Playing With Matches In A Paper House

Today, 28 March 2020, as I write this, the United States of America has for the last few days been the world leader in confirmed coronavirus cases.  What's worse is that even though the number of confirmed cases has climbed to over 116,000, the growth rate continues to be exponential, as seen here.  The site captured in the last link also shows that the COVID-19 death rate continues to climb exponentially.  In light of these events, I thought it might be helpful to provide a short list of things we now know about the course of coronavirus infection in humans.

• We now know that of all people who become infected with COVID-19, approximately 80 to 81 percent will develop mild illness and fully recover.  However, 19 to 20 percent will develop severe disease, with five percent developing "critical disease" according to this source.

• We also know that while early reports stated that young people were significantly less likely to develop severe disease than older people, later data has shown that young people are still at significant risk of developing severe disease.  This source reports that nearly 40 percent of those hospitalized in the United States for COVID-19 were under 55 years old.  The majority of hospitalizations in New York are for people under 50 years old.  And there are sources such as this which present the personal stories of strong, accomplished young athletes who have been seriously sickened by COVID-19.

• We know that the death rate as a percentage of total cases of COVID-19 has been climbing in the United States.  When the first outbreaks occurred, the U.S. death rate was from 1 to 1.5 percent.  However, the latest percentage for New York City is approximately 1.7 percent.  (Click this link and then do the math.)  What happens when the health care systems of the various states are overwhelmed is another matter.  Consider, for instance, what would happen to the 19-to-20 percent of an infected population who develop severe disease, yet who don't have access to health care because their health care systems have been overwhelmed.  Then the U.S. death rate might almost certainly exceed 5 percent, and might even go as high as 10 percent.

We also know a few things about Donald Trump, the terrible titular leader of the United States in these terrible times.  We know that Trump had access to an Obama-era disease management playbook written by the National Security Council as a sort of "lessons-learned" document describing how the Obama administration successfully managed the Ebola outbreak of 2014-2015.  We also know that Trump disregarded it.  And we know that Trump was warned by intelligence analysts in January 2020 of the potential severity and impacts of the coronavirus pandemic.  He chose to ignore and downplay those warnings.

As I look at the ways in which Trump and his cohort have tried to spin this crisis, I have found myself asking questions, such as, what drives Trump?  What are his strategic motivations?  What is his long-term thinking?  (Sometimes I ask these same questions about either one of my two cats as I see them staring off into space.  But they are cool and not sinister, whereas Trump is evil.)

To the extent that he thinks at all, Trump seeks to rebuild White "great power" autarky as it existed over 100 years ago.  However, it was never really "autarky", was it?  What really happened was that the great colonial powers, after they had exhausted their own resource base, sought to keep themselves great by stealing the bodies, lands, and stuff of all the other peoples on earth, laying claim that "this piece of land which we 'discovered', along with its people, now belongs to this particular Northern nation."  This has been the motivation behind American military and economic interventions under Trump, as well as his thwarted desire to build a wall to keep the nonwhite nations of the earth from coming to the United States in search of that which was stolen from them.  But it has also been the motivation behind the efforts of the United States and Russia to neutralize and destroy any independent power centers that are not European or Slavic.  Hence, Trump has sought to "weaponize" the coronavirus in a soft-power sense by calling it "the Wuhan virus" or "the Chinese virus" in his bid to demonize and other-ize people of Asian descent.  Unfortunately, there are knuckleheads in the United States who have followed his lead and perpetrated recent hate crimes against Asian-Americans.  But this response is typical of the narcissism which says, "If there's any imperfection among us, it can't possibly be with me!  It must belong to someone else!"  Such a response is not helpful, because it ignores the fact that white people can transmit the coronavirus just as easily as anyone else.  Consider Boris Johnson, Rand Paul, and the flocks of high school and college students who went to beaches in Florida on spring break, got infected by each other, and brought the COVID-19 infection back to their fellows at their home campuses.

But while we can acknowledge the possibility that Trump "thinks" in some sense, it is also true that he "feels" - that is, certain situations produce in him strong visceral reactions.  As a narcissist, therefore, he cannot handle having to deal with predicaments that are beyond his control, predicaments which require a collective response shaped by many diverse points of view, a response that patiently takes a long view, a response that acknowledges that there are no quick fixes, a response that is humble and open in the face of difficulty.  The current COVID-19 outbreak is just such a difficulty, and Trump has acted like a fish out of water in the face of it.  Thus he has tried desperately to spin this crisis into something where he can be seen as decisively in charge, the leader of the cavalry coming over the hill with a promised quick fix.  This is what is behind the gaggle of questionable "medical experts" seen on Fox News who have backed Trump's assertions that the coronavirus was no worse than the "seasonal flu" or who have pushed questionable remedies such as chloroquine as a cure.

(Trump's obsession with chloroquine deserves special mention.  The only reason he heard about the drug at all in connection with COVID-19 is because of a certain French microbiologist with sketchy credentials and practices, who contacted Fox News and told them that he had successfully treated COVID-19 infected patients with the drug.  Note that chloroquine has never been used as an antiviral drug.  Note also that the Chinese government ran a study of their own which showed that chloroquine had no effect on the course of COVID-19 in patients.  Lastly, it should be mentioned that at least one person has died from trying to self-medicate using a form of chloroquine found in fish tank cleaner.)

And now, Trump has already long since tired of trying to act "presidential" in the face of a crisis which does not offer quick fixes.  (He and his friends are also tired of losing money to a crisis which they let get out of hand.)  Hence, he wants the United States to return to being "open for business" by Easter, with no restrictions on travel or gatherings (or, most importantly, shopping!).  That brings up some interesting possibilities.  Right now, his approval rating is hovering around 50 percent.  Say that represents 150 million Americans.  Say that they also do what he says and return to "life as normal" starting on Easter.  This means abandoning social distancing and self-isolation.  Say also that 70 percent of these people wind up becoming infected with COVID-19.  That would equate to 105 million people.  To make the numbers easier to deal with, let's say 100 million.  Out of these 100 million, 20 million will get sick enough to require hospitalization.  But long before we reach the 20 million mark, the health care systems throughout much of the United States will be overwhelmed.  That means that between 5 and 10 million could die.

The COVID-19 outbreak will cause an inevitable contraction of the American economy.  If the people of the United States do the right thing and continue to aggressively self-quarantine and self-isolate, the only thing we will lose is money - and we will be taking the shortest route to recovery in the process.  If we try to push our re-opening too soon, our economy will contract for another reason - the economic and social disruption that results from millions of us dying.  In seeking to re-open the country for business by Easter, Trump is playing with matches in a paper house.

Beneath The Event Horizon

As I have watched the unfolding events in Greece over the last several weeks, I've had a strong sense of deja vu.  Consider the trajectory of Syriza: in a country where the majority of citizens are oppressed by the current ruling regime, and where the majority of citizens are sick of the current regime, a party of "outsiders" and "mavericks" comes to national attention.  What brings them to national attention is their very outspoken criticism of the current ruling regime, combined with boasts of how they will change things to relieve the oppressed masses.

Once they reach a critical mass of popularity, however, these "outsiders" and "mavericks" begin to become more "nuanced" in their confrontation of the existing regime and the systems created and managed by the existing regime.  The fight for ostensible political power between the outsiders and the entrenched regime becomes quite colorful and emotional, yet a day comes when the dust settles and the "outsiders" find themselves in power.  This event is heralded with great celebrations of "hope" for "change," and many self-styled spokespersons for the oppressed masses write letters or blog posts addressed to the new regime, outlining their desires to see their hopes fulfilled.  However, during the fight and afterward, the "outsiders"-turned-rulers become so nuanced that eventually they become indistinguishable from the entrenched regime they replaced.

Sound familiar?  The political career of the current President of the United States has followed just such a trajectory, as foreseen in a long-winded post I wrote a while back.  But this phenomenon is not limited to Obama.  The entire Democratic Party is guilty, as we have seen with Governor Jay Nixon of Missouri, with Hillary Rodham Clinton, and with John Kerry, who ran against George W. Bush in 2004 on a platform of vacuous and vague promises of "change" that was remarkably similar to the platform on which Barack Obama ran for the Presidency in 2008.

