the UK. It went worldwide with assistance from the Koch family and Rupert Murdoch, along with funding from big oil companies.

☝️👏🤯

#institute of economic affairs #IEA #Atlas Network #Koch family foundations #Rupert Murdoch #big oil #climate denial #Antony fisher #republican hypocrisy #republican assholes #republican family values #republican values #oligarchs #global conspiracy #right wing politics #climate change #climate Justice #climate and environment #climate change denial

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socialjusticeinamerica · 8 months

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The Heritage Foundation is a tool of the right-wing fascists oligarchs. Their “Project 2025” is a blue print to seize control of government and dismantle it so the oligarchs can create their own government. They have a plan called Schedule F which will make nearly all federal employees “at will” employees they will terminate immediately. They will be replaced with corrupt MAGA goons and Christo-Facscists that are currently being trained to slot into government positions where they will dismantle democracy and strip our rights.

America will cease to exist. We will never have political power or our freedoms again. The FBI, Department of Justice, Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Education, etc will be eliminated or restructured to allow businesses and oligarchs to run amok with no regulations to follow or consequences for their corrupt actions. Not a single soul or entity will have any recourse against the fascist government or corrupt corporations.

This is the oligarchs end game. This is sinister and very real. This is not a conspiracy theory and you can easily view it on the Heritage Foundation website or in numerous articles by simply googling Project 2025.

☝️

#project 2025 #heritage foundation #republican party #oligarchy

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msclaritea · 4 years

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“The Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Roberts has been extraordinarily friendly turf for corporations. It has been more than four years since the Court has reversed a lower court decision favoring corporate interests, according to a new analysis by the Constitutional Accountability Center, a progressive think tank.

Now, with the clock ticking for Senate Republicans to confirm President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, federal judge Amy Coney Barrett, the groups that helped push through Trump’s two previous nominees are again ready to spend tens of millions of dollars on advertisements to ensure Barrett receives the lifetime appointment.

With 53 Senate Republicans in this soon-to-end 116th Congress, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell needs to prevent no more than three defections to confirm Barrett with a simple majority. Two Republicans have publicly expressed disapproval of confirming Trump’s nominee so close to the election, Senators Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, though it is not clear they have unequivocally committed to voting against Barrett—and the developing coronavirus outbreak among Republican senators is changing the vote count and confirmation timeline.

The conservative groups spending millions on television, digital, and direct mail ads hope to shore up GOP support for a nominee who is expected to be anti-abortion, socially conservative, and favorable to corporate interests.

All signs indicate that a potential Justice Barrett would continue the pro-corporate tilt of the Court. According to an analysis by the nonpartisan watchdog group Accountable.us, Judge Barrett sided with corporations over people 76% of the time on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, in 44 of 55 cases reviewed. For example, in the 2018 case of Bruce Betzner and Barbara Betzner v. The Boeing Company, Barrett voted to reverse a district court’s decision to send a personal injury lawsuit back to state courts, the outcome Boeing was seeking. In August, Barrett delivered a ruling that could block gig workers from suing when tech companies deny them overtime pay, according to a report from The Daily Poster.

The Roberts court has been stuffing its docket with cases in which lower courts ruled against corporate interests—fully 91% in the 2018-2019 term. Already on the docket for the term that starts on Oct. 5 are a number of cases that involve state rulings: Ford Motor Co. v. Montana Eighth Judicial District Court, which could limit where individuals can pursue personal injury suits; Rutledge v. Pharmaceutical Care Management Association, on whether states can regulate pharmacy benefit managers; and Carney v. Adams, on whether states can require judges to be affiliated with one of the two major political parties. Other cases to be heard by the Supreme Court will feature deceptive commercial activities, arbitration agreements that limit peoples’ ability to sue corporations, and even the enforcement of IRS reporting requirements.

FOLLOW THE MONEY

Many of the top funders of groups backing Barrett, including many Republican megadonors, are billionaire corporate executives—in industries like manufacturing, transportation, shipping supplies, and private equity financing—whose economic outlooks could benefit from Barrett being confirmed to the vacant seat.

Here are the top donors to conservative groups spending on the Barrett confirmation, according to FEC data from Jan. 1, 2019 to Aug. 31, 2020:

Club For Growth

The right-wing Club For Growth, known for backing far-right candidates against moderate Republican incumbents and a past recipient of funding from the Koch-linked Center to Protect Patient Rights, recently pledged to spend $5 million on ads to back Trump’s nominee. The group’s nonprofit arm received nearly $6.8 million from undisclosed donors from July 2017 through July 2018, according to tax documents. Its super PAC, Club For Growth Action, has reported receiving nearly $56 million in the 2020 election cycle, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics.

