Neera Tanden And Bill Kristol Unite To Say That Populism Undermines Democracy

Good reading on populism


https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/neera-tanden-and-bill-kristol-unite-to-say-that-populism-undermines-democracy-89225d591855

Here’s what I found out when I spent the day with Israel’s most controversial journalist, Gideon Levy

Yes there is a lot to be cynical about

Gideon Levy is a bit of a philosopher king although, sitting in his postage stamp garden in a suburb of Tel Aviv, straw hat shading mischievous dark eyes, there’s a touch of a Graham Greene character about Haaretz’s most provocative and infamous writer. Brave, subversive, sorrowful – in a harsh, uncompromising way – he’s the kind of journalist you either worship or loathe. Philosopher kings of the Plato kind are necessary for our moral health, perhaps, but not good for our blood pressure. So Levy’s life has been threatened by his fellow Israelis for telling the truth; and that’s the best journalism award one can get.

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/gideon-levy-robert-fisk-haaretz-israel-palestine-gaza-a8557691.html

Tim Berners-Lee tells us his radical new plan to upend the World Wide Web

Not being technical at this level it is hard to know what this may offer us. Comments anyone?

Last week, Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, asked me to come and see a project he has been working on almost as long as the web itself. It’s a crisp autumn day in Boston, where Berners-Lee works out of an office above a boxing gym. After politely offering me a cup of coffee, he leads us into a sparse conference room. At one end of a long table is a battered laptop covered with stickers. Here, on this computer, he is working on a plan to radically alter how all of us live and work on the web. 

“The intent is world domination,” Berners-Lee says with a wry smile. The British-born scientist is known for his dry sense of humor. But in this case, he is not joking.
This week, Berners-Lee will launch Inrupt, a startup that he has been building, in stealth mode, for the past nine months. Backed by Glasswing Ventures, its mission is to turbocharge a broader movement afoot, among developers around the world, to decentralize the web and take back power from the forces that have profited from centralizing it. In other words, it’s game on for Facebook, Google, Amazon. For years now, Berners-Lee and other internet activists have been dreaming of a digital utopia where individuals control their own data and the internet remains free and open. But for Berners-Lee, the time for dreaming is over. 

“We have to do it now,” he says, displaying an intensity and urgency that is uncharacteristic for this soft-spoken academic. “It’s a historical moment.” Ever since revelations emerged that Facebook had allowed people’s data to be misused by political operatives, Berners-Lee has felt an imperative to get this digital idyll into the real world.

https://www.fastcompany.com/90243936/exclusive-tim-berners-lee-tells-us-his-radical-new-plan-to-upend-the-world-wide-web

Comments are off but here's some from a tech professionals.  It doesn't look like a silver bullet!
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*shrug*

There’s a lot I could say. I imagine this proposal having equally bad downsides to the current “open” internet where users have little data privacy concerns. Those downsides likely only become realized far in the future. On the flip side, there are a ton of people at Google and Apple and Firefox trying to make the current internet better.

I read the fastco article and it had more depth. Sounds like the closest analogy is how Apple has built out the iOS ecosystem, which is extremely locked down and privacy conscious. I’d argue it also places a high barrier to entry in terms of cost and economic class (iphones are expensive, good apps are rarely free, free apps are abusive like slot machines).

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This is a lot like a system that John and I have been talking about, inspired in part by some talks I heard from Jaron Lanier.


But yeah, I see this as being quite similar to the app permissions on your phone. Various apps will try to gain access to your data and people will largely grant that access so they have fully functioning apps, so in the end I don't think it will stop the big data collectors. And I don't see anything baked in that will make news or feeds from social media any more real and verifiable, or how data is used once it's handed over. For that to happen the existing social networks will need to be replaced by new networks that have complete transparency on how the feeds are generated. Or the old networks will need to be forced into transparency.


This is a good system, kinda like email encryption is a good system. I think it relies on actual humans to care about their privacy and to take steps to protect themselves. Give the tools to the people and the smart ones will use them smartly. Everybody else will still get their data eaten and their feeds curated by others with their own agendas.


Never the less, it certainly looks like a platform that could be used for the creation of some interesting apps, I have a few in mind that this could help with. The tag system I once described to you in particular.

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The Russians are coming -- Again

At CIA's 'Russia House,' Growing Alarm About 2016 Election Interference
By Greg Miller, The Washington Post  19 September 18

I am certainly entertained by a spy thriller just like the next guy and I'm sure some of this is true but what is clearly a central truth is that we have institutions that cloister many unsavory operators together with institutional cultures that result in very unfortunate outcomes for the the world that nobody who believes in justice would want.