I'd like to suggest that Syriza's capitulation shows that not just in the United States, but throughout the West, participation in the official political process has become a complete waste of time for ordinary people.  How could it be otherwise, when the wealth of the world is concentrated in the hands of such a small number of people?  The political process is no longer of any value precisely because, once wealth concentration exceeds a certain percentage of the total wealth available to a society, it is economic power that trumps all other forms of power.  How can ordinary Americans - no matter how numerous - influence the trajectory of government when most of the wealth in America is held in the hands of a few?  And how can the ordinary citizens of any country in the West take charge of the governance of their own countries when most of those countries are beholden to the world's richest banks?  (By the way, according to the list of banks I linked, if the size or assets of a bank are computed according to "Generally Accepted Accounting Principles" as is done in the United States, then JP Morgan and Bank of America are the #1 and #2 banks in the world.  Citigroup is #5.  These are all American banks.  The list of top investment banks is even more interesting.)

We therefore find ourselves - most of us - in a situation where we no longer have any real control over where we are headed as a nation or as a world. It's like being sucked beneath the event horizon of a black hole; once you go under, there's only one direction left to go. Therefore, in 2016, why look for a supposed "outsider" or "maverick" to vote for? If they're famous enough to be voted for, they're already bought and paid for. Why not rather look for non-political avenues for carving out a meaningful life for yourself? If you must vote, vote for one of your pets - at least they won't lie to you. Кошка за президент!

Blackout the Year End

Here's a condensed and simple version of yesterday's post:

In memory of Michael Brown, an unarmed Black teenager who was shot to death by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, and in honor of all the other people of color who were shot to death without cause by police in 2014, please do the following:

1. Pray for the United States of America, that God would chasten and correct this country for its murder.
2. Please don't buy anything other than food this holiday season.  Please also avoid all movies and other paid entertainment.
3. Spread the word!

Thank you.

Starving Google to Death

Hopefully this post will get the attention of some folks in Mountain View, California.

I hate to bring up personal business, but it seems that someone tried to hack my Google Gmail account today.  I have been trying to talk to a live human being at Google, either via email or voice, but it seems to be impossible.

If Google's security is so lax that I can be so easily hacked, and if Google's staff is so insulated and unresponsive that I cannot be helped by them, maybe it's time to ditch Google.  Wordpress.com has a much better blogging interface, and there are other email providers with much more secure email accounts.  Something to think about...

How I will Save Money if PIPA and SOPA are passed

I guess Congress is trying once again to pass laws that would make the Internet no longer free. These laws are being pushed by lobbyists for large media corporations such as Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, media providers and providers associations like the Recording Industry Association of America, credit card companies and even Nike, a maker of athletic shoes.

I don't have time here to spell out all the provisions of these laws, but I can say that if they pass, I stand to save a ton of money. It's very simple, really. I will find other ways to communicate with friends and sympathetic acquaintances. Then I will cancel my Verizon internet access account. My contract has already expired, so I can't be penalized.

That's it.

So go ahead. Make my day.

The (Worldwide?) Peak of Human Resources

In my last post, I discussed the fallen tendency of some of us humans to conduct ourselves as predators and to regard all the rest of humanity as prey. I also briefly described how this tendency has shaped the evolution of industrial society. Another way of framing this predator-prey relationship is that to the wealthiest members of society, the global official economy over which they preside exists for one purpose, namely their own personal enrichment. Just as that economy requires an ever-expanding supply of material resources in order to generate ever-increasing wealth, so it requires an ever-expanding supply of human capital in order to generate ever-increasing wealth for its elites. The Hubbert Peak of the rate of extraction of various non-human resources is now appearing as a threat to the survival of the economy. I'd like to suggest the existence of a Hubbert Peak of the rate of exploitation of “human resources” as well, and that this poses a further threat to the owners of our present economy, in addition to the Hubbert Peaks of use of other resources. I will present evidence that suggests that we (at least in the First World) are already “past Peak” with regard to human resources. As one version of a favorite song of mine says,

Well, there's a change in the wind, you know the signs don't lie,

Such a strange feelin' and I don't know why it's takin'

such a long time;

Backyard people and they work all day,

Day gets wasted, it's safe to say that they're tastin'

to make the words rhyme...

First, it should be mentioned that Hubbert depletion analysis has been applied not only to inanimate resources, but to biological resources that are exploited at rates beyond their natural rates of regeneration and renewal. One such analysis is “Price Trends Over A Complete Hubbert Cycle: The Case of the American Whaling Industry in 19^th Century” by Ugo Bardi, a professor at the University of Firenze in Italy and author of the blog, Cassandra's Legacy. Those who study the history of whaling in the 19^th century will find an interesting perspective among whalers and those who depended on the whaling industry, namely, a failure to recognize or acknowledge the effects of overfishing and exploitation of whales at a nonrenewable rate. The closest anyone seems to have come to an acknowledgement of this reality is found in a book published in 1878 by Alexander Starbuck who acknowledged that declining production of whale fisheries was due to “an increase of consumption beyond the power of the fishery to supply.” However, like apologists for our present oil industry who blame “aboveground factors” for production constraints, Mr. Starbuck cited “the scarcity and shyness of whales” as a contributing factor in fishery production decline.

Since there are limits to the maximal sustainable rate of exploitation of non-human biological resources, it stands to reason that there is a limit to the maximal sustainable rate of exploitation of human beings as well. Breaching this limit would cause the breakdown of an industrial society even if that society was well-supplied with all other production inputs. Moreover, there would be increasingly severe signs and symptoms of breakdown as the society was driven further and further beyond sustainable rates of exploitation of its members. Finally, it would not be surprising to see the elites at the head of such a society rationalize and refuse to acknowledge the true meaning of these signs and symptoms.

Are there modern societies in which we can see this breakdown taking place? (Is the Pope Catholic?) A better question might be, “Which modern country might best serve as a poster child for the effects of unsustainable exploitation of its human capital?” There are many contenders for this doubtful honor, but today I'd like to focus on Japan – not because I believe that country is worse than, say, the United States, but because the capitalists of that country have created trends which most of the industrial world has been obliged to follow. First, we need to look briefly at the history of Japan from the end of World War Two onward.

The end of the war left Japan both shattered and occupied. The United States provided approximately $18.6 billion in aid, both under the Marshall Plan and other outlays, for the rebuilding of nations whose infrastructure and economy had been damaged by the war. Japan received $2.44 billion. (Total U.S. expenditures from 1945 to 1953 amounted to $44.3 billion.) (Source: Wikipedia, Marshall Plan.) Yet even with American aid, life was very hard for the majority of Japanese citizens just after the war. Their suffering and privation motivated them to quickly fashion an economy which would guarantee robust prosperity for the nation.

Many growth strategies were employed both by the Japanese government and the leaders of its most powerful financial and industrial sectors. While some of these strategies focused on protecting Japanese domestic markets from foreign competition, others focused on building Japan into an industrial powerhouse. One aspect of the building of that powerhouse is of particular interest – namely, the fostering of a certain kind of relationship between the managers of large corporations and the majority of their employees. This relationship was the outgrowth of the Japanese Production Management system (JPM) which has given the world such concepts as TQM (Total Quality Management), JIT (Just-In-Time Manufacturing). SCM (Supply Chain Management), Kaizen, (embodying, among other things, “lean manufacturing”), Zero Defects and Quality Circles. (One other thing to note: although these ideas came to full implementation in Japan, many of these ideas were introduced to Japan by American business and economic teachers such as W. Edwards Deming . This is rather like communism, which was not invented by Russians, yet was wholeheartedly adopted by Russia for several nauseating decades.)

