Long Paul Hawken Video

Hour long video.  Look at 10:10 where he explains the title -- "...most comprehensive plan ever proposed" but when he says no plan has ever been proposed so making the claim is easy he is hilarious and at the same time mind blowing.

Possible Election of a Far-Right Demagogue in Brazil

Another so called populist?

Voters in Brazil head to the polls on Sunday in an election that could reshape the political landscape of South America. Polls show the current frontrunner is the far-right Jair Bolsonaro, a former army officer who has openly praised Brazil’s military dictatorship, which lasted from 1964 to 1985.

How did this happen?  Are Brazilians just that stupid? The following puts this in historical perspective. Both Chomsky and Greenwald who met in Brazil both lay the blame squarely on the corporate/right wing control of the media there as here in the US propagandizing the public.

AMY GOODMAN: Last month, the world renowned dissident, linguist, Noam Chomsky met with Brazil’s imprisoned former president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, his visit coming shortly after Lula officially pulled out of the presidential race. Speaking outside the prison after a visit, Noam Chomsky condemned the right-wing media in Brazil. 

NOAM CHOMSKY: — just had the great privilege of spending an hour with Lula. And one of the points that he emphasized was that during his entire tenure in office, there was just a constant flood of attacks from all the media. Constant. Thousands of attacks from every direction, which of course, confuses and undermines public opinion. So, the answer to your question is, something is needed to counter the concentrated power of right-wing media, which particularly in Latin America, just overwhelms everything. 

AMY GOODMAN: So, that is Noam Chomsky. Glenn Greenwald, couple questions about that. How is the media allowed to cover Noam Chomsky visiting Lula in prison, and also the significance of what’s happened to Lula and then who the person, the handpicked successor to Lula is? 

GLENN GREENWALD: So, I met with Noam Chomsky after that meeting in São Paulo, and we talked a lot about the dynamics brought up to this point. This brought us to this point. The dynamics that have brought us to this point. And one of the things that we focused most on during our discussion was the fact that the dynamic is so similar to what’s happening in the US, the UK, and in Western Europe where you see the spread of extremism and this rise of right-wing fanaticism. And the media outlets and the establishment factions that have laid the groundwork for its rise refuse to take any responsibility. And that’s definitely the case here in Brazil, where a very oligarchiacal media is in the hands of a small number of very rich families, and has sewn these seeds and has kind of created the climate in which Bolsonaro’s victory is possible. Even to this very minute, even though these journalists are, themselves, afraid of a Bolsonaro win and are not supporting him, they, nonetheless, continue to endorse this narrative, that is the biggest asset for Bolsonaro, which is the idea that PT, the Workers Party and Bolsonaro are just opposite sides of the same coin. You have left dictatorship or right wing dictatorship and both are equally bad. PT ran this country for 14 years, and whatever else you might want to say about whatever mistakes they made, you certainly had a very free and open press that constantly attacked it. They impeached one of their presidents and put the other one in prison.

https://truthout.org/video/glenn-greenwald-on-the-possible-election-of-a-far-right-demagogue-in-brazil/

The following collection of relevant stories is from John Bertucci posted on Facebook 10/10/18

https://theintercept.com/2018/10/08/brazils-bolsonaro-led-far-right-wins-a-victory-far-more-sweeping-and-dangerous-than-anyone-predicted-its-lessons-are-global/

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-cia-has-its-fingerprints-on-brazils-election/

http://www.latimes.com/business/lazarus/la-fi-lazarus-corporations-are-not-people-too-20181009-story.html

https://consortiumnews.com/2018/10/09/future-of-western-democracy-being-played-out-in-brazil/

RE: Bernie onTrump encouraging authoritarian leaders around the world.  This is of course true but let us not allow the overarching, long standing  US foreign policy of prefering dictators to democracy slip from our minds.  Dictators in the third world are the only way for empires to maintain access to cheap comodities and labor, laxed environmental and human rights rules for global capital.  This is not Donald Trumps invention as perverse as he is.
https://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/52747-focus-bernie-sanders-authoritarian-leaders-around-the-world-inspired-by-trump

Immigrants’ Health Premiums Far Exceed What Plans Pay for Their Care

Violence, crime, welfare, social services, borders, national security, employment and law  -- That immigrants benefit us far more than they cost us has been proven over and over again.  This is just one more example from a very recent study to add to the list.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly condemned US immigration policy, arguing that many immigrants pose a threat to the nation and drain US resources. But a study released Monday about health insurance challenges the president’s portrayal. 

The study in the journal Health Affairs found that immigrants covered by private health insurance and their employers contributed nearly $25 billion more in premiums in 2014 than was spent on their care. Those in the country without legal status contributed nearly $8 billion toward the surplus. 

In contrast, US-born enrollees spent nearly $25 billion more than they paid for in premiums.

https://truthout.org/articles/immigrants-health-premiums-far-exceed-what-plans-pay-for-their-care/

ABSTRACT from study

As US policy makers tackle immigration reform, knowing whether immigrants are a burden on the nation’s health care system can inform the debate. Previous studies have indicated that immigrants contribute more to Medicare than they receive in benefits but have not examined whether the roughly 50 percent of immigrants with private coverage provide a similar subsidy or even drain health care resources. Using nationally representative data, we found that immigrants accounted for 12.6 percent of premiums paid to private insurers in 2014, but only 9.1 percent of insurer expenditures. Immigrants’ annual premiums exceeded their care expenditures by $1,123 per enrollee (for a total of $24.7 billion), which offsets a deficit of $163 per US-born enrollee. Their net subsidy persisted even after ten years of US residence. In 2008–14, the surplus premiums of immigrants totaled $174.4 billion. These findings suggest that policies curtailing immigration could reduce the numbers of “actuarially desirable” people with private insurance, thereby weakening the risk pool.

Iowa Dairy Farmers, Trump, Rep Nunes & Immigration Policy Lunacy Exposed

"DEVIN NUNES’S FAMILY FARM IS HIDING A POLITICALLY EXPLOSIVE SECRET"

        Esquire Magazine By Ryan Lizza Sep 30, 2018

This wonderful investigative story is mostly about Dairy farmers in Iowa but it pivots around not only rock bottom slave labor practises but the idiocy of  Trump's immigration policies that will put them all out of business because of Dairy's absolute dependence on undocumented immigrants.  ICE and Trump's immigration agenda are in fact existential threats so inconsistent with their support for Trump himself, (79%) as to boggle the mind.

In a nutshell it shows the breathtaking hypocrisy of the Trump administration and mendacity of California's Rep. Devin Nunes's championing of Trumps agenda even as he paints himself as an  authentic no BS family farmer -- mind boggling deception.



I will not take time to report further here but encourage a thorough reading of the original article below.  Politically it is obvious that these farmers are on the bottom of a giant agricultural pyramid with all power above them.  (The undocumented of course are not even on the pyramid but that is another story.) The farmers' bewildering support for Trump aside, they are nonetheless logical strategic partners in political change precisely because they are on the bottom.  Their livelihoods, their families, their town, their legacy of hard work all hang precariously on a political whim with nothing to catch them.  After reading you will empathize with their plight.

I told you, it really wasn't about Rep Nunes and the usual spectacle in DC -- it's about people.

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a23471864/devin-nunes-family-farm-iowa-california/

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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