Now to the point, I would speculate that the American electoral system has over the years been intentionally made vulnerable to exploitation -- It was simply made to be exploited by the rich and powerful business interests and that perhaps interference by Russians in this case is an unintended collateral consequence of that larger plan to steal elections from our own citizens.  In other word, we broke our own election system long ago and over many years and this is just a new and somewhat too convenient twist in a very ugly saga.



Here is the article but I do not think it is worth reading except for the spy thriller entertainment value.
https://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/52374-at-cias-russia-house-growing-alarm-about-2016-election-interference

What Are the Foreign Policy Proposals of New Social Democrats? Anyone?

What Does Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Think About the South China Sea?

The rising left needs more foreign policy. Here’s how it can start.

By Daniel Bessner a historian of American foreign policy, writing in an op ed for the NY Times.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez could not and wisely did not answer that question.  This article was forwarded via facebook by Norman Solomon with the comment "This is a very astute article. We need to push for truly progressive foreign policy!" Indeed we do. Progressives have a lot to say about bad foreign policy, and yet no central and trusted institutions of deep analysis (excepting the one man institution of Noam Chomsky) that can provide details such as could answer the question in the headline.

Bessner suggest "here's how we can start" and I would add that "Starting" is the most necessary and difficult part, the messy, unruly answers in the context of global inequity will unfold quickly enough once a truly democratic internationalist diplomacy is launched. "Finishing" or becoming expert in foreign policy should not even be a goal as it is a chauvinistic and undemocratic conceit of the powerful. Keeping our eyes on our shared values and keeping the faith amid a diversity of messy solutions will indeed be a challenge for our new world -- but one I am ready for.

To be fair, there are good reasons leftists haven’t grappled much with foreign policy. For one, there are few decision makers from whom they can learn: Since the early days of the Cold War, foreign policymaking has been dominated by a bipartisan commitment to militarism and American hegemony; those who depart from the consensus view have largely been kept out of the State Department, the Pentagon and other parts of the government. At the same time, the left itself lacks institutions dedicated to developing foreign policy ideas. While Republicans and moderate Democrats have a host of think tanks pushing interventionism, no corporation or billionaire has yet decided to fund a left-wing foreign policy think tank to which politicians could turn for advice.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/17/opinion/democratic-party-cortez-foreign-policy.html

Here is another article on the same Foreign Policy question for democratic socialist by another global expert PHYLLIS BENNIS  in the other "Times" which few see, In These Times

And, here is another long form article by Bessner on the over arching question of  "Internationalism" by wrapped aroung the subject of George Soros and his Open Society project.  Bessner is clearly not your typical NY Times writer and his analysis is worthy of the ear of progressives .

Facebook is the new censor

This interview is on facebook and fake new and it shows how facebook plans to fix it by punishing not only the outlet with a 80% loss of traffic but also all those who share it loose prominence in feeds as well.  Pretty scary if you think promotion of causes on facebook is important to your cause such as events, marches etc.  This methodology will be very chilling to organizations working for change.



https://truthout.org/video/facebook-censors-kavanaugh-story-after-a-conservative-site-calls-it-fake-news/

Will big booze succced in becoming big buzz?

This list included Lagunitas.  We were wrong that big Tobacco would take over weed -- its Big Alcohol!  Nonetheless my argument holds.  Weed should be illegal to sell but legal to grow thus eliminating crime and violence associated with it.  Now with big money and big advertising in the violence will be perfectly legal. The body count from alcohol is not concided a crime.

Earlier this month, Constellation Brands, maker of Corona, Svedka, and Robert Mondavi wines, invested $4 billion in the largest pot corporation in the world, by market cap. The deal expands Constellation’s ownership stake in Canadian Canopy Growth Corp from 9.9 percent to 38 percent and includes warrants to eventually own over 50 percent. 

“To see one company getting $4 billion, it’s historic,” says Morgan Paxhia, co-founder of Poseidon Asset Management, a cannabis hedge fund. “It certainly is symbolic of the alcohol industry’s interest in the space.” 

While this is the largest-ever investment in legal weed, Constellation is not the first alcohol company to lay claim on cannabis. On August 1st, Molson Coors announced a new joint venture with The Hydropothecary Corporation to produce non-alcoholic cannabis-infused drinks for the Canadian market, and Diageo, the maker of Smirnoff and Guinness, is in discussion with three cannabis companies about doing the same. In the U.S., Heineken-owned Lagunitas Brewing Co. plans to introduce a cannabis-infused sparkling water in California, and the founder of Blue Moon will launch a similar product in Colorado.

http://www.foodandpower.net/2018/08/30/will-big-booze-succeed-in-becoming-big-buzz/