The essence of many of these elements of JPM was to eliminate as much “waste” as possible from the manufacturing process. As JPM spread to other sectors of the Japanese economy, this same focus on “eliminating waste” spread too. The aim of kaizen was continuous improvement of a business process. The measure of “continuous improvement” was continuous growth of profits and continuous reduction of operating expenses. Industry leaders fostered a culture in which workers supported cost cutting and continuous process improvement, identifying fully with the goals of management. This led to situations in which workers on a line assembling car engine parts might have only two minutes allotted per car and no spare time allowed, thus forcing a typical worker to assemble engine parts for 250 cars every five hundred minutes. In such a factory, the production method would involve synchronized production (JIT, no pool of parts and no waste), value organization (to identify the spare time each worker had after one assembly operation in order to identify “waste time”), and supplement production (obtaining the minimum necessary parts from suppliers and subcontractors in order to reduce stock). (Source: “Karoshi – Death From Overwork: Occupational Health Consequences of the Japanese Production Management,” Katsuo Nishiyama and Jeffrey V. Johnson.)

This frenzied work environment was not confined to blue collar occupations, but spread through the ranks of lower and mid-level management as well, giving rise to the salaryman as a cultural icon. It has also given rise to Karoshi (death from overwork), a medical phenomenon of epidemic proportions, along with the related phenomenon of Karo-jisatu (suicide from overwork). Yet this work environment has been reinforced through many means, including identification with traditional Japanese religious and cultural values; unions that have been thoroughly co-opted by management; rigorous standardized schooling with heavy emphasis on conformity, rote memorization and high-stakes, standardized tests, and mass media which promotes the idea of the salaryman as a modern-day samurai contending on behalf of his employer. (As one television commercial put it, “Can you fight 24 hours for your corporation?”)

(To those of you who are not Japanese and who have no knowledge of Japanese culture, I ask: does any of this look familiar? Can you see these things happening in your own societies? Karoshi may soon be coming to a town near you.)

Though this culture has taken a heavy toll on Japan, the government, along with leaders of business and industry, have been extremely reluctant to acknowledge that toll. (What? You're telling me that stress kills people? Aw, come on! “Not all scientists would agree with you.”) But now there are signs that the society which has been built on this culture is starting to break down. The origin of the breakdown is among the Japanese youth, who see their parents being dehumanized and worked to death and who are saying to themselves that they refuse to become like their parents. They are angered by their parents' unrequited sacrifices and they are choosing to opt out of the system.

The opting-out takes a number of different forms. There are the freeters, young people who deliberately choose low-paying part-time jobs so that they can have control over their lives instead of running in an ever-accelerating corporate hamster wheel. There are also the hikikomori, youth who have been damaged by a high-stakes schooling system and who are unable to face the thought of going out into a predatory world without any social support system. There is the larger movement of the datsusara, people who quit work as salarymen or office women in order to launch careers that are more in line with their values.

These people are a threat to the dominant economy, in large part because they represent lost profits (or, to put it differently, they are escaped prey). They have caught the attention of the leadership of Japan, one of whose members suggested not too long ago that all freeters should be forced to join the Japanese Self-Defense Force and go to Iraq. Yet they are part of a phenomenon which is arising in many different countries. As globalization and uber-capitalism have swept the globe, youth who are now coming of age (along with not a few older people) are also coming to realize that the society created by their masters holds nothing for them, and they increasingly feel no obligation to that society. They are dropping out of their respective societies – much as air leaks slowly out of even perfectly good tires on a hot day. The trick is to escape without losing one's mind in the process.

References:

1. “Karoshi – Death From Overwork: Occupational Health Consequences of the Japanese Production Management,” 4 February 1997, Katsuo Nishiyama and Jeffrey V. Johnson.

2. “The Japanese 'Death by Overwork' Phenomenon,” 25 July 2007, Josefine Cole.

3. “Karoshi (Work to Death) in Japan,” 2008, Atsuko Kanai.

4. “Workplace Stress: A Collective Bargaining Issue,” 2002, Anne-Marie Mureau.

5. “The Impact of Globalization on Post World War II Japan,” 2 April 2010, Phillip Luu.

The Danger Of Telegraphing Your Punches

As some long-time readers of mine may have noticed, my blogging has undergone a bit of a hiatus over the last year. This was due to my working two jobs, one of which involves teaching. The demands of the two jobs left very little time for anything more than scattered, brief commentary on this blog. Now, thankfully, I am down to just one job. Though the pay is significantly less than before, the peace of mind is significantly greater.

At the beginning of my (partial) silence, my writing was strongly focused on the subject of resilient neighborhoods, including topics such as the elements of a neighborhood that provide for resilience in the face of economic contraction and energy descent, as well as steps for building neighborhood resilience. Overwhelming busyness prevented me from exploring these themes further, but I was able to keep up with the writings of others who were exploring these topics, in particular, Joanne Poyourow, a writer active in the U.S. branch of the Transition movement. She wrote a five-part series of articles on economic resilience as applied to local communities, as well as a separate post on her own blog, titled, “Resilience: A View From The Transition Movement.”

Her articles and the suggestions contained therein were both good and practical. Yet as I read what she had to say, along with reading the daily news of what was being done to our nation and our world by the holders of concentrated wealth and power, I found myself having second thoughts, even as I reconsidered my own focus and emphasis. It seemed that Joanne had fallen victim to a blind spot which seems typical among many activists concerned with economic contraction and energy descent. I will attempt to point out that blind spot now, along with what I believe to be the issues that must be faced by ordinary people seeking to adapt to our present times.

I'll start with a quote from Gale Warnings, a blog written by Stormchild. The quote reads in part, “...most of us spend our lives as prey, economically and psychologically. Awareness is the key to understanding this; but once we understand it, we may transcend it, choosing, when we can, to be neither prey nor predator.” The problem people have faced almost from the outset is simply this: the fallen tendency for some humans to conduct themselves as predators and to regard all of their fellow humans as prey. There is a long history of predator-prey relationships across societal and geopolitical scales, culminating in the predation of the entire world by the Anglo, American and European empires.

As I see it, three trends have been at work in the world over the last two hundred years or so. The first trend is the tendency toward the concentration of the power and wealth of societies – particularly in the West – in the hands of an ever-diminishing number of master predators who are able to out-compete their fellows for prey, and who eventually succeed in laying claim to every available bite of prey. The second trend is the fight for freedom waged by the prey against their predators. During the 20^th century, this fight for freedom was ostensibly successful in many parts of the globe and many sectors of American society. Several countries were able for a time to escape from being banana republics or something similar, and many members of ethnic minority groups in the United States suddenly had wonderful doors of opportunity opened for them. While this did indeed upset the elites at the head of fading European empires or the expanding American empire, this fight for freedom was tolerated somewhat, because the continual expansion of the global industrial economy was able to absorb the exponentially expanding appetites of these elites even as they lost some of their prey to freedom. (Of course, between the overthrow of colonialism and the gains of the civil rights movements in the 1960's and now, the elites were able to subtly erase nearly all civil rights gains and to recapture a very large proportion of escaped prey, but that's a subject for another time.)

The third trend should concern us all very much, because it is the trend at work right now. I said that the appetites of the elites are exponential. What I really mean is that the expression and manifestation of those appetites is exponential. Today they want one bite of prey. Tomorrow, they will want e bites. The next day, they will want eⁿ slices, where n is an integer greater than 1. As long as the economy controlled by these elites grows at a rate greater than eⁿ, they can tolerate the escape of a few prey from their grip. But what if the economy should begin to contract because of the decline of its resource base and the inability of the earth to absorb any more of the waste products of that economy?

That is the situation we face now. The well has run dry. The resource base of the global economy is drying up, the global economy is contracting, and no one can do a thing to stop it. When governments and wealthy people at the top of society see these things unfolding, their response and priorities are very different from the responses and priorities of ordinary people who see these things unfolding. We live and function in an economy in which the notional “wealth” held by the largest holders of concentrated wealth and power actually consist of relationships of dependence which they have established with the vast majority of the rest of us through trickery and force. In other words, they have made us to depend on them for nearly every necessity of life, which they are willing to give to us in exchange for our labors. The surplus of those labors is creamed off for themselves, leaving almost nothing for us to enjoy. And the “necessities” which are given to us in return for our labors are very tightly rationed, or in increasing cases are mere junk, froth and “empty calories” disguised as necessities.