Club For Growth President David McIntosh said in a statement praising Barrett, “This choice will shape America’s future, as the Court considers cases relating to issues like the constant unconstitutional growth of government and whether federal agencies should have free rein to enact arbitrary rules without Congressional approval.”

Club For Growth has had huge support this year from Republican megadonor Richard Uihlein, the right-wing founder of shipping supplies company Uline, whose donations total $26.5 million this election cycle. Uihlein contributed $10 million to Club For Growth Action, the group’s super PAC, on Jan. 12, then $4 million on April 21 and another $10 million on August 8, according to FEC records.

Right-wing billionaire Jeff Yass, co-founder of financial firm Susquehanna International Group, donated over $17.5 million to the super PAC this cycle. Yass, a Pennsylvania-based options trader, has also contributed over $4 million to the conservative Protect Freedom PAC this cycle, making up the vast majority of its funding as reported in FEC records.

Also in this cycle, Club For Growth Action received over $2.1 million from the late Republican megadonor Richard Gilder, who died in May of congestive heart failure at the age of 87, and his ex-wife Virginia James. James has donated to the conservative Wisconsin state judge David Prosser in a 2011 recount battle and other Koch-related causes.

Richard and Barbary Gaby contributed over $1.6 million to Club For Growth Action. Barbara Gaby is the youngest child of Amway co-founder Jay Van Andel, who, with the DeVos family, has been a major funder of the the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a nonprofit that helps Republican legislators collaborate with corporate lobbyists, and the Center for International Private Enterprise, a non-profit affiliate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

America First Action

The pro-Trump super PAC America First Action is also promising ad buys totaling $5 million to promote Barrett in national television, digital and direct mail. Its nonprofit arm, America First Policies, took in $22 million in 2017 from donors whose identities it was not required to publicly disclose, while the PAC has received nearly $83 million this cycle, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics.

The leading donors to the Trump super PAC, at $10 million apiece, have been Republican megadonor Timothy Mellon, the majority owner of transportation holding company Pan Am Systems, and Kelcy Warren, the billionaire co-founder and CEO of pipeline company Energy Transfer Partners whose Dakota Access pipeline has been mired in court battles over its potential to pollute key water sources in South Dakota.

Geoffrey Palmer, a Republican donor and billionaire real estate developer based in Los Angeles, has donated $6 million to America First Action. Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein threw in over $2.7 million. Three more familiar Trump megadonors have chipped in: Linda McMahon, the former pro wrestling executive who is now the super PAC’s chairwoman, with over $3.5 million; Blackstone Group CEO Stephen Schwarzman, with $3 million; and Diane Hendricks of Wisconsin, chair of a roofing supply company and a Republican megadonor, with $2 million.

Richard DeVos, co-founder of Amway and husband of Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, has contributed $400,000 to America First Action. GOP megadonor Marlene Ricketts, wife of TD Ameritrade founder Joe Ricketts, has given half a million dollars to the PAC.

Americans For Prosperity

Through a standalone website and by mobilizing its membership, the Koch brothers-founded libertarian advocacy group says it has sent 200,000 letters in support of Barrett to U.S. senators in the past week. The group’s super PAC has spent over $20 million this cycle in independent expenditures.

The majority of that amount has come from $7 million from Charles Koch’s fossil fuel conglomerate Koch Industries and close to $6.5 million from the Koch network’s Freedom Partners Action Fund, but several more corporate megadonors have given to Americans For Prosperity Action this cycle. Major GOP donor Ron Cameron, president of the Little Rock, Arkansas-based Mountaire Corporation, a chicken products producer, has contributed $3.5 million. Richard “Dick” Haworth, the former CEO of an eponymous office-interiors manufacturer company, and his wife Ethelyn contributed $1.5 million to AFP Action. Haworth attended an exclusive Vail, Colorado retreat convened by the Koch Brothers for donors who had given over $1 million to right-wing causes. Trucking executive Clarence L. Werner, a previous million-dollar donor to the Kochs’ Freedom Partners super PAC, kicked in $1.5 million on July 1. Individuals from several energy, timber, pipeline, and coal companies have given at least $100,000 each to the PAC.

Judicial Crisis Network

The Judicial Crisis Network’s leading role in the communications push to confirm Trump’s nominees has been funded recently through some $30 million received between July 2018 and June 2019, led by a $15.9 million donation from an anonymous donor, according to IRS records reviewed by the Daily Poster. JCN is organized as a “social welfare” nonprofit and is not required to disclose the identities of its donors.

In 2017, a secret donor behind a $17 million gift readied JCN for the Kavanaugh confirmation showdown, providing over three-fourths of the total amount it received that year. Together in the efforts to confirm Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch in 2017, JCN was estimated to have laid out $22 million.