One needn't look far to see examples of what I am talking about. How about having to pay thousands of dollars a year for “health insurance” which does not actually guarantee that you will be able to see the doctor you need, let alone avoid medical bankruptcy should you become seriously sick? How about not being able to get from point A to point B without driving a new car that costs tens of thousands of dollars, forcing you to go into debt just to get around? How about being beholden to private utilities, including privatized water and sewer services?

Every relationship of dependence on our formal, official economy is a claim on the fruits of your labor – whether it's an interest-bearing debt you owe because of the cost of buying a house, a car or an education; or whether it's the percentage of “market share” of which your purchasing decisions comprise a part; or whether it is the tax burden imposed on you as an ordinary citizen as part of your government's promise to bail out rich financial institutions. These claims make up a large part of the notional “wealth” of the predators at the top of our society.

Many of us now see that the formal economy is in trouble, and that it can no longer deliver the necessities it promises, and we are talking among ourselves, making plans, publishing on the Internet, trying to start movements, trying to warn and influence the policy makers at the helm of society. But the predators at the top see these suggestions and movements as threats to their wealth. For even if we all cooperatively fashion a society that is equitable and suited to energy descent, this means the loss of the power of the elites. If on the other hand, we ordinary people begin to break free from the system on which we depend – if we begin to fashion survivable, sustainable alternatives to the system – we will be regarded as escaped prey by predators who can no longer count on an expanding economy to satisfy their ever-expanding appetites.

(Here I must insert a quote I discovered this last week from a talk given by John Taylor Gatto to the 11^th Annual International Democratic Education Conference (IDEC) in 2003. In his talk he described how the elites of our society see themselves – not as conspirators, but rather, “When you bought your last package of chicken parts, or slabs of beef, or a side of salmon, did you think you were participating in a conspiracy against the lives of these animals? It's a ridiculous idea, isn't it? Q.E.D. You and I are the chickens, the beef and the fish.” I don't know that I believe this isn't a conspiracy, but I thought his quote about chicken, beef and fish was right on.)

If you find ways of meeting your needs outside the system and you are unwise enough to publicize them, I see one of three things happening to you. First, what you are doing may be declared illegal, even though before you opened your mouth, it was perfectly legit. The second and third possibilities are especially relevant if what you do involves networking with others or creating alternative societal arrangements. If you form alternative networks for providing services or necessities to people apart from the dominant system, there is the possibility that global uber-capitalists may drive you out of business by flooding their perceived “market” with low-cost alternatives to your network. This highlights something we all need to realize about the wealthiest members of the official economy, namely, that although they are sitting on unholy amounts of claims on wealth which they call “capital,” they are always trying to grow the size of their “capital.” So their capital “chases yield” – in other words, the super rich are always looking for some market they can corner via strategic investing in order to increase their claims on the rest of us while deepening our enslavement to them. (This is why it is so hard to become an entrepreneur or small businessman in the United States nowadays.) The third thing that may happen is that if there is a political element to your alternative social arrangement – if it takes on the character of a movement – you will be joined by infiltrators and ersatz “reformers” claiming to “be working within the system to try to change the system,” and they will co-opt your movement and derail it.

In other words, if you seek to escape from our present economic system because you see that it is crumbling, you will become an offense to the masters of that system, because they are predators and you have just become escaped prey. Now that their system is shrinking, they grudge the loss of any prey, and they will do all they can to make sure their appetites are satisfied at your expense. Under such circumstances, does it make sense to openly talk and write about establishing “Transition Networks,” or to openly talk and write about establishing local currencies and barter arrangements, or to disclose – on the Internet, for all the world to see – any other suggestions for community action and community resilience? Jeff Vail and John Robb have written about the concept of “open source insurgency” as an outcome of the efforts of ordinary people to break free from predatory systems. I admit that I need to study in more detail exactly what they mean by “open source insurgency,” but I think it is now becoming increasingly unwise to publicize many of the strategies people might use to make themselves and their localities more resilient. I think it would be better for people to discuss and plan their strategies for resilience in face-to-face conversations with people they can trust. I also think it is far past time for people to take a step back from technology and to rediscover methods of communication and collaboration that don't depend on the Web and that are less vulnerable to eavesdropping. This may mean that “neighborhood resilience” takes on a multicolored hue, that there arises a huge variety of means by which various neighborhoods and groups of people in cooperation with each other become “resilient.”

The Sheep Dogs Of Dissent

I was driving home from work this evening (only a week left to go before I won't have to do that again!), and found myself stuck in a long, slow freeway traffic jam. I wanted to find out why the freeway was so slow, so I turned on the radio, hoping to hear some traffic news from KPOJ.

It wasn't quite the time for news, traffic and weather; like most news/talk stations nowadays, they only give you a smidgeon of news, and that only happens once every half hour. What I got instead was a bit of impassioned commentary from Randi Rhodes regarding the privatization of prisons in the United States. She also played an audio clip of the mother of a young teen sentenced to a juvenile camp by a Pennsylvania judge who was convicted this past February of accepting kickbacks from a private prison corporation operating in the state. Evidently the young teen killed himself as a result of his imprisonment, and so at the sentencing of the former judge, the young man's mother delivered a furious rant when she found out that the judge would remain free until his sentencing.

I found that I couldn't stand to listen to more than three minutes of this, and I shut the radio off and delivered a little soliloquy of my own. I was mad, all right – but for reasons which might not have occurred to Randi Rhodes.

It's not that I'm pleased by the commercialization and corruption of the American criminal justice system. Indeed, I've known about it for a few years now, as I wrote in posts such as “Money and Filthy Hands,” and “The Replacement of Petroleum Slaves,” to name a few. The American criminal justice system is a disgraceful evil whose purpose is increasingly to serve as yet another way of funneling the wealth and labor of poor people into the hands of the rich. Part of what made Randi Rhodes' show so hard to listen to is that it is painful to hear of the miscarriages of justice that are still going on in this country.

Now the fact that rich people profit from locking up youth without cause is nothing new. It was only recently elevated to national attention because of the increasing lockups of non-minority youth. But the minority community (in particular, the Black and Latino communities) have always had to deal with this. (See Color Of Justice and Justice for Some, for instance.) It seems, however, that problems of injustice don't really start to exist until they begin to be experienced by mainstream, apple-pie America. And that I find irritating.

But here's a yet more irritating thing. I admit that I didn't finish listening to Randi Rhodes, but I think I can guess how her commentary was structured: first, to inflame passion and anger among certain listeners with so-called “progressive” political views, then to make impassioned appeals to “work to try to change the system!” Why “work to change the system”? “Because we're all in this together, and we're under the system, so we gotta change it to make the system work better and more fairly!”

The truth is that the “system” under which all but the richest Americans live and operate can no longer be changed by ordinary people of small means. It is evil, predatory, sociopathic and unfair precisely because its masters are evil, predatory, sociopathic and unfair. Its masters are also very powerful. To me, it really seems that there's nothing we can do about this short of disengaging ourselves from the system.

This disengagement may seem like a small act, but it is the one thing we can do to weaken the system. Don't like American public education? Disengage from it. Don't like American for-profit health care? Learn to take care of yourself. Don't like the way most of us get our food? Create alternative means of feeding yourself. But don't tell the world what you're up to. Disengagement may well be the most effective act of sabotage any individual can commit.

You won't find that sort of solution discussed on KPOJ, “Portland's only progressive talk station!” If the KPOJ talking heads seriously discussed how people can disengage themselves from the predatory and corrupt systems under which they now live, Clear Channel would instantly pull the plug. Instead, we get impassioned talk designed to inflame us to go out and vote, or to support one political candidate over another, or "be ethical consumers," or in any of a number of other ways to continue to lend our support to a corrupt and failing system. And every fifteen minutes, there is a station break into which five or six commercials are jammed, telling us to go out and consume even more. Those talking heads who are good at what they do are able to keep their audiences hooked so that they soak up everything, including the commercials.

Meanwhile, the masters of commercialized, faux-progressive mass media in this country do their best to shift their audience base ever so slightly to the right, day by day. How many KPOJ talking heads supported NATO intervention in Libya? Why did Rachel Maddow ask a couple of years ago what the United States should be doing to make the governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan “behave”? It seems sometimes that the main job of the faux-progressives is to turn genuine outrage into ineffectual channels that pose no threat to their real masters.

Чтобы СЪЕСТЬ тебя, маленькая девочка!

(Note to readers and followers of this blog: I haven't been posting nearly as much as I'd like, due to rather severe work demands. I am hoping that will change within the next few weeks. A lot has been happening in the world, and I have a few comments on the flux of events. Stay tuned...)

Over the last few months, as part of my admittedly desultory attempts to become proficient in another language, I read Красная Шапочка, a Russian version of the well-known children's story Little Red Riding Hood. With the help of a dictionary it only took a few hours. I was also helped by having heard the English version when I was a little kid. I think of the scene in which Red Riding Hood discovers that she's been talking to a wolf dressed as a grandmother. The wonder, surprise and terror of that scene seems an apt picture of the surprise many Americans probably feel at present regarding our current political situation.

We who are to the Left of mainstream American politics have had our moments during the last couple of years in which we realized that those who are put forward as the traditional champions and saviors of the Left are actually worthless corporate stooges. (For instance, compare Mr. “Change” Obama's denunciation of the U.S. resource war in Iraq with his continuation of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, his invasion of Haiti, and the decision by both Obama and Hillary Clinton to initiate U.S. air strikes against Libya in order to protect the flow of oil – er, I mean to protect the Libyan people.)

Now it appears that many who were swayed to vote for the mainstream Right in 2010 are having the same realization regarding the people they elected to office, as they see government services and protections against corporate power being stripped from them. I wonder how many Wisconsin state employees voted Republican in 2010. I wonder how many voters who elected pro-nuclear candidates are now having second thoughts, even as those whom they elected charge full speed ahead. I wonder how many residents of states now attempting to impose strict “austerity” measures are happy about their own safety nets being cut. I wonder how many small and medium-sized businesses are being hurt by anti-immigrant legislation. Many who voted Republican or Tea Bagger did so because their prejudices were skillfully played by campaign strategists. How many now have buyer's remorse? “Grandmother, you've got wolf breath!”

To me it seems at present that one of the keys to building a resilient life and a resilient circle of community is for people to structure their lives in such a way that they can meet their needs regardless of who is in political power. This involves creating alternative, “diagonal” arrangements for getting one's needs met. It also involves disconnecting from the prevailing system as much as possible. For me this means giving up on politics as a solution to any of the problems we now face in a post-Peak world and a post-Peak nation. Both sides of the political process have been bought and paid for by corporate sociopaths.

But some are still cheerleading for one side or the other. “Yes, all politicians are corrupt – except for our man; he's different! (Even though the only way our candidate could ever have become well known is via massive injections of advertising revenue from some very rich people.)” “Red Riding Hood, your cries for help are being answered! How about Dennis Kucinich to the rescue! Or, if you like Republicans, how about Ron Paul!”

Or, if you think like me, how about Quinn the Eskimo?

Meretrix Activists

I want to know what became of the changes

we waited for love to bring.

Were they only the fitful dreams

of some greater awakening?

I've been aware of the time going by,

They say in the end it's the wink of an eye

And when the morning light comes streaming in

You'll get up and do it again,

Amen.

– Jackson Browne, The Pretender

I was thinking recently of some of the geeky things I did as a kid. Some of those things were expressions of nascent idealism and activism. My family was living in Southern California and I had become convinced that the place had to have a decent, modern mass transit system. So I ripped some blank pages from a class notebook and penciled a paragraph at the top of one of the sheets stating that I was collecting signatures to make the Government give us all a slick, technically advanced monorail system. (Those weren't the exact words I used – hey, I was only twelve years old at the time.)

I took my “petition” around to a couple of supermarkets and a nearby Thrifty Drug store, and asked the store managers if I could ask people to sign up for a modern mass transit system. I don't know what impression I made on them, but they all said “No.” So I knocked on people's doors and asked for signatures. I even managed to get a few. But to this day I can't remember what finally happened to my “petition.”

That experience formed a picture in my mind of participatory democracy as an expression of the energies and choices of motivated, idealistic people freely volunteering their time for causes they believe in, and manifesting their belief in the championing of both candidates and the citizen-sponsored initiatives that are supposed to be the backbone of direct democracy. But lately that picture has fallen apart. It's not as if someone threw a rock suddenly at the picture frame, but rather that the entire picture has been left out in the rain for a while.

I'm thinking of the last several months, and how my old employer was slow and very light on work, and then there was a period where we were so light on work that I stayed home for about five or six weeks. And I was diligently scouring Monster.com and Craigslist and other venues for employment offers. I am an engineer by schooling, but I have to confess that I looked at some of the other headings under “Jobs” on Craigslist. One such heading was titled, “Nonprofit Sector.” From January until just a few weeks ago, this heading was chock full of announcements that ran something like this: “ACTIVISTS NEEDED! $9-$14/hour,” or, “Fight for Change and Make $$$!”

To be sure, such ads generate a response. I got to meet several of the people who responded to these ads over the course of the late winter and spring. They tended to congregate on MAX trains, collecting petition signatures from a captive audience as we all whisked from station to station. Or a person could run into them at a New Seasons or Whole Foods market or at Trader Joe's, or in front of a post office, or at the Lloyd Center mall. Some of them seemed to be representatives of genuinely counter-cultural, grassroots organizations. And some of them actually seemed to believe in what they were doing. I am thinking especially of several petitioners I met who were collecting signatures for some medical marijuana initiative. (Now that's “grassroots”! But I didn't sign their petition, sorry to say.) I was also glad to meet people from the Bus Project.

There were also signature gatherers whose masters had a more troubling agenda. For instance, there was a group gathering signatures for a new casino east of Portland under the premise (and promise) that this casino would benefit schools, police departments, parks, and other public agencies. However, the backers of the casino initiative are in Toronto, Canada, and they have spent over $800,000 to insure that their measure is on the November ballot. I met a lot of signature gatherers working for this initiative, including one group a few weeks ago consisting of newly-hired canvassers on a side street who were being given an open-air training talk in the art of “selling” their petition to potential signers. (I have to tell you, they reminded me of a flock of pigeons converging on a loaf of bread.) I asked a couple of them how they found out about this job, and whether they knew anything about the petition for which they were about to collect signatures. Craigslist works wonders, doesn't it?

Then there was the usual suspects from Vote Oregon out collecting signatures for initiatives sponsored by Kevin Mannix, Bill Sizemore and Loren Parks. One such initiative, Petition 13, would impose mandatory minimum jail/prison sentences for certain felony sex crimes and driving under the influence convictions. I saw some of the “Vote Oregon” operatives at work selling this initiative, and they were slick - “Would you like to sign a petition to keep sex predators off the streets?” Who wouldn't say “Yes!”? There are only three problems, however. First, they don't tell you what laws exist at present to provide the very protection they claim their initiative will accomplish. In other words, maybe we don't really need this initiative. Second, the fine print of their initiative targets things other than sexual predation. And that leads to the third point, namely, that Mannix, Sizemore and Parks have long wanted to create a prison-industrial complex in Oregon just like that which exists in California, because they see prisons as a lucrative growth opportunity for themselves.

The thing about almost all of the signature gatherers is that they were all paid. The money came from somewhere. It was a lot of money. It would be nice to think that all that money came from altruistic souls giving their bounty of spare change to altruistic, civic-minded nonprofits concerned only for the common good. But the reality is that in too many cases, the money came from “point sources” – individuals or small groups of individuals with a lot of wealth and a vested interest in using the political system to generate a little more wealth for themselves. Anymore, it takes a lot to get an initiative qualified for a state ballot. And states are populous, big places. And getting people to notice your petition takes a lot of expensive advertising. My run-ins with signature gatherers were yet another reminder that the political system in the United States is almost wholly owned and run by wealthy people, whose sole aim is to engineer the system for the maximization of their own personal profit. Almost gone are the days of true grassroots activism of the kind that makes kids draft petitions and knock on doors just for the fun of it.

I won't even get into the funding that goes into candidacy, except to say that over the last month I have become rather frightened by everyone who is running for political office, both locally and at the Federal level. I recently rode past a big sign saying “We Need So-And-So for Governor!” and asking myself, “Just why do we need So-and-So? Who's paying that so-and-so to run for office?” Here's what would be very nice to have – political candidates who told us all the straight truth, who said, “I make no promises to 'fix' the economy and bring prosperity back again. Those days are over. American society in general and our locality in particular face an unavoidable contraction of the official, formal economy, due to resource depletion, environmental degradation, and the resulting collapse of our debt-based financial arrangements. All I can offer is to tell you the truth, and to arrange our government in such a way as to facilitate your adaptation to our new reality.” It goes without saying that there are no candidates willing to say such things, and few voters willing to hear such things. It's the people who promise the moon right now – and the people dumb enough to vote for them – who scare me.

Some bloggers have proposed a boycott of the next elections, and a few of them have gone so far as to say that such a boycott might withdraw enough support from our corrupt political system that it crashes. It would certainly be nice to have a government that had been rendered incapable of ruining our lives. But if you want to crash the system, a voting boycott is not enough. Some systems react strangely when lightly loaded. If there were a massive voting boycott in this country, who knows what kooks might make their way into office? It would be easy for the wealthy to find a few people who were willing to vote a certain way in exchange for a few bucks, thus buying an election and guaranteeing that our government continued to be a government by the rich, for the rich.

If one really wanted to withdraw his support from our present government, he would have to go farther than choosing not to vote. He would have to take away the power the government has to accomplish things and to funnel wealth to the wealthy. The removal of this power could be done legally, but it would be painful. For it would require that people chose to live very frugally – thus reducing the money that flowed to large businesses via the mass participation of consumers in a consumer economy. Secondly, once people drastically reduced their expenditures, they would have to drastically and voluntarily reduce their income. This would reduce the revenue available to the Government via taxes. Not many people are willing to take the first step. Even fewer are willing to take the second.

Deepwater Event Horizon

I was sitting in a job safety training meeting this morning. The trainers challenged us all to examine our attitudes toward jobsite safety, especially attacking the assumption which they believe to be prevalent among many employees that “what really matters to our company is the bottom line. If safety interferes with the bottom line, then safety has to take a back seat.” The trainers emphatically stated that at their jobsite, safety is always first.

This got me thinking about the recent deepwater oil well blowout and sinking of the British Petroleum mobile rig Deepwater Horizon. I haven't been able to follow the story as closely as I should, but I do know a few things, namely, that the sinking of the rig killed eleven people onboard; that according to reliable sources, the rig was the deepest in the world; and that for years its owner, BP, had fought the sort of safety regulations that would have prevented a disaster of the magnitude we now see. The ruptured well is leaking between 5000 and 25,000 barrels of oil per day at present (depending on whose estimate you believe), and has leaked enough oil to form a slick bigger than Rhode Island. BP's present efforts at inserting a concrete cap on the sea floor will only deal with one source of leakage; by now there are several. And there is a chance that the cap will not work as intended. Moreover, it may be months before BP can stop the leak fully. Lastly, this massive oil leak comes during both the spawning season for a lot of sea wildlife in the Gulf of Mexico, and the beginning of the tropical storm season in the Atlantic.

Although I am an engineer, I am by no means an expert on the oil industry. But I am a student of human nature. I remember the strategy of the McCain-Palin campaign in the 2008 U.S. presidential election, and how the Republicans and Rupert Murdoch's Fox News blamed high energy prices on “excessive” Democratic/leftist concerns over the environment. The Republican message was simple: “Drill here, drill now, pay less,” and they wanted to open up all of the most environmentally sensitive areas in the United States and its coastal waters to oil drilling. The Gulf Coast states were all Republican-leaning “red states” in the 2008 election, with the exception of Florida.

Now they are about to be baptized in oil.

I wonder how many Republican-leaning good-ole-boy commercial fishermen will have their businesses wiped out this year by the Deepwater Horizon disaster. I wonder how many coastal residents will be sickened by toxic chemicals washing up onto their beaches. I wonder how much of an economic disaster the Gulf Coast will have to face from the spill. More importantly, I wonder how many of these people will be both able and willing to connect the dots between their lifestyles and electoral choices and the oil now killing their ocean. “Whatever a man sows, that he will also reap.” Or as J.R.R. Tolkein once wrote, “The burned hand teaches best. After that, advice about fire goes to the heart.”

That is generally true, I suppose – unless someone interferes with the lesson of the burned hand by drugging the burn sufferer. And Fox News is a willing pusher of drugs these days. Their coverage of the disaster has painted BP in a very positive, almost heroic light, while greatly exaggerating the effectiveness of the work done by BP to date to stop the oil leaks. They have also tried blame shifting, questioning whether the Obama administration's response to the Deepwater Horizon disaster was effective enough. They have downplayed reports of dead animals washing up on Gulf Coast shores, saying, “...even though the dead turtles and jellyfish washing ashore along the Gulf of Mexico are clean, and scientists have yet to determine what killed them, many are just sure the flow of crude unleashed by the explosion at BP's Deepwater Horizon is the culprit.” And in an unbelievable display of bad timing, they have even revived the “Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less” mantra, as stated in an opinion piece written by Newt Gingrich yesterday. I have compared Fox to a collection of drug pushers, but to publish the kind of distortions they do they must all be taking mind-altering drugs. Then again, money is a drug, and some people will do anything to get some of it.

The Deepwater Horizon disaster is an example of the risks that come with trying to exploit ultra-deepwater oil reserves. Many respectable analysts do not believe that deepwater oil will save the world from a post-Peak state of affairs. But deepwater oil can make one really huge mess. How much more can the earth's oceans take before all the life in them collapses?

Sources:

• The Oil Drum | The Gulf of Mexico Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

• FOXNews.com - British Petroleum Caps One of Three Gulf Oil Leaks

• Power Line - Was the Federal Response to the Deepwater Horizon Disaster Adequate?

• BP Fought Safety Measures at Deepwater Oil Rigs - ABC News

• Big Oil Fought Off New Safety Rules Before Rig Explosion

• NEWT GINGRICH: We Can't Let Gulf Spill Put An End to American Offshore Drilling

• Gulf Oil Spill a Slow-Motion Hurricane‎

• How Much Oil Has Leaked Out of Deepwater Horizon? : TreeHugger

Video Troubles and Citizen Journalists

This weekend I created another video for your enjoyment. Once again, however, the process of uploading that video is anything but enjoyable. Here's the deal:

I made the video from clips I shot three weeks ago. The problem is, I wanted to add a little music to my work. I knew that the only way I could add music without paying huge royalties was to use music that was published under some form of Creative Commons license. So I logged on to Magnatune, because I knew that all the music published through Magnatune is released under Creative Commons Non-Commercial licenses to people who want to use the music for non-commercial applications. (That certainly applies to me. I haven't made a dime from this blog. Then again, I haven't charged a dime either.)

I have a couple of CD's of a vocal group that I heard about via Magnatune. Two of their songs seemed to fit my video quite well, so I looked up Magnatune's policy on using their music in noncommercial videos posted online. I was surprised to learn that there are restrictions on the use of Magnatune music in videos hosted on commercial, for-profit sites like YouTube and Vimeo. I think this is because of the “rights” such sites assert and claim on material hosted by them. (I suppose I shouldn't have been so naïve, but then again in many things I'm still a newbie.)

As I read the Magnatune policy, it dawned on me that these restrictions don't apply to videos hosted on non-for-profit sites like the Internet Archive. (At least, I think they don't.) But one problem with the Internet Archive is that it doesn't seem to like Linux users. My computer runs on Linux most of the time. My machine is five years old, and although it came with Microsoft Windows XP when I bought it, I've been trying to move away from expensive dependency on Microsoft. Much of the trouble I've had with trying to upload video to the Internet Archive has had to do with the fact that their site is not friendly to computers that run on Linux or UNIX. They are not the only such site. My troubles uploading to Vimeo were for this very cause; the only reason I was able to upload my “Managing Trees, Stormwater and Hunger” video was that I finally gave up and ran my computer on Windows XP.

All of this had me thinking as I tore myself away from the computer screen and headed for my bedroom in the wee hours of this morning. First, about the Internet Archive itself. After all, the Archive is a product of the protest against the excesses of “digital rights management,” the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and the attempt to destroy the public domain in order to create a culture in which everyone must pay rent in order to participate. The Internet Archive is a big promoter of open-source file formats and the Creative Commons licensing model. So why does their site require the use of proprietary software for optimum success in uploading video files? I mean, one can use a computer running Linux, but what happens if after waiting all night for your files to upload, you fail because you weren't using Windows? Believe me, I speak from experience!

But the Internet Archive is but a subset of a larger problem. Linux has proven itself as a stable, capable operating system for computers both large and small. Linux is even being offered pre-loaded on new laptops and notebooks sold in the U.S. nowadays. (By the way, a computer pre-loaded with Linux can be quite a bit cheaper than a computer pre-loaded with the latest version of Microsoft Windows.) And there are entire suites of free, open-source software (such as OpenOffice) available for users worldwide.

All of these things mean that access to computers and to the digital world is within the reach of an ever-larger population – including ever-more people of very limited means otherwise. This includes people in poor countries and poor communities in the U.S. who could become potential citizen journalists, telling their stories accurately and authentically, and making a valuable contribution in forming an accurate picture of our world.

But this access and the democratization of digital media is hindered even today by the existence of proprietary digital systems that restrict access so that their creators can collect rents. This is why you can't buy a DVD from a store in the U.S. and play it in the video player that comes standard with Ubuntu Linux. This is why you can't upload a video to Vimeo from a machine that has only Linux installed. This is why until recently you couldn't even view some sites from a computer that was running on Linux. It's not that Linux is bad. It's just that it's free – and allowing people to meet their needs via a thing that's free is bad for the profit margins of the rentier class. This is the reason for the existence of obstacles to the use of free things. So rising citizen journalists in poor communities and poor countries are nipped in the bud – because they can't afford to pay rent to Microsoft.

The rentier mentality pervades almost all other areas of life in America these days. Take driving, for instance. In most states, if you want to get around, you must buy a car. If you do buy a car, not only are you charged registration, but in some states you are also charged a vehicle excise tax on top of registration fees. The excise tax must be paid even if you never drive the car. If you actually drive anywhere, you must carry insurance. Cars nowadays depreciate in value fairly rapidly, so eventually you will wind up needing a new car. In other words, there are fairly substantial “rents” paid to various persons for the privilege of driving a car. Yet if you can't afford these rents, there are almost no other options than driving. Many places still aren't bike-friendly.

Or take health care. People in this country are dying from lack of affordable access to medical care. This is largely due to the rent-seeking of various bodies – the pharmaceutical companies who squeeze the last bit of profit from their patented medicines, the medical technology companies who push their latest and greatest machines, and the health insurance “industry” which does next to nothing, yet has now been gifted with a national law that requires most of us to buy health insurance. On a similar line, there are the efforts by industrial agribusiness to push everyone into reliance on GMO crops, in order to extract rent from us all for the “privilege” of eating the food made from these crops.

The rentier class is the ultimate example of a something-for-nothing way of life, in which people who do absolutely nothing useful are supported by the enforced contributions of millions of others who are under some sort of specious legal obligation to pay their livelihoods to the rentiers. As their appetite grows, so do the obligations they place on the rest of us. Are you in rags? Sleeping under a bridge? Do your children have skinny arms and distended bellies, like pictures of malnourished people in some Third World country? It matters not at all to the rentiers, as long as you keep paying up.

Hunting Fox (And Other Varmints)

This post will examine some of the ins and outs of a typical major English-speaking media outlet. I'll focus on Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation (known more widely as News Corp), and its “news” arm, Fox News. (Why is News Corp typical? First, because they're huge, and second, because the other huge players are starting to imitate them – even as far as the bias in their “reporting” of the news.)

Anatomy of a Fox

According to Wikipedia, News Corp is the world's 2^nd largest media conglomerate (behind Disney), and is the third largest in entertainment (2009). News Corp's own website states that it is “...a diversified global media company” with total assets as December 2009 of approximately $56 billion, and whose activities “...are conducted principally in the United States, Continental Europe, the United Kingdom, Australia, Asia and Latin America.” News Corp is publicly traded on NASDAQ and secondarily on the Australian Securities Exchange. Revenue as of 30 June 2009 was $30.42 billion, while operating income was $5.6 billion. Almost 70% of its sales come from US businesses. News Corp has 152 subsidiaries in low-tax or no-tax countries, one of four companies to have more than 100.

The Murdoch family holds a controlling interest in News Corp, owning about 30 percent of the shares. All shares held by the Murdoch family are voting shares. (Some of the shares sold by a corporation entitle their owners to a paid dividend, but do not allow the shareholder a vote in corporate governance.) Three members of the Murdoch family are on the board of directors, with Rupert as chairman of the board and CEO. News Corp's holdings include two book publishers; 54 newspapers in seven countries; 30 magazines in the U.S. and Australia; one music outlet; three radio networks; three sports teams; fifteen motion picture studios; tons (I got tired of counting) of television networks spanning cable, broadcast and satellite TV; and at least 30 Internet media outlets, including Beliefnet, a site dedicated to discussing religion, which was acquired by News Corp in 2007.

Wikipedia has an extensive history of News Corp, and of Rupert Murdoch's activities in building and guiding his empire. Some highlights include union-busting activities in England in 1986-1987 involving printers' unions versus Murdoch's papers; the buying of US papers and media in 1973; and the purchase of 20^th Century Fox in 1981-1984 and of the Metromedia group of stations in 1985 in order to form a fourth independent American network. The same year Murdoch became a naturalized US citizen in order to satisfy American broadcast law (which forbade foreign owners of US television stations).

(One sidelight: in 1989, Murdoch bought the publisher Collins, which he combined with Harper and Row which News Corp had bought two years earlier. HarperCollins, as the new company was named, in turn bought out Zondervan, a publisher of Christian books and media. Thus did Murdoch begin his forays into the world of Christian media and publishing. Those who visit “Christian” bookstores nowadays and wonder what on earth happened to “the Faith once for all delivered to the saints” can start looking right here. I discussed these very matters in a blog post many months ago, titled Money and Christian Books.)

In 1996, the Fox News Channel was launched as a competitor to CNN. Just prior to this, a legal complaint was brought before the Federal Communications Commission to the effect that News Corp's Australian base made Murdoch's ownership of Fox illegal. The FCC ruled in favor of Murdoch, stating that his ownership of Fox was in the public's best interests. (And this happened during the Clinton presidency!) In 2007, News Corp bought Dow Jones, owner of the Wall Street Journal, and started the Fox Business Network.

In short, News Corp has become a huge and powerful megaphone, broadcasting the heart and soul of Rupert Murdoch.

That Lyin' Fox Tongue

News Corp speaks with a loud voice. But what is that voice saying? And what are the motives of the owner of that voice? Those motives become quite clear when one examines much of the video media produced by the Fox Broadcasting Company, especially that media that is produced by Fox News. This examination reveals News Corp to be a radical promoter of big business, and of the unrestrained prerogatives of the rich captains of big business. Murdoch's message is that anything that restricts or restrains the rights of the wealthy or their pursuit of ever more wealth is to be opposed and demonized.

The world according to Murdoch should be a place where nonwhite nations are subservient to Europe, Australia and the United States, and their lands are open to being plundered by the U.S., Australia and Europe; where nonwhite residents of Europe, Australia and the U.S are subservient to a white majority; and where all who are poor, no matter their color, are subservient to the rich. Those who suggest that the rich should share with the poor are branded as “Socialists!” Those who suggest that the greed of the rich is destroying other peoples are branded as “evil people who hate our freedoms!” Those who suggest that our unrestrained pursuit of wealth is destroying the earth are accused of “fudging the data!”

From a moral standpoint, this mindset makes no sense, and those who believe such things are forced to lie in order to justify such a mindset. Thus it is no surprise that many of the things broadcast by News Corp are propaganda and blatant lies. Here are some examples:

News Corp and Racism: In 2009, the New York Post (a News Corp paper) published a cartoon depicting Barack Obama as a chimpanzee shot dead by the New York Police. They were forced later to apologise. This was hardly the first incident of racism for News Corp. During the 2008 US Presidential campaign, Fox News called Michelle Obama a “baby-mama,” referred to Barack Obama as “Osama,” and attempted to portray him as a secret Muslim. (See “Fox smears Sen. Obama, says he 'covered up' Muslim”, “The Man Behind the Whispers About Obama” and “Fox News Admits Obama/Muslim Story Was Toxic”.) Fox News also used false reporting to blame minorities for the subprime mortgage meltdown in 2008, (See “Fox News Special Report on The Banking Crisis”, “Minority Meltdown” and “FOX News: Loaning to minorities is a disaster'”. And for a look at the true role of banks in pushing subprime loans on minorities, see this: “Wells Fargo, Ghetto Loans, and 'Mud People'”.) There's much more to this side of News Corp, but we shall move on... (But not before I sneak one more video in: “Fox News' Racism”.)

News Corp and the Defense of Big Business: In 1994, Monsanto developed a synthetic version of bovine somatotrophin, a naturally occurring growth hormone found in cattle. This hormone was produced artificially via recombinant DNA technology and marketed under the brand name POSILAC, although its trade name was rBST or RBGH. Monsanto sold it to dairy farmers in the U.S. as a means of stimulating milk production beyond natural levels. Monsanto was able to influence the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to approve the use of rBST in dairy cows in the U.S., but such approval was harder to win outside the country. Eventually Canada and the European Union refused to approve rBST for use in their dairy farms. This was due to health problems arising in cows who were treated with the hormone, as well as demonstrated abnormal growth in organs of lab rats who were fed milk from rBST-treated cows. rBST has been linked to increased incidence of certain cancers, and has been implicated in the dramatic rise of early puberty in boys and girls since 1990.

In 1996, two journalists employed by Fox News uncovered some of the damaging information about rBST, including documents from Monsanto which described some incriminating test results. These journalists wrote a story for their local TV station, which began promoting an upcoming series on the risks of rBST. However, Monsanto pressured Fox into covering up the story and firing the journalists, who sued for wrongful termination. They ultimately lost their case when an appeals court ruled that FCC policies regarding reporting the truth by news agencies are not legally binding, and that Fox has no legal requirement to tell the truth in a news story. (See “Bovine somatotropin” and “Interview with Jane Akre and Steve Wilson” for more details on this.) Since then, it's been open lying season at Fox (as documented here.)

News Corp and War: News Corp was a vocal and vehement promoter of the American takeover of Iraq. Rupert Murdoch has also been very candid about the oil, I mean, real reason for the Iraq war, as noted in a Guardian piece titled “Their master's voice.” News Corp has constantly put a positive spin on the war and its aftermath, even when actual evidence was contrary, as shown in this article: “Fox News and the Iraq War: Fact vs. Fox-tion,” and this: “Fox News Spins 9/11 Commission Report.” Fox has never openly criticized the lack of evidence of weapons of mass destruction or the absence of any link between Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda.

Now, Fox News and News Corp are trying to make the case that Iran is foaming at the mouth to build nuclear weapons so that they can blow up the rest of the world. The thing that makes Fox so hard to believe (and much of the rest of the MSM, along with Sarah Palin and Dick Cheney) is that a) we've been down this road before, only to find out that the allegations were false that were made against a country with stuff we wanted; b) Iran is like Iraq in that the stuff we want over there is oil (and natural gas); and c) our misadventure in Iraq killed over a million civilians, while maiming countless others, not to mention needlessly killing several thousand of our own troops.

News Corp and the Environment: It's no surprise that News Corp has been very aggressive in attacking the notion that climate change is real, that it's a bad thing, and that it's caused by industrial activity. News Corp has also been very aggressive in attacking the reputations of many climate scientists and research organizations. Their attacks have not been against the science so much as attempts to smear the personal reputations of climate scientists. (See “FOXNews.com - Why You Should Be Hot and Bothered About 'Climate-gate'” for instance.)

The trouble is that News Corp has been very quiet regarding all the evidence that proves the phenomenon of anthropogenic climate change, including this report authored by scientists commissioned by the Global Climate Coalition, which stated that “...the science backing the role of greenhouse gases in global warming could not be refuted.” (See “Industry Ignored Its Scientists on Climate - NYTimes,” and “Global Climate Coalition Ignored Own Scientists' Advice.”) Think about that, you Portlanders, as we enjoy an unseasonably warm late winter, decked out in our shorts and T-shirts. Summer is coming...

There's more to mention, including News Corp's role in manufacturing the “Tea Party” and the “Angry Renters”. But time is short; I must wrap this up. Maybe one day I'll dedicate an entire post to the lies of Rupert Murdoch and News Corp.

The Faltering Fox

News Corp is a big bad corporation run by a rich sociopath. Many people are understandably frightened by this monster, and are wondering what to do in the face of what seems to be an unstoppable juggernaut. But there have been stories over the last year that suggest that this juggernaut may not be quite as invincible as many of us think. A look at News Corp's financial health and financial missteps over the last several years reveals what may be a soft underbelly.

News Corp's relentless drive for growth has required the buying of rival corporations in order to expand market reach. Some of those acquisitions haven't turned out very well. As far back as 1992, News Corp amassed huge debts due to its ownership of the British Sky Television satellite network, which was operated below cost until it could force a rival network out of business. Years later, in 2010, News Corp was forced to sell some of its ownership in BSkyB in order to comply with British antitrust laws. And in 2009, News Corp took a write-down of $8.4 Billion, due in part to the devaluing of the company's newspaper unit, which includes the recently acquired Dow Jones publisher. This was on top of a second-quarter loss of $6.4 billion, due to the loss of profit in its television and movie units. (See “News Corp records £2bn loss,” “News Corp Cuts Cloth as Friedman Moves On” and “Rupert's News Corp Swings to $203 Million Loss”for later snapshots of News Corp performance.)

News Corp has lost money on MySpace, the social media/blogging site that Murdoch bought in 2005. This has led to the resignation of its CEO, along with talks of possible divestiture. According to the UK Telegraph, MySpace will likely lose over $100 million this year.

News Corp is projecting a return to profitability this year, but a closer look reveals that much of that return will be achieved through staff cuts. It's like selling blood to pay the bills. (Source: “News Corp revenue slumps 4.1%.”) At least one analyst sees in the MySpace saga a typical portrait of Rupert Murdoch's failure to manage his media holdings and acquisitions. The MySpace story also highlights a fundamental failure of Murdoch to “get” the Internet and the rise of social media, and his missteps in dealing with this new reality. (See “Turmoil at MySpace blamed on News Corporation” and “Why MySpace and the Internet Could Kill Rupert Murdoch.”) This is seen in his desperate move to try to kill free content on the Web, starting with his oft-repeated threat to start forcing people to pay for access to News Corp sites, including Fox News. (Go ahead, Rupert. Make my day.)

These realities suggest a possible triple threat to Murdoch and his empire. The first threat is that which Murdoch poses to himself, due to his mismanagement. He started losing on MySpace the moment he began trying to control the content of the site. There are many articles on the Web that address his censorship of MySpace bloggers and the deleting of accounts that published things he didn't like. That turns people off, and makes them look for alternatives. The second threat comes from the open nature of the Web, and the incredible power now available to the masses to cheaply create and publish their own content. Not only is it no longer possible for one man or one corporation to control all publicly available media, but it is no longer possible for one man or one corporation to reap all the profits from publicly available media. Anyone can become a creator and publisher of digital content, up to and including high-quality video, for less than $500. Murdoch might survive if he were willing to accept a much smaller, more sustainable piece of the media pie.

The third threat consists of the facts concerning the actual financial health and missteps of News Corp, and the wide publishing of those facts. For while News Corp may exist as a propaganda machine, its main purpose is to make money. If its profits are not growing, this will cause investors to pull out, further collapsing revenue and assets. Companies which suffer this process for any length of time usually find themselves on the road to demise. Our present economy is contracting, along with all the large players in it. Those who don't deal realistically with this contraction will fail. The financial health of News Corp may well be a vulnerable systempunkt that can be exploited through aggressive research and factual reporting of its financial health and management missteps.