Three additional groups on the right have said they’ll be spending money on efforts to confirm Barrett: anti-abortion nonprofit Susan B. Anthony List, conservative nonprofit Catholic Vote, and conservative, anti-LGBT nonprofit think tank American Principles Project. The Susan B. Anthony list has reported raising a bit over $1 million to its PAC this cycle from hundreds of donors giving $5,000 and below, while its non-profit arm received over $12 million in funding according to its most recent Form 990, for 2018.

Millions More Spent on State Judicial Races

While the Supreme Court hears cases involving lower courts’ rulings on consumer lawsuits and government regulations, the conservative groups pushing Trump’s nominees have also spent millions to influence state judicial races.

A December 2019 report by the nonpartisan policy institute Brennan Center for Justice, titled “The Politics of Judicial Elections, 2017–18,” noted that JCN quietly spent $3.8 million on state elections in those years. After JCN donated nearly $1 million last year to the Republican State Leadership Committee, a national 527 group dedicated to electing Republicans to state office, the RSLC transferred $1.2 million to the Judicial Fairness Initiative, which works as an effort under the RSLC to elect conservative state judges. In the 2018 election cycle, the Judicial Fairness Initiative received over $4.3 million from RSLC, according to IRS records compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.

The Brennan Center tracked how in 2013-14, JCN sent half a million dollars to Wisconsin Club for Growth, which spent money that cycle for the successful reelection campaign of conservative Justice Patience Roggensack. In May, during oral arguments in front of the Wisconsin Supreme Court regarding a stay-at-home order issued by the state health department, Justice Roggensack appeared to downplay the importance of some cases by contrasting the workers at a meatpacking plant who had been exposed to a coronavirus outbreak with “the regular folks in Brown County.” She then joined the majority on the state Supreme Court in a 4-3 decision to strike down the order, which was supported by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers.

The Judicial Ads Act, introduced in the Senate on July 2 by Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), would bring transparency to secretive groups like those that blasted out ads promoting Kavanaugh’s confirmation. The bill would require any group spending at least $50,000 in a year on federal judicial nomination advertisements to disclose the identity of any donor giving $5,000 or more. Recently introduced in a House version as well by Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) and Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.), the measure is supported by the nonpartisan watchdog Campaign Legal Center. It could be taken up by Congress next year—most likely, if Democrats take control of the Senate—as part of the next version of H.R. 1, the For the People Act, a sweeping ethics package passed by the Democratic House in March 2019 that is not supported by any Republicans in Congress.”

#Amy Coney Barrett #Anti-Abortion #Anti-Same Sex Marriage #Against Voting Rights 4 Felons #Pro-Gun 4 Felons #Very Very Pro-Corporate #BidenHarris #2020 #What A Mess

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kimp772 · 3 years

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An Austrian Affair to Remember

The Affair

Heinz Christian-Strache is the vice-chancellor of Austria and leader of the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) at this time. In July of 2017, just months before he was elected vice-chancellor in a coalition government with conservative Austrian People’s Party Chancellor Sebastian Kurz. A secret recording showed Heinz Christian-Strache and deputy leader of the Freedom Party of Austria, Johann Gudenus offering lucrative business deals to a woman posing as a Russian oligarch’s niece. This took place in a luxury resort in Ibiza where the Russian women expressed interest in buying blocks of shares of Austria’s largest newspaper, the Kronen Zeitung. Strache suggested he could offer government contracts in exchange for FPÖ campaign support in the upcoming 2017 election in Austria. (The Guardian, 2019). Strache and Gudenus also discussed corrupt political practices. The women wanted to invest in Austria and that she could accomplish it by funneling her illegal Russian money to his party through back channels, skirting Austria campaign finance laws. Or that she could simply donate the money to a "charitable foundation" that would then channel the cash to the party. Both of these practices are highly illegal and implied that these had been performed before by the FPÖ as well as other wealthy people in Europe. (Deutsche Welle, 2019). This meeting in Ibiza was secretly recorded and broke into the news on May 15th, 2019 when it was published by two German media outlets Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) newspaper and Der Spiegel magazine.

Context

The coalition was able to be successful because of the direction that Kurz and Strache shared especially, on the issue of immigration. One of the factors that lead to the coalition and the FPÖ in power was their ability to pick up cheap protest votes with xenophobic slogans such as ‘Daham [home] instead of Islam.(Obermaier and Obermayer, 2019, pg.4-5). This relates to the academic reading by Manucci that populist parties can obtain electoral success because they can set the agenda or they can exploit the media agenda. The media also extensively covered the issues such as immigration and crime which are the core issues of right-wing populist parties.( Manucci, 2017). This coalition government that paired mainstream parties with populist parties changed the political landscape.

The Divorce

Following the publication of the video, Heinz Christian-Strache resigned on May 16th, 2019 as the vice-chancellor and the leader of the Freedom Party of Austria. Strache said in a statement to the press that it was a “dumb, irresponsible mistake but that it was also a carefully planned political assassination”.( POLITICO.EU, 2019). On Monday, May 18th, 2019 Austria’s Chancellor Sebastian Kurz announced “enough is enough” and ended the coalition government between the Freedom Party and the People’s Party of Austria. Kurz also initiated to remove Herbert Kickl who is the country’s interior minister and Freedom Party politician that was in charge of financial conduct at the time the video was recorded. Kurz stated he wanted “total transparency and a completely unbiased investigation”.(Associated Press, 2019). Legislative elections would take place in September following the direction of President Alexander Van der Bellen.

Why It Matters

The scandal shows the importance of media freedom, including diverse ownership. The ability of independent media to work freely in Austria is what lead to the reporting and ultimate downfall of Strache and the FPÖ. The media to be able to report the story also prompted Austrians to take to the streets to protest, calling for new elections. At this time, media freedom in the European Union is under severe threat especially, in the country of Hungary. (Human Rights Watch, 2019). In the recording Strache made the striking remark, “We’d like to create the same kind of media landscape as Orbán”.(Obermaier and Obermayer, 2019, pg.20). Orbán has been dismantling Hungary’s democracy bit by bit for years. In Chapter 5 of Mudde and Kaltwasser, they discerned this unique situation in Hungary where Orbán can count on parliamentary majority enabling him to change the constitution without any impedimentary action by the opposition. Orbán is also able to undermine key democratic features like freedom of the press even though the country is integrated with a strong democratic network, the EU.(Mudde and Kaltwasser, 2017, pg.94). Hungary is a stark example of what could happen in the future and the urgency to protect media freedom. This scandal not only brought media freedom to the forefront but an earthquake that crumbled the government of Austria.

#austria #the far right #europe #world news #european elections

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mostlysignssomeportents · 5 years

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Zuck turned American classrooms into nonconsensual laboratories for his pet educational theories, and now they're rebelling

Summit Learning is a nonprofit, high-tech "customized learning" group funded by Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan's family charity; under the program, students are equipped with high-surveillance Chromebooks and work on their own "at their own pace" and call on teachers to act as "mentors" when they get stuck.

It's a high-tech version of student-led education, where a high teacher-to-pupil ratio allows students to pursue self-directed education based on their own proclivities and interests, and mentor one another. But in the Zuck version, students work alone in front of screens, in social isolation, taking automated quizzes to assess their progress.

Many students and parents find this incredibly invasive and frustrating. Students with special needs -- exactly the group that you'd expect to benefit most from "customized learning" -- find the systems especially troublesome, and for students with screen-triggered epilepsy, the systems are pure torture.

The result is rebellion, with parents withdrawing students from school altogether, or demanding that alternative accommodations be made for them; students in Brooklyn have staged mass walkouts to protest the systems; other districts have canceled the program in the face of student protests, and one University of Pennsylvania study found that 70% of students opposed the program.

US education has been the plaything of billionaires since the GW Bush era, when "accountability" measures like No Child Left Behind began to starve the neediest schools while reorienting education around preparation for high-stakes testing, all thanks to wealthy right-wing ideologues who insisted that education could be improved by "running it like a business."

Then came the charter schools, which directly integrated for-profit businesses in providing tax-funded education, supported by a coalition that welded together parents' whose public schools had been so starved that they had degraded beyond hope; religious fanatics who wanted publicly funded parochial education that omitted sexual health, evolution and other evidence-based curriculum; and wealthy people who wanted to opt their kids into racially and class-segregated environments.

Fucking with education is now the sport of oligarchs: witness the Gates' Foundation's $775 million "Big Data" boondoggle to the Sacklers' ploughing of their bloody opioid epidemic money into anti-public education campaigns and the Koch and Walton families' work to discredit teachers' unions; and then there's the queen of the education slayers, the heiress dilletante Betsy DeVos, an unqualified religious fanatic who is, incredibly, in charge of the nation's public schools, which she wants to defund from primary to postsecondary, though she will earmark funds to arm teachers with assault rifles.

Zuckerberg and Chan fit quite neatly into that rogue's gallery: using their money to elevate their evidence-free pet theories into educational policy that other peoples' kids have to test out in publicly funded laboratories.

https://boingboing.net/2019/04/22/summit-learning.